20 h 46 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a county line offers criminals more protection than the law gives their victims?
In The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times, George Alfred Townsend takes you to the Eastern Shore before the Civil War. Among its creeks, pine woods and marshes, Patty Cannon leads a gang that kidnaps Black people, free and enslaved, and sells them into the Deep South.
Around this brutal trade, Townsend weaves local legend and the tensions between rich planters and poor whites. Old Maryland families cling to land and name as their money drains away. In this borderland between Maryland and Delaware, crime and inheritance reveal a society where protection depends on where you stand.
What you’ll discover
- A dangerous borderland Enter a landscape of creeks and marshes where county lines mark the limits of law.
- The woman behind the legend Meet Patty Cannon, the real criminal at the center of Townsend's dark regional novel.
- Freedom under threat Confront a kidnapping trade that targets both free and enslaved Black people.
- Names without wealth Explore families holding tight to inherited status while the money that supports it disappears.
- A reporter's eye Discover Chesapeake country life through a novelist whose fiction keeps the habits of a newspaperman.
Who will love it
For readers who love American regional history, dark historical fiction, and stories of class and survival, and anyone curious about kidnapping and the slave trade in the border states.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A borderland where the law stopped
- Patty Cannon was a real criminal
- Class, inheritance and a failing gentry
- A dark romance told by a reporter
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Der gebundene Hut; oder: Patty Cannons Zeit
by George Alfred Townsend · 1884
On the Eastern Shore, Patty Cannon's kidnapping gang turns a borderland into a place where freedom is at risk.
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In short
The Entailed Hat is a novel by George Alfred Townsend, published in 1884. Townsend was a newspaper reporter who grew up on the Delmarva peninsula, the land between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A borderland where the law stopped
The setting is the Eastern Shore, a flat country of creeks, pine woods and marshes, where Maryland and Delaware meet. Townsend knew it well, because he was born in Delaware in 1841 and wrote about its people for the rest of his life. In this region a criminal could step across a state line and leave one sheriff behind.
That fact matters to the whole story. The boundary between the two states ran near the tavern and farms where Patty Cannon lived, and she used the confusion. Officials on one side often lacked power on the other. Neighbors who saw strange wagons at night had reasons to look away, whether from fear, loyalty or profit.
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What is The Entailed Hat about?
It is a dark historical romance set on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware before the Civil War. It centers on the kidnapping trade run by the real Patty Cannon and on the social world around her.
Was Patty Cannon a real person?
Yes. Patty Cannon was a real woman of the early 1800s who lived near the Delaware and Maryland line. She was accused of kidnapping Black people and selling them south, and she died in jail in 1829.
When was The Entailed Hat written?
George Alfred Townsend published it in 1884, about fifty years after Patty Cannon's death. It blends documented history with local legend, so it is a novel and not a strict record of events.
The author
George Alfred Townsend
1841–1914 · American journalist
George Alfred Townsend (1841–1914) was an American journalist and novelist born in Georgetown, Delaware. He reported on the American Civil War and wrote under the pen name Gath. His novel The Entailed Hat appeared in 1884. He later lived at an estate near Gapland, Maryland.
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