kidnapping of free blacks left their land and other property behind. The local white communities generally did not take action on behalf of free blacks, if they learned of such kidnappings at all. But Philadelphia had an active mayor, Joseph Watson, a Quaker, who made concerted efforts on behalf of stolen free blacks with officials in Mississippi and Alabama, which included paying for gathering of affidavits and, in the case of Cornelius Sinclair in 1827, a white witness to travel to Alabama to attest to his identity. A novel written about Cannon sixty years after she was most active, The Entailed Hat, Or, Patty Cannon's Times (1884), suggests that the War of 1812, in which thousands of slaves joined the British for freedom, contributed to lack of local white community interest in Cannon's crimes against blacks. The novel describes British activities in Tangier Island of Virginia, Cambridge, Maryland and Georgetown, Delaware, where they recruited slaves to escape their masters and fight with the British by promising them freedom. Accounts of gang crimes Detailed accounts by kidnapping victims who regained freedom in 1826 were published in the abolitionist journal, The African Observer, published in Philadelphia in 1826 through 1827. Kidnapped captives were chained and hidden in the basement, attic, and secret rooms in Cannon's house. Captives were taken in covered wagons to Cannon's Ferry (now Woodland Ferry). They were often put aboard a schooner traveling down the Nanticoke River to the Chesapeake Bay, from where they were shipped to Georgia and other slave markets. Some were taken overland for sale in Alabama and Mississippi. The gang's activities continued for many years. Local law enforcement officials were reluctant to halt the illegal operations, and may have been afraid of the gang's reputation for violence. When Patty Cannon learned the police were coming, she would slip across state lines away from local police forces. According to depositions from victims who gained freedom and returned to homes in the North, Joe Johnson kept the captives in leg irons. He "severely whipped" captives who insisted they were free, to stop them from giving that account. His wife, Patty's daughter, was overheard saying that it "did [her] good to see him beat the boys." ("Boy" was a degrading reference to a black man of any age; Mrs. Johnson was not referring to male children.) Lydia Smith, a 25-year-old free Black woman, testified that she was kidnapped