"Three free negro youths, a girl and two boys, were kidnapped and taken from the County with intent to sell them to the South.... They had been hired for a few days by Mr. James T. Wooters, near Denton, for the ostensible purpose of cutting cornstalks. After being a day or two in Mr. Wooters' employ they suddenly disappeared.... Enquiry being set on foot, it was, after some days, discovered that they had been secretly carried through Hunting Creek towards Worcester County, thence to Virginia. We learn that the Negroes are now in Norfolk."[243] They were carried to Richmond where they were sold as slaves, but were finally recovered.[244] Notwithstanding the harshness of the Delaware laws against kidnapping and the convictions[245] under them, the business of kidnapping seems to have flourished there. A quotation or two will illustrate: "Two young colored men, free born, were stolen from Wilmington a few nights ago and taken, it is supposed, to some of the Southern slave markets.... Fifty or sixty persons it is said, have been stolen from the lower part of the State in the last six months."[246] In 1840 the "Baltimore Sun" said: "A most villainous system of kidnapping has been extensively carried on in the State of Delaware by a gang of scoundrels residing there, aided and abetted by a number of confederates living on the Eastern Shore of this State."[247] While discussing kidnapping in Delaware, it is very unlikely we should forget to mention probably the most notorious kidnapping gang which the domestic slave trade produced. The principal character of the gang, and the one from which it seems to have drawn its inspiration, and the one from which it took its name--was a woman--in looks more like a man than a woman--Patty Cannon by name--well known by tradition to every Delawarian and Eastern Shore of Marylander. A son-in-law of hers was hanged for the murder of a negro trader. His widow then married one Joe Johnson who became a noted character in the business of kidnapping through the aid and instruction of his mother-in-law, Patty Cannon. Johnson was convicted once and suffered the punishment of the lash and pillory. The grand jury in May, 1829, found three indictments for murder against Patty Cannon,[248] but she died in jail May 11, of the same year.[249] White kidnappers sometimes used free colored men as tools by means of which to ensnare other free colored men, and shared with them the profits of the trade.[250] Indeed, the free colored men seem not to have been much averse in aiding in the enslavement of their "brethren." They sometimes even formed kidnapping bands of their own and pursued the business without the aid of white men. Such a gang as this once operated near Snow Hill, Maryland. It is said to have kidnapped and sent off several hundred free negroes.[251]