Daffney Cornish (b. 1824 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-8012
Fled from slavery, Dorchester County, Maryland, 1857
Biography:
Daffney Cornish was one of the twenty-eight slaves to escape from the Cambridge District of Dorchester County on October 24, 1857. She escaped with her husband Aaron and five children, making the Cornish family one of the six families that fled from slavery in the group. Prior to her escape, Daffney belonged to Reuben E. Phillips of Town Point, Maryland, who listed her in the county's official slave statistics as late as 1864. However, she was allowed to live with her husband, who was owned by Levi D. Traverse of the same township. In the runaway ad that he placed on October 25, Traverse acknowledged that the husband and wife had probably fled together, though he gives no additional description of Daffney Cornish.
The massive group of fugitives were somehow able to make it to Philadelphia, where the Vigilance Committee provided them with medical care and food following the stressful journey described by Aaron Cornish. In this account, recorded by Still, there is also mention of a "Miss Jane Carter of Baltimore," who is referred as Daffney's mistress. It is possible that this woman hired Cornish out to Phillips in Dorchester County, a common practice for slaveholders that felt that their chattel could be more profitable elsewhere. Aaron asserted that her oldest son, had been hired "the year he left for forty dollars." They had only been able to escape with five of their eight surviving children, though this was a small miracle in and of itself. Still would give the Cornishes directions in their pursuit of freedom further North. However, there is no record of Daffney's family in the Census records of the fugitive communities that had developed in Canada and upstate New York. It is possible that the Cornishes changed their last name to avoid detection by slave-catchers, or they may have actually been recaptured.
Return to Daffney Cornish's Introductory Page
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