Frank Kane (Cane)
At five months old he was sold for $50.00
(1848 –?
Frank Kane (Frank Cane) was born into enslavement in 1848 at the plantation of James J. Gough in St. Mary’s County to parents Hillery Kane and Mariah Kane. When James J. Gough passed away in 1849, the Kane family was sold at public auction at the courthouse door in Leonardtown as part of the Chaptico estate sale.
The sale occurred because James Gough’s will required that the Kane family be divided among his seven children. Frank was purchased by Dr. Walter Hanson Stone Briscoe of Sotterley along with his mother and two of his siblings for $875. At five months old, Frank was purchased for $50. His father Hillery was purchased by the owner of an adjacent plantation, Colonel Chapman Billingsly, for $600. Frank’s mother Mariah Kane died shortly after arriving at the Sotterley Plantation and his father then married Alice Elsa Bond.
As a child, Frank was responsible for lighting the fires in the one room schoolhouse on the Sotterley plantation and keeping the school room clean. He was 16 when Maryland passed the law emancipating all the slaves in the state on November 1, 1864. Even though he was now a free man, Frank remained at the Sotterley Plantation. He married Evelina Steward from another plantation in 1868. She was 21 and he was 20. They were married at in the drawing room of the Sotterley manor house by Rev. Murphy of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. Frank and his wife Evelina had four children before she died. Frank married a second time in 1880 to Carolina Thomas.
Additional Resources
“A Guide to the History of Slavery in Maryland, Historic Sotterley Plantation and the Kane Family pages 19-21 http://mdslavery.net
Sotterley Plantation | back2past
The Evening Sun, Baltimore, MD, Tuesday, July 10, 1990, Page 4
