The Entailed Hat

by George Alfred Townsend, Hal Roth (Illustrator )

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Genres: Historical Fiction

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1884

About the author

1841-1914

War correspondent during the American Civil War and novelist.

He wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer, in 1861 he started to write for the New York Herald.

By 1868, he became a Washington correspondent, working for the "Chicago Tribune," and after 1874, for the "New York Graphic.

His novels included The Entailed Hat (1884), which fictionalized a true story of a woman named Patty Cannon who kidnapped free blacks and sold them into slavery. Townsend's other works include the short story collection Tales of the Chesapeake (1880) and the novel Katy of Catoctin (1887).

Townsend wrote under the pen name "Gath", which was derived by adding an "H" to his initials, and inspired by the biblical passage II Samuel 1:20.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the weirdest dang books I have ever read! The spine of this book with its creepy golden silhouette haunted my childhood from its perch on the family book shelves! It wasn’t until about the age of 40 that I actually read it. It’s an atmospheric portrayal of a time in an isolated nook of Maryland’s landscape, and is part of the story of why we are the way we are today.

[Cheryl Keller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable book -- history, drama, comedy... a tale of the Princess Anne area along the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the pre-Civil War days. It is fascinating to read, both for the political and social history and for the dialog.

[Alice Paterra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone on Delmarva should read this book. It's about who we are and where we came from.

[kait · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

I read about half. I'm allowing this book to be a lesson in quitting when a book is burning me out.

I read enough to understand the struggle of free black people in this area without getting the happy ending crap that im sure the end is filled with. Oh but slaves are actually so happy to get back to being slaves and the woman learns to love the man she was forced to marry. BOO. (idk if the book actually goes there but that's what it felt like.)

The plot was really just boring to me. I like old books but reading this sounded like the charlie brown people in my head the whole time. Not a great experience.

[Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting but dated book about the old Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware centered around Princess Anne, Md. I did not know about Patty Cannon before reading this and the danger for free blacks in the border states of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. It was a thriving business. Those were certainly terrible times, no good old days for sure.

[Jerry]

review text for 2022

[Jerry]

review text for 2023