Hillery Kane
Slavery to Freedom
(1848 -1928)

Hillery Kane was born a slave in St. Mary's County in 1818, a time when agricultural production of a single valuable crop, tobacco, significantly increased labor needs. Through his life, we can observe some of the more distasteful aspects of the institution of slavery: considered "chattel", slaves could be bought, sold, auctioned, given as gifts, and handed down by will; slaves, as "property" were often sold away from their families; slaves were subjected to inhuman working and living conditions; and slaves had virtually no control over their lives. Hillery's life straddles an interesting period in our country's history. It chronicles a life within the confines of slavery, the increasing tensions and eventual war between the North and South, emancipation, and the post-Civil War period of Reconstruction.

Hillery Kane was born to Raphael Kane and a slave woman named Clara. Raphael and Clara were owned by different Masters, and Hillery lived with his mother on the plantation owned by William Neale of Jeremiah, until he was about eight when his mother was sold to another plantation. In 1827, at the age of nine, Hillery was given to James J. Gough to settle a debt.

On Gough's plantation, Hillery learned the craft of plastering. He also learned farming. In 1837, he married a young slave girl on the plantation, fourteen-year-old Mariah, and they had seven children, the youngest, Frank, was born in 1848. That same year, Master J. J. Gough died, and his will dictated that the family be divided among Gough's seven children. J. J. Gough's estate was liquidated and Hillery Kane, his wife and 3 remaining children were put on the slave auction block in Leonardtown.

Hillery was sold to Colonel Chapman Billingsly for $600, a good price for a slave now thirty years old-which was the average life span for a slave. (It is thought that Hillery's skills as a plasterer commanded the high price.) A good price could not be gotten for Mariah, described as "sickly". A year later, in 1849 Mariah and her children were sold to Dr. Walter Hanson Stone Briscoe, whose plantation, Sotterley, was situated next door to Billingsly. Hillery was permitted to live at Sotterley with his family. Mariah died shortly after arriving at Sotterley, and Hillery married a young 15-year-old, Alice Elsa Bond. Together, they had thirteen more children, all born in a small cabin in the slave quarter at Sotterley.

Elsa was a spinner and a laundress, and she taught these skills to her daughters. Dr. Briscoe maintained a boarding school for girls on the Sotterley property, and many young ladies would live in the manor house during the school year. Elsa would tend to their laundering needs. Hillery's son Frank was responsible for lighting the fire in the schoolhouse, and keeping the classroom clean-an irony, since slaves were not allowed to go to school or read and write.

Hillery was often away from Sotterley, as his Master, Colonel Billingsly often rented him out for plastering jobs. It has been said that Hillery Kane plastered many of the finest homes in St. Mary's County. He also plastered the small cabin he lived in along the Patuxent River with his family. There is a story of hog killing time on the plantation, when slaves would collect the bristles that were scraped from the skin of the newly killed hog. These bristles, when mixed with clay and salt from the river served as important "chinking" between the cabin's rough hewn logs for the winter months-a kind of plaster, if you will.

But when he was with his family at Sotterley, and not laboring in the fields, Hillery made furniture and musical instruments. It has been said that Hillery made several beds, chairs, and tables for the cabin. He also made, and played quite well, the banjo. Hillery was also knowledgeable about medicinal herbs, according to Agnes Kane Callum a descendent. Hillery was considered the "doctor" for the slaves, and used roots and herbs to treat a variety of ailments. The family also spent time outdoors, cooking their rations of fatty pork and corn that they would get at the back door of the Manor House on Saturdays, and hunting for rabbit, deer, and possum to supplement those rations. On Sundays, the Kanes, Catholic by all accounts, attended the local Episcopal church, the faith of their Masters, the Billingslys and the Briscoes.

During the Civil War, three of Dr. Briscoe's sons joined the Confederate Army, including Dr. Henry Briscoe, Chief Surgeon for the army serving in Virginia's 26th Regiment. Back home, Sotterley, was actually an encampment for the Union army, although the Briscoes remained staunch Confederate supporters. Life was tumultuous on the Plantation during these years. When freedom finally did come to the slaves through Maryland's law to abolish slavery in 1864, and through the 13th amendment to the Constitution ratified in December, l865, Hillery Kane, for the first time in his forty-six years of life, was free.

Like many freedmen following emancipation and Reconstruction, Hillery chose to stay on the plantation where he had been enslaved. Most likely, he received wages for working on shares of Sotterley Plantation, along with other tenant farmers. During this time, he saw his son, Frank, marry Evelina Steward in the parlor of Sotterley's manor house. After the ceremony, Sotterley's cook served all the guests sweetbread and sweetened water. The guests then returned to the Kane home for music and dancing. In 1879, nearly fifteen years after emancipation, Hillery and Elsa left Sotterley to settle in their own home in Hollywood, Maryland, "within calling distance of their former Master".

Hillery died in 1889. He lived nearly seventy-one years, and had endured some of the greatest hardships man has ever known.