Simon Laughlin sued for costs incurred while traveling to a prison in Snow Hill, Maryland a runaway enslaved person thought to belong to the estate of Samuel Batcheloer.

George Bird was hired to be the overseer of Isaac William's plantation; the suit detailed his work and wages.

A debt suit which includes an estate settlement that contains an extensive list of slaves sold and a catalog of books.

Agga, Alice, Sophrina, Solomon, Phil, Lancaster, David, and Cesar were all enslaved by Randoph Segar. In his will, Segar emancipated all those he enslaved, however he died indebted to several people. Agga and the other plaintiffs sued for their freedom, so that they could not be sold to pay off Segar's debts.

A contract dispute between Ann Sutton's guardian and Lucy Gray over Ann's tuition and board at a school operated by Lucy Gray.

Mary Watson emancipated Peter and Jenny, a married couple, and their child in her will. She also provided them with a plot of land for their support. Hannah Watson contested the will by claiming that Peter and Jenny had remained in Virginia for longer than a year, breaking a Virginia law that required freed African Americans to leave the state within a year of emancipation. Hannah claimed that because Peter and Jenny had remained in the state, the forfeited their freedom and the land they inherited.

The suit included an 1821 will from John S. Stubbs of Gloucester County which stated: "I give and bequeath to my once wife Isabella C. Stubbs one cents on account of her abominable conduct in many instances toward me."

An estate dispute over a bounty land warrant for 1333 1/3 acres granted to Lieutenant Richard Montague, grandfather of Jane E. Montague, for his services during the Revolutionary War.

Betsy Hord asks that the defendants be restrained from selling her and her two sons, Joshua and Moses, as payment for her late husband's debt. Hord claims that she was the property of her husband Benjamin Hord and that he emancipated her by deed on 16 July 1842.

Judy Wood, George Butler, Lucy Butler, William Butler, Mary Butler, Martha Wood, and Abram Wood were all enslaved by Nancy Watts. The plaintiffs sued for their freedom after Watt's 1828 will emancipated them, but the administrator of Watt's will continued to hold them in bondage.

Contract dispute includes plat of land in contention that shows the prison boundaries and illustrations of buildings - jail, stables, court house, clerk's office, Dr. Spratt's shop, and John Bayton's house.

Arthur Carlow filed a suit for divorce after catching Maria Carlow, his wife having an affair with John Winder, a free man of color. Included in the suit was a letter from Maria Carlow agreeing to the divorce proceedings.

William P. Woodward, the guardian for Robert Woodward, sought the court's permission to sell George, an man enslaved by Robert Woodward. William was unable to hire out George any longer due to his bad repuation and he also feared George would try to flee to a free state.

The suit was filed to ask permission for the right to sell, Lucy, an enslaved woman, who was described as worthless because of a "very bad disposition... she is a very bad girl, a notorious rougue [sic] and cannot be trusted - she is also very idle and cannot be made to attend her work."

Elizabeth Thornton sought the court's permission to sell seeks to Lucy, an enslaved woman aged 45, who "has become so unmanageable that she is wholly worthless" and had previously run away. SEE ALSO: 1858-012.

This estate dispute involves the distribution of slaves and other property and includes a 1793 Deed of Emancipation of Thomas Richie of Gloucester County which sets his slaves free once they reach the age of twenty-one.

The case was a debt dispute which involved blockaded goods purchased but captured by Union forces before they were delivered. The answer and depositions identify Joseph W. Statins as a known blockade runner during the Civil War.

Estate dispute contains family correspondence between the Jones and Calef families. Topics included in the correspondence are: children's education, the coming war, and white perspectives on the people they enslaved.

The suit contains correspondence to family in Scotland. John Russell immigrated to Baltimore from Scotland and wrote to his aunt, Mrs. Dormer Oaks about his arrival.

Both of these suits involve disputes over the ownership of oyster planting grounds.

Higgins, a schooner owner in the business of buying oysters in Virginia, sues the Middlesex County oyster inspector for making "threats of violence and force" and requiring him to pay a fee before he could buy oysters to take for sale at the Port of Orleans.

Schooner owners claim that county oyster inspectors and commandant of the Virginia Oyster Navy are hindering their rights to purchase oysters.

Divorce suit includes marriage certificate of Mary Jones's illegal second marriage to Edward Wood.

Married 4 October 1885, Robert Henry Carter sought a divorce from his wife who was arrested for murdering his child from his first marriage, Lila Carter. Emily Carter was convicted 27 February 1886 and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary.

Oscar Holliday filed a divorce suit on the grounds of adultery. He had caught Fannie Holliday, his wife, with another man and shot her paramour.

Divorce suit in which the husband and his witnesses accuse wife of having affairs with "colored men."

Estate dispute includes a drawing of a family tree for the families McCarty/Tomlin/Rowan.

The suit contains a letter from 13 June 1873, which described C.B. Robb's destruction of his own letters and papers during the Civil War to protect them from falling into the hands of the Union Army.

Thomas Fauntleroy letter to Wallace Woodward, dated 11 February 1893, references economic depression of 1893, railroads, and the Sherman Silver Law.

Suit includes family tree for descendants of Robert Mountain.

In this divorce suit of an African American couple, Thomas Harris went in front of the congregation of Grafton Baptist Church and accused his wife of having an affair with W. E. Thompson, a pastor in the church who stayed in the Harris home.

In his bill for divorce, John Laws claims he was forced to marry when a warrant was issued charging him with seducing Alice Bumpass under promise of marriage. Laws believed that the marriage was the easiest and cheapest way out of the trouble, and he left Alice immediately after the ceremony. After Alice gave birth to a "white girl child," John Laws believed that he should be absolved of any wrong doing since he was an African American.

A group of Italian immigrants sue a representative of the Gray Improvement Co. for nonpayment of contracted work.

Annie B. Tolle, who claimed to be well-educated and an accomplished musician, left her own property in Baltimore to move to Middlesex Co. to stay with her aunt and uncle under the promise that she would inherit their property after their deaths. Annie claims that she worked for them unpaid - she was "their cook, their maid, their washerwoman, their nurse, their all" - and sued the estate of her uncle for control of his property.

Charles Morris claimed that he was accused by Mary's father of impregnating his daughter. With a warrant out for his arrest and his life threatened, Charles went through with the marriage despite claiming his innocence. When Charles asked Mary why she accused him instead of the men she had actually been with, she replied "because I want you."

The suit includes broadside for a baseball exhibition held at the Tappahannock fair between Warsaw, Bowling Green, and the Tappahannock Picked Team.

In her bill for divorce, Mary Smith requested that her husband be restrained from interfering with her children and from demanding and collecting any wages earned by the children.

Divorce suit. Andrew Courtney accused Mary Courtney, his wife, of adultery and running off to Hartford, Connecticut with Beverly Smith, a married man. Mary Courtney claimed she went to Hartford for work and accused her husband of adultery, as well as abuse, and the operation of a speakeasy. Mary Courtney produced several letters written to her husband from various women, one of which included a lock of hair with her letter. (The alleged affair between Mary Courtney and Beverly Smith is referenced in the Middlesex County divorce suit Mary Ellen Smith vs. Beverly Smith, 1910-014.)

James Williams filed for divorce on the grounds of audltery. When confronted about her affair, Lucy Williams threatened to split her husband's head with an axe.

Mary F. Morris sued for compensation for the eleven months she spent nursing 20-year-old Mary I. Prince through an illness/death.

Bill and depositions include a lot of information about operating a general mercantile business.

James Grinells filed suit for an injunction to halt construction of new buildings and to restrain the use of existing buildings located on the North End wharf, owned and operated first by the Weems Steamboat Co. then by the Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia Railroad Co. Said buildings were interfering with a breakwater and its privileges operated by James Grinells and negatively impacting his business operations.