R. O. Britton seeks compensation for a runaway slave named Marina, who absconded in 1845. Britton states that, prior to his marriage, his wife, Mariah P. Kennon Britton, owned the said nineteen-year-old "healthy & intelligent" Marina. He further relates that the said slave "escaped from her mistress ... in the night, in a disguised & clandestine manner," assisted by a free man of color named John Smith. The petitioner surmises that the said Smith "passed the said negro woman as his wife or sister" and obtained from the railroad ticket agent "tickets for his own & for the passage of the said Marina over the said Road to the Town of Gaston," thus enabling Marina "to make her escape to the free states." Britton therefore asks the legislature to "indemnify him for the loss which he has sustained, in right of his wife, & for which by the laws of the State, the proprietors of Said Raleigh & Gaston Rail Road are liable."
Result: House: referred to judiciary committee.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
