In 1824, South Carolina Simeon Clay conveyed to his daughter Nancy, "for her only proper use and behoof," a one-year-old slave girl named Louisa, from "the family of negroes being the best he ever knew." The family had been "entailed to him" by his grandfather, and he hoped to pass on their descendants to his grandchildren. About four years later, Nancy married George Cameron, and some years later the couple moved to Greene County, Alabama, where George "repeatedly and publicly" declared that Louisa and the children born to her over the years belonged to his wife. Nancy and George had one child, Lucretia Ann. Nancy Clay Cameron died in about 1849, and George remarried. By that time, Louisa had given birth to seven children. In 1853, George Cameron mortgaged Louisa and her children to Charles and John Roberts "in trust" to "indemnify" a bill of exchange for one thousand dollars. He executed another mortgage that same year for $777.77 the same family of slaves. After George Cameron's death that same year, his widow, Sarah Swilley Grant Cameron, took possession of the slaves; she has since repeatedly refused to hand them over to Lucretia Ann and her husband Jacob Lockhart. Lucretia is now suing her stepmother, her stepmother's father, and brother, and the two men who were parties to the mortgage executed by George Cameron in 1853. She tries to gain possession of the slaves. She also seeks an injunction to prevent their sale, an account of their hire since Nancy's death, and any other relief the court "shall seem meet."
Result: Dismissed; appealed; affirmed.
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Repository: Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama
