Elias Naudain seeks permission to sell the time remaining in his apprenticeship of James Rodney, a free person of color. Naudain, a blacksmith, recounts that Rodney "was bound to him" in 1826 and that Rodney shortly thereafter "ran away from me and left my employment on or about the night of the nineteenth or twentieth of February last." He further states that "on the night of the nineteenth my blacksmith shop was burned down" and that Rodney went to Philadelphia where he remained until 23 August, "when he returned to my neighbourhood and remained concealed until the night of the first of September on which night my stable was burnt down and six head of Horses burned in it." Naudain reports that his slave James Lee, along with Rodney, was jailed for the arsons and that each accused the other of putting "fire to the building." Revealing that he has been granted "a permit to sell the said James Lee out of state," the petitioner prays that he may be also allowed to sell "the balance of the time" Rodney may have to serve him."
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Repository: Delaware State Archives, Dover, Delaware
