George Wootton of Sussex County, Delaware, states that he married Elizabeth King of Worcester County, Maryland; "since the intermarriage of your Petitioner with the said Elizabeth," his wife's grandfather Jesse Powell gave her "a negro woman named Gatty and her two children the one named Maria and the other named Mary." Wooten explains that Powell "is very desirous that your Petitioner should take the aforesaid negroes into Possession and remove them into this State." He notes, however, that he is advised that if he brings said slaves into the state "without first obtaining the enactment of a law authorising and impowering him to do so, that the said negroes will be entitled to their freedom." He therefore prays that a law be passed "authorizing and empowering your Petitioner to bring the aforementioned negroes from Worcester County in the State of Maryland into this State and to hold them as Slaves."
Result: House: read, referred; senate: read.
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Repository: Delaware State Archives, Dover, Delaware
