Joseph Benthall, guardian of Susanna Benthall, requests that Joseph Wood, a justice of the peace in Northampton County, be removed from office. Benthall explains that his ward's "Negro Wench named Hagar had been secretly conveyed out of the County near four years ago" and that he searched and found her, now with a child, in Edgecomb County and took her to Northampton. He charges that "James Knight with a general Warrant Signed by Joseph Wood ... did by Violence sieze & carry the said Negroes away, barbarously wounding" Benthall's brother in the process. The petitioner recounts that he questioned Wood's authority, whereupon “Wood ordered your Petitioner to be confined in Hallifax Jail ... to be tryed as he said for Negro Stealing." Benthall, "on behalf of the good Citizens of this State," prays that the legislature may "direct the said Wood to be removed from his Magisterial Seat & be forever disabled from holding a Commission as a Justice of the Peace in future."
Result: Granted.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
