One hundred and six "inhabitants of Chatham County" support the petition of Lard Sellars, who sought relief in connection with his killing of the slave Arthur, "the property of Edward Jones." The petitioners consider Sellars to be a "honest, industrious well meaning man." They further declare that he considered "it his duty as a military officer to endeavor to apprehend the Said Negro Arthur," who "was run away from his master and going at large reported to have been armed commiting depridations and denouncing threats and menacing the inhabitants to the great terror of Women & Children particularly." Conceiving said shooting "to be a meritorious" act, they pray that a law be passed "impowering the County Court of Chatham to levy a tax on the County sufficient to indemnify Captain Sellars."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
