Sopha Dobyns, daughter of the late Colonel Thomas Septwick, was married to Jonah Dobyns at age sixteen. She now complains that, after two years her husband, began to abuse and beat her, and continued to do so for the next four years. She escaped her husband's mistreatment by retreating to her father's house on several occasions, but when she returned home, Dobyns would whip her and threaten to take her life. One visitor to the plantation testified, in a related document, that he heard Dobyns boast "in her absence he had taken one of his own Negroe Women into her bed and that he would do it again whenever it Suited him." Sopha's father is now dead and he has left her a trust estate in slaves ample enough for her comfortable maintenance and that of her children. She seeks a divorce.
Result: Bill drawn.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
