Forty-five-year-old Watt Smiley, "a free negro of the County of Rockbridge," represents that "he was emancipated by Charles P Dorman of said County by deed bearing date the 18th of November 1818." In compliance with the law, Smiley states that "he has been in the state of Ohio but having left a family of young children in said county ... by a wife who was free born & therefore not subject to the operation of the law," he is anxious "to return to his children who he has it not in his power to remove." The petitioner therefore prays "that an act may pass permitting him to spend the remnant of his days in the Commonwealth without being subject to the penalties of the laws" that require he "be apprehended & sold out by the overseers of the poor of this County."
Result: Bill drawn.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
