Nelly Hoomes, a fifty-year-old free woman of color, represents that William Marshall freed her "some years ago" but that said deed of manumission "was never perfected according to the forms and requisites of Law until the 5th of December 1832 when a Deed of emancipation granting freedom not only to your Petitioner and her daughter Margaret but also to Bartlett Sam and Pleasants three other children of your Petitioner born since her right to freedom accrued was regularly executed and recorded." Hoomes laments that "by the laws of the Land she must be banished from this Country and torn from her husband & her children as they the children by the kindest feature in the Law to which your Petitioner now alludes are not compelled to leave the state till they respectively attain their full age." She further reveals that, "in a few years," her husband Bartlett "will obtain his freedom by the liberality of his master and some benevolent friends." Noting that Margaret is now twelve years old, the petitioner asks to remain in the state "till ... Margaret attains her full age which will be about nine years hence at which time especially if in the mean time freedom shall have been granted to her husband she can with her husband and her children remove to Liberia."
Result: Referred to committee for courts of justice.
Or you may view all people.
Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
