Murphy Quarles, a free man of color, informs the legislature that, by her last will and testament, his late owner Anna Maria Quarles directed that he apprenticed to a useful trade until he reached the age of nineteen and emancipated. Murphy is now nineteen and a free man. He asks the legislature for permission to remain in the state until the age of twenty-one, "by which time he will have acquired a thorough knowledge of his trade & will be enabled to accumulate a small sum sufficient to set him up in trade where he shall have removed to another state so as to enable to become as useful a member of society as one of his colour is capable of attaining to." A related document reveals that by her last will and testament the late Ann Maria Quarles emancipated four slaves.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
