In 1853, Margaret Wickes, by her next friend John B. Ross, sues her husband, Charles Wickes, for divorce. Married since 1847 and the mother of one child, Emma, age four, Margaret charges that her husband has become "unkind, harsh and tyrannical." Only a few weeks before, she says, he locked her out of their apartment in a boarding house and she was forced to sit on the icy steps for two hours during "one of the coldest nights during the winter." She was forced her to enter a side door and pass through a room occupied by male boarders to gain entry. At different times he "maliciously and contemptuously" spit in her face, threw her to the floor "with great violence," kicked her "with great force," and wrote her threatening letters. He also threatened to kidnap their child, stole money she earned as a seamstress, and sold the slave Sarah purchased with her own funds without her knowledge or consent. Margaret seeks custody of Emma and asks for a divorce. A year later, she asks that her petition for divorce be dismissed.
Result: Dismissed.
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Repository: University of South Alabama Archives, Mobile, Alabama
