{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"20185421","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/20185421","state":"Alabama","county":"Talladega","location_type":"County","file_day":25,"file_month":11,"file_year":1854,"filing_court":"Chancery","end_month":7,"end_year":1857,"ending_court":"Chancery","result":"granted","enslaved_count":3,"fpoc_count":0,"total_people_count":5,"repository":"Shelby County Archives, Columbiana, Alabama","abstract":"In 1854, William Brewer files for divorce from his wife Jane Brewer.  William charges that Jane was having an illicit affair with Isaiah Phillips, a boarder in their home.  Although he further characterizes Jane as a woman of \"unusual shrewdness,\" who for some time concealed her \"unlawful intimacy,\" he charges that she and Phillips later became \"so bold and daring\" in their conduct of their affair that he \"was treated with contempt and his authority over his wife and household was openly spurned by them.\"  When he caught his wife and Phillips \"in the act of adultry in the wood near the residence,\" William confronted his wife and \"drove her off.\"  The petitioner asks that Jane be summoned to court and that he be granted a divorce \"from the bond of matrimony.\"","subjects":[{"subject":"Adultery"},{"subject":"Divorce"},{"subject":"Alimony"},{"subject":"Domestic violence"},{"subject":"Assessed Value (enslaved)"},{"subject":"Abandonment "}]}]}