In 1851, the widow Mary Ann Kennard, who owned a copper colored slave named Polly, married William B. Merriman of Sumter County. Seven years later she seeks a divorce claiming that her husband drank to excess and "abused her in language charging the foulest of offenses; threatened her with violence; and beaten & bruised her with a cowhide." Forced to flee, she seeks to prevent her husband from selling or removing the slave she brought to the marriage (their farm is four miles from the Mississippi state line) until there is a property settlement.
Result: Granted.
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Repository: Sumter County Courthouse, Livingston, Alabama
