About 1798, Elihu Briddle of Sussex County gave his married daughter Catharine Wainwright a black baby named Amy as a gift. When Catharine died in 1804, Amy went to her husband William, who in his will bequeathed her to his two daughters, Eliza and Hannah. When Wainwright died in 1815, the executor of his estate, Joseph Betts, with the assent of Eliza and Hannah, turned Amy and her one-year-old son William over to Eliza's husband, John Dingle, who sold his wife's half-interest in the slaves to Isaac Cannon for sixty dollars; Cannon in turn sold Eliza's half-interest to Burton Waples for one hundred dollars. A short time after the last sale, Amy gave birth to a second son, Clement. In the interim, Hannah had married Joshua Burrows of Worcester County, Maryland. Waples now seeks to obtain the other half-interest, arguing that if the slave family were taken to Maryland, they could be sold "to Southern or Western Traders in Slaves." He asks the court to establish a "fair value" for the slaves and permit him to "take the said Property at that valuation" or not.
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Repository: Delaware State Archives, Dover, Delaware
