Henrietta Smith, a child between the age of nine and ten, through her next friend J. A. M. Duncanson, seeks to settle a dispute over her indenture. She asserts that her mother, a free woman of color named Milly, is an unfit guardian due to "her vicious idle and intemperate habits." Smith was being cared for by Mrs. Dunkley "from motives of charity" and "on leaving this City, provided a home for her with said Duncanson, where she now is, & who is willing to keep her, & enter into legal obligations to maintain & bring up the said child as an apprentice." Smith asserts that her mother and Isaac Elwood, with whom Milly is now living, hoped to prevent her "being bound out to said Duncanson" and thereby executed a pretended indenture of apprenticeship that bound her to Elwood. Henrietta seeks an injunction against Elwood and Milly and nullification of the "pretended indenture."
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Repository: National Archives, Washington, D. C.
