Martha Turner asks the court to require her husband, Thomas Turner, to pay alimony. The petitioner states that their entire marriage has been "a continual scene of misery and torture." She has been abused and witnessed the abuse of "her innocent and loyal offspring." Martha further states that they have been deprived of food, slandered in public, and dishonored by her husband's act of "setting his female servant over her in the management of his domestic concerns." She charges that Thomas, who was addicted to "intoxicating drink," had agreed to a separation and stated his willingness to pay alimony, including one-fifth of his estate, (which she "often heard him say was at least $10000 in the whole"), and all of the property that she had brought to the marriage. A contract stating the terms of the agreement was drawn up but the defendant has not complied with the terms causing the petitioner to "submit to a public exposure of her grief." She alleges that her husband now requires a stipulation in the contract that she consent to "never seeing or having intercourse with her children any more," which she is unwilling to do.
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Repository: Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland
