In February 1830, Abner Eason borrowed five hundred dollars from Wright Edmondson, signing a note for payment. In May 1830, Eason recalls, Edmondson asked him to put a lien on "Certain negroes," including Sampson, Nancy and her three children Fereby, China, and London to secure the note, offering him an additional three hundred dollars discounted at twenty percent. In early August 1830, Eason recalls, Edmondson told him to give him "a right to his negroes & let him have them to work & pay the interest on the money." In late August 1830, Eason recalls, Edmondson said that Nancy was afraid that her two children, Henry and Sherrod, would be sold to a speculator, and Edmondson proposed that the boys be exchanged for his slave Milly plus $240, the boys being worth about $500 and Milly $260. To all this Eason agreed. More than a decade later, Eason seeks to pay his debt and retrieve his slaves but Edmondson claims ownership. Eason brings suit. In a related answer, Edmondson, the defendant, contends that the age of the slaves, as given by Eason at the time of the 1830 transactions, are incorrect. He especially disputes the age of Henry and Sherrod, who he contends were respectively eight and nine in 1830, not twelve and thirteen as claimed by Eason. Moreover, he points out that Nancy, at age twenty-five, could not have had children already in their teens, especially since she had had two other and older children not mentioned in the petition and in the possession of other owners.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
