In 1834, Joseph Dickson died, bequeathing six slaves and other property in trust to his daughter Julia and her "illegitimate" son, Robert William Dickson. If his daughter died before his grandson, the testator added, the property would descend to his daughter Mary M. Herndon, and at her death to Mary's children and Mary Ann and Caroline Dickson, who later married Joseph B. Marcom. Julia Dickson married Samuel Merritt, a "dissolute and wasteful man" who sold the property despite its being in a trust, before finally abandoning his wife. He sold Bob to defendant David George; he sold Celia and her son Jim to defendant John Hayes; he sold Harry and Prince, who have since died, to defendant William N. Pratt. Robert William Dickson died in 1853, and in 1855, Mary Herndon's children and other heirs argue that the surviving slaves should be their property. They ask the defendants, Julia and Samuel Merritt and the purchasers of the slaves, to account for the slaves, their value and their whereabouts.
Result: Rejected.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
