Jervis Henry Stevens, executor of the last will and testament of Daniel Watson Turner, asks the court to order David Clark, administrator of John Clark's estate, to honor a transaction in which John Clark acted as trustee. In 1790, the elder Clark acted as trustee in purchasing for Turner a slave named Sally and her children. Turner intended to manumit the slaves. John Clark, Turner's friend and a clerk in the sheriff's office where Turner was deputy, convinced Turner to let him appear as the purchaser on the bill of sale. According to Stevens, Turner fully compensated Clark for the "amount advanced by him." John Clark, however, after his father died, found the bill of sale in his father's name among his father's papers and instituted suit against Turner for recovery of the slaves. Clark received a judgment against Turner, and the sheriff seized the slave family and has offered them for sale. Stevens opines that Clark's intention all along was "to defeat the purpose [Turner] had in view of freeing the said wench and children." He asks the court to order Clark to reconvey the slaves to him and to refrain from further legal action in the case.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
