William and Margaret Wells Murray ask the court to set aside a written agreement between Margaret and Arthur Hughes and to compel Hughes to account more equitably with them for Margaret's portion of her parents' estates. Hughes became the third husband of Margaret's mother, Hannah, in 1794, thereby gaining possession of the property of Margaret's father, John Wells, and Hannah's second husband, William Elms. After Hannah died, Hughes "blended together under his own name, his own and your Oratrix's property," instead of properly administering the estate. Until 1811, Hughes managed upwards of 100 slaves in clearing "very extensive fields for the culture of cotton." When the Murrays were about to marry, Hughes delivered 36 slaves to the "unfriended and unprotected" Margaret and offered her a settlement bond of $7000, which "thro' her ignorance" she accepted. She and William now point out that under Hughes's custodianship, the plantation's rent and its slaves' hire total over $31,000. Having been "for sixteen years at the mercy of the Defendant's," Margaret asks for the court's intervention in securing her rightful inheritance.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
