The children and heirs at law of the late Andrew Lester complain that their stepfather, Samuel Nelson, refuses to distribute the slaves from their mother's estate among them. William Strother, the children's late grandfather, executed his will in 1779, whereby he devised to their mother, Catharine, "one negro Girl commonly called or known by the name of Dulcena." By the time Catharine married the defendant, her second husband, Dulcena was a mother of four. Nelson took possession of the slave family although they "ought in justice and Equity to have been accounted for immediately on the death of their said Mother." Nelson then boasted that he would "make what disposition he thinks proper of the said Negro and her issue." He sometimes "pretends" that Dulcena was sold to discharge the debts of their father's estate and other times claims that he purchased Dulcena at a sheriff's sale. The petitioners ask the court to prevent their stepfather's attempt to defraud them of their rightful inheritance.
Result: Referred.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
