Martha Simpson seeks a "reasonable maintenance" from her estranged husband, Dr. Preeson Simpson. The petitioner informs the court that she and her husband married in 1807. She confides that, seven years into the marriage, "he deserted the society and the protection of your Oratrix in order to carry on a criminal intercourse with a female named Eliza Boone." She reveals that she nursed him and his paramour when they were "ill of the prevailing fever" in 1817 and that she "induced him to return to her abode." She laments, however, that "she has been much neglected and maltreated and abused" upon his return. Simpson represents that her husband own two lots of land, a house, and five slaves, "one of them a carpenter valued at one thousand dollars." She charges that he intends "to leave her entirely destitute to alienate and dispose of all his property within this state and then to abandon her entirely." Affirming that he is "liable by his voluntary contract and the rules of Law to the maintenance and support of your Oratrix," the petitioner prays that her husband be compelled "to give security for the reasonable maintenance of your oratrix and Secure to her a separate alimony and support to be decreed out of the estate of the said P. Simpson."
Result: Granted pro confesso.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
