Mary Graham charges her husband, James Graham, a slave owner, with multiple acts of verbal and physical abuse. Mary claims that James's drinking has gradually worsened over the years, and, for the past four or five years, "he has rarely returned home sober from any place where spirituous liquors were to be obtained." When drunk, he becomes violent. On one occasion James hit her in the eye with a candlestick. Another time he "attempted to throw her into the fire, and that she prevented him from executing his purpose only by clinging to him." He then tried "to throw the fire on her and did kick large burning coals all around where she sat in a state of exhaustion." He has also abused and threatened their three older children, starting the abuse about the time each child turned ten. Mary asks the court to allow her "to live separate and apart from her said husband and to have the custody and control of her said children." Mary also seeks "a competent allowance for her own support and for the maintenance and the education of her children."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
