Eliza A. Ransom seeks a separation from her husband. Prior to her 1828 marriage to Dr. Thomas S. Ransom, the petitioner conveyed "a portion of her estate," which she had acquired at the death of her first husband, to Cornelius K. Ayer. Soon after their marriage, Thomas began to "make insinuations about the property secured to your Oratrix by the said deed of marriage settlement, and matters gradually became worse." In one instance, he "slapped her down on the floor striking her three or four times." Another time, he ordered a slave named Margaret to bring him water from the well. Upon hearing this order, Eliza told another slave named Sally to get the water because Margaret was asleep; Ransom then "abruptly steped out of the house" and beat both Sally and his wife. Eliza laments that "her person has not been, within the last two years, free from bruises and other marks of violence occasioned by blows inflicted by her husband." She further accuses him of "adulterous intercourse with female slaves on the plantation." Noting that Thomas is in possession of her estate, she reports that she has applied to him "to surrender and deliver over ... all the property and estate included in their marriage settlement" to her said trustee, but he has refused. Eliza now prays to "hence forth live ... apart from" her husband and that he be restrained from "wasting" her estate.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
