Robert C. Myers, the widower of the late Chloe Ann Watson Myers and the father of three minor children, seeks the sale of 22 slaves. He asserts that his father-in-law, the late Elijah Watson, devised certain slaves to his daughters, Sophia and Chloe Ann, to "be respectively held and enjoyed by them during their natural lives" and that, at each daughter's death, "her portion descend and belong to such issue absolutely." He maintains that his "said infants are entitled to the portion bequeathed in the said will to their mother during her natural life and after her death to the said infants absolutely." Stating that he and his wife removed the slaves from Edgefield District to his plantation in Richland District, he cites that said slaves "since they have been on the plantation of your petitioner have suffered very much from fever, that the fever and other diseases have been very fatal to the children and in consequence the [slaves'] increase ... have been unusually small," whereby he "cannot continue to employ them on his plantation without great risk to the health and value of the said slaves." Of the belief that a sale of said slaves "would conduse very much to the interest of the said infants," he prays that said slaves be ordered to be sold in Edgefield District, where they "are well known ... where they were raised and would sell better there than in this District."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
