Mary Ann Elizabeth Warner asks that she be decreed a suitable "sum for her maintenance & support as alimony" and that her husband, Jacob Warner, be restrained from removing "beyond the jurisdiction of this Court and that he will not remove" four slaves "from and beyond the limits of this State." The petitioner informs the court that she received $1900, 320 acres of land and "a negro girl Nance" from the estate of her father, George Dominick. She further states that "she and her husband own four negroes ... all young and likely negroes worth at the present prices about" $2500. Warner charges that "her said husband has treated her badly for a long time" and that he "sometimes threatened that he would remove her negroes from her and thus make her entirely dependant upon her own personal labour." She confides that her husband "slammed her down on the floor and said that he ought to stamp her liver out" and that he "whipped her severely with the cow hide until it was worn out." Believing that "her life is in danger," the petitioner avers "that it would be unsafe for her to live with her said husband any longer." She therefore prays that she receive alimony and that her husband be enjoined from taking and removing "from this state the negroes which are now in the possession of him by virtue of his marriage with the plaintiff."
Result: Settled.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
