John Floyd, "a man of weak mind and illiterate," asks that the executor of the late Charles Floyd Jr. "surrender and deliver up to the plaintiff" certain slaves, "twenty four in number." Floyd reveals that a judgment was recovered against him for $1603.25 in 1843. In order to prevent his family from being "brought to want and distress," John admits that he and his brother, Charles Floyd Jr., entered into an agreement whereby he gave said Charles "a confession of judgment" as a means "to secure his the said plaintiff's property both real and personal." Insisting that "he was not at all indebted to the said Charles Floyd Jr.," the petitioner reports that said Charles purchased "the whole personal property of the plaintiff" at a sheriff's sale in 1846 "under the judgment and execution of the said Charles Floyd Jr. confessed." John reports that said Charles died in 1847 and that the court dismissed the original judgment, whereby the terms of said agreement entitled him to recover the possession of his personal property. The petitioner charges, however, that Washington Floyd, "Executor and legatee" of the said Charles, "fraudulently and surreptitiously" got possession of the said agreement and retains possession of said slaves as well. He therefore prays that the defendant be "ordered and decreed to surrender and deliver up the said slaves and their increase" and "to account for the hire of the said negroes since April 1846."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
