Samuel E. Bratton requests the court's assistance in recovering a debt from Thomas Wilson. In 1855, the petitioner recovered a judgment against Thomas Wilson for $25 with interest. At the time of said judgment, Wilson owned four slaves: Mariah and her children Munro, Robert, and Clarissa; Bratton estimates that said family of slaves was then worth at least $2000. The petitioner also claims that “Wilson is the reputed father of the children of the said slave Mariah.” He further reports that Wilson conveyed Mariah and her children to Valentine Atkinson for only $900, in order to prevent said slaves from being levied upon to satisfy said judgment. Bratton charges that the defendants also knowingly falsified the bill of sale to represent that the conveyance had occurred prior to the petitioner's judgment. Bratton has urged Atkinson and Wilson to deliver the slaves up to be sold, but both men have refused. The petitioner therefore prays that the bill of sale be declared “fraudulent” and void and that the sale of Mariah and her children be ordered so that he may collect his judgment against Thomas Wilson.
Result: Settled.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
