Melissa Nichols, the widow and administratrix of Williford Nichols, seeks the court’s aid in consolidating her late husband’s assets in order to pay his creditors’ claims. After Williford Nichols died in 1864, the petitioner began to pay the outstanding debts. However, "a very valuable portion of said estate was taken from her possession and declared not to constitute property by the Proclamation of the Executive of the United States of America - and by a subsequent fundamental change in the law of the land declared in the new constitution of the state aforesaid - She has reason to doubt and does doubt the solvency of the said estate." In addition to the loss of her husband's slaves, Melissa claims that agents of the Confederate States of America as well as her husband's former business partner have seized other assets. She further avers that Gen. Sherman's army seized a valuable cotton crop despite her best efforts to hide it; more assets were lost to Confederate bonds. As multiple creditors have filed claims against said estate, Nichols asks that said creditors be restrained from seeking relief in the courts until their debts are proven. She also asks to sell 320 acres in her husband’s estate in order to pay her dower and her husband’s outstanding accounts.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
