This case originates with a petition to the Green County Circuit Court in Kentucky and ends thirteen years later with a ruling from the Tennessee State Supreme Court. The original petition to a Tennessee chancery court is not among the case records. In 1819, John Jones asks the Kentucky circuit court for "a partition and division of the slaves" in the estate of his father-in-law, the late James Munford, who died in 1808. He cites that "besides the devise to the widow, the said decedent left to his two daughters ... all the rest of his estate." Jones states that said estate "consisted of a large number of slaves," now numbering about twenty-eight. He charges that neither the widow nor her current husband, William Woodfolk, "have ever returned an inventory and appraisement of said estate" and that they "have failed to pay over the money and property and deliver over the slaves to which your orator is entitled" as husband of Jane W. Munford. He prays that the Woodfolks "be compelled to pay your orator his portion of the money and other property to which he may be entitled." The Tennessee Supreme Court awards the Joneses $4589 and John and Alethia Munford Wright $5331 in 1832. The related documents include hiring records of the estate slaves from 1808-1820; medical data on certain slaves; details on mining saltpeter in Mammoth Cave; and expense records for educating and clothing two white females, "in order to enhance them, having in view their future prosperity in life."
Result: Granted; appealed; affirmed.
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
