James Butler, administrator of the estate of the late Elizabeth Boyles, petitions the court to set aside an arbitration committee's ruling concerning a slave title dispute involving John Boyles, other members of his family, and the estate. Butler explains that his testator "swapped" slaves with John Boyles "several years before her death;" Elizabeth gave John a slave named Craft, whom she had purchased from James Alderson, and received from John in return a slave named Sarah, who has since had two children, one eight and the other four at the time of Elizabeth Boyles's death. After Elizabeth's death, John Boyles took possession of Sarah and her children, claimed them as his own property, and has since dispersed the slaves among his children, giving Sarah to his son, James, and giving Sarah's children to his daughters Jane and Mary. After Butler attempted to regain the slaves and Boyles refused to surrender them, the parties eventually agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration. Butler claims that a particular member of the committee "was so partial to the Oposite party" that he refused to grant Butler a new hearing after a majority of the arbitrators consented to his request. He now asks the court to invalidate his arbitration bond and to "decree him Sarah and her two children and the hire of the Same Since the death of the Said Elizabeth."
Result: Denied; appealed; affirmed.
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
