George Conley, a free man of color, seeks a divorce from his sixteen-year-old wife, Josephine, a free woman of color. Conley states that they were married in 1851 and that they lived together happily "for a short time". However, Josephine soon lost interest in the marriage and took an openly defiant step against her husband when, one day, she refused to make his dinner. When Conley "insisted to know of her what was the matter," she responded that she did not love him. She asserted "that there were men whose little fingers she cared more for than she did for complainants whole body." Josephine abandoned their home and since then "has been, almost perpetually keeping the company of other men, married and single, gallanting with them day and night, receiving and reciprocating love, in a most wanton and disgraceful manner." He charges that she has repeatedly committed adultery with a slave named Barney. Conley prays for a divorce "and that his relations to her may for all future time be as though the said marriage had never taken place." In her answer, Josephine states that she left Conley because he and his family physically and verbally abused her. She further accuses him of committing adultery "with a woman of color named Ester who belongs to one Jeremiah Gibson & who is old enough to be the mother of complainant."
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Repository: Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee
