William Nickins, "a free black man in humble condition," asks the court to recognize him as the owner of his enslaved wife and five children. A freed slave himself, Nickins came to Tennessee "some years ago" and "settled in the neighborhood of Sampson Williams" where he made cabinets and spinning machines. Nickins married "a black girl a slave the property of said Williams" and later purchased his wife and "accumulated some considerable funds besides." He entered into a working relationship with Silas C. Cornwell, who tricked the illiterate Nickins into loaning him $200, falsified their account, and then obtained a judgment against him. With his wife and child under threat of levy, Nickins exchanged a bill for their sale for "a sort of bond for a tract of Land" belonging to Andrew McClelan. McClelan still permitted Nickins to retain his wife, child, and the four children born after this time, and Nickins did "every thing" McClelan "said or told him to do as if he was his slave," including executing to McClelan notes for his family's hire and allowing McClelan to pay taxes on them in his own name. When Nickins approached McClelan on his sickbed to reconvey his family to him, McClelan demurred, but assured him that "his wife Margaret would do it Like one christian would for another" after his death. Now that McClelan has died, his brother and administrator, who is "a great lover of wealth," claims Nickins's family as slaves in the estate. Nickins asks the court to intervene and permanently deliver his family to him "just as was intended by himself and Sampson Williams." The court transcript contains a cross bill filed by McClelan's administrator asking the court to attach the family of slaves, whom he has continued to hire out to Nickins like his brother did in his lifetime. The chancery court decree reveals that Nickins died during the pendency of the suit, which concluded in the Tennessee supreme court after it had been revived in the name of Nickins's administrator, George W. McKinly.
Result: Dismissed; appealed; affirmed.
Or you may view all people.
Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
