Siblings Margaret Helms and Rebecca Kidd are joined by their respective husbands, John E. Helms and Leroy Kidd, in seeking an account of the estate of their late grandfather, John Hillsman, who died in December 1850 when the girls were orphaned minors. The sisters inform the court that neither of them has received "one cent from said estate," which includes a substantial amount of land and five slaves. They charge their grandfather's administrator, Gordon Mynatt, and the estate's other heirs with excluding them "from all participation in the benefits of said estate." Mynatt has sold a "portion of the land" and one of the slaves, a sixteen-year-old girl named Mira, to Richard Hillsman for $630; they now "reserve the right" to dissent from said sales "if they should think their interest requires it." They also complain that there has been no division of said estate and assert "that said land and negroes should be sold by a decree of your Honor's honorable court." They acknowledge that their mother received advancements from her father during her lifetime and insist that they are "willing" to account for them "but for nothing beyond." They ask the court to determine their rightful inheritance and that "the sum due them may be decreed them."
Result: Granted.
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
