Madison Taylor seeks to divorce his wife Nancy and to recover property that he put in trust for her. Taylor confides that his wife "apparently became discontented and dissatisfied" after their 1839 marriage. In 1842 she "artfully and designedly, as the means to produce tranquillity at home and reformation of conduct," convinced him to put some of his real and personal estate into a trust for her; in January 1853, Nancy used "stratagem, art and design" to persuade Taylor to put the rest of his property-- including a slave named Esther--into another trust for her. The petitioner charges that she then had him judged insane and committed to an asylum, whereupon she deserted him. Released from the asylum, Madison "has been for a long time back attending to and transacting his own business, being sufficiently able so to do." The trusts, however, have left him "without home or any means of subsistence save his labor." Taylor urges the court to declare the trusts fraudulent and void and to return his property to him. Fearing that his wife will "run or remove" Esther from the area, he asks that Esther be seized by the court. The petitioner also prays that "the bonds of matrimony ... be dissolved."
Result: Partially granted; settled.
Or you may view all people.
Repository: Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County Archives
