Isaiah Stull and five others petition the court to dismiss petitions filed against them in 1851 by William Scruggs and Mary Scruggs Barksdale. Scruggs and Barksdale filed their complaints against each of the petitioners in order to protect their remainder interest in the considerable progeny of a slave named Jemima, who was owned by their father, Finch Scruggs, prior to 13 March 1811. Mary Mathias [Matthews], the owner of Jemima's husband, arranged to trade her female slave, Ailsey, to Finch Scruggs in exchange for Jemima and her child, Caroline, in order to prevent "the separation of her man from his wife and child." Scruggs accepted Ailsey and $200 and then moved with Ailsey to Alabama or Mississippi, where he "raised a large family of negroes from said girl Ailsey." The younger Scruggs and Barksdale filed their bills to ensure their recovery of Jemima's children at Finch Scruggs's death in fulfillment of the provisions of their great-grandfather's 1798 will. Stull and the others, however, inform the court that they became owners of at least twenty of Jemima's descendants "for a full and valuable consideration, paid by them or their ancestors." They share with the slaves a "mutual attachment, perhaps as much so as should exist between Master and Servant." They now assert that Finch Scruggs "perpetrated a most disgraceful fraud upon Mrs. Mathias" and that Finch's children are now compounding that fraud, especially "since they have been raised and educated by their father out of the proceeds of said slaves." They also accuse Phineas T. Scruggs, a brother of William Scruggs and Mary Barksdale, of violating the laws of champertry by acting as his siblings' agent in the suits with the intention of profiting from the case. They insist that Finch Scruggs sold Jemima and Caroline absolutely, without "any limitation whatever." They ask the court to nullify "all orders and decrees" in the previous causes and enjoin the defendants from further prosecution in the matter.
Result: Partially granted; appealed; affirmed.
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Repository: Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County Archives
