Euphrasia Tivis seeks a divorce from her husband, Benjamin Franklin Tivis, citing "excess ill treatment and cruelty" and "acts of selfish meanness," which have rendered living with him "insupportable." She recounts that, in February 1864, he "did then and there throw cold water on her she being then in bed Kicked and punched her, pulled her hair and did otherwise abuse and illtreat your petitioner." During the past year, she has kept a boarding house in Beaumont "to keep herself & two infant children in bread & raiment." Her husband, however, frequently seized the profits she made from her business and spent them on gambling and drinking. When she married Tivis, she owned "in her own right" a female slave, "which she cheerfully sold for the benefit of defendant to obtain for him a substitute to serve in the Army of the Confederate States in his stead." She also seeks custody of the couple's two infant daughters.
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Repository: Jefferson County Courthouse, Beaumont, Texas
