John Rose, former sheriff of Loudoun County and administrator of the estate of the late Studley Middleton, asks the court to compel the current sheriff and administrator of the estate of the late Peter Rust Sr. to "deliver up" a slave named Rachel and "her descendants." Rose asserts that Rust illegally acquired the slave, who belonged to the estate of the late Elisha Powell, when Powell's daughter, Mary, married John Middleton who "reduced said slave into his possession." After Middleton's death, Mary married Rust who sold Jane, another slave belonging to Middleton, "at a mock public sale" where Rust "purchased the negro himself," and "under some pretext or other" claimed title to Rachel and her children. Rose claims that the two female slaves and their children and grandchildren now number fifteen and rightfully belong to Middleton's estate but are now being withheld from him by Powell's family.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
