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(49) Instead of an Action upon the Case such Child or Children shall and may Exhibitt his or their bill in a Court of Equity for Recovering such Proportion and the Court before whom such bill shall be Exhibited shall and may proceed upon the bill and the Answer of the Defendant altho he should be under the Age of Twenty one years and Give such Relief for the Recovering and Compelling the payment of such proportion of the True Value of such slave or slaves as shall be Agreeable to the Rules of Equity any thing in the said Act Contained to the Contrary thereof in anywise Notwithstanding And Whereas by part of Another Act made in the fourth year of the Reign of the said Late Queen Ann Intituled an Act for the Distribution of Intestates Estates Declaring widows Rights to their Deceased Husbands Estates and for securing Orphans Estates It is provided that no person by his Last Will and Testament may give a Less share or proportion of his Estate then is therein Directed and that any will made Contrary to that Act may be set aside for so much upon the petition of the wife And forasmuch as it is Doubted whether that part of the said Act hath any Relation to the Dispossition of slaves and what Right a Widdow hath to the slaves of her Deceased husband in Case of his Dying Testate to the End all Doubts and questions thereupon may be Removed and a better Method may be Settled for women to Recover their Rights then by Petition to Sett a Side the Will Be it further ^Declared^ Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that when any Widdow shall Not be satisfyed with the provision made for her by her Deceased Husbands will it shall and may be Lawfull for such widdow within Nine Months after her Husbands Death before the Court where such Will shall be proved or by Deed Executed in the presence of two or more Wittnesses to Declare that she will not Accept Receive or Take the Legacy or Legacys to her given and bequeathed or any part thereof and will Renounce all benefit and Advantage which she might Claim by such last will and after such Declaration to Demand and Recover her Dower of all the slaves whereof her husband died possessed which she shall Enjoy during her Naturall Life and After her Death or other Determination of that Estate the same shall go to the person or persons in whom the property thereof would have Vested in Case the Dower had not been Demand'd and Moreover such widdow shall have such share of the personal Estate of her husband as by the said Act is Directed But if such Declaration be not made within the Time before Limited she shall be for Ever bar'd to Claim any other part of her husbands Estate then shall be given or Bequeathed by such last will We further find that the Negro's in question were by the deft after his Intermarriage with ye said Mary sent from Vergenia to Maryland w.thout the leave of the plft We further find that the said Mary at the decease of the said Spencer Hack was Entituled to One third part of his estate Real and personall in right of her dower and that defend.t holds the negros in question in Right of his wife as part of her dower of ye said Spencer Hacks Estate we further find that there was a division made of the said Spencer Hacks Estate in Vergenia and that four Negroes whereof the three mentioned in the declaration are parcell were allotted to the said Mary as part of her dower we find the Negro's to be of the value mentioned in the declaration And if upon the whole matter the Law be with the plft we find for the plft and assess damages by the Occasion of the detainer |
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Somerset County Judicial Records, 1733-1735
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