Equity Court: Mrs. Ann McConnell petitions for sale of enslaved women Nanny and Eliza, 1852
Thomas R. McConnell and William R. McConnell, as trustees for Mrs. Ann McConnell, petitioned the Liberty County Superior Court, sitting in equity, to permit retroactively the sale of enslaved women Nanny and Eliza . The trustees pointed to the original marriage settlement that named Col. Joseph Law and James Lambright Esqr as trustees, and the court decision appointing the two McConnells as replacements for them after their deaths. They noted that until new trustees had been named, Dr. William P. McConnell had taken the trust property into his possession and controlled it “as his own” for the benefit for Mrs. Ann McConnell and her children. During that time, “two negros viz. Eliza & Nancy from their bad character & habits became valueless,” and Dr. William P. McConnell proceeded to “sell & dispose of them for the sum of twelve hundred dollars & did use & appropriate the whole of said money as part of the purchase money of a house and lot” in Walthourville, Liberty County, believing “it would be in the interest of the…trust.” The McConnells were said to have moved into the home and still be living there.
The trustees said that they knew that at some future date the sales of Eliza and Nancy might “occasion litigation.” They asked the court to summon William P. McConnell to swear to the facts and for a court decision enabling them to make good titles to the purchases of Eliza and Nancy and to put the purchase house and lot into the trust in the place of Eliza and Nancy.
William P. McConnell did appear and gave his sworn testimony on April 16, 1852.
An exhibit in the court case was the replacement of the original trustees. In it, the Judge noted that former trustee James Lambright had died shortly after the marriage of the McConnells, and that Joseph Law Senior, the remaining trustee, died shortly after that. He added that Dr. John Law, the eldest surviving son of Joseph Law Senior was his executor and that all of Law’s heirs had moved out of Georgia, and Dr. John Law was now a resident of Cincinati, Ohio. The Judge appointed Thomas R. Connell and William Robert McConnell, sons of William P. McConnell and Ann A. McConnell, as replacement trustees on November 29, 1851. When William R. McConnell accepted this appointment on November 21, 1851, he was in Columbia, South Carolina.
Source: Superior Court proceedings, Vol. 5, 1842-1855, Liberty County, Georgia, page 469-474; database with images, “Liberty County Superior Court Proceedings, Vol 5 1842-1855,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H3-QR7C : accessed 9 Feb 2023), Family History Library Film 008628085, item 2 of 2, image 609-12 of 658.