Well, I'll have to admit, stretching out the frequency with which I publish these posts is not working out too well for me. I don't know about you, but I am finding it hard to remember what I wrote in the previous posts. To top it all off, I have so much information that (I think?) I haven't even shared yet, that I am beginning to become thoroughly confused. (So I apologize in advance in case you come across some redundancies, or I have accidentally left out something important so that something else doesn't really make sense!)
While looking through the probate records of Amelia Virginia's mother, Sophama Blackshear, we saw that her father Silas made mention of a civil case pending in the District Court. Here is the index page showing that case:
You can see, nine cases down, case number 883 - Silas Scarborough & Wife vs Blackshear S. M. Tebitha Sophama L. Seaborn Q. A.V. S. M. and H. M. and John and S. Rogers.
So, Frances Angelina and her husband, Silas Scarborough, were suing her father, her siblings, and her sister's husband, John Rogers. Yikes. If I remember correctly, the probate documents told us that the lawsuit involved the property that her mother left when she died. So let's look at the records and see what kinds of specifics they can give us.
Now, I say records, but I really mean documents because, although I was able to find the probate case in both the Record Books and the Minute Books, I was only able to find this case in the Minutes. I looked, and looked, and looked, and looked (I must have spent at least six hours looking) through the record books and never did find the case. I do have the case number, so I suppose it is possible that the original case papers could be looked up in the Anderson County Courthouse archives, but alas, it's not really convenient for me to go over there and look for them. Sigh.)
Anyway, hopefully the minutes will be able to shed a bit more light on the situation.
I went ahead and included the whole page here, since the date is on the top. Also, I thought it was interesting that every single case on the page says the exact same thing:
"On notice of the Clerk and on notice to plaintiffs attorneys it is ordered by the Court that the plaintiff in this cause be required to give security for costs of suit within the time prescribed by law."
This is the first entry that I found in the minutes, and it is dated the Fall Term of 1858. If you remember from the previous post, Silas Blackshear petitioned the court to appoint him as his children's guardian on October 5, 1858. The probate documents implied that he did so because this suit had been brought against him and his children. That means that Silas Scarborough must have filed the suit before October 5th, but probably still sometime during the fall term, which means no earlier than August or September.
This page is dated the 17th day, Friday. The next page has an entry that says "Fall Term 1858" and "This 4th of November 1858." I don't know if the 17th day referred to the day of the month (Sept. 17, 1858 was a Friday), in which case there was a gap of nearly two months from one page to the next, or if it referred to the 17th day of the Fall Term. Either way, this was still within the first few months after the suit was filed. The portion for our case says,
"On motion and by consent of the parties by their Attorneys It is ordered by the Court that this cause be continued until the next term of this Court."
Although this seems to be pretty non-interesting material, there is something that stood out to me: it says that, at this point anyway, the case was being conducted via attorneys for both parties.
Okay, I must admit that I did not pay attention to making sure the date was notated when I downloaded this set of documents. There is no date at the top of the page, but the case just above this implies that it is already past January of 1859. I am going to guess, then, that this was the Sprinig Term of 1859, especially since the previous entry said it would be continued until the next term of court. This one simply says,
"On motion of the plaintiffs by their attorneys be it ordered by the court that this cause be continued until the next term of this as an affidavit of the plaintiffs"
This doesn't really make any sense, but I guess it is saying that Silas and Frances Angelina Scarborough wanted the case to be continued.
You'll notice that these civil cases are on a schedule of Fall and Spring Terms, not monthly terms like the probate court. This means that every time one of these cases was continued, it was dragging on for an additional six months! Once again, the case was postponed:
"On motion and by the agreement of the parties by their Attorneys it is ordered by the Court that this Cause be continued until the next term of this Court."
I don't know what might have caused them to want to keep putting the case off. In 1859, Silas Blackshear was ordered by the court to hire out the two slaves that had belonged to his wife. (In the Spring Term document above, the case recorded before this one had the same order given to them, so that must have been common practice.) Nothing else was happening in the probate case, so I can't imagine that would have been the reason to put things off. Here is something interesting, though: It appears that Frances Angelina and her husband had moved to Hood County, Texas by this point. Not only does Silas Scarborough suddenly show no property on the Anderson County tax rolls for 1858, but he is not on the rolls in Anderson County at all for 1859 and onward. There are no tax records online for Hood County until 1867, but the Scarborough family record page that I shared with you in my first Blackshear post shows that Silas and Frances had a son born in Hood County in December of 1859. I suppose this would explain why things were being conducted via their attorneys.
Finallly, something different! This one is actually pretty interesting:
"In this Cause the death of Francis M Scarbrough (Wife of Silas Scarbrough) one of the plaintiffs in this Cause having been suggested to the Court It is ordered by the Court that Sciri Facias issue in the terms of the law to her husband Silas Scarbrough as natural guardian of her minor Children to appear at the next term of this court and make himself . . ."
Obviously, this continues on another page:
". . . a party plaintiff as such to this cause and and that this cause be continued until the next term of this court."
We already knew from Sophama's probate documents that Frances Angelina died sometime prior to April 30, 1860. We know from the Scarborough family page that she died some time on or after December 10, 1859 (the date given for the birth of her son). I haven't been able to find when exactly the Spring Term began, but I'm thinking I've seen February on something or other, so maybe she had died by then. Anyway, this mentions the legal term of "Sciri Facias," and I didn't know what that was (although I remember enough of my Latin to know that the second word means "face"), so I looked it up:
According to the State Bar of Texas website,
In Texas, in order to preserve a claim by or against a decedent or a decedent’s estate when the death of a party occurs during the proceedings, the first step following the death is normally to enter a suggestion of death on the record, notifying the trial court and other parties of the death.
Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 151 governs suits after the death of a plaintiff: If the plaintiff dies, the heirs, or the administrator or executor of such decedent may appear and upon suggestion of such death being entered of record in open court, may be made plaintiff, and the suit shall proceed in his or her name. If no such appearance and suggestion is made within a reasonable time after the death of the plaintiff, the clerk upon the application of defendant, his agent or attorney, shall issue a scire facias for the heirs or the administrator or executor of such decedent, requiring him or her to appear and prosecute such suit. After service of such scire facias, should such heir or administrator or executor fail to enter appearance within the time provided, the defendant may have the suit dismissed.I guess this means that Silas Scarborough had to appear in court and be made the sole plaintiff. I'll bet Silas Blackshear was really hoping that he didn't, so that way the case could have been dismissed.
Before we move on, I would just like to point out that, although this document says that Frances' middle initial was an "M," we have seen plenty of other times that her middle name was recorded as Angelina, confirming that this notation is in error. (This is why it is so helpful to be able to find multiple documents for a person!)
Here we are again, six months later, and things were still dragging on:
"On motion of the defendants by their attorney It is ordered by the court that they have leave to file an amended [?] herein and on notice and by Consent of the Parties by their Attorneys It is ordered by the Court that this Cause be continued until the next term of this Court"
Unfortunately, I cannot figure out what that missing word is! The defendants were going to file an amended something, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it would have been. If anyone can actually read what it says, let me know!
Finally! The judgement in the case! This is long and not so easy to read in places, but I'll do my best (and once again, any other interpretations are welcome!)
First, you'll notice that the case was now being referred to as "Silas Scarborough, Guardian vs S M Blackshear et al." So either we missed an entry in the minutes where he appeared and the whole scire facias thing took place, or it was done on this same day in court.
"Be it Remembered that on this day come on to be heard the above stated case before the Judge the parties mutually [waiving] a Jury are the said minor children in plaintiffs petition [?] appearing by A J Rainy guardian ad litum heretofore appointed and the Said defendants John Rogers and his wife Samantha Rogers failing to appear and answer judgement by [default] was [?] against them and . . . "
We are going to pause here for a minute. There are no paragraphs (or even periods!) to give me logical places to stop and make comments, so I am going to have to just throw them in where they seem to fit best. Okay. Some of the words I can't decipher affect the understanding of the case and some do not. If I am interpreting the handwriting correctly, it appears that both parties waived their right to a jury trial and so the judge ruled on the case himself. Also, A. J. Rainy, who is shown on the 1860 census as having the occupation of lawyer, was "guardian ad litum" for the Scarborough children, which means he was appointed by the court to represent their interests in the case. In addition, for some reason Samantha and her husband failed to appear. I couldn't make out one of the words stating the consequence of this, but it sounds like judgement was pronounced against them by default for not showing up.
While I'm thinking about it, I wanted to mention the fact that Silas Scarborough was suing John and Samantha along with Silas Blackshear. This implies to me that he believed (whether true or not) that they were somehow benefiting from the use of the slaves as well. I say this, because it seems like he would have only named Samantha if he were just trying to cover all of Sophama's heirs. Including her husband in the suit might mean that he felt he was being somehow wronged by him as well.
The entry continues:
". . . It appearing to the Court from the [?] that the Said Sophama Blackshear wife of the Said Silas Blackshear [had] [?] own right and as her Separate Property at the time of her death in 1857 . . . "
And this is where the chorus of angels sings and a light shines down from heaven, illuminating the Holy Grail . . . You know that scene that is always in the movies? That's how I felt when I read this and realized that I had finally discovered when Sophama Blackshear died. Now, for those of you who could care less about genealogical research, you might not understand what a big deal this is. (Unless of course, like me, you enjoy solving a good mystery - then you understand!) Since there were no proper probate papers, there are no surviving headstones or cemetery records from Anderson County for burials this early, and, for some reason, there are no millenium files or family data collections for her floating around online, I was beginning to think that I would never have a definitive date to put on our family data sheet. Of course, it could have been better and told me the month or even the day, but hey, I'll take what I can get.
Oh! And by the way, this is just one more document showing her name as Sophama.
The minutes then go on to describe the property Sophama left behind:
". . . Two negro men the Same mentioned in Said petition John and [Pettice] worth each one thousand Dollars and one mule worth one hundred and twenty five Dollars $2125 that the Hires of the Said negroes were of the value of two Hundred Dollars each per year and that the hire should be allowed from the commencement of suit 2 Sept 1858 to this date (two years) 7 1/2 months $1030 Amount in hands of Silas Blackshear $3175.00 It further appeared that Said Silas Blackshear had paid the sum of one Hundred dollars to bring said property to the State for which he is entitled to a credit $100.00 balance in Silas Blackshears hands $3075.00 . . . "
We already knew that there were two slaves, and we already knew that the courts told Silas to hire them out for the year 1859. We knew that there was a also a mule, and the values that the appraisers placed on the property. What we didn't know, is that Silas Blackshear was able to hire out the slaves for $200 per year for each one. I don't know how that really compares to total income back then, but if the slave was worth $1000, a person could make that investment back in just five years. Also, the 1860 census showed that most farmers (not wealthy planters) reported a real estate value between just $200 to $700, which tells me that $200 per year was a pretty good profit.
We also learned from this that Silas Scarborough filed the suit on September 2, 1858 (so my guess was pretty good). This also says that two years and seven and a half months had passed since then, putting the judgement at April of 1861. The weird thing is, Silas Blackshear submitted his first annual exhibit in April of 1860, and the probate court ruled at that time that he could keep the slaves for his own use. He presented his second annual exhibit in June of 1861, approximately two months after the judgement in the Scarborough suit, but he didn't make mention of the results of this case until his third annual exhibit in 1862.
The next portion reads:
". . . And it appearing that the Said Heirs of the Said Sophama were Eight as stated in Said petition and that the Said Francis Scarbrough have departid this life leaving four children her heirs and Entitled to their mothers Share of said funds Be it therefore adjudged and decreed that one third of said Sum be [deductid] being the amount to which Silas Blackshear is entitled during his lifetime leaving to be divided $2050.00 to wit -
To Silas Scarbrough for his four children Victoria Sarah John & Luella the Sum $256.25
To Samantha Rogers and her husband for her use $265.25
To Tabitha Blackshear $265.25
To Sophama L Blackshear $265.25
To Cburn Q Blackshear $265.25
To Amelia V Blackshear $265.25
To Simon M Blackshear $265.25
To Harrison M Blackshear $265.25
$2050.00 . . . "
I think this is saying that Silas Blackshear was entitled to 1/3 of the property and the $2050 was the remaining 2/3 to be divided up between Sophama's children. I think that Silas was going to have to pay this amount out to each of the heirs. Of course, since most of his children were still minors, he wouldn't have had to pay out the whole amount, but he still might have needed to sell at least one of the slaves in order to do so.
(Hmmm. And I'm wondering if the clerk who wrote this was also the person who recorded the 1860 census for the family, since they have the same silly spelling for Seaborn's name.)
And then:
". . . It is further [ordered] and adjudged that unless the Silas Blackshear shall pay to the Said Silas Scarbrough for the use of the Said children the Said Sum of $256.25 and to the Said John Rogers and his Wife the Said Samantha Rogers for her use the Sum of $256.25 on or before the first day of the next term of this Court with interest [?] from this date then the Said negro Slaves shall be sold and the proceeds dividid [?] It is further adjudged that the cost of this proceeding be charged to the respective parties according to the [?] of their respective portions the Said Silas Blackshear to pay one third of Said Cost and that all other matters stand open until the next term of this Court Except as to Cost for which let execution issue."
So, it looks like I understood things correctly. They sure weren't giving Silas Blackshear much time to get together more than $500, though, were they? (I have found some evidence hinting that one of the slaves might have eventually been sold - although that is something I can't really share until a later post - so maybe it was at this point that it happened.)
And then we have the next to last entry in the minutes:
Even though our case is only on the right hand side of this page, I put the whole, uncropped version up so you could see the date at the top of the left-hand page: Fall Term 1865. Woah. That's a jump of about four and a half years. And it just so happens to be the four and a half years in which the Civil War was taking place. Very interesting . . .
I thought maybe that if Silas Scarborough was serving in the war, he wouldn't be around for court proceedings, so I did some research to see what he was up to during that time - and I got a mixed bag of results. The database of Texas Muster Rolls Index Cards on Ancestry.com shows that he enlisted in the Confederate Army in March of 1862 for a period of one year. His Confederate Pension application states that he served in the army from February of 1863 until he was discharged in June of that same year. Then there is a manuscript of abstracts of the Texas Indian War Pensions, which shows that he listed his service with the Texas Rangers as being from January of 1859 until November of 1863 (this application was apparently rejected).
Whichever dates are correct, none of them pushes past the end of 1863, which means that none of them explain why there would be a lapse until the end of 1865. Was the county just in such disarray because of the war that court business wasn't being conducted? After looking more closely at the probate papers, I noticed that by June of 1861 (four months after Texas seceded from the union) the sheriff seemed to be performing some duties of the clerk of the courts. Maybe many of the court employees enlisted and left town. I also noticed in the probate indexes that, during the 1860's, there was a sharp increase in guardianship cases, many of which had a guardian with a different surname than the children. Maybe the District court was just that backlogged with cases related to the deaths of fathers who were confederate soldiers that everything else was set aside for later.
But the real question is, why was the case still being heard at all? Why was it not closed? Maybe Silas Blackshear never paid the money he owed. He was supposed to have paid by the Fall Term of 1861. Oh, but the last entry did say "all other matters stand open until the next term of this Court." (See why I shouldn't write these posts over a three week time period?!) Boy do I wish I had a copy of the case papers or was able to find this case in the record books. Because now I am just about dying to know just what the other matters were.
Oh! But I didn't tell you what this entry said! (That is the really interesting thing!)
It says, "In this Cause the death of the Plaintiff Silas Blackshear having been suggested to the Court. It is ordered by the Court that Sciri facias issue to his representatives when known and this cause be continued until the next term of this Court."
This says that the plaintiff had died, but it also clearly says that Silas Blackshear is the person who was deceased. Silas Blackshear was actually one of the defendants, but I did come across several other cases in the minutes in which it is very clear that the clerk had gotten the defendent and plaintiff reversed. So I am taking this to mean that Silas Blackshear had died by the Fall Term of 1865. I am wondering who exactly reported this to the court, however, since it also states that his "representative" was at that time unknown. (If you remember from my last post, the probate case jumped in time from 1864 until 1867, with the courts not being able to locate Silas Blackshear, and then finally dismissing the case in 1868.)
I do have some other evidence that corroborates a death for Silas Blackshear by this point in time, but it has to wait until the post where I talk about what happened to the family after 1863.
And then we have the last entry in the minutes:
Here we have the next term of court, and this is what the minutes say: "In this cause the death of the Plaintiffs having been suggested. It is ordered by the Court that this cause abate and that each party Plaintiffs and Defendant
So, the case was being dropped. And why was is being dropped? Because the "Plaintiffs" had died. Notice that it says Plaintiffs with an s. Plural. At least two people. Well, the only actual plaintiff left after the death of Frances Angelina way back in 1860 or so, was Silas Scarborough. Singular. (Did you notice that the s on the end of Defendants was crossed out?) And, he didn't die until after 1917. So this can't be referring to him. It must be another mistake, and be referring to Silas Blackshear and . . . whom? The only other defendants were Samantha, her husband John, and the children. None of the minor children had died by this point (they all have plenty of records in the years to come). John Rogers would live until 1907. That leaves Samantha. Although I have no proof of her death or burial, I do have a marriage record showing that Tabitha Melvina Blackshear had married John Rogers in January of 1865. Which would only have been possible if Samantha were deceased. So, I think it is pretty obvious that the case was dismissed due to the deaths of Silas and Samantha Blackshear.
So, even though we are left with some unknowns (no surprise there!), we did get more information regarding the deaths of both of Amelia Virginia's parents, as well as proof that the John Rogers that Tabitha Melvina married was most likely the same John Rogers that had been married to Samantha. On the surface, those sound like just some genealogical data, but they actually help fill out the family's story.
And one more thing: I came across this photo on the Portal to Texas History and thought it would be interesting to share - this is the Anderson County court house during the years these cases were being heard. (Oh, and also when Silas' property was auctioned off.) So now you can picture where it all went down!
Anderson County Courthouse
(2nd Courthouse - ca. 1860-1885)
And by the way, I am going to try to start putting up the compiled documents on the Blackshear page in a couple of days now. (I still haven't finished editing, compiling, and uploading the documents for W. C. Cheatham yet!) Maybe if I do one or two a week, I'll manage to get everything up by the time I move on to a different branch of the family! The page isn't up yet, but I'll let you know when it is, and there will be a link in the left-hand menu titled Primary Source Documents.
- Therese
Regarding my comment about Samantha's husband being sued as well, I have now delved enough into history to realize that it must have been due to the rule of coverture, in which a married woman, being under the protection of her husband, no longer had a legal identity of her own, meaning that Samantha could not have been sued except alongside her husband as one legal entity.
ReplyDeleteRobin here. Could the word in the lawsuit be. Amended answer herein? That exact phrase is used in the bottom case that is strikes out. Ugg cursive is tough. And mine is bad like that's people's
ReplyDeleteRobin again. Wow that was a big family mess. Then it drug out so long that the civil war impacted it. I still wonder if the slaves were still around by the time the final division? Lot of death too at very young age. Makes us appreciate the century we live in.
ReplyDeleteAgain. Incredible sleuthing!
Ooh, you might be right. It does look like it could be the word "answer" and that makes sense, too. (I guess? I find dealing with the legal stuff the hardest part of this research.) Thanks!
ReplyDelete