Georgiana Heriot, through her next friend William Whaley, asks that the court sanction an agreement between her and Elias Horlbeck, her trustee. In 1860 Georgiana and her husband Henry approached Horlbeck with a plan to sell several slaves bequeathed to her in 1838. Knowing that "the saleable value of negroes in the west was greater than" in South Carolina, the Heriots intended to sell the slaves in New Orleans; however, before he departed for New Orleans with the slaves, Henry executed a statement in which he exonerated “Dr. E. Horlbeck and his Estate from all liabilities in relation to the Trust Estate.” Upon arriving in New Orleans, the said slaves contracted measles, and Heriot "became alarmed and removed them to Canton Mississippi." While in Mississippi, one John Kyle approached Henry and offered to buy the slaves for $10,000, "a sum greatly below the market value." Kyle signed promissory notes, agreeing to pay the $10,000 and interest in five years, but he has failed to make the payments. Horlbeck's agent, sent to Mississippi to collect said debt, failed to secure the obligation, even though Kyle was "fully able to pay the whole." Horlbeck has since "proposed to assume the said debt” if the petitioner surrenders Kyle’s promissory notes to him. The petitioner seeks the court's approval to proceed if said agreement is deemed beneficial for her minor heirs.
Result: Settled.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
