John Pratt Hungerford seeks compensation for his twenty-five-year-old slave named Loney who died from frostbite contracted while in jail "on suspicion of feloniously and burglariously breaking and entering the storehouse of Alexander Henderson ... and stealing from thence a trunk with money to the value of ten Pounds Current money of Virginia." Hungerford charges that his said slave was committed to jail in February 1785 and was retained there over a month due to his court date being continued "upon account of the inclemency of the weather." When Hungerford went to the jail to take Loney to court for his trial, "he found his said Slave frostbiten in so violent degree whilst he was in Gaol as to be in great danger of loosing his Life." He reports that Loney was "acquitted and discharged & your Petitioner immediately carried him home and used every means for his recovery but to no purpose the said Negro Loney dying soon after of the Injury he received from the frost whilst he was in Gaol." Averring that said slave was "in perfect health & not in the least affected with frost when he was apprehended and that he was frost bitten during his confinement in Gaol," the petitioner prays that "an Allowance for his said Slave adequate to his Value." Hungerford believes “the Court would have valued him at 100 pounds at least he being not more than 25 years of Age & a very well made likely fellow.”
Result: Rejected.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
