Several related petitions reveal that in 1848, Albert Wray had filed divorce from his wife, Susan Mary Wray on grounds of adultery with one C. G. M. Prime, a portrait painter and physician. Susan Mary Wray had countercharged that her husband had treated her cruelly and had ongoing illicit intercourse with his slaves, and specifically with a seamstress named Mary who had given birth to several mulatto children. In this answer and cross bill, Albert G. Wray denies that he treated his wife Susan "with a spirit of unkindness harshness cruelty and neglect;" he denies that he had illicit sexual relations with any of his slaves; and he denies encouraging C. G. M. Prince to seduce his wife so that he (Wray) could file a petition for divorce. He defends himself against charges of illicit intercourse with the slave Mary by stating that "There is one of the children of the said Mary about two years old who is the reputed child of a bright mulattoe slave called John." Whether her other children are mulattos, he explains, is difficult to know, but he is sure about one thing: none of them are his.
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Repository: Montgomery County Courthouse, Montgomery, Alabama
