Thomas Rockhold requests permission to emancipate a slave family and legislative approval for them to remain in the state. He reports that he agreed in 1828 to manumit Emley after her husband, free man of color named Edward Cook, paid him $250 as her purchase price. Noting that Emley now has two children, Rockhold seeks permission to present an emancipation petition to the county court to "cause the said Emley and said two Children Thomas & William to be emancipated"; he also asks that he not be "Bound for them to leave the state" and he avows that they are "honest and industrious and respectable." Rockhold further represents that "he is the owner of severel slaves that he is desirous should have ther freedom and that his will has been long since that his slaves should be free at his Decease."
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
