Hezekiah Mosby asks that he be granted a divorce from his wife Betsy. He confides that he “has had cause often to suspect that she was not only, not faithful to the marriage bed, but moreover, that she bestowed her favours on men of a different colour from herself.” Mosby recounts that “when his wife was about to be delivered of a child he sent for several highly respectable ladies of the neighbourhood that they might see & judge when the child was brought into the world, before any accident could happen to it.” He states that they have given “affidavits to the fact of the childs being one of colour.” The petitioner therefore prays “that he may be divorced from his wife Betsy aforesaid, and, (as far as any earthly Tribunal can effect it) restored to that condition which he occupied before marriage.”
Result: Bill drawn.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
