On 8 February 1851, Alfred M. Coldwell and his wife Susan A. Coldwell purchased a "Certain Negro Woman" named Mariah, a cook, age about forty-five, for seven hundred dollars. Coldwell paid Elbert H. Sawyer, Mariah's owner, partly in cash and partly with a $370 note co-signed by his wife. The note was due on the first of January 1852. When it went unpaid Sawyer brought suit. Although Alfred was insolvent, Alfred's wife Susan possessed a substantial amount of property. Sawyer argued that she should be held accountable. The wife entered a plea of dismissal on the grounds that even if the statements were true they did not constitute grounds for a suit. She said that her estate was separate from her husband's and making her responsible for his debts would be to put "the woman upon a platform of Equality and joint responsibility with the husband." The judge agreed, but when Alfred Coldwell died Sawyer instituted another suit for repayment, this one against the widow.
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Repository: Shelby County Archives, Columbiana, Alabama
