Lewis Prettyman seeks permission to export and sell his eighteen-year-old term slave Maria. Prettyman charges that Maria set fire to a room in his house while the family slept; fortunately, he says, he had not fallen asleep and "discovered the fire by the smoke coming into the room in which he lay." He further notes that, had he discovered it five minutes later, it would "have been impossible for him to extinguish it." As a result, Prettyman forced Maria to sleep in the same room with him and his wife. The petitioner discloses that Maria's former owner, Samuel Patterson, told him that she had attempted to poison him and "if he had know her true character," Prettyman admitted, he would never have bought her. In addition, Prettyman states that "Maria has run away from your petitioner three times; and twice within the last three weeks."
Result: Granted.
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Repository: Delaware State Archives, Dover, Delaware
