INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CLAIBORNE COUNTY SHERIFF TO SUMMON "FIFTY GOOD AND TRUE MEN SLAVE-HOLDERS AND HOUSEHOLDERS" TO CONSIDER "IN SPECIAL VENIRE OF FIFTY" THE CASE OF "EVERETT A SLAVE." WITH THE SHERIFF'S LIST OF FIFTY SUCH MEN WHOM HE SO SUMMONED. HONORABLE STANHOPE POSEY, JUDGE OF THE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT, PRESIDING.
Claiborne County MS: 1857 [October 7]. 4to. [4] pp, entirely in ink manuscript. Signed with a flourish by the Clerk, Dan McDougall, and the Deputy Sheriff, G.R. Girault.
Daniel McDougall [1813-1863], born in Schenectady, migrated to Port Gibson, Claiborne County. He was appointed Clerk of the Claiborne County Circuit Court in 1853 and served as such until his death. Colonel George Rogers Girault [c.1815-1857], also of Port Gibson, was a farmer owning 11 slaves as of 1850, and was also a County Deputy Sheriff. He died two months after this writ was issued.
Stanhope Posey [c.1813-1859], full name John Stanhope Posey, a Wilkinson County lawyer, owned 38 slaves as of the 1850 census. He was elected District Attorney of the Third District of Mississippi in 1839, and a Judge of the First Judicial District Circuit Court in 1845. We don't know who "Everett a Slave" was, or what happened to him. We can guess that a jury of slaveholders was not sympathetic to him. Item #37204
Price: $750.00