Mary Coachman Smith Allston, the widow of Benjamin Allston and the daughter of the late Elizabeth Smith, asks the court to sanction the sale of certain slaves, in whom she has a life interest. She reports that her mother's 1813 will bequeathed "all the residue of her estate in trust for the sole and separate use of your Oratrix during her natural life" and that said residue "consisted principally of negroes," which now number forty-seven. Mary, who is childless, further reveals that, upon her death, said slaves would vest in her late sister's children. Noting that her husband died in 1847, the petitioner submits that "her negroes were in the possession of her husband and mixed with his negroes whom he has bequeathed" to his children and that they have hired "her said negroes" for the past two years. Mary cites that her husband's children "decline now to continue the contract of hiring, but consent to purchase your Oratrix's negroes who are incorporated, by long habits and by domestic association with their people." She prays that "Alexander Robertson may be authorized to sell the said negro slaves and to invest the purchase money to the uses of the will of your Oratrix's mother."
Result: Dismissed.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
