PAR #: 11684706
Location: Petersburg City , VA • Year: 1847

Abstract: Free women of color Nancy Munford, Elizabeth Armstead, and Catharine Walden--the family of the late Thomas Walden--recount how Walden, a free man of color, was murdered by a man named Lee, who was captured, charged, tried, convicted, and sent to the penitentiary. The three women--Nancy, the mother, and her two daughters--ask that they receive Walden's property, including a house and lot in Blanford, a piece of land in Dinwiddie County, and three hundred dollars. They cannot presently receive the property because Nancy and Thomas, though they had lived together for many years, had never formally married. Without the intervention of the General Assembly the property would revert to the state, leaving them "in a great Measure Destitute."