The Superior Court directs the Probate Court to issue a writ summoning John and Bathsheba to render an inventory, etc., “according to law,” and if they do not appear, then the Court of Probate shall grant letters of administration to James, Jr., “or some other person,” “to the end that a just division be made.”
John and Bathsheba not complying with a demand so contrary to the directions given them by their father, James, Jr., is appointed executor, to complete the settlement, viz.: the division of the movable estate. He now presents an inventory, which inventory is dated as having been taken in 1788; just after the death of James Rogers. The movables, of which he claims that John Rogers should render an account, figure at £100 value. Although the original inventory presented mentions an Indian and his negro wife and a mulatto man, each having about three years to serve, also a negro woman “deaf and dumb,” no mention is made of these or of any other slaves by the new executor, and no complaint is made regarding the fact that they and their children have been freed by the former executor.
While this is going on, John and Bathsheba appear in court in regard to Hager, a former slave of John Rogers (the negro wife mentioned in the inventory), who has lost the written discharge from bondage that was given to her years before by the executors. John and Bathsheba testify that, shortly before his decease, their father agreed with William Wright to sell him his negro slave, Hager, for a certain term of service on the part of William Wright, and at the time of this agreement gave her to him for his wife, providing for the couple “a wedding dinner.” They also say that long before this agreement with William Wright, their father and mother had promised Hager her freedom at the age of thirty-six years.
“William Wright having been banished before his term of service had expired, we, being intrusted by our deceased father with his whole estate, seeing the support of the woman and her children was more than her service, gave her a written discharge, upon condition she should support her younger children” (her eldest son to be free at the age of twenty-one), “which said writing she hath lost.” She is herewith again discharged, with all her children except the above, “by these presents.”
The next move by James, Jr., is to attach property belonging to the late executor to the amount of the value of the aforesaid “moveables.” Thus, with no appeal to court on the part of any of the children of James Rogers, and with no breach of trust on the part of John and Bathsheba, the residue of the estate passes fully into the hands of the new executor, and is clearly minus any of the “negroes” which the irregular claimants were prepared to demand.
By this time, Samuel Beebe sees that the young lawyer contemplates nothing short of preventing every irregular claim which he may venture to make. Samuel Beebe is no more in need of servants, lands or goods than are the other heirs, having a good estate from his own father and another by gifts to his wife from her father. He is now living at Plumb Island, and in so showy a way that he is called “King Beebe.”—(Caulkins.) It is apparently, on his part, a game played mainly for the zest of it; as Samuel Beebe might sail a boat of his own against one of Captain James or that at Mamacock. But alas! a young wife and mother is to become a victim of this game.
For about four years now, a young negro woman named Joan, who was born of a slave of James Rogers, Sr., has been the wife of a free colored man named John Jackson, a servant of John Rogers, living in a house on the Mamacock farm. Joan has, by Jackson, one child, a son, about two years old, and is expecting another. While yet a child, Joan was given by the widow of James Rogers to Elizabeth Beebe, in payment of the legacy of £10, which latter was to be paid to said Elizabeth Beebe (according to the terms of the will), by said widow, “with consent of my son John.” Said executor not seeing fit to transfer Joan to a man who kept slaves in life bondage, and not doubting that the arrangements for settlement of the estate according to the will and codicil would fully sustain him in not allowing this claim of Samuel Beebe by the unwarranted and unsanctioned act of his mother, freed Joan in due course of time, as he did the rest of the young slaves.
1710.
About October 1, 1710, Samuel Beebe, in some manner not indicated by the court records, succeeds in securing Joan Jackson and her boy and detaining them at Plumb Island.
Unfortunately, and apparently very carelessly (as shown in Chapter IV.), the committee, in their decision of 1693, instead of using the wording of the will in regard to the payment of the £10 by the widow, viz.: “with consent of my son John,” rendered it that the £10 be paid to Elizabeth “by John and Bathsheba, when the widow so order.”