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Peggy Findly vs. John Findley, Petition for Divorce, 12 August 1814, Garrard County Circuit Court #193, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Public Records Division. [Box 7, Bundle 26, Suit 193, Order Book & Pg #5-79.]
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Mr. John Findly Take Notice that I Shall attend at the House of Arabia Brown Jr. in Garrard County on Friday the 19th Inst for the purpose of Taking the deposition of ??? Spratt and Others to be Read as Evidence in the Suit in Chancery now ??? and undetermined? in the Garrard Circuit Court where in I am Complainant and you are Defendant.
Peggy Findly
Aug 12th 1814
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To the Honbl the Judges of the Garrard Circuit Court in Chancery sitting Your Oratrix Peggy Findly humbly complaining would beg leave to represent unto Your Honor that in the year 1805 she married a certain John Findley whom she makes Defendant hereto. They had not lived one week together before she discovered from his Temper and the disrespectfullness of his treatment, that she had been completely cheated in her prospects and future hopes and that instead of a husband kind and affectionate, she had bound herself by the most tender and sacred ties to a Master most ferocious inhuman & Tyrannical.
But feeling disposed to conceal the misery of her unfortunate situation, and hoping to mitigate in some degree the barbarity of her Husband and the consequent unhappiness of her married life and she uniformly conducted herself toward her Husband as affectionality as prudently and with as much forbearance as her situation could possibly enable her.
She unhesitatingly avers that if so long as she lived with Deft she made him an industrious, accomodating and prudent Wife. But unfortunately she was bound to a man who was incapable of appreciating such Deportment and who never in one solitary instance failed to return for kindness, abuse most unkind and for her affection and caresses threats batteries and every species of inhumanity and Barbarity that his ingenuity could contrive.
She states that she never enjoyed one peaceful and happy moment with the Deft from the first
week of their marriage until their separation which having become unavoidable took place in
1809 or 10.
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She lived with her Husband as long as the safety of her life would permit. When after bearing with accumulated acts of barbarity incredible, and which would disgrace the most savage of the savage she was constrained from a certain apprehension of the danger of her Life - to leave her Husband
And now for the security and repose of her remaining years (already burthensome) to apply to your Honours for a dissolution of the Marriage Bond yet subsisting between herself and Deft.
She feels constrained from a sense of truth and her own justification to disclose to the World the
intolerable Barbarity of the most tyranical and unfeeling Husband that is permitted to breathe in
Peace & Liberty the Vital Air. Her Husband not only ??? on her devoted neck the Yoke of
Servitude not only menaced, and abused her but times almost innumerable, beat her
unmercifully, without provocation and attempted to murder her. He would frequently (during
their personal union) compel her to make fires do errnads & perform all the menial duties and
drudgery of the House & field. The Sun Scarcely ever set, without witnessing abuseful
ungentlemanly and unprovoked, threats & reproaches. Your oratrix scarcely ever while she lived
with Dft ??? in peace or reposed in safety. Her Husband has (too often to be repeated or
believed) beat her with his fists and sticks and stones, so violently and cruelly that it was often
doubtful whether she would survive. He frequently attempted to kill her, with knives and pistols
& when she was alone and entirely defenseless
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He has often went to bed with butcher knives and loaded pistols under his Head threatening and intending to murder her before morning. These attempts on her Life were so frequently made, with a determination to execute them that she was often morally certain of being killed and knows, not now, to who to attribute her safty, but to the invisable but Omnipotent Hand of a Superintending Providence.
Once particularly Deft beat & maimed her, so ??? and scarrified and gouged her face so inhumanly, that for fear she would be seen by the neighbors, he compelled her to ?? out in the Corn field for nine or ten Day, til her Eyes were measurable restored to their vision and her face to a sound appearance. She now has scars on her that will live with her to the Grave, which she received from the Batteries of the Deft. Once, in Tennessee, whither he had taken her, to aggravate and render her situation more wretched, being destitute of Freinds or Acquaintances, he was forced by poverty, to agree to return to Kentucky among your Oratrix's Friends and having squandered all his property even his only horse, he compelled your Oratrix then in an advanced state of pregnancy, to walk every foot of the Road, and would frequently curse her and command her, then almost exhausted, to walk faster.
Your Oratrix deems it unnecessary, further to furrow? up her mind by a painful recital of the
injuries she has received from her unmerciful and unfortunate Husband. A detail of even the one
hundreth part would make this Bill unnecessarily voluminous.
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She deems it enough to declare that her attachment to the Deft once ardent & sincere has become alienated by reiterated abuse. That whilst she lived with him he was without intermission or relaxation, arbitrary abuseful and Barbarous. That the felicity of a judicious matrimony, were supplyed by the poison of an adder, which marred all her Hapiness and made her Life oppressive, and that if she had have lived with Husband longer she is convinced she would ??? have been murdered.
Your Oratrix would further represent that Deft is now as she is informed in the Indianna Territory in the Service of the United States, and she apprehends that as soon as the period of his Service expires he will return to the neighborhood in which she lives and divest [her] of the earnings of her Labor. She feels convinced that he is constitutionally inhuman and that he never can be so far reclaimed, as to possess one agreeable or honourable trait of the Husband and that she never can live with him in peace or Safety.
But now so it may it please your Honours the Deft continuing?? In tender, consideration whereof and in as much as your Oratrix is remindless at Common Law she pray the Interposition of your Honours Court of Chancery.
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The Deposition of Sally Green of lawful age taken at the House of Arabia Brown [looks like agreeably or agreeably] to Notice on the 19th day of August 1814--to be read as Evidence in a suit in Chancery now pending in the Garrard Circt Court Wherein Peggy Finaly is Complainant and John Finaly is Deft. The Deft being fir [first] duly sworn --Deposeth Sayeth--
That she lived a near neighbor to Deft Findley while he & the Complainant lived together as man
& wife near the Deft's Fa [farm] in Garrard County--she frequently knew of his beating &
abusing his wife (the Compt) very outrageously & inhumanly--as she thinks without provocation--and she has good reason to believe without any Doubt that this Deportment of Deft Findly was
never such as ought to mark the Conduct of a Husband to a kind, good & affectionate wife--But
was on the Contrary invariably abusive, and as disagreeable as he could make it & She knows
th[at] the Compt could not have been any other than a good industrious, economical Wife--and
indeed, in so far as her observation would enable her to judge, she thinks the Compt was more
prudent and affectionate than women could generally be in her situation. She further states that
she lived with Complt & Deft about a month shortly before they separated--and she does not feel
able or despose To enumerate & describe all the acts of Violence & inhumanity which Deft
committed on Complt within her hearing and observation. She has seen him take his Wife the
Complt by the Hair and cast her on the Ground with [??]at
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Violence as if he intended to kill her She has seen him beat her outrageously without any other provocation than his diabolical disposition. She believes that he has more than once attempted her Life--and that he more than Once snapped a loaded gun at her. In [??] she feels satisfied that from his natural bad temper combined with habitual intoxication, he had become so furious and devilish, that the life of the Compt was daily in danger. He seemed Disposed to do nothing good. He never made any effort to provide her the sustentation of his Family and made his wife do all the drudgery in and out of the most degraded menial [??scrs an]. In [?fine] She thinks it impossible that The general conduct of any husband ever was or ever could be More aggravating, more oppressive and more inhumanly abuseful than the invariable conduct of the Deft to the Compt while she lived with him.
And on the Contrary she does not believe that any woman could behave with more prudence & forbearance than the Compt. did under all the accumulated abuse of her Husband. She does not believe it possible for any woman to have lived with him in peace & safety longer than the Compt did.
Indeed she knows she would not have submitted to his abuse near as long as the Compt died. She
has been informed & believes that the Deft. has been living about three years in the Indianna
Territory--and she did hear he had enlisted in the Regular Army--where he now is, what
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he is doing or whether he is even doing any thing but mischief she knows not.
And lastly she states that the Compt has been living with her Father Arabia Brown in Garrard Cty with whom she now lives, about four or five years.
?And further Sayeth not
Sally Green
Garrard County Sct
The foregoing deposition was subscribed & sworn to before me on this 19th Day of August 1814
at the House of Arabia Brown in Garrard County--Given under my hand this Day aforesd.
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??/that Deft may be compelled to on his Corporal oath all the?? In the Bill. And she further ??? that the premises considered?, your??? will grant her a Divorce from the ???D? a Dissolution/ of the Bonds now subsisting, forever.
?lastly? Your Honours??
For the equity of her Case & she will ????
Robertson Counsel for Complt
Garrard Court, S?t
This Day the Cour ??the???
& made oath that what she has stated in the foregoing Bill from her own knowledge is true, and that what she may have stated from the Information of others she believes to be true--Given under my hand & seal this ?16? Day of Feb., 1814
Tyree Harris ?Jr?
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