Lee v Read, 1864

 

FamilySearch. Barren County, KY. 1864.

Another court case involving the land purchased in trust by Rice C. Ballard in 1847 for his sister, my 4th-great-grandmother, Emily A. H. Read, was filed in Barren County Court in 1864 by Elizabeth Lee. Her lawsuit was filed against Emily, her husband William F. Read, her son Guilford D. Read (my 3rd-great-grandfather), and the children of Rice C. Ballard. According to the complaint, on 6 January 1860 Emily and William agreed to pay Elizabeth $65 for the hire of a slave girl named Mary. She says they had only paid $10 of the $65 owed by April 1861. She claimed they had agreed to pay another $60 by 25 December 1861 for Mary's continued hire. Lee tried to attach the lands conveyed by Ballard in 1847 to Emily and children in order to settle the debts. As Ballard had died in 1860, she named his children - Ellen, Annie and Charlotte - as defendants in the case and his successors in the land maintained by the Reads.

Lee died after the case was filed, and the administrator of the estate, James Parrish, petitioned to the court to keep the case in place. Parrish claimed G. D. Read had been avoiding service of process and Emily refused to answer the complaint. G. D. Read would later answer, and claimed he had been out of the county while serving in the Confederate Army. In March 1865, the court ruled that the case could be revived and continued against the Reads.

The promissory note signed by Emily and G. D. Read was submitted as evidence in the case (see below).

It is not clear from the case file how the action was ultimately settled. The Reads continued to own the land, which passed from Emily to her children after her death in 1884. James W. Read and his wife Ann bought out the surviving siblings and continued to own the property until they conveyed it in 1890.