Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 edition. Excerpt: ... the itinerancy for many years, generally in the slaveholding portions of her territory. He was taken ill and died while preacher in charge of Zion Circuit, Cecil Co., Md. The date of his death, as may be learned from our Annual Conference minutes, was August 6, 1852. He resided, as we learn, at the time of his death, about one and a half miles from the Pennsylvania line, and from the village known as the Brick Meeting House, part of which little village is in Chester Co., Pa., and part in Cecil Co., Md. After his death a will, supposed to have been written in his sickness, and which was in his own handwriting, was found. In this will, after directing the disposal of his other effects, he speaks of seven slaves, slaves for life, who, by that last will and testament, are given their liberty. These slaves were midway down the Peninsula in Maryland, and were there hired out to various persons. The will was not signed by the deceased, and was not attested by witnesses. To establish its validity it was necessary to prove the handwriting of the deceased minister. Fortunately, Rev. Dr. Boone, a member of the Conference, now in Philadelphia, and who acted as his executor, succeeded in doing this through the agency of Rev. A. Manship, agent of the Tract Society of our Conference, and another individual. It appears that the deceased had given Brother Manship his first license to exhort some ten or twelve years before his death, and Brother Manship had retained that license, and besides that scrap of writing, had seen and was familiar with the handwriting of the deceased. Upon thus establishing the will, the intention of the deceased was thus carried out, and the slaves, after about one year from the time of his death, were permitted for the first...
