Paper to free Lucy: Martha Nail

Martha Nail conditionally freed enslaved Lucy and her unnamed descendants, excluded Lucy from her estate, and asked her son-in-law to secure their freedom.

Kind of paper

Paper freeing a person

Made by

Martha x Nial (printed MARTHA x NIAL), widow of Robert Nail late of Orange County, N.C.

Dated

1797

Proved

Date not given

In the court minutes

• Administration of an estate, 1 March 1804
• Suit, May 1804 term
• Administration of an estate, May 1804 term
• Estate account, May 1804 term

Family named

Robert Nail (widow of; late of Orange County, N.C.); Daniel Cloud (son-in-law)

Witnesses

Jonathan Lindly; Thomas Lindly

Enslaved people named

• Lucy (to be freed later)

Enslaved people not named

Her issue

In the records of enslaved people

• Lucy (this paper)

Reading note: Month unclear. Body spells Nail; signature MARTHA x NIAL; signed line Martha x Nial; indexed NEIL. Freedom conditional on law allowing it.

Names and places are given as the abstract writes them, spelling and all. This record has not been checked against the will book.

Where to find it

• The original is in the State Archives of North Carolina; it was never recorded in the Orange County will books.
• Abstract: Ruth Herndon Shields, Abstracts of Wills Recorded 1752 through 1800 in Orange County, North Carolina, Will Books A, B and C (Davie Poplar Chapter NSDAR, revised edition 1966), page 2.
• Also listed in Mark Chilton, “Wills Recorded in Orange County, NC 1756–1893” (Wandering through the NC Piedmont, 2019), an index of the will books with references to the court minutes.