Mar 10, 2011 - Sale 2239

Sale 2239 - Lot 21

Price Realized: $ 660
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
WILL FOR A MAN OF COLOR (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) MANUSCRIPT WILL. In the Name of God Amen, I Charles Townsend, Coloured Man of the Town of Flushing. . ." Bi-folium, folded to form four pages, written on one page and docketed on the reverse; pages neatly split at the horizontal fold; a couple of stains; remnants of the original seals; signed by Townsend with an "X". Flushing, New York, 1845

Additional Details

"I Charles Townsend, coloured man of the town of Flushing, being weak in body, but of sound mind, and memory. . ." Leaves his wife all of his property, his house its contents and the land on which it stands "to be managed and disposed of for her own proper use." The Married Woman's Property Act did not go into effect in New York until 1848. Thus Townsend's will leaving all property to his widow was a challenge to the old law that would have automatically passed property down to a male heir.