Alexandria Gazette – October 17, 1837
CIRCUIT COURT. – The Circuit Court of
the United States for this County terminated its October term on
Saturday last, after a session of two weeks. The civil business of
the docket was all gone through, and nothing is now to be done except
entering up judgments on forthcoming bonds, for which purpose the
Court will meet on the 31st of this month. There was less
criminal matter before the Court than usual. Among the cases were
the following:--
Dorcas Allen—slave--murder--acquitted
on the ground of insanity. An account of this trial has before
appeared.
Thomas Morris—free negro—Larceny,
value six dollars—convicted and sentenced to Penitentiary of D.C.
For two years.
Benjamin Morgan—white—Larceny,
value seven dollars--(third conviction)--sentenced to Penitentiary
two years.
James Davis—white—Larceny, value
$3.50—convicted and sentenced to common jail of the county for one
month and to pay a fine of one dollar.
Joseph Ferrall—free negro—This man
was convicted at the last term of the Court of forging a certificate
of freedom purporting to have been issued by the County Court of
Prince William, with a certificate of the clerk under the Seal of the
Court, to the signature of the presiding justice. The Seal (a pair
of scales, with a tobacco leaf below them, and the words “Prince
William County” in the margin) was tolerably well executed, but the
name of the presiding judge, Mr. Ewell, was spelled “Uile.” The
handwriting was stiff and labored, but perfectly distinct. Ferrall
was convicted and sentenced to four years in the Penitentiary.
At the present term of the Court, the
Grand Jury found another indictment against him for forging a similar
instrument of the same purport. The seal was somewhat better
executed than the last, but the name of Mr. Ewell was still spelled
“Uile.” A writ of Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum directed to the
Warden of the Penitentiary was prayed for by the District Attorney
and awarded by the Court and by virtue of it, Ferrall was brought to
the bar and tried for the offence charged upon him. The forgery was
clearly proved by the testimony of a slave belonging to a gentleman
of this place, to whom the prisoner had given the paper in question
for the consideration of four dollars, to enable him to pass as a
free man. The slave ran away and was apprehended during the recess
of the Court. The previous conviction was in a case of similar
circumstances, but the slave, belonging to the same gentleman, and
who had also run away, was taken before the last term of the Court.
Ferrall's handwriting was, moreover, in the present case proven by
the oath of a gentleman residing in town who had seen him write and
who swore that the writing of the forged instrument was in his belief
the prisoner's.
Convicted and sentenced to the
Penitentiary for three years, to commence running after the
expiration of the four years for which he was sentenced at the last
court. It may not be out of place to remark that the prisoner had
been for many years acting as a preacher, and the keeper of a school
in the town of Alexandria for the instruction of colored children.
The grand jury made a presentment of
the Court House of this county as unsafe and unfit for the purposes
intended for, and appointed a committee, under the approbation of the
Court, to wait on the execution in relation to it.
The grand jury presented Joseph Johnson
and other proprietors of the Steamboat Joseph Johnson, for not
keeping in or attached to said boat one or more small boats for the
purpose of saving the lives and property of passengers in said boat
should any accident happen to her.
Among the civil cases decided, the only
one of much general importance to the mercantile interest was “That
a newspaper advertisement of prime bacon for sale, is not a warranty
of the soundness of the article, where the purchaser had a full
opportunity for inspecting and did actually inspect a part, and
although he paid a full price for it.”
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