Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/164



did go to California in the spring of the year 1849 and worked in the Gold mines for said Respondent under the control and discretion of Mark Ford, aforesaid, until the spring of 1850, when he returned to the house of Respondent in Oregon Territory. That during the time your petitioner was in California aforesaid, he was informed by said Mark Ford that he your petitioner had dug and placed in his (Mark Ford's) for Respondent, about the sum of Nine Hundred Dollars in Gold dust.

That when your petitioner returned in the spring of 1850 as aforesaid Respondent refused to liberate the said Jenny or Mary Jane, Roxanna and James, children of your petitioner and his wife Polly, but permitted your petitioner and his wife and one infant child of your petitioner to leave the service of said Respondent.

That your petitioner did not at that or any other time make an agreement with said Respondent or any one for him, by which said Respondent was to keep said minor children and be entitled to their services until they became of age or for any period of time, but on the contrary claimed that they should be then liberated and delivered to your petitioner, and has ever since sought to obtain the custody and control of said children.

Your petitioner further ansers [sic] and says that Respondent has no legal or equitable right to the service or control of said minor children. That your petitioner dees not know whether said Respondent has ever been advised to take your petitioner and his family back to Missouri and sell them into slavery or not, but he does know and states the fact to be that Respondent has often threatened so to do, for the purpose of deterring your petitioner from seeking to obtain the custody and control of said children as your petitioner believes.

That your petitioner is as well able in a pecuniary point of view to take care of said and raise said children as Respondent, and denies that he is unfit by reason of his poverty and ignorance to have the care and custody of his own children, but on the contrary avers that his character for honesty, society and industry is good, and this he prays may be inquired of by the Court.

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Robin X Holmes