Description
[Horse Theft, Law, Legal Proceeding, Litchfield, Connecticut 1864] Writ of Attachment for Taking Two Sorrel Mares by Force and Two Depositions in Support of the Defendant, manuscript legal documents, ink on paper, four pages of legal-size paper still attached on one sheet, with pencil annotations on the back. Letter folds. Fine condition.
Sturges Goodsell versus Liverius Dunning, an order signed by George Lockwood, Deputy Sheriff of Litchfield County, Connecticut, ordering the Sheriff of Litchfield County “to attach to the value of one hundred dollars the goods or Estate of Liverius Dunning of said New Milford and him summon to appear before William Roberts, Justice of the Peace for Litchfield County” on June 11, 1864. Dunning was summoned to answer a complaint of “trespass whereupon the Plaintiff declares and says that the Defendant on or about the 20th day of May 1864 at said New Milford with force and arms seized took and led or drove away a certain sorrel mare the property of the plaintiff and of the value of fifty dollars to divers places to the Plaintiff unknown.” Sturges further claimed the sorrel mare was injured “much lamed” because Dunning drove the horse over “rough places” causing her to be injured. Goodsell further alleges Dunning took a second sorrel mare, which prevented him from using the horse to farm. Goodsell paid a $5.00 bond to prosecute the case against Dunning on June 3, 1864. John J. Turril, Justice of the Peace for Litchfield County attaches “all the right of title and interest of the within named defendant in and to all the corn now growing on the land of the named defendant.”
[Depositions in Support of Defandant Dunning, Danbury, Connecticut September 11, 1865] Manuscript, 4 pages still attached on one sheet, ink on paper, legal-size. A pair of depositions by Henry Starr and Francis McKay in defense of Liverius Dunning, made because they lived more than twenty miles from Litchfield where the trial was held. Henry Starr of Danbury attests he sold a sorrel mare for Francis McKay that was very lame, a horse McKay said “was one he placed no value on and turned her out in a Buckwheat Lot to die.” McKay asked Starr to sell the horse for whatever he could get. Starr asked five dollars and got a counteroffer of three dollars. Starr sold her to Rodgers for four dollars. Francis Mckay affirms in his own deposition that he “… did not consider her worth anything I turned her out to die paying no attention to her whatsoever…”. Depositions written by and certified by Lewis Boughtin, Notary for the State of Connecticut, and signed by Starr and McKay.
The Ohio Carriage MFG Co 1904 Annual Catalogue No 30
