Cheesy Grits: Rebecca Thorne, a Free Woman of Color, Goes to Court

In an earlier post, we saw that John Stocks Thorne purchased a slave named Becky and her son Tom and then freed them. Becky lived with John Stocks Thorne as his common-law wife (legal marriage between the races was not permitted then) and bore him at least four more children. I say "at least" because there is a clear question about the maternity of one of the heirs in John Stocks Thorne's will. Let's have a look.

Source: Charleston Wills 1818-1826 Vol 36. p. 1034

A transcription:

"In the name of God Amen. I John S Thorne do make this my last Will and Testament. Item I give to Richard Fordham and his heirs forever all that Lot of Land on East Bay with a range of three story Brick Buildings thereon, also I give to the Said Richard Fordham and his heirs forever all that lot of land in Guignard Street with a two Story Wooden building thereon[.] Item all the rest and residue of my real and personal Estate I give to Richard Fordham to be held in trust by him for John, Thomas, Philip, Rebecca, Caroline and Susan Thorne persons of colour, and their heirs forever to be applied to the Sole us[e] and benefit of them the Said John, Thomas, Philip, Rebecca, Caroline & Susan I nominate & appoint Richard Fordham Executor of this my Last Will and Testament.".... Recorded in Will book "F" 1818-1826 Page 601"

So these persons of colour being provided for are the children of John Stocks and Rebecca Thorne. They are sons John, Thomas, and Philip, and daughters Caroline and Susan. And the person charged with seeing to it that the gains from the estate (chiefly bank stocks) were distributed amongst the heirs was the executor, one Richard Fordham.

The wild card in this mix and the reason John Stocks Thorne's common-law wife Rebecca went to court is the middle Rebecca named in the will. Just who was she?

Why do I refer to her as a "wild card"? It turns out that in 1848, widow Rebecca Thorne filed suit against Richard Fordham, the executor of her late husband's estate, claiming that she was the "Rebecca" named in the will and that Fordham had not paid her the share she was entitled to according to the terms of the will.

As it turned out, the Rebecca named in the will was apparently John Stocks Thorne's daughter by another woman whose name was Judy, and that the daughter Rebecca may even have still been a slave when John Stocks Thorne died. (Interestingly enough, being a slave didn't impair her right to receive income as an heir.)

Among other evidence, executor Richard Fordham was able to produce receipts to show the court that the widow Rebecca Thorne had accepted and acknowledged regular disbursements from him (as executor) according to the terms of the will and that those receipts listed John, Thomas, Philip, Rebecca, Caroline and Susan, explicitly identifying them as the children of John Stocks Thorne.

The judges found the receipts to be strong evidence against Rebecca's claim. They further noted that the Rebecca in the will was described as a "person of color" and that "[i]t is not according to the use of language in this region to speak of one altogether black as a person of color...." And John Stocks Thorne's wife was indeed "altogether black."*

It may be of interest to learn what was in John Stocks Thorne's estate. Here is a snapshot of the major financial paper that was inventoried as part of the valuation of his estate after he died:

Snapshot of John Stocks Thorne's stockholdings at the time of his death.
Source: Charleston Probate Court Estate Inventories: 1824-1834

The inventory was taken on August 27, 1824, just over two weeks after his death and shows that most of his wealth that wasn't in real estate was tied up in investments in banks and insurance companies. (Thorne died at the relatively young age of 37, by the way. The Charleston Death Records note that the cause of his death was "jaundice," which was a more general term then than now.) There were several other listings in the estate inventory, but I'll return to them later in another post.

Being a Liberal Arts major, I'm not sure that I trust my calculations of the value of these instruments in today's dollars. An online calculator suggests that $14, 668.45 in 1824 dollars would equal almost $360,000 in today's dollars. It seems low to me, but, as I said, I'm a words guy, not a numbers guy.

In any event, Rebecca Thorne lost her case. Nevertheless, as a free woman and notwithstanding the color of her skin, she was entitled to her day in court, complete with legal representation. And she got it.

The citation is Thorne v. Fordham 4 Rich. Eq. 222.

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*Either the court was indulging in a bit of fiction here or the regional usage evolved very quickly: by 1861, for example, Rebecca Thorne was identified in the Charleston City census as a "Free Person of Color", the same as her mixed race sons, John and Philip.

NB: I have yet to track down the executor of Thorne's estate, Richard Fordham. If you look at the the expanded version of the photo of Thorne's headstone at St. Michael's, you'll see that it was Fordham who had the stone put up and may have even written the epitaph. But otherwise, I know nothing about him. So many things to look up when next in Charleston!