Lawrence Scarborough gives land on "Loutre" and slave Molly to wife Sarah Scarborough: 1829
Claiborne & Union Parish Louisiana

Submitted for the Union Parish Louisiana USGenWeb Archives by T. D. Hudson, 8/2004


************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************
 

=================================================================================
Lawrence Scarborough gives slave Molly to wife Sarah Scarborough, 15 Oct 1829
Union Parish Civil Suit #124D
Filed in Union Parish Louisiana on 7 Dec 1841
==================================================================================

Lawrence Scarborough was born in 1767 in Edgecombe County North Carolina, son of 
Major James Scarborough who fought in the Battle of Kings Mountain during th eAmerican 
Revolution. Lawrence was a Baptist minister and farmer. He lived in Burke & Bulloch 
Counties, Georgia in the 1790s and early 1800s, and then moved quite early to Mississippi 
Territory. Sometime in the 1820s, he travelled west again to south Arkansas and north 
Louisiana, living in Claiborne Parish in the 1820s and in what is now western Union 
Parish (the Camp Creek community) in the 1830s. He died there in October 1846, leaving 
his widow, Sarah Cann Scarborough, and nineteen surviving children.

Although the record below was made in Claiborne Parish, Scarborough apparently 
had it filed in Union Parish after he moved there. For some unexplained reason, 
the original paper was filed with the civil suits. This is certainly one of the 
older original records in the Union Parish Courthouse today.

==================================================================================
TRANSCRIPTION OF ORIGINAL RECORD FOLLOWS
==================================================================================

Lawrence Scarborough 
        To
Sarah Scarborough 
     his wife

#124-D 

Filed December 7th 1841 and duly recorded in my office in the 
Parish of Union 
State of Louisiana
in Notarial Book AA, Folio 134 & 135.

Given under my hand and seal of Office this Dec 7 1841

John Taylor
Parish Judge

==================================================================================
State of Louisiana
Paris of Claiborne

Be it remembered that on this fifteenth day of October in the year of our Lord one 
thousand eight hundred and twenty nine before me the undersigned Parish Judge in 
and for the Parish of Claiborne, Personally came and appeared Lawrence Scarborough 
of said Parish who declared that he has this day bargained sold and delivered and 
by these presents does now bargain and sell and deliver a negro woman slave aged 
about fiftey [sic] years named Molly guaranteed as a slave for life and from all the 
vices and defects, anticipated by law an improvment on public land situated on the 
loutre a stock of cattle hogs and horses and all his house hold furniture, to have 
and to hold the same from this date to Sarah Scarborough wife of him the said vendor, 
her hairs [sic] and assigns for ever. The above sale is made for and 
in consideration of the following to wit:

In order to replace certain dotal effects of said Sarah which have been alienated 
the said Lawrence has sold and by these presents does sell deliver and forever 
alienate the said property above mentioned to his aforesaid wife Sarah her heirs 
and assigns for ever. Said slave Molly is declared to be free from all mortgages 
and incumbrances whatsoever as appears by the following certificte. I do hereby 
certify that no mortgage exist on my records against the negro slave Molly belonging 
to Lawrence Scarborough. 

Done and passed before me the undersigned Judge at the Town of Russelville the Parish 
afore said this fifteenth October 1829 in presents of Robert L. Killgore and 
Silas Scarborough witnesses. signed L. Scarborough

Chichester Chaplin 
     Parish Judge 
           Parish of  Claiborne
==================================================================================

Note: Lawrence Scarborough arrived in north Louisiana from Mississippi in the early 1820s. 
He was a Baptist preacher and had connections with several Baptist churches in Claiborne 
Parish. However, for some reason, he settled and cleared a place in what is now Union 
Parish. This record was likely filed in Claiborne Parish since it was closer than the 
Ouachita Parish Courthouse in Monroe. 

In the above Lawrence Scarborough gives his wife his right of "pre-emption", the legal 
right of first purchase granted to settlers who cleared and put into cultivation acreage 
on government land. Since he had pre-emption on this land, as soon as the government 
offered this land for sale, he had the first choice to purchase it over anyone else. 
Settlers could buy and sell pre-emption rights on lands until the government offered 
them for sale. 

Although Scarborough says that he has "an improvment on public land situated on the loutre",
when Sarah Scarborough actually bought the property from the government in 1840 and 1841, 
the legal description clearly indicates that the property was actually located on the 
banks of Bayou Corney, some distance west of the Loutre. Thus, it is apparent that 
Scarborough merely got the names of the bayous mixed up in this record.

This record is the earliest documented record of a white settler on Bayou Corney in 
Union Parish.


###########################################################