Pamlico County, NC - Court - Howard & Howard vs Faison, 1928

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NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT CASE

Source:  North Carolina Supreme Court Case #178.  Howard v Faison, et al.  
1928.  From original case at the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh, 
N. C. 

Submitted by:  Grace Williamson Turner

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA.             FALL TERM 1928.

Hattie Howard and Amos Howard, her
Husband.

            v.                               No. 178

Marshall Faison, Admr., et al.                                                    

       Civil Action, before Grady, J., Spring Term, 1928, Pamlico 
Superior Court.

     C. L. DANIELS,
     R. O'HARA,
     GUION & GUION, for plaintiff.

     Z. V. RAWLS,
     W. H. LEE,
     F. C. BRINSON, for defendant.

     BROGDEN, J:

     Lewis B. Williams, a negro preacher, died intestate in 1925.  The 
defendant is his administrator.  The deceased left a wife but no children.  
The plaintiff, Hattie Howard, claims that she is a half sister of the 
deceased, and as such entitled to a distributive share of his estate.

     The evidence tended to show that the father of the plaintiff was a 
slave named Israel Williams or Mullins, who, before the Civil War, had 
married a woman, presumably, named Joanna.  During the Civil War Israel was 
sold and the family separated.  Thereafter Israel married "Mandy" and had 
by her one child named Hattie, who is the plaintiff in this action.  Lewis 
Williams, the deceased, was preaching on one occasion at Bryan's Chapel in 
Jones County.  During the course of his sermon he remarked "that he had 
never seen his father".  His "mother told him his father was sold during the
Civil War".  Thereupon Israel Williams, father of the plaintiff, who was in 
the congregation, asked the preacher "What was your mother's name"? and the 
preacher replied, "Joanna".  Israel then exclaimed: "I am your father".

     An old negro man, 97 years of age, who was present, testified as follows:  
"The old man (Israel) kept looking at him (Lewis Williams), and when he found 
out he was his son they like to broke up the church.  They run together so 
and kept a-hugging, and he (Israel) said that was his first wife's son."

     The jury was doubtless impressed with the dramatic reunion of these simple 
souls.  The issue submitted to the jury was:  "Is Mattie Howard the half sister 
of Lewis Williams as alleged in the complaint?"  This issue was answered in the 
affirmative.  Exceptions were addressed to the Judge's charge upon the theory 
that certain instructions given the jury constituted an expression of opinion
upon the weight of the evidence, but an examination of the entire charge 
discloses that the case was fairly presented and correct principles of law 
applied.  "Ancestry, relationship, and descent are questions which are scarcely 
susceptible of proof except by what has been said about them by persons in a 
position to know, not so much the actual kinship one person bore to another, as 
the kinship which one person said he bore to another, or which one person was 
reputed to bear to another."  Rollins v. Wicker, 154 N. C. 559, 70 S. E., 934.

     There is one expression in the testimony which ought not to be lost from 
the literature of the world.  An old negro testified that the plaintiff had 
contracted smallpox some years ago and that after that time "she was never so 
solid in her head."  It does not appear how "solid" plaintiff was in her head 
before the ravages of the disease.  At all events, while plaintiff might not 
have been "solid" in her head at the time of the trial, she was apparently 
"solid" with the jury.

     AFFIRMED.

(Note:  Much more in folder not copied by me.  Grace Turner)

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Grace Williamson Turner
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