Abstract
In the late 1790s, an aging couple named George and Sarah Magruder tended the 231-acre farm they had owned for many years in a place called Anchovy Hills in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The property was worth $462, according to the Federal Direct Tax of 1798, and contained “two framed dwelling houses,” a 28-by-22 foot “tobacco house,” a “meat house” and “log lumber house,” both of unspecified dimensions. On November 22, 1799, however, “weake in body but of sound mind,” Mr. Magruder made his last will and testament. He passed away that winter and on February 18, 1800, Mrs. Magruder met with her daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Leonard Kidwell, at the county courthouse in Upper Marlboro to check her husband’s probate inventory, hear his testament, and execute his will. Or, at least, that was the plan.
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Notes
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© 2013 Steven Sarson
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Sarson, S. (2013). “I don’t stand to the will”: Yeomen Farmers and Smallholders. In: The Tobacco-Plantation South in the Early American Atlantic World. The Americas in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137116567_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137116567_5
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