Description:

Thomas Stone DOI on Behalf of Woman Accused of Being a Whore

With this narratio, Thomas Stone of Charles County, Maryland, filed suit on behalf of Diana Price, who alleged that Ignatius Mitchell had said publicly that he had had "carnal knowledge and communication" with her, which brought her into disrepute among her neighbors. She sued him for £100 sterling.

THOMAS STONE, Manuscript Document Signed, Narratio in Price v. Mitchell, October 10, 1774, Charles County, Maryland. 2 pp., 7.5" x 12". Some dark staining; edge losses affecting fewer than ten words; cellophane tape repairs to some folds and edges.

Complete Transcript
Charles County Court
And whereupon the said Diana by Thomas Stone her Attorney complains that whereas the said Diana is a good true honest chaste modest and pious Virgin and liege subject of our Lord the King and as such good true pious chaste modest and honest Virgin, and subject of our Lord the King hitherto hath behaved herself and continued from the Time of her Birth and was accounted said known and reputed to be of good name and unspotted reputation condition conversation Life and Behaviour among her relations friends Neighbours and other Liege subjects of our Lord the King and from all manner of loose Behaviour Whoredom fornication adul[tery] and Incontinency the least suspicion of any such fault or hurtfull Crime during her whole life past lived
[?] innocent free and unsuspected and lived and continued a Virgin all kind of Modesty Sincerity Probity and Honesty, always desiring and [?ing]. By means whereof the said Diana not only deservedly got and obtained the favour and good will of her relations Neighbours and friends but also divers creditable persons of great Estate and reputation greatly desired the Society and conversation of the said Diana & on account of her chaste Behavior and decent conversation. Nevertheless the said Ignatius well knowing the premises but maliciously contriving and intending to scandalize the said Diana in her good Name fame and reputation, and the said Diana under the Infamy of Whoredom and Lewdness to bring and to deprive the said Diana of the society company and conversation of all creditable and reputable people did on the first day of January in the year seventeen hundred and seventy two and at divers days and times between that day and the first day of August in the year seventeen hundred and seventy three at Charles County aforesaid falsely and maliciously say assert related proclaimed and with a loud Voice pronounced these false feigned scandalous and opprobrious English words following of and concerning her the said Diana in the presence and hearing of several honest and liege subjects of our Lord the King. the said Ignatius being then and there speaking of and concerning her the said Diana towit, that he the said Ignatius had carnal communication with her the said Diana and that he the said Ignatius took a note of the time when such carnal communication was had between him and the said Diana and that nine months afterwards the said Diana had a base born Child—proceeding from the same communication—and that she the said Diana was immodest and a whore and that he the said Ignatius proposed to [rogger?] (carnal communication meaning) her the said Diana, and she the said Diana consented thereto and would have willingly and freely suffered him the said Ignatius to have had carnal knowledge of her Body, but was prevented by her mother (a certain Ann Price mother of the said Diana meaning) and that he the said Ignatius had at sundry times had carnal immodest and illicit communication with her the said Diana, and Carnal Knowledge of her body and could have had such Carnal Knowledge and communication whenever he inclined thereto the said Diana always being ready and willing to receive and admit him to such indecent and immodest Practice. By reason of speaking which said false feigned and scandalous words by the said Ignatius of her the said Diana, the said Diana hath been brought into great scandal and Infamy of Lewdness Whoredom Incontinency and fornication among many honest and creditable persons with whom the said Diana was before in great honour Credit and Esteem, And all honest and creditable persons who before the speaking and publishing the said false and scandalous words used greatly to desire the company and conversation of the said Diana withdrew themselves from the company and society of the said Diana as from the company and society of a lewd wicked and unchaste woman and daily more and more withdraw themselves, so that the said Diana by reason of the speaking and pronouncing the said false malicious and scandalous words by the said Ignatius is totally deprived of every thing which to her is dear and valuable to the Damage of the said Diana in the sum of one hundred pounds Sterling Money and therefore she brings suit and so forth.
T. Stone for Plf. pledges and so forth

[Throughout the document, the name "Samuel" is stricken and replaced by "Ignatius." "Samuel" was Ignatius Mitchell’s middle name.]

Thomas Stone (1743-1787) was born into a prominent family in Charles County, Maryland, read law with Thomas Johnson in Annapolis, and gained admission to the bar in 1764. He opened a practice in Frederick, Maryland. From 1774 to 1776, he was a member of Maryland’s Annapolis Convention and was a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775, 1776, 1778, and 1784. He signed the Declaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland, worked on the committee that formed the Articles of Confederation in 1777, and briefly served as president of the Confederation Congress in 1784. He served in the Maryland Senate from 1777 to 1780 and again from 1781 to 1787. In 1768, he married Margaret Brown (1751-1787), with whom he had three children. He established an estate called Habre de Venture, where he used slave labor. When she visited him in Philadelphia in 1776, an adverse reaction to a smallpox inoculation impaired her health, and he soon left Congress. He ultimately gave up the practice of law to care for his wife and children, and after her death in 1787, he sank into depression and died fewer than four months later.

Ignatius Samuel Mitchell (1746-1826) was born in Charles County, Maryland. In 1789, he married Mildred Smith (1760-1817) in Mason County, Kentucky, and they had seven children.

Diana Price Kennedy (bef. 1759-1798) was born in Charles County, Maryland, to William Price and Anne Wade Price. In 1796, she married Clement Kennedy (1748-1812), but they had no children before her death two years later. In her will signed in October 1797, Kennedy freed three of the African American slaves that she brought into her marriage and dispersed eleven additional slaves among her siblings, nieces, and nephews.

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