The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-11-14


CHICAGO. .Nov.13.-A romantic story
of slave has been bruoght
out by the filing of a suit
called in Judge Brentano's
renee, negress, the plaintiffs fight
ing for dover rights in the estate OF
DIR. Henry Laurence, as his widow.
Her suit is opposed by DIR. William
Laurence, of Oakwoods Boulevard and
twenty other relatives of DIR. Henry
Laurence, who died in 1891. They set
up the contention that the
complainant was not the law
full wife of their dead rela-
tive. The amount involved in the
litigation reaches the sum of 100000,
the property left by Dr. Laurence who
died intestate and childless. The
widows dover is two-thirds of the
whole estate.
Maria Evans Laurence, the COM
plainant in the suit, still preserves the
comeliness which gained her freedom,
and as she claims, two white husbands,
both of whom were men of learning
and possessed of means. Her kinked
hair, long for one of her race, is
whitened. her face is scanned with the
burrows of time, but her carriage is
erect, her step is light and her eye lus-
trous.
The first chapter of the romance of
her life began when she was II years
old, in the slave market of Yazoo,
Miss. A young clerk, John FL. Evans,
who came of an old and prominent
Virginia family saw her there and fell
in love with her. He made vow that
he would secure her freedom and then
marry her. He had no money with
which to buy her freedom, but set
about to earn and save it. 1t took him
seven years to do it, but he was true
to his dark skinned sweetheart, who
in the meantime had been sold and
taken to Kentucky. Evans followed
her there, and in 1S4S, paid $1,000 to
her master, brought her to Cincinnati,
where he gave her liberty, and it is al
legged, made her his wife. They re-
turned to Yazoo, where he continued
in business.
Shortly after moving to the place
she made the acquaintance of Henry
Laurence, young Englishman, who
became a frequent visitor at the
Evans home. He was an abolitionist
and later left Yazoo and came to live
in Chicago. just before the war
broke out Evans and his wife went to
live in New Orleans. In 1861 they re-
ceived letter from Laurence, who
was not prospering in Chicago, and he
was advised by them to move to New
Orleans, which he did. The Evans
couple conducted boarding house in
Canal street in that city. In 1865
Evans died, DIR. Laurence was living
with them and he fell in love with the
widow. Two years after the death of
Evans there came another epoch in the
life of the Mississippi slave. From
then she called herself the wife of DR..
Henry Laurence. Whether she was, is
the question which will be determined
by the court in the trial which is to be
begun to-day. She claims that it was
only a common law marriage, By
which both consented to live together
as man and wife until death parted
them and this contract, she says, was
faithfully carried out by them both.
For % years, she says she was wife
to Henry Laurence and closed his eyes
when death finally separated them.
The couple came to Chicago in
1877, and lived in house which DR..
Laurence bought.
The defense to the suit is that the
former slave was not the wife of DIR.
Laurence, but his servant, and that no
marriage contract existed between
them.