Case Name: Commonwealth ex relatione Jesse, a black man, against Isaac Craig
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1814-09-07
Citations: 1 Serg. & Rawle 23
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth ex relatione Jesse, a black man, against Isaac Craig.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Sergeant & Rawle)
Volume: 1
Pages: 23–24

Head Matter:
Commonwealth ex relatione Jesse, a black man, against Isaac Craig.
THIS was a habeas corpus issued from the Common Pleas of Allegheny county, and brought before this Court by agreement of the parties. I 7
It appeared from the return made by the defendant to the Court below, that he claimed the relator as his servant till 28, under a registry made by the late John Neville deceased, stated to have been in pursuance of the act of 29th March, 1788, and a transfer of his unexpired time by Neville to the defendant. ' The registry was made in the Court of Quarter > ' [ > 9 j , Sessions of Allegheny county in the following terms:
“ Sir, — Please to enter on record in your office, agreeably “ to act of assembly, one negro boy named Jesse, born some “ time in May last, or beginning of June.
“JOHN NEVILLE.
“ John Brisan, clerk of the peace,
“November 5,1792.
“ General John Neville sworn to the truth of the above, “same day.
“ John Brison, clerk.”
If it does not appear whether or not a registry of a negro child un» der the act of 29th March, 1788, -was made within six months from the birth of the child, the registry is not good.
Query, whether such defect may be supplied by parol proof?
Several exceptions' were taken in the Court below to this registry. That Court decided that one of them was conclusive, viz. that it did not appear but that the boy might have’ been more than six months old at the time he was registered.
Wilkins for the relator
cited Negro.Essex v. McCullough .
Chaplin and Baldwin, contra.
1 Smith's Laws, 497.

Opinion:
The Court
enquired whether proof could be made of the time when the negro was born, and being answered that it could not, they were clearly of opinion that he should be discharged, because it lies on the owner to prove that he was registered according to law, and it does not appear by the registry itself whether or not it was made within six months from the birth of the child.
N. B. The Court gave no decided opinion whether parol evidence would have been admissible to supply the defect in', the register. But the Chief Justice and Brackenridge J. inclined to the opinion that it might, because such proof would have been consistent with the register.