Case Name: STATE v. WILLIAM PARRIMORE
Court: Delaware Court of Quarter Sessions
Jurisdiction: Delaware
Decision Date: 1799-04-27
Citations: 2 Del. Cas. 124
Docket Number: 
Parties: STATE v. WILLIAM PARRIMORE.
Judges: 
Reporter: Delaware Cases
Volume: 2
Pages: 124–125

Head Matter:
STATE v. WILLIAM PARRIMORE.
Court of Quarter Sessions. Sussex.
April 27, 1799.
Rodney’s Notes.
Bayard [for defendant].
Rebecca West. Soon after we went to bed two men came in and asked if we had any boys and laid hold of the boys. I rose up and one of them knocked me down, [and] toqk the boy some distance. Another man met them and helped to tie him and took him off. This was August 6, 1798. Curtis Jacobs brought him back to one of the neighbors. The boy was my son.
Joseph Prettyman. Defendant told James he had a negro boy to sell. We went to the old field, and the boy was brought to us by Levin Parrimore and one Lacey, as he said. The boy was tied, put up behind defendant, and we went with him to Jacobs and offered to sell the boy. Jacobs would not buy him, but kept the boy.
Curtis Jacobs. The boy was brought to me. I would not buy him nor let Parrimore take him back. Parrimore endeavored to rescue him, Prettyman was with him. [It] was in August. He said the boy’s mother was a black woman, his father white.
Stephen Parrimore. Hezekiah Lacey and Prettyman told me etc. Prettyman told me defendant carried the boy a piece, and then he took him to Jacobs, and that James was to pay him the money when they got to Jacobs; he was collecting Negroes there.

Opinion:
The counsel for defendant and the Attorney General agreed to submit this case to the jury, and Chief Justice Booth directed the jury to find defendant guilty of an assault and battery and false imprisonment, if they believed the evidence.
Verdict, guilty. Was to be fined twenty-five dollars.