Majority
p. 106The Overseers of the town of Germantown, in Columbia County, Appellants, against The Overseers of the poor of the town of Livingston, Respondents.
Headnote
Testimony of the declarations of a person as to owning a slave, cannot ba received to render a parish chargeable when the person himself might have been produced.This was a case from the Columbia sessions, submitted by consent without argument. The facts were these: Two. justices, on complaint of the overseers of Germantown, had ordered Sarah Bridgend, a negro woman 80 years of age, to be removed to the town of Livingsten, and adjudged her settlement to be there. From this order there was an appeal to the sessions, who received testimony of the declarations of one Philip Rockefellow, that she was formerly his slave, bought in the town of Livingston, and manumitted by him about 16 years ago, but they refused to admit Rockefellow himself, adjudged the negro chargeable to Germantown, and ordered her to be maintained there, reversing the order of the justices.
The order of the sessions reversing the order of the justices must be reversed. The admission of the declarations of Philip Rockefellow, after he owned the slave, is too loose and uncertain to charge the town of Germantown, It would be of a very dangerous tendency. Better proof of the fact could be had. Was Rockefellow then in possession of the woman, it might be otherwise. The sayings of one inhabitant, to charge a whole town, might be mischievous, and would be very liable to abuse, especially if better testimony cau be had.
Order of sessions reversed.