Unfortunately, and apparently very carelessly (as shown in Chapter IV.), the committee, in their decision of 1693, instead of using the wording of the will in regard to the payment of the £10 by the widow, viz.: “with consent of my son John,” rendered it that the £10 be paid to Elizabeth “by John and Bathsheba, when the widow so order.”
September 19, 1710, James, Jr., enters complaint at the County Court that Samuel Beebe is illegally detaining from him, present executor of his grandfather’s estate, a negro woman, named Joan, who was the property of James Rogers at the time of his death. The defendant claims that the woman was part of the legacy of £10 given his wife.
The court decides in favor of Samuel Beebe, its decision being grounded on the blunder of the committee of division, in 1693. James, Jr., appeals to the Superior Court. The latter court decides that if the settlement of the committee in 1693, in accordance with the terms of the will,
“were in point of law a sufficient conveyance of the negro woman to Eliz. Beebe, without John Roger’s consent to said conveyance by his mother, then the jury find the case for Samuel Beebe; but if the consent of John Rogers was, in point of law, under said settlement by said committee, necessary to such a conveyance, then they find the woman for John Rogers.”
This calls for the decision of Judge Gurdon Saltonstall, the archenemy of John Rogers, who, naturally, ignores the blunder of the committee and adjudges Joan and her child to Samuel Beebe, as slaves for life.
Two months later, a second child is born to Joan, at Plumb Island, a babe its father may neither claim nor behold. Nearly six months more drag slowly by, in great and grave suspense.
As for Joan herself, she is not likely to settle down at once, if ever, in meek submission to her fate. Woman-like, her first thought would be to escape, if possible, to her husband and the kind masters at Mamacock, being sure that if she is once upon that shore, they will not willingly return her to Plumb Island. She cannot be supposed to consider, in so dire a strait, the peril they would incur by harboring a runaway slave, such as she now is, by the decision of the Superior Court.
In the latter part of May, 1711, John Rogers, Sr., is in the vicinity of Long Island, and also on the mainland of New York. Southold, L.I., is a common stopping-place for boats from New London. His friend, Mr. Thomas Young, is now of that place.