These records are from a collection of warrants that apparently were not destroyed in the courthouse fire of 1856. The actual court minutes themselves were apparently destroyed in the fire.
Circuit Court, 2 Aug 1851, p.223 Link to image of warrant Sarah Nichols ) vs. ) Jas. P. Catlett & ) W. C. Pickens ) Came to the parties by their attorneys and the plaintiff by attorney dismisses this suit and the defendants by attorney agrees to pay the costs of this cause. It is therefore considered by the court that the plaintiff recover of the defendants all costs of this cause for which execution is awarded. |
As little as the entry for this warrant says, it helps to confirm that James P. Catlett was my third great grandfather. Oral family history says that Sarah F. (Sallie) Nichols had three children with a Catlett man. However, there was a Catlett-Nichols feud and a Catlett-Nichols lawsuit. The results of the lawsuit were that Sallie and her Catlett man were separated (if they were not married) or divorced (if they were married), and her children thereafter used the Nichols surname rather than the Catlett surname. It is not known if Sallie and her Catlett man were married or not. I would suspect that they were, since there were three children and both families were churchgoing folks. The name of the Catlett man was not passed down as part of oral family history. The only three possibilities for the Catlett man seem to have been the brothers William S. (Will) Catlett, James P. Catlett, and Henry S. Catlett. This warrant suggests that the Catlett man who was the father of Sallie's children was James P. Catlett, even though the suit was dismissed. Also, the death certificate of Sallie's son John H. Nichols says that John's father was James C. Nichols and that his mother was Sarah F. Nichols. There was no James C. Nichols, and it seems likely that "James C. Nichols" was a code for "James Catlett Nichols" who was really James P. Catlett. I have no idea what William C. Pickens might have had to do with lawsuit, nor what connection (if any) he might have had with either the Nichols family or the Catlett family. |
This page last edited on 02 Jan 2010.