OLD WILLS AND INVENTORIES

 

 

 

In the courthouse at Rosedale there is an old deed in the original entry book given to Joseph McGuire in 1830 and ratified in 1831, the year following, Dancing Rabbit Treaty. This deed was to the land upon which the county seat of Bolivar County was to be established.

 

Among the earliest wills recorded is that of Jonathan C. Lobdell, May 31, 1854.

 

In the 1860's the names of Joseph Sillers, Thomas Shelby, J. V. Lobdell, M. E. Goza, William Pickett, J. C. Kirk, and William Coleman appear in the records as presenters of petitions, as administrators, and as appraisers.     

 

        The earliest appraisement found is the following:

 

 

Estate of William Coleman, deceased

 

Warrant to appraisers.

 

To Joseph Sillers, T. B. Lenoir, E. Bellamy, and Eugene Montgomery, Greeting:

 

This is to authorize you jointly to appraise goods, chattels and personal estate of William Coleman, late of Bolivar County, deceased, as far as the same shall come to your knowledge, and suggest each of you having first taken the oath of affirmation hereto annexed, a certificate whereof you are to return annexed to an inventory of said goods and chattels and personal estate by you appraised in dollars and cents, and in the same inventory you are to set down in a column or columns opposite to each article the value thereof; having first set apart to Mrs. Edna Coleman, the widow of said deceased, all of the personal estate of said husband to which she is entitled by law, and the year's provision for herself and children, to which you may deem her entitled; to be allotted upon and both reduced in writing and returned to this court, with the appraisement.

 

Witness, Charles T. Miles, Esquire, Judge of the Probate Court of Bolivar County, this the 10th day of June, in the year of our Lord, 1861.

 

(Signed)

 

W. H. Wright, Clerk.

 

Then the oath of appraisers, inventory, and appraisement. An example:

 

 

6 yoke of oxen - valuation                  $240.00

1 carriage                                            25.00

List of Negroes follows.

An example: Alex, Negro man $1,000.00

                       

The total appraisement amounted to

 

79,480.00

 

 

 

 

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