Pierce Butler Papers

Résumé du livre

Letter, 21 Apr. 1819 (Philadelphia), to Robert E. Griffith (Philadelphia) of the mercantile firm of Nicklin and Griffith, addressing aspects of the law suit re disputed ownership of the Salvador land tracts in the South Carolina. Both Griffith and Butler traced their rival claims through a 1790 sheriff's title. Marshall held that there had been errors in the legal procedure leading to the sheriff's auction at the courthouse in Ninety Six (Greenwood County, S.C.). This letter alludes to the disagreement between Butler and Griffith over costs incurred in this litigation and it refers to legal services performed by Eldred Simkins, Keating Simons, and John Julius Pringle; Butler makes case that he, and not Griffith, had borne much of the inconvenience: "I was put to the expence of going two hundred Miles to Charleston, to bring the Cause to a hearing; during the whole of the trial I attended the Court from nine o Clock in the morning 'till five in the evening - I had not one comfortable dinner but on Sundays during the trial. Nicholson told You in my hearing, that if I had not been in Charleston the Cause woud not have been brought to a hearing."