Sterrett v. Samuel

Citations

• 108 La. 346

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>1. In 1854 two slaves, with the consent of their owners, were married — a minister of the gospel performing the ceremony. They lived together as man and wife and children were born to them. After being freed they continued to live together as man and wife. Held — A legal marriage.</p> <p>2. Where the husband’s home was in the City of New Orleans, where his wife and only surviving child, a girl, resided, and he is shown to have left home in 1867 on shipboard bound for a nearby port, where yellow fever was raging, and the boat is shown to have left there for some other and more distant port, and neither the boat nor the man ever returned, or were heard of again, the lapse of thirty-five years and absence under such circumstances are sufficient to justify the conclusion that the man is dead.</p>