JOE BETTES

Lauderdale County, AL
Deed Book 3, p. 53

Jo Bettes Freedom papers

State of Tennessee

Be It rembered [sic] that at a circuit court held for the County of Bedford at the Court house in Shelbyville on the third Monday in March in the year one thousand Eight hundred & Seventeen and of the Independence of the United Sates the 41^st before the honorable [sic] Nathaniel W. Williams Esq one of the Judges of the circuit Court in the State aforesaid, A certain Negro Man who calls him self Joe Bettes and who alledges in a summon at preamble [best guess] to said Court that by the Laws of the Land he was intitled to his freedoom [sic] and that William R. Hess wrongfully and illegally detain[ed] him the said Joe as a Slaver and therein prayed a writ of habeas copas to be allowed him upon upon the hearing of which memoreat a writ of habes copas was accordingly ordered whereupon the said Jo Bettes was according brought Into Court and Thereupon the following order was made to wit,

           Joe Bettes  } on a habes corpus  It appearing to the court from the petition Bettes & the proofs by him alledged that he is a freeman of color and that he is illegally held to s----- detained by William R. Hess. It is thefore ordered by the Court that he be set at liberty, and have the previledges of a free man.

State of Tennessee SS  }  I James McKesseck, Clerk of the Circuit Court of the County of Bedford in The State of Tennessee  aforesaid, do hereby certify – that the forgoing is a true copy from the record of my office of the proceeding had in Said court in the case wherein Joe Bettes was released from confinement of William R. Hess and ordered by Said Court to be intitled to the preveledges of a free man of color, In testimony whereof I have hereunto Set my hand, affixed my private Seal being no Seal of office at Shelbyvill this 3 day of July 1817

                                                                       J. McKesseck

Recorded 9^th of Sept 1825.