Autograph document. Howard County, Missouri, "Deer Term", 1843. 9 pages, folio, approx. 7 5/8 x 12 1/8 in. Docketing to verso of 5th leaf. 

A court document recording a scandalous suit between Louisa Skidmore, described as "an infant under the age of 21," brought by "her guardian William Ridgeway Jr." 

The document opens reporting that Louisa was "a good, true, honest, just and faithful citizen of this state and such has always behaved and conducted herself, and until the committing of the several grievances by the aid defendant...was always esteemed, respected and accepted by...the other good and worthy citizens of this state."

The document continues that she contrived "wickedly and maliciously intending to injure the said plaintiff in her said good name...to bring her into public scandal, infamy and disgrace...to cause it to be suspected and believed by those neighbors and citizens that she...was guilty of fornication." The document continues with greater detail of her alleged behavior with straightforward language before transitioning into metaphor: "She is a bad girl, she has followed me to the forest whenever I pleased. I have gone to bed to her whenever I wished to do so. My wife caught me in bed with her. I have told my brother James how I kept her from breeding. You know a good marksman can always draw off before he pulls trigger after he takes sight. I expect to be sued and I do not say that I have done it to her or that I have not, but I took good care not to put it where it would into her arms." Later in a recapitulation of the accusations, the terminology becomes even more forceful: "She is a whore. I have done it to her lots of times. She is indebted to me for not breeding..." 

It concludes that "the said plaintiff sayeth that she is injured and hath sustained damage to the amount of $3000 and therefore she brings her suit" followed by summons for William Ridgway.

Louisa Skidmore may be the same woman living in adjacent Cooper County, Missouri, who is enumerated in the 1850, 1860, and 1870 Federal Censuses. She was born in 1824, making her 19 at the time of this court document, a likely age for our Skidmore. She would go on to marry David Monroe Givens (1823-1872) four years after this suit in 1847. They would have 9 children together before she died in 1873. 

A fascinating and scandalous court document with remarkably frank discussions of sex and birth control. 

[Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [Women, Women’s History, Suffragettes, Women’s Movement, Suffrage] [Sex History]

Fragile, toned with separations along old folds with tape repairs.