You Just Need to Look

I am going to deviate from my topic of the month here, because when you find these things by accident, you just need to talk about them.  In researching in Portage County, Ohio you don't have many choices in the early days, 1800-1820...So imagine my surprise to find in a Surname folder at the Portage County Historical Society original and copies of Court documents that are no longer supposed to exist.  Below is one wonderful tidbit of time.  I am sure you have all heard, you never know what you'll find when you are researching or as Ancestry.com's shakey leaves tell you: you don't need to know what you are looking for :)

Kelly



Portage County Historical Society, Ravenna, Ohio

Surname Vertical Files

[back]

“State of Ohio

vs

William A []”

[front]

“State of Ohio

Portage County

At a Court of Common Pleas holden at

Ravenna within and for the County of

Portage on the fourth Tuesday of December Anno Domini

one thousand eight hundred and nine - The Grand Jurors

returned to enquin for the body of the County of Portage

on their oaths do present that William A [] of

Deerfield Township in the County aforesaid did at Deerfield

aforesaid on the fifteenth eleventh day of December Anno Domini 1809

one thousand eight hundred and nine commitly wickedly

and with lewdly with foner and ams have carnal knowledge of one Loveey

Jacobs and commit the crime of fornication with her the

said Loveey Jacobs a single and unmarried woman then and there being - And the Jurors affo=

rsaid on the first day of November in the year of our

Lord one thousand eight hundred and nine commitly lewed=

ly and wickedly with force and [illegible word] live and hath continually afterwards at

Deerfield aforesaid until the day of the taking of this

inquisition commitly lewdly and wickedly lived in a State

of fornication with the same Loveey Jacobs a single and unmarried woman in contempt

of this State and its Laws to the evil example of all

others and against the peace and dignity of the State of

Ohio”