Gordon v. Gordon

• Decision Date: 28 February 1883
• Citation: 88 N.C. 45,43 Am.Rep. 729
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: HARRIETT A. GORDON v. G. N. GORDON.

88 N.C. 45

43 Am.Rep. 729

HARRIETT A. GORDON

v.G. N. GORDON.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

February Term, 1883.

PETITION for divorce and alimony heard at Spring Term, 1882, of UNION Superior Court, before Gudger, J.

The allegations in the petition, deemed material to the inquiry before the court, are as follows:

The parties were married on the 15th of August, 1876. While the petitioner was pregnant with her first child in July, 1877, and while she was sick in bed, a daughter of the defendant by a prior marriage had been on a visit from home for several days, and on her return, the plaintiff told her to change her dress, which she readily did, and the defendant hearing her request, came into the room and abused her by using rough language--calling the plaintiff a fool and threatened to whip her as soon as she was able to bear it, and told her as soon as she was sufficiently recovered she might go home and stay there. About three weeks afterwards, while she was still feeble, she requested the defendant's daughter to draw some water, and she refused in the presence of the defendant, and the plaintiff was compelled to draw the water herself, though unable to do so. She then scolded the girl slightly, and told her she should have drawn the water and not compel a sick woman, who was unable to do so, to draw it. The defendant thereupon went off and got a hickory switch about three or four feet long, and larger than one's thumb, but did not use it--there being some one present--but carried it up stairs.

About the 19th of October, 1877, shortly after the birth of her first child, she reproved a son of the defendant (a small boy) for some improper conduct, and threatened to whip him if he repeated it, and after this he stood in the door of the house and urinated in the presence and hearing of the other members of the family, and she corrected him for it for his benefit, and in no unkind spirit. The defendant immediately thereafter became enraged and said the plaintiff was the one who ought to be whipped, and went up stairs and brought down the hickory which he had provided on the former occasion, and with it inflicted several severe blows upon her, saying, at each blow, “damn you, take that,” and also striking her in the face with his fist--leaving bruises on her face and back and causing the blood to settle under her eyes and upon her throat, which remained for several days, and one of her eyes was injured to such an extent as that it is still affected. The whipping continued until she escaped from the defendant and ran from the house, when he pursued her and carried her back and locked her up during the night, and for two weeks thereafter would not permit any one to see her--making her withdraw when any one came. The whipping was done in the presence of defendant's children.

About a month after this, when she had reproved and pushed to one side the defendant's daughter for putting an unclean spoon in the rice at breakfast, and the girl commenced crying, the defendant, after finishing his breakfast in silence, rose from the table and cursed and abused the plaintiff, accused her of hurting the child, seized her by the hair and throat and choked her until she was about to faint, and at the same time struck her several blows; and being faint, she requested a son of the defendant who was present to hand her some water, but the defendant commanded him not to do it, saying she should not have water until he said so. On the same day, after this abuse, while she was at the house of a brother of defendant, he came there and, in the presence of his brother's family and another brother's wife, accused the plaintiff of being a thief, charging her with having stolen rice and given it to her mother.

Within a month or so after the choking, while she was talking with a negro woman who wanted to buy an old bed tick which the plaintiff was willing to sell in order to buy a new one, the defendant cursed the woman, and said the plaintiff should not be trading on his things, and that he would hang her if he was hanged for it the next day, and that she ought to be treated like Maggie Stevenson, who, with her child, was said to have been murdered by her husband; and the defendant having at that time some horseshoes in his hands, she, fearing he might execute his threat, left the house and remained away until defendant left; and when she returned in the hope of getting her infant and then leaving until the passion of the defendant had subsided, the defendant, seeing her going off with the child, caught her and carried her back.

In March, 1878, a sister of defendant came to the house and was so abusive to the plaintiff that she told the defendant that she and his sister could not pleasantly remain together in the same house, and she started to leave, but defendant overtook her and said if she would return he would send her to her mother's, which he did on the 10th of March, 1878. She remained at her mother's until the 13th of April, 1879, when, upon the frequent importunities of the defendant and his promises to act as a husband ought to do, she was induced to return to his house. On arriving there, she found a woman by the name of Ellen Taylor living in the house and in full charge of the domestic affairs, and whose manners and habits did not suit the plaintiff, which the defendant well knew, and yet he kept her there for six months, giving her more privileges than were allowed the plaintiff. On one occasion while Ellen Taylor was staying there, the defendant told the plaintiff that some day Mrs. Taylor would knock her down and he would not protect her.

In the month of November, 1879, when she was in about three months of the time of confinement with her second child, she requested the defendant's daughter, Lizzie, then twelve or thirteen years old, to assist her in cooking dinner, which she refused to do; and in order to teach her obedience, she told Lizzie she should have no dinner unless she assisted her to get it. She still refused, and went without dinner. When the defendant returned in the afternoon and Lizzie told him what had occurred, in the presence of two of his children and a young man who was staying on the premises, he cursed and abused her, and accused her of attempting to starve his children; and when, to avoid any punishment at his hands and to escape the humiliation of being abused in the presence of others, she started to leave the house, he caught her around the neck with both hands and chocked her so severely that she dropped her two year old infant which she held in her arms, and it fell upon the floor and hurt its head very severely. The marks of violence occasioned by his conduct remained upon her neck for a week or more, and were seen by several of her neighbors.

He accused her of stealing his thread and giving it to her sisters on the occasion of their visit to her, and at various times he went among the neighbors and made accusations against her, which were derogatory to her character and hurtful to her feelings. At the house of J. H. Winchester, in presence of his family, he accused her of being a liar. He frequently reproached her with being poor, telling her she brought nothing there. On the morning of the 26th of January, 1880, when she forbade a son of the defendant by a prior marriage, from opening a drawer in which she had some clothes-- prepared for the child expected to be born in about two weeks--the defendant told the boy to go into the drawer whenever he pleased; that the drawer was not hers; he continued to abuse her in the presence of a young man named Plyler, and accused her...