Pearson

The action is ejectment, and was brought by~the appellant, Adelaide Pearson, as heir-at-law of Richard Pearson, deceased, to recover of the defendants certain premises situate in the county of Colusa. The appellant was born in the year 1850, and is a daughter of said Richard Pearson, a white man (lately deceased), by Martha Powers, a white woman, with whom he intermarried in the year. 1848, in the State of Iowa, and from whom he was divorced in the year 1854, by a valid judicial decree rendered in the courts of *123 the State of Missouri. The defendant, Laura Pearson, is a woman of African descent, and claims a distributive share in the estate of said Eichard Pearson, as being his surviving wife. The other defendants are the children of Eichard Pearson by said Laura, and were born after the alleged intermarriage between said Eichard and said Laura, presently to be mentioned, and during the subsequent cohabitation between said Eichard and said Laura in the assumed relation of husband and wife. It appears that in the year 1847, the defendant, Laura, being at the time a slave in the State of North Carolina, was purchased by said Eichard Pearson, who immediately removed her to the…