Counterfeit Justice: The Judicial Odyssey of Texas Freedwoman Azeline Hearne

9. Divested by the Courts

Chapter 9 Divested by the Courts Asaline Hearne has no interest in the administration of the property of S. R. Hearne. —H. D. Prendergast quoted in “Consent of Adm[inistrato]r to Dismissal,” filed September 17, 1884 For all practical purposes, Azeline Hearne’s case against Harvey Prendergast and H. L. Lewis had only a threadbare chance of life after Judge W. D. Wood made his ruling against her in the Robertson County District Court. Because there was nothing more to file, such as evidentiary materials or further discovery, the only life remaining in the case had been confined to the appeal. In a strange twist, however, someone placed a few personal letters in the district court records that one would never expect to find in any litigation file. Two letters written by Lewis to Prendergast postdated the verdict handed down by Judge Wood. No county official acknowledged or signed them. Because the letters were prejudicial to Prendergast and Lewis, it was as though someone wanted to expose the disparity between what they had alleged in their pleadings and reports to the district and probate courts, on one hand, and what they had said to each other in their private and confidential correspondence, on the other. The Tracts of Land in Young and Limestone Counties During the course of Azeline’s lawsuit against Prendergast, she had continued to file complaints against him as the administrator of Sam Hearne’s 246 Counterfeit Justice 1. “Report of Adm[inistrato]r,” [H. R. Prendergast], filed December 21, 1883 (quotations), Re: Estate of Samuel R. Hearne, Docket #134, PF, CCO, Robertson County, Texas. 2. “Petition of Champe Carter Jr.,” filed for record May 18, 1882, and recorded May 22, 1882, vol. “W,” pp. 376–77, PM, CCO, Robertson County, Texas. estate. At one point Prendergast pleaded his inability to respond until many of the papers, “now absent from the [probate] court” due to their use in the district court case, were located. Otherwise, all of his responses were predictable: Azeline, he argued, had no interest in the estate’s administration , even though she was its only heir and beneficiary, because she had “been divested by the courts of all interest in the S. R. Hearne farm.” Yet Prendergast knew the estate held assets other than the Brazos River plantation . As he further explained, “There is no other property whatsoever belonging to [the estate] except two tracts of wild land about 1000 acres in Young and Limestone Counties.” Because he had offered to turn these unimproved lands over to Azeline, she had “no grounds” for any grievance . Repeating his well-worn litany of problems, Prendergast stated that he had “protected the estate” for many years and “through much litigation ,” always incurring “extra expenses” for refusing to sell off all the estate ’s assets and continuously dealing with “dilapidated conditions” and many “other obligations” that had required his attention.1 In May 1882, in the midst of the discovery phase of Azeline’s suit, Champe Carter Jr., the former Freedmen’s Bureau agent who had strung up freedmen by their thumbs, filed a petition in the probate court requesting Prendergast write a deed to him for all the interest the estate had in these lands. His petition referenced a February 1873 contract giving him the right to buy these tracts of land. But unexplainably, Prendergast never asked the probate court’s approval to make a contract for their sale. If Hamman’s figures were correct, the market value of the two tracts was around $2,000. Although the probate court decreed that whatever interest the estate had in these lands be transferred to Carter, Prendergast deliberately ignored the order.2 At roughly the same time in March 1884, when Azeline made her illfated appeal to the Texas Supreme Court of Judge Wood’s ruling, Prendergast explained to the Robertson County Probate Court his refusal to convey to Carter the lands in Young and Limestone Counties. After reiterating that Azeline’s divestiture of all her interests in the Brazos River plantation had been once again acknowledged in a district court ruling recently handed down against her, he pointed out that the estate still owed “approximately $2,000.00 in debt to creditors.” And, complicating mat- Divested by the Courts 247 3. “Report of Adm[inistrato]r to Hon[orable] John E. Crawford, County Judge,” [H. R. Prendergast] (quotations), filed during March Term, 1884, Re: Estate...