ENPages
p. 2
To the Hon. Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of Wisconsin in Legislature Assembled
The Petition of Stewart McKee of the county of Grant and Territory of Wisconsin respectfully represents.
That he is fifty seven years of age and was on the first day of February A.D. 1838 at Elk Grove in the County of Iowa in said Territory married to Eliza DeSeelhorst who is now about the age of fifty one years. That at the time of the marriage of said petitioner was a widower and had five sons all of whom resided in the family of your petitioner, and that at the time of the said marriage the said Eliza was a widow and had one Son who is now living and in whose family she resides.
Your petitioner further represents that he is by birth an Irishman, and that he came to this country when he was yet a lad, and has resided ever since on the frontier in the North West Territory and in what is now Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin that all her habits, manner of living, thoughts and feelings are such as a frontier life will only give to a man. That the said Eliza was born raised and until within a few months before the said marriage resided in the city of Philadelphia and was and still is bound down and governed by those stiff and peculiar customs and manners which a city life always engenders and from which those there educated can never depart.
That your petitioner and said Eliza very soon after the marriage found that to live happily and continually together was absolutely impossible and that to live together at all required in your petitioner more philosophy than nature has endowed him with. That as usual when children of different parents compose one family, and the parents of those children married together, each class of the
p. 3
children was at war with the other and as was natural the mother taking sides with the issue of her own body leaving your petitioners children some of whom were of tender age, to grow up with neglect and without any care or maternal tenderness whatever. That things grew worse and worse until in the summer of 1845 the said Eliza left the bed and board of your petitioner taking with her every article of furniture and clothing of which she was possessed at the marriage and also every thing she had manufactured and with which your petitioner had furnished her while she lived with your petitioner - petitioner not wishing to retain from her or her son a dollar worth of her property. That she has resided seperate and apart from your petitioner and in the family of her son ever since, where she has a comfortable home; and there is not the remotest possibility that they ever will reside together again.
Your petitioner therefore prays, that your body, who is possessed by the Supreme power in such cases, in view of the justness and hardness of the premises and the peculiar circumstances of the case, and that no rights can thereby be violated, - will by a special law grant him that relief which will relieve him and dissolve the bonds of matrimony binding him to the said Eliza.
Dated this 4 Feby 1848
Stewart McKee
Territory of Wisconsin County of Grant SS:
Personally appeared the above named Stewart McKee who made oath that the facts in the above petition are true in substance & in fact; Subscribed & sworn to this 4th Feby 1848 Before me. Henry L. Moss Notary Public in & for said Co.
Stewart McKee
p. 4
The undersigned having read the above petition of Stewart McKee and being somewhat acquainted with the facts and circumstances therein set forth and being acquainted also with the petition pray that the relief sought for may be granted by the Legislature.
Dated this 4 Feby 1848
Ben C. Eastman Geo. H. Rountree Neely Gray George W. Lakin
