Rare manuscript petition to the independent republic of Vermont woman’s property rights

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Rare petition from the independent Republic of Vermont, dated September 30, 1788, just months before Vermont entered the Union as the 14th state. Addressed to the General Assembly of the independent State of Vermont, the poignant manuscript records the appeal of Mary Campbell, whose only son, Robert Catelow, born out of wedlock, died unmarried after inheriting a farm from his grandfather. Because illegitimacy prevented him from legally transmitting the estate, the land escheated under existing law, leaving his widowed mother destitute. She petitions the legislature for relief, creating a remarkable window into the legal disabilities surrounding illegitimacy, inheritance law, and social welfare during Vermont’s brief period as a sovereign republic (1777–1791). An evocative and highly displayable legislative petition that combines early American legal history, women’s history, genealogy, and one of the shortest-lived governments in North American history—an exceptional artifact from the era between the Revolution and the Constitution.