New Haven County Superior Court Divorce Case: Brockway vs. Brockway (1758) and Related Proceedings Collection

Version: 11 (current) | Updated: 12/4/2025, 3:23:03 PM

Added description

Description

Brockway Divorce Case Collection (1758–1769)

Overview

This digital collection preserves the full record of the 1758 divorce proceeding between Samuel Brockway and Margaret Smith Brockway before the New Haven County Superior Court. Compiled by the Connecticut State Library as part of its NHSC BAAI (New Haven County Superior Court Black, African American, and Indigenous) project, the collection includes depositions, petitions, witness testimonies, service documents, and high‑resolution scans of original parchment pages. All items are in the public domain and are available in JPEG and TIFF formats with accompanying OCR text.

Background

The case was filed in 1758 and reflects colonial Connecticut’s legal practices for family disputes. Witnesses and justices of the peace from Farmington, Waterbury, Brantford, and Hartford recorded the proceedings. The collection is indexed under the NHSC BAAI Cases Papers Subject heading and is part of the library’s effort to document Black, African American, and Indigenous experiences in 18th‑century Connecticut.

Contents

The collection comprises:
  • Depositions (12 in total) concerning Margaret Brockway’s mental state (1758–1759), alleged domestic abuse by Samuel Brockway (1758), and interracial relations involving Lot, an enslaved Black man (1758–1798).
  • Petitions (two divorce petitions dated 1759 and 1769).
  • Service documents (a 1758 petition involving Margaret Breckaway).
  • Witness testimonies (statements by Sarah Newell, Josiah Lewis, Samuel Newell, and Herzekiah Gridley).
  • High‑resolution scans (RG003NHSCBAAIPSDivorceBrockway008–020) and OCR‑extracted text for each deposition.
  • Metadata (PINAX JSON records, subject‑index field “NHSCBAAICasesPapersSubject”).

Scope

The collection covers the period 1758–1769, focusing on the New Haven County Superior Court docket for the Brockway divorce case. It addresses themes of divorce, mental health, domestic abuse, interracial relations, and slavery. The collection does not include court judgments, transcripts, or subsequent proceedings. It is a valuable resource for scholars of early American legal history, gender studies, and the social history of slavery and mental health in colonial New England.

Entities

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Entity Relationships

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Raw Cheimarros Data

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@brockway_divorce_collection -> related to -> @lot:person {relationship: "enslaved individual mentioned in depositions"}

Metadata

Version History (10 versions)

  • ✓ v11 (current) · 12/4/2025, 3:23:03 PM
    "Added description"
  • v10 · 12/4/2025, 2:59:48 PM · View this version
    "Added knowledge graph extraction"
  • v9 · 12/4/2025, 6:42:43 AM · View this version
    "Added PINAX metadata"
  • v8 · 12/4/2025, 6:26:44 AM · View this version
    "Split into 2 alphabetical chunks"
  • v7 · 12/4/2025, 6:26:43 AM · View this version
    "Added child entity 01KBM0N8K9Z57WB446GY55RX41"
  • v6 · 12/4/2025, 6:26:41 AM · View this version
    "Added child entity 01KBM0N78WDBZCAX1F6842K7FJ"
  • v5 · 12/4/2025, 6:17:12 AM · View this version
    "Added OCR to 9 files"
  • v4 · 12/4/2025, 6:16:21 AM · View this version
    "Added OCR to 10 files"
  • v3 · 12/4/2025, 6:16:11 AM · View this version
    "Added OCR to 9 files"
  • v2 · 12/4/2025, 6:14:45 AM · View this version
    "Set parent to 01KBKZYT0E4WN250H1RKB10E89"

Additional Components

chunking-description.txt
# Alphabetical Chunking

Directory split into 2 alphabetical chunks for processing.

Total files: 56
Files per chunk: up to 40

## Organization Strategy

No coordinated strategy - each chunk organizes independently.

Parent

01KBKZYT0E4WN250H1RKB10E89

Children (2)