The divorce its vicissitudes ....
The pact steals in shards ....
Prosecutor James E. McCaffry, who drafted the agreement, was also assisted by Justice of the Peace Charles H. Meyer (pictured).
In spite of everything, I had to ask for a divorce on July 10, 1873, a little less than a year after our marriage, because on various occasions he treated me in a cruel and inhuman manner.
For example, on September 15, 1872, without any provocation on my part, he assaulted me with a chair and tried to hit me!
Then, on January 15, 1873, I fell ill, and I remained in bed for more than twenty days, helpless. Regardless of his marriage obligations to treat me with kindness and attention, he absolutely refused to provide me with medical assistance ... and refused to meet my needs.
Finally, while I was in his carriage on the 18th of June, he without me provoked it, seized violently by the throat and dragged me and threw me on the ground, leaving me helpless and without help to several miles away from my home and showed total contempt for my health; if not of my life !!
He is a man of passion, violent and ungovernable, on many occasions ... he acted in a brutal and abusive manner ... constant ... He was insulting me and threatening me with violence.
On several occasions he has voluntarily left me, refusing to provide me with support and assistance, although he has real and personal property amounting to more than $ 12,000 ($ 183,500) and ... his income year was $ 4,000 ($ 63,300).
I asked for a reasonable amount to cover the cost of the divorce proceedings and the additional amounts for alimony. This sum seemed to me just and appropriate to cover the costs of the pending legal action.
Richard replied on July 26 with a long letter, refuting in detail the facts of physical violence and verbal violence, of which I will have suffered ....
He asserted that I had regularly accused him unjustly, and accused him of frequenting prostitutes, wives or girlfriends of other men. He also accused me of having struck him, or attempted to strike him, and that I have used all sorts of vulgar, vulgar language, that he has forgotten them.
He even said that I would have tried, on several occasions, to convince him to stay with me ...
He admitted to having struck me with a chair, for I accused him of having relations with other women, that I would ask for a divorce, and that I would have treated him as a brute, a ladron ) and putano (whore) and that I would have ordered him to leave my house ... by saying to him "left mi Casa kind of brute. "
I would have sent my fist into his face and took a chair to hit him ... me, a weak woman !!!!
He explained that when I asked him for care when I was bedridden, he said I had the "clap" (gonorrhea, venereal infection). In order to take care of me, he would have asked Dr Rivers for a medication, which would have kept silence on the matter. I would have refused the offer, saying that I did not know what to do, and that it was my first husband who had handed me the clap, and that I had become healthy afterwards. Would he have handed it over to me?
He said that Anna, her cook, and a close friend attended this little episode and that I could start walking normally four days later.
With respect to the trolley incident, he said I had asked him to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars (397 €), which I had received from Justice of the Peace Osborn, to avoid going to jail for five days. He would have replied that he had to go to "Rillita" (land south of Tucson on Santa Cruz for settlers.) To borrow money, and invited me to come with him. He said that he was quietly humming a sort of melody on our return, when suddenly I would have struck him without reason on the head from behind. He took my hat and told me to get out of the cart because he did not want to be hit on the head when he drove the mules.
I would immediately get out of the car, refusing his repeated requests to get back into the cart. Finally, said he would send the sheriff to take me back to Tucson. He would have even worried about my safety, by going to the neighboring ranch to make arrangements so that I could be brought back.
The act of divorce
Back in Tucson, he told the justice of the peace Charles H. Meyer what had happened and asked him for advice.
Meyer advised him not to go home that night because I could plant him or throw him a knife ....
The next day, Meyer sent someone to go with him to put his belongings out of the house.
He accused me of changing moods, since I had initially accepted the suggestion of February 1873 to separate us, but I would soon have returned to this proposition.
He then asked McCaffry to establish the act of divorce, accepting many of my requests, which we signed on February 19, 1874.
According to him, I did not want to let this separation become permanent and, the next two days, I urged him to return .....
Richard says he told me it would be wrong to come back so early and I would have told him it did not matter.
A month later, according to his words, I would have asked him again for a rapprochement.
However, we agreed and after agreement, Richard came back.
Finally, Richard complained that I would have denied him access to the profits I had made on my business interests because he considered that we were still married ... and that all these profits came back to him and that I not to receive only one hundred of them ... and that I would have benefited from about $ 600 (9515 €) per month of income on my properties.
However, we signed a second treaty article "on 13 August 1873.
This act made it clear that each party retained their property separately. The agreement would remain in force only as long as we lived together as husband and wife. Richard agreed to pay all household expenses, as well as "all his private and individual expenses".
He further promised that he would not seek to control or derive any benefit from my property or any benefit I would have had with them.
In return, I promised to accept to pay my own individual and private expenses, including my horses and my gear. I have also agreed not to interfere with its properties and any benefits it may derive from it.
Meanwhile, my business thrives ...
At the end of August 1873, I bought another ranch of 162.13 acres (65, 60 ha) and 158 acres (63.92 ha) properties of Ambrosio and Maria Arviso.
In the following October, I acquired a 160-acre (64.73 ha) ranch belonging to Abram and Mariana Moreno, and in December, two 160-acre plots in Ygnacio and Romula Robledo (Robledo and Duran ranches , adjacent to each Moreno ranch).
Finally, in February 1874, I buy 168.88 acres (68.32 ha) of the ranch of Teodoro and Altagracia Pesqueira. It was located on a part of this land where I cultivated cotton in 1874 and 1875. In all, during this period, I acquired 327 ha, enough to make my brother Sebastien stay at Fort ....
I rented some of these ranches to their original owner.
Richard persists in wanting to manage my property
So I asked the district court on November 10 to issue an injunction to Richard for breaking our agreement of 13 August. On November 18, Justice John Titus ruled that the injunction was justified and extended it to all of my properties as well as their profits, regardless of whether they were purchased before or after our marriage.
In accordance with the law, on November 19 I deposited with the County Registry a full inventory of my real and personal properties.
The lots included my ten Tucson properties, my car and my horse.
Richard responded to the injunction on November 28 by denying that he had never made an agreement as I claim, and that he had in no way hindered or attempted to control my own property.
He stated with apparent contradiction that he had signed the agreement without knowing its contents. He adds that even if he knew the contents of the agreement, it was null and void and did not have to affect or abrogate all his marital rights.
He argued that the perceived rents of my property, were established in common and, therefore, should be subject to his control under the marital rule .....
He concluded by complaining about my behavior by saying that I had not complied with the agreement concerning the maintenance of my car and my horse. In addition, I will have acted towards him ... which has had the consequence of fomenting the war and encouraging difficulties and misunderstandings between us.
He also requested that this new action he requested be perpetually respected and called for the continuation of the proceedings.
On December 15, Judge Titus disagreed, ruled that my injunction was made perpetually, or until a new order of that court was pronounced.
Three days later, Richard appealed to the Supreme Territorial Court not to proceed with my motion, or to reject my appeal.
Almost two years will pass before Richard Woffenden initiates a next procedure in this file.
As a result of his attempt to exercise control over my possessions and the enmity he had provoked, I decided to give way, or to appear to yield, to the properties he had targeted.
To cope with these troubles, I called on my nephew, Pierre Charouleau, to suggest that he come to Tucson because there was a lot of money to be made in this animated capital of this territory. He did not ask.
Since the end of 1869, at my request he had landed at Arica in Peru to settle my Peruvian and Mexican affairs. He had since traveled through Central America. He arrived in Tucson on January 9, 1874, accompanied by his wife Serafina whom he had met in Guatemala.
Judicial affairs will not fade ... on the contrary ..
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