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                   C
Habus Corpus
Susannah__¦Declared
Tho^s Cullen[1]¦Free
                 ¦in Supreme
                    Court
Recorded Page 71>
   Comttee Books
   7 Harren [?] M

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to Thomas Cullen of the City of Philadelphia shopkeeper We command you that the Body Susanna a negroe woman in prison under your Custody as it is said detained by by whatsoever Name the said negro Susanna may be charged in the same-under safe and secure Conduct together with the Day and Cause of his being taken and detained you have before the honourable George Bryan[2] one of the Justices of our Supreme Court at his Chambers in the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia on the            Day of                at o’Clock in the        noon then I there to do and Submit to whatsoever our same Justice shall consider in that behalf and have you then there this writ   Witness The Honourable Tho^s McKean[3]  Esquire Doctor of Laws Chief Justice of our said Supreme  Court at Philadelphia the twenty first Day of January in the year of our Lord MDCCLXXXVI

Allowed the          Day of

1786  Js                                                      Edward Bird[4]  prot

                                                                          ~

Declared Free_ in _
Open Court
by Chief Justice TM^cKean ~ 20 – 4 M^h 1786
  See Files in Prothonotary Office

[1] In 1785, Thomas Cullen lived at 341 Market Street.  Macpherson’s Directory for the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia (1785), 31.

[2] “George Bryan, a Judge of the Supreme Court” lived at 437 Vine Street in Philadelphia in 1785.  Prior to becoming a Justice on the state Supreme Court, Bryan had been a member of the state legislature and a leader of its Supreme Executive Council.  His leadership was crucial to the passage of the 1780 Gradual Abolition Act.  While on the Court, Bryan often sided with the cause of liberty and the aggrieved slave.  Macpherson’s Directory for the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia (1785), 16.

[3] In 1785, Thomas McKean, Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court, lived at 522 Third Street in Phliadelphia.  Macpherson’s Directory for the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia (1785), 86.

[4] Edward Burd was the Prothonotary of the state Supreme Court.  In 1785, he lived at 414 Third Street in Philadelphia.  Macpherson’s Directory for the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia (1785), 17.