William Mann (ca. 1778–1852) resided in Richmond as deputy federal marshal for the Virginia district from at least 1806 until about 1820, when he became a farmer in King and Queen County. He owned twenty-eight slaves in 1840 and real estate worth $7,000 a decade later (Richmond Enquirer, 11 Feb. 1806; The Richmond Directory, Register and Almanac, for the year 1819 [Richmond, 1819], 57; Marshall, Papers description begins Herbert A. Johnson, Charles T. Cullen, Charles F. Hobson, and others, eds., The Papers of John Marshall, Chapel Hill, 1974–2006, 12 vols. description ends , 9:232–6; DNA: RG 29, CS, King and Queen Co., 1840, 1850; Richmond Enquirer, 23 Mar. 1852; Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser, 30 Mar. 1852).

Robert Gourley, the executor of the will of Edmund Randolph’s mother, Ariana Jenings Randolph, had applied earlier in the year to the United States Court for the Virginia District, in Richmond, for “an order restraining and enjoining the above named Edmund Randolph from disposing of or conveying away the following property conveyed by the said Randolph to Thomas Jefferson William Foushee Daniel L Hylton William DuVal Samuel McCraw Lewis Nicholas & Phillip Norborne Nicholas by Deed bearing date the Nineteenth day of May one Thousand eight hundred in Trust for the payment of a debt due by him to the said Robert Gourleys Testatrix & others to wit the following Slaves to wit Dick, Judy and their Children Sucky & Lucy & Sam Aggy and their children, Succordy, Mourning, Edmonia Lewis Blenheim & his wife, Phillis & children, Charles & Moses, Harry and Nanny his wife Watt & Billy & Jemmy & his wife Dolly and Child Lydia & Jenny Willard Lewis and their encrease present and future all the said Randolphs library of Books and especially the Law Books all his furniture whether Beds Blanketts Sheets House linnen or standing or other furniture or moveables the plate of the said Randolph consisting of a Silver Cup, Chased, a Silver Coffee pot fluted five silver waiters of different sizes Six dozen large and small Silver Spoons also carpets bedsteads China of every description one Coach one Phaeton two old Bay Horses Silver Teapot Silver Sugar dish” (Bond for payment of costs and damages by Gourley, Robert West, and Thomas West to Edmund Randolph if injunction is dissolved, 23 Feb. 1811 [TJ Editorial Files, photocopy of MS received from ViU in 1965; in a clerk’s hand, signed by both Wests, witnessed by Francis Thornton Jr., with subjoined signed statement by William Harwood, magistrate, that Thomas West had appeared before him at the Gloucester County Court and sworn that his estate was worth more than the $4,500 bond, 23 Feb. 1811; endorsed as filed 9 Mar. 1811]).

TJ was named in the suit in his capacity as a trustee for the payment of Ariana Randolph’s annuity by her son, an obligation that was one of the debts for which the increasingly impecunious Edmund Randolph mortgaged his estate on 19 May 1800 (PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 31 vols. description ends , 31:583–5).