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complied with, and the said will was duly proven and admitted to record, and the executors therein named, Joshua Beadle and 
   Eckels qualified as such.
The said executors afterwards filed a bill in Chancery in the said Madison County, to ascertain, among other things, the mind of the Chancellor, whether they was bound to carry out the trust contained in said will relating to said colored persons, and such proceedings was had in said cause that at the December term 1862 of said court, the court rendered a decree in said cause stating that as a state of war was then existing between the free and slave states that it was [[?]] for the Executors to carry the trust relating to said colored persons into execution, and further ordered that the said colored persons be returned to slavery and that the executors divide them among the nieces and nephews of the sd Adam Hall deceased, and that inobedience to said decree the said Executors on or about the first day of January 1863 made a division of the said colored persons and delivered them over to their new masters. 
I am informed that from teh time of the death of the said Adam Hall until the 1st day of January 1863 that the said Executors Beadle and Eckels hired out the said colored persons each year and received the money for their hire. 
I was informed that all the papers and records of the County of Madison on teh approach of the Federal forces to Huntsville in the summer