Colored Man Is Divorced

COLORED MAN IS DIVORCED

From His White Wife With Whom He Lived a Month

ARRESTED FOR STEALING

The Dress She Was Married In But That Case Was Dropped

Phillip Henry Merriman, a colored man, was divorced from his white wife, Maggie Johnson Merriman, In the circuit court Tuesday. Robert J. Willis, a colored lawyer of Detroit, conducted the case. The divorce was granted on the ground of desertion.

On January 25, 1897, Maggie Johnson, then a good looking girl just past 16, living with her father in Augusta, ran away with Merriman and crossing over to Windsor was there married to him. Her father in an effort to get her away from her colored husband, swore out a warrant for her arrest on the charge of stealing the dress in which she was married. She was arrested in Detroit and brought here, but the case was afterwards dropped and she never went back to her husband.

In his bill the husband charged that she had gone to the bad, but his proofs were simply put in to show desertion. There was no defense and the divorce was granted.