Consists of a substantial record concerning an investigation into the death and possible murder of Anthony, a formerly enslaved Black man who had recently been emancipated upon the death of his former enslaver, Isaac N. Robertson, in 1857. It is likely that Anthony died as the result of a racially motivated assault by a white man, though the report is inconclusive. The coroner, Thomas Pugh, states "that from a surgical examination made in the presence of the Jury... his death was caused by a blow or injury received on the left side of the head...by whom or how inflicted the jury cannot ascertain." Following the coroner's statement and the forensic reports of two surgeons are ten pages of depositions by fifteen white witnesses. The two primary witnesses are Nicolas Pamplin, proprietor of Pamplin's Depot and likely candidate for a fatal assault on Anthony, and Martha Wilkins, Anthony's employer who sent him to the depot to fetch lumber.