Women sometimes exercised greater power than the letter of the law accorded them. Annie Henry Christian, an early settler of Jefferson County, directed her husband's salt works operation south of Louisville following his death in 1786. Eliza Tevis, a free woman of color, consulted lawyers on multiple occasions--suing the estate of her former employer for withheld wages in 1838 and drawing up a prenuptial agreement prior to her marriage in 1843.
