Viewing page 29 of 257

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

time I got better instructed in my rights and now reliance on justice to be obtained from Court, and I caused a notice to be delivered to the Shff. of Warren to be served to Mr. Nicholson, notifying him that I should apply to the court at this term to have this Indenture cancelled and the boy loosed from his bonds. About eight days since the boy ran away from Mr. Nicholson and sought my protection, and I have brought him here to deliver him to the Court with the confidence that the court will restore him to the custody of his father, loosed from the indenture which could only have been obtained by a  non representation of the facts attending the case. I am informed  and believe that  the boy was not present before the court at the time he was bound, and I declare that I his nearest of kin relation, had no notice of, and had not the slightest suspicion that such an application would be made to the court.

And further saith not 

Washington his mark X Bobbitt

Sworn to before me and signed and acknowledged before me this 26 November 1867.

Witness my hand and seal
signed Thos A Montgomery JP  SS

To impeach and falsify this affidavit the said Nath. Nicholson was called and sworn who deposed; that this Washington had a slave of his for a wife, and during the time they lived together as such, the boy Thomas was born, and that he was now about  twelve years of age. That the woman died about the year 1863, but prior to her death some years, said Washington had parted from her, and taken up with another woman, who he in turn  parted from, and took up with another woman, the slave of Richard J. Harris of Halifax Co. with whom he was living  at the time of emancipation, & who he subsequently married. That he did not at