Viewing page 105 of 194
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
198 Office Assistant Commissioner Bureau of Refugees Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Montgomery, Ala. Jany 23 1866 George Mason Esqr Wetumpka Ala. Sir; The girl Lucy comes to me and states that a Mr Ellis has possession of her grandchild. That the mother is dead and that herself and the father desires to obtain possession of the child. As this is an ex-parte statement of course I can give no order on the subject but if the facts are as stated by the girl, she is certainly entitled to the child. Mr Ellis has no right to retain it unless it has been bound to him and if so a statement to the County Judge of the case will if he finds himself justified in so doing, cause a reversal of the indenture. The statements made by the girl Lucy if found correct are sufficient to cause the annulment. I have the honor to request that you will advise her how to proceed. She had better make another application to Mr E. and if unsuccessful apply to the County Judges carrying this letter Very Respectfully Your obt Servt Bvt Col & A.A.G. Office Assistant Commissioner Bureau of Refugee Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Montgomery Ala. Jany 24. 1866 199 Maj Gen. O.O. Howard Commissioner &c Washington D.C. General, I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of an application for the restoration of the "Mobile Medical College", with accompanying enclosures and to return the same herewith. The City of Mobile was acquired by the forces of the United States, by a series of approaches met with determined hostility and at a cost of much blood and treasure. The whole of it was rightfully at the mercy of the captor, and possession was assumed and is still held, of so much of it as was deemed necessary or useful to the United States. It was immediately developed that a large portion of the people of Mobile were by reason of their color objects of the active and unusual enmity of the remainder, so great indeed that educational facilities such as the United States has always supported as necessary to its people would be neither afforded nor permitted them except through fear of military indication. Accordingly, in pursuance of an order of the War Department, hereto appended, the building known as the Mobile Medical College, already in the custody of the United States, was transferred to the Bureau and schools were opened in it which are still in successful operation. The building was principally the property of the State of Alabama, which has for years enjoyed a great fund from lands donated by the United States for the education of its people, but from which the colored portion are and have been rigidly excluded. It was therefore considered that this building might be rightfully occupied by colored schools so long as they could not be carried on
