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March 8th 1867
[[?]] Dudleyville Tallahassee Co, Alabama
Genl Swaine 
Dear Sir 
I write you for information in regard to the matter I now bring before you & shall take it very kindly of you to get an answer soon, besides being thus brought under obligation to you. Two freedmen both under Thirty years of age about a year ago voluntarily petitioned The Probate judge of The County we live in to have Their children bound as apprentices to us which was accordingly done. The children were born with us & are all illegitimate but one - one of. The women lived with a man as a husband about two years & he then left her & married  a woman in one mile of us & adheres to her yet  being about First Point. The other woman never had a husband & the reputed father of one of her children is dead & the father of the other, perhaps  in Georgia. The women were said by us and are still with us, but may leave after this year as they seem to have caught the spirit  that carries  most of the freedmen near the thoroughfares. They have heard that to be at Asselik or Montgomery  all lives easily & if in a tight an supplied bountifully  with food & nourishment by the bureau & wish to take off all their children. The wish to know whether we may hold their children as apprentices or not; if any