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Richmond Virginia
March 26th 1866

To
Gen'l O. Howard
Supt. of the Bureau of Freedmen and Abandoned Lands &c.

General:-
Your Memorialist Harriet A. Wise, respectfully represents that she is the widow of John J. Wise Senr. who died in the County of Accomack, Virginia, in the year 1835. That he died seized in fee of lands lying in said county on Chesconessex Creek, on which are two curtilages called Fort George and Clifton, in all of which she had and still has right of dower. Said lands were heired from their father by her two children John J. Wise and George D. Wise. The land was never divided by them and your memorialist's dower was never laid off to her: Her two sons, the only surviving children and heirs, paid her a portion for her support from year to year or time to time without an assignment of her dower by metes and bounds.

Her son George married and had one child, and at the breaking out of the war in 1860-'61 your memorialist had no home, had not resided at fort George or Clifton for many years, and was temporarily residing with him her son George at another place called Woodburn near Accomack C.H. and had with her there a large portion of her household and kitchen furniture.

When the war broke out both of her sons took an active and zealous part in the Confederate cause, and were both beyond her control. Her son John J. Wise survived the war and has taken the oaths of