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Bureau of Refugees Freedmen and Abandoned Lands
Office Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth City County, VA
Fort Monroe, Va., 186

the county is now over-run, to seek homes and accept employment elsewhere.

In certain instances, where the freed-people have acquiesced in the demands of the land owners, and have prepared to vacate their lots, the latter have attempted to seize the tenements of the former, under the plea that the law empowers the owner of the land to retain all improvements placed upon the land during its occupation by the lessee. Were this course carried out it would virtually stop the freed-man from moving, at all; he being in nearly all cases entirely unprovided with the means for securing a habitation elsewhere. Many and urgent protests have been entered against such procedure and extended and vexatious litigation must follow unless some definite line of conduct is established. 

The Freedmen's Court for this county has heretofore ordered, that in cases where the houses or improvements (fencing excepted,) of Freed-people have been erected by the latter and are made up