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State of Virginia
City of Portsmouth

On this 1st day of August 1865 personally appeared Nathaniel Owens and Mary Ann Tatum who being duly sworn [[depose?]] and say that they are well and intimately acquainted with Mrs. [[?]] Toomer whose petition for the restitution of the property has been in our hearing read. That from our intimacy and family intercourse her statements as far as the same are made in reference to circumstances and matters touching this place - are [[time?]] - and believe, from her high character and strict veracity as a lady, that all made in relation to those when absent are also true We know from here own statements in our personal presence that in trust and affection for her absent children induced her to leave the first time and her return to the South in the Fall of 1864 was prompted by the reasons given by her. We farther swear that at the time she left in July 1862 her oldest daughter and family who had continued and lived with her as our family remained in her house and so continued until the Fall of 1864 when in consequence of much sickness and the loss of one of the members of the family, by permission Mrs. Toomer, daughter and family went South That she is in possession, or was prior to its seizure