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Petition for Additional Compensation for a Preemption Claim to Benefit an Orphan

To the Honourable the trustees of the Illinois and Michigan Canal

Gentlemen the undersigned your Petitioners resides on Section 17 Town 39 in the City of Chicago, the Preemtion on the East Half of the North west quarter of said section came to Betsey A. Mullan by the will of her Father, she is now an Orphan of five years of age, without money or property, which happened by the long sickness of her father and Mother, it was her guardian who paid for her part of block 3 in sub divission of Section 17, which the trustees thought proper to allow her out of the 80 acres that her Father proved the preemtion on, and which all thought she would get at the valueation

Gentlemen there is Twelve hundred dollars worth of emprovements on the part that she did not get, and your petitioners would pray that the trustees would allow her something for those emprovements, as they have the remainder in their on hands- Gentlemen if we take away the finces, the ditches and the trees will be all torn down by the Cattle, and it will again become a wild prearie- her Father and Mother lost their lives strugling to empove and make valueable this land, and the ware the first sttlers on this section, - Your petioners would request the trustees to take their case in consideration

Dennis Mullan for himself And Betsey A Mullan