Petition of Philip Moses, Esther Freeman, Eli Seymour, and Mary Seymour to the Connecticut General Assembly

To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Connecticut to be holden at Hartford on the Second Thursday of Instant May1

The petition of Philip Moses and Hester Freeman, both of Derby in New Haven County and Eli Seymour and Mary, his wife, both of New Haven, in said County humbly sheweth that the said Philip, Hester, and Mary are the only surviving descendants of John Howdee, an Indian late of said Derby, deceased, and that they are the proprietors of a piece of land situate at or near Humphreysville in said Derby in quantity about twelve acres, which descended to them from the said Howdee, which land is bounded northerly and westerly on land of Colonel David Humphreys, southerly on an old highway and easterly on land of Phebe Stiles.  That your petitioners had for a number of years improved the same with prudence and economy till in the summer of the year 1805 a highway was opened through the same and that the damages assessed to your petitioners have never been paid, and, if paid, would not be sufficient to defray the expense of fencing that part of said land which adjoins said highway.  That your petitioners are poor and unable to fence said land, and on that account the same has been wholly useless to your petitioners from the time said highway was opened to this day and must so continue unless otherwise ordered by Your Honors.  Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray this Honorable Assembly to take their case into consideration [ hole ] and to authorize some proper person to sell2 said land under such regulations as your Honors shall prescribe and to vest the avails in such other estate as Your Honors shall deem most expedient and most beneficial to your petitioners or in some other way grant relief.

And they as in duty bound will pray,

• 1. The second Thursday of May in 1810 was the 10th.
• 2. Deleted Text: such