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MARY P. B. LEVELY.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 775.]

FEBRUARY 23, 1852.

Mr. EDMANDS, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, made the

following REPORT

Mr. Edmands, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, reports:

That the committee have examined the case of Mary P. B. Levely, who petitions for arrearages of pension as due to her husband from the date of his injuries in 1812 to 1829, when a pension, which was granted to him, was made to commence; also an amount equal to the whole pension between the year 1836, when the payment ceased, and the present time.

By the papers it is shown that Henry Levely, the husband deceased of the applicant, was captain of the privateer "Nonsuch," of Baltimore, in the war of 1812; that in 1829, on an application by him, in consequence of personal injury received in the war, he obtained a pension of $240 per annum from the date of the application. This was continued to him until 1836, when the privateer pension fund failed, since which he has received nothing.

Admitting the meritorious services of Captain Levely, the severity of the wounds under which he has suffered, and the dependent condition of the widow, the committee are not in favor of taking up the case before the year 1829, when the application for pension was made and allowed. They, however, see no reason why the pension should not be granted to him in continuation from the year 1836-when it was cut off by the privateer fund having run out-until his death, and they recommend that a bill be passed giving to the widow an amount equal to the pension between the year 1837 and 1841, the year of his death; and they report the accompanying bill.

DOLLY EMPSON.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 603.]

FEBRUARY 23, 1855.

Mr. READY, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, made the fol

lowing REPORT.

The Committee on Invalid Pensions, to whom was referred House bill No. 603, granting a pension to Dolly Empson, together with her petition and accompanying proofs, have had the same under consideration, and

report :

That the petitioner is the widow of Jacob Empson, deceased; that said Jacob Empson served as a private in the company commanded by Captain Hamilton, under General Jackson, from November, 1814, until May, 1815, when he was honorably discharged; that at the time of his discharge he was diseased with chronic diarrhoea, contracted whilst he was in the service and in the line of his duty; of which he died about three months after his return from the service to the State of Tennessee. In 1835, and again in 1836, the petitioner applied for a pension; but the claim was rejected, because the laws then in force did not provide for the widow of the soldier who died, after his return home, of disease contracted in the service. The application was then supported by the testimony of Captain Hamilton, who died in 1837. Upon the rejection of the application, the testimony of Captain Hamilton was returned to the Hon J. B. Forester, then a member of Congress from Tennessee, as appears by the correspondence between him and the Pension Office, but has not since been seen by the petitioner, nor can it now be found. Since the loss of Captain Hamilton's testimony, the petitioner cannot present the evidence of any officer of the company in support of her claim, and for the want of such testimony her application, under the act of February 3, 1853, was rejected. The facts that Captain Hamilton's deposition was filed in the Pension Of fice in 1835, and was subsequently delivered to Hon. J. B. Forester, and that in his deposition Captain Hamilton testified "that he was personally knowing to the said Empson's attack of disease at the battleground below New Orleans, which produced his death in a few months after reaching his family," appear in the correspondence between the Pension Office and Hon. Bailie Peyton and Hon. J. B. Forester. The petitioner is also supported by the deposition of William Latimer, a man of credibility, who swears that he saw Jacob Empson upon his

return from the army in 1815, and that he was greatly reduced by disease, of which he died in about three months. The petitioner is now provided for in the poor-house of the county of which her husband enlisted. The committee recommend the passage of the bill, with an amendment.

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