On this 4th day of april 1839 personally appeared before me a Justice of the Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions for the County and State above written Mrs Lucy Brown of the aforesaid county aged Eighty Three years who being first duly sworn according to Law, doth, on her oath make the following Declaration in order to obtain benefit of the provision made by the act of Congress passed July 4th 1836.

That she is the Widow of Col: Thomas Brown of the County of Bladen north Carolina—Her husband the said Col: Thos: Brown ^was^ appointed in the year Seventeen Hundred & seventy five Lieut: Col: of Bladen County, and in the month of February Seventeen Hundred & Seventy Six (he being under the command of Gnl: Moore) he was at the Battle of Moors Creek—In a short time after that Battle he was promoted to the command of the Regmt: Col: Lillington being made a General. He was next in service under the command of Gnl: Ashe in South Carolina at the period of the attack on that place by Sir Peter Parker; and on his return he continued to serve at Wilmington and occasionally on the Borders of South Carolina until the month of January Seventeen Hundred & Eighty when I was married to him in the Town of Wilmington—But a few days after that event Col: Brown was called with a detachment of his Reg: into service and at a Battle faught at Big Bridge he was severely wounded in the arm which nearly deprived him of its use during his life. That event took place in march seventeen Hundred & Eighty; He was confined but a short time and from that period to the final evacuation of Wilmington he was constantly in active service; in protecting the country from the enemy then in possion of Wilmington and the country arround—In the early part of the month of June Seventeen Hundred & Eighty one Col: Brown was taken prisoner, and conducted to Wilmington and there confined until the final evacuation of the place. She will not pretend to particularise or state positively the length of Col: Browns active service prior to 1780 when she was married to him altho' she is well convinced that he was with little intermission in active service from 1776 up to 1780—But after she was married to him in 1780 in the month of January; from that period to the close of the war she can speak with great certainty—From the month of Jay: 1780, to the close of the War or I should say until the enemy left Wilmington Col: Brown was in active service until he was taken prisoner in 1781—up to that period he was never permitted to stay at home but for a few days at a time being constantly out with men protecting the country from parties of the enemy from Wilmington—

In conclusion she declairs that Col: Browns active service from 1780 to the evacuation of Wilmington including the period he was a prisoner of war would ammount to more than Two years—

She also knows that he was in service after the Battle of Moors creek in Wilmington, form the month February 1776 until the enemy came into the Cape Fear River in the month of may of that year & after that time he was in South Carolina aiding in the defence of Charleston when visited by Sir Peter Parker; his service in that year was not less than six months—She further declairs that she was married to the aforsaid Col: Thomas Brown at her fathers house in Wilmington on the Thirteenth day of January Seventeen Hundred and Eighty and that her husband the said Col Thos: Brown died on the 24th day of November 1814—and that she has remained a widow ever since; as will more fully apper by reference to the proof hereto annexed—