On this fourth day of September 1845, personally appeared before William D. Steele Judge of the Court of Ordinary for Pickens District, Mrs. Anna Guest a resident of the District and State aforesaid, aged as near as she can come at it, about 81 or 82 years, (whom I certify is unable by bodily infirmity to attend in open court a distance of about 23 miles from where she resides) who being first duly sworn according to law, doth, on her oath make the following declaration, in order to obtain the benefit of the provision made by the act of Congress passed July 4th. 1836: That she is the widow of William Guest who was a private in the militia of North Carolina, that he entered the service under Captain John Keese she cannot say whether as a volunteer or a drafted militia man, that they resided in Wilks County North Carolina & she thinks when he fist entered the service, he marched with the company to which he was attached, to Ransoms where there had just been a Battle, but he did not arrive in time for it, that he marched much through North & South Carolina, and served a part of his time under his brother Capt. Moses Guest, that he was all the time from her, and she had to work and make a support and nurse her infant and do the best she could, that from the time he first entered the service she seen very little of him, until after the Battle at Kings Mountain in which Battle he was, and after which he left the service, but before that, was gone the whole time, only returning occasionally to see her; but it is impossible at this late day, and at her advanced age to state much of his services, she recollects however in addition that he served under William Lanore who was a Colonel and lived about one mile from them.

Her husband however made out his declaration, and proved his services, upon which he obtained a pension under the act of Congress of 7th June 1832, the certificate for which she now has in her possession, and by reference to the said proof &c. she hopes satisfactory evidence may be had to establish her claim; certain she is however, that all the service her husband done was performed after her marriage to him: they left North Carolina a few years after the close of the war and came to Pendleton District in the neighborhood of where she now resides, and is now in that part of the same District called Pickens.

She further declares that she was married to the said William Guest on the 29th. day of July, she thinks from the best calculation she can make, in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy nine (1779) as it was the July previous to the taking of Charleston by the British, that the marriage took place in Wilkes County North Carolina, her husband obtained a License for the occasion, and the ceremony was performed by one John Barton Esquire, she had a record of the births of her children and perhaps of the date of the marriage in an old Bible, but the Bible was taken by her ^eldest^ son Squire Guest, who resides in Greenville Dist. several years ago, and she does not know that it can now be come at; that her husband, the aforesaid Wm. Guest, died on the Eighth day of July Eighteen hundred and forty One. And that she has remained a widow ever since that period, as will more fully appear by reference to the proof herewith sent.