Prince Edward Island
In the Court of Probate
To the Honourable Charles Young L.L.D.
Surrogate Judge of the Probate of Wills and
for granting Administration on the Estates
of Intestates within said Island

The Petition of Robert Rennie of Charlottretown
in the said Island Esquire

Humbly Sheweth
That your petitioners housekeeper Susanna Davison Aitken departed this life on the seventh day of October instant intestate and unmarried leaving one illegitimate female child Eliza Melinda Aitken aged ten years and nine months her surviving, and personal estate of the value of about four hundred dollars. That on or about the month of August 1866 your petitioner with the consent of the said Intestate adopted the said Eliza Melinda Aitken as his own child engaging himself to make a permanent provision for her and from that time to the present your petitioner hath maintained and protected said infant under his own roof with her mother up to the time of her decease who acted as his housekeeper -- the father of the child one Dingwell of Bay Fortune or Rollo Bay (as your petitioner is informed and believes) never having claimed or even acknowledged the child but on the contrary always denied its paternity and deserted the poor mother in the hour of her greatest need, and at a time when the commonest dictates of humanity demanded the exercise of the utmost tenderness and compassion. That the unfortunate woman from that time to the day of her death has been forsaken and abandoned by all her family connexions and your petitioner actuated chiefly by charitable motives took her into his domestic service as housekeeper, during the whole of which period comprising eight years and six months she always conducted herself with the utmost propriety.

That your petitioner having no other object in view than the future wellbeing of the said infant Eliza Melinda Aitken humbly prays your honour will be pleased under the peculiar circumstances herein set forth to appoint him guardian of her person during her minority.

And your petitioner will ever pray &c.
Charlottetown Robert Rennie
October 22, 1872.