If you search the Final Payment Vouchers Index for Military Pensions, 1818-1864 and discover Revolutionary War pensioners living in Delaware or Georgia, you now have a way to quickly access their final pension papers—on Fold3. The files may fill in some missing gaps in your family history.
In the index, Francis Freeman’s slip indicates that he received his pension under the Pension Act of 1818, payments were made in Delaware, the last payment was in March (1st quarter) 1832, and he died on December 24, 1831. That information is also reflected on the jacket of Freeman’s final payment record.
Within Freeman’s file, we learn that he had been receiving a pension of $8 per month beginning July 1, 1818, he left no widow, and his only child Mary Johnson was “of full age.” Widows and dependant children typically continued to receive payments after a veteran’s death.
In Georgia, Margery Pinson received pension payments after her husband Joseph died in 1838. His signature can be found on several pages within his file. On Margery’s records we learn that three of their children, Elizabeth Visage, Milla Burch, and Jane Carter, received payments for three years after their father’s death, and that Margery died on June 9, 1852. Although he received his pension in Georgia, Joseph served in North Carolina. His full 97-page pension file reveals a great deal more about his service and his family.
Final pension payment records not only reveal signatures, relationships, and death dates, they also tell us if and where a family moved after the war, and into the 19th century. With the Fold3 Revolutionary War Collection, you can create an enlightening family history through military documents. The Final Pension Payment records from Georgia and Delaware add previously unpublished, possibly unknown details to that story.
If the pensioners you seek are not from Delaware or Georgia, you can order their files from NARA or locate pension abstracts for several states in books listed within the Final Pension Payment Vouchers description.
