Lucy Owen was the daughter of Abel and Anna Owen.
Married: Jason Damon 21 Feb 1793 in Grafton, Rensselaer, NY
Children:
- Edmon (b. 16 June 1809 in Bridgeport, Madison Co NY )
- Polly (b. 6 May 1796 in Paris, Madison, New York, married Hugh Lackey Briggs);
- Clark R. (b. 1800 in Paris, NY);
- Ephraim (b. 28 March 1803 in Paris, NY);
- Norton Jason (b. 1807 in New York);
- William "Riley" (b. 17 March 1811 Bridgeport, NY, buried in the same cemetery as his mother Lucy);
- Alpheus (b. 1813 in Bridgeport, NY).
Little is know of Lucy except for the struggle she waged for seven years to receive the pension she was due as the widow of a Revolutionary War soldier which Congress had authorized for these women in 1838 (and which could be back dated to 1836). The law apparently had a time limit which stopped the pension after five years, so by 7 July 1838 she had submitted all the papers for the pension process to proceed.
As part of this process she went to court in Madison County, NY on 22 Feb. 1839 and made a declaration under oath that she was the widow of Jason Damon who had served in the Revolution and had received a pension for two years before he died in 1835. She signed the document with a crude "X" between her first and last names which someone else had written, and this indicates she could not write and had not attended school, a typical situation for frontier women of her day (and the same situation applied to her daughter Polly's mother-in law, Tryhenia Austin Briggs).
However, someone had made a mistake in transcribing (or Lucy got the year wrong), and thus the date 1783 was written for her marriage to Jason instead of 1793, and since she could not read, she did not correct it before signing the document. This would later add another delay to a series of mistakes that kept her without her due pension for years. In fact, in this period before copy machines, several times the War Department apparently misplaced key documents for which no copy existed, a situation which quite frustrated her lawyers whose letters show admirable restraint when they reminded the government they already possessed the documents they had asked requested.
The confusion over dates is compounded by the 1839 declaration of Mary West, age 62 and living in Verona, Oneida County, NY, who attests to the marriage of Lucy and Jason which she says she attended in Grafton, and that before Lucy married, her name was Owen. Was she an old friend or a relative? She does not appear to be a sister of Lucy, but perhaps she was a sister of Jason. Only two male siblings are know for him, but this list is likely incomplete.
Apparently nothing happened for several years, as the pension department had evidently mislaid the papers, and her first lawyer, H.G. Warren, actually quit, "…having given up the case as hopeless…." Yet she persisted in her siege with the government and chose a new champion for her cause, New York attorney Arad Joy, of Ovid, New York who got the ball rolling again. He reminding the government they were legally on notice 7 July 1844 when he submitted a "Proof of Service" document that showed the pension department had received all the necessary papers to proceed with the matter. This was pretty close to treating the government as a respondent in a lawsuit, like a witness being served a subpoena to appear in court.
At this same time Lucy had been required to request a new search of Massachusetts state records to again provide proof that Jason had indeed been a Revolutionary soldier, although this had already been completed in 1833 prior to Jason receiving his pension. The government also had mislaid the document stating her new agent in this matter was Arad Joy, and thus, another attorney, Willis Walle, wrote to the pension department on 5 Sept. 1844 to identify Joy as Lucy's agent. This also referred to the submitted (and lost?) declaration under oath by Theadore S. Brown, son of the late Rev. Elijah Brown who had married Jason and Lucy and given the correct date of 1793. Mr. Brown had searched his father's records and found the Reverend's note that he performed the ceremony for Lucy and Jason Damon. However, he spelled it Demmon, which was a common phonetic alternate, yet this too would cause problems in the process. Indeed, to overcome the maze of bureaucracy, besides attorney Wade, Arad Joy also enlisted the services of W.S. Hubbell in Washington to press the case at the War Department.
Once most of these mistakes had been corrected, on 17 Oct. 1844 Lucy was given her pension certificate, but since the law was only good for 5 years, it was back dated from 4 March 1836 to 4 March 1841. Yes, she finally received her pension 3 years after it expired! She would apparently receive her five years of payments, but since Congress had passed new legislation about military pensions in 1843 and 1844, the pension commissioner wrote her lawyer by 20 Nov. 1844 with the news that she would have to resubmit a new application for a new 5 year pension and go through the process again!
One might suspect the government was dragging its feet since politically it looked good to the public to offer pensions to the widows of the Revolutionary War heroes, but actually the bureaucrats could have been reluctant to pay and perhaps delayed the process so the old ladies would die before the government had to make the payments. Be that as it may, Joy wrote back to the Federal Pension Commissioner, the "Honorable J.L. Edwards" in Washington, DC and respectfully asked him to reconsider her situation as evidently had been done for others. For the next six months, the government continued to stall, but finally the commissioner saw reason.
Perhaps the decision was helped by yet another declaration Lucy submitted, this one dated 25 March 1845, when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, and had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory at Prairieville, Milwaukee County. The declaration was short but stated the basic particulars that she was the widow of Jason who had severed in the Revolution, he had received a pension, and she had received a previous pension. Her mark on this document is more like a large "t" with a bottom that curls right. Of more interest is the added declaration of her son Riley Damon who supports her statements. Of even greater interest is the third attached declaration, this of Almon H. White. He was not directly related to Lucy, but he was the nephew of Lucy's son-in-law Hugh Briggs, who had married her daughter Polly. This confluence of families suggests that out in the new territories families remained close despite the distances and few roads, and they supported each other. Indeed, Almon White was close to his Briggs relatives and his name appears in documents with them, even out in California.
Finally after a seven year process, Lucy seems to have had the first pension confirmed, and she also received the new pension. This second one was signed on 7 May 1845 by the Secretary of War "W.L. Marcy" (William Learned Marcy) and it was apparently back dated to 4 March 1843 at $20.00 a year as before (and in addition to his duties signing pension documents at the time, W.L. Marcy was gearing up to direct the War Department during the War with Mexico, 1846-8). Like the first pension, this second one would also run for five years to 1848 unless Lucy remarried or died. By early 1847 the pension was increased to $26.66 a year once Arad had convinced the war department they had made another mistake since $20.00 was the amount given for 6 months service, but the official documents from Massachusetts clearly stated Jason had served at least 8 months and merited more. The new amount was also back dated to 1843.
Once she was in Wisconsin, all of the process had to be conducted by letter to Joy in New York, who in turn repeatedly attempted to communicate with the Commissioner Edwards in Washington. Jason had claimed 9 months of service, but the incomplete military records for the Revolution showed only 8 months, and his pension was based on this. Jason attempted to have that extra month recognized but could not, and Lucy attempted the same in 1846 with the formal request through her lawyer Joy for another records check in Massachusetts. The request included the quaint statement that "my memory does not enable me to state my husband's services more fully..." Once the document from Massachusetts arrived at Joy's office (still with only the 8 month's service), it was submitted with a letter from Arad which included the plea "…will there not be an increase of pension due to her, you will be the judge, only do justice by the poor widow, I ask no more."
On April 30 1847 Joy submitted Lucy's request for a review of her pension to determine if an increase was possible, and there might have been some problem with the pension funds reaching Wisconsin, since on 24 July of the same year Joy submitted a power of attorney for Lucy to the commissioner so the funds would be payable in Albany, New York, and he would get them to the family through an agent in Wisconsin. One can imagine how far $26.66 would go in a year, even at the reduced prices in the mid 19th century.
The government enacted a new law in 1848 for new regulations for widows pensions, and thus for a yet another time Lucy entered the process with a declaration under oath on 19 November 1848 at Waukesha, County, Wisconsin. This identified her as a previous pensioner based on her husband's service in the Revolution, that she had received $26.66 per year, her residence was in nearby Vernon, and she was 75 years old. This time she made her X in a stronger hand.
In her husband Jason's application there is a reference to Gideon Owen who lived in their community and who was a character witness for Jason's honesty. This Gideon was a distant relative of Lucy (a 4th cousin – they had the same ggg-grandfather John Owen), and the relationship must have been recognized since two other documents carry their names together. Gideon himself applied for a pension for service in Connecticut but died before it was granted. He was b. June 23, 1765 (pension says 22 June 1766) at Salisbury, Litchfield Co. (and d. March 17, 1834, Madison Co., NY). He enlisted in April 1782 and served thirteen months in the company of Captain Stoddard in the militia regiment of Col. Caulfield before receiving a verbal discharge of his unit in May 1783. Both Jason and Gideon used the same lawyer, Azariah Smith, to act as their agent for the application process, and a document from 1834 refers to both their applications by Smith who seems to have saved space and paper by covering both cases on one document. On the third document dated to 1838 Lucy's name appears along with that of the late Gideon and his widow Nancy Owen because in order to save space again, the attorney who represented both of them (a package deal?) discussed their marriages for which there were no civil record and for which affidavits had to be submitted as proof by witnesses. The lawyer had also saved time since he used the same witness, Martin Phillips, for both depositions since all were long time neighbors in Madison County. The attorney's name is missing from this document but could be the same A. Smith who handled their husbands' applications and who already demonstrated his desire to save paper and space.
We should take notice that in the latter years of her life Lucy had the courage to leave New York which had been her home for more than 65 years. By 1845 when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, she had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory and was living in Prairieville, Milwaukee County to be close to the families of some of her children including Polly who had married Hugh Lackey Briggs and resided in nearby Rock County. She seems to have lived with the family of her son William Riley Damon in Vernon, Waukesha County (see the 1848 application above) where both she and later her son were buried. But before she died she lived to celebrate with the other pioneers the official recognition of Wisconsin as a state on 29 May 1848 and also to cross the halfway mark for the century in 1850. By the time she passed in 1851 she had wrung 13 years of pension payments from a government which had stalled but could not defeat her.
See the Briggs family history for Lucy's daughter Polly who married Hugh Lackey Briggs.
Married: Jason Damon 21 Feb 1793 in Grafton, Rensselaer, NY
Children:
- Edmon (b. 16 June 1809 in Bridgeport, Madison Co NY )
- Polly (b. 6 May 1796 in Paris, Madison, New York, married Hugh Lackey Briggs);
- Clark R. (b. 1800 in Paris, NY);
- Ephraim (b. 28 March 1803 in Paris, NY);
- Norton Jason (b. 1807 in New York);
- William "Riley" (b. 17 March 1811 Bridgeport, NY, buried in the same cemetery as his mother Lucy);
- Alpheus (b. 1813 in Bridgeport, NY).
Little is know of Lucy except for the struggle she waged for seven years to receive the pension she was due as the widow of a Revolutionary War soldier which Congress had authorized for these women in 1838 (and which could be back dated to 1836). The law apparently had a time limit which stopped the pension after five years, so by 7 July 1838 she had submitted all the papers for the pension process to proceed.
As part of this process she went to court in Madison County, NY on 22 Feb. 1839 and made a declaration under oath that she was the widow of Jason Damon who had served in the Revolution and had received a pension for two years before he died in 1835. She signed the document with a crude "X" between her first and last names which someone else had written, and this indicates she could not write and had not attended school, a typical situation for frontier women of her day (and the same situation applied to her daughter Polly's mother-in law, Tryhenia Austin Briggs).
However, someone had made a mistake in transcribing (or Lucy got the year wrong), and thus the date 1783 was written for her marriage to Jason instead of 1793, and since she could not read, she did not correct it before signing the document. This would later add another delay to a series of mistakes that kept her without her due pension for years. In fact, in this period before copy machines, several times the War Department apparently misplaced key documents for which no copy existed, a situation which quite frustrated her lawyers whose letters show admirable restraint when they reminded the government they already possessed the documents they had asked requested.
The confusion over dates is compounded by the 1839 declaration of Mary West, age 62 and living in Verona, Oneida County, NY, who attests to the marriage of Lucy and Jason which she says she attended in Grafton, and that before Lucy married, her name was Owen. Was she an old friend or a relative? She does not appear to be a sister of Lucy, but perhaps she was a sister of Jason. Only two male siblings are know for him, but this list is likely incomplete.
Apparently nothing happened for several years, as the pension department had evidently mislaid the papers, and her first lawyer, H.G. Warren, actually quit, "…having given up the case as hopeless…." Yet she persisted in her siege with the government and chose a new champion for her cause, New York attorney Arad Joy, of Ovid, New York who got the ball rolling again. He reminding the government they were legally on notice 7 July 1844 when he submitted a "Proof of Service" document that showed the pension department had received all the necessary papers to proceed with the matter. This was pretty close to treating the government as a respondent in a lawsuit, like a witness being served a subpoena to appear in court.
At this same time Lucy had been required to request a new search of Massachusetts state records to again provide proof that Jason had indeed been a Revolutionary soldier, although this had already been completed in 1833 prior to Jason receiving his pension. The government also had mislaid the document stating her new agent in this matter was Arad Joy, and thus, another attorney, Willis Walle, wrote to the pension department on 5 Sept. 1844 to identify Joy as Lucy's agent. This also referred to the submitted (and lost?) declaration under oath by Theadore S. Brown, son of the late Rev. Elijah Brown who had married Jason and Lucy and given the correct date of 1793. Mr. Brown had searched his father's records and found the Reverend's note that he performed the ceremony for Lucy and Jason Damon. However, he spelled it Demmon, which was a common phonetic alternate, yet this too would cause problems in the process. Indeed, to overcome the maze of bureaucracy, besides attorney Wade, Arad Joy also enlisted the services of W.S. Hubbell in Washington to press the case at the War Department.
Once most of these mistakes had been corrected, on 17 Oct. 1844 Lucy was given her pension certificate, but since the law was only good for 5 years, it was back dated from 4 March 1836 to 4 March 1841. Yes, she finally received her pension 3 years after it expired! She would apparently receive her five years of payments, but since Congress had passed new legislation about military pensions in 1843 and 1844, the pension commissioner wrote her lawyer by 20 Nov. 1844 with the news that she would have to resubmit a new application for a new 5 year pension and go through the process again!
One might suspect the government was dragging its feet since politically it looked good to the public to offer pensions to the widows of the Revolutionary War heroes, but actually the bureaucrats could have been reluctant to pay and perhaps delayed the process so the old ladies would die before the government had to make the payments. Be that as it may, Joy wrote back to the Federal Pension Commissioner, the "Honorable J.L. Edwards" in Washington, DC and respectfully asked him to reconsider her situation as evidently had been done for others. For the next six months, the government continued to stall, but finally the commissioner saw reason.
Perhaps the decision was helped by yet another declaration Lucy submitted, this one dated 25 March 1845, when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, and had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory at Prairieville, Milwaukee County. The declaration was short but stated the basic particulars that she was the widow of Jason who had severed in the Revolution, he had received a pension, and she had received a previous pension. Her mark on this document is more like a large "t" with a bottom that curls right. Of more interest is the added declaration of her son Riley Damon who supports her statements. Of even greater interest is the third attached declaration, this of Almon H. White. He was not directly related to Lucy, but he was the nephew of Lucy's son-in-law Hugh Briggs, who had married her daughter Polly. This confluence of families suggests that out in the new territories families remained close despite the distances and few roads, and they supported each other. Indeed, Almon White was close to his Briggs relatives and his name appears in documents with them, even out in California.
Finally after a seven year process, Lucy seems to have had the first pension confirmed, and she also received the new pension. This second one was signed on 7 May 1845 by the Secretary of War "W.L. Marcy" (William Learned Marcy) and it was apparently back dated to 4 March 1843 at $20.00 a year as before (and in addition to his duties signing pension documents at the time, W.L. Marcy was gearing up to direct the War Department during the War with Mexico, 1846-8). Like the first pension, this second one would also run for five years to 1848 unless Lucy remarried or died. By early 1847 the pension was increased to $26.66 a year once Arad had convinced the war department they had made another mistake since $20.00 was the amount given for 6 months service, but the official documents from Massachusetts clearly stated Jason had served at least 8 months and merited more. The new amount was also back dated to 1843.
Once she was in Wisconsin, all of the process had to be conducted by letter to Joy in New York, who in turn repeatedly attempted to communicate with the Commissioner Edwards in Washington. Jason had claimed 9 months of service, but the incomplete military records for the Revolution showed only 8 months, and his pension was based on this. Jason attempted to have that extra month recognized but could not, and Lucy attempted the same in 1846 with the formal request through her lawyer Joy for another records check in Massachusetts. The request included the quaint statement that "my memory does not enable me to state my husband's services more fully..." Once the document from Massachusetts arrived at Joy's office (still with only the 8 month's service), it was submitted with a letter from Arad which included the plea "…will there not be an increase of pension due to her, you will be the judge, only do justice by the poor widow, I ask no more."
On April 30 1847 Joy submitted Lucy's request for a review of her pension to determine if an increase was possible, and there might have been some problem with the pension funds reaching Wisconsin, since on 24 July of the same year Joy submitted a power of attorney for Lucy to the commissioner so the funds would be payable in Albany, New York, and he would get them to the family through an agent in Wisconsin. One can imagine how far $26.66 would go in a year, even at the reduced prices in the mid 19th century.
The government enacted a new law in 1848 for new regulations for widows pensions, and thus for a yet another time Lucy entered the process with a declaration under oath on 19 November 1848 at Waukesha, County, Wisconsin. This identified her as a previous pensioner based on her husband's service in the Revolution, that she had received $26.66 per year, her residence was in nearby Vernon, and she was 75 years old. This time she made her X in a stronger hand.
In her husband Jason's application there is a reference to Gideon Owen who lived in their community and who was a character witness for Jason's honesty. This Gideon was a distant relative of Lucy (a 4th cousin – they had the same ggg-grandfather John Owen), and the relationship must have been recognized since two other documents carry their names together. Gideon himself applied for a pension for service in Connecticut but died before it was granted. He was b. June 23, 1765 (pension says 22 June 1766) at Salisbury, Litchfield Co. (and d. March 17, 1834, Madison Co., NY). He enlisted in April 1782 and served thirteen months in the company of Captain Stoddard in the militia regiment of Col. Caulfield before receiving a verbal discharge of his unit in May 1783. Both Jason and Gideon used the same lawyer, Azariah Smith, to act as their agent for the application process, and a document from 1834 refers to both their applications by Smith who seems to have saved space and paper by covering both cases on one document. On the third document dated to 1838 Lucy's name appears along with that of the late Gideon and his widow Nancy Owen because in order to save space again, the attorney who represented both of them (a package deal?) discussed their marriages for which there were no civil record and for which affidavits had to be submitted as proof by witnesses. The lawyer had also saved time since he used the same witness, Martin Phillips, for both depositions since all were long time neighbors in Madison County. The attorney's name is missing from this document but could be the same A. Smith who handled their husbands' applications and who already demonstrated his desire to save paper and space.
We should take notice that in the latter years of her life Lucy had the courage to leave New York which had been her home for more than 65 years. By 1845 when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, she had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory and was living in Prairieville, Milwaukee County to be close to the families of some of her children including Polly who had married Hugh Lackey Briggs and resided in nearby Rock County. She seems to have lived with the family of her son William Riley Damon in Vernon, Waukesha County (see the 1848 application above) where both she and later her son were buried. But before she died she lived to celebrate with the other pioneers the official recognition of Wisconsin as a state on 29 May 1848 and also to cross the halfway mark for the century in 1850. By the time she passed in 1851 she had wrung 13 years of pension payments from a government which had stalled but could not defeat her.
See the Briggs family history for Lucy's daughter Polly who married Hugh Lackey Briggs.
Lucy Owen was the daughter of Abel and Anna Owen.
Married: Jason Damon 21 Feb 1793 in Grafton, Rensselaer, NY
Children:
- Edmon (b. 16 June 1809 in Bridgeport, Madison Co NY )
- Polly (b. 6 May 1796 in Paris, Madison, New York, married Hugh Lackey Briggs);
- Clark R. (b. 1800 in Paris, NY);
- Ephraim (b. 28 March 1803 in Paris, NY);
- Norton Jason (b. 1807 in New York);
- William "Riley" (b. 17 March 1811 Bridgeport, NY, buried in the same cemetery as his mother Lucy);
- Alpheus (b. 1813 in Bridgeport, NY).
Little is know of Lucy except for the struggle she waged for seven years to receive the pension she was due as the widow of a Revolutionary War soldier which Congress had authorized for these women in 1838 (and which could be back dated to 1836). The law apparently had a time limit which stopped the pension after five years, so by 7 July 1838 she had submitted all the papers for the pension process to proceed.
As part of this process she went to court in Madison County, NY on 22 Feb. 1839 and made a declaration under oath that she was the widow of Jason Damon who had served in the Revolution and had received a pension for two years before he died in 1835. She signed the document with a crude "X" between her first and last names which someone else had written, and this indicates she could not write and had not attended school, a typical situation for frontier women of her day (and the same situation applied to her daughter Polly's mother-in law, Tryhenia Austin Briggs).
However, someone had made a mistake in transcribing (or Lucy got the year wrong), and thus the date 1783 was written for her marriage to Jason instead of 1793, and since she could not read, she did not correct it before signing the document. This would later add another delay to a series of mistakes that kept her without her due pension for years. In fact, in this period before copy machines, several times the War Department apparently misplaced key documents for which no copy existed, a situation which quite frustrated her lawyers whose letters show admirable restraint when they reminded the government they already possessed the documents they had asked requested.
The confusion over dates is compounded by the 1839 declaration of Mary West, age 62 and living in Verona, Oneida County, NY, who attests to the marriage of Lucy and Jason which she says she attended in Grafton, and that before Lucy married, her name was Owen. Was she an old friend or a relative? She does not appear to be a sister of Lucy, but perhaps she was a sister of Jason. Only two male siblings are know for him, but this list is likely incomplete.
Apparently nothing happened for several years, as the pension department had evidently mislaid the papers, and her first lawyer, H.G. Warren, actually quit, "…having given up the case as hopeless…." Yet she persisted in her siege with the government and chose a new champion for her cause, New York attorney Arad Joy, of Ovid, New York who got the ball rolling again. He reminding the government they were legally on notice 7 July 1844 when he submitted a "Proof of Service" document that showed the pension department had received all the necessary papers to proceed with the matter. This was pretty close to treating the government as a respondent in a lawsuit, like a witness being served a subpoena to appear in court.
At this same time Lucy had been required to request a new search of Massachusetts state records to again provide proof that Jason had indeed been a Revolutionary soldier, although this had already been completed in 1833 prior to Jason receiving his pension. The government also had mislaid the document stating her new agent in this matter was Arad Joy, and thus, another attorney, Willis Walle, wrote to the pension department on 5 Sept. 1844 to identify Joy as Lucy's agent. This also referred to the submitted (and lost?) declaration under oath by Theadore S. Brown, son of the late Rev. Elijah Brown who had married Jason and Lucy and given the correct date of 1793. Mr. Brown had searched his father's records and found the Reverend's note that he performed the ceremony for Lucy and Jason Damon. However, he spelled it Demmon, which was a common phonetic alternate, yet this too would cause problems in the process. Indeed, to overcome the maze of bureaucracy, besides attorney Wade, Arad Joy also enlisted the services of W.S. Hubbell in Washington to press the case at the War Department.
Once most of these mistakes had been corrected, on 17 Oct. 1844 Lucy was given her pension certificate, but since the law was only good for 5 years, it was back dated from 4 March 1836 to 4 March 1841. Yes, she finally received her pension 3 years after it expired! She would apparently receive her five years of payments, but since Congress had passed new legislation about military pensions in 1843 and 1844, the pension commissioner wrote her lawyer by 20 Nov. 1844 with the news that she would have to resubmit a new application for a new 5 year pension and go through the process again!
One might suspect the government was dragging its feet since politically it looked good to the public to offer pensions to the widows of the Revolutionary War heroes, but actually the bureaucrats could have been reluctant to pay and perhaps delayed the process so the old ladies would die before the government had to make the payments. Be that as it may, Joy wrote back to the Federal Pension Commissioner, the "Honorable J.L. Edwards" in Washington, DC and respectfully asked him to reconsider her situation as evidently had been done for others. For the next six months, the government continued to stall, but finally the commissioner saw reason.
Perhaps the decision was helped by yet another declaration Lucy submitted, this one dated 25 March 1845, when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, and had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory at Prairieville, Milwaukee County. The declaration was short but stated the basic particulars that she was the widow of Jason who had severed in the Revolution, he had received a pension, and she had received a previous pension. Her mark on this document is more like a large "t" with a bottom that curls right. Of more interest is the added declaration of her son Riley Damon who supports her statements. Of even greater interest is the third attached declaration, this of Almon H. White. He was not directly related to Lucy, but he was the nephew of Lucy's son-in-law Hugh Briggs, who had married her daughter Polly. This confluence of families suggests that out in the new territories families remained close despite the distances and few roads, and they supported each other. Indeed, Almon White was close to his Briggs relatives and his name appears in documents with them, even out in California.
Finally after a seven year process, Lucy seems to have had the first pension confirmed, and she also received the new pension. This second one was signed on 7 May 1845 by the Secretary of War "W.L. Marcy" (William Learned Marcy) and it was apparently back dated to 4 March 1843 at $20.00 a year as before (and in addition to his duties signing pension documents at the time, W.L. Marcy was gearing up to direct the War Department during the War with Mexico, 1846-8). Like the first pension, this second one would also run for five years to 1848 unless Lucy remarried or died. By early 1847 the pension was increased to $26.66 a year once Arad had convinced the war department they had made another mistake since $20.00 was the amount given for 6 months service, but the official documents from Massachusetts clearly stated Jason had served at least 8 months and merited more. The new amount was also back dated to 1843.
Once she was in Wisconsin, all of the process had to be conducted by letter to Joy in New York, who in turn repeatedly attempted to communicate with the Commissioner Edwards in Washington. Jason had claimed 9 months of service, but the incomplete military records for the Revolution showed only 8 months, and his pension was based on this. Jason attempted to have that extra month recognized but could not, and Lucy attempted the same in 1846 with the formal request through her lawyer Joy for another records check in Massachusetts. The request included the quaint statement that "my memory does not enable me to state my husband's services more fully..." Once the document from Massachusetts arrived at Joy's office (still with only the 8 month's service), it was submitted with a letter from Arad which included the plea "…will there not be an increase of pension due to her, you will be the judge, only do justice by the poor widow, I ask no more."
On April 30 1847 Joy submitted Lucy's request for a review of her pension to determine if an increase was possible, and there might have been some problem with the pension funds reaching Wisconsin, since on 24 July of the same year Joy submitted a power of attorney for Lucy to the commissioner so the funds would be payable in Albany, New York, and he would get them to the family through an agent in Wisconsin. One can imagine how far $26.66 would go in a year, even at the reduced prices in the mid 19th century.
The government enacted a new law in 1848 for new regulations for widows pensions, and thus for a yet another time Lucy entered the process with a declaration under oath on 19 November 1848 at Waukesha, County, Wisconsin. This identified her as a previous pensioner based on her husband's service in the Revolution, that she had received $26.66 per year, her residence was in nearby Vernon, and she was 75 years old. This time she made her X in a stronger hand.
In her husband Jason's application there is a reference to Gideon Owen who lived in their community and who was a character witness for Jason's honesty. This Gideon was a distant relative of Lucy (a 4th cousin – they had the same ggg-grandfather John Owen), and the relationship must have been recognized since two other documents carry their names together. Gideon himself applied for a pension for service in Connecticut but died before it was granted. He was b. June 23, 1765 (pension says 22 June 1766) at Salisbury, Litchfield Co. (and d. March 17, 1834, Madison Co., NY). He enlisted in April 1782 and served thirteen months in the company of Captain Stoddard in the militia regiment of Col. Caulfield before receiving a verbal discharge of his unit in May 1783. Both Jason and Gideon used the same lawyer, Azariah Smith, to act as their agent for the application process, and a document from 1834 refers to both their applications by Smith who seems to have saved space and paper by covering both cases on one document. On the third document dated to 1838 Lucy's name appears along with that of the late Gideon and his widow Nancy Owen because in order to save space again, the attorney who represented both of them (a package deal?) discussed their marriages for which there were no civil record and for which affidavits had to be submitted as proof by witnesses. The lawyer had also saved time since he used the same witness, Martin Phillips, for both depositions since all were long time neighbors in Madison County. The attorney's name is missing from this document but could be the same A. Smith who handled their husbands' applications and who already demonstrated his desire to save paper and space.
We should take notice that in the latter years of her life Lucy had the courage to leave New York which had been her home for more than 65 years. By 1845 when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, she had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory and was living in Prairieville, Milwaukee County to be close to the families of some of her children including Polly who had married Hugh Lackey Briggs and resided in nearby Rock County. She seems to have lived with the family of her son William Riley Damon in Vernon, Waukesha County (see the 1848 application above) where both she and later her son were buried. But before she died she lived to celebrate with the other pioneers the official recognition of Wisconsin as a state on 29 May 1848 and also to cross the halfway mark for the century in 1850. By the time she passed in 1851 she had wrung 13 years of pension payments from a government which had stalled but could not defeat her.
See the Briggs family history for Lucy's daughter Polly who married Hugh Lackey Briggs.
Married: Jason Damon 21 Feb 1793 in Grafton, Rensselaer, NY
Children:
- Edmon (b. 16 June 1809 in Bridgeport, Madison Co NY )
- Polly (b. 6 May 1796 in Paris, Madison, New York, married Hugh Lackey Briggs);
- Clark R. (b. 1800 in Paris, NY);
- Ephraim (b. 28 March 1803 in Paris, NY);
- Norton Jason (b. 1807 in New York);
- William "Riley" (b. 17 March 1811 Bridgeport, NY, buried in the same cemetery as his mother Lucy);
- Alpheus (b. 1813 in Bridgeport, NY).
Little is know of Lucy except for the struggle she waged for seven years to receive the pension she was due as the widow of a Revolutionary War soldier which Congress had authorized for these women in 1838 (and which could be back dated to 1836). The law apparently had a time limit which stopped the pension after five years, so by 7 July 1838 she had submitted all the papers for the pension process to proceed.
As part of this process she went to court in Madison County, NY on 22 Feb. 1839 and made a declaration under oath that she was the widow of Jason Damon who had served in the Revolution and had received a pension for two years before he died in 1835. She signed the document with a crude "X" between her first and last names which someone else had written, and this indicates she could not write and had not attended school, a typical situation for frontier women of her day (and the same situation applied to her daughter Polly's mother-in law, Tryhenia Austin Briggs).
However, someone had made a mistake in transcribing (or Lucy got the year wrong), and thus the date 1783 was written for her marriage to Jason instead of 1793, and since she could not read, she did not correct it before signing the document. This would later add another delay to a series of mistakes that kept her without her due pension for years. In fact, in this period before copy machines, several times the War Department apparently misplaced key documents for which no copy existed, a situation which quite frustrated her lawyers whose letters show admirable restraint when they reminded the government they already possessed the documents they had asked requested.
The confusion over dates is compounded by the 1839 declaration of Mary West, age 62 and living in Verona, Oneida County, NY, who attests to the marriage of Lucy and Jason which she says she attended in Grafton, and that before Lucy married, her name was Owen. Was she an old friend or a relative? She does not appear to be a sister of Lucy, but perhaps she was a sister of Jason. Only two male siblings are know for him, but this list is likely incomplete.
Apparently nothing happened for several years, as the pension department had evidently mislaid the papers, and her first lawyer, H.G. Warren, actually quit, "…having given up the case as hopeless…." Yet she persisted in her siege with the government and chose a new champion for her cause, New York attorney Arad Joy, of Ovid, New York who got the ball rolling again. He reminding the government they were legally on notice 7 July 1844 when he submitted a "Proof of Service" document that showed the pension department had received all the necessary papers to proceed with the matter. This was pretty close to treating the government as a respondent in a lawsuit, like a witness being served a subpoena to appear in court.
At this same time Lucy had been required to request a new search of Massachusetts state records to again provide proof that Jason had indeed been a Revolutionary soldier, although this had already been completed in 1833 prior to Jason receiving his pension. The government also had mislaid the document stating her new agent in this matter was Arad Joy, and thus, another attorney, Willis Walle, wrote to the pension department on 5 Sept. 1844 to identify Joy as Lucy's agent. This also referred to the submitted (and lost?) declaration under oath by Theadore S. Brown, son of the late Rev. Elijah Brown who had married Jason and Lucy and given the correct date of 1793. Mr. Brown had searched his father's records and found the Reverend's note that he performed the ceremony for Lucy and Jason Damon. However, he spelled it Demmon, which was a common phonetic alternate, yet this too would cause problems in the process. Indeed, to overcome the maze of bureaucracy, besides attorney Wade, Arad Joy also enlisted the services of W.S. Hubbell in Washington to press the case at the War Department.
Once most of these mistakes had been corrected, on 17 Oct. 1844 Lucy was given her pension certificate, but since the law was only good for 5 years, it was back dated from 4 March 1836 to 4 March 1841. Yes, she finally received her pension 3 years after it expired! She would apparently receive her five years of payments, but since Congress had passed new legislation about military pensions in 1843 and 1844, the pension commissioner wrote her lawyer by 20 Nov. 1844 with the news that she would have to resubmit a new application for a new 5 year pension and go through the process again!
One might suspect the government was dragging its feet since politically it looked good to the public to offer pensions to the widows of the Revolutionary War heroes, but actually the bureaucrats could have been reluctant to pay and perhaps delayed the process so the old ladies would die before the government had to make the payments. Be that as it may, Joy wrote back to the Federal Pension Commissioner, the "Honorable J.L. Edwards" in Washington, DC and respectfully asked him to reconsider her situation as evidently had been done for others. For the next six months, the government continued to stall, but finally the commissioner saw reason.
Perhaps the decision was helped by yet another declaration Lucy submitted, this one dated 25 March 1845, when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, and had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory at Prairieville, Milwaukee County. The declaration was short but stated the basic particulars that she was the widow of Jason who had severed in the Revolution, he had received a pension, and she had received a previous pension. Her mark on this document is more like a large "t" with a bottom that curls right. Of more interest is the added declaration of her son Riley Damon who supports her statements. Of even greater interest is the third attached declaration, this of Almon H. White. He was not directly related to Lucy, but he was the nephew of Lucy's son-in-law Hugh Briggs, who had married her daughter Polly. This confluence of families suggests that out in the new territories families remained close despite the distances and few roads, and they supported each other. Indeed, Almon White was close to his Briggs relatives and his name appears in documents with them, even out in California.
Finally after a seven year process, Lucy seems to have had the first pension confirmed, and she also received the new pension. This second one was signed on 7 May 1845 by the Secretary of War "W.L. Marcy" (William Learned Marcy) and it was apparently back dated to 4 March 1843 at $20.00 a year as before (and in addition to his duties signing pension documents at the time, W.L. Marcy was gearing up to direct the War Department during the War with Mexico, 1846-8). Like the first pension, this second one would also run for five years to 1848 unless Lucy remarried or died. By early 1847 the pension was increased to $26.66 a year once Arad had convinced the war department they had made another mistake since $20.00 was the amount given for 6 months service, but the official documents from Massachusetts clearly stated Jason had served at least 8 months and merited more. The new amount was also back dated to 1843.
Once she was in Wisconsin, all of the process had to be conducted by letter to Joy in New York, who in turn repeatedly attempted to communicate with the Commissioner Edwards in Washington. Jason had claimed 9 months of service, but the incomplete military records for the Revolution showed only 8 months, and his pension was based on this. Jason attempted to have that extra month recognized but could not, and Lucy attempted the same in 1846 with the formal request through her lawyer Joy for another records check in Massachusetts. The request included the quaint statement that "my memory does not enable me to state my husband's services more fully..." Once the document from Massachusetts arrived at Joy's office (still with only the 8 month's service), it was submitted with a letter from Arad which included the plea "…will there not be an increase of pension due to her, you will be the judge, only do justice by the poor widow, I ask no more."
On April 30 1847 Joy submitted Lucy's request for a review of her pension to determine if an increase was possible, and there might have been some problem with the pension funds reaching Wisconsin, since on 24 July of the same year Joy submitted a power of attorney for Lucy to the commissioner so the funds would be payable in Albany, New York, and he would get them to the family through an agent in Wisconsin. One can imagine how far $26.66 would go in a year, even at the reduced prices in the mid 19th century.
The government enacted a new law in 1848 for new regulations for widows pensions, and thus for a yet another time Lucy entered the process with a declaration under oath on 19 November 1848 at Waukesha, County, Wisconsin. This identified her as a previous pensioner based on her husband's service in the Revolution, that she had received $26.66 per year, her residence was in nearby Vernon, and she was 75 years old. This time she made her X in a stronger hand.
In her husband Jason's application there is a reference to Gideon Owen who lived in their community and who was a character witness for Jason's honesty. This Gideon was a distant relative of Lucy (a 4th cousin – they had the same ggg-grandfather John Owen), and the relationship must have been recognized since two other documents carry their names together. Gideon himself applied for a pension for service in Connecticut but died before it was granted. He was b. June 23, 1765 (pension says 22 June 1766) at Salisbury, Litchfield Co. (and d. March 17, 1834, Madison Co., NY). He enlisted in April 1782 and served thirteen months in the company of Captain Stoddard in the militia regiment of Col. Caulfield before receiving a verbal discharge of his unit in May 1783. Both Jason and Gideon used the same lawyer, Azariah Smith, to act as their agent for the application process, and a document from 1834 refers to both their applications by Smith who seems to have saved space and paper by covering both cases on one document. On the third document dated to 1838 Lucy's name appears along with that of the late Gideon and his widow Nancy Owen because in order to save space again, the attorney who represented both of them (a package deal?) discussed their marriages for which there were no civil record and for which affidavits had to be submitted as proof by witnesses. The lawyer had also saved time since he used the same witness, Martin Phillips, for both depositions since all were long time neighbors in Madison County. The attorney's name is missing from this document but could be the same A. Smith who handled their husbands' applications and who already demonstrated his desire to save paper and space.
We should take notice that in the latter years of her life Lucy had the courage to leave New York which had been her home for more than 65 years. By 1845 when she was 70 years, nine months, twenty-two days, she had settled in the west in the Wisconsin Territory and was living in Prairieville, Milwaukee County to be close to the families of some of her children including Polly who had married Hugh Lackey Briggs and resided in nearby Rock County. She seems to have lived with the family of her son William Riley Damon in Vernon, Waukesha County (see the 1848 application above) where both she and later her son were buried. But before she died she lived to celebrate with the other pioneers the official recognition of Wisconsin as a state on 29 May 1848 and also to cross the halfway mark for the century in 1850. By the time she passed in 1851 she had wrung 13 years of pension payments from a government which had stalled but could not defeat her.
See the Briggs family history for Lucy's daughter Polly who married Hugh Lackey Briggs.
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