John's pension application traces the family journey west from his birth to his final place of rest. John was born in October 1763 in Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York; the son of Jonathan Talady and Jemima. When the American Revolutionary War began, his father moved the family to the Catskills. By the time the Battle of White Plains occurred October 1776, both father and son were enlisted with the 5th New York line. The family helped build Fort Montgomery in 1776 on West Bank of the Hudson River. The family was at West Point and part of the Christmas Campaign of '76 - '77. They were part of Sullivan's expedition 1779 and among George Washington's papers; proof his mother Jemima Talladay; exhausted and nearly starved, had a historic role in the capture of Major Andre' and Benedict Arnold. During the war, their homes were attacked and burned; many family, friends and neighbors died, and survivors were captured and enslaved by the British. John would marry one of the captive Strope / Van Valkenbug daughters; Mary, and with her brother John Strope, the Bowman family and other Veterans of Dutchess County, New York, would about 1792 move to Wysox, Luzerne, now Bradford County Pennsylvania. After the 1812 Ohio Territory Military Tract set aside lands for soldiers, the families moved to Ohio 1818. There, they will remain until 1831 when the family will move to Tippecanoe, Indiana. In 1832 they journeyed farther west to Old Town Timbers, on the Mackinaw River of McLean County, Illinois. The family; sons and daughters now married, settled, and with families of their own extended from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri when John Talladay saw his last sun rise, and within the decade [1856] his son Solomon's branch of the family will make the trek to California, as teamsters driving herds of horses and cattle, pulling oxen teams the length of 2000 miles to the state of California where they will establish farms, enter county and state fairs, join benevolent organizations, build towns from Lassen and Plumas Counties thru Shasta, Tehama, Trinity and Humbolt in the north to Contra Costa, Alameda, and Santa Clara counties of the Bay Area, and south to Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties to the south.