At the close of the American Revolution in 1783 no provision yet existed to account for the support of veterans of the conflict. Payments for service rendered during the war didn’t fully embrace the volatility of currency, inaccessibility of bounty lands, predatory financial speculators, and the somewhat decentralized and scattered nature of records concerning military service in its various forms. Owing to public pressure, a series of four acts were passed between 1818 and 1836 that first made veterans of the Continental Army eligible for pensions before revising that eligibility based on financial hardship. The act was then expanded to include service in local militias and to widows of Revolutionary veterans.
In Ulster County, a number of pensioners made eligible by the act of 1818 found themselves subsequently dropped from the pension lists and were made to reapply by demonstrating financial hardship starting in 1820. The law required that the applicant attest to their service and financial situation before a “Court of Record” – in this case a judge sitting for the Ulster County Court of Common Pleas – and that the statement given then be sent to the Pension Office of the United States War Department where evidence was compared to determine final eligibility.
The pension applications that comprise this collection survive for unknown reasons. Whether these records began their existence as working copies or duplicates of records sent to Washington, DC is unknown, nor is it clear why some contain responses from the Pension Office concerning denial or acceptance of respective applications. At an unknown time between 1840 and 1970 the papers were removed from the records of the Court of Common Pleas and ended up either intentionally or by misadventure in private hands. The materials were donated to Historic Huguenot Street and subsequently returned by that institution to the care of the County of Ulster between 1995 and 1997.
Scope of Collection
This collection comprises a selection of applications by veterans attesting to service during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) in the various State lines of the Continental Army. These handwritten records generally contain the name and residence of the applicant, a summary of their service often naming commanding officers, summary of their real and personal property, and an explanation of their personal and family situation. The records vary widely in degree of detail and contain factual errors related to names of officers and chronology are common. Because these are not the record copy of application files kept by the War Department’s Pension Office, it is unknown if the claims made in these applications were authentic or fabricated and it is therefore incumbent on the researcher to corroborate statements of applicants with other supporting documentation.
