Thursday, February 24, 2011

Treasure Chest Thursday - Isaac Seaver's Civil War Pension Papers: Widow's 1908 Affidavit

It's Treasure Chest Thursday, time to share one of the documents or artifacts in my family history collection.  In previous posts, I have displayed documents from the Civil War Pension File of Isaac Seaver, my second great-grandfather. 

I received the complete Civil War Pension File for Isaac Seaver on 3 January - see my post My Christmas Present Came Today - Oh Boy! - and it has 81 pages in the file.  Some of them have little or no information on them.  I'm going to cherry-pick some pages for this and later Treasure Chest Thursday posts.

Last week, we saw that Isaac's widow, Alvina Seaver, applied for a pension on 29 July 1908 after the Act of April 19, 1908 required widows of soldiers to have been married to the soldier before 27 June 1888 and to not have married again.

The "Treasure" this week is the General Affidavit of Alvina M. Seaver in 1908 once again requesting a pension based on her husband's Civil War service.

The transcript of this page is (filled in lines underlined, handwritten items italicized):

GENERAL AFFIDAVIT

State of Massachusetts, County of Worcester, SS:
In the matter of Original Widow's pension claim No. 738,086 Alvina M. Seaver
widow of Isaac Seaver, 3d Co "H" 4th Regt Mass Vol Hy Art'y,
on this 26 day of October, A.D. 1908, personally appeared before me
a Justice of the Peace in and for the aforesaid County, duly authorized to administer
oaths: Alvina M. Seaver aged 59 years, a resident of Dickinson Centre
in the County of Franklin, and State of New York,
whose Post-office address is Dickinson Centre New York,
well known to be reputable and entitled to credit, and who, being duly sworn, declared in relation to aforesaid
case as follows:  that, in response to the Bureau of pensions
requirement dated October 17, 1908, I the above named
Alvina M. Seaver, do solemnly swear that to the best of
my knowledge and belief, my first husband was in the
Military or naval service of the United States during the War
of Rebellion, this I gained from hearing him say that he
was in the service in those years, but what the service was
I do not know; that during the time I lived with him
I never knew of his being in receipt of a pension in the
War of Rebellion or at any other time before or after Civil War;
that if he had been in receipt of such pension
it seems as if I would have been likely to have known
of it.  That I never made an application for pension as the widow
of Joseph P. Lewis.  That the only application for pension
I ever made was as the lawful widow of the aforesaid
Isaac Seaver 3d filed March 25, 1901 under the Act of Jan 27, 1890
supported by evidence 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 (Rejected) and
again July 3, 1908 under Act of April 19, 1908 supported by
evidence B.  I supposed the Act of April 19, 1908 was intended
to relieve such cases as mine without all this annoyance
and expense In  g???? of faith I abided by it asking nothing else.
I further declare that I have no interest in said case and I am not concerned in its prosecution.

........................................ Alvina M. Seaver
........................................ (Signature of Affiant)

Note that this Affidavit was taken and signed in Worcester County, Massachusetts, even though Alvina was a resident of Franklin County, New York at the time. 

The "evidence B" is the Declaration for Widow's Pension of 29 July 1908 (transcribed last week), which was taken in Franklin County, New York.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hello.
I believe the ??? in the widow's affidavit could be interpreted as "In good faith".
Susan