Friday, January 28, 2011

Thomas Bonner Civil War Pension File

I received a copy of the Civil War Pension File for my great grandfather on December 24, 2010. It is 267 pages and full of information. The Veterans Administration must have spent quite a bit of money determining whether Thomas and his wife Edna were eligible for a pension. Among the 267 pages I found depositions, statements, and interviews of many people. The Pension Examiners traveled through Louisiana, to Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Maine and Massachusetts to interview the many people for their statements. It appears the Pension Examiners were trying to determine if Thomas and Edna were really married, had Thomas been married before, what the actual birth dates were of the children and were the children Thomas' children.

To start summarizing the pension file, I prepared a highly edited version of the file and mailed it to my uncle, who is the only living grandchild of Thomas and Edna Bonner. Uncle Buddy is 89 years old. He never knew much about his grandfather except that everyone referred to him as Henry. What follows is the letter that I mailed to Uncle Buddy on January 21, 2011.

January 21, 2011

Dear Buddy,

Hope you are doing well and are still a champion poker player. I am coming to OKC in February and weather permitting, will come and see you.

I wanted to tell you what I have learned about your grandfather Thomas Henry Bonner. I have gathered some information on the internet, but the best source of information has been his Veteran's Pension File. I requested the file from the VA about six months ago and it finally arrived. There are 267 pages and it has taken a while to go through them and figure out who's who. Here's a summary of what is in the file.

Summary or Pension File of Thomas Henry Bonner

Thomas Henry Bonner was born in New Brunswick, Canada in Feb. 1845. His parents were James and Margaret Bonner who immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1835. Back then they were trying to get people from Ireland and England to move to Canada by giving them free land. There were eleven children in his family. He was the 9th child of the eleven. When he was about 16, he ran away from home and went to Augusta, Maine. It was there he joined the US Army. He joined the 6th Battery of the 1st Maine Light Artillery in 1862. He served until July 1865. He saw battle in all of the major battles around Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania including Antietam and Gettysburg.

When he got out of the Army in 1865, he lived about a year near his brother Edward in Danforth, Maine. In 1867 he moved to Augusta, Maine. In Augusta in June 1867 he married a woman named Georgianna Phillips. In August 1867, he left Maine and moved to Texas to help build rail roads, leaving his wife in Maine. Soon after he left, his wife died. They had no children. According to statements in the file, he had planned to have her and her father join him in Texas and then she died in Maine. His whereabouts aren't really known for sure from 1867 until 1885. In the pension file, people gave testimony to the fact that Thomas said he went West to fight the Indians. One person even said Thomas said he fought with Gen. George Custer at Custer's Last Stand. However, the record of the 7th Cavalry who fought with Custer is well documented and Thomas Bonner's name is not on the roster. Also, all of his pension records state that after his discharge in 1865 that he did not serve again in the military.

One witness giving testimony in the file said she first met Thomas in 1885 when he was living in Atoka, Indian Territory, Oklahoma. She said he had a "woman", but he never said that she was his wife. The woman giving testimony was Lizzie Pursley and said her father gave her to Thomas to raise because her mother had died and her father was very ill. Lizzie said she went with Thomas and the woman to Missouri and Arkansas for a short while before they went to Louisiana. Thomas was in Louisiana in 1887.

Your grandmother "Granny Edna" met Thomas in Louisiana because he lived only about a mile from her home. The woman who lived with him, wife or not, was sick and Edna helped to take care of her. The woman whose name was Susan Brooks died. About three months after Susan Brooks died, Edna and Thomas Bonner got married. That was in Sept. 1888. They then had children Addie and Edward in Louisiana. They moved to Laurel, Mississippi where Ross Bonner was born and then to Brooklyn, Mississippi where Robert and Maude Bonner were born. While in Brooklyn, Mississippi, Thomas Bonner was elected Justice of the Peace.

Much of the Pension File contains testimony of people that the Pension Board is asking to verify that Edna and Thomas were married, whether or not Thomas had been married before and whether the children were the children of Thomas. Thomas didn't file for a pension until 1890. He was claiming his disability to be rheumatism and decreased eye site. He said he acquired the rheumatism during the Civil War at the Battle of Mine Run Virginia because he was exposed to harsh weather for a long time. When I read about the battle I learned that in November 1864 the Union troops were going to charge at Mine Run, but the weather turned bad. They delayed the attack for 48 hours and the soldiers were out in the rain and November weather for two days.

Thomas was awarded a pension of $6.00 per month. He received that amount until 1900. He reapplied wanting to have it raised to $8.00, but it was denied. In the section about his application, there are medical records. The records show that he was light skinned, black hair, blue eyes, about 145 pounds and about 5ft 7 inches tall. So, he wasn't a very big man. In 1902 Thomas and Edna and the children moved back to Louisiana. They went to Winona, Louisiana. Thomas worked in a sawmill. In January 1902, their youngest son Thomas was born. In February 1903, Thomas Henry Bonner died in Winona. An examiner states in the pension file that was "killed in a drunken row". I'm not quite sure what that means.

Edna began her application for a widow's pension in 1903. She had 5 small children, couldn't work and had no money. The government spent a whole lot of time and money intervieweing people to determine if she was eligible for the widow's pension. The examiners traveled to Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Maine and Massachusetts and all over Louisiana asking people what they knew about Thomas and Edna. Edna gave testimony several times about their life together. After about a year, she was awarded $30.00 per month plus $2.00 per month for each child. So in 1904, Granny Edna was getting $40.00 per month in a widow's pension. Doesn't seem like much. She did laundry and took in boarders to make more money.

About 1910, Edna and the children moved to Wilson, Oklahoma. Her pension dropped by $2.00 each year that one of her children turned 16, so by 1919 she was back to $30.00 per month. Daughter Maude died about that time and the four boys all worked at the sawmill in Bismark, Oklahoma which is now Wright City. In 1919, Edna remarried a man named Jasper Flowers, but that only lasted two years and she divorced him.

As you know, the four sons scattered about. Ed went to New Mexico, Tom to California, Ross and Robert to OKC. All the mail sent to Edna by the Pension Board, until the day she died, was sent to her in Wilson, Oklahoma. Except for the time Edna went to OKC to help take care of Poppy after your mother died, she was down there in Wilson, Oklahoma. She continued to get the $30.00 per month and was eligible for $40.00 when she turned 70. Because the Pension Board had her birth date wrong, she didn't get the $40.00 per month until she was 76. I just wonder how she ever had enough money to live on. Guess that might be why her house had cracks in the walls and Poppy said that she made sheets out of tobacco pouches by sewing them together.

That's about all to summarize about the Pension File. Sure gives a look at the hardships they had. Look forward to seeing you soon.

Love,
Sharon Kay

I have found the Pension File of Thomas Bonner very revealing. There are many more details that I will include in future blog posts.


New Brunswick Canada and The New Year

For the past two years that I have been doing this blog, I print each blog entry. At the end of the year I have the pages bound into a book. I add these books to my collection of old books because they have been about family history. When I went to print 2010, I realized that I hadn't written too much last year. So, this year I will try to add more history for my family. At first, I will be focusing on New Brunswick, Canada and the Bonner family.

In my blog of May 1, 2010, I mentioned that I had requested a copy of the Civil War Pension file of great grandfather, Thomas Henry Bonner. It was a long time coming, but arrived on December 24. Great Christmas present!!!! It is 267 pages in length and I have spent many hours reading and sorting through the pages. Since Thomas Henry Bonner was born in 1845 in New Brunswick, I have been focusing on the history of the area and the Bonners who lived there.


To get this years blog posts off to a good start, I am showing you a great advertisement that I obtained from The York Sunbury Museum in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The museum has a blog and recently published all the pages from McAlpine's York and Carleton Counties Directory for 1884-85. This is an ad on page 31 of the directory for George H. Davis, Druggist and Apothecary. I don't know if the Bonner family who might have remained in New Brunswick until 1884 would have gone to George Davis' Apothecary, but if they did I wonder if they knew what all these item were.

Some of the items you can come to some conclusion about, but others were a mystery to me, such as Aperient Pills and Opodildoc. I found definitions for both. The Aperient Pills were laxatives. Aperiens is Latin for "to open or uncover". Opodildoc is a linament and used externally for pain or injuries.


The one item from the apothecary that I know I would never buy is Davis' Vegetable Worm Lozenges. Worm Lozenges??? If you would like to read the blog of the York Sunbury Museum, you can find it at this link: http://yorksunburymuseum.wordpress.com/


In the next blog, I will begin to tell you about the Civil War Pension file of Thomas Henry Bonner, my great grandfather.