The initial information that I gathered about Thomas Bonner and his family came from the New Brunswick Genealogical Society in a special project named First Families of New Brunswick. The link for the index to all of the first families is:
http://www.nbgs.ca/firstfamilies.html
The link for the "B" section where the Bonnars are found is the following:
http://www.nbgs.ca/firstfamilies/FAMILY-B-2006.pdf
I was pleased to find this much information on the first look at New Brunswick records. Here is the Bonner information from First Families.
BONNAR: James Bonnar b. 1806 Ireland: came to NB in 1835 settled at Nashwaak, Saint Mary’s Parish, York County: m: Margaret b. 1807 Ireland
Children:
William Bonnar b. 1832
Matilda Bonnar b. 1835, married 14 Sept 1854 David Ross
James Bonnar Jr. b. 1836
Ann Bonnar b. 1838
Edward Bonnar b. 1840
Isabelle Bonnar b. 1842
Margaret Bonnar b. 1844, m. David Henry Pond
Mary Bonnar b. 1845
Thomas Bonnar b. 1846
Henry Bonnar b. 1848, m. Amanda- settled in Durham, NB and had two children
Robert Bonnar b. 1854, m. 15 Apr 1891 Louisa Greer
Since obtaining the original information about the Bonners from First Families, I have gathered additional information. A very helpful person, who happened to be a professional genealogist, inquired about some Bonner information I have on my family tree at ancestry.com and as we began our email chats, I learned that she has specialized in Irish genealogy for over 30 years. She said that the given names of the children in my Bonner family were very typical of families in Ulster Province in Northern Ireland. She also made some other suggestions that included looking into the Tithe Applotment records for each county in Ulster Province. I have just begun that process to see if I can locate the family of great great grandfather, James Bonner. It will take a while to learn my way around the Irish references and sources. Another great suggestion she made was to focus on the children of James and perhaps find a death certificate that might show exactly where James and Margaret were from. I am looking more closely at the children and have learned very little about some and a good deal more about others. Here's a short overview of the children of James and Margaret Bonner, Thomas' siblings.
I have found something about most of the siblings of Thomas Bonner, except William. Just found an 1851 New Brunswick census which included William and nothing more. There are several William Bonners in the records of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, but they are much younger than William.
Matilda Bonner married David Ross and they first moved to Nova Scotia and then to Chelsey, MA. I have the names of some of their children. I also found a listing for the Directory of Chesley, MA for 1912 that showed Matilda was widowed and she and her son Charles G. lived at #59 Blossom Street in Chelsea. Matilda and her brother William were born in Ireland. All of the other children were born in New Brunswick. Matilda Bonner Ross was interviewed by the pension examiners in 1904 for information about Thomas Bonner. I will include that later when I tell more about Matilda.
James Bonner Jr. married Mary Ann Good and they remained in New Brunswick. I have also learned about some of his children. On the census in 1861, James Jr. was age 25, married and living with his parents on lot #31 in Upper Durham. His wife is Ann and she is 19.
Ann Bonner married James Good and they had six children. The Bonner family and the Good family were neighbors. The Bonners lived on lot #31 and the Good family lived on lot #34 in Upper Durham. James was born in Ireland. After James Good died in 1871, Ann married John Clarke. After John died, Ann went to Massachusetts for a while and lived with her son, James. The information about the lot numbers came from the book, And The River Rolled On.... Two Hundred Years on the Nashwaak published in 1984 by the Nashwaak Bicentennial Association. The book is a wonderful reference.
Edward Bonner married Louisa Hines. Edward also enlisted in the US Army about the same time that Thomas enlisted in 1862. Edward was in the artillery. Edward and his wife Louisa lived in Danforth, ME. Both Edward and Louisa were also interviewed by pension examiners in 1904 for information about Thomas Bonner. I will review that very interesting information in a later blog posting.
I haven't found information about Isabell, as of this time. Margaret Bonner married Henry David Pond and they stayed in New Brunswick their entire life. They had 15 children. Their property was also near the Bonner family. The original Pond homestead was Lot G East containing 40 acres. Henry Pond and Margaret stayed there and built a large two story house. Their daughter Eva lived there after her parents died in the 1920's. Eva died at age 93 in 1959.
Mary Bonner married John Wesley McConnell. That's all I know about her right now. Henry Bonner married Amanda Horne and they stayed in New Brunswick also.
I found that Robert Bonner (brother of Thomas) did not marry Louisa Greer as stated on the First Families site. Instead it was Robert, a son of Henry Bonner who married Louisa Greer. Robert Bonner, brother of Thomas, stayed in New Brunswick and lived on the original homestead, known as lot #31. He sold the homestead in 1911 to a member of the Estey family.
In the next blog, I will tell you more about several of the siblings of Thomas Bonner. As I have gathered information on these families, rather than just being another search for information, it is truly a search for family. Thomas' siblings were my great aunts and uncles and are now looking much like other aunts and uncles that I have.
(Addendum: May 14, 2011- I received the death certificate of Robert Nelson Bonnar, the son of James Bonnar and Margaret Chambers rather than Chalmers. Robert was born in 1855, was 72 when he died in 1928. The certificate noted that he was the husband of the late Johanna Harris. His daughter, Alwilda Bonnar was the informant. This death certificate clarifies that it was Robert Nelson Bonnar and not Robert Douglas Bonnar who was the son of James and Margaret Bonnar. Now I can go on to write about the family of Robert Nelson Bonnar in another blog entry.)
Showing posts with label Bonner/Thomas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bonner/Thomas. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
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.
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 focusi
ng 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.
ng 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.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Great Grandfather, Thomas H. Bonner
Thomas H. Bonner was my great grandfather and until recently I have known very little about him. I knew he was born in February 1845 in British America, but didn't know where. It could have been in the Caribbean Islands or a Canadian Province. Thomas married my great grandmother, Edna Bridwell in 1888 in Louisiana. He was 43 and she was 18. I've always wondered how and why a man from British America made it to Louisiana. With the age difference, I have thought he might have been married before. They had a child, Addie, born in Louisiana in 1889 who died at a young age. Their son Edward was also born in Louisiana in 1891. Then they moved to Mississippi where my grandfather Ross, his brother Robert and his sister Maude were born. Great grandfather is said to have died back in Louisiana in 1902. His son, Thomas Henry Bonner was born in January 1903, after his father's death.
The only census record I have of Thomas was 1900 in Perry county Mississippi. He was noted to have been born in British America in 1845. His parents were noted to have been born in Ireland. He was a carpenter, owned his home, was married to Edna and had four children.
I have searched records of deaths in Louisiana and in Mississippi and have not found Thomas. I have also searched Civil War records for both states and could not find him in any units from those states. Just a little over a week ago, I was searching some Civil War records for one of Don's relatives, Andrew Hicks Baker and his brothers from Texas. I was looking at Civil War Pension Index Cards for the Baker's. Don't ask me why, but while in the middle of the Bakers, I stopped and I searched the Civil War Pension Index for Thomas H. Bonner. I was shocked to find his index card.
The soldier was listed as Thomas Bonner, widow was Edna Bonner. Thomas had filed for a pension in October 1891 in Louisiana as an "invalid". Edna had filed for his pension in April 1903 in Louisiana, as a widow. The date 1891 matches the date in which Thomas and Edna would have been in Louisiana before moving to Mississippi. The 1903 date, when Edna filed as a widow, is consistent with Thomas have died in 1902 and son Thomas being born in January 1903 in Louisiana. The application and certificate numbers for both filings are on the card, so I can request copies of the pension applications from the National Archives.
The most enlightening news on the pension index card was that Thomas served as a Union soldier and was with the 6th Battery, 1st Maine Light Artillery. Of course, I started my search for information about the 1st Maine. I found that they were organized in Augusta, Maine in August 1862. Found the complete details of their timeline and the battles they fought. All the locations and battles of the 1st Maine were very near here especially Antietam and Gettysburg. While searching about the 1st Maine, I came across a researcher in Maine who had done lengthy research on this unit. I wrote to him and asked if he knew about Thomas Bonner. I explained that Thomas might have been born in British America.
I received an email response the next day that told me that Thomas Bonner (Bonnar) enlisted in the 1st Maine when he was 18 years old. Thomas listed his home town as Fredricton, New Brunswick, Canada. In less than one day, I had learned his military unit, the details of their battles and that Thomas was from New Brunswick. Going back to ancestry.com I found several other official records of Thomas' service. I also began reading details about some of the battles he fought and have gained some interesting information which I will share in the next blog post about Thomas Bonner. I went back to the 1910 census where Edna and her children were living in Oklahoma. Edna noted on the census that her children's father was from Maine. I had noticed that before, but now it had real meaning.
Although I now have only a small amount of information about Thomas Bonner, I believe it can lead me in the right direction.
The only census record I have of Thomas was 1900 in Perry county Mississippi. He was noted to have been born in British America in 1845. His parents were noted to have been born in Ireland. He was a carpenter, owned his home, was married to Edna and had four children.
I have searched records of deaths in Louisiana and in Mississippi and have not found Thomas. I have also searched Civil War records for both states and could not find him in any units from those states. Just a little over a week ago, I was searching some Civil War records for one of Don's relatives, Andrew Hicks Baker and his brothers from Texas. I was looking at Civil War Pension Index Cards for the Baker's. Don't ask me why, but while in the middle of the Bakers, I stopped and I searched the Civil War Pension Index for Thomas H. Bonner. I was shocked to find his index card.
The soldier was listed as Thomas Bonner, widow was Edna Bonner. Thomas had filed for a pension in October 1891 in Louisiana as an "invalid". Edna had filed for his pension in April 1903 in Louisiana, as a widow. The date 1891 matches the date in which Thomas and Edna would have been in Louisiana before moving to Mississippi. The 1903 date, when Edna filed as a widow, is consistent with Thomas have died in 1902 and son Thomas being born in January 1903 in Louisiana. The application and certificate numbers for both filings are on the card, so I can request copies of the pension applications from the National Archives.
The most enlightening news on the pension index card was that Thomas served as a Union soldier and was with the 6th Battery, 1st Maine Light Artillery. Of course, I started my search for information about the 1st Maine. I found that they were organized in Augusta, Maine in August 1862. Found the complete details of their timeline and the battles they fought. All the locations and battles of the 1st Maine were very near here especially Antietam and Gettysburg. While searching about the 1st Maine, I came across a researcher in Maine who had done lengthy research on this unit. I wrote to him and asked if he knew about Thomas Bonner. I explained that Thomas might have been born in British America.
I received an email response the next day that told me that Thomas Bonner (Bonnar) enlisted in the 1st Maine when he was 18 years old. Thomas listed his home town as Fredricton, New Brunswick, Canada. In less than one day, I had learned his military unit, the details of their battles and that Thomas was from New Brunswick. Going back to ancestry.com I found several other official records of Thomas' service. I also began reading details about some of the battles he fought and have gained some interesting information which I will share in the next blog post about Thomas Bonner. I went back to the 1910 census where Edna and her children were living in Oklahoma. Edna noted on the census that her children's father was from Maine. I had noticed that before, but now it had real meaning.
Although I now have only a small amount of information about Thomas Bonner, I believe it can lead me in the right direction.
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