The following is the potential start for Enos Gary's story. 1757-1844. He served as a soldier during the Revolutionary War and was the first settler of Rushford NY. I have found the Declaration he made when he filed for pension and there is a book denoting the centennial of Rushford that has a chapter about him. From this I've decided to write his story.
Here is the opening:
June 7, 1832, Congress passed the last and most liberal of the service –pension acts benefiting Revolutionary War veterans. It allowed for half pay for those Veterans with less than two years but more than six months service.
Did the government go to the file drawer marked "G" and pull out the file on Enos Gary, and then notify him of his eligibility? But we all know the government. He'd have been lucky if they had accomplished this. Each time he enlisted, his name was written in a notebook carried by the Captain who came to town, or one of his underlings . At the end of each tour of service, he was paid, but never received discharge papers. How could he prove his eligibility for a pension?
The process required an applicant to appear before a court of record in the State of his or her residence to describe under oath the service for which a pension was claimed.
State of New York
County of Alligany
On this 30th day of October [1832] personally appeared in open court before our Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in general sessions of the [] now sitting Eneas Gary a resident of Rushford in the County of Alligany and State of New York aged seventy-five years according to a record he transcribed from an old family bible of his Father’s when he first commenced house-keeping who being duly sworn according to law, doth on his oath, make the following declarations in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 7th 1832. That he was born on the 23rd day of September 1757…
…the eldest of six children to the parents of Seth Gary, Sr. and Hannah Briggs Gary. Since his mother was a good ten years older than her next sibling, she was most likely comforted by her mother, mother-in-law and one or more sisters-in-law, all living in the same community of Taunton, Massachusetts.
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