Pension Application of Jesse Beck W5805
Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris.
Virginia On this 21 day of August 1832 personally st appeared in open Court before the Justices of Amherst County now sitting, Jesse Beck a resident of the said County aged seventy four years who being first duly sworn according to Law, doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June the 7th 1832.
That he was born in the County of Albemarle in the State of Virginia sometime in the month of September 1758 as he has been informed by his Parents, but that he has no record of his age. That previous to the 1st March 1781 he performed two tours of service of three months each in the militia of Albemarle where he resided, and was employed at the Barracks in that County in guarding the British Prisoners. That 2d tour was in the character of a private soldier under the command of Capt James Garland who was killed by a sentinel at the Barracks whilst in that service. That his first tour at the Barracks was also in the character of a private in the company of a captain Hunter or Montgomery (which of the two he does not distinctly recollect.) That whilst at the Barracks Col [Francis] Taylor from the County of Orange was the commanding officer.
That he has no recollection of having rec’d. any written discharges from the said service if he did they have been lost. That about the first of March 1781 under some law of the state of Virginia a draft of every fourteenth man of the militia was directed, and the term of service eighteen months, that it fell to his lot to go in that service as one of the Militia of Albemarle, where he still resided and that he accordingly marched as a sergeant of a company under Capt Benjamin Harris from that County about the time aforesaid. That the company to which he was attached rendezvoused in the County of Hanover, where it was attached to a Reg’t commanded by Colo Thomas Posey and Major [Samuel] Finley.
That they served one campaign in Virginia and were at and took part in the seige and reduction of York Town [28 Sep - 19 Oct 1781], where he saw the army of Lord Cornwallis ground their arms. That after the reduction of that part the Reg’t to which his company was attached were marched to Cumberland old Court House in the state of Virginia where they took up their winter quarters. That in the month of Feby 1782 the corps to which he was attached were ordered on the Southern[?] service and that in the State of Georgia they joined the command of Gen’l. [Anthony] Wayne and continued under his command until the month of November of that year. Sometime in the last named month we were ordered to Virginia for the purpose and were discharged at Cumberland old Court House about the 1st Dec’r 1782.
That instead of serving the 18 months for which he was drafted, he was detained nearly 21 months That of this service he has a distinct recollection that there was given to each man as a bounty when he was drafted Four thousand dollars paper money, which from the great depreciation was of little value. This sum he rec’d from the hands of Colo Reuben Lindsey [Reuben Lindsay] then of the County of Albemarle, and that after his discharge from the said service he sold to the said Lindsey his certificate for pay due him to whom he surrendered the certificate, which certificate as well as his memory now serves him was all the written evidence of his said service or his discharge from it. That the command of Gen’l Wayne in the South to which he was attached had for its object the guarding of Savannah, where the British forces were quartered awaiting transport to carry them home [on 11 Jul 1782]. That the head quarters of
Gen’l. Wayne in the south and the encampment where the corps to which he was attached was stationed was at a place called Mulberry grove – property belonging to a tory, and was confiscated and sold with other confiscated property & purchased by Gen’l. Wayne.
That he has no documentary evidence to support his said claim for the said services, nor does he know of a single living witness by whom he could establish it. He does not know whether Colo Lindsey from whom he rec’d his bounty as aforesaid and to whom he sold his certificate as afores’d is living or dead.
That after the close of the war of the Revolution he resided two years in the County of Albemarle and then removed to the County of Amherst where he has continued to reside ever since. He relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present, and he declares that his name is not on the pension roll of any agency in any state Jesse Beck Sen’r
NOTE: On 1 Apr 1843 Ann Beck, 77, applied for a pension stating that she was married to Jesse Beck by a Rev’d. Holt of the Church of England in Dec 1776, that their first child was born dead nine months afterwards, and that Jesse Beck died 11 May 1841. In the file is a copy of a bond signed on 4 Dec 1786 in Amherst County by Jesse Beck and John Camp for the marriage of Beck to Anny Hughes. With her application she submitted a family register, said by her and James C. Beck, 42, to be in Jesse Beck’s handwriting, which is transcribed as follows:
Susanah Beck was born Sept 1st 1788
Jenny [or Fanny] Beck Born 16 march 1790
Elihu Beck was born august 22 1791
Wm Beck Born July 23 1793
Wm Beck Dide July 4 1794
Jesse Beck Born April 1st 1795
Jesse Beck Born April 1st 1795
John Beck son of Jesse Beck Born 15 april 1797
Reuben Beck Born 18 March 1799
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