Why Jane Failed to Get a Pension

Jane (Horn) Walker's application for a widow's pension was denied, specifically because she could not prove what she needed to prove about her marriage to Edward. No deception seems to have occurred, but especially since the government rejected the pension application, genealogical thoroughness requires an examination of the possibilities that deception or error could arise and why such deception is unlikely.

In order to receive a widow's pension under the law under which she applied, Jane had to prove two key elements: that she was married to Edward and that they were married before 1794. The government accepted several methods to prove a marriage; certainly one way was to present a copy of the marriage license when available. But Tennessee was not even a state when Edward and Jane were married, and the county at the time apparently did not issue such licenses.

Further, according to Jane, the couple was married in a frontier church that had long before "gone to destruction"; the reference may be to the Double Springs Baptist Church, which did burn sometime in the early 1800s but may have been to another church. Certainly, churches came and went as the population rapidly shifted in pioneer days. But she stated that no church record was available at that time, certainly a believable proposition, and, for that matter, as the church was Baptist, quite possibly no church record was even kept in the first place.

The government would also accept testimony from people who had attended the wedding. Jane stated essentially that everyone who had attended was dead or had moved on to places unknown. Weddings in the era were minor affairs, with few people beyond witnesses attending. Given that Edward and Jane had married more than 50 years before the original pension application in a county they had left more than 25 years earlier, her statement is quite believable, and, in fact, quite likely.

Most commonly, as in Jane's case, applicants attempted to prove a common law marriage. Edward and Jane were married in a church, but common law marriages were generally legal and easier to prove in an era with few documents even for major life events. The government accepted the fact of a marriage in any case where two people lived together and called themselves married. That facet was easy for Jane to prove; the couple had lived in the area more than 25 years when she first applied, and most of their children were there as well. Testimony from a host of disinterested parties was available on that fact, and, indeed, the county court itself weighed in and declared them married on two different occasions.

The facet that she could not easily prove was the date of the marriage. The government would assume a date based on the age of the oldest child. How much leeway the government gave is unknown; for instance, to prove a marriage by 1794, would a first child born in 1800 have been soon enough? But, in Jane's case, she had two children born before 1794 and a third born in 1795, any one of which should easily have proven a marriage prior to 1794.

So, to prove those ages, the government wanted family Bible records recorded contemporaneously with the births of the children, a record that Jane did not have as the original record was with a daughter in Indiana; the record in Indiana may or may not have been contemporaneous, but certainly Jane's copy was not. From the record, it appears that either the family or the lawyer or both never entirely understood what exactly the government wanted and never pursued other avenues for proving the marriage, so the pension was ultimately denied, but, because of the attempt, the family Bible records survive.

Jane originally applied for a pension in May 1840, sending what she and her lawyer/advisor Alfred Noel apparently thought were sufficient family records to back up her claim of the marriage date. The government required a Bible record in which the births had been written at the times of the births themselves, and further records in the pension request suggest that neither Jane nor Noel clearly understood the requirement. In fact, the records that Jane first sent in 1840 were stated up front to be a copy of records from Edward's Bible made by his son Jonathan.

This first application was denied, but not on the basis of the Bible records. Instead, the first act under which Jane applied required that she be a widow by the date of the act, which was passed less than two months before Edward died. After a new pension law passed, Jane applied again in May 1843, referring to her previous application for evidence.

In August 1843, the Pension Office questioned the genuineness of the Bible record and asked for a copy of the Bible itself along with evidence to show by whom and at what time the entries were made. Jane filed additional depositions the next month stating that record had come from Jonathan's Bible but that Jonathan had moved away, so she had no access to the book. In truth, of course, Jonathan's Bible would have proven no help as it would have further shown that the family record was not recorded contemporaneously, but Jane herself had indicated that the record was a copy when it was first submitted.

Instead of sending the book, she sent the second set of records, these torn from the pages of Edward's personal Bible that Jonathan had. Again, she and Jonathan stated up front that the Bible from which they were taken was a later copy, that Edward had given his earlier Bible to a daughter who had moved to Indiana, and that Edward himself had copied part of the records and Jonathan the rest into Edward's new Bible.

Also included in the response was a deposition from her oldest son Joseph about his age as well as a court opinion indicating that Jane qualified for the pension. Jonathan, who had moved away, was living within 20 miles of Jane, and, in November, he filed a deposition stating further the provenance of the second set of family records. The packet of information was sent back to the Pension Office in December, and the government did not respond, at least according to the extant record, until August.

In August of 1844, the government raised two objections, one that Jane's name was written as "Mary" with her "X" mark and the second that two sets of Bible records had been sent and claimed to be genuine originals. The first was easy to explain, as Jane was illiterate and a clerk mistakenly used the wrong name. The second remark suggests on its face that the clerk had not bothered reading the explanations given related to the family Bible records; even if he did understand the provenance, neither record was contemporaneous nor was it claimed to be.

In December of that year, Alfred Noel sent Edward's Bible, not the Indiana copy but the later one, to the Pension Office, along with a letter expressing considerable frustration over the situation. The Pension Office responded in March that it appeared that both sets of records were taken from the same Bible and that the Bible was not of sufficient age to prove the marriage. In fact, the records may very well have come from the same Bible; no claim was made to the contrary. Edward's Bible had passed to Jonathan, and the first copy of the records sent may have been made on other pages within it.

The Pension Office did suggest, though, as an alternative, getting the testimony of someone who specifically knew the couple before 1794 and could attest to them having claimed to be married before then. Jane had already testified 5 years before that she knew of no person who had attended the wedding still being alive or otherwise available, but anyone who knew the couple before 1794 could testify that they claimed to be married before that time. Had fraud been intended, one would think that Jane would have had little trouble finding an older person in the neighborhood who would make such a claim on her behalf.

Alfred Noel's letter in December 1844 is the last in the record that implies strongly that Jane was still living. She may have died shortly thereafter and certainly seems to have done so before 1850; there are no other records in the file that suggest that any other evidence was sent to the Pension Office during her lifetime. There was one more attempt made in 1852, at which time she was clearly dead, by the estate, which was summarily rejected because of the time that had elapsed since the government had last requested documentation.

Although the family quite possibly saw the whole process as unfathomable bureaucratic bumbling, the government's requirements were quite explicit, and Jane failed to provide the evidence needed to satisfy those requirements as did many widows. Her pension application was probably the only time in her life that Jane had to prove anything about her marriage or anything else, and few records were ever kept in that era.

The choice of using Bible records to prove the marriage was not a good one; whether Jane understood or not, the government wanted contemporaneously-recorded Bible records and Jane did not have such records in her possession. She should have chosen another avenue for proving the date, although she may or may not have been able to do so. The last avenue suggested by the government may have been possible but perhaps was not. After all, that avenue would require her to identify someone who had known the couple in another county during the first three and a half years of her marriage, not necessarily someone who had attended the wedding itself; whether such a person was still alive in her area is unknown.

So the government requirements were never met, and specifically the marriage was never proven to the satisfaction of the Federal Government. The standards for genealogical proof, though, are a little different, and we have the benefit of additional records not available to the government at that time.

The first set of questions relates to Jane's character; certainly, there are many glowing statements from some of the county's leading citizens related to her character. Such statements notwithstanding, her application was questioned solely on the basis of the antiquity of the family records. Although she did not send the required contemporaneously-recorded pages, she appears not to have understood the requirement to do so or simply sent what she could and hoped for the best.

More to the point, in the case of both submissions, the provenance of each was given along with the submission, not in response to governmental objections. In other words, there is no suggestion within the record that Jane was trying to deceive in any manner; all statements made about the records are consistent and all relevant points made in advance of objections raised by the government.

Was Jane actually the widow of Revolutionary War pensioner Edward B. Walker?

The proof that she was is overwhelming. Edward's own pension application does not mention a wife or family, but when he died, the law allowed a widow or orphan to collect the prorated portion of the pension that had not been paid before his death. Jane stepped up to claim that portion, marking the first recorded time that she needed to prove a marriage to Edward.

In order to claim that portion of pension, Jane needed only to prove that she was married to Edward at the time of his death, not at some prior time as with the widow's pension, and there was no need to prove any children. She appeared before the county court, which, at that time, functioned as both a court of record for some types of cases as well as the legislative and executive body for the county.

She presented Edward's actual pension certificate, which is still contained in the records of that final pension payment. Testimony was also given by two men that Edward had died on a specific date and that she was indeed his widow. One of those two men was her son Jonathan, although his relationship was not specifically stated. The other man testifying to the same two facts, though, was Peter Niel, who was completely unrelated to the family; in fact, he was the chairman of the county court itself. Clearly, at least one high-ranking official was quite familiar with the family and the two people claiming to be related to Edward.

The exact timing of Edward and Jane's move to Claiborne County is still unknown, although their children started arriving there by 1818; within the final pension payment claim itself is that Edward had lived in Claiborne County for "upwards of forty years" before his death, having previously resided in North Carolina. In fact, Edward had been in Tennessee for more than 40 years but probably in Claiborne County itself for only about 20 years by the time he died based on what few deeds and surveys have been found. Several of his Claiborne County neighbors, though, had lived near him in Tennessee for most if not all of those 40 years.

In any case, the Walker family had long been established in the area, and most of the adult children still lived there at the time that Edward died and later when Jane applied for the pension. Certainly, a number of people would have been quite familiar with the family and would have known both Edward and Jane and their claim to be married, the claim being all that was necessary for the legal requirement for the final payment of Edward's pension, not for a widow's pension for Jane.

Many people likely knew at least several of the children, most of whom lived near each other during the relevant time frame, and neighbors probably knew that the children claimed Jane as their mother. Further, while few if any disinterested people were in a position to know exact dates of the marriage and births of the children, they probably knew which of the children were the oldest and at least approximately the ages of one or more.

In other words, Jane was clearly not an older woman who had suddenly moved into the area claiming that she was once married to a soldier that no one had other met. In fact, she was the widow of a man that many people would have known, and she made the claim shortly after Edward's death.

The idea that the people involved in the final pension payment process might have engaged in a conspiracy to lie can be dismissed out-of-hand. For that matter, even if no one else had known the Walkers, the idea that Peter Niel could have been bribed to lie as the second witness is just as preposterous. The final pension payment was a mere $19, with some unknown portion of that going to the lawyer who went to Knoxville to collect it. Any bribe of any portion of that $19 would have been too small to have tempted anyone, much less a man with the considerable means that Niel had.

Additional evidence in Jane's attempt to obtain a widow's pension later also speaks to her having been married to Edward at the time of his death, including an additional county court ruling in her favor.

Was Jane the mother of the children mentioned in the Bible records?

Without the Bible record, the children of Edward B. and Jane would be harder to prove; it certainly serves as a good genealogical record assuming it is true. However, some of the children can be proven with direct evidence, and most of the others through extremely strong circumstantial evidence even without the Bible record. But if Edward left a will, it is no longer extant, and he appears to have owned no property when he died, so no trail of deeds is available.

In fact, though, only the mother of Joseph needed to be proven for the pension, as he was born well before the deadline. Joseph himself testified in 1843 that he was the son of Edward and Jane and testified to his own birth date from his own Bible which he stated was copied from his father's Bible. Jonathan testified the same day that he was a child of the couple, 38 years old, and the eighth child of the couple; he noted that a child who had died as an infant had not been recorded in the Bible, making Jonathan the eighth child.

Once again, one of the key arguments to be made for believing the testimony involves the amount of time that the family had been in the same area. Even the court clerk mentioned that the family was well-known to the court itself, and other evidence points to community involvement that would suggest that any number of people were in a position to know family relationships long before any pension application or other reason to deceive arose. In particular, Jonathan was a Methodist minister and Joseph had given land to build a church, so one can easily surmise that neither was a recluse and unknown to the larger community.

The value of the pension itself - by itself - rules out the possibility of a widespread conspiracy among all the disinterested parties; there was not enough money involved to make such a conspiracy worthwhile. And very few pensions were awarded in Claiborne County, so there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that a group of people colluded to get several pensions and split them or anything of the sort.

The remaining avenues of potential deceit would have involved lying to the community about parentage and marriage long before the idea of needing to do so for a pension would have ever arisen. Such a deceit would have had to have been perpetrated for decades by not only Jane but Edward himself and the children; certainly no reason to do so seems obvious.

For these reasons, one can assume that Jane was in fact the child of at least the first and eighth child and can be assumed to have been the mother of the others. When the family first moved to Claiborne County and for a number of years thereafter, at least some of the younger children would have been living with Edward and Jane. Since only the oldest child needed to be proven for the pension, there was no value in listing the other children unless they were, in fact, her children.

Were the birth dates correct?

The birth dates correspond with the 1830 age ranges shown in the Census; for the children traced to 1850 and beyond, the dates are closely consistent with what the children reported, including reports after Jane had died. The only reason to deceive on the dates would have been to adjust them to indicate a marriage before one actually taken place. Evidence shows quite strongly, though, that no manipulation was done.

In particular, the entry for Joseph, the most important one in terms of proving the marriage date, was written by Edward himself or at least in a handwriting very suggestive of his and stated to be his by his son. Certainly, Edward himself would have had no reason to backdate the birth, since he would not have been aware at the time of requirements of the pension act.

Beyond that, ample outside evidence exists for several children on their birth dates that would have no reason to be altered for pension purposes, including for two children either one of which would prove a marriage in the appropriate time frame. In particular:

• Joseph's tombstone gives his birth date as June 1791; while the inscription was redone several decades ago, traces of the original inscription remain. The tombstone is in the Walker Cemetery on his former property on Little Sycamore Road in Claiborne County and has been photographed and examined in person.

• Edward Jr.'s tombstone shows the same birth date as the Bible records but was erected in 2006, with the date based on those Bible records. However, the subsequent discovery of a copy of Edward Jr.'s own Bible records has resulted in confirmation of the same date.

• Youngest child Elizabeth's tombstone records her birth day as 30 May 1813, two years to the day before the Bible records indicate. However, census record in 1850 and 1860 both support the Bible date, and, in any case, the Bible records would not have been modified to make her appear younger than she really was. A photo of the tombstone in Foster Cemetery in Harrison County, Missouri taken by Kevin L. Sutton shows the date clearly; curiously, the "3" in 1813 is slanted in a different direction from the rest of the number, suggesting perhaps an alteration at some point.

In short, outside evidence supports the ages reported on the children and specific dates in three cases. As noted elsewhere, transcription errors may have and, in fact, did occur, but, in general, the information is correct.

Was Jane married 1 May 1790 to Edward?

Because the Bible records support a marriage prior to 1794, Jane would have no particular reason to have made up the information about the marriage itself. However, the exact date can be called into question. At one point in the pension, she indicates that she was married "about" the first of May 1790 and in another "on or about"; 1 May 1790 was a Saturday, a definite possibility for the marriage, but the exact date is uncertain.

Summary

Although the known copies of Edward's Bible records were not recorded contemporaneously and were not adequate to meet government requirements of proof for the pension, they can be assumed to be correct, at least within the limitations of transcription error mentioned in the earliest section. Potential reasons that the records were constructed to defraud the government have been analyzed and dismissed as possibilities; in addition, outside evidence uniformly supports key entries in the Bible record.