AmericaGen: Military Records Colonial Wars and the American Revolution

AmericaGen Study Group

Chapter 26 Homework 

Marceline Beem

Reference: Greenwood, Val D. “Military Records: Colonial Wars and the American Revolution.” In The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, 4th ed., 653-688. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 2017.



I love researching in military pension records and related record groups. Revolutionary War pension files have often provided a great deal of information or provided me with clues that have lead to other sources for research.


Before the filming of pension records, researchers would write the archives and ask for information about a soldier they were researching. The correspondence was maintained in the files and included in the film and/or digitization projects. It's interesting to read the correspondence and see what the clerks deemed important enough to share with researchers. Sometimes requests were denied because the clerks had too may requests. Sometimes they provided just a few snippets of information. Sometimes they omitted information that we would consider important.

One example of this is found in the file for Henry Jolly, who served in 8th Pennsylvania Regiment. One of the pieces of correspondence was written in 1931. The clerk provided the following summary:

The data furnished herein are obtained from the papers on file in pension claim, S.41710, based upon his service in that war.

Henry Jolly enlisted August 9, 1776 in Washington County, Pennsylvania and served as private in Captain Van Swearingen's Company, Colonel [illegible] Mackey's 8th Pennsylvania Regiment until the spring, 1777, from which time he served in Captain Van Swearingen's Company attached to Colonel Daniel Morgan's Virginia Regiment until the spring, 1778, from which time he served in Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Bayard's 8th Pennsylvania Regiment until August, 1779.

He was allowed pension on his application executed April 30, 1818, while a resident of Washington County, Ohio. Hew as then in the sixty-first year of his age.
In 1825, the soldier's wife was seventy-seven years of age, her name now shown; four children were living away from home but their names were not given.

Fortunately, today we can view the entire file on line. There is a lot of information that the clerk did not include in the above summary, including the fact that pension eligibility was questioned after the initial award. In 1825, Henry Jolly provided another  declaration. This time, in addition to his military service history and an inventory of his personal property, he stated that he was an associate judge for Washington County, Ohio, from 1818 to 1824, receiving about $50 per year for that service. For the 18 months prior to the deposition, he had been unable to perform any labor on his farm, which provided about $10 a year income.

Until I read this file, I had no idea that Henry Jolly was a judge in Ohio. That alone was worth the time and effort to locate the original file instead of relying solely on an abstract!

Draper Manuscripts

One source for gaining insight into ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War is the Draper Manuscript Collection. I think this collection should have been included as a resource in this chapter.

Lyman Draper was an historian who interviewed hundreds of Revolutionary War veterans and their descendants during the 1800s. His volumes of notes is now housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, but microfilmed copies are available at the Family History Library and other research institutions (e.g. universities) across the country. Josephine Harper's book, Guide to the Draper Manuscripts, is an invaluable index to the collection. If your Revolutionary War ancestor lived in Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, and other areas covered by Draper, you definitely need to check this book.

Draper's interview with Henry's son-in-law, Vachel Dickerson, is recorded in Series 9S. His notes include a transcript of Henry Jolly's family Bible record. The notes also give a physical description of Henry, saying he was "six feet in height - raw boned & very hardy."

Draper's notes from his interview with Vachel Dickerson, including a transcript of the family Bible

The following is a transcript of Draper's notes on the Bible entries:

Henry Jolly, son of Peter & Martha Jolly, was born Dec. 28th 1757.
Rachel Grist, daughter of John & Elizabeth Grist, was born February 14th, 1765. Henry Jolly & Rachel Grist were married, March 27th 1781.
James Jolly, son of Henry & Rachel Jolly, was born May 25th, 1790 & died July 27th 1792.
Wm. Henry Jolly, son of Henry & Rachel Jolly, was born Sept. 29th, 1796.
Kenzie Dickerson Jolly, son of Henry & Rachel Jolly, was born April 19th, 1798.
Sidney Jolly, daughter of Henry & Rachel Jolly, was born March 29th, 1800.
Albert Gallatin Jolly, son of Henry & Rachel Jolly, was born March 5th, 1803.
Rachel Jolly, wife of Henry Jolly, departed this life November 8th 1805, in the forty first year of her life.
Vachel Dickerson, son of Thomas and Margaret Dickerson, was born Sept. 29th 1790.
Vachel Dickerson & Sidney Jolly were married April 11th 1816. Have had 12 children, 7 living.

The interview notes go on to give detailed information about the Dickerson family, including stories about their life on the Ohio River frontier after the Revolutionary War.

This isn't the only series in the manuscripts that mentions Henry Jolly or Thomas Dickerson, but this was a gold mine for the family's history. If you have a Revolutionary War ancestor, you absolutely must use Harper's index to search for your relative and his associates.