A Pension File Settles It

A single government file settled this week, in one stroke, a question this blog has carried for years: was James Wesley Harris really the son of Miles W. Harris? It also handed me a second son nobody in my database had ever heard of, the bride’s maiden name in the clerk’s own hand, and my great-great-grandmother’s birth date in hers.

The file is the widow’s pension for Miles W. Harris — NARA Record Group 15, case WC 18474 (Application 30815, Certificate 14474). Miles enrolled 12 August 1862 in Monroe County and mustered in as a private in Company B, 67th Indiana, at Madison a week later. The July–August 1863 roll has him “absent sick in Hospital Millikens Bend La. since April 12th 1863.” He died 1 July 1863 at Jefferson Barracks General Hospital in St. Louis, of chronic diarrhoea — the Surgeon General’s report and his widow’s declaration agree.

James is proven Miles’s son

The key page is the 1869 “Affidavit as to Births of Minor Children.” Eusebius Stine of Stinesville, who was present at the birth, swore on 27 January 1869 that “James Wesley Harris born on the 21st day of August 1862 at Monroe County and state of Indiana,” the child of Miles W. Harris and Martha E. Harris. Martha’s own 1864 affidavit says the same, and the Pension Office’s 1869 increase brief lists the children as “proved by credible eyewitnesses.” James’s birth date and county are proven — his 1926 death certificate was right all along, and the census age scatter is superseded. One scribal slip to note: her increase declaration writes “31st August” once, against four records saying the 21st. And since the family’s post office was Stinesville throughout, “Stinesville” as his birthplace is now probable rather than unproven.

A second son, born after his father’s death

The same increase brief names a second child: William Henry Harris, born 14 March 1864 — eight months after Miles died. The proof is the attending physician’s affidavit: George W. Allen swore he was “present at the birth... in capacity of Physician.” William Henry’s fate is unknown; he is a new thread, and the 1870 household should now read Martha, James 7, William 6 — which may be why earlier searches missed it. (A small correction to my own premise: William Henry already has a WikiTree profile, Harris-64374, and was already linked as James’s brother and Miles and Martha’s son — so nothing new was created there.)

The marriage, and Martha’s name

The certified marriage license is in the file: license 23 October 1861, Monroe Circuit Court; married 24 October 1861 by Wade S. Walker, J.P. — and the bride is entered as “Miss Martha E. Vint.” Her maiden name now rests on a primary record, not just on James’s death certificate.

Martha, in her own hand

The file’s best pages are Martha’s own. She signed her 1863–1869 papers by mark; by 1916 she was writing her own letters, and in two of them — December 1916 and January 1917 — she states, “I was Born July 4. 1840.” She never remarried, drew Miles’s pension to her death, and in December 1916 was living at 1158 Kentucky Avenue in Indianapolis, where her grandson was, she wrote, “all the Help that I have.” She died 5 August 1918 at the Indiana Soldiers’ Home in Lafayette — the drop card says so, and her last checks were addressed to “SOLDIERS HOME IND.” One loose end the file opened rather than closed: in 1919 a C. M. Harris of Newport, Kentucky, pursued reimbursement of her accrued pension — unidentified, possibly the grandson.

What is still open

The 1870 census for James and Martha has never been found — but the pension file reframes that failure: with Martha 29, James 7, and William 6 in Monroe County, the miss is now more likely an indexing problem than an absence. Her Indiana death certificate (Tippecanoe County, 1918) is the next pull — it may name her parents and test the Stine connection, since Eusebius Stine of Stinesville witnessed James’s birth and may be kin rather than neighbor. And her birthplace is still an open question; WikiTree says Kentucky, and nothing in the file confirms or contradicts it. James’s three WikiTree profiles now carry the pension proof: his parentage note is upgraded from probable to proven, Miles has his service and death sourced, and Martha’s dates are corrected to the ones she wrote herself.

Sources: Widow’s pension file, Miles W. Harris, NARA RG 15, WC 18474 (54 images, reviewed 22 Oct 2026) — Stine birth affidavit 27 Jan 1869; Martha E. Harris affidavit 15 Mar 1864; increase brief passed 8 Feb 1869; George W. Allen physician’s affidavit 27 Jan 1869; certified marriage license, Monroe Circuit Court, Oct 1861; Martha’s letters, 17 Dec 1916 and 28 Jan 1917; pension drop card, 23 Aug 1918. Verdicts follow my research grades: proven, probable, possible, unproven, contradicted.

Grandma Bonnie’s Middle Name

 By working through the documentation process and verifying each of the facts in my database for my maternal grandmother, I discovered a minor discrepancy in her middle name.

I have always had her middle name listed as Bonnie Mae Lambertson, with her middle name being spelled M-A-E.  This is the spelling on her tombstone, death certificate and driver’s license.

However, when I re-examined her birth certificate, her middle name was spelled as M-A-Y.   

Now that isn’t much of a variation, but it has me wondering, was the spelling with the ‘e’ versus the ‘y’ simply a matter of preference?

The Woolston Family, Rewritten

Of all the families in my tree, the Woolstons of Burlington County, New Jersey, are the one I have had to rebuild most completely this year. Earlier posts on this blog — my 2007 birthday post for Caroline Bishop Woolston, the 2009 Wordless Wednesday photo of her, my 2006 post for Lettice Woolston — were written from the compiled version of this family that I had carried for years. This fall I read the two wills that govern the family, John's (1838) and his widow Beulah's (1854), along with the Burlington County death register, Orphans Court records, and the wills of the preceding generation. The compiled version does not survive the records. Here is the family as the documents give it.

Eleven children, not nine

My database long showed John Woolston (1766–1838) and his wife Beulah with nine children. The wills prove eleven — four sons and seven daughters — and the nine-child set I had matches neither John's will nor Beulah's. The sons: Abel B. (1797–1834), my ancestor; Thomas B. (born about 1804); John B. (born about 1818); and Joseph, who died by 1852 and was previously unknown to me entirely — he married Martha Joyce in 1839 and left a daughter, Matilda, who married William I. Budd. The daughters: Rebecca (Rogers), Lydia (Eayre), Eliza Ann (Wilkins), Beulah Ann (Scattergood), Lettice (Lippincott), Hannah A. (Coles), and Rachel (Merritt). Several of the daughters' death records name their parents outright — "J Woolston" and "B Woolston" — which is about as direct as evidence gets.

Beulah's name is Briggs — proven

For years Beulah's maiden name floated in trees as "Bishop," "Briggs," or nothing. It is Briggs, and it is proven twice over: her 1854 Burlington County death register entry names her parents, and an 1814 Orphans Court citation identifies her in her father's family. She was a daughter of Abel Briggs, a Northampton Township farmer with about 200 acres, and his wife Lettice — born, herself, a Woolston. Abel died intestate in 1787; his estate was insolvent, and 80 acres were sold by court order in 1792 to pay his debts. The "Bishop" surname sometimes attached to Beulah (and to her granddaughter Caroline, below) has no support on either the Woolston or the Briggs side — it is contradicted.

The will fight of 1854

Beulah outlived John by sixteen years and made her own will — and two of her sons fought it. On 6 May 1854, Thomas B. and John B. Woolston filed a caveat against their mother's will, a bare protest with no stated grounds. The caveat was admitted, and that September Thomas B. took administration of the estate himself, with the will annexed. The records don't tell us what the brothers objected to. But it is Beulah's will, caveat and all, that names her children and her son Abel's children — and closes questions this family has carried for generations.

Caroline, settled at last

Beulah's granddaughter Caroline (1826–1879), who married Dr. Ezekiel Cooper Chew in 1842, appears in most trees — mine included — as "Caroline Bishop Woolston," and the Bishop was often treated as her birth name. Her sister Sarah H. Woolston's 1879 will settles it: Caroline was born a Woolston, Abel's daughter. The "Bishop" middle name is real, but it came through her mother's Haines family — her great-aunt Rachel Haines married Japheth Bishop in Burlington in 1804. Caroline's mother, Rachel (Woolston) Woolston — Abel's wife was herself a Woolston by birth — was probably a daughter of Samuel Woolston and Hannah Haines, though that link is still graded probable, not proven.

A Woolston married a Woolston — and there were two lines

Beulah's mother Lettice was a Woolston who married Abel Briggs in 1773, and Lettice's own parentage is now proven: she was a daughter of Samuel Woolston of Northampton Township, whose 1773 will names "Daughter, Lettis Briggs, £15." Samuel belonged to one of two distinct Northampton Township Woolston lines — his (Samuel Sr. and Susannah's) is the one I descend from. The other line, John (1686–1753) and Hannah's, produced Jacob, Melentus, Cornwell, and Newbold Woolston. Untangling which line a given Woolston belongs to has been the quiet work under all of this.

What is still open

One question survives the wills: John Woolston's own parentage. Cornwell, William, and Samuel (d. 1773) have been ruled out as his father; Jacob (d. 1799, intestate), Melentus, and Newbold remain open. One tantalizing record: a "John Woolston Jr." signed a petition on 20 January 1794 — which implies an elder John Woolston was living in 1794. Small conflicts also remain, and I'm leaving them visible rather than tidying them away: Beulah's death appears as both 29 April and 2 May 1854 in the records, and Lettice's birth year (about 1750) is an estimate. This family's WikiTree profiles now carry the corrected children, Beulah's proven name, and the research notes behind every claim.

Sources: Will of John Woolston (1838) and will of Beulah Woolston (1854), Burlington County, New Jersey; Burlington County death register, 1854; Orphans Court citation, 1814; will of Samuel Woolston (1773); will of Sarah H. Woolston (1879). Verdicts follow my research grades: proven, probable, possible, unproven, contradicted.