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birth date and county are proven — his 1926 death certificate was right all along, and the census age scatter is superseded.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.
