My fourth great grandmother Mercy Phillips was born in Gloucester in the Rhode Island County of Providence in 1771, the illegitimate daughter of Ruth Cooper and a man whose surname was presumably Phillips since that's the name she used at the time of her marriage to David Darling in 1791.
On June 7, 1832, Congress passed a
Revolutionary War pension act that expanded the pool of veterans eligible for benefits. Since David had been a private in the 12th Massachusetts Infantry for six months, the 71-year old man began the process of applying for his pension four months later by appearing at the Court of Common Pleas in Cortland County, New York, where he was then living, to make a declaration about his service under oath. He also brought neighbors who attested to his character and general credibility.
[Source: The National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files and Fold3.com]
His application was accepted the following year and he received $20.00 per annum, retroactively to the date of the passage of the pension act.
[Source: The National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files and Fold3.com]
By the time her husband died in 1839, widows who had married veterans before 1794 were able to claim their husbands' pension benefits by going through much the same process. Mercy's 1844 declaration under oath in Circuit Court in Chenango County, New York, is shown below:
[Source: The National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files and Fold3.com]
Included in the pension file is this affirmation of their marriage in Rhode Island signed by "Tomothy Wilmot, Jestis a Pece."
[Source: The National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files and Fold3.com]
Both her oldest son, Joshua Darling, and cousin Seth Cooper provided sworn testimony of their belief that she had legally married David Darling. But some problem must have arisen because in 1846 Mercy made another declaration reaffirming her marriage to David in which she referred in the last sentence to the "small paper" sent with her first application.
[Source: The National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files and Fold3.com]
But that apparently wasn't sufficient because she was back in court in 1848 still trying to get her pension. This time she included sworn testimony from cousins Seth and Isiah Cooper (and from their neighbors attesting to
their veracity).
[Source: The National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files and Fold3.com]
Finally, many years after her first application, Mercy was allowed her widow's pension. The National Archive file of David and Mercy's pension applications included 58 pieces of paper, including letters between her lawyer and her Representative and the Pension Commission.
[Source: The National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files and Fold3.com]
Mercy Phillips Darling appears in the 1850 U.S. Census living with her daughter Ruth Webb in Norwich, Chenango County. She died there on July 2, 1853, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery. Her son David Darling is my third great grandfather.
© 2014 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.
