Monday, August 15, 2022

MILITARY MONDAY~Civil War Pension File of Wilson Bowen Boggs 1819-1900

 


Page 1 of the pension file

Wilson Bowen BOGGS is my maternal 3rd great granduncle.  He is the son of Andrew Elliot BOGGS and Hannah Jane BOWEN.

Born about 1819 in Gallia County, Ohio, he was the youngest of 9 children born to Andrew & Hannah.  Six boys and three girls, who all lived to adulthood.

Wilson’s older brother, William Allen BOGGS, is my 3rd great grandfather.

Wilson went by his middle name of Bowen, according to nearly all records I’ve located.  I’ll refer to him by that name for the rest of this narrative.

I don’t find any of Bowen’s brothers serving during the Civil War.  And, in fact, Bowen would have been about 42 yrs old when he enlisted. 

He served in the Indiana Volunteers, as a Private in the 85th Regiment, Company B.  Here is his Pension Card.

(Click on any image to enlarge it)

The pension file card for Bowen Boggs #125,177

When I review a pension file, I like to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the pages of the file that I think are important.  And, I take screen shots of those pages to add to my blog posts.  This helps when you go back to look at that pension file again at a later time.

My Excel spreadsheet for the pension file - please click on it to enlarge it, if you need to

As you can see we have uncovered quite a bit of good information about this ancestor/soldier. Here are some of those facts:

·       His address, the dates he applied for the pension and later the increase of pension, his physical description

·       A list of his injuries and various physician’s certificates

·       His children’s names and dates of birth

·       The date of his death

Below are the images of some of the pages described above.  I have made no improvements to these images so you can see what they look like after nearly 150 years in storage.  

How fortunate are we that these records have been saved?

 
On the left - a letter from Bowen Boggs to the Secretary of the Interior, dated 25 Sep 1899 and on the right, page 18 - a Physician's certificate outlining Bowen's health issues

On the left - page 72, with children's names & dates of birth and on the right page 114 the original invalid pension request May 1871

I collect signatures of my ancestors from any source I can find them - left is Bowen's son, John A. Boggs and on the right of course Bowen Boggs himself

If you are related to or connected to anyone in this blog post, please get in touch.  Let’s exchange information.

Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl
Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

 

2 comments:

  1. I like your idea of making a spreadsheet to keep track of the pages in a pension file and plan to adopt it. Is there any particular reason you use Excel instead of Word? I also use OneNote. But I guess you would always have the option in Excel to print to file a selected portion of the spreadsheet .This would get the information in another program's format.

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    Replies
    1. Hi and thank you for your comment. I'm glad you like my idea. Why Excel? When I'm looking to make columns I always turn to Excel. There are so many options with sorting and formulas and printing etc. While I use Word all the time, it would generally be for text. I know I can insert tables in Word, but they are not the same as a spreadsheet. Good luck with your work.

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I look forward to reading your comments. If you have any connection to the people mentioned in this blog, please let me know. I write about mine and my husband's ancestors and would welcome new information or meeting a new cousin or two. Thanks for visiting and come back soon.