Pension Application of Harriet Jeffers, daughter of Berry Jeffers: W10145:

Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris

State of South Carolina} Fairfield District} SS

On this twenty sixth day of June in the year of Our Lord One thousand Eight Hundred and fifty personally appeared in open

Court before the undersigned Judge of the Court of Ordinary in and for the District aforesaid in the State aforesaid Harriet

Jeffers, aged forty-nine years a resident of Fairfield District in the State of South Carolina, who being first duly sworn according

to law doth on her oath make the following Declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the provision made by the Act of

Congress passed July 7, 1838 and the subsequent Acts & Resolutions of Congress granting Pensions to Certain widows, That

she is the daughter and heir at law of Joannis Jeffers deceased who was the widow of Berry Jeffers deceased, a Revolutionary

soldier and who served as follows, That said Berry Jeffers at the time of the war was living in what is now Richland District in

the State of South Carolina and about the years 1775 or 1776 enlisted as a private soldier in the third South Carolina Continental

Regiment Commanded by Colonel William Thomson and in the company of Captain Rich’d Brown, That in said capacity he served out his full period of enlistment to wit three years and as such was a fellow soldier of Gideon and Morgan Griffin, Allen

and Osborne Jeffers the latter of whom a brother of Declarant’s father was killed in battle as this Deponent was informed in Charleston South Carolina. That afterwards he served under General Thomas Sumter Capt. William Smith’s Company in what was called Sumter’s Brigade, That after serving as aforesaid he came back to his old neighborhood and on Twenty third Day of August AD. 1782 he married Joannis, or as she was often called by the family, Hannah Griffin: That her aforesaid father Berry Jeffers died about Thirty years ago in Richland District and her mother the aforesaid Joannis or Harriet Jeffers remained the

widow of said Berry Jeffers until her death on the sixth: teeth (sic) day of November A.D. 1844: She further swears that her said mother Joannis Jeffers died without ever applying for a pension as such widow being very poor & ignorant as to manner of obtaining it That they were married by the Rev’d Mr Logue at the time above stated & previous to the first day of January Seventeen hundred and ninety-four.

Sworn to and Subscribed on the day and year aforesaid before me}

J. S. Stewart} Harriet her + mark Jeffers Judge of the Court of Ordinary} for Fairfield District}

NOTES:

In the file is a paper stating "Berry Jeffers was born March the 25th day 1750" and giving dates of marriage and births of children. He was probably a free black. It is unlikely that he was in Sumter’s Brigade. The pension applications of Allen Jeffers (S1770) and of Morgan Griffin (S18844), free blacks with whom he served, suggest that his three-year enlistment expired during the siege at Charleston. He would then have been either a prisoner for the rest of the war, or, more likely, paroled as a civilian. See also the pension applications of Gideon Griffin (W8877) and Edward Harris (R4649).