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THE FAY FAMILY PAGE GENEALOGIES |
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| DANIEL MERRITT FAY (1828 - 1904) |
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| Daniel Merritt Fay was the son of Henry T. Fay and Almina Partch. Because he fought in the Civil War and later drew a pension, there is a great deal of information available about him. He enlisted in the Iowa Infantry on August 18, 1862, and was assigned to Company I, 27th Regiment. During a furlough, his hand was injured in a fight, and he was 'honorably discharged' January 16, 1863. He remained home until January 25, 1964, when he reenlisted, this time in the Iowa 1st Cavalry, Co M. He was in that until June 14, 1865, when he was honorably discharged a second time. The details given here are contained in Daniel's civil war pension file, a lengthy file full of information and extremely valuable in following this branch and this man. |
| When he came home this time, he and Amanda went to Cedar Rapids to visit Amanda's sister Sylvia, the wife of John Franklin Bennett. Franklin Bennett was the brother of Morgan Lewis Bennett, Hattie's husband. It is very interesting that Hattie claimed she did not meet Amanda during this visit. Amanda became ill, and the family remained in Cedar Rapids for a while, during which time Hattie and Daniel got to know each other. The sequence of events becomes a bit blurred at this point. Amanda and Daniel returned to the Elkader area, where Daniel somehow drew the attention of the law, and fled back to Cedar Rapids to avoid that. He renewed his acquaintance with Hattie. Lewis, Hattie's husband, returning unexpectedly, caught them in bed together, and Daniel was charged with adultery and sent to prison for a year. Lewis left Hattie, who waited for Daniel. In July 1870, Daniel is still in prison at Fort Madison, Lee Co, IA (Amanda says Anamosa, and he may have been there for part of the time), but he must have been close to the end of his sentence. When Daniel was released, he and Hattie were "married" and started a new life, abandoning Amanda and his children. Daniel and Hattie went through some kind of a marriage ceremony somewhere in Missouri (Hattie is not very sure about the details), and then settled in Roseville, Warren Co., Illinois, as man and wife and were so accepted by the community where they lived. |
| In 1890, Congress passed a law authorizing pension payments to an expanded group of veterans, and Daniel applied for a pension. He was examined by doctors, and it was agreed that his rheumatism and heart difficulties were sufficient to make him incapable of working in the normal way and a pension was awarded to Daniel, beginning with a first payment retroactive to July 14, 1890. The payments were made in Illinois, where Daniel and Hattie were living. |
| Amanda, in Iowa, also heard about this new law. She had earlier learned that Daniel and Hattie had gone away together, but she had heard nothing in some years, and assumed that Daniel was dead. She then applied for a widow's pension on the basis of Daniel's service, and she collected all of the affidavits she needed for her application. She submitted her application in 1897. At that time, inquiries were made by the Bureau of Pensions, establishing that Daniel was alive and drawing his own pension, and thus Amanda had no claim as a widow. One of the results of this was that her son, Merritt Homer, learned that his father was still alive and living in Illinois. Sometime, not too long after that, Homer paid a visit to Daniel and Hattie, and apparently was welcomed by them and stayed with them for a period of time. It does not seem that Amanda knew of this visit; she certainly does not mention it, but Hattie does. |
| Daniel died in 1904. Hattie, as the surviving "widow," applied for a widow's pension. When the Bureau of Pensions started looking into the matter, they discovered the earlier file with Amanda's application, complete with marriage information and affidavits. They then realized that they had "contesting widows" on their hands, and they appointed special examiners to look into the matter and make a determination as to which woman, if either, was entitled to the widow's pension. The names of the examiners were N. N. Hill and N. E. Ives. They both gathered the earlier material from 1896 and 1897, and collected new material from 1904 and 1905. Amanda's marriage was proved through records and eyewitnesses. Court records were searched, and no record was found of any divorce for Daniel and Amanda. Hattie had left one husband; it was not clear if she had been divorced, but her first husband was certainly dead before her "marriage" to Daniel. She could, however, provide no details of that marriage; no marriage certificate (she implies clearly that Homer stole her marriage lines during his visit to them), not only no statements but not even the names of witnesses to the marriage nor the place nor the name and affiliation of the minister. Ives points out the lack of support and lack of specific information for Hattie's claim. Hill's statement toward the end of the proceedings is very telling: Daniel was not "the kind of a man who would care much for a divorce." |
| Amanda was awarded the widow's pension, and received it retroactively from the time of Daniel's death in 1904 until her own in 1916. |
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| Malvina A. Naud, wife of Homer Merritt Fay | Merritt Fay, son of Malvina and Homer |
| Photographs courtesy of Barbara Naud Bush | |
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