Michael Buff

Revolutionary Pension Application

Georgia
Oglethorpe County

On this third day of September eighteen hundred & thirty two, personally appeared in open court before the justices of the Inferior Court while sitting for ordinary purposes, Michael Buff, a resident of said county, aged ninety-two years, who being first duly sworn according to law doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefits of the act of Congress passed on the 7th June of the present year, entitled an act supplementary to the act for the relief of certain surviving officers & soldiers of the Revolution. That he entered the American service against Great Brittain under such officers and served in the manner hereinafter stated.

That he was born in Fisherland in the canton of Schaffenhausen in Switzerland on the 1st January 1741. That he moved to America in the year 1752 & landed at Philadelphia in September of that year. That he moved to Virginia in 1757 when George Washington was Lieutenant Colonel in the service of his Brittainic Majesty. At the time he was called into the service of the United States against England in the War of the Revolution he lived in Frederick County Maryland about twenty two miles from Fredericktown on a watercourse called Sam’s Creek. That he was drafted into service in the year 1777 about September of that year under Colonel Wells who lived near Winchester. He does not recollect the number of his regiment. One of his Majors was named Baker Johnson ---- to the first Revolutionary ---- of Maryland & his Captain was a man by the name of George -----. He was drafted for two months & performed every day of the time. He marched from home down to Germantown in Pennsylvania where he was in a considerable battle & got defeated under the command of General Stevens of Virginia ~ thinks his enemy on this occasion was a part of Lord Howe’s army. He also had a skirmish during this time at the Red Line in Pennsylvania ~ the attack was made in the night & here too he had to retreat. The number of the ----- troops on that occasion was about 700 ~ at the end of the two months he was sent home without being regularly discharged, some of his officers having accompanied him home.

In the year following he was drafted two months again & served the whole time. This tour was performed under the command of Captain Terry Baker. He marched from home this time for Harve de Grace in Pennsylvania but did not quite reach that place ~ the whole duty of the tour was made up of guard service ~ when our time expired we marched back & were discharged at home. During this year every ten men in the part of the country where deponent lived had their choice either to employ a substitute for one year or stand a draft ~ and deponent contributed ten dollars as his proportionate share in having a substitute accordingly.

In 1779 he was drafted for two months but performed only about five or six weeks of actual service. We marched this time to Baltimore where it was thought the British would land & were stationed there upon guard for the time above mentioned & having ascertained that there was no necessity for continuing longer we were permitted to go home. We were this time under the command of Captain Conrath Totaro. He remembers the alarm & consternation that pervaded Baltimore during the time that the British were expected. One man in particular sent off his goods by a wagon without having asked or known his name & without informing him whither the goods were to be carried & it was a long time before he secured them.

In the year 1780 he was drafted again & performed a tour of eighty days service under the command of one Captain Adam Good, during which time he assisted in carrying the Hessians from Fredericktown in Maryland to Albemarle in Virginia. He was also drafted to go to Yorktown Va in 1781 & actually set out for that place but he had done little more than set out when there came an express informing the command to which he belonged that the siege at Yorktown had ended & the Americans victorious & that there was no need of their service.

He has no documentary evidence of his service & he believes it was not customary to get discharges regularly made out in that quarter of the country where it fell to his lot to be situated. He knows of no one by whose testimony he can establish these services. He believes any neighbor he has on earth would cheerfully testify to his honesty & veracity. Some of the most respectable of his neighbors are Colonel Groves who lives just over the river in Madison County & his brothers, the first for several years past & at this time a Senator in the State legislature, & the other a justice of the Inferior court ~ Brittain Stamps of this county (Oglethorpe) for a number of years the high sheriff of the same & Francis Callaway a baptist clergyman. The testimony of some or all of these deponent will endeavor to obtain & respectfully asks to have it considered a part of this his declaration. He hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present & declares that his name is not on the pension roll of the agency of any State in the Union.

Sworn to & subscribed in open court the day & year first above written.

Michael Buff

William H. Smith, Clerk

We, the undersigned residents in the county of Oglethorpe & State of Georgia, do hereby certify that we are well acquainted with Michael Buff who has subscribed & sworn to the above declaration, that we believe him to be the age he has represented, that he is reputed & believed in the neighborhood where he resides to have been a soldier of the Revolution & that we concur in that opinion.

Sworn to & subscribed the day & year above said in open court.
Brittain Stamps
Mason Jones
Joel Whitehead
William H. Smith, Clerk

And the said court do hereby declare their opinion after the investigation of the matter & also putting the interrogations presented by the War department that the above named applicant was a Revolutionary soldier & served as he states. And the court further certifies that the persons who have signed the proceeding certificate are residents of said county & that their statement is entitled to full faith & credit.

John Banks, JIC
Burl. Pope, JIC
P. W. Hutcheson, JIC

I, William H. Smith, clerk of the court of ordinary, do hereby certify that the foregoing contains the original proceedings of the said court in the matter of the application of Michael Buff for a pension. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand & seal of office this third day of September eighteen hundred & thirty two.

William H. Smith, Clerk