Shadrack Smith

Georgia
Oglethorpe County

On this fifth day of November eighteen hundred & thirty two, personally appeared in open court Shadrack Smith, a Revolutionary soldier, before the honorable the Inferior court of said county & State while sitting as a court of Ordinary, & being duly sworn deposes as follows in order to obtain the benefit of the act of Congress passed on the 7th of June in the present year. That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officers & served as hereinafter stated. That he was born in formerly Johnson now Wake county North Carolina according to best information he can obtain from his family, there being no record of his age that he knows of, on the 26th of December 1752. That he lived in Wake county when he entered into service as a volunteer under Captain William Gill of said county (he believes) joining said Gill’s company at Raleigh to Hillsboro & then to Salisbury, thence to a place called the Pine Tree in South Carolina. That his first tour of service was of six months duration & deponent served every day of the time. This service consisted of nothing more than marching & guarding, all which service was performed on foot. Deponent cannot state dates because he is an illiterate man & it has been so long ago that it was almost impossible to charge his memory with the exact date he went into service or when he ended the tour. He knows, however, that the six months tour was performed in the same year in which Genl. Gates was defeated, for his company was on the march to join Gates when they heard he was defeated. About two months after the first tour expired, deponent volunteered the second time, in a horse company under the command of Captain Hadley & performed another tour of six months. He was in a number of skirmished with the tories during this tour, in fact the whole tour was taken up & occupied in pursuit of them. Our duties were not limited by the boundaries of our own State for we were often scouring the northern part of the State of South Carolina where we found as many, if not more, tories than any where else. He got discharges from both these tours & brought them to Georgia with him; but through ill luck had them destroyed by rats. He moved to this country about forty years since & has lived here up to the present time. He has no documentary evidence by which he can support this claim, nor is there any body now living by whom he can establish it. He can safely appeal to any man who has ever known him to testify as to his character for veracity. He hereby relinquished 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.

Shadrack (x) Smith

Sworn to in open court the day & year aforesaid.
William H. Smith, Clk

We, Miller Bledsoe a clergyman residing in the county & State aforesaid & John Landrum of the same place hereby certify that we are well acquainted with Shadrack Smith who has subscribed & sworn to the above declaration, that we believe him to be of the age therein stated. That he is reputed & believed to have been a soldier of the Revolution in this neighborhood & that we concur in that opinion.

Miller Bledsoe
John Landrum

Sworn & subscribed in open court the day & year aforesaid.
William H. Smith, Clk

And the said court do hereby declared their opinion after the investigation of the matter & after putting the interrogations prescribed by the War Department that the above named applicant was a Revolutionary soldier & served as he states. The court further certifies that Miller Bledsoe is a clergyman of the Baptist church & that he and John Landrum who have subscribed the foregoing certificate are credible persons of this county & that their statement is entitled to the fullest credit.

Burl. Pope, JIC
Robert Freeman, JIC
P. W. Hutcheson, JIC

I, William H. Smith, Clerk of the court of ordinary of Oglethorpe county & State of Georgia do hereby certify that the foregoing contains the original proceedings of the said court in the matter of the application of Shadrack Smith for a pension. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand & seal this fifth day of November eighteen hundred & thirty two.

William H. Smith, Clk