Pension Application of Adam Rider: S40341
Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris
State of Ohio} Sct. Be it remembered that on the twentieth
day of July Anno Domini one thousand eight hundred and eighteen of the
Independence of the United States the 43d and of our said State the 16th
personally came before me the subscriber president of the Court of Common pleas
of the Second District Adam Rider of Ross County, who after being duly sworn on
The Holy Evangelists of Almighty God deposeth and saith that he is in his seventieth year of his age, that he
enlisted in May seventeen hundred seventy five in Hugh Stevenson’s company of
Riflemen for one year, in Virginia Line and served out said time, and
immediately on the expiration of that time he again enlisted in Cap. A.
Sheppard’s company Colonel [Moses] Rawlings regiment in same line [word
illegible] for three years during the
first enlistment he was marched to Boston and was in several small skirmishes,
in that quarter and thence to Long island New York where we had a small
engagement [23 Aug 1776]. Then his first enlistment expired and during his
second enlistment, he with many others was captured at Fort Washington on York island
[now Manhattan Island, on 16 Nov] in ‘76 and confined in an old sugar house
(without sugar) about the eleventh day
after said confinement, he the deponent, climbed out of a back window on the
top of a shed and escaped the sentry, and [word illegible] this New York and
got a canoe and landed near palisades, and went to join the army but first
thing this affiant saw in his [word illegible] was the British pursuing Gen’l.
Washington & by pretending to be of[?]
Sworn to & subscribed before me the day & year aforesaid} Adam his X mark Rider
I do certify that the bearer, Adam Rider, was a Soldier in
the first company of Riflemen from the State of
Witness my hand the day and year above written [signed] Sam Finley
To whom it may concern
State of
On the ninth day of March 1822 personally appeared in open court being a court of Record Adam Rider of Paxton township in the County of Ross aforesaid aged seventy five years who being first duly sworn according to law doth on his oath declare that he served in the revolutionary war as follows
That he served in Captain Longs Company commanded by Col. Samuel Finley during the war, that he was in the Battle of Trenton at Burgoins defeat [sic: Burgoynes’s defeat at Saratoga 7 Oct 1777] also in the Battles of Monmouth Gilford Eutaw Fort Friday [sic: probably the siege of Fort Granby at Friday Ferry on the Congaree River near present Columbia SC, 2-15 May 1781], Fort ninety six [siege of Ninety-Six SC, 22 May - 19 June 1781] at the Cowpens [SC, 17 Jan 1781] and at Gates defeat at Camden [SC, 16 Aug 1780] besides a number of Skirmishes and scouting parties. And I do solemnly swear that I was a resident citizen of the United States on the 18th day of March 1818 and that I have not since that time by gift sale or in any manner disposed of my property or any part thereof with intent thereby so to diminish it as to bring myself within the provisions of an act of Congress entitled “an act to provide for certain persons engaged in the land and naval service of the United States in the revolutionary war passed on the 18th day of March 1818, and that I have not nor has any person in trust for me any property or securities contracts or debts due to me nor have I any income other than what is contained in the Schedule hereto annexed and by me subscribed to wit, one cow a pot and small kettle and a mare in her sixteenth year. that he was placed on the pension list the 15 of April 1819 as appears by certificate No.9323 and that this property is the value of about forty four dollars that he has a wife and three children and a grand child whose father and mother are dead that his three children are of age and living to themselves – that he has no trade and very old and infirm and unable to support himself by manual labour Adam his X mark Rider
NOTES:
The
appalling conditions of the Sugar House Prison, where Rider and some 2800
others were confined after the defeat at
I could
find no information on a Captain Long, Colonel Trammel, or Colonel Samuel
Finley. The Samuel Finley who signed the document in support of Rider’s
application rose to the rank of Major in the regiment of Col. Thomas Posey of