Morrison's Pensions


Pension Application for Ray Gile

R.4017
State of New York
Otsego County SS.
(This pension has a lot of badly spelled words in it and some are difficult to make out.  Words are typed as they seem to appear.)
            On the 15th day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty two personally appeared in open court before the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas Holden at the Court House in the Village of Cooperstown in and for said County Ray Gile a resident of Oneonta in said County of Otsego and State of New York aged 72 years who being first duly sworn according to law doth on his oath make the following  Declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 7th 1832 then he entered the service of the United States as a volunteer living at Florida in the County of Montgomery under the command of Capt. McMaster and under the immediate command of Colonel Willett that he was engaged in the Battles at Tripes Hill and at Johnstown that the Americans with whom he was engaged at Johnstown followed the enemy with whom there was one Major Ross to East Cenedy Creek where one of the enemy’s incendiaries after crossing the creek called out to us to keep his [?] which one of our Hellicins drawed up his rifle shot him down and went over stripped him of his Trinkets that he was absent at this time about 7 days and was discharged by Verbel order that sometime in November in the year 1781, living at Florida aforesaid in Montgomery county in the State of New York he enlisted for during the war in the company by Captain Ephriam Eaton was attached at fort Gile to Colonel Peter Vansevourts Regiment then he marched from Fort Gile to Scenectady to get provisions from there from Scenectady [?] marched up the Mohawk River in boats to fort Stanwiz fromthenct to Wood Creek down Wood Creek to the Oneida Lake from thence across the Oneida Lake to Fort Brewington from thence to three river point from three river point back to Fort Gile form thence he went with a Scouting party up to Herkimer returned to fort Gile was engaged in scouting parties from Fort Gile up to Fort Hunter and Fort Plain and was discharged in writing as he believes by Capt. Ephriam Eaton at Fort Gile at the close of the war having served in all between two & three years that his discharge if any was given him in writing is lost the above enlisted service were performed in the Mealitia of the New York Line, that he was born as he is informed by his step mother in Preston Norwich County in the state of Connecticut in the year of our Lord 1760 and that he has no other record of his age that he has resided at Bowman’s Creek in the County of Montgomery in Sharon in the County of Scoherie and in Otego & Oneonta in the County of Otsego, that he was acquainted with Henry Gile of Lavonia and with Michael Holsinger of Oneonta during the Revolutionary War.
            By the count where and in what year were you born.  I was born in the town of Preston in the year 1760 in the county of Norwich in Connecticut.  Have you any record of your age and if so where is it.  I have no record of my age.  Where were you living when called into service—where have you lived since the Revolution and where do you now live.  I lived when I went into the service in the town of Florida I have lived at Bowman’s Creek at Sharon and Otego and I now live in Oneonta.  How were you called into the service were you drafted did you volunteer or were you a substitute and if a substitute for whom—I volunteered the first time I went out and I finally enlisted.  State the names of some of the regular officers who were with the troops where you served such continental and militia regiments as you can recollect and the general circumstances of your service.  I cannot state certain whether the officers that I remember the names of were Malitia or continental state officers I remember the officers that I was under but I don’t recollect any more of their names I was in the battle at Tripes Hill and at Johnstown I was Scouting up to Fort Plain & Fort Hunter I went to Scenactady and got provision and carried them up to Fort Stanwix to Fort Bruinton and to three River Point then back down to Fort Gile.
            State if you ever received a discharge from the service and if so by whom was it signed.  I think I had a written discharge from the service singed by Captain Ephraim Eaton.
            State the names of persons to whom you are know in your present neighborhood and who can testify as to your character for truth and veracity and services as a soldier of the Revolution.  I know Henry Tile in the adjoining town of Laurans who can testify as to my services as a soldier and I am also acquainted with Michael Holsinger who also can testify as to my services I hereby relinquish every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present and declare that my name is not on the pension roll of any agency of any state.  (Signed) Ray Gile
            Sworn & subscribed in open court the 15th day of October 1832.  Horace Lathrop, Clerk

State of New York
County of Otsego
            Ray Gile, at present of the town of Oneonta, county and state aforesaid being duly sworn says, in addition to and corroboration of his previous affidavit on his application for a pension; that during the Revolutionary War at the time of his enlistment as a soldier as stated in his previous affidavit he was a minor of about the age of nine-ten years and resided with his father in the town of Florida and present county of Montgomery, on a farm lying on the south side of and adjacent to the Mohawk River, being a farm belonging to Sir William Johnson. That eight days before this deponent enlisted as a soldier, a party of the enemy, consisting of Tories, British and Indians commanded by a Major Ross made a descent upon the town and settlement of Florida, burning and plundering, and as the enemy was retiring one of their party having the dress of an officer lingered somewhat behind the rest and this deponent having a musket loaded with two balls crept up behind a rail fence to within about fourteen rods of the officer and fired and killed him, shooting him through the upper part of his body, as the officer fell, this deponent rushed upon him but found him [?] dead, this deponent took his hat and sword and then tumbled his body into the Mohawk. The sword was an uncommonly long one, and this deponent kept it for some years thereafter.  Just as this deponent finished this job, Captain McMartin with some militia came up and ordered this deponent to join him in pursuit of the retiring enemy, which he did and pursed them across the river and onward to Tribes or Tripe’s Hill, where a slight skirmish ensued in which this deponent bore a part and, the enemy continuing to retreat, pursued them to Johnstown, at which place Colonel Willet with an additional force, joined in, and there we had a battle with the enemy in which this deponent was engaged and received a ball just above the knee joint, the scar from which would he still wears; from Johnstown the enemy retreated and we pursed them, engaged in almost constant skirmishes, until the crossed the Canada Creek, the party then returned to Johnstown where the ball was extracted from his leg by a Doctor Berry. This deponent then returned home and immediately enlisted during the war, as already mentioned in his previous affidavit. As soon as he enlisted, he was immediately ordered on duty in constructing a picket fort in the Town of Florida, on the south side of the Mohawk, on which he labored till the ensuing spring, at which time the fort or stockade was finished. In the spring, under Ephraim Eaton as this deponent’s commanding officer this deponent left the fort or stockade at Florida, this deponent proceeded up the stockade at Florida, this deponent proceeded up the Mohawk to Fort Hunter; from thence to Fort Plain; from thence to Fort Walradt; from thence to Fort Herkimer, and thence to Johnstown, and thence from fort to fort and place to place during the whole term of his service; being sometimes doing duty in the different fortifications and sometimes on scout and patrols, scouring the country and protecting it.  During these excursions and services this deponent was under the immediate command of different officers, one of whom this deponent recollect was called Captain Snyder—also under a Captain Putman, a Captain French, and other officers, whose names this deponent does not recollect.  On one of the above excursions up the Mohawk and when this deponent was under the immediate command of Eaton and they were passing up the south side of the Mohawk, at a point above fort Walradt, (which lay on the north side of the Mohawk) the party to which this deponent belonged, being short of provisions applied at the house of a Tory to buy some and were refused, they observed however an out door oven full of meats and bread and other articles baking, and which some of the party within doors amused the family, their companions without ran some poles under the oven and carried it off, bodily, with its contents, and then procured a desirable temporary supply of provisions.  At another time this deponent was one of a party, of whom this deponent thinks Captain Snyder was one of up to the Sacondaga Fly, northeasterly  of Johnstown and took a Troy who was called Lawson (probably Lansing) who harbored Tories and Indians, and drove off his stock and brought him in the American lines. This deponent now recollects that in some of his excursions and during some part of his services, he was under a Col. Harper.  On another occasion this deponent in company with five companions viz. Henry Gile, Amon French, Samuel Dingman, Albert Frank and another whose name this deponent recollects not were on a scout tower the Flyer we came silently upon a party of eight Indians engaged in cooking in two small camp-kettles our party stole up unperceived, sheltered by threes and [??] themselves how to single out their object, and fired. Five of the Indians fell at the first discharge. The remaining three immediately fled, bent over pursued and killed two more.  One escaped. We then took their arms and ammunition and their two small kettles and brought them in to Fort Plain where Col. Willett then was, who called this deponent and his companions good fellows and got some rum and treated them to what they would drink. This deponent also accompanied Col. Willet on his expedition towards Oswego, and proceeded on down Wood Creek to within about three miles of the Oneida Lake, at which point this deponent and three or four others had got frost bitten and were unable to proceed, were sent back by Col. Willett of Fort Stanwix.  (Signed) Ray Gile
            Subscribed and sworn this 21st day of January 1839 before me, Walter Fitch, Justice of the Peace.

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