The Shot Heard 'Round the World

Asa Alden Barrows was born 28 July 1751 to Moses Barrows and Deborah Totman. He married Content Benson 19 November 1774.  He was a private in Capt. William Shaw's Company which responded to the alarm of April 19, 1775. He only served three days in that capacity but would re-enlist for eight months during the siege of Boston and in December 1776 he joined a militia company commanded by Joshua Perkins and marched to Barrington, R.I. where he remained for six weeks. In July 1780 he enlisted for a fourth time and served in the militia company commanded by Perez Churchill that marched to Tiverton, R.I. 

In 1832 at age 81, he submitted a pension form. He was awarded a pension of $33.33 per annum and received $66.66 in back pension pay. According to an inflation calculator, the pension would be $921.90 per year in 2012 dollars. His last pension payment was in 1850, meaning he was 99 years old (if he died after July 28). 

Asa's Signature on his application

Pension calculation sheet

Asa Alden Barrows - 5th great-grandfather

Rachel Barrows - 4th great-grandfather

Asa Freeman Ellingwood - 3rd great-grandfather

Nina King Ellingwood - 2nd great-grandmother

Annie Florilla Gibbs - great-grandmother

Fern Lyndell Cotton - grandmother

Aftermath of the Shot Heard 'Round the World

The case of Uriah Thayer illustrates some of the challenges of documenting service in the Revolutionary War. It would seem from the pension requests of my ancestors that virtually no one kept any paperwork pertaining to their service and in some cases there was no paperwork to be kept. I have seen a few that state they were verbally discharged without formal papers. These verbal discharges seem to be from the beginning of the war. Uriah came from Braintree and joined Silas Wild's Company of minutemen who assembled on April 19, 1775. After 9 days he was sent home but would later join the army again at least 3-4 times and possibly more. His wife, Phebe (Hayden), states in the pension records that he was gone for most of the first three years of their marriage. Other soldiers state that they believe he served for the better part of 5 years. Despite these testimonies, there is only documentation of a little over a year of service when it is all consolidated. Further complicating the process of obtaining a pension, Uriah died in 1805, well before the 1818 law providing for pensions. Phebe was illiterate (based on her signing the application with her mark - see below). She ended up getting a pension for $39 that was later raised to $50 per annum. At the age of 92, she was still corresponding with the government, applying for a land bounty. I cannot find proof that the land bounty was granted but it may have been.

Piecing together the 74 pages of his pension record (the longest I have encountered), Uriah responded to the call for troops when the British marched on Lexington and Concord. He spent time in Boston guarding the harbor and was serving with General Benjamin Lincoln when he supervised the evacuation of the British. He may or may not have fought at Saratoga or gone on an expedition to Canada.

I doubt any of the men responding to the alarm from Lexington and Concord gave a thought to pensions or what their families might need from the government in the future. I'm sure they didn't envision the bureaucracy and red tape they or their spouses would encounter when trying to access their benefits.

Raising the Alarm

Uriah Thayer - 4th cousin 7 times removed (closest relationship)
Common ancestors - Samuel Bass to T. Richard Carter
John Alden to Linona Alice Yates

Thomas Rogers to Fern Lyndell Cotton