Even miraculous finds need a closer look

 

                                         St Patrick's Day Celebration, Army of the Potomac, American Civil War

It was a spectacular find. Among the records in Alexander Mathison's pension file was a questionnaire with so many of those things family historians would ask their ancestors about if they could. There were questions about his marriage including his wife's maiden name and when, where and by whom they were married. The details about his children were also filled out. I now have a brilliant head start for searching out those records.

Most of those questions were about events and people which Alex knew as an adult. He might had had to wrack his brain for some of the details but he could have been helped by his wife who was still alive at that time. Women are often better keepers of that knowledge maybe because they are more intimately involved, particularly in the birth of children. His wife wouldn't have been able to help him with information about his own birth which was where I detected a problem.

If I had come cold to this document with all its marvelous information I might have been led astray by the answer he gave for his place of birth. He wrote that he was born near Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. That is incorrect but may have been the story he told himself about his past.

Back then people didn't carry around the documentation we have now. That was readily apparent in the affidavits in the pension file which required Alexander Mathison to swear that he was the same Alexander Mathison who signed up in Freeport, Illinois in 1861. They had no social insurance number or drivers license to attest to their date of birth or passport to confirm their place of nativity. In Alex' case he probably knew that he told a falsehood about his place of birth but found it easier to leave out the beginning of the family's history.

Alex truncated his family story placing his birth close to the last place in Canada where he had seen his family in the late 1850s. He left out the family's wanderings but admitted in a letter to his sister that they had come to Canada in about 1849 or 1850. Although he didn't spell it out, they had been in Prince Edward Island before that. I found a copy of my 2 x great grandmother Catherine's baptism there at Belle Creek. She was his sister. Prior to that, however, they had been in Scotland where Alex was born. His baptism took place on August 30, 1837 in Portree on the Isle of Skye. I'm glad that I knew this before I came across the informative questionnaire in his pension file or I might have been led astray.

Sources:

LDS film 0990671 OPR Portree 1837 baptism record for Alexander Matheson

LDS film 1487759 PEI Index to baptisms prior to 1886, 1845 baptism of Catherine Matheson

The National Archives, Soldiers Certificate No. 74172, Veteran: Alexander Mathison Rank: Private Service: Co. “B” 15 Ill. Inf Can No.: 1185 Bundle No.: 30

Image:

Saint Patrick’s Day celebration, Army of the Potomac, American Civil War. Irish Brigade holds a steeplechase race By Edwin Forbes, 1839-1895 - Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8697176

Changing rules for Civil War Pensions

 

                                                                            A Civil War reenactment

Alexander Mathison's pension file from the Civil War has quite a few forms to go through. That's because of the rules to qualify for a pension due to service in the conflict. With the passage of the pension law in 1862, the only way to become eligible was for the the member of the military or naval service to die or become disabled. This, of course, required proof of death or disability. So, the rules to qualify for a pension didn't include everyone who had fought, they were fairly restrictive. While a pension would not be much use to a soldier or sailor if he died it meant that the pension would go to his family. The definition of family was broad, including widow, children and even orphan sisters who were dependent on the serving family member. All of these rules: the proof of death or disability and/or the proof of relationship to the dead or disabled, meant lots and lots of forms.

On October 3, 1864 at Big Shanty, Alex was shot in the right leg and captured. He survived and, after a time, was paroled. The gunshot fractured his right tibia, a serious wound that could cause a disability thereby making him eligible for a pension. This meant that the 1862 pension legislation would apply to him providing he had medical backing as well as proof that the debility came about due to his service in the army. What constituted a disability? The legislation didn't define it leaving it open to interpretation. But to aid in this interpretation records of the soldier's service as well as medical information were needed and added to the file.

Included in the paperwork in his file was a questionnaire which Alex filled out himself in 1915. From other papers included in the file, it appears that pension legislation changed again May 11, 1912. The questionnaire was sent out after the 1912 date. The questions asked of the pension applicant were about his family. They included the names and birthdates of children as well as information about his marriage and the maiden name of his wife. It's wonderful information for jump starting genealogical research and will help me to find out more about the man. In the meantime, I continue to mine his pension file and feel a need to figure out the timeline of the changes in rules in regard to Alexander Mathison's pension application. 

Sources:

Civil War Pension Application Processing, 1861-1885 https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/spring/civilwarpension.html

The National Archives, Soldiers Certificate No. 74172, Veteran: Alexander Mathison Rank: Private Service: Co. “B” 15 Ill. Inf Can No.: 1185 Bundle No.: 30

Image:

Civil War re-enactment at Kennekuk County Park, near Danville, Illinois By Daniel Schwen - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4901578

Exploring Civil War records

 

                                                                        Muster rolls for Alexander Mathison

Extracting the information from Alexander Mathison's letters has given me a better idea of the man's history and it has also suggested many more avenues of research. As Alex himself was not my direct ancestor, being the brother of my 2 x great grandmother, I haven't done much research on him. His story is so interesting that I will be looking further. That will be helped by the details I've found in his letters.

Those missives have contained helpful clues like information about his family with the places they lived and how long they stayed. I've now moved on to Civil War records. According to the muster rolls, Alexander Mathison joined the Union Army on May 24, 1861 in Freeport, Illinois for a period of three years. Of course the war lasted longer than that, which was reflected in those same muster rolls. He reenlisted on February 25, 1864 in Hebron, Mississippi. That's when the records change.

At that point, Alex was no longer able to muster in as he had become a prisoner of war and what happened to him was not clear. Later pension forms record that he was injured and disabled. I can't imagine that being an injured POW was good.

While going through the records, many areas of research have suggested themselves, like whether the intermittent special musters relate to particular battles. A closer study of the information I've extracted will, no doubt, point to even more promising avenues to explore. I've just begun to get into the documents in his pension file, so more on that next time.

Sources:

The National Archives, Soldiers Certificate No. 74172, Veteran: Alexander Mathison Rank: Private Service: Co. “B” 15 Ill. Inf Can No.: 1185 Bundle No.: 30

Correcting the story

 

                            A view of the churchyard of Leith United Church with the sign about the artist, Tom Thomson

Sometimes it pays to reread your sources. I didn't extract much information from Alexander Mathison's letter of September 18, 1917. It was the tenth letter in the collection. Maybe I was getting tired at that point or maybe I hadn't realized the significance of the date. The information extracted was as follows: 

                Letcher South Dak Sept 18 1917

• Got home yesterday morning at 10
• Information about his visit and his home community                          

It wasn't until I looked up the date of his nephew, Tom Thomson's death, that I realized this was the first letter in the collection which captured the time after Tom's demise. A reread of the letter opened it to a different interpretation.

Around this time, Alex started writing about his long visits to the State Soldiers Home in Hot Springs, South Dakota and when I looked at my notes later, that was in my mind. When he wrote about getting home to Letcher, I though that meant he had returned from the soldiers' home. But then I read further into the letter which was addressed to Dear Brother and Sisters, in other words, John Thomson, his wife Margaret and Margaret's sister, Henrietta. Further down in the letter he wrote: "It was much harder for me to leave you this time than it was any time before. I hope to see you again." Those sentiments seemed more in the line of something he had written to his relatives when he had recently visited them after their bereavement.

Given the timing of the letters he wrote before after his nephew's death, it was possible that Alex was there for the internment of his nephew's casket at the United Church in Leith, Ontario as Tom Thomson was laid to rest on July 21, 1917. This was his second burial and there was and is some controversy over whether the artist's body was truly in the casket. Even if Alex wasn't visiting at the time of the reinternment, I am sure there would have been a visit to the grave at some point in his visit. That grave was also the resting place of Kenneth Matheson, the father of Alex and his sisters, Margaret and Henrietta.

It's taking me a while, but I'm slowly piecing together a timeline for Alexander Mathison. He lived through a lot in his life so it seems it would be interesting to write about him in more detail. The task right now though, is to make sure I'm extracting the right information from his letters to come to the correct conclusions about the events of his life. 

Sources:

Little, John. Who Killed Tom Thomson? The Truth about the Murder of One of the 20^th Century’s Most Famous Artists. Skyhorse Publishing, New York 2018.