Virginia
At a Court of Quarter Session Continued and held for Lee County
at the courthouse thereof on the 17th day of March 1836
Declaration.
In order to obtain the benefit of an Act of Congress passed June
7th 1832 ~~~ State of Virginia, Lee County Court.
On the 17th day
of March in the year 1835 personally appeared in open court,
before the Court of Lee County now sitting, GEORGE BURKHART,
resident in Harlan County, Kentucky, age ninety-four years of
age the 9th day of February last, 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.
That at the commencement
of the revolutionary war, in 1775 he resided on the Allegany
in Bedford County in the State of Pennsylvania, which was then
a frontier county, and much subjected to Indian depredations.
That the declarant was enroled in the militia service in a company
commanded by Capt. John Miller, and was four years under his
command, and served three months in every summer during that
time, in guarding against the incurtions of Indians. And as a
spy upon their movements.
Near the commencement
of this service the declarant was drafted to go to Boston against
the British, but in a day or two after he started an express
was sent after the company to which he belonged to return to
Bedford, as the Indians were then approaching the settlements.
The order for the company to return was given by Capt. John Woods,
who commanded the Militia in that neighborhood ~~ Capt. Miller
then resigned his command, and the declarant was commanded two
years by Capt. Solomon Adams and spent three months of each of
those years during the summer season, in the same kind of service.
~~
At the end of those
two years, the declarant fell under the command of Capt. Samuel
Davis with whom he performed two other tours of three months
each in the same kind of service, and in the same seasons of
year.
The declarant served
one year in a company commanded by Capt. Delap, whose Christian
name he thinks was Richard, under whom he served a nother tour
of three months in the same kind of service ~ making in all,
nine years, in each of which he served a tour of three months
as a spy and frontier guard against the Indians, embrasing the
whole period of the Revolutionary War, and a year or more after
its close. His services commencing with the Revolution. The only
engagement the declarant was in was at an old Indian Town called
French Town, where the scouts were attacked by upwards of Sixty
Indians, and after an obstinate resistance were victorious over
us, killing and sounding nine of our numbers, out of a company
of thirty. ~~
For those services, the declarant received regular discharge,
which he has long since lost, by their accidental destruction.
~~~
The declarant removed
about forty years ago in the said County of Lee, where he resided
many years, and then removed to Knox, now Harlan County, in the
State of Kentucky, where he yet resides, only about seven miles
distant from the Lee Courthouse, Virginia. He hereby relinquishes
any claim whatsoever to a pension or annuity except this present,
and declares that his name is not on the Pension Roll of the
agency of any State.
Sworn to and subscribed the day and year aforesaid.
his
GEORGE [H] BURKHART
mark
Teste: J. W. S.
Morison D.C.
We Abraham Crabtree a clergyman residing in the said County of
Lee, and Daniel Dickinson residing in the same, do hereby certify
that we are well acquainted with George Burkhart who has subscribed
and sworn to the above declaration; that we believe him to be
ninety-four years of age; that he is reputed and believed in
the neighborhood where he resides, to have been a Soldier of
the Revolution, and that we concur in that opinion. We also certify
that he has a good character for veracity.
Sworn to and subscribed the 17th day of March 1835
Abraham Crabtree
Teste: J. W. S. Morison D.C. Dan'l Dickinson
This file was again acknowledged by the court
as of 17th March 1836 -- the clerk was mixed up
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