Persons in Oxley Johnson's Pension Papers

by Neil Allen Bristow

In preparing essays on my great grandfather's life I had to keep track of who said what and when, so I thought it worthwhile to make up a list and share it with other people who might be researching families in nineteenth-century Harrison County, Missouri or Wilson County, Kansas.

Most of the people on this list are those who filed affidavits or made depositions. I have also included a few others such as those who witnessed documents or who were named by affiants and deponents. I have omitted Pension Bureau or War Department employees, the clerks and examiners who gave Oxley such a hard time. I have included the local physicians in Harrison County, Missouri and Wilson County, Kansas, but not those on the Bureau's medical boards. The list is not exhaustive.

As you can see by the addresses they gave, many of Oxley's surviving comrades in Company D of the 23rd Missouri left the Cainsville area after the war, most settling elsewhere on the Great Plains, but some ending up as far away as the Pacific Coast. It was no easy task for him to track these people down and convince them to take the trouble to go to a notary or court clerk and make a formal statement.

The status categories grew out of the distinctions made by the Pension Bureau, but there is some overlap. Comrades testified mainly about the events that happened during their time in the service, and neighbors related events before or afterwards. Naturally, most of those identified as comrades were also neighbors since the company was raised in Harrison County, mostly from the eastern section. Many of the neighbors were also family, aunts and cousins and inlaws. (For more details see my Johnson notes and also the data on WorldConnect.)

Although most of the statements were actually written down by notaries or examiners, who took more-or-less verbatim notes, a few were written by the individuals in their own hand. All of the formal statements were signed, and I would be glad to share copies of the signatures. I am sure that in many cases, these are the only surviving original, direct tokens of those folks who lived close to 150 years ago.

Those individuals whose primary identification is with Harrison County or the 23rd Missouri are shown in green; those from Wilson County in blue.