State of South Carolina}

Abbeville District} In the Court of Common Pleas

To wit On the twenty Seventh day of October one thousand eight hundred and thirty, personally appeared in open court, being a court of record for the District aforesaid, in the said State and which Court proceeded according to the course of the Common Law with a jurisdiction unlimited in point of amount. Keeping a record of its proceedings. William Ashley, a resident of the said District, aged seventy three years, who being first duly sworn according to law, doth on his oath make the following declaration, in order to obtain the provision made by the Act of Congress of the eighteenth of March eighteen hundred and eighteen, and the first of May eighteen hundred and twenty.

That he the said William Ashley entered as a Corporal for the term of sixteen months on the fourteenth day of May in the year 1778 in the State of Maryland in the company commanded by Captain Legon, in the Regiment commanded by Colonel Baron Bowe, which Regiment was under the command of General Count Polaski in the line of the State Of Maryland on the Continental establishment. That he continued to serve in the said corps until September 1779 when he was discharged from service in the State aforesaid, that he hereby relinquished every claim whatever to a pension except the present. That his name has been placed on the Pension List, that the number of his pension certificate is 2932 and that he never before exhibited a schedule of his property because your petitioner was old and infirm and thought before he could be reinstated on the pension list he would be removed by providence from this world, ( ^ written above at this point: and further that he was of weak judgment), and having been informed that an individual holding land could not draw a pension and as he, as will be seen by his schedule below, was a holder of a tract of Land, although inconsiderable in point of value, thought useless to exhibit a schedule or apply for a pension. And in pursuance of the Act of the first of May 1820, I do solemnly swear that I was a resident citizen of the United States on the eighteenth of March 1818 and that I have not since that time by gift, sale or in any manner disposed of my property or any part thereof with intent thereby so to diminish it as to bring myself within the provisions of an Act of Congress entitled Act to Provide for certain persons engaged in the land and naval service of the United States in the Revolutionary War. Passed on the eighteenth day of March 1818 and that I have not, nor has any person in trust for me any property or securities contracts or debts due to me nor have any income other than what is contained in the schedule hereto annexed and by me subscribed. Viz.

Two hundred and twenty nine acres of poor land worth .................................................... $100.00

Three head of horses (one mare and two colts) worth ............................................................ 60.00

Five head of sheep worth ...........................................................................................................5.00

Nine head of hogs worth ........................................................................................................ 14.00

Seven head of cattle including 2 cows & calves 3 yearlings worth ...................................... 25.00

One negro man 42 years of age worth ................................................................................. 250.00

454.00

And at the same time I justly owe the following

debt and interest thereon for 3 years & eleven months 421.86

by note which note was given for the price of the Int. 111.54

aforesaid negro man to Charles Starke

$533.40

Which leaves your petitioner in debt $ 79.40

He further swears that he is by occupation a farmer and has been ever since he left the army. That his family consists of three persons viz. himself, his wife Ann and an old negro man, that he himself is now seventy three years of age and is badly crippled in his right arm and leg so as to be utterly unable to maintain himself that his wife is sixty nine years of age and badly afflicted with the asthmatic affection, and has been so for about seven years and is entirely unable to maintain herself, and is an expense and great trouble; the negro man is forty two years of age and as stout as men usually are at his age though somewhat on the decline. That since the eighteenth day of March 1818 the following changes have been made in my property, at that time I was possessed of a tract of land of seventy one and one fourth acres two head of horses, four head of cattle and nine head of hogs; that land was sold by me to Martin Fralix in 1820 for the sum of three hundred and eighty dollars in money but good and sufficient title were not made until the twenty second day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty eight as will be seen by reference to the authenticated copy of the Deed of Conveyance of the said land herewith exhibited and a mare rated at eighty dollars and after paying the debts that I then owed which was about sixty dollars the balance was applied to the purchase of the tract of land that I now live on. I have had five head of horses to die since that time and four head of cattle as to other small changes that have taken place I cannot precisely recollect however they have been of a trivial nature and to a very small amount.

Sworn to and declared on the twenty his

seventh day of October 1830 in open court William A Ashley

mark

Jas Wardlaw

Clk

End

South Carolina }

Abbeville District }

I Josiah Evans one of the Circuit Judges of the said State presiding at Abbeville, October Term 1830 do hereby certify that I am satisfied with the correctness of the valuation of his property as set forth in the within declaration & that it is subject to the debts therein specified.

27 Oct 1830 Josiah J. Evans

State of South Carolina }

Abbeville District }

I James Wardlaw Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for said District do hereby certify that it appears to the satisfaction of the Court that the said William Ashley did serve in the Revolutionary War as stated in the preceding declaration against the common enemy for the term of nine months or more under one engagement on the continental establishment. I also certify that the foregoing oath and the schedule thereunto annexed are truly copied from the record of the said Court and I do further certify that it is the opinion of the Court that the total amount in value of the property exhibited in the aforesaid schedule is four hundred and fifty four Dollars, subject to the debt and interest due to Charles Starke as aforesaid to the amount of five hundred and thirty three dollars forty cents.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of the said Court at Abbeville Court House this twenty seventh day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty and in the fifty sixth year of the Independence of the United States of America.

Jas Wardlaw

Clk

transcribed by:Dennis Smith

hdennissmith@earthlink.net