Sources - The 1818 Pensioners
The information used to build the dataset behind the Continental veteran migration maps comes from the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land-Warrant Application Files, NARA Record Group 15, Microfilm Publication 804, held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
The first in what would become a series of acts to provide service-based pensions to Revolutionary veterans, many of whom were in poor health and indigent circumstances, was spearheaded by James Monroe, a President who was himself a veteran of the war and who had shed his blood on the streets of Trenton. In 1817, a committee was established in the House of Representatives to work out the legislation, led by Representative and former Major of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment, Joseph Bloomfield. The bill which came out of this committee initially proposed to allow half-pay pensions to all soldiers who had served in the Revolutionary War, who were “reduced to indigence” or who could not “procure subsistence by manual labour” due to health or age. The final act passed on March 18, 1818 would grant a lifetime pension of $96 per year to enlisted men, sailors, and marines and $240 to officers who served at least nine months on the Continental establishment.
In order to identify the men belonging to the cohort of veterans who applied for pensions under the Act of 1818, I transcribed a total of 3,164 pension declarations filed by New Jersey veterans and widows on Fold3.com. After these pensions declarations were transcribed, I separated out the cohort of veterans of the New Jersey Continental Line who applied to receive benefits under the Act of 1818, which, as of June 2025, numbered 690 declarations. There were an additional 87 men from New Jersey who applied for pensions under the Act of 1818 and who served in other Continental corps, such as Lamb’s Artillery, Pulaski’s Legion, and other regiments from New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, but I limited the subjects of this study only to the men who served in New Jersey battalions.
Geolocating the Veterans
The Act of 1818 outlined what information was necessary for a veteran to apply for a pension. It provided no specific language or formatting, only that the veteran “shall make a declaration, under oath or affirmation, before the district judge of the United States of the district, or before any judge or court of record of the county, state, or territory, in which the applicant shall reside…”
The applications took the shape of the common declarations used in the courts where the veterans made their claims. An opening paragraph typically established the location of the court, by State and County, the date of the declaration, and name of the presiding judge. The veteran would then be named along with, but not always, the place of his residence, which could be the name of a town and the county, or just the name of the county. The place of residence, or if that was not known, the location of the county court, was used to geolocate the veteran. The latitude and longitude for each location was established, and saved in an Excel spreadsheet to be visualized in arcGIS Pro.
After the details of the court and the veteran were established, the declaration would continue to name any regiments the veteran served in, along with some associated officers, the time they entered the service, and how they left the service. An example of the very brief nature of the pension declarations filed under the Act of 1818 is seen below - that of James Kirkpatrick, who filed one of the earliest applications for a pension from New Jersey on April 8, 1818.
State of New Jersey
Hunterdon County
Before me James Ewing one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in said County personally appeared James Kirkpatrick of the city of Trenton in said County a person to me well known and worth of Credit, who being duly sworn &c. deposeth and saith that he served the United States in the Revolutionary War upwards of five years having enlisted in Capt. Edward Patterson’s company in the New Jersey Regiment as a Drummer during the War, that the discharge hereunto annexed is the one which was given him by Gen. Washington at the close of the War, that he is now so reduced in his circumstances as to need the assistance of his country for his support.
