February 3, 2021
Pages 59-61
Whole Number 9
SPARKSES IN THIS AMERICAN REVOLUTION:
1.2.5.2.5 Solomon Sparks
[Editor's note: In the following documents, capitalization and punctuation have been modernized for the sake of clarity, but no changes have been made in spelling or content. The file number given to the application papers of 1.2.5.2.5 Solomon Sparks in The National Archives is 84874.]
State of Pennsylvania) SS
Bedford County)
On this 29th day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred & thirty two personally appeared in open Court before the Honorable Alexander Thompson & his Associate Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Bedford County now holden of August Term 1832, Solomon Sparks, a resident of Providence Township, Bedford County and State of Pennsylvania, aged seventy four & upwards, 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 he enlisted in Bedford County with Ensign Hugh Means of Captain John Boyd's company of troops raised by the State of Pennsylvania in the year, as Deponent believes, of 1782. That Deponent enlisted sometime in the month of April of said year. That said company remained within the County of Bedford aforesaid, then a frontier county, the greater part of said year & were stationed in said County to act against the Indians then the allies of Great Brittain. That his said service was the year after said Boyd was defeated near Frankstown. That said company never joined any regiment during the time of his said service, which was about eighteen months, when Deponent was discharged in Bedford aforesaid. That his said discharge is now lost. That he further relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or an annuity except the present, & he further declares that his name is not on the pension roll of any agency in any State.
Answers to questions put by the Court
I was born in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1758, & have a record of my age at home. I was living in Bedford County when called into service. I lived two years in Maryland after I was discharged & ever since in Bedford County. I was enlisted. I had a discharge from either Means or Johnson, but do not now know where it is--never had a commission.
Sworn to & subscribed the day & [page 60 has the signature of SOLOMON SPARKS] year aforesaid
[signed] Job Mann, Prothonotary.
[Editor's note: The above signature of Solomon Sparks is a photograph of the actual signature which appears on this application. The following documents accompanied the above application.]
Bedford County
We, William Caldwell, a minister & preacher of the Gospel in Providence Township, Bedford County, & Charles Ashcom, Esquire, both residing in said Township of Providence, do hereby certify that we are well acquainted with Solomon Sparks who has subscribed & sworn to the above declaration. That we believe him to be seventy four years of age & upwards. That he is reputed & believed in the neighbourhood where he resides, to have been a soldier of the Revolution & that we concur in that opinion.
Sworn & subscribed this day [signed] William Caldwell & year aforesaid in open Court.
[signed] Charles Ashcom
[signed] Job Mann, Prothonotary.
And the said Court do hereby declare their opinion, after the investigation of the matter, and after putting the interrogations prescribed by the War Department, that the above named applicant was a Revolutionary Soldier, and served as he states.
And the Court further certifies that it appears to them that William Caldwell, who has signed the proceeding certificate, is a clergyman resident in the township of Providence in the County of Bedford and State of Pennsylvania, and that Charles Ashcom, Esquire, who has also signed the same is a resident in the same Township and County, and is a credible person, and that their statement is entitled to credit.
I, Job Mann, Prothonotary (or clerk) of the Court of Common Pleas of the County of Bedford in the State of Pennsylvania, do hereby certify that the foregoing contains the original proceedings of the said Court in the matter of the application of Solomon Sparks for a pension.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal of office at Bedford the 29th day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty two.
[signed] Job Mann, Prothonotary.
State of Pennsylvania
Bedford County
Personally appeared before me the undersigned, a Justice of the Peace in & for said County, Solomon Sparks who, being duly sworn according to the law, saith that by reason of old age & the consequent loss of memory, he cannot state with more precision than he has done, the periods of the war when he served and that his term of service was not less than fifteen months to which length of time he can swear positively--that he held no commission, that he has not any documentary evidence of his service, & that he does not know any person who can tell anything of them.
Sworn to & subscribed this 6th day [signed] Solomon Sparks of December AD 1832, before me
[signed] J. Bonnett.
[Editor's note: Solomon Sparks's file also contains a letter, dated in 1938, from C. C. Weaverling, of 1326 Euclid St., N.W., Washington, D.C. Mr. Weaverling asks for information on 1.2.5.1 Solomon Sparks, son of 1.2.5 Joseph Sparks, of Bedford Co., PA, who was in the Revolutionary War, and on a Solomon Sparks in the War of 1812 (PA Archives, 2nd Series, Vol. 12, page 460), Bartley Hughes (grandfather of Mr. Weaverling) was a son of Uriah Hughes, who had married Delilah Sparks, a daughter of Solomon Sparks the Revolutionary soldier, (History of Bedford County, published 1884 by Waterman & Watkins). A letter written to Mr. Weaverling recently by the editor was returned unclaimed. (The following handwritten note appears on the original of page 61, presumably in Mr. Johnson's handwriting: "Note: Uriah Hughes was a witness to the will of Joseph Sparks, Sr., on September 15, 1827.")