Revolutionary War Records of Fairfield, Connecticut

Description

Covering hundreds of Revolutionary War veterans of Fairfield, Connecticut, this book contains abstracts of pension records that were originally on file at the old Pension Bureau in Washington, D.C., including soldiers’ and widows’ applications, bounty land warrants, and rejected pension applications. Packed with information–much of it deriving from affidavits provided by friends and relatives in support of the veteran’s application for a pension–the abstracts include some or all of the following data: name of pension applicant, place and date of birth, age, dates of enlistment and discharge, service record (sometimes very detailed but always interesting), place of residence before and after service, distinguishing characteristics, name of spouse, date of marriage, names of children, and names of parents and other family members. Technological advances notwithstanding, nowhere else can the researcher find so much information so quickly on Fairfield’s Revolutionary War pensioners.

In addition to the pension abstracts, this work also contains an exhaustive collection of muster rolls of Fairfield soldiers in the militia and Continental Army. Roll by roll, Fairfield men are identified by name, rank, and dates of enlistment and discharge, and occasionally by other details such as company, regiment, engagements, injuries, and pay. With references to about 7,500 individuals, the muster rolls and pension abstracts give a comprehensive picture of Fairfield’s contribution to the war effort. Both sections of the book are completely indexed, with soldiers set off in a separate index.

Readers may be surprised to learn that this work was originally published in 1932 as Volume III of Donald Lines Jacobus’ History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield. Unlike the first two volumes of that famous compendium, however, it has never been reprinted. Not a compendium of family histories but a collection of source records, it stands completely independent of the first two volumes and is available now as a separate and distinct contribution to Revolutionary War genealogy.