Confederate Widow’s Pension Application of Frances N. Caudell Lawrence

Widow’s Pension for year ending February 15, 1897.

Mrs. Lawrence, Fannie of Banks County.

Widow of I. B. Lawrence.

Affidavit to be Made by the Widow.

State of Georgia,

Banks County.

In person before me, the undersigned Ordinary in and for the County of_____ Mrs. Fannie Lawrence, who being sworn according to law, says under oath that she is the widow of I. B. Lawrence [Isaac B. Lawrence], who was a soldier in the service of the Confederate States, and served as a member of Company A, of the 1^st Regiment of Ga. State Troops Volunteers that he enlisted in said service on or about the ____day of Fall 1864, and was in the _______ Army up to April 1865. That while in the Army, he was on the __day of 1880 [his death year], (See Note No. 1)

While in service near Athens, Ga., he contracted rheumatism from exposure and was discharged just before the surrender. On account of the rheumatism contracted in the service came home and lay for a long time unable to get out of the house. He got some better after several years and tried to do work & relapsed and never done but very little work up to his death in 1880. He always had to walk with a stick to aid him to walk at all.

Deponent further swears that she was the wife of the deceased soldier during his term of service in the Army, and that she has never married since his death; that she became his wife on the ___ day of Nov. 1833, that Georgia is her home, and was such on the 23^rd day of December, 1890, and since said date she has not lived in any other State or locality. Deponent, as widow of said deceased soldier husband, applies for the pension provided by Act of the General Assembly of Georgia, approved December 23^rd, 1890, for the pension year ending February 15^th, 1895, and herewith tenders the proof of her right to receive the allowance granted by said Act.

Signed: Fannie Lawrence (X her mark)

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this the 15 day of May1897.

T. F. Hill, Ordinary.

[bottom of application page] Note 1. State in blank above the date of the death of the husband, and how, and when, and where he died. And in case his death resulted from disease, state how the disease is known positively to have resulted from the service of the soldier to the Army and not from any other cause.

[Power of Attorney signed by Fannie Lawrence (her mark) on 1 May 1897 assigned T. F. Hill to receive any pension granted to her. The Power of Attorney was witnessed by J. S. Parks and Logan Perkins, Clerk of Superior Court.]

Notes from Pension Office on Application folder cover:

Pension Office 7/16/1897-

The evidence does not indicate that applicant’s husband died of any disease contracted in the service. If she resides in Hall County she should make her claim from there.

Richard Johnson, Com. Of Pensions.

Pension Office-8/10/1897.

The proofs show that the applicant’s husband contracted rheumatism in the service but they do not show that such disease caused death-and one must be direct by connection with and traced to the other.

Richard Johnson, Com. Of Pensions.

Pension Office 11/11/1897.

Cannot prove by physician who treated applicant in his last illness he had. He must have been an old man.

Richard Johnson, Com. Of Pensions.

Notes-According to online Habersham County marriages Frances Caudell married Isaac Lawrence on Nov. 28 1838.

Reference “Cemeteries and Deaths in Banks County Georgia” by Richard J. Chambers Frances N. Lawrence is buried in the R. Dalton Cemetery in Banks County. The dates on her stone are given as 5 Jan. 1819-23 Mar. 1896, the death date being an obvious error as the pension application is dated 1897.

Isaac B. Lawrence is listed in the same cemetery as being born 1810 and dying 1894. His widow states he died in 1880.

Transcribed 2006 by Jacqueline King