This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Qi3.2ACIB/1841.1 Message Board Post: Concerning Josiah Norton I found in the book: Main Revolutonary Pensioners by Charles Alcott Flagg, published by Genealogical Publishing Co., in 1967, Baltimore, on page 68. List '35c* Name Norton, Josiah Service Mass. line Rank Private Age 86 County Waldo Remarks ------ 1835 "Report from the Secretary of war, in obedience to resolution of the Senate of the 5th and 30th of June, 1834, and the 3d of March, 1835, in relation to the pension establishment of the United States. Washington: Printed by Duff Green, 1835. 3 volumes. (23d Congress, 1st session. Senate. Doc. No 514.) * '35c = Pensioners under the act of March 18, 1818;" I would assume that Josiah Norton was born about 1749 if I am interepreting this correctly. If he was 86 in the year 1835. (Maine was part of Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War.) From the foreword in the above mentioned book: "The U.S. Pension Office at Washington is a veritable mine of information, and once an ancestor is located on the pension roll, it is worth while to secure direct from the Office and at some expense, a copy of all papers relating to the claim." The following is an excerpt explaining "Service pensioners." (page 6) "March 18, 1818, was passed the first service pension act, which provided that every resident of the U. S. who had served in the Revolutionary war until its cose or for the term of 9 months or longer, at any period of the war, on the Continental establishment or navy, and who was by reason of his reduced circumstances in need of assistance, should receive a pension; if an officer, twenty dollars a month, if a private eight dolalrs. Claimants were requred to give up invalid and all over pensions. So many frauds were perpetrated under this act that in 1820 Congress required of all pensioners under the act, sworn schedules of their property and income, and under this rulling thousands of names were stricken from the rolls. "In June, 1832, a still more sweeping service pension measure became law. It granted to all who had completed a total service of two years in Continental line, state troops or militia, or the navy, and who were not entitled to pensions under the Commutation law of 1824, full pay according to rank, to commence May 15, 1828, and not to exceed a captain's pay. All who had completed a service of not less than six months were to receive the same proportion of their full pay that their service bore to two years. Here again enormous frauds were unearthed." Pensioners under the act of March 18, 1818; Hope this helps. Jeannie Pepper (jeanniepepper@juno.com)