Transcript of Pension Applications for
James W. Chappelle (1910)
and Elizabeth Chappell (1924)
Transcribed from printed copies of scanned and magnified electronically-archived files, which I acquired through the Internet while I was researching in 2001.
Pension Application for Wounded Confederate Soldier
Filed in the Clerk’s Office of the Circuit Court, of Fauquier Co, Virginia,
this 25 day of July, 1910.
Act 1902, As Amended: To save trouble for Applicant and Pension Department, please write plainly in spaces below, the County or City in which the Pension was granted and the name and Post office Address of the applicant.
Roll No. 143
County/City: Fauquier
Name: James W. Chappelle
Post Office: Paris
Fauquier Co, Va
What is your name? James W. Chappelle
What is your age? 66
Where were you born? Loudoun Co., Va
How long have you resided in Va? 66 years
How long have you resided in the city or county of your present residence? 40 years
Where do you reside? If in a city, give street address: Paris, County of Farquier, Va
Post office: Paris
In what branch of the service were you when wounded? 8th Va, Co(mpany) F
Who were your immediate superior officers? Colonel Eppa Hunton, Captain Alex Grayson
When did you enter the service? May 1861
When and why did you leave the service? Did not leave or surrender
In what battle and under what circumstances were you wounded? Captured at Gettysburg in Pickett’s Charge
What was precise location and nature of each wound received? Wounded in the groin
What limb, if any, did you lose by reason of being wounded? (unclear . . . couldn’t read it)
Did you lose your sight by reason of being wounded? No
If limb or sight was not lost, what is the precise nature of your disability, and the cause thereof? Internal adhesions
Are you totally or partially incapacitated by such disability? Looks like he wrote, “Was fond of Blacksmithing—partially supported by another to work at”
What is your usual and ordinary occupation for earning a living? Was blacksmith, but now disabled.
Are you following such occupation or any other occupation or employment at this time? If yes, state the nature and extent of the same. Only light work of any kind.
What is your annual income? (NOTE: By income is meant the total gross receipts derived by you from all crops, whether sold or used, wages and other sources valued in dollars): $100
How much property do you own? Real estate $600 and personal property $80
Give the names and addresses of two comrades who served in the same command with you during the war who were with you at the time you were wounded: F. M. Laniman, Great Falls, Fairfax Co, Va. and Alfred Williams, Paris, Fauquier Co, Va.
Is there a camp of Confederate Veterans in your city or county? No
Have you ever applied for a pension in Virginia before? If so, why are you not drawing one at this time? Never applied.
Give here any other information you may possess relating to your service or disability which will support the justice of your claim. I was captured at Gettysburg, wounded there, and imprisoned until the end of the war, and have dysentry, leaving me with piles.
Witness who signed was J. A. Johnston, Notary Republic in and for the County of Fauquier in the state of Virginia, do certify that the applicant whose name is signed to the foregoing application personally appeared before me that the said statements and answers are true. Given under my hand this 25th day of July 1910.
Certificate of Camp of Confederate Veterans signed by Col Edward Berkely 21 July 1910 and Certificate of Commissioner of Revenue Charles E. Armistead, 18th of July 1910.
Filed in the Clerk’s Office of the Circuit Court of Farquier, Virginia, this 22nd day of October, 1924.
Pension Application for a Widow of Confederate Soldier
Act 1921: To save trouble for applicant and Pension Department, please write plainly in space below, the County or City in which the Pension is granted and the name and Post office Address of the applicant.
County Fauquier (stamped)
Name: Jane Elizabeth Chappell
Post Office: Paris
Filed in Auditor’s office 10-16-1924
I, Jane Elizabeth Chappell, do hereby apply for a pension under the provisions of the act of the General Assembly of Virginia, approved March 14, 1924 to Confederate pensions. I do solemnly swear that I am a citizen of the State of Virginia, and that I have been an actual resident of the said State for two years next preceding the date of this application, and that I am the widow of James W. Chappelle who was a soldier in the service of the Confederate States in the War between the States, and that I was married to him on or before December thirty-first eighteen hundred and eighty-two, and to the best of my knowledge during the said war my husband was loyal and true to his duty and never at any time deserted his command or voluntarily abandoned his sworn duty in the said service, and that I was never divorced from my said husband, and that I never voluntarily abandoned him during his life, but remained his true, faithful, and lawful wife up to the time of his death, and that I do not hold a national, State or county office, which pays a salary or fee amounting to three hundred per annum, nor have I income from any source whatever which amounts to three hundred dollars per annum, or yields an income of money amounting in value to three hundred dollars per annum: nor do I own in my own right, nor is there held in trust for my own benefit, estate or property amounting in value to three hundred dollars per annum.
What is your name? Jane Elizabeth Chappell
What is your age? 80
Where were you born? Loudoun Co, Va
How long have you resided in Virginia? 80 years
How long have you resided in the City or County of your present residence? 50 years
Where do you reside? If in a city, give street address: Paris
Post office: Paris, County of Fauquier, Virginia
With whom do you reside? (Mostly illegible. Part of it crossed out. Looks like “Keeps . . . one daughter with her” as though she wasn’t sure whether to put down that anyone actually lives with her. Maybe her daughters and daughters-in-law took turns visiting and helping her as needed?)
What was your husband’s full name? James William Chappell*
When, where and by whom were you married? When? About 1870. Where? Paris, Virginia. By whom? Rev. Thadeus Herndon
When and where did your husband die? Jan 10th 1914 at Paris, Va
What was the cause of death? Pneumonia
Have you married since the death of your husband? No
In what branch of the army did your husband serve? 8th Va. Inf’y Reg’t under Capt. Grayson’s company.
Who were his immediate superior officers? Col. Eppa Hunton and Captain Grayson.
Give the names and addresses of two comrades who served in the same command with your husband during the war. J.V. Royston, Sr. in Marshall, Va and John Shafer in Arlington, Va.
Give the names and addresses of two persons who are familiar with the circumstances of your husband’s service and death: Same as above.
What assistance do you receive, and what income have you from all sources? Amount and description illegible, and all I can make out are the words “from son” (name illegible).
How much property do you own? Real estate $250.00 and personal property $100.
Was your husband on the pension roll of Virginia? No.
Have you ever applied for a pension in Virginia before? If yes, why are you not drawing one at this time? Yes. No one knows why.
Is there a camp of Confederate Veterans in your city or county? (left blank)
Give here any other information you may possess relating to the service of your husband or the cause of his death which will support the justice of your claim. Was captured at Gettysburg and remained in prison to end of War.
Signed by Elizabeth Chappell, Sept. 13, 1924.
Oath of Resident Witnesses (Must be signed by two residents of Applicant’s City or County” (signatures are not legible) We do solemnly swear that we are residents of the county of Fauquier in the State of Virginia and that we have known personally and well for 40 years the applicant whose name is signed to the foregoing application for aid under the act of the General Assembly of Virginia, approved March 14, 1924, and that the said applicant is a resident of the said city or county and is a woman or good reputation for truth and honesty, and that we have read the foregoing application and the answers to the questions therein propounded, made by the said applicant, and verily believe the said applicant is justly entitled in aid under the said act and that we have no personal interest in the allowance of the applicant’s claim. A signature made by X mark is not valid unless attended by a witness. (More illegible writing) this 13 day of ?? 1924.
Affidavit of Comrades We, John T. Ashley, Sr. and Z.V. Rogaton, Sr. do solemnly swear that we are residents of the County of Farquier in the State of Virginia and that the applicant whose name is signed to the foregoing application for aid under the act of the General Assembly of Virginia, approved March 14, 1924, is personally well known to me and that we have known her for 35 years, and know her to be the widow of James W. Chappell who was a soldier (sailor or mariner), in the military naval service of Virginia, or of the Confederate States, and that we were soldiers (sailors or mariners) in the said service during the said war, and that we were with the said applicant’s husband, members of the same command, and that to our personal knowledge he died on or about tenth of Jan. 1914 from the effects of pneumonia and that he was a true and loyal soldier in the said service and was faithful in the discharge of his duty, and that we have no personal interest in the allowance of the applicant’s claim. A signature made by X mark is not valid unless attended by a witness. John T. Ashley Capt Co (the rest illegible)
Certificate of Physician: I, Ashley Moore, a practicing physician in the County of Farquier in the State of Virginia, do certify that I am personally acquainted with the applicant which name is signed in the foregoing applications for aid under the act of the General Assembly of Virginia approved March 14, 1924 and I attended her husband James Wlm. Chappell during his last illness, which resulted unto his death Jan 10th, 1914, of pneumonia and that I have no personal interest in the allowance of the applicant's claim. Given under my hand this 13th day of Sept, 1924.
Conclusions
The pension application responses given by James and Jane are useful for establishing a picture of their golden years, as well as some clues about life after the Civil War for them. They remained in the same community with their extended family and friends throughout their lives. I know from census records that after the war, they were married in Paris and briefly lived in Farquier County with relatives. James had grown up in or near Bloomfield, Loudoun Co. They moved their family to Paris in 1874, and they remained there, close to the people and the home that they loved.
James was born in 1844 and was 17 when he enlisted in 1861 with his brother, John, by his side as a private in Company F of the 8th Virginia Infantry. He died in 1914 of pneumonia when he was 70, four years after applying for pension but not receiving it, when he was 66. He had suffered from the pain of adhesions and chronic dysentery as a result of the wounds he sustained on the battlefield during Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863 and from July 4 throughout the long months as a POW, first at Fort Delaware and then at Point Lookout. He was promoted from private to 4th, to 3rd, and then to 2nd Corporal by the end of the war, but when we look at photographs of POWs during this era of our history, it is a miracle he survived to be exchanged with thousands of others in February of 1865. Prior to serving in the military, he had been a blacksmith like his brother George; after the war, he continued to work as a blacksmith until, at 66, he was no longer able to make a living from it as he once had and was only able to do light work. In 1880, he and his wife lived with her father and step-mother, her brother James and their children (Abner Mericus, John William, James Oscar, Lillian Belinda, and George Ernest, my great grandfather. Viola and Mae were born after 1880 in Farquier County). Surely, the disabling adhesive and gastrointestinal diseases which he attributed to being shot in the groin in the charge would have caused him pain as he worked to support his large family.
(Given the fact that we now know that adhesions, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, hemorrhoids and bowel cancer run in the family, no doubt his military experiences exacerbated a genetic propensity for the pain he suffered and the limitations the pain caused.) His son George Ernest took his family to New York City in 1912, when he was 34, so that he could see a doctor and be treated for ulcers. Our more recent family medical history certainly bears out this genetic connection to he and his father.
Fourteen years after James filed his applications and a decade after his death, Jane re-applied as his widow. At 80 in 1924, she was living in the home they had once shared together, receiving some financial help from a son, and tended by at least one of her daughters or daughters-in-law. Her son and my gr-grandfather, George Ernest, was born in Paris, Va. on Jan 6, 1879 when she was 45 years old. When James died, George Ernest was 25 years old and had been married for 13 years (since Aug 28, 1901) to Ethel Maria Payne. They married in Warrenton, Farquier Co., Va. and lived in Delaplane, Virginia until 1911. In 1913, a year before James’ death and nearly10 years before she applied for assistance herself as his widow, the family had moved back to Paris. (At the time of her application, they were living near enough to her to be of some assistance.)
George and Ethel’s family was still growing up at that time and consisted of Connie (11- she would marry James Gilmore Anderson 10/3/29), Daniel (9-m. Marion Helen Myhre 9/10/55), Vi (8-m. William Barney 4/30/50), George, Jr. (6-m. Myra Hantzman 1/19/32), Paul (4 and my grandpa, m. Kathryn Elizabeth Miller 1932), Susan (2-m. Claud Evans Allen 9/9/36), Louis (b. in 1913 in Paris-m. Miriam Louise Clark 8/20/38), and Mary (b. in 1920-m. John Gargas 1935). In addition to her children and these grandchildren from just one of her sons, Jane had many other grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins of age to assist her during her lifetime with James and as his widow.
On October 25, 1925, George and Ethel moved their family from Paris to 408 12th St. SE in Washington, D.C. One wonders if the reason they moved from Paris had anything to do with his mother’s death. I have yet to locate the date of her passing, but if it correlates with their move from Paris to Washington, D.C., one could safely assume that George moved back to Paris, where he was born and raised, to be nearer to his parents a year before his father’s death and for as long as his mother was still alive. As close-knit as the family appeared to be, I would not be surprised if this were not the case. With them throughout their married lives were Ethel’s great aunt Mary Agnes “Nin” Welsh (died in 1922, two years before Jane applied for aid, while the family lived in Paris) and “Maw,” her great grandma, Mary Geiman (died in 1928, three years after moving to Washington, D.C.), who had always been considered immediate family. Ethel’s mother, Virginia, had died in New York City just 6 years after the family visited there for George’s medical care for ulcers.
On March 28, 1948, at the age of 69, 24 years after his mother applied for assistance as his father’s widow, George died of stomach cancer in Washington, D.C.
