John Young of Bracken County, Kentucky
John Young was my 5th great-grandfather, and the father of my 4rh great-grandfather, James Young. James married Mary Feagans, and they were the parents of my 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah Ann Young. Sarah married John Wilson Davis, and they were the parents of my great-great-grandmother, Susannah Margaret Davis, who married Elmore McElfresh. Susannah and Elmore McElfresh were the parents of my great-grandmother, Maude Mae McElfresh, who married Noah Frederick Hamilton. Maude Mae McElfresh and Noah Frederick Hamilton were the parents of my grandfather, Lionel Howard Hamilton.
John's request for a pension for his service during the Revolutionary War
On October 21, 1839, John Young appeared before Joseph Schoolfield, a court justice for Bracken County, Kentucky, to make a declaration that he had served during the Revolutionary War in the hopes of obtaining a pension for his service. However, he was 87 years old at the time and his memory was not too good. When describing his duties during the war, John had trouble remembering dates of service and the officers he had served under, and as a result, his application was denied.
In his Revolutionary War pension file, there was correspondence dated in 1840, 1842, and 1844 inquiring as to why John’s application for a pension had been denied. An inquiry was made in 1844 by James Young, one of John’s sons, when he discovered that there was apparently some confusion between our John Young of Bracken County and another John Young of Greenup County, Kentucky. In light of this information, an appeal for another review of John’s application had been made at that time, but without success. The reasons given were that John could not provide enough details pertaining to his service to make it possible for a thorough investigation into his claim to be performed, and due to his ill health, he was unable to travel to the county courthouse to make his claim under oath.
In the original application of 1839, John had indicated that he was born February 22, 1752 or 1753 in Orange County, Virginia, and stated that he knew George Washington personally. He could not provide proof of his date of birth, stating that it had been written down in his father's Bible, but the page it was written on had long since been torn out of the Bible and lost.
According to John, he resided in Henry County, Virginia during the war, and at the end of the war, he moved to Berkeley County, Virginia. John stated that he had originally settled in Mason County, Kentucky approximately 50 or 51 years prior to the date of his application in 1839. That would make his move to Kentucky to be about 1789. He then lived in Bracken County for approximately 41 years which would indicate that he had settled there around 1798. I believe, however, that John may have been a little off in the number of years he said he had lived in Kentucky. His son, James Young, had been recorded in the 1850 and 1860 census as having been born in Virginia between 1792 and 1795.
The name of John's wife is unknown. She wasn't mentioned by name in the pension file, and I had a sense that she may have been deceased at the time of John's original application in 1839. Her first name, however, may have been Elizabeth, but I have nothing to substantiate it.
John's father may have been a gentleman named Harry F. Young. There was a document dated July 14, 1809 found in the deed books of Bracken Co., Kentucky, Volume A, showing that Harry F. Young had transferred the deed to his property in Augusta, Bracken Co., Kentucky to his three children. His children were named in the document as John, Polly, and William Young.