Rachael Britt's Application for the Pension of James Frost
This document was hand written and the blanks indicate words that Mrs. Harkar couldn't make out. These original documents are on file in the National Archives and photodataic copies can be made from them.
In order to obtain the benefit of the 3rd Section of the Act of Congress of the 4th of July 1836.
State of North Carolina, Johnston county May ______ 1847
On this 26th day of May 1847 ____ appeared in open court Rachel Britt resident of the County of Johnston aged 60 (or 40) years who having duly sworn according to law doth on her oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the pension of the act of Congress ______ the 4th of July 1836. That she is the daughter and only living child of Capt. James Frost who was an officer of the Revolutionary War, and of Isabella Frost deceased. That her father the said Capt. James Frost and her mother the said Isabella Frost removed from the State of Pennsylvania in the year 1775 as she has heard them declare, and settled in the County of Stokes or Guilford, her father was an iron worker and came from the iron district of Pennsylvania and to this same region of North Carolina for the purpose of working in iron. Some years after the Revolutionary War broke out, her father raised a company and marched to the South as she believed to South Carolina and Georgia, and was in a battle the name of which she can not now remember distinctly as it is only from the hearing of her father and mother that she has any knowledge of these matters, in this service her father was about six or nine months the length of time she can not state ________ for the want of recollections about one year after this period, her father was called into the service again in an expedition against the Tories in the Southern part of the State and was absent from home as she has frequently heard from her mother three months. She has heard her father say he was at R________ Mills in what year she can not pretend to say, in this as well as all the service he was engaged in, he commanded a company. The first of which was raised in the County of Guilford. He was in command of a company and she has often times heard him narrate the events of his action and of troops under him following the British Army several days after the battle her father lived in the several towns he was in one year and a half, from what she has heard him repeatedly declare and the statement she now makes is only from the recollections of the conservations of her father and mother in relation to his ________ and which was universally believed by all who knew him. She further declared that her father intermarried with her mother, whose maiden name was Isabella VanDyke, in the year 1769 in the state of Pennsylvania, what county, she cannot now say but recollects having heard her father and mother frequently say they had two children born when they came to N. Carolina, Ezekiel Frost the eldest and Jonas Frost the next, that Ezekiel was born in 1770 or 1771 and Jonas was born about two years before the emigrated to this state; There was a number of other children, but these two were the oldest and herself the youngest of the family. She has no record of the time of the marriage and the ______ of ages of the children if any was kept, must have been taken by the brothers above _______ when they moved up to Stokes I Guilford where they both died in a few years _______ that her father with all his family removed to this county in the year 1795 for the purpose of working in an iron mine then discovered and still believed to be rich and _____ died in the 1815 about 73 years old. That she remained with her mother and all the family has still lived, and that her mother remained a widow up to the time of her death the ____ Oct. 1837 making no application herself in the pension due on the account of the service of her husband Capt. James Frost, because she was not aware she was entitled to anything; this descendant herself had been only recently applied that she could recover the amount due to her mother, Isabella Frost deceased who was about 86 years old when she died, she therefore; makes this application with the humble hope the amount due her mother the said Isabella Frost may be allowed her.
Rachel Britt
State of North Carolina, Johnston County
Thomas Bagley Clerk of the Court of ______ in and for said county do hereby certify that the foregoing are the original proceedings had in the matter of the application of Mrs. Rachel Britt for the amount of pension due to her mother Mrs. Isabella Frost. I further certify that satisfactory evidence was then and there exhibited that Mrs. Isabella Frost was the widow of Capt. James Frost, who was an officer of the Revolutionary War and that she died the 1st of October 1837. That Mrs. Rachel Britt who had made the foregoing declaration is the only child surviving Mrs. Isabella Frost. That she is now and that has heretofore been of highly respectable character, and full faith and credit are due to all her statements. I further certify that Aventon Avers whose deposition is hereto annexed is a man of highly respectable character and is fulls as old as he states, and that full faith and credit are due his statements, all of which is _________ to be certified to the War Department. In testimony whereof I have set my hand and affixed the seal of said Court at Smithfield the 26th day of May 1847.
Thos. Bagley, clerk
State of North Carolina, Johnston County______________
_______ _______ ________ 1847
On this the 26th day of May 1847 I personally appeared in open Court Avington Avers resident of the said County aged 76 years, who having been duly sworn according to law deposth and sayeth that he was well acquainted with Capt. James Frost late of the County of Guilford and later of the County of Johnston that in the year 1795 Capt. James Frost, came to this County with his wife the late Isabella Frost and a large family of children from whom the upper county Guilford or Stokes, for the purpose of opening and working a rich iron mine then discovered there, and still considered a rich vein of ore. That he lived here and died in the year 1815 - that he had two sons Ezekiel and Jonas Frost the oldest children and that he always understood from Capt. Frost and Mrs. Frost that these children were born before they emigrated from Pennsylvania and that there was little difference between this deponent's age and Jonas Frost the second child of Capt. Frost- this deponent further states he intermarried with the daughter of Capt. James Frost and therefore had ______ opportunity of learning of their ages, history from this intimacy that his wife died in the year 1830, and that Mrs. Isabella Frost died on the 1 Oct. 1837 _____ and to be in the 86 or 87th year of her age. This deponent further states he has hundreds of times conversed with Capt. James Frost about his being in the Revolutionary War and heard him speak of being in several battles particularly at R_______ Mills and at one time an election for Captain was held by the candidates placing themselves in open space and they were directed to March up to the man of their choice, and that every man of the company March up to Capt. Frost - this deponent further states that he is as well convinced that Capt. Frost performed the _______ he spoke of as though he had witnessed them himself, because he was old enough to remember the latter part of the War and the events w_____ _______ him, coincided with his own recollection of these events and Capt. Frost was a man of great intelligence and respectability of character and had no motive in giving false statements, of his _______ . He was also a man of scientific knowledge which was required in the business he carried on exploring and opening iron mines - He further states that from the ages of the oldest two children Ezekiel and Jonas Frost, Capt. Frost and his wife must have intermarried long before the war of the Revolution, he knows it from the fact that they frequently compared ages with himself and there was not much difference between his own, and the age of second one Jonas Frost - he further states that all who were acquainted with Capt. Frost and Mrs. Frost believed fully in the history, _______ set forth by him. Aventon Avers
State of North Carolina, Johnston County
Before Mr. Mathew Avers a Justice of the Peace in and for said County personally appeared David Avera who deposth and sayeth that he is now in his seventy-first year of his age and that he was born and raised in this county, and within less than five miles of where he now lives. That some time in the date of 1795 to 1800 James Frost removed with a large family from one of the upper communities into this County and into the immediate neighborhood of this Deponent where the said Frost and his sons were engaged in iron making for many years. That this said James Frost introduced the manufacture of iron first into the neighborhood of this deponent and that he came here skilled in the said art of iron making having discovered a bed of iron ore here of superior value.
The deponent says that he was long familiar and intimate in the family of said Frost that it was a large family and much frequented by the neighbors. The wife of said Frost was named Isabel and was the mother of many and all his children whose names the deponent thus enumerated in the order of their ages as well as he can now remember - viz. the first and oldest son was Ezekiel Frost, next Jonas. John, McCaslin, Nicholas, and Sam, and two daughters Sally and Rachel the latter was quite young when they moved here and she is now in this neighborhood as the only widow of the late Reddin Britt and the only one living now, known to the deponent, of the children of the said Frost and Isabela. The said James Frost continued to live in the same neighborhood until his death which took place some thirty or thirty odd years ago. His wife Isabel long survived her husband, she was in the habit of spending her latter years partly in this county and partly in one of the upper counties, Stokes, as deponent always understood, where she had then a son living. Deponent remembers well to have seen the old lady here in this county within some nine or ten years, the time he cannot distinctly settle.
This deponent was often in the company of said James Frost and remembers to have heard him often speak of the Revolution and of his own services in the said war and of holding some _______ in said service and his also often heard him and his wife speak of their having removed to this State from Pennsylvania as man and wife and as such this deponent knew them and never heard the smallest intimation but that they were such lawfully in the estimation of all who knew.
This deponent further sayeth not sworn and subscribed to before me this 4th day of June 1847.
Before executing this deposition deponent sayeth that of the children of James and Isabel Frost above enumerated that the first two Ezekiel and Jonas were as old as or older than this deponent and they were always so considered when they together.
Executed the day and date above before me, by being sworn to according to law, and subscribing his proper name to the same.
David Avera
Mathew Avera, JP