Selective Memory

 

Civil War pension file of Pleasant Morgan.

Back in August 2015, I wrote about the Civil War pension file of Pleasant Morgan, husband of my 3rd-great-grandmother Nancy Jane Flatt. While I titled that post Pursuing Every Lead, I've failed to look more closely at this file over the past nine years to sort out the confusion over the various families connected through marriage or birth to Pleasant and Nancy Jane. As I noted that 2015 post, there are key parts of the massive file that are worth using a microscope eye to look for these differences.

A first issue is that Pleasant Morgan may have had very selective memory of important dates and facts about his families. I included a screen shot in the 2015 post of his correspondence to the Bureau of Pensions from 4 May 1898. In that document, he stated his marriage date to Josephine Poynter occurred in Metcalfe County on 7 December 1892. Pleasant said his first marriage was to Eliza Finn, he did not remember the date, then he married Nannie Flat, who he said died in June 1892. However, death notices in area newspapers indicated that the "wife of Pleasant Morgan" died in 1894, and Findagrave shows her death date as 30 September 1894, so this doesn't match up.

Another issue is that in 1898, Pleasant Morgan listed his son Frank's birth date as February 25, 1876, but as with my previous post, documentation on Frank's birth date has various dates from January 1881 to 1886. He listed Viola's birth date as May 26, 1887, and Eva's birth date as February 14, 1889 (her death certificate says 1890).

On the 1915 correspondence, Pleasant stated his first wife died on 17 May, while the US Federal Mortality Schedules list a Mary E. Morgan who died in Barren County in May 1880. However, for second wife Nancy (spelled as Nannie Flat) he wrote "died dates not known". The next question asked "if your present wife was married before her marriage to you, state the name of the former husband (etc). Pleasant wrote "yes, Robert Kain". On the next line he wrote, "I know nothing more about him." But Nancy was not the present wife in 1915, it was Sarah Josephine Poynter, who he had married in December 1892. In this case, Pleasant's confusion while answering the questions has provided an important lead.

Question 9 of the 1915 document asked Pleasant to state the names and dates of all his children, living or dead. Here, Pleasant did us no favors, writing that he had nine by his first wife, two were dead by 1915. He said he had six children by his second wife, with three dead, and none by his present wife. This is odd. Josephine Poynter is supposed to be the mother of Anna Morgan, born in May 1892 (and possibly Eva Morgan born in 1889/1890). But maybe Nancy was the mother of these children? Lastly, Pleasant wrote that he could not give dates of birth or deaths for any of his children, although he provided some in 1898.

Adding to the confusion, Pleasant married for a fourth time, on 17 September 1923, to another Sarah Josephine (maiden name Minor, married name Smith in 1923). She also provided a widow's pension application after Pleasant's death. Her claim was approved on 8 November 1928.

I am grateful that have a copy of the file, but I shake my fists a bit in frustration, wishing Pleasant had been more thorough in his answers.