Morrison's Pensions
S.12872
John F. Empie, born January 15, 1759 in the Town of Palatine, applied for his pension twentieth day of September, 1832. He declared he entered the service under the following officers:
Field Officers:
Colonel: Jacob Klock
Lieutenant Colonel: Peter Waggoner
Company Officers:
Captain: Christopher Fox
Lieutenant: Peter Loucks at first but soon after Henry Miller appointed Lieutenant
Ensign: Samuel Van Natter
He served in the summer of 1775, sometime in June. The service he performed that year was principally a runner of scouts, he belonged to a scouting party and if not a running scouts, was engaged in building forts for militia on the frontier.
In 1776 he belonged to the same company that he did in the preceding year and in this year rendered three months service. His name is on a ? of a payroll which entitled him to pay the amount of 8 pounds which service he never recovered any of.
In the year 1777 he was again called into service in the spring and continued in the service through the spring and part of the summer, being taken sick with fever last part of June. The service that he rendered was guarding boats up the Mohawk River a distance of Sixty miles to Fort Stanwix which were loading with provisions for the American soldier. The officer that was with him in this expedition was Johannes Shull, a Lieutenant, the captain he was not acquainted with.
After he recovered from the fever, he was drafted to go to Cherry Valley in September of 1777 after the battle of Oriskany and was gone on this expedition about two months. After he returned he was under the aforesaid captain and through the course of this winter he continued running scouts on snow shoes every week, three days. The amount of time that he served this year was six months and furnished his own clothing and part of his provisions.
In the year 1778 he was in the service off and on, sometimes a volunteer and sometimes ordered out by his officers in the militia. The volunteer service that he rendered was that a great many parties of Indians were skulking through our woods and frontiers. We frequently had small skirmishes with settlements being on the frontier. That our fort which we built was square over the first story with the next story fort feet, making it four feet larger on each side with but eight families to guard it. Eleven fighting men among us. We frequently had a assistance with Fort Paris, a distance of four miles. While stationed there he was a sentinel on these part of nights and days. We could not do any labor on the adjoining farms without a guard to protect us from the Indians and Tories. While here a party of ten or twelve men come from the east to our farms when an exempt arrived that ensured was making our frontier we were all called from here to this assistance in turnout of them and their fort was about four miles north of Fort the frontier nearly on the route where the Indians and Tories from Canada from Johnstown and Saratoga. Before harvest this year drafted to go to Fort Herkimer and was under the command of John Hess and was here and on the road going, then about 4? Weeks. About twenty five miles and from there he was attacked again. Boats to Fort Stanwix were loaded with provisions and were gone ? weeks longer and then returned to our fort (the main one was Fort Schnell) and this deponent further says that in the fall of 1778 sent again to Fort Plank and was under the command of John Wynne and was under his command about one month. Sometime in the fall he returned and commenced ? the remainder of the year. The amount of the service rendered this year was about nine months.
This deponent in 1779 said he volunteered the commencement of the year and there was snow on the ground. Nine scouts who he had gone with before commanded by Capt Miller. I went in his service through the summer and fall. They marched to Cherry Valley, Caughnawaga and Herkimer, guarding the frontiers and acting as scouts after he returned he served the whole year service from the commencement to its close and this deponent further states that he enlisted in a company of Rangers in the first part of April 1780 for the term of three years. The captain’s name was John Casselman, the Lieutenant Adam Empie and the Ensign was George Getman. The sergeants were Peter House, John Backus and Audolph Pickert.
The company was divided into several parts so as to aid the whole Regiment in running scouts and some of them were at Fort Paris and some at Fort Schull and some along the Mohawk River. The manner the officers got their commissions was from a committee approved for that purpose to raise companies of Rangers. This however, I am not certain of and when this company was raised there were encouragements held out that after the was those that were living should have land for their pay. But that this deponent never received any land nor pay of any kind and that he furnished his own clothing and a good part of his provisions. That in the month of October 1781 we were marched from Fort Paris to Johnstown and put under the command of Colonel Marinus Willet and was in that battle on the twenty of that month. In this battle I was wounded in my right leg and broke one of the bones above the ankle. And this deponent further says that in those years he was in actual service all the while except the time his leg was healing from the wound. And that they were marched from place to place along the Mohawk River in the County of Montgomery, then the county of Tyron from Fort Schull to Fort Paris and Fort Herkimer, Fort Plank, Fort Stanwix and Cherry Valley, a distance north and south about twenty five miles and East and West a distance of about sixty miles along the Mohawk River. That the end of the term he enlisted he guest the service being about the time that the war closed. That when he quit the service he together with his fellow soldiers was foraded? And dischared by a verbal discharge that hostilities were over. And that he hereby relinquishes every claim whatsoever for a pension or annuity except the amount and declares that his name is not on the pension roll of the agency of any state.
He declared he was born about the 15th day of January 1759 at Palatine, Montgomery County formerly Tryon of the state of New York. That he once had a record of his age, but he lost it. That he lives in Palatine in the aforesaid county when called into service and that he still lives there. (Now in the town of Ephratah) in the aforesaid County on a farm that he lived on before said war. That he was called into service as a militia man until the year 1780 and that he then enlisted as a volunteer in a company of Rangers as stated in the aforesaid declaration.
That he was acquainted with General Nicholas Herkimer, Colonel Samuel Clyde, Col. Carinus Willet, General (Van) Renselaer, Colonel Brown, Colonel Jacob Klock in whose regiment he served. That he never received any of the discharges that wherein is stated in said declaration.
That he is acquainted with Peter Getman, Lodowich Kring, Isaac Kitchen and many other of my regiment that will attest to my veracity.
John F. Empie
His
file also has an affidavit in which Jacob Snell charges Empie with lying under
oath about his service but says that “but one tour where [Empie] came
near the mark a draft to Fort Plank, where he was joletious the witness should
swear that they had been drafted and there stationed for three months where
the witness told him thy had only been drafted for three weekd but in consequence
of an alarm and murder committed by the enemy that they were detained for
about one week more.”