Now I will begin to write about the enlisted men from Schaghticoke who served in the 125th NY Volunteer Infantry Regiment, mostly in Company K. The first on the list, John Bacon, had a younger brother, David, who served in the first Troy regiment, the 2nd. I will include him as they are brothers.
John and David Bacon were the two sons of Gardner and Elizabeth Bacon of Schaghticoke. They are listed in the 1850 US Census in Schaghticoke, where Gardner was a 34-year-old farmer worth $150, and Elizabeth was 30. Their children were John, age 8, and David, 7, plus daughters Sarah, 3, and Sophia, 1. In the 1855 NY Census we learn that Gardner was born in Washington County, and was now working as a laborer. Then and in the 1860 census, the family lived in a house with at least three other families. The 1860 US Census lists both Gardner and 19-year-old John as farm laborers. David, just 16, had no occupation listed.
The younger brother, David, was the first to enlist to fight. He went to Troy to enlist on April 24, 1861 in Company H of the 2nd NY Infantry Regiment, just days after the war had begun. He was just 18, with blue eyes and brown hair, 5’4 ½” tall. He gave his occupation as farmer. David participated in the battles of the 2nd, beginning with the 7 Days Battle in Virginia at the end of June and start of July 1862. The Regiment had seventy casualties at the first battle of Bristoe Station, Virginia on August 2. At some point David injured his foot, apparently rather badly, as he was discharged from the Army from the Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia on February 28, 1863. The record card indicates he also had rheumatism.
NYS Record Card for David Bacon
I don’t know where David went upon his discharge from the Army. He did not appear in the 1865 NY Census for Schaghticoke, though of course he may have been here. He applied for an invalid pension in August 1865, indicating he was quite disabled by his service, though just a young man.
By the 1870 US Census, David had come home. That census listed him as the 28-year-old head of a household including his wife, Margaret, 30, sons Daniel and George, 4 and John, 1, plus his parents Gardner, 61, and Elizabeth, 55, and sister Sarah, 24. David and his father were farm laborers and Sarah worked in the tow (linen) mill. From their location on the census, they lived in the area of Verbeck Avenue, west of the village of Schaghticoke.
I feel that David and his wife must have died between then and 1880, though I don’t know where they are buried. By the 1880 US Census, grandparents Gardner and Elizabeth were heads of a household including their three teenage grandchildren, who were all working in the linen mill. Gardner himself was listed as “unable to work.” Daughter Sarah still lived in the family, though her last name was given as Golden. She worked as a washerwoman. She had two children, Warren, 3, and Eddie, 5 months. At least grandson Daniel stayed in the area his whole life.
Turning to the older Bacon brother, John waited to enlist in the summer of 1862 with the rest of the local boys as a Private in Company K of the 125th.
NYS Record Card of John Bacon
On his N.Y.S. Muster card, John gave his age as 22- he was probably 20- and stated he had been born in Schaghticoke. He was a farmer with gray eyes and dark brown hair, 5’4” tall. He made it through the capture at Harpers Ferry, the internment at Chicago, and the battle of Gettysburg with the rest of the 125th.
On October 16, 1863, George Bryan reported “the most of the Schaghticoke boys are safe. One by the name of John Baken (sic) was wounded.” The 125th had just been in the battle of Bristoe Station, Virginia, when about 25 of the men in the regiment were wounded. According to the 1890 Veterans Schedule, John was discharged for disability in Washington, D.C. on December 12, 1864 after a gunshot wound in the leg. He evidently survived a year in military hospitals before the decision was made that he would not recuperate enough to return to duty.
In the 1865 NYS census for Schaghticoke, though his parents were still living there, John lived in the family of William Verbeck, a farmer, along with fellow veterans of Company K, Andrew and Charles Houck. The three men had their occupation listed as “soldier.” John’s wounds were mentioned in the portion of the census which described Civil War soldiers. In November of 1868 he applied for an invalid pension on the basis of a wound in the left leg. He received $8.00 per month. Evidently he was permanently disabled to some extent. By the 1870 US Census, John was a farm laborer, living in the family of Alonzo Kenyon and his wife in Schaghticoke. So both Bacon sons were disabled by their war service.
The situation had changed by the 1880 US Census. The only John Bacon of the correct age I can find in the 1880 census was an inmate at the Marshall Infirmary in Troy, marked insane. I don’t know if he is the correct one or not. John was definitely in Schaghticoke in 1882, when he was a charter member of the local G.A.R. post, and in 1883, when he was on the list of people receiving pensions at that time. In summer 1887 he participated in the reunion of the 125th Regiment in Troy.
All of the 1890 federal census except the Veterans’ Schedule was destroyed, but John Bacon is on that veterans’ listing in Schaghticoke, with the note that he had been discharged from the army for his leg wound. Between 1880 and 1884, John had met and married a widow named Laura Camp, who was from Vermont. According to the censuses of 1900 and 1910, Laura had had eleven children, six of whom survived. She had eight children in her first marriage and she and John had three children of their own, John, Jr., and Jennie, who appear to have been twins, born in 1884, and Annie, born in 1887.
John appears in the 1900 US census as a mill laborer, age 62, with wife Laura, 55. John and Jennie, aged 15, worked as laborers in the flax mill. They lived in the village of Schaghticoke, near the mill. By the 1905 NY Census, John owned a farm on Stillwater Bridge Road. Son John was working on the farm with his father and mother, and daughter Jennie was evidently already a widow, as she lived in the family but was named Jennie Keon. By the 1910 US Census, John, now listed as 75, was retired. Son John was a farm laborer, but “worked out”, so evidently John, Sr.’s farm was not active. A grandson named John Welch, age 5, lived with them. I feel he might have been the son of daughter Annie. In the 1905 census there had been a couple on Stillwater Road , George Welch, age 21, a wool mill worker, and wife Anna, age 18. Indeed, George and Anna Welch are in the 1910 US Census in Pittstown, where George was now a fireman in the twine mill. They had three small children. John, 5, was the oldest- so he probably appears on the census twice. Perhaps he lived with his grandparents John and Laura Bacon some of the time.
I do not find the Bacons in the 1915 NY Census. But John Bacon, Jr. is in the 1920 US Census for Half Moon. He is now married to Hattie, also age 35. In the family are her four children by a previous marriage, aged 8-17, last name Golden, and their daughter Laura, age 5, named for her grandmother, who had died in 1913. John, Jr. was working as a mason in a paper mill. I could not find John Bacon Sr or Jr in the 1925 census, but I finally found John Bacon, the Civil War veteran, age 99, as a boarder in the family of William Golden, age 58, in Menands, Albany County, in the 1930 US Census. Certainly Golden was related to John’s son’s wife, but how I do not know. The Bacons and Goldens were certainly intertwined, as John’s sister Sarah had married a Golden as well.
John died later that year, and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. In the same plot are his wife, Laura, their son John, Jr., and his wife Hattie, who died in 1960, and daughter Jennie, who died in 1966. Jennie had evidently remarried, to a man named Samuel Green. They lived in Schaghticoke, where he was a teamster and laborer, and they had at least three children.
There is quite a bit of inconsistency in John’s birthdate over the course of his long, long life. As of 1862, his birthdate was 1840, and it remained so until at least the 1900 census, but the 1930 census and his tombstone both give the year as 1830. Perhaps John enjoyed exaggerating his already great age even more.
Tombstone of John Bacon in Elmwood Cemetery. He was probably born in 1840 rather than 1830, but still lived a long life.
So John, discharged from the Army in 1864 and awarded a pension for permanent disability from a severe leg wound, had an eventful life- apparently unable to settle on one job, working as a farm and mill laborer, finally marrying and having a family. He attained farm ownership, but only for a few years. It seems odd that he ended up living with non-family members in his final years, when he still ended up in the family plot in the local cemetery. But who knows what his children’s situation was- maybe they just didn’t have room for the old man, or maybe he preferred to live elsewhere. He had lived apart from his family when he first returned from the Civil War- maybe he was hard to get along with. And John certainly had a strong constitution, to survive to 90 years of age.
It seems very neat to me that we can come so close in time to a Civil War veteran and his children.
The next of men connected with the town of Schaghticoke who served in the Civil War……the last of the officers and enlisted men of Company K of the 125th.
Morgan L. Wood was the 4th Corporal of Company K of the 125th. He was the son of William W. and Orpha Wood, both from New Hampshire. According to his New York State Muster Card, he was born in 1841 in Stillwater. William moved around the area, showing up in the 1850 US Census in Easton, and the 1860 US Census in Schaghticoke. At that point he was a 47-year-old master painter, with a personal estate of $500. His wife Orpha was 50; son Morgan L, the future soldier, was an apprentice painter. Also in the family were daughter Mary, 17 and two elderly ladies, Lydia Whitney, 83 and Phebe Jaquith, 73. Certainly one must have been Orpha’s mother.
The New York State Muster Card of Morgan Wood.
The Muster Card indicates that Morgan had blue eyes and brown hair, with a “sandy” complexion. He was 5’7”. He enlisted at age 21 in Troy or Schaghticoke in August of 1862 as a Private, and was promoted to Corporal by April of 1863. In January 1863, George Bryan, writing from camp in Virginia, stated, “my tent is almost full now, Morgan Wood is here. He is well.” Morgan was wounded at the battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. He died of those wounds either July 21 or 24 in a hospital in Newark, New Jersey. Unlike some others who died of wounds or disease in the war, Morgan was returned home for burial in Elmwood Cemetery. Perhaps this was because he died a couple of weeks after the battle, when few others would have been dying. Also, Gettysburg is relatively close to Schaghticoke. His mother applied for a pension based on his service and death immediately.
Tombstone of Morgan L. Wood in Elmwood Cemetery
It must have been difficult for the family to have promising apprentice painter and only surviving son Morgan first enlist to fight, and then die. They had suffered the death of six other children. The 1865 NY Census lists William and Orpha with their daughter Mary, 22, and a 15-year-old nephew, Dexter Bedford, living with them. Perhaps he became the new apprentice. The census also records that Orpha had had eight children The veterans portion of the census records Morgan’s death, but just one dependent parent- I’m not sure why. In any case, father William died in 1870 at age 57.
Orpha and her only surviving child, Mary, moved to Stillwater. In the 1870 US Census they were living next door to another painter, Asa Wood. Perhaps he was Orpha’s brother-in-law. By the 1880 US Census, Mary had married and her mother was living with her in Michigan. Perhaps the distance is why Orpha is not buried with the rest of her family in Schaghticoke. In the plot in Elmwood besides father William and Morgan are William F., who died in 1850 at age 2, Sarah M., who died in 1855 at age 4 years, 9 months, Phebe, who died in 1846 at 14 months, and Elvira, who died in 1853 at age 12 years, 8 months. Elvira’s parents are given as A. and M. Wood, perhaps Asa and his wife. So she may have been a cousin of Morgan and his siblings.
History of the Town of Schaghticoke 