Risley J. Carpenter has just one connection with Schaghticoke. He enlisted in Company K of the 125th in town on July 25, 1862. He was the son of Hiram R. and Mary Carpenter. Hiram and Mary appear on the 1850 US Census in Castleton, Vermont, with a large family, including Risley, then 6- years- old. Hiram was a Methodist minister. Very interestingly, the family was in Troy by the 1860 US Census, where Hiram was a jeweler. At that point, the family consisted of Hiram, 50, Mary 47, daughter Hatty, 18, son Thomas, 16, a jeweler’s apprentice, Risley, age given as 14, twins Anson and Alanson, 12, and an Alanson Wilcox, 36, a wealthy jeweler living with the family with his wife. An interesting transformation from minister to jeweler!
The first N.Y.S. Muster Card of Risley J. Carpenter
Risley enlisted in Company K at age 18 on July 25, 1862 in Schaghticoke. He was born in West Poultney, Vermont, had gray eyes and light hair, was 5’5” tall, and gave his occupation as jeweler. Risley did well as a soldier. First he was on daily duty as a clerk in the adjutant’s office through much of 1863, then he was promoted to Sergeant Major on January 1, 1864. As his muster card shows, he was absent recruiting for the regiment in early 1864. I found ads in the “Troy Times” where Risley had set up an office, seeking new recruits for hefty bounties. Back to the regiment, he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant of Company A by June 3, 1864. Unfortunately, just a month later he was discharged for disability. He certainly seemed to be a promising young man. It’s impossible to know what the disability was, but no time in the hospital is recorded, so it must have been sudden. At the time, the regiment was participating in the siege of Petersburg.
Second Muster card of Risley J. Carpenter
The only time I found Risley for sure after the war was in a small article in the “Albany Evening Journal” in February 1866, where R.J. Carpenter, a clerk in Mr. Hood’s jewelry store in the city prevented a robbery of the store by two thieves from New York City. There are a number of mentions of R.J. Carpenter in various newspapers around the state during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but I could find no sign of Risley in the censuses. He did not apply for a pension, which inclines me to think that he died before 1890, when they would have been available based merely on old age.
William A. Carr
William A. Carr’s N.Y.S. Muster Card
William A. Carr enlisted at age 22 in Schaghticoke. According to his muster card, he was a 5’5” tall farmer, with grey eyes, dark hair and a fair complexion, born in Schaghticoke. The 1850 US Census for Schaghticoke listed his family: father Hugh, age 56 was a farmer, born in Ireland. His mother Ellen, also born in Ireland, was 45. They had children Jane, 20; and Ann, 13, also born in Ireland, and Sarah, 9; William, 7; Thomas, 6; and Eliza, 3, all born in the U.S. That pegs their arrival in about 1840, just a bit before the potato famine. In the 1855 N.Y.S. Census, 14-year-old William was a boarder in the family of James Smith in Schaghticoke, with an occupation of mechanic. That occupation basically meant a person working in a factory. That is interesting as he gave his occupation as farmer when he enlisted. Perhaps the factory work didn’t work out. Ellen died about that time, and Hugh was alone in the 1860 US Census. I do not know where William was living that year.
William did well as a soldier, and was promoted to Sergeant by fall of 1863. On December 5, 1863 George Bryan reported, “In our last move over the Rapidan River our regiment lost 41 men. I think they were taken prisoners. We left in the night and they were on picket, they had orders to fall back at 12 o’clock at night. Since we left we have not heard anything of them. They must have been taken prisoner. Among them was a Whyland, W. Carr, John Conlin…our Regiment is getting very small.” The service card states that Carr in fact was captured in action at Bristoe Station, Virginia. That battle happened at the end of October, so it would seem that George was in error to include him in that list. Hopefully he met up with the 41 later captives of the 125th, first at Belle Island, near Richmond, then at the new prison at Andersonville, where they were moved in February of 1864. William died August 14, 1864 of scorbutic at Andersonville Prison in Georgia, and is buried in the cemetery there.
The conditions at Andersonville were inhumane. The inmates were provided no shelter, very little food, and polluted and limited water. One hopes that William and the other men from Company K, including also Douglas Fisher and Job Grant, stuck together and helped each other through their last months of life.
Tombstone of William Carr at Andersonville National Cemetery
The 1865 census for Schaghticoke recorded William’s death, though it said he had died at the prison in Richmond. That was a reasonable assumption, as officers often were sent there. But the record card and tombstone prove otherwise.
The 1865 NY Census also shows that William’s father Hugh, now 65, had remarried, to a woman named Mary, 45. She was an Irishwoman who also had been married before, and had had eleven children. The Carrs stayed on in Schaghticoke. They were in the 1870 US Census, Hugh now 74, Mary 65, (probably 55). Hugh still worked as a farm laborer. A very odd entry in the 1880 US Census in Schaghticoke has Mary A. Carr, 53, keeping house, with a son named William, 51, in the family, along with Hugh, 86, listed as “husband” and working on a farm. Hugh’s entry is crossed out, and Mary A. is checked as being a widow, so it is reasonable to think that Hugh had died. I don’t know who that William was- he is the right age to be the dead William, if he had lived. If he was one of Mary’s children, he would have had a different last name, I would think. I did find that Mary A. applied for a pension based on William’s service on April 7, 1888. She is correctly identified as his step-mother. I cannot find Mary after that.
Here are two more men from Schaghticoke who served in the 2nd Rensselaer County regiment in the Civil War, the 125th.
Levi Buffett was born in Schaghticoke in 1839 but didn’t spend much time here. He is listed as an 11-year-old in the 1850 US Census, living with his aunt Betsy Armstrong and her family in Hannibal, Oswego County. His family had been in Schaghticoke since Jesse Buffett arrived in the 1790’s. Jesse was an innkeeper, owner of the American House, located at the center of the village of Schaghticoke. Jesse and his wife Hannah had a number of children, including Levi’s father John, born in 1813. John’s wife Jane died in 1847, so perhaps Levi was sent to live with his aunt Betsy Armstrong, John’s sister, to make things easier for John and his new wife, Mary Ann. I don’t know where Levi was in the years just before the war. He doesn’t show up in the 1860 US Census. But he must have retained his ties to his hometown. His aunt Betsy’s husband had died and she and her son had moved to Schaghticoke by 1855, when she appears in the census living with her brother Lewis Buffett, who was a bachelor. Betsy’s son, Jesse Armstrong, also served in the Civil War and lived in Schaghticoke for the rest of his life.
Levi Buffett’s NY Muster Card
Levi enlisted in the 125th in Hoosick Falls, but still in Company K. He gave his occupation as farmer, and had gray eyes, brown hair and a “florid” complexion. He was 5’5” tall. Soldiering definitely didn’t agree with him. He deserted almost immediately after the 125th got to Camp Douglas in Chicago, on October 4, and never returned to New York again. He finally emerges in the records available to me in the 1880 US Census. He and his wife Huldah were in St. Joseph, Berrien County, Michigan, where he worked in a pail and tub factory. He and Huldah had three children: Charles, 16, George, 13, and Charles E. 2, plus three boarders. Both sons worked in the factory with their father. One clue as to where Levi had been is that Charles had been born in Wisconsin. Subtracting Charles’ age, in 1864 Levi was already married and in Wisconsin, not far from Chicago.
Interestingly, Levi’s cousin George Buffett moved to Illinois about the same time, and by 1870 had been joined by several of his siblings and his father, Platt, another child of the patriarch, Jesse. So perhaps Levi was not an outcast of the family, but rather the pioneer of the move to the Midwest.
Levi died in 1914. At that point he was living with his son George and his wife in Toledo, Ohio. George was a painting contractor. I am delighted to say that the source of some of the information on Levi is Doris Buffett, sister of billionaire J. Warren Buffett. This is the same family, though they are not descended from Levi!
Ezra Burch
Ezra Burch was born about 1841 in Schaghticoke. The 1850 US Census for Easton lists his family: his father, Peter, was a 55-year-old laborer; his mother Sarah was 34. They had children Sarah, 10; Ezra, 7; Richard, 6; Isabella, 4; Seth, 1, and James, an infant: a houseful! In the 1860 US Census in Schaghticoke Ezra lived in the family of well-off farmer Ezra Buckley. Ezra, 58, and his wife Mary, 57, had three daughters, Amelia, 23; Sarah, 21; and Phebe, 16. I expected to see that Ezra Burch was their farm laborer. But he has no occupation listed, and unusually for an 18-year-old, he had attended school in the past year. Perhaps there was some relationship to the Buckleys, and the first names are not just a coincidence, so that Ezra was being mentored, or perhaps the occupation was just omitted by the census taker.
Ezra Burch’s NYS Muster Card
When Ezra enlisted in Company K of the 125th in Pittstown in summer 1862, he was 21- years -old. He had black hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion, and was 5’7” tall. His occupation was listed as farmer. Along with the rest of the 125th, Ezra was captured by the Confederates at Harper’s Ferry in September and sent to Chicago on parole for the next few months. On November 2, 1862, George Bryan wrote to Jennie, “The sickest man we have had in our company is Ezra Burch. He has the typhoid fever and has been very sick but is getting better now. He is thought to be out of danger yet he is very sick.”
But Ezra died. This must have been stunning to the Schaghticoke boys, who had really seen no action in the war. It certainly was shocking to those on the home front. On November 13, George wrote,” You think it hard for Ezra Burch’s friends to think he died in a strange land. I know it is hard, but I have seen so much sickness and death since I left home that it seems as though it should happen every day.” “You wish to know if Ezra Burch was prepared to die. I think he was…”
Elsewhere, Bryan noted that Captain Vandenburgh accompanied the body home, presumably as he was the first to die in Company. K and the unit was not actually in action. But George heard that he had left the body in Troy, not going all the way to Schaghticoke. “If so it is a shame. I hope it is not so, if I had been sent with him, I should not have left his body until buried.” Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out where Ezra was buried. The record made by Pittstown Town Clerk after the war reports that his body was brought home and buried, but does not tell where. Nor do I find that his family applied for a pension on his behalf.
Michael Brophy and Daniel Buckley are two of the men of the 125th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment who deserted when they arrived at the parole camp in Chicago in fall 1862. They remind us of the crazy beginning of the regiment. They left Troy, full of energy, at the beginning of September. On September 15, the whole regiment, as part of the whole Union Army was surrendered to General Stonewall Jackson at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, about 12,000 men. The men of the 125th had never gotten to fire a shot. They were loaded on railroad cars and sent to Camp Douglas, Chicago. The Confederates simply didn’t have a way to imprison all those men.
Of course morale was horrible. Nine men of Company K, the Schaghticoke company, deserted, as did the two men I will profile below. Most never returned to the regiment. The means to find them just did not exist. The whole regiment was paroled and back in Centreville, Virginia by December. The men had gone through the shock of having a few of their number die of disease in Chicago, and survived bare bones conditions in the camp in Chicago.
I wrote about this whole episode in detail back in 2013- see the blog posts then.
Michael Brophy
So far, my biography of Michael Brophy is very brief. I have not found him in the 1860 US Census, but he enlisted in Company G of the 125th New York on August 15, 1862 in Schaghticoke. He was born in Ireland in 1841, had blue eyes, black hair and a dark complexion and was 5’5” tall. He gave his occupation as farmer. Michael went through the surrender at Harpers Ferry and made it to Camp Douglas in Chicago. He deserted there on October 27 and was never apprehended.
Checking in the 1870 US Census for Michael Brophys, it is tempting to say that the one working as a day laborer in Chicago is the same one- that he deserted and stayed there. This Michael was working as a day laborer, and he and his wife Ellen, also born in Ireland, were living in the home of a blacksmith named Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, I don’t think we can say for sure.
Michael Brophy’s N.Y.S. Muster Card
Daniel Buckley
My biography of Daniel Buckley is brief. According to his N.Y.S. Muster Card, he was born in Schaghticoke in 1841. The only Daniel Buckley of the correct age in the 1850 US Census is in White Creek, in the family of David Buckley. David was an Irish immigrant laborer, aged 45, with a wife Mary, 46 and children Eliza, 11; Daniel, 9; and Honora, 7, all born in New York. There is also a David Buckley in the Schaghticoke census of 1840, with a very odd family of 1 male aged 10-14, one 15-19, and 3 aged 20-29, plus 1 female 15-19, and one female aged 70-79. I’m not sure what relationship those folks would have had to each other. There were many Buckley families in Schaghticoke, six in the 1855 census, for example, but none with people born in Ireland. Of course that census tidbit for David could be in error.
N.Y.S. Muster card of Daniel Buckley
In any event, Daniel enlisted in Company A of the 125th on August 11, 1862 in Troy. He had blue eyes and light hair and was 5’8” tall. He gave his age as 21 and his occupation as farmer. He was captured at Harpers Ferry with the rest, but when they got to Camp Douglas, the parole camp in Chicago, he deserted, on October 4, the same time as several other men. I have not been able to find him for sure after that time. He did not apply for a pension.
I have been posting biographies of all of the men with a connection to Schaghticoke who served in the Civil War over the last couple of months. Right now I am working on the men who were in the 125th NY Volunteer Infantry Regiment, recruited in Rensselaer County in summer 1862. The regiment arrived in Virginia in early September, only to be surrendered as a body to a Confederate army led by General Stonewall Jackson, never having fired a shot. After a winter spent in a prisoner-of-war camp in Chicago, Illinois, they were paroled and back in action by early 1863.
Next alphabetically is Henry Lay Bliss, but I already posted his bio in 2019- at this address:
Edward Brisland has proved something of a puzzle. It is certain that a young man named Edward Brisland, age 19, enlisted in August of 1862 in Company F of the 125th in Troy. On his record card, he stated he had been born in Schaghticoke, had blue eyes, dark brown hair, and was 5’10” tall. He gave his occupation as blacksmith.
NYS Muster Card for Edward Brisland
He went through the capture at Harpers Ferry, and the stay in internment camp in Chicago, but deserted at Camp Chase on December 2, 1862, as soon as the Regiment arrived back in Virginia. He returned or was arrested and returned one week later, and was fined $30. After that, his record was clean. He went through the battles of Gettysburg and Bristoe Station and several more with the rest, but was killed on May 30, 1864 at Totopotomoy Creek, Virginia. In “Friend Jennie” George Bryan wrote, “One of my company was shot in the head, the ball passed very near my head and struck him. He was just behind me. He lived about three hours, his name was Ed. Brisland, from the point.” “The point” was Schaghticoke Point, the village of Schaghticoke. Edward made it to the regimental hospital, where he died, and is buried at the national cemetery at Yorktown, Virginia, grave 67.
This all seems very clear, but in the 1865 census portion where Civil War service is recorded, there are TWO Edward Brislands, one recorded as having died as explained above, the other as having been in the 7th New York Cavalry for four months. This is the Black Horse Cavalry, which went off to war in early 1861, was never mounted, and was mustered out a few months later. Edward Brisland’s first cousin, William McMackin did the same thing. But while William is on the official roster of the 7th, Edward is not, nor in any other record I can find. He could have been in the 7th, and then enlisted in the 125th, however. I would not say the records are perfect.
In the censuses for 1850, 1855, and 1860 there is just one Edward Brisland in Schaghticoke, the son of John and Mary Brisland. John was a 36- year- old tailor from Ireland in the 1850 census, when Edward was 7. By 1855, John, Sr., had died, and Mary headed the family, which included grandparents Joseph and Phebe McMackin, plus their son William McMackin. By 1860, grandfather Joseph and Mary had died, and Edward, now 17, and his brothers James, 14, and John, 12, now orphans, lived with grandmother Phebe, Isabella, 35, an aunt, and uncle William. William and Isabella worked as cotton weavers and Edward as a cotton carder. Phebe McMackin and Isabella McGee, probably her daughter, joined the Presbyterian Church in 1842. It seems that this was a Protestant Irish family, drawn to town by the mills, but decimated by deaths of adults.
The conclusions drawn from census are confirmed by guardianship papers in the probate files of Rensselaer County. In 1864 Isabella McGee was appointed guardian for the surviving Brislan boys, John and James, whom they called Morgan, after Edward was killed in the war. The text explains that Edward was in the 125th and had been killed on the date given above. This application needed to happen so that the minor boys could apply to get the back pay and remainder of the enlistment bounty of their dead brother. Two local men, Charles Baker and Jonathan Noble signed on with Isabella as guardians. A bond needed to be posted, and they helped Isabella with that. Charles was a merchant and Jonathan was the Presbyterian minister. The names of the brothers varied a bit with the census, but I would think they were truly Edward, John, and Morgan, as confirmed by the guardianship document.
Here is where things get odd. In the 1865 census, Edward still appears in the census, as a former soldier, living with his aunt, Isabelle McGee, and his uncle, William McMackin. By 1870 William had moved on, but Edward Brislan was a 28- year- old tailor, living with Michael Lynch, 40, another tailor, and his family in the village of Schaghticoke. Though I can’t find Edward in the 1880-1900 census, he is in the 1905 census for Schaghticoke, when he was a 55- year- old dry goods merchant, living alone. If he stayed in Schaghticoke, and was a veteran, it seems he would have recorded his service in the 1890 Veterans Census or applied for a pension, which he did not. But who was this Edward anyway? There could hardly be better confirmation for the death of a person: eye-witness account by Bryan, the man standing next to him, burial in a national cemetery, confirmation by the guardianship application, and listing in the dead on the 1865 census. So why is he listed as alive in the 1865 census? The census taker could have made a mistake in 1865, but then who was the Edward in 1870 and 1905?
This is probably the shortest of the bios of men connected with Schaghticoke who served in the Civil War.
Emery Beauchamp was born in Canada in 1838. From the name, I would venture he was from Quebec, but I know little of him. He enlisted in Company K of the 125th on August 22 in Schaghticoke. He was an axe maker, 5’7” tall, with gray eyes and light hair. There was an axe factory in Johnsonville: perhaps that is where he worked. He was sent to parole camp in Chicago with the rest, but deserted there on October 15. I have been unable to find him in the census either before or after the war.
Daniel Barron was born in Ireland about 1841. I think he came to New York in or just after 1860, as he does not appear in that census at all. He enlisted in Schaghticoke in Company K of the 125th in August 1862, reporting that he was 21, born in Ireland, a farmer with blue eyes and light hair, 5’7” tall. He was captured with the rest at Harpers Ferry in September and went through the parole camp in Chicago, returning to Virginia for most of the winter. He was discharged for disability from the camp in Centreville, Virginia on April 9, 1863.
N.Y.S. Muster Card of Daniel Barron
Daniel’s disability wasn’t permanent, as he was listed on the draft roll for Watervliet in June 1863, as an unmarried laborer. He married another Irish immigrant named Mary in 1865. By the 1870 US Census they were a family in West Troy or Watervliet. Daniel, aged 30, listed his occupation as peddler, had a personal estate of $200, and reported that he couldn’t write. He and Mary, aged 32, had three children: Ann, 5; Andrew, 2; and James, 1.
By the 1880 US Census for Watervliet, Daniel was listed as a retail grocer. The family had added another daughter, Margaret, aged 6. Mary was reported as illiterate. Daniel was listed in the 1890 Veterans Census, but just with a note of his enlistment in 1864, which is incorrect. The 1892 N.Y.S. census listed Daniel, l as 53-years-old, and a peddler again, with son Andrew, 24, a butcher; son James, 22, a laborer; and daughter Annie, 26, a school teacher. Also in the family were Nora, 24, and a child John, 1.
I believe Daniel died about 1897, as that is when Mary applied for a widow’s pension. The fact that he had not yet applied himself indicates to me that his health was relatively good, with no permanent impairment from his service. The 1900 US Census for Watervliet shows Mary living with son James, a fruit peddler. Annie remained an unmarried school teacher, and Margaret was listed as housekeeper for a household that included seven men boarders. This census showed that Mary had immigrated in 1860.
The three continued to live together in the 1910 census. Annie, 39, was still teaching, but James, now 37 was a decorator in a paper company. This time Mary reported that she had immigrated in 1858. Living just down the street were son Andrew, 39, a vegetable peddler, with wife Nora and their four children. By 1920, Mary had died, with just James and Annie living together. I have not found where Mary and Daniel are buried. This is a nice success story for a pair of Irish immigrants. I think Daniel was lucky to finish his Army service so early.
History of the Town of Schaghticoke 