NOTES: Cornelius appeared on the Hanover Township, Morris Co., NJ, Tax Rolls
from 1786 to 1807. An abstract of a Morris Co., NJ, pension application
dated 12 July 1824 states that Cornelius "enlisted for the term of one
year on 14 February 1776 in the company commanded by Peter Dickerson in
the 3rd Jersey Regiment commanded by Colonel Elias Dayton on the
Continental Establishment - that at the expiration of the year he
enlisted again in the same company and continued to serve until the
disbanding of the army in 1783 - that he was present at the affair of
the Short Hills in Essex County State of New Jersey in the year 1777.
That he was engaged in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and
Monmouth and that he was present at the taking of Cornwallis at Yorktown
and that he served in the Western Campaign in the year 1779 against the
Indians under General Sullivan - that his named had been placed on the
pension list and dropped there from on account of his property ... that
he has a grandson and a daughter from whom he has received some little
assistance - that his employment is a farmer and that he has hitherto
been able to rent a small place but that in consequence of his advanced
age (he being sixty nine years and nearly nine months old) that profits
he is able to devise from that pursuit had become entirely inadequate to
his maintenance." On 29 September 1824, Cornelius Drake, being duly
sworn in open court, stated, among other things, that he had bought a
small house and lot of land in Morris County in 1807 and that he
continued to live on said place until 1822, when he sold it and bought
a small place in Roxbury township, expecting to pay the balance of the
purchase price "by coleing and cutting wood off the place; but the
sickness and death of a part of his family disables him from making the
residue of the payments and compelled him to give up the place to the
vendor and loose all of his first payment (two hundred and ten dollars)
except ten dollars." Recites that he will be 70 years old on the
ensueing 20th October, 1824.
|