Wayne County, NC - Revolutionary War Pension Application ----¤¤¤---- Mention of Fraud, In the Penny Mitchell Pension Claim Washington City, 23rd April 1857 GEORGE C WHITING ESQ. Commissioner of Pensions SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday, stating that it is due to my position as an Agent that I should "fully and satisfactoraly explain" my connection with the Revolutionary Claims of PENNY MITCHELL widow of GEORGE, of NORTH CAROLINA, in whose favor Pension Certificates were sent to me on 20 March 1851 under Act of 1838,43,44, and 48. In reply I cheerfully state that I can give a full explanation and doubt not that it will also be satisfactory. In that case, as in more than a hundred others within six or eight years of that time, I acted as COUNSEL FOR THE AGENT IN CHIEF by making searches, corresponding for evidence giving advice, drawing forms to which I did in Good Faith believing it to be an honest claim. The person from whom I recieved this and a few others cases was THOMAS BAGLEY Clerk of the Court of Johnston County, North Carolina, whom I never saw but supposed he was a respectful honest man. I enclose herewith, six of his letters to me showing that between January and November 1850, he sent me several papers relating to the case, and my correspondence with your office on your files will show that I filed them. His letter of 26 Nov. 1850 shows that he was then busy in Court and wished me to send him forms. Your letter to me of 16 Dec. 1850 called for a Declaration to show that she was still alive, and by my endorsment on the back of it I find I answered it on 21 Dec. at Newark NJ and on returning here I wrote Mr. BAGLEY on 11 Jan. 1851 and sent him a Declaration to be executed which afterward he returned to me and I filed in your office. It may or may not be in my handwriting ( I do not recollect ) as I supposed he would have it executed unless the facts justified it. I can not now find any further letters on the subject but from the memorandum of my Travels I find that I was at Boston on 20 March 1851. ( the date of the Pension Certificates ) and must have recieved them while at Providence RI where business detained me from 21st to 29th of that month, from which place I sent them to Mr. BAGLEY. I also recollect that while at Boston between the 23rd and 30th of May I recieved from Mr. BAGLEY a letter enclosing my fees on the claim, he having collected it at Fayetteville NC. I have not been in North Carolina since Oct. 1846 and have never seen any of the parties concerned with the case. In January 1852 while at Richmond VA I heard that Mr. BAGLEY was dead and that it was reported that he had committed some FRAUD in the PENNY MITCHELL case but I was under the impression that it was in relation to the date of her MARRIAGE, NOT HER DEATH, she posing as the first wife of GEO. MITCHELL when she was the second. As it was a rumor I paid no attention to it. In conclusion allow me to state that of the hundreds of cases I have presented at Your office within the past thirteen years I never filed a paper which I did not believe to be genuine and never was knowlingly connected with a fraud. Trusting that this will be SATISFACTORY and that it will be shewn to any who may have seen or heard the impertation and also that it will be filed in the proper place. I Remain, Very Respectfully Your Obidient Servant EDM. F. BROWN Attorney To Agent for Claimants P.S. Your reply is expected. EFB __________________________________________________________________ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by K. Mitchell ___________________________________________________________________