A Special Examiner came to Walton, Kentucky in August, 1893 after Cynthia Black disclosed some questionable circumstances surrounding her late husband’s Mexican War pension. The Special Examiner asked a lot of good questions, some with fantastic genealogical value!
The fraudulent pension application
Cynthia Black accidentally stumbled into her late husband’s pension fraud when she applied to receive her widow’s pension.
The Pleasant Hill War Savings Society
After watching “The Great War” on PBS this week, I realized the significance of some notes in one of Great-Grandmother Lola’s ledger books, involving both the Frasier and the Pearson families.
Cynthia Black’s application for Widow’s Pension
Cynthia Black, Benjamin’s third wife, wasn’t a branch on the family tree that I’d paid much attention to before now. I wasn’t aware of much documentation about her, other than my great-grandmother Lola’s handwritten notes.
Benjamin Black’s final years
If you read to the bottom of my last post, you found the big plot twist: Benjamin Black did not serve in the Mexican-American War at all, yet he fraudulently filed for and received pension benefits as a Mexican War veteran!
