On 18 March 1818 Congress passed an act to provide pensions for certain veterans who had served in the Continental Line for at least nine months or until the war’s end. The act provided lifetime pensions who were “in reduced circumstances” and “in need of assistance from (their) country for support”. Officers were eligible for $20/month and listed men for $8/month. The response was so unexpectedly overwhelming that two years later on 1 May 1820 the act was amended to reduce fraud by requiring applicants to submit certified schedules of assets and income to prove their indigent circumstances. As a result, one-third of the pensioners were removed from the rolls.
James Hulse applied for an invalid pension on 13 September 1819 while living somewhere near Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio:. In 1821 he provided proof of his need while living in Jackson County, Ohio. He was awarded a pension of $8/month.
On this 13th day of September A.D. 1819 came personally before me the subscriber president of the Courts of Common Pleas of the Second Circuit, James Hulse resident of Ross County State of Ohio in his sixty third year of age who after being sworn according to law… deposeth and saith that he enlisted at Shepherdstown on the Potomac river Virginia on or about harvest before the battle of Brandywine [11 September 1777], the year not recollected, for three years in Captain Abraham Sheppard’s company in regiment commanded by Colonel James Wood number of regiment the twelfth of Virginia line on Continental service or establishment and served during the whole three years in said corps and discharged at Fredericksburg[sic] Virginia after guarding prisoners from the low country he believes in Jersey sometime after expiration of enlistment, was in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown [4 October 1777], Paulus hook [19 August 1779], that he is in reduced circumstances and much needs the assistance of his country for support. That he has no other evidence in his possession or power to prove his said services.
[Signed]. James (his “O” mark) Hulse
Sworn before John Thompson in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio
The response to the 1819 pension act was so unexpectedly overwhelming that two years later on 1 May 1820 the act was amended to reduce fraud by requiring applicants to submit certified schedules of assets and income to prove their indigent circumstances. This is the supplemental filing by James Hulse:
Court of Common Pleas in and for the County of Jackson in said State of Ohio June Term 1821 personally appeared in open Court this being the Court of Record for said County James Hulse aged sixty-six years, resident in said Jackson County who being first duly sworn according to law doth on his oath declare that he served in the revolutionary War, in the Virginia Continental line for the Term of three years for which he received a bounty in land from said State that he enlisted at Shepherdstown Virginia in the Company commanded by Captain Abraham Shepherd and served under him in the 12th Virginia Regiment and that an application at the war Department he received a pension certificate No. 15.709 Inscribing him the said James Hulse on the pension roll of the Ohio agency at the rate of eight dollars per month to commence on the 18th of September 1819 dated 9th November 1819. And I the said James Hulse do solemnly swear that I was a resident Citizen of the United States on the 18th day of March 1818 and that I have not since that time by gift, sale or in any manner whatever disposed of my property or any part thereof with intent thereby so to diminish it as to bring myself within the provision of an act of Congress entitled “an act to provide for certain persons engaged in the land and naval service of the United States in the revolutionary war” passed on the 18th day of March 1818, and that I have not nor has any person in trust for me any property, or securities, contracts or debts due to me nor have I any income other than what is contained in the schedule hereto annexed and by me subscribed = Two old Horses = Two old Cows, one young Heifer = three Sows, thirteen Shoats, one old Wagon & five gees [sic]. And I the said Hulce [sic] further declare that I am by occupation a Farmer and of an age incapable of performing much labor, have a wife nearly as old as myself and infirm and two daughters living with me the oldest nearly eighteen and the younger about fourteen, these constitute my family & of the aid they can be expected to give in rendering a permanent support the Department can as well Judge as myself – sufficient to say they barely render me comfortable within doors when I bring them their plenty from without which God grant I may be enabled to do many years, but of which without foregoing aid I am apprehensive.
[Signed]. James (his “X” mark) Hulse
Sworn on the 26th day of June 1821 before Ezra Osborn Presiding Judge
The State of Ohio Jackson County
I Nathaniel Andrews Clerk of eh Court of Common Pleas for Jackson County…do hereby certify that the foregoing oath and the Schedule thereto annexed are copied from the records of the said court.
And I do certify that it is the oppinion[sic] of the said Court that the total amount in value of the property exhibited ion the aforesaid Schedule is $147.54.
[Signed] 2 July 1821 Nathaniel Andrews
On 18 April 1926 Winfield Scott, Commissioner wrote to a Mrs. S. M. Wilson of Los Angeles, who had evidently requested information on a Richard Hults or Hultz who she believed had lived in Chillicothe, summarizing the pension record of James Hulse as the only person of that surname he had information for in Ohio. In one of her letters in the pension file she thought that Richard Hults, her ancestor, had served in the war with a Patrick Hults.