Esther Sumner Damon
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image Esther Sumner Damon (August 1, 1814[1] – November 11, 1906) was cited as the last widow of the American Revolutionary War to receive a state pension.
Esther was born in Bridgewater, Vermont.[2] The family had eight or nine children.[1] Esther's father was killed by a falling tree when she was eight years old.[1][2] Esther attended school during the winter and worked during the summers to help support her family.[2] At the age of seventeen, Esther became a school teacher in Plymouth.[2]
Esther Sumner married Noah D. Damon (August 25, 1760 – July 2, 1853) on September 6, 1835, in Bridgewater, when she was 21 and he was 75.[2] The couple had met two weeks prior.[2]
Husband's war service
Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Noah Damon enlisted in the Continental Army on April 19, 1775, as a private with the Massachusetts troops.[2] Over the next five years, he served from as little as six days to eight months in various companies and regiments.[1] Noah applied for a war pension, as a resident of Plainfield, New Hampshire on November 13, 1848.[3]
Noah was penniless, though Esther may have thought he was a hardworking landowner.[1] Esther supported him for three years before financial necessity forced him to move in with his daughter in New Hampshire.[2]
Esther supported herself by sewing and nursing.[2] She also leased a farm near Reading.[1]
After Noah's death in 1853, Esther applied for and received his pension from October 1855. The pension was increased to $24 a month by the United States Congress on February 28, 1905.[4]
Towards the end of her life, Esther received additional financial support from the Daughters of the American Revolution.[2]
Esther died on November 11, 1906, aged 92, and was buried at Plymouth Notch Cemetery in Plymouth, Vermont. The gravestone was paid for by the Daughters of the American Revolution.[5]
References
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