Benjamin Robert Burts (c.1751 – 1788-08-08), sometimes going by Robert Burts, was an American Revolution soldier and my 5th-great-grandfather, being the father of Jedediah Burt by his wife Mary Fox. His ancestry is unknown. He was an early resident of Canaan, New Hampshire. His service and young death were particularly hard on Mary, who moved to Vermont after his death and eventually remarried. After her death, her physicians executed a plot to fraudulently collect a war pension for Benjamin’s service.
A land record referred to him as a “cordwainder” (cordwainer), or shoemaker, the same as Jedediah.
I have found no clue as to Benjamin’s parents; see below.
He apparently married Mary in 1774, and their eldest child was born 1774-12-23 (see Mary Fox).
Beyond that, to estimate his year of birth, we have the muster roll which lists him as 26. I have assumed that this was soon after he enlisted on 1777-04-28, which would place his birth in 1750 or 1751, although the roll is undated and might have been taken later.
On service records he is called Robert Burts. Comparison with the details in the correspondence about his pension case leave no doubt that this is the same person.
He served in the War in the 1st New Hampshire Regiment, enlisting for a term of three years. He first served from 1777-04-28 to 1778-11-25, a period of 576 days, after which he deserted. He returned to his company 1779-02-10 and served till 1780-07-08, a period of 514 days. His absence was of 77 days.
(The pension correspondence has his day of return as 1779-02-16, six days later than above, but this must be an error.)
In 1776, all men over 21 were asked to sign a statement in support of American independence from the British. The name Robert Burts appears as a signatory in the town of Canaan, where it is stated that all eligible men signed on 1776-07-01. One theory is that Robert is Benjamin’s father, but it seems more likely that it is Benjamin himself. As noted above, he used the name Robert Burts early on, even though later records show him as “Benjamin R. Burts” or just “Benjamin Burts” (or even “Burt”). And it would be hard to stretch his age to make him under 21 in 1776, given the muster roll age noted above. He already had two children by this time.
Thus, we have not even a guess about his ancestry.
He had probably 7 or 8 children by Mary; see Mary Fox for the list.
A handful of property records involving Benjamin are found in Canaan starting in 1785.
On 1785-10-17, James Treadway of Canaan “for and in consideration of the love and good will I have to Beniamin R. Burts for service he has done in the late war” gave him “ten acres of land in the last division of undivided land belonging to the original right or share of land that belonged to Aaron Cady.”⟮1⟯ The “love and good will” is a common formula, but why Treadway bestowed property is unclear.
On 1786-01-03, John Bartlet a tax collector of Canaan sold on behalf of the town to “Benjamin Robert Burts of Canaan… cordwainder” for ten shillings “twenty five acres of land in Canaan belonging to the second division of the original right of James Nevins Esq.”⟮1⟯ The land had apparently been sold at auction but then confiscated for non-payment of taxes and sold to Benjamin.
On a document dated 1787-04-20, “Benjamin Robert Burts of Canaan” sold to Stephen Jeffers for two pounds the ten acres noted above.⟮2⟯ On 1787-04-30, for twenty pounds he sold to Jeffers the other, 25-acre property.⟮2⟯ Both documents were signed by both Benjamin R. Burts and Mary Burts. The former deed’s date is presumed to be in error because its text states that both transactions were done the same day, and the acknowledgement was on the 30th, which for the other deeds was the same day as the transaction.
“… so barefaced a fraud ….”
An 1836-07-04 law passed by Congress provided a pension for widows still living of Revolutionary War soldiers. To qualify for a full pension, the soldier must have served at least two years; for those who served less, a proportionally smaller pension was granted.
In 1846, three surviving children of Benjamin’s late widow Mary Fox—Benjamin R. Burts Jr., John Patrell, and Lyman Patrell, then living in Norwich, Vermont—had observed that Elijah Whiting, son of veteran Nathan and Phebe Whiting, had received such a pension as the heir to Phebe’s estate. They inquired of the physicians William Sweatt (
However, the physicians then returned and told them that there was a new law which entitled her to a pension. They instructed the children to sign forms to give them power of attorney and they would take care of everything. In reality, there was no such law, and Sweatt and Davis obtained the money by fraud and kept most of it for themselves.
It is worth noting that the family was consistently described as extremely poor.
The doctors altered Mary’s death record so that it read that she died 1839-12-27 instead of the true date of 1834-12-25. Using this forged document, they were able to collect the back pension payments for the years she was supposedly alive. The amount thus obtained was $491.34.⟮5⟯The Whiting file gives the total as $491.80; there may have been small adjustments made.
The doctors then drew up a bill of “expenses” for their services, which consisted of the majority of the pension. The two each kept 1/3, and split the remaining third among the three children, so they each got one-ninth, or about $54 each.
Two factors contributed to the fraud’s discovery.
Perhaps the most important is that Jedediah appeared, saying he had heard about the pension and sought his share. His siblings had mistakenly believed that he had died, having heard rumors to that effect and not seen him in decades. This prompted a re-examination of the case. He got some of the money, including from the doctors, who perhaps hoped to silence him.
Secondly, the doctors attempted to collect more money. The pension had been calculated based on a term of service of 16 months, 20 days, covering only the time since Benjamin returned from his desertion. They argued that his widow was entitled to a full pension, as the service before his desertion should be counted, especially as the desertion had been pardoned. The correspondents agreed with this analysis, and the full pension would likely have been paid had the fraud not been discovered.
Due to these developments, the children were interviewed about the case, and, not knowing any fraud was involved, stated plainly that their mother had died in 1834. The doctors tried to claim that the children had deceived them about the date, but Sweatt was Mary’s attending physician when she died, so, as an investigator sarcastically remarked, “he must be very forgetful”. The scheme was thus discovered in 1853.
The statute of limitations was only three years, and thus prosecution of Sweatt and Davis was not possible. However, they were sued by the government, and were forced to pay back $1101.42 in May 1854.⟮6⟯ This presumably includes the fraudulent pension obtained for the Whiting family, which came to $266.26, and other government claims of damages arising from the fraud. It is unlikely Sweatt and Davis were able to get money back from the children, so, although they avoided prison, their venture must have ultimately been very costly.