Why did the family of Benedict Sherer live under an assumed name for more than a decade?
I’ve learned from Benedict Sherer's pension file that according to Benedict his parents were John Sherer and Catharine Miller. He was born 13 Oct 1844 or 1845 in Berne, Switzerland and had one living brother as of 1900 named John. He landed in NY on a spring day in 1863 or 1864. Although the transcription of the passenger list for the ship on which he travelled says he arrived on 20 May 1864 and his enlistment in the Union Army was dated 20 May 1864, he says he enlisted the day after he arrived. He spent his first night in America in a hotel with no family or friends here to meet him. The next morning he walked into the street and a man told him he had a job for him driving a bread wagon. Instead, the man took him to a military hall where he was induced to enlist in the Union Army.
Benedict’s regiment spent 2 months training at Hart’s Island, NY. From there the regiment went by steamboat to Fortress Manor and City Point, and then to Petersburg, VA. They moved about Petersburg until Lee surrendered and then they returned to Hart’s Island. According to a history of his regiment, they “joined the Army of the Potomac before the Wilderness campaign in which it participated through all the weeks of constant fighting leading up to Petersburg. During the siege of Petersburg it saw much active service, being engaged in the assaults at Petersburg in June, at the Weldon railroad, Deep Bottom, Strawberry plains, Reams’ station, Hatcher’s run, Fort Stedman, White Oak road, the final assault and the closing battles of the pursuit.” Benedict was wounded at Deep Bottom on 14 Aug 1864. Apparently, a shot grazed him across the collarbone and a few minutes later a shot knocked a limb off of a tree that fell and fractured his right elbow. He was off duty for 2 weeks and returned to the field on 28 Aug 1864. He later claimed that in addition to his arm injury, he had rheumatism, asthma, and a hernia related to his service, but this could not be verified, and in fact, the claim led to some serious trouble for him. The regiment was mustered out at Hart’s Island on 8 July 1865, however Benedict had gotten a pass from an officer of the guard and gone to NYC. He stayed one night in a restaurant, then stayed around NYC for about week and then moved on to Poughkeepsie. He didn’t return to Hart’s Island to be mustered out and was listed as a deserter. He was later listed as discharged as of 14 Apr 1876 and by an Act of Congress approved 5 July 1884, the charge of desertion was removed. He was naturalized at Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, NY on 17 Oct 1876.
Various records either state or infer that Benedict married his wife, Bridget in 1866 and they had 3 children, John, Mary and Margaret (Maggie), born 1867, 1868 - 1870, and 1872 respectively. But no records of this family could be found during this time. Although marriage and birth records were not yet required by law, the marriage date is consistent with what I was told by my uncle, Cliff Hawkins, and the date of 8 Apr 1866 is given in Benedict's pension file. The family was believed to live in NY but they weren’t found in either the 1870 or 1880 US Census or the 1875 Census of the State of NY.
Some later records give conflicting information. Benedict’s grandson, John was born in 1889 and the transcription of his birth certificate in Brooklyn, NY says that his mother’s maiden name was Mary Chenegbet (sic) and that she was born in Poughkeepsie, NY. John died young and his death certificate in 1911 gives his mother’s maiden name as Mary Benedict. Benedict’s second grandson, William, was born in 1891 and his baptismal record gives his mother’s name as Mary Benedict as does his marriage certificate in 1914. So where (or who) was this family during those intervening years?
All of these records with the surname of Benedict and/or ties to Poughkeepsie had led me to suspect that the family of John & Bridget Benedict with children John, Mary, and Margaret (Maggie) living in Poughkeepsie according to censuses in 1870, 1875, and 1880 was the same family as that of Benedict Sherer although I couldn’t prove it and had no justification for the name change. However, Benedict’s pension file confirmed that the Benedict family I was looking at is, in fact, the family of Benedict Sherer. A special examiner verified this in one of his letters:
I found that he was known by the names above mentioned (Jake or John Benedict, John Sherer, Benedict Sherer), and that his wife receives mail at the Hite P.O. as Mrs. John Sherer, as Mrs. Benedict Sherer, and as Mrs. Benedict, but Claimant receives mail only as Benedict Sherer.
Claimant has a very reasonable explanation as to the discrepancies in his name as follows:
When he came to America, he could, of course, speak no English. He now betrays the German in his speech, and he can speak German like one born to the tongue. He says that after service, he located in Poughkeepsie, NY and because he could not speak English, he was called John in common with other foreigners. I can believe this because in this city, I have noted that every Bohemian, Slav, Pole, or other foreigner, who tries to buy a railroad ticket, or ask a question, in his broken English, is familiarly addressed as John. Then, he says people began to learn that Benedict and Sherer were in his name, and they began to call him John Benedict, and John Sherer, or whatever suited them in connection with his names, he being unable to get the matter corrected.
I find that his certificate of marriage to Bridget Cain, in his possession, was originally written John Benedict to Bridget Cain, April 8, 1866, apparently, but that the word John had been erased leaving traces, and the last name Sherer added above the line in a different and later ink and pen.
From a document in his possession, (his certificate of naturalization), apparently genuine, I find that he was naturalized under name of Benedict Sherer, Oct. 17, 1876, at Poughkeepsie, NY.
Since I first saw him, he also procured two certificates of baptism showing that his children, John, and Maria Katharine were baptized at Poughkeepsie, NY, in the name of Sherer, and as the children of Benedict Sherer, and Bridget Cain.
The baptismal records from the Church of the Nativity in Poughkeepsie are included in the pension file but the marriage record was not. Yet another "name change" is found with the baptismal record of Benedict's daughter. The woman who gave her maiden name as Mary Benedict on her son's baptismal record, who is listed as Benedict Sherer's closest relative on his record at the Soldier's Home, and who signed off on Benedict Sherer's death benefit gave her name as Mary E. Hawkins, yet her baptismal record indicates that she was baptized Maria Katharine Sherer. While it is easy enough to get Mary from Maria, the initial E doesn't come from her given middle name (Katharine), or either of the maiden names she had used (Benedict or Sherer). It remains unknown where the middle initial E came from.
The reason Benedict’s pension file is so large (over 500 pages) is because it consists of a great deal of documentation regarding the charges of forgery against him and his confession of forging witness statements pertaining to his disability. His sentence for the forgery was five months in jail and a fine of six cents. He was truly disabled and trying to get increases in his pension but he was claiming that some of his disabilities were due to his service in the war and needed witnesses to confirm that the disabilities were actually service related. He had been denied the increases because although he was severely disabled, some of his disability could not be attributed to his service. Clearly, living under an alias would be suspect in relation to these charges but the report of the examiner provides evidence as to why the alias was actually nothing more than an innocent inability to communicate in a new language rather than a reason for suspicion.
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