Thomas Landrum..Revolutionary War veteran

Thomas Landrum, according to a transcribed...by my cousin Susan Merritt Elder...petition for a military pension was born in Orange County, Va.  in 1759. He would be the 7th generation ancestor of Mya Calderone...and the sixth generation relative of James, Jessica, Nyal, Kailen, and Liam.

He fought in the Revolutionary War, was present at Valley Forge, Pa, during the cold winter and fought in the Battle of Monmouth, NJ.

Revolutionary War pensions were not grand...say $20/month.

Also veterans could receive grants of land as an inducement to enlist or reenlist or to take commissions or as pensions. George Washington is said to have ‘bought’ the ‘land rights’ of some of his soldiers who fought with him earlier in the French and Indian War. He did so partly to provide liquidity to his soldiers who needed cash more than land.

Over time through one means or another Washington accumulated large tracts of land. After he resigned his commission as military commander in chief after the Revolutionary War, he spent much of the time between then and when he became the first President surveying the land and arguing that the sale of land in the Ohio Valley was a potential source of revenue...over and above the only other source of revenue ...tariffs...to provide with cash any ‘new’ Government which replaced that formed under the ‘Articles of Confederation’.

““Between 1747 and 1799 Washington surveyed over two hundred tracts of land and held title to more than sixty-five thousand acres in thirty-seven different locations.”7 Land was the future. “Land is the most permanent estate and the most likely to increase in value,” wrote a youthful Washington.8

Washington in need of cash himself built a very successful distillery on his estate at Mt. Vernon. 

Thomas Landrum is our relative because my Mother, Martha Bell Eberhardt was born to Mary Landrum, the second wife of Dr. David Eberhardt...known by some as the 'best pneumonia doctor in North Georgia'. Mary Landrum was the daughter of William Landrum who served the Civil War.

Thomas Landrum and his wife Nancy Belle...my Mother's middle name...Belle... came from Nancy and their servant (!) Violet...were founding members of the Antioch Baptist Church in Oglethorpe, Ga. There may have been mixed congregations then...but I am not sure.

Thomas Landrum served later in the War of 1812 as a Colonel. He was granted a pension but died a year after it is granted.

So any female members of our family may apply to join the Daughters of the Revolution (DAR)..but remember that the DAR would not allow Marian Anderson to sing at Constitution Hall because the District of Columbia was segregated. Later it did invite her and she sang several times at Constitution Hall in Washington.

Male relatives are not eligible to join the Society of the Cincinnati because Thomas Landrum was not an officer in the Revolutionary War.

Here is his pension application: