Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application File W. 24,834, Samuel Cooper, Navy (Mass.)
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Service - 

Navy (Mass.)


Cooper, Samuel
Margaret


Number - W.24834
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3039

Massachusetts


Margaret Cooper

widow of Samuel Cooper
Mass.

who was a Purser 

in the Revolution


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Inscribed on the Roll at the rate of
240 Dollars
per annum, to commence on 
the 4th day of March, 1843.

========================

Certificate of Pension issued the 
30th day of Nov. 1843
and sent to Samuel Merrill
Andover, Mass.

============

[Act of March 3, 1843.]

Recorded in Book A
Vol. 1 Page 39
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M. Cooper's
Application
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Commonwealth of Massachusetts

On this thirty first day of August AD Eighteen hundred and thirty eight, personally appeared before the Honorable David Cummins one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas, of said Commonwealth  Margaret Cooper, widow aged seventy six years, who being first duly sworn according to law, doth, on her oath, make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the provision made by the act of Congress passed July 7th 1838, entitled "an act granting half pay and pensions to certain widows." that she is the widow of Samuel Cooper, formerly of the Town of Boston in this Commonwealth Esquire, who served as a naval officer in the service of the United States, during the Revolutionary War.
Said Samuel was born in said Boston in the year 1759. He sailed in the year 1777 in the Frigate Hancock Captain Manly from Boston as Captain's Clerk. Upon the voyage they captured the British Frigate Fox, but were afterwards retaken by a British squadron and carried into Halifax, where said Samuel was kept a prisoner fro ten months.  During part of the time he was kept in a dungeon, for attempting to escape from jail by undermining. Doctor John Jeffries who had been a physician in Boston, procured his release from the dungeon and caused him to be placed in the Hospital, representing that he was sick.  This service, lasted as she believes twelve months. Said Samuel was purser on board the Warren Frigate, Captain Saltonstall in the expedition which sailed from Boston in 1779 to Penobscot in Maine, in this expedition he lost everything he had with him, except the clothes upon him.  He made his way through the woods of Maine, with his boy, observing the Indian tracks and making a fire at night to keep off the wild beasts.
After enduring much, fatigue and
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hardship, they arrived at Falmouth with (now Portland) here he was taken sick with a fever brought on by exposure and suffereing, in the service, and was detained by severe illness.
Several weeks at the house of Samuel Freeman Esquire in Portland.
This service including his detention by sickness, lasted as she verily believes, four months.

Said Samuel was also purser on board the Continental Frigate Alliance as she verily believes, from August 1780 until the vessel was laid up at Philadelphia at the close of the war in 1783.  He volunteered to serve, was appointed purser and joined the ship at Boston, in August 1780.
Said Alliance sailed from Boston in February 1781, arrived at L'Orient in France in March 1781 and sailed for the United States the latter part of March.  During this voyage the Alliance captured the Brig Atalanta having 144 men on board; about the 6th of June 1781, returned to Boston.  Said Samuel was purser on board the Alliance in December 1781, when she sailed from Boston for France having the Marquis LaFayette and suite on board. Said Samuel was also purser, when the Alliance carried Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense to France. - James Barry was Captain of the ship and Matthew Parke, was Captain of Marines on board the Alliance.  After the close of the war, said Samuel was a notary public in the Town of Boston and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in the County of Suffolk.  He has often told me that were he to write an account of his services and sufferings in the cause of his country it would make quite a volume.  Said Samuel died in said Boston on the 13th day of January Eighteen hundred and nine, before any provision had made made for revolutionary soldiers.  He received, as she believes, little or no pay for his services.
She further declares
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certificate as to
Margaret Cooper's 
marriage
8 Dec. 1785