Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application File B. L. Warrant, John Alvord, [BLANK]
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Alvord, John

NUMBER
B.L. warrant

Mass
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Hon: Chas. Rich. May 21st. 1818.

John Alvord  Dec
Revolutionary War


Recorded in Volume 3. Page 70
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no other papers
War Department
Section of Bounty Lands.
May 21st. 1818.

Hon:
Charles rich
Shoreham, Vermont.
Sir,
On the 15th of the present month, I had the honor to receive your letter of the 3rd instant requesting me to give information to the son of the late John Alvord dec.d who was a Revolutionary Soldier, relative to the military Bounty land promised on the part of the U.S. for the service alluded to. At the same time you are pleased to return to me the only official & definite information that can prossibly be furnished by this Office, upon that subject!
When you were at the Seat of Government last Winter in the respectable qulaity of a representative of the Sovereign People, of these U.S." & applied to one of the humble servants of that sovereign for information which was within his competence, could you suppose that he would refuse to give it?  Sir, the official Certificate I then handed to you stating the issue of John Alvord l.d. W.t nearly 20 years since, is the only positive information that can be given on that subject by the War Department.  You recollect I presume, that in the year 1800, the War Office of the US. was destroyed by five; in that unfortunate conflagration perished nearly all the registers of preceding military services rendered the U.S. and likewise the voucher then on file, upon which military l.d W.ts. had be issued. The Record on which such Certificates as that which I gave to you in this case of John Alvord are founded, you [illegible as smudged] in Register of actual Locations furnished by the Treasury Department since the Conflagration abovementioned
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abovementioned, and is deemed perfectly conclusive as to the fact, and I will venture to pronounce that where it shall appear by this Record that a claim has once been satisfied, the U.S. will never regrant that specific portion of land: it it is right to presume that the vouchers on which the original W t was issued were correct.  the only remedy for Claimant who, like the heir of John Alvord, suspect the said warrant was surreptitiously obtained, is to find out by whom it was located, - which of course, will furnish a clue by which the affair may be traced: but this must be done by the actual claimant, at his own risk and cant, in the common process at law, in which the U.S. will not participate any further than to grant such information as their public bureau can furnish - which may have a bounty upon the point of issue.
It is with this view that Issue Certificates of the tenor of that in the case of the aforesaid John Alvord: which I shall return wit to you herewith, as the only specific information that any records under my control can furnish. --with this Certificate, the actual claimant may at the G.L.C., find out who located the land in question and, if thought proper pursue it to the [illegible] of the present possesson.  I have understood that two processes of this kind were instituted in the Courts of Ohio last year and both of them were successfull.
I have the honor to be Sir very respectfully
Your able Servt.
Nate Cutting
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Bounty Land Warrant No 3611
for John Alvord. Private. Mass,
was issued Aug. 15, 1796.
it is not stated to whom
it was issued.
and it may be the claim
referred to.