Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

This afternoon I heard a talk by the Librarian for the David Library of the American Revolution. Located in Washington Crossing Pennsylvania they appear to have an extensive collection of books (40,000), papers (8 million pages) and microfilms (10,000 reels) related to the Revolution. This includes Patriot, Loyalist, and Hessen Records. It's not clear how much they have regarding regular Britsh Troops. They did say they have very little about French participants. There web site is
http://www.dlar.org

In the next couple of months I am going to make a trip to the library to look for information about my grandson's Patriot Ancestor - Major Jacob Perkins, 1st Burlington Militia.

<b><i>If anyone has a relative that might have been in the Revolutionary War and would give me some information - name, home state, rank, approximate year of birth/death, unit, etc - I would be willing to add the name to my list and see if I can discover anything. </i></b>

The prize of course is to find a pension application, which typically includes a multi page narrative describing the person's service, and frequently includes other relevent documents such as marriage and birth records of the individual, their spouse, and their children. Do be aware that most pensions were given on a "needs based" basis, so officers are generally not in the pension records. However there are numerous muster records and even records related to Loyalist petitions to the American Claims Commission in London and relocation lists and land grants in Canada.

The collection also includes battle specific information. The talk was to the Monmouth County (New Jersey) Genealogy Society so the battle information was not a focal point. It was mentioned that the library recently acquired something called the "Grant Papers" which have been in a Scottish Castle for the last 200 years or so. Evidently Grant was a Royal Governor and Military leader who among other things had extensive information about the Battles of Trenton and Princeton - perhaps something new for those interested in this engagement.