Seeking US Mexican War Pension records for widow of Alonzo Vinton

How do I use the United States Mexican War Pension Index,1887-1926 to find information the index cards lead to? I found my great grandfather's name (Leonard McLeod) who became entangled with another man's name (Alfonzo Vinton, as an Alias) when it turned up that their wives both filed for the same widow's benefits.  I hope there are files behind the index records which might reveal the information I need to work with to sort out what happened, why the identity of the two men has become entwined and why two widows applied for the same soldier's pension when I have no evidence they each deserved it. My sixth sense tells me there's a case of stolen identity behind it all (at best) and at worst a case of one man somehow impersonating the other through the last half of his life.  I am reasonably certain a man known as Alonzo Vinton did served in the Mexican War; I am also reasonably certain a man known as Leonard McLeod did not.  I'm trying to prove or disprove that they are one-and-the-same person, and I feel there's information in those files which will assist my doing that.  Does anybody know how to access the files behind these index cards?

Parents
  • Gary,

    Susan McLeod AKA Susan Glass first  husband Solomon Barnard, its possible either Alonzo went estrange or his wife went estranged with another man.

    SolomonBarnard_SusanMcLeod_USCivilWarPensionIndexBarnard, Solomon_CivilWarPensionApplication_NARA_2588825_roll151

    I also found this. Its possible that he did not divorce his second wife. That's why there was a duplicate widows pension because each women was technically still married to him. Its amazing that the courts did not seek paperwork for divorce papers?

    Pensions granted westerners

    24 Mar 1898

    was notified that she would no longer be receiving military pension for 2nd husband, as she is no longer considered the legal widow

    Military

    17 Mar 1894Colorado, USA

    filed for widow's pension for Alonzo Vinton, Mexican War veteran, application # 11958, contesting widow pension certificate #7270 of Susan McLeod

    LeonardMcLeod_UnitedStatesMexicanWarPensionIndex_1887-1926_image2849AlonzoVinton_UnitedStatesMexicanWarPensionIndex_1887-1926_image441
  • Hi, Elliot, and thanks for your work to find these documents! (I've seen all of them before, actually have them attached to my Ancerstry-dot-com tree)

    I'd located the file index cards (6 in total) and now I'll need to follow Jason Atkinson's advice to contact the National Archives with a request for the files behind each one of them.

    One question: I'm not sure what you meant saying, "its possible either Alonzo went estrange or his wife went estranged with another man." What I don't understand is "went estranged," so maybe you can help me with this term.  I appreciate that!

    Also, What can you tell me about what it meant to have an alias or to be an alias in the Mexican War.  In later conflicts (eg. US Civil War), I understand that a soldier could arrange with another person to actually do the fighting for him; but, I can't find any reference to that occurring during the Mexican War.  So how does one become an alias for another and who is the alias for whom?  I have found nothing to indicate that, in this case, the name Leonard McLeod ever was involved, so I can't figure out why there'd be a pension available to him or to his widow.  It doew seem, however, that his wife Susan knew about a pension, and perhaps knew about a pension available under the name of Alonzo Vinton.  It's critical to note, in light of the Newspaper article of the pension granted to Alonzo Vinton in Neosho, MO, that there is no evidence that anyone of that name ever lived there, but Leonard McLeod in fact did.  Could it be that McLeod filed and obtained this pension by applying for it under the name Alonzo Vinton?

    I'm interested to learn what you think, and also whether you have any family ties to me or these people, or if your interest in helping me is more because it's what you enjoy doing?

    Thanks again, looking forward to hearing from you!

Reply
  • Hi, Elliot, and thanks for your work to find these documents! (I've seen all of them before, actually have them attached to my Ancerstry-dot-com tree)

    I'd located the file index cards (6 in total) and now I'll need to follow Jason Atkinson's advice to contact the National Archives with a request for the files behind each one of them.

    One question: I'm not sure what you meant saying, "its possible either Alonzo went estrange or his wife went estranged with another man." What I don't understand is "went estranged," so maybe you can help me with this term.  I appreciate that!

    Also, What can you tell me about what it meant to have an alias or to be an alias in the Mexican War.  In later conflicts (eg. US Civil War), I understand that a soldier could arrange with another person to actually do the fighting for him; but, I can't find any reference to that occurring during the Mexican War.  So how does one become an alias for another and who is the alias for whom?  I have found nothing to indicate that, in this case, the name Leonard McLeod ever was involved, so I can't figure out why there'd be a pension available to him or to his widow.  It doew seem, however, that his wife Susan knew about a pension, and perhaps knew about a pension available under the name of Alonzo Vinton.  It's critical to note, in light of the Newspaper article of the pension granted to Alonzo Vinton in Neosho, MO, that there is no evidence that anyone of that name ever lived there, but Leonard McLeod in fact did.  Could it be that McLeod filed and obtained this pension by applying for it under the name Alonzo Vinton?

    I'm interested to learn what you think, and also whether you have any family ties to me or these people, or if your interest in helping me is more because it's what you enjoy doing?

    Thanks again, looking forward to hearing from you!

Children
  • Gary,

    I'm just a genealogist that loves doing research more so on the military side of things. I have no affiliation to this family or any of your ancestors. To answer your question is that "estrange" means  a wife who no longer lives with her husband. So if you look there may have been like three marriages in between a few in the states and one for sure in Canada. It the "estrange case a husband or wife can technically be married by law but they decided to separate meaning not living together. Within this time frame its possible either one or the other left and possibly got married in Canada and did not tell the other spouse that they were actually married in the US. So its possible that one wife was the correct wife in getting benefits and the other one was denied until the Government found that he was technically still married to the other women.

    The answer to your second question pertaining to "Alias" was used Some common reasons for a soldier using an alias include: Bounty jumpers who enlisted more than once in order to get paid bounty more than once. They would typically use different names each time. Soldiers who assumed a new identity at enlistment. This could have been done for various reasons, including someone who was trying to enlist underage, or maybe someone who had abandoned his family.

    Also to point out that Alonzo Vinton aka Leonard McLeod did live in MO, you missed it from the last thread I posted he married in 1868 in the following, that because he knew he had a known "alias" and he went back to using it when he re-married Susan Glass "Bennett"

    Marriage

    07 Apr 1868Holden, Johnson, Missouri, USA

  • Hi, again, Elliot...

    Lots has happened since your reply of 20 Dec 2021, that's for sure.  I'm writing to thank you for your taking an interest in the situation I wrote about to open this topic thread.  Even though I'd already found the documents you posted, I still didn't have a good understanding of what had gone on with my great grandfather Leonard McLeod. You made positive suggestioins which now, in hindsight, I understand better, and you were, as near as I can tell, pretty spot-on with your take of the situation.  Thanks again!

    If you don't mind, I'll explain a little more. (Lots more, in fact.  Plase pardon the lenghy story... I hope you enjoy it!)

    Once the NARA folks regrouped after COVID, my requests for the documents on file came through--over 100 pages in 2 batches--which revealed that there was an extensive look at things by the office of the Pension Examiners, ultimately with a decison as to the final disposition of the affair issued in 1898 by Cornelius Bliss, Secretary of the Interior under President Wm McKinley.

    Pension Examiners' reports, accumulated over a period of 10 years and ranging across the map from Ontario and Manitoba, Canada through New York, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Missouri painted a picture of a man who'd led three lives--one of which I'd seen on the periphery but couldn't have known otherwise that he actually played the central role.

    Leonard McLeod had appeared in the Kansas City, MO area in 1867 from an unknown past.  It was there he married my great grandmother Susan McLeod.  He then settled down, they had four daughters and the family was together (most of the time) for the next 23 years, until his death.  He had applied for the Mexico War pension and the local disbursement clerk in Neosho, MO was suspicious of a McLeod cashing the vouchers issued to Alonzo Vinton.  McLeod had to come clean about his Vinton alias in order to keep getting the pension money.  In alll innocence, his wife Susan McLeod applied for the widow's pension once Leonard died, and she began receiving the money herself.  A few years later, the contesting widow Henrietta Vinton surfaced, claiming that her rights to the pension be honored, and the investigations began.. 

    The series of depositions brought to light that there was yet a third identity for the soldier--Lorenzo Dow Soper, which was, in fact, his birth name.  (I visited Delta, Ontario, last April, to see the area and the the early 1800s family home there.  I learned that his Loyalist (UEL) family was prominent in the Rideau Lakes area of Ontario, for his grandfather Col. Levi Soper's participation at Gananoque early in the War of 1812.)  Lorenzo seems to have been a seeker of fortune, and when he decided to go against his family's wishes and enlist in the US Army in 1847, to fight for the United States against Mexico, he took on the pseudonym Alonzo Vinton, naming himself after the young son of the blacksmith he was apprenticed to.  After the war, he married a Hester Bellis in Ohio, became a local postmaster, committed and was convicted of "forging notes" and served 3 years in an Ohio state prison. Just prior to his release, Hester divorced him, then a few weeks after his release, she re-married him, but this time he used his birth name Lorenzo Soper.  The couple then went to Delta with their daughter and the whole famiy there recalled meeting them.  They also recalled that Lorenzo abandoned his wife and daughter there, having "ran off" with two different women, in two different directions, subsequently being brought back at gunpoint to Delta by the father of one of them and taking the other woman to Utica, NY where she gave birth to his only son.  Soper abandoned that wife and child in Utica and soon married the "contesting widow" Henrietta.  This couiple left Canada and by 1858 they were in Illinois, where their daughter (who has a history just as interestingly convoluted as Lorenzo's) was born.  But then things went sour and he abandoned that family and went  back to Canada until he stole the yoke of oxen and fled across the border to Michigan.  There he joined the Calvary to fight in the Civil War (and at one point in 1865, impersonated another soldier by the name of John Sandelback) and, on mustering out, was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in prison for larceny of a suit of clothes.  It's of interest to see that in both the enlistment record of the Mexican War and the jail records from Jackson State Prison in Michigan, he's described as 5; 4 1/2" tall.  The two wives, Hester and Henrietta, each describe him with similar hair, dyed beard and scars on his jaw and leg, but, inexplicably,about 5'7" tall.  (Perhaps they never saw him standing up?).

    Within 2 years of getting out of prison in Michigan, Lorenzo had made his way back to New York, purchased some farmland there as Lorenzo Soper, went to Missouri and, under his new alias of Leonard McLeod, married Susan, my great grandmother.  She reported that nearly every year he would leave Missouri and travel to Canada on foot to visit his wealthy McLeod family there--a family of Loyalists, his father in service to the Crown.  That family, it turns out, never existed.  There is proof, however that he had land in New York in 1868 and had travelled through Fulton, NY in 1870, as well as testimony of his half-brothers and others of his regular visits  to Delta, Ontario over the years.  They knew of Henrietta, Hester, Mary Ann, and a number of his other "loves," but when asked, stated they had never heard of the McLeods or his McLeod alias in any manner. Only the pension examiners put that McLeod-Soper connection together.

    The final upshot of this whole affair was that Susan McLeod was ruled inelegible to continue receiving the pension (in the letter from Secretary Bliss) because of his previous marriage to a woman who'd never re-married and was still living, Mary Ann O'Grady.  So, Susan McLeod was disqualified, Hester Vinton-Soper, too, as she had re-married.  Henrietta Vinton/Soper disqualified herself by submittinga forged affidavit into the record then backing out so as not to be prosecuted for perjury, and sweet Mary Ann O'Grady told examiners she wanted nothing to do with the whole affair, even though she was determined to be the soldier's legal widow.

    The pension amount: $8.00 per month.

    So, that's the pretty-much entire story--a few escapades are left out here.  And again I thank you for your kick-start interest, in the hopes you've enjoyed hearing what became of it.

    Best Regards,

    --Gary Shelton.

    .