Seeking US Mexican War Pension records for widow of Alonzo Vinton

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.

.

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.

.