Bovina and the American Revolution - James Cooley (1755-1823)

 

James Cooley’s experience in the American Revolution was fairly dramatic. He was born in 1755 in Massachusetts. In April 1777, he enlisted in Captain Luke Day’s company of Infantry in Massachusetts for three years, serving as a fifer. The year he enlisted he participated in the Battle of Saratoga. The following May, he participated in the Battle of Cobleskill and was captured by the forces of Joseph Brant, a loyalist Mohawk Indian. They took him to Fort Niagara then to Quebec in Canada, where he was a prisoner for over four years. He was exchanged at Dobbs Ferry in the lower Hudson Valley in November 1782 rejoining his regiment near West Point and was honorably discharged.

A couple of years after the end of the war, James was married to Mary Lyon and by 1800, they were living in Harpersfield, Delaware County. He later lived in northern Bovina, moving there when it still was part of the town of Stamford.

James applied for a pension in April 1818, when he was 63. His application noted “that he was engaged with the enemy in the memorable Battle of Saratoga and a number of skirmishes.” He also mentioned his time as a prisoner or war. James now was living in indigent circumstances and required “the assistance of his country for support…”

At the time of his application, James possessions included a pitchfork, six sheep, one sickle, one broken tea kettle, two or three cups and saucers, one tea pot, a cherry table, an old bible and an old tobacco box. He was a farmer but said that because of his feeble health, including rheumatism, he could no longer farm and relied on the support of his daughter. His wife was age fifty and was also in increasing feeble health. He was in debt about fifteen dollars plus he had to pay for his pension application.

He received a pension of eight dollars a month and collected it until his death in November 1823. His wife continued to collect the pension at eighty-eight dollars a year, until her passing, sometime after 1841. She left Bovina after his death, likely to live with one of her children in Chenango County.

James is likely buried in Bovina, but unfortunately, we don’t know where. Given that he lived in Northern Bovina, he could be buried in the Nichols Cemetery on Cape Horn Road.