Thursday, April 24, 2008

Albert A. Connant

Albert A. Connant, also known as “Conant”, was born about 1836 in Chenango County, New York, the son of Shubail (1802-1891) and Clarissa (1802-1881).

New York native Shubail married Connecticut native Clara or Clarissa probably in New York sometime before 1836. The family moved to Michigan sometime after 1843. (In 1850 there was one Shubail Conant, born in 1790 in Connecticut living in Detroit.) By 1860 Shubail had settled his family in western Michigan and Albert was working as a farm laborer and living with his family in Eureka, Montcalm County.

Albert stood 5’10” with blue eyes, light hair and a light complexion and was 25 years old and possibly residing in Kent County when he enlisted in Company F on May 13, 1861. He was shot in the right hand on May 31, 1862, at Fair Oaks, Virginia, and subsequently hospitalized in Judiciary Square general hospital in Washington, DC. By the first of July was reported to be “doing well.”

Alfred was discharged on August 13, 1862, at Judiciary Square hospital, for a gunshot wound to the hand. “The ball,” noted his discharge paper, “passed through corpus of right hand -- anchylosis of wrist joint, incapacitating him for duty for 2 months at any rate -- perhaps always.”

In February of 1863 Albert applied for and received a pension (no. 19316).

It is not known if Albert returned to Michigan after his discharge, and he eventually moved out west. In 1870 Shubail was living with a son (or nephew) Leonidas or Leonard while Clara was living with a son (or nephew) Lurendus, both in Montcalm County.

It is possible that Albert was working as a stock grower and living in Lander, Sweetwater County, Wyoming in 1880. In 1880 his parents were living in Eureka, Montcalm County. Shuabil and Clara are both buried in Eureka cemetery.) By 1890 Albert was living in Johnson County, Wyoming.

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