Saturday, November 22, 2008

Peter V. Granger - update 8/28/2016

Peter V. Granger was born July 26, 1833, in Hume, Allegany County, New York, the son of Gideon or Girden (1800-1876) and Nancy A. (Flanagan, 1801-1884).

Gideon and Nancy were married on March 13, 1822, possibly in Granville, New York or perhaps Whitehall and resided in Lamont, New York in 1825 but by 1829 had settled in Hume, New York where they lived for many years. Gideon was still living in Hume in 1850.

Peter left New York and moved to western Michigan sometime before 1857. (It appears Gideon was living in Wiscoy, Allegany count, New York in 1860.)

He was living in Saranac, Ionia County when he married Wisconsin native Juliette Sanborn (b. 1838) on November 11, 1857, and they had at least one and possibly two children: Margaret (b. 1859) and possibly Helen (b. 1866). By 1860 he was working as a carpenter and living with his wife and daughter in Boston, Ionia County.

By January of 1861 Peter had joined the “Boston Light Guards” as Second Second Lieutenant; the “Guards” was one of several prewar militia companies formed in western Michigan and some of its members would serve as the nucleus for Company D Third Michigan.

Peter was 27 years old and probably still residing in Ionia County when he enlisted as First Lieutenant of Company D on May 13, 1861; he may have been related to Munson Granger who was also from Ionia County and would also enlist in Company D.

While in a camp near Fairfax Seminary, Virginia, Peter formally resigned his commission on September 16, 1862. That same day, assistant Regimental surgeon W. B. Morrison wrote from near Fort Ward, Virginia, that Granger “has been suffering from an affection of the lungs, and general debility, as a result of chronic diarrhea, for a period of three months completely unfitting [sic] him for the greater part of the time for the performance of his duties and that justice to his health and family demands that he seek a mode of life accompanied with less exposure. I would therefore recommend his resignation.” His resignation was approved on September 20, 1862.

Although his wife and children apparently remained in Michigan, shortly after his discharge Peter returned to parent's home in Wiscoy, Allegheny County, New York, and indeed was residing in Hume Township, Allegheny County, New York when he applied for and received a pension in March of 1863 (no. 70251).

According to several of his neighbors in New York, by early 1867, Peter’s condition had deteriorated substantially following his discharge from the army. Peter suffered “very poor health and has been totally unfit to work at hard labor on account of lung disease, and that frequently when he has tried to labor for a day or two he would have [a] hemorrhage of the lungs that would lay him up for days and sometimes weeks, and since the first of December 1865” he “has been confined in the house . . . most of the time and has had to have the constant care and attention of another person. . . .”

Peter died from tuberculosis on October 13, 1867, in Wiscoy, Allegheny County, New York, and was buried in Wiscoy cemetery.

His widow applied for and received a pension (no. 135477). She remarried one Devello Anderson in Saranac in 1870 and in 1871 was a guardian in the minor child pension (no. 146281).


No comments: