Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Prescott Wales updated 05/30/2021

Prescott Wales was born around 1844, in Michigan, the son of New York natives Almerson W. Wales (1814-1891) and Henrietta Walton (1821-1884).

By 1840 the family had settled in Michigan (where their daughter Henrietta was born), probably in Lapeer County. By 1850 Prescott was living with his family in Otisco, Ionia County, where his father worked a farm. By 1860 Prescott was attending school with two of his younger siblings and still living on the family farm in Otisco. 

Prescott stood 5’9” with dark eyes, light hair and a light complexion and was an 18-year-old farmer possibly living in Otisco, Ionia County, Michigan, when he enlisted in Company E on February 18, 1862, at Saranac, Ionia County for 3 years, crediting Otisco, and was mustered on March 13. He was reported absent sick in the hospital in August, again in April of 1863 through September, and, according to Andrew Kilpatrick, also of Company E, he returned from the hospital on October 8, 1863.

He was present for duty when he reenlisted on February 18, 1864, near Culpeper, Virginia, and was mustered on February 20. He was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough, probably in Michigan, in March of 1864 and returned to the regiment on or about the first of April when he was reported on detached service through May. He was probably still on detached service when he was transferred to Company E, 5th Michigan Infantry upon consolidation of the 3rd and 5th Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864, and reported on detached service at Division headquarters. He was with the Division provost guard from February of 1865 through May, and was mustered out on July 5, 1865, at Jeffersonville, Indiana.

It is not known if Prescott returned to Michigan.

Prescott married Indiana native Phoebe Cunningham (1846-1932), probably in Iowa, and they had at least three children: Fred L. (1869-1956), Bertha (born 1871, Mrs. Palmer) and Boyd (1873-1958).

By 1869 the family was in Iowa, and in 1870 Prescott (listed as James P.) was working as a farmer (he owned some 4800 worth of real estate) and living with his wife and two children in Tarkio, Atchison County, Missouri. They were in Missouri in 1871 and Nebraska in 1873. By 1870 his father was listed as the Justice of the Peace and also owned some $3,000 worth of real estate and living with his wife Henrietta and 16-year-old son Norman W., who was working as a railroad laborer, in Clay, Hardin County, Iowa; they were still living in Clay, Hardin County, Iowa in 1880.

Prescott and Phoebe were divorced sometime after 1873.

In 1879 Phoebe married James Root in Cerro Gordo, Iowa. By 1880 Phoebe and her husband James Root and her three children from her first marriage were living in Steamboat Rock, Hardin County, Iowa.

Prescott was probably living in Leland, Mississippi (?) when he was admitted as a married man to the National Military Home in Johnson City, Tennessee on May 16, 1905, listing his daughter Mrs. Bertha Palmer in Los Angeles as his nearest relative. He was transferred to the Southern branch NMH in Hampton, Virginia, on November 6, 1909, and the Home record in Hampton lists him as divorced and his daughter Mrs. Bertha Palmer living in Los Angeles, California as his nearest relative.

In 1886 Prescott applied for and received a pension (cert. no. 347540).

Prescott died of “terminal dementia” at the Hampton Home hospital on December 13, 1909 and was buried in Hampton National Cemetery, Hampton, Virginia: grave no. 9801.


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