William Polen

State of Indiana, County of Delaware: On this 14th day of November A.D. 1832, personally appeared in open court....William Polen, resident of Delaware Cunty, aged 70 years....the following declaration: That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officers and served as follows in the month of September in...1779 one month before he as sixteen years old. When he lived in Berclay [Berkeley] County near Shepherd’s Town in the state of Virginia a militia company was formed inder the command of Captain Josiah Swearingen, Major Scott, Colonel John Miner (?) of Shepherdstown to go over the mountains against the Indians. Col. Miner and Major Scott promised that each one of them should have 100 acres of land. This applicant became anxious to go and at length obtained his father’s and mother’s consent to go,-he_______joined the company in the month of September A.D. 1779 [1778]. The company marched from Martinsburgh to Fort McIntosh by the way of Beesontown, Brownsville, and Pittsburgh and there assisted in making the fort McIntosh where he remained between 2 or 3 months under the command of Col. Campbell and Gen. McIntosh. From thence he marched in the company of Captain Swearingen and 4 (?) other companies, Captains Lisle [Lyles], Evans and Worthington to the Muskingum River and took an Indian town which was not defended there being only a few old men some women and children and five white children. They built a fort on the spotland called it Ft. Lawrence [Laurens] and left two companies in it viz Evans and Worthington’s companies, and Swearingen’s and Lisle’s marched back to Ft. McIntosh where he the next day after his arrival received a written discharge for a three month tour of duty which discharge he kept for about 30 years and then lost it. He arrived home four months from the time he set out. He has never yet heard of any opportunity to obtain 100 acres of land that he was promised.

William Polen was born in New Jersey "where my father lived until I was big enough to hoe corn. I was born on the 14th October the year not recollected but I believe it to have been in the year 1762." He lived in Berkeley County, Va., for 15 years, Allegheny Co., PA, 17 years in Ohio, and two years in Delaware Co., Indiana.

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