Just When You Think You Know the Whole Story...

Imagine my surprise, having traced my 2^nd ggm through a life in Brownstown, Wayne, Michigan—birth as Minerva Armstrong, marriage to Garret Garretson, a Union Army volunteer in the 24^th Michigan, to burial in the Garretson family plot, only to find she had another husband along the way.

When I requested a copy of Minerva’s Federal Military Pension Application and supporting documents from the NARA. I learned some unexpected facts.  For example, while Garret’s unit was fighting at Gettysburg, he was laid up in a Pennsylvania hospital.  He survived and returned to his wife Minerva and daughter Jennie in Brownstown, where he died in 1877. 

Sometime after that, Minerva moved to Brainerd, Crows Wing, Minnesota where she was living when, in 1883, she married Charles L. Chamberlin, a doctor who worked in the logging camps in the area.  While the one Minnesota Marriage Index lists their marriage as occurring on April 18, copies of the original license and marriage certificate in the NARA Pension packet confirm it occurred April 25^th.

Charles died in Brainerd on March 14, 1892.  Sometime after that, Minerva returned to Brownstown where, in 1901, she applied for restoration of Garret’s pension (certificate #184929 paid at Detroit and suspended upon her marriage to Charles Chamberlin in 1883). 

These pension records are the only place I’ve found actual documentation of this Garretson “detour” in Minerva’s life.  Now for some additional sleuthing!