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Family profiles / New Jersey and Pennsylvania · Revolutionary War

The captain’s son who became an ensign.

Jacob Gearhart Jr. entered a militia world already commanded by his father. Decades later, fellow soldiers remembered the younger man’s service, and a pension examiner questioned how much of it could be counted. Both the testimony and the questioning survive.

Jacob Gearhart Jr. · born January 1763Pension S.3392 · NAID 54655292

In the pension records, the two Jacobs can easily look like one man. They were not. The elder Captain Jacob Gearhart commanded a Hunterdon County militia company. His son, Jacob Gearhart Jr., served within that military organization and later sought a pension in his own name.

The father and son in the same regiment

Jacob Jr.’s claim places his early service in 1777 under his father and Colonel Joseph Beavers. Later official summaries say that he served as an orderly sergeant and subsequently as an ensign. The father’s position as captain is separately recalled by men who served alongside the younger Jacob.

That officer relationship matters to our Beavers history: these were the same militia circles in which Lieutenant John Clifford served. It does not place Clifford and Gearhart Jr. together at every named battle or prove the men were relatives.

What William Marsh remembered

In 1836, William Marsh supplied sworn recollections of the younger Gearhart’s service. He remembered the militia company and Gearhart’s rank as ensign, as well as periods of duty in New Jersey. Two statements from the same man remain the testimony of one witness, not independent confirmation from two people.

Robert Scott offered another account, recalling a 1780 tour during which Jacob Jr. served as an ensign and the elder Jacob held a captain’s rank in the corps. Scott’s account supports that officer relationship, though it does not explicitly name Lieutenant John Clifford as a fellow soldier.

An examiner asks for dates

There was a difference between remembering military service and proving the exact number of months for a pension. In June 1836, an examiner questioned the younger Gearhart’s claimed aggregate duty and requested more precise intervals and supporting evidence. It would be wrong to erase those doubts from the record—or to treat them as proof the regiment was imaginary.

The eventual award is documented: certificate 3065 was issued October 13, 1836, at a recorded rate of $225 annually. That establishes the pension outcome, not necessarily that every tour originally described was credited for its full remembered length.

The people behind the signatures

The file tells us Jacob Jr.’s father’s given name and military role, and places the family in Hunterdon County during the Revolution. A later Pension Office summary gives Jacob Jr.’s birth as January 1763. It does not name his mother, wife, or children; those parts of his family belong to a separate genealogical search.

Birth reportedJanuary 1763Hunterdon County, New Jersey
Pension claimS.339277 original digital images
Certificate3065 · 1836Recorded annual rate: $225

Read the evidence

Browse all 77 original Gearhart images at the National Archives ↗

Sources

  1. National Archives, Revolutionary War pension S.3392, Jacob Gearhart Jr., NAID 54655292; original testimony and 1836–1937 correspondence.
  2. John Clifford’s pension profile, service in the regiment commanded by Colonel Beavers.
  3. The family reading edition and source guide.

The pension is valuable military evidence. It is not proof of a blood relationship between the Gearhart and Beavers families.