Private Asberry Estes

ASBERRY ESTES

Asberry Estes, 95, dictated the following narrative in order to establish his soundness of mind with the old age pension bureau and support an affidavit helping another person to get a pension

State of Kentucky, County of Lee

Asberry Estes, age 95 years and 45 days, who first being duly sworn, states that he was born March 16, 1843, that he is of sound mind and memory, considering this frail and transitory life, that he is now pensioned at the rate of $100 per month that he married Iby Newton, March 25, 1865, that the marriage license was obtained at Irvine, Kentucky, and was married by Elijah Gabbard, a Baptist minister, and that his wife died May 12, 1914. There were born to his marriage eight children and raised six to be grown, and there are three children living now. He has one daughter still single. She was sixty-four years of age at her last birthday. He states that he is acquainted with Daniel L. Estes, who is the first-born child of his brother, Hiram Estes, that he is an uncle by blood, and that he is a double cousin to all of my children, that I am living just across the Kentucky River from the place where Daniel Estes was born on October 7, 1862. I can see the ground from where I sit where the house stood in which his birth took place. I was at Nashville, Tennessee, at the time he was born.

The name of my captain was Ance Powell of Irvine, Kentucky. I fought in the Perryville battle where he defeated General Bragg. I was in the battle of Chickamauga, Tennessee, where we were driven back to Chattanooga. I was in the fight at Lookout Mountain, known as Missionary Ridge, where we attacked the Confederate Army under the command of Longstreet and Bragg. Our commander was General U.S. Grant. We defeated the Confederate Army and followed them to Dalton, Georgia, where we again defeated the Confederate Army. Then we went back to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I was discharged on the 17th day of November, 1864.

We went by train to Louisville where we were paid off. We came on to Lexington by rail, there we hired what was then known as hacks and came on to Irvine. I walked to my mother’s home right where Grant Newman now lives at Yellow Rock, then in Owsley County. I have never lived farther than 15 miles from the place where I was born, on Buck Creek on what is now the farm of Jonah Estes in Estill County. I have moved more than forty times since I was married, having resided here in Heidelberg, where I now own my own home by deed from Arch Cornett and wife dated August 4, 1928, and of record in the office of the Lee County Clerk in deed book No. 48, page 448 and recorded as of date of August 6, 1928, by then clerk of said court, S.M. Estes.

The affiant further states that his father’s name was Charlie Estes, that the name of his grandfather was Basil Estes, who came to Estill County from North Carolina, that his mother’s name was Sarah Hatton, that his grandmother was "Clem". I had four brothers, Fielden Estes, Basil Estes, Hiram Estes and Charlie Estes. Had three sisters who lived to be grown and married. Patsey Estes who married Levi Winkle, Debby Estes who married Lawrence Ward, and Polly Estes married Jess Pitman all whom raised their families in Kentucky excepting brother Basil, who was married four times and the last time I heard of him he was living in Granger County, Tennessee, where he died. Affiant further states that he was never indicted for any crime or misdemeanor or ever cited to appear in any civil case excepting the United States Pension Bureau.