behind AotW

This is the summary page from the pension file for 2 year old orphan William West Van Tine (1861-1928) of Clarence in Erie County, NY (touch the image to enlarge).

His mother Anna West Van Tine had died 5 months after his birth in 1861 and his father Private Wilder Van Tine of the 21st New York Infantry was mortally wounded at Antietam on 17 September 1862, dying at home that November.

The remaining pages in the file include affidavits about the details of Wilder’s wounding and death, his marriage in 1860, his son’s birth, and Anna’s untimely death. They’re all online from fold3.

In 1865 young William was granted a pension of $8 per month to run until his 16th birthday in 1877, to be paid to his grandfather David Van Tine.

Here are a uniformed Private William Henry Boorman of the 21st New York Infantry, who survived a wound to the chest at Antietam, and post-war a picture of him, both kindly shared online by Ruth Alice Anderson.

In January 1869 Antietam survivor Joshua G Towne, late of the 21st New York Infantry, was noted by the Milwaukee (WI) Sentinel for being the first to ride a velocipede – an early bicycle – on the streets of that city.

His story and that picture are from Gant & Hoffman’s Wheel Fever: How Wisconsin Became a Great Bicycling State (2013) from the Wisconsin Historical Society. The velocipede is from the Budget Bicycle Center in Madison, WI and was photographed by Joel Heiman.