GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 23, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 7073, entitled “An act granting a pension to Mary S. Woodson.”

Henry Woodson, the husband of the beneficiary named, enlisted in September, 1861, and was discharged in October, 1863, on account of valvular disease of the heart.

The application for pension on behalf of his widow was filed August 5, 1881.

She concedes that she is unable to furnish any evidence of the date or the cause of her husband’s death.

It appears that he left home in March, 1874, for the purpose of finding work, and neither she nor her friends have ever heard from him since.  His death may naturally be presumed, and the condition of his family is such that it would be a positive gratification to aid them in the manner proposed; but the entire and conceded absence of any presumption, however weak, that he died from any cause connected with his military service seems to render it improper to place the widow’s name upon the pension rolls.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 23, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 7108, entitled “An act granting a pension to Andrew J. Wilson.”

It appears that this man was drafted and entered the service in February, 1865, and was discharged in September of the same year on account of “chronic nephritis and deafness.”

In 1882 he filed his application for a pension, alleging that in June, 1865, from exposure, he contracted rheumatism.  Afterwards he described his trouble as inflammation of the muscles of the back, with pain in the kidneys.  In another statement, filed in December, 1884, he alleges that while in the service he contracted diarrhea and was injured in one of his testicles, producing a rupture.

Whatever else may be said of this claimant’s achievements during his short military career, it must be conceded that he accumulated a great deal of disability.

There is no doubt in my mind that whatever ailments he may honestly lay claim to, his title to the same was complete before he entered the Army.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 23, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 7703, entitled “An act granting a pension to Anna A. Probert.”

The husband of this beneficiary was pensioned in 1864.  He was a druggist and apothecary at Norwalk, in the State of Ohio.  Shortly before his death, in 1878, he went to Memphis for the purpose of giving his professional assistance to those suffering from yellow fever at that place.  He was himself attacked by that disease, and died on the 28th day of October, 1878.

His widow has never herself applied for a pension, but a power of attorney has been filed, authorizing the prosecution of her claim by another.