John Sackett MD

John Sackett MD, son of Major Buell Sackett and Sally Earl Beach, was born on 31 July 1785.¹ He died aged 41 in Nassau County, New York State^G, on 17 February 1827.^1,2 He married first say 1810, ___ ___. He married second in Colchester, Chittenden County, Vermont^G, on 10 May 1818, Lorrain Lawrence.^1,3 She was born in Essex, Vermont^G, about February 1794.⁴ She died in Vermont^G on 27 August 1879.⁵
     In 1876, Loraine applied for a pension as the widow of a veteran of the War of 1812. She claimed that she and John had married on 17 May 1814, four years before their actual marriage, apparently to show that they were married before the ending of the war in 1815. Her application was rejected as she had not provided proof of the marriage date. The law was changed in 1878 and, on 24 April 1878, Loraine filed a new declaration, this time stating the marriage date as 17 May 1816, still two years before the actual date but within the new rules. The application was accepted, regard being had to her already having received bounty land and to the testimony of John's uncle Isaac Sackett, given in the claim for the bounty land, that he had attended the marriage ceremony. Loraine was granted a pension of $8 a month backdated to 9 March 1878, the date of the new Act.
     Loraine stated in the pension applications that neither she nor John Sackett had been previously married. However, the birth of John Buel Sackett in 1812, if correctly assigned to Dr John Sackett, suggests that Dr John would have had an earlier marriage. Records of such a marriage and of John Buel Sackett's birth have not yet been found.²