Scholefield Family Tree
Well, since what has been found only allows at a possiblity that Arnold and Abigail were Charles’s parents, it is time to cast our net a bit wider and look (or “relook”) at some additional resources.
A second websearch turns up an entry for Charles from politicalgraveyard.com which has a secondary subtitle of “The Web Site That Tells Where the Dead Politicians are Buried.”
Scholefield, Charles M. – of Oneida County, N.Y. Republican. Member of New York state assembly from Oneida County 1st District, 1859, 1862; alternate delegate to Republican National Convention from New York, 1868. Burial location unknown.1
This supports the biographical data already located. Additional resources on Google Books also list him in several lists of New York Assembly Members.
Another look at GenealogyBank (remember that re-searching is a good thing!) turns up some facts that help to spin a story about this person — the type of story that keeps me interested in genealogy because it makes the person metaphorically come alive. One of the collections available on the service is the “U.S. Serial Set (1817-1980).”
Several documents in that set reveal that Helen applied for a pension based upon her husband’s service in the Civil War.2 However, before she could receive relief, a small matter of $10,000 which was reportely owed to the goverment had to be settled.
During the war, Major. C. M. Scholefield was acting additional paymaster for the Army of the United States. His duties included recieving and paying out large sums of money and filing the resulting accounting statements and vouchers. When he was discharged, he settled the accounts and repaid to the government all monies that were outstanding. Or so it seemed. About a year before his death on 21 Nov 1869 it was discovered that an advance of $10,000 was made which he did not report as income and had not repaid at his discharge. This caused the government to lay claim to the money. A legal battle followed and the eventual verdict was that Scholefield’s signature had been forged. It took a congressional bill to negate the debt which had appeared due. Once the debt was cleared about 1882, it can be assumed that Helen recieved her pension.
1. Lawrence Kestenbaum, “Index to Politicians,” database, The Political Graveyard (http://politicalgraveyard.com : accessed 20 Apr 2009), entry for Scholefield, Charles M.
2. U.S. Congress, “U.S. Serial Set (1817-1980),” database with images, GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 20 Apr 2009), House of Representatives Report No. 327, 47th Congress, 1st Session (February 1882).
In going through some old family papers I found a series of original letters from Charles M. Scholefield written to my 3x great-grandmother dated from 1844-1950. Some of them were quite long – it appears that they went to school together in Spencertown and became very good friends. If any descendants of Charles are found and they are interested, please contact me. You can e-mail me through my website. The original letters belong to a cousin, so I can’t offer those, but I would be happy to provide transcriptions and scans of the actual letters.