1835 Bureaucracy Gone Mad--Uncle Brasher Henderson Swears for Peden and McDaniel swears for Brasher

Alexander Peden S21417 was born in Ireland in 1756 and was living in the Spartanburg District of SC when the Revolution broke out. He served five tours the Patriot cause and was injured more than once. He waited until 1835 to apply for a pension. When he did, James Alexander vouched for him and Brasher Henderson vouched that it was the real James Alexander who had done the couching. Then J. McDaniel vouched that Brasher Henderson really was an acting Justice of the Peace in and for the District of Greenville and that his signature was genuine.

The process at worst allowed for fraud, venality, and display of personal arrogance on a massive scale, and at best it allowed for this sort of identifying the identifier.

I noticed this because Brasher Henderson was one of my uncles, son of my GGGG Grandfather Ezekiel Henderson S6994, who in 1835 still had a decade to live.

Brasher was the maiden name of his mother, Elizabeth Brasher Henderson, whose father was a Tory and whose brothers were Tories. Her older sister Sarah was the wife of Dr. John Pyle, Jr., who with several Brasher families fled to Greenville, SC, after the war, Ezekiel accompanying them out of love for Elizabeth. One-eyed, one hand messed up, Uncle John Pyle soon moved on to KY and then Illinois, pursued by his reputation as one of the Tory leaders at Pyle's Hacking Party in 1781. The name "Brasher" seems not to have held this uncle back in his life in Greenville.

No one swore for McDaniel, so we know there are limits to Bureaucracy.

Cousin John Lakin Brasher, who preached an hour-long Methodist sermon for his 100th Birthday Celebration

P. S. Got the last cheap copy of the book by the grandson, Cousin J. Lawrence Brasher, The Sanctified South. Notice that Find a Grave has John Lakin Brasher dying in 1961, contrary to the 100th birthday celebration below. Click on the tombstone and you see that the year is 1971. Some of us lived a long time. Name: Rev. Dr. John Lakin BRASHER Sex: M Birth: 20 JUL 1868 in Etowah County, Alabama Death: 25 JAN 1971 in Etowah County, Alabama Burial: Brasher Church Cemetery, Brasher Spring, Etowah County, Alabama Note: Dr. John L. Brasher was a famous Methodist minister, who lived at Attalla, Alabama, where at his 100th birthday celebration, he preached an hour-long sermon. He owned a Methodist boook, printed in 1818, and inscribed "James Brasher, Sr., his book." According to his obituary, he was survived by three sons and four daughters, but the 1910 Census of Marshall Co., AL names a boy not listed in the obituary. In one news article about his 100th birthday: "Dr. Brasher has lived long enough to see his son, the Rev. James Hendricks Brasher, reach retirement age. He retired at the annual meeting of the Philadelphis Conference earlier this year." At Birmingham Southern College, shortly before his 101st birthday, he preached a memorial service for conference members who had died during the previous twelve months. In his sermon, he recalled the history of the Chrisian Church from the death of Jesus to the present, placing special emphasis on the spiritual side of the faith. His profound sincerity and quick wit frequently stirred the audience of several thousand delegates from near tears to outbursts of laughter. It left little doubt that heis not only the oldest member of the conference, but one of the most aware. "It's not the wrinkles on the face that makes folks old. It's the wrinkles on their spiritual life," proclaimed Dr. Brasher, who limits his sermons to "whenever I feel up to one." He lives on the family's old home place at Brasher's Springs, some seven miles west of Attalla. (from B'ham News, Wed, Jun 11, 1969)

A Miracle? A Tory Ancestor of the Holiness Preacher John Lakin Brasher Transformed into a Patriot?

I don't find evidence that James Brasher, son of Tory Thomas Brazier, was a Patriot. Thomas certainly was a Tory, along with his neighbor Dr. John Pyle, the father of Thomas's son-in-law Dr. John Pyle, Jr. (the brother-in-law after the War of my GGGG Grandfather Henderson). The shamed Brasher men migrated as a group with young Dr. Pyle and young Private Henderson to Greenville, SC (the Patriot who must truly have loved Elizabeth Brasher), after the war, and then some of the Brashers went on to Shelby County after Alabama was taken from the Creeks. Anyone see that any of old Thomas's sons was a Whig? Did the family sanctify history? I ask as a descendant of old Thomas and a cousin of John Lakin Brasher.