DEPOSITION: K
Deposition of: ROBERT SMITH
Case of: Charles N Nichols
Certificate #387.762, April 1900
On this 21st day of April, 1900, at 3 miles southwest of Marcellus, county of Cass, state of Mich., before me, H.L. Rothe, a special examiner of the Bureau of Pensions, personally appeared Robert Smith, who, being by me first duly sworn to answer truly all interrogatories propounded to him during this special examination of aforesaid claim for pension, deposes and says:
I am 60 years of age; my post-office address is Marcellus, Mich.
I am a miller.
I became acquainted with Charles N Nichols in 1873. I moved here in Aug. of that year and he lived one half mile from me then. I don't just remember how long he hired here, after 1873, but I think some eight or ten years. I couldn't tell you where he moved from here, whether he went to Marcellus or some other place. He moved around a good deal.
He says he went from here to Grand Traverse Co., in 1875 and did not come back to Marcellus until 1889. Did you see him in those fourteen years?
No. I think I did see him once but I didn't get to speak to him. He had a brother living right here on the hill.
What do you know of Nichol's health and his ailments before he went north?
Well, all I know is what I heard him complain. Late years, since he was here at Marcellus, I've seen him often at the Post and in town. He is bad off and can't do anything. The Post has helped him all they could for three years, and I heard the Superior say that the Township had to help him through two or three winters. I visited him in a sick spell in the past three years. What ailed him then I couldn't really say. Some kind of fever, I guess. They thought he wouldn't get well, but he did get better again.
Do you know any ailments he had at anytime?
He claimed he had the chronic diarrhea in the service. He told me that in the last six or eight years and said that the diarrhea had troubled him a good deal off and on ever since the war. I don't remember now that he complained to me of anything else in particular. He complained of different things, seemed to be about everything, but I don't remember anything else imparticular.
How was his health from 1873 to 1875, while he lived here, near you?
Why he complained a good deal. Well, at that time he complained of this chronic diarrhea a good deal, said it bothered him about all the time.
No; I don't know that he had the diarrhea only what he said. I couldn't really remember whether anything else ailed him then.
Yes; he used to at what he could do here. He was a day laborer on a farm then. He did not work for me, nor with me.
Did he ever have rheumatism or lung or throat trouble, or piles, or deafness?
He used to tell me that he had rheumatism. He complained of it while he lived here and since he came back to Marcellus and said he couldn't do much. I recollect once, five or six years ago, I saw him husking corn and he told me than that being down on the ground made him stiff & sore so he could hardly do anything because of rheumatism. I don't recall about the other ailments.
I have understood the questions and my statement as read to me is correctly recorded.
Deponent, Robert Smith
