1812 PENSIONER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 149, 25 June 1936, Page 9

1812 PENSIONER.

LONE WIDOW REMAINS. husband' fought against ENGLAND. VETERAN DEAD FIFTY YEARS. (By a Spccial Correspondent.) BUFFALO, N.Y., May 30. Only one name remains on the Federal pension roll listing widows of veterans of the war of 1812. The single name is that of Mrs. Caroline King, eighty-seven, resident of the j Evangelical Church home in suburban Cheektowaga. Each month Mrs. King receives from Washington, D.C., a pension cheque, representing payment for military services which her husband, Darius King, rendered to his country in a war which started 124 years ago. He has been dead fifty years. Mr. King, who was stationed at Fort Niagara, at the mouth of the Niagara River, when he was called to fight, is credited with having fired the shot which ended the life of General Isaac Brock during a conflict with British forces at Queenstown, Ont., October 13, IVI2. The recent death of Mrs. Lydia Ann Graham in Bushy Run, W.Va., left Mrs. King as the .last of the 1812 war widows. Before going to live in the church home two years ago, Mrs. King lived alone in East Aurora, N.Y., where a village street had been named in honour of her husband. She is deeply religious and spends much time in study of the Bible and in meditation upon its truths. "God is my refuge and my strength and He will take care of me as He always has," she told an interviewer. She attended her first Sunday school in Holland, N.Y., when she was twelve years old. Mrs. King's Bible is a large book, one that she lias treasured since she was a young woman. She has read it through [ many. times, .and its- pages_are worn

with use. She turns to it almost every evening after she lias read the daily newspaper. Mrs. King thinks modern girls at heart aren't much different than the girls of her own generation. "I don't believe they are any different than they were when I was young," she said.

"Of course, in these changed times, they arc more active and they do things that I would never have thought of doing. They may be a little wild at times, but I know they are good at heart."

Mrs. King was bbrn in Germany. Her parents brought her to this country when she was four years old. She has lived in Western New York most of her life.

She was married to Dariu3 King when lie was seventy-two and she was twenty. Mr. King died seventeen years later, in July, 1886.—(N.A.N. A.)