Document B.3 · military service card · transcription: verbatim
NJSA Revolutionary War service card — Benjamin Cooper as CLERK at the officers' election held at the White House, 25 April 1778. Abstracted from MSS 701.
- repository
- New Jersey State Archives, Trenton
- collection
- Revolutionary War card index — header "C Est'b. Hunterdon BRM"
- identifier
- Cites MSS. Number 701.
What is transcribed: The card, in full.
People named
| As written | Role | Identified as | What this document says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooper, Benjamin | subject | Benjamin Cooper 1741–1794 | occupation: 25 Apr 1778, Clerk at the officers' election, 4th Battalion Hunterdon militia |
| Godfrey Rinehart | mentioned | ||
| Ebenezer Berry | mentioned | ||
| Peter Brunner | witness |
What this document records
It abstracts b 3a
NINE ENTRIES, THREE ORIGINAL SOURCES. Five of this cluster's entries ([B.1], [B.2], [B.3], [B.4], [B.6]) are typed NJSA index cards made in 1915-1927 that abstract the other four: Jacob Smith's pension affidavit ([B.2a]), the election certificate ([B.3a]), and Jesse Hart's two abstracts in Auditor's Book B ([B.6a] p. 183, [B.5] p. 186). A card is never independent corroboration of the manuscript it summarises. This card's source is [B.3a] and its body is a close paraphrase of that certificate.
A non combat role worth noticing
Clerk, not captain. The card records him "Rank, Clerk at a meeting" — the officer who wrote and certified the return of a battalion election. It is a literate, administrative role, and it sits alongside the Benjamin Cooper material on his book partnership with an attorney and his reading as a Justice of the Peace. No conclusion is drawn here; that argument lives in the person file.
Transcription and notes
Provenance, and the fact that this card abstracts [B.3a] rather than corroborating it, are
in the source: and coverage: headers and are not repeated here.
- Data from the card (full transcription):
- "NAME: Cooper, Benjamin."
- "Residence: | County: Hunterdon."
- "Born: [blank]."
- "Ref. MSS. Number 701."
- Body: "Name, Benjamin Cooper; Rank, Clerk at a meeting held at the White House, April 25, 1778, at which Godfrey Rinehart was elected First Major and Ebenezer Berry Second Major, as certified on April 25, 1778 by Benjamin Cooper, Clerk and Peter Brunner, Inspector."