Pension to Boon, Clark

The following data is extracted from Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Grover Cleveland.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 23, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I hereby return without approval House bill No. 7931, entitled "An act increasing the pension of Clark Boon."

This claimant filed his declaration for pension February 3, 1874, in which he states that he lost his health while a prisoner at Tyler, Tex.

On the 19th day of October, 1874, he filed an affidavit claiming that he contracted diseases of the heart and head while in the service. In a further application, filed January 16, 1878, he abandoned his allegations as to disease, and asks for a pension on account of a gunshot wound in the left ankle. Medical testimony was produced on his behalf tending to show not only a gunshot wound, but a disease of the eyes.

A small pension was at last granted him upon the theory advanced by a board of surgeons in 1880 that it was "possible that applicant was entitled to a small rating for weakness of ankle."

A declaration was filed June 4, 1885, by which this claimant insists upon an increase of pension on account of the wound and also for disease of eyes and rheumatism.

I am entirely satisfied that all has been done in this case that the most liberal treatment demands.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

Source: Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Grover Cleveland

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