Up a Tree

This week we continue to look in the rich lineage lode of one of my multi-great grandmother, Orpha Morse. The Battle of Chickamauga Orpha married the Rev. Phineas Morse, and they produced four children, one of whom, Gershom Morse Barber, will be the primary subject of this missive. I have written somewhere else -- a Facebook post, I think -- about looking through photocopies of original documents I have concerning Phineas. Among the items I found was a document showing that his first wife, Orpha,  died and that he subsequently remarried.  One of the documents concerning this second marriage seems to show that he performed the marriage himself, something I wondered about in terms of legality. I subsequently learned that it was and is possible in some states to officiate your own wedding, but ... After I had scanned all the documents about Phineas, I took a last look through them before putting them back in storage. His second wife, Roxana, had applied for a widow's pension based on