This site was created by Larry Shively who is researching the history of the Shively families. The goal is to have a site where all Shively researchers can share and ask questions in regards to their Shively lines. The largest majority of the Shively family records are located in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. There are early records of Shively's also in Virginia and Kentucky. There are not many established Shively lineages back to Europe. There are documented lineages to Switzerland and Germany. Through the sharing of information from all of our research it is desired that all can learn about our Shively families.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Joseph Warren Shively And Wife, Amelia L. Kent Of Portage County, Ohio

Civil War Navy Survivors Certificate
Recently on Footnote a unique set of records were located entitled Navy Survivors Certificates from the Civil War.  These records are the pension applications for the veterans who served in the Navy.  Included in these records is the application for Dr. Joseph Warren Shively.  The records within this application are a wonderful history source for the genealogist working on this Shively line.
Dr. Joseph Warren Shively enlisted in the Navy on January 15, 1861 and was discharged on March 18, 1865.  He held the rank as surgeon ranking with Lieutenant and was stationed in Cairo, Illinois.  His original pension was issued as $12.50 from October 31, 1885.  On May 25, 1889 this amount was increased to $18.75.  The justification for the pension were listed as disease of the heart and nervous system.  Reasons listed on the application for the pension included rheumatism, pain in right shoulder, affliction of the heart and bladder and general neurosis.
  Included in the pension information is a copy of the marriage certificate for Joseph W. Shively and Amelia L. Kent.  They were married in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on 5-October-1863.
 Also included in the information is a death certificate from the District of Columbia for Joseph Shively.  The date of death is listed as February 14, 1897 at the age of 63 years.  It states he was born in Columbiana County, Ohio.  He was buried in Kent, Portage County, Ohio.  
  Following is part of the information extracted from the application:  I am the claimant & base my claims for a pension on the following grounds.  When I entered the U.S. Naval Service in 1863 I was a healthy man as the act of the Medical Board which passed upon my professional & physical fitness will attest & when I left in 1865 I was broken in health as the Medical Survey held upon me a few month previously will show.   After my resignation which was chiefly due to ill health I resided for one year at Massillon, Ohio, my former home.  I then suffered from palpitation, irregularity & other abnormal symptoms of the heart.  I was afflicted with frequently recurring carbuncles & boils.  I suffered from a wearing pain in my right scapula & shoulder.  I also had frequent attacks of bladder irritation.  These symptoms have followed & clung to me ever since.  Sometimes better, sometimes worse.  A close correlation seems to exist between them.  Of late years, say four or five, my heart has been better but my shoulder & bladder are getting worse.  The trouble in my shoulder consists of pain, numbness, & loss of power & motion of the muscles attached to the scabula & supper arm.  I have no rhumatism in these parts of the body.  The bladder trouble consists in frequency of micturation with pain & distress and atony of that organ.  The urine is sometimes loaded with the urates & phosphates & sometimes perfectly normal.  I have found both sugar & albumen in it.  For about ten years after moving to my present residence, E, I, from 1866 to 1875 I was engaged in the drug business, thinking my health was better suited to it, then home country practice.  Since 1875 I have been engaged in the practice of medicine doing an office village practice chiefly but whether practicing my profession or otherwise employed I have been fearfully handicapped by my infirmities in the race for success.  During the first ten years after my resignation, I depended mainly for medical advice & treatment upon my former preceptor & friend Dr. A. Metz  of Massillon O. now deceased who were he alive now might (    ) testify to my continued ill health  after leaving the Navy & to my good health prior to entering it.  I have also consulted my medical colleagues of this place (Drs. Sawyer, Sherman & Price).  I have been largely guided by their advice & suggestions.  But treatment has uniformly failed or been at best only palliative.   I have found the best treatment to consist in general tonics such as strychnine  (  ) & (   ) & rest.  I formerly fancied my heart trouble to be organic, that of my shoulder to be due to aneurism or tumors beneath the capaula.  My bladder affliction to depend upon enlarged prostate. But later I have come to the conclusion that all my troubles are  ( ) neurotic dependent upon a broken down (   ) or on some profound & permanent derangement or injury of the nervous system caused, brought about, by over work & ailments malarial, climatic & other unsanitary influences, to which I was exposed during my service in the Navy.   One thing is certain, that I entered the service a strong & healthy young man, and that I left it & since remained a broken down man.  That pains & infirmities have been my constant  companions that I have been more or less incapacitated from doing the common acts of life properly let alone performing manual labor.
      Witness
        S. P. Wolcott                                            Joseph W. Shively
        R. A. Thompson
   

2 comments:

  1. I am in possession of Dr. Shively's application for promotion to Surgeon, US Navy. You can view images of the biographical sketch which relates his 2 years of service since commissioning as an Assistant Surgeon. You can view it on several of the Family trees on Ancestry.com.

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  2. Mr. Herman....Thank you for sharing this information. Those who are related to this family appreciate the "lead" on where this information might be found. Thank you again.

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