Cynthia Black accidentally stumbled into her late husband’s pension fraud when she applied to receive her widow’s pension.

Cynthia Black, Benjamin’s third wife, wasn’t a branch on the family tree that I’d paid much attention to before now. I wasn’t aware of much documentation about her, other than my great-grandmother Lola’s handwritten notes.

If you read to the bottom of my last post, you found the big plot twist: Benjamin Black did not serve in the Mexican-American War at all, yet he fraudulently filed for and received pension benefits as a Mexican War veteran!

I came across quite a gold mine of information today concerning my great-great-great-grandfather Benjamin Franklin Black. He’s been a bit of an enigma and until recently, I had not known about his military service. I ordered the pension file. It arrived today and…well, WOW.