Chasing the Past



Fletcher-Ammons Genealogy 


Genealogy Trees and Research    Cemetery Listings         Personal Thoughts

Surnames    Ammons      Hunley    Wenzel   

Radway    Morris    

    Chasing the past one cemetery at a time:  It started out so simply I did not even know I would soon be staying up late at night looking for the "dead".  My hobby quickly took on a life of it's own.  Remember when you were a child and the school planned a field trip, it was so exciting just to be out of school for the day.  Well, my trip with my sister in law Dona was a grown up field trip I will always cherish. 


Candy Fletcher-Ammons

Dona Ammons-Fishburn

Ammons Cemetery in Fairview West Virginia

    Genealogy is an addiction or maybe even a disease of sorts.  If you get exposed to it you should either embrace it or run as fast as you can and get away.  If it gets its hooks into you it will drag you along until you fall asleep at night trying to figure out some minute detail about the family tree. No one who is not addicted would never understand why you would even care. My addiction began in 2002 after being exposed to it by Joy Franklin of Michigan (via Oregon and California).  I have made her an unofficial Ammons relation for all the nights she didn't get to sleep until 3 a.m.  because she was helping me go page by page though censuses online on a dialup connection!  When I began my genealogy with Joy's help she already had 18 binders of genealogy work on her family lines.  She is an excellent researcher and a stickler for details and documentation. "Genealogy without documentation is just a fairy tale" she has told me several times, and she is right. Such is the reason I always include the comment " a work in progress" with anyone I share information. 

    I really wanted to share the Ammons hunt with my sister-in-law Dona.  Lucky for me Dona already had a love of family history.  I was fortunate that when I asked her to join me on my trek to West Virginia and Pennsylvania in 2005 she said yes.  I knew Dona and I would have a good time no matter what we uncovered.

    So off we flew to hunt the PA and WVA lines of the Ammons family.  I took her to see the family headstones in Millsboro PA, at the cemetery that my sister Ginger and I had found on another trip.  It was quite by accident earlier in 2005 that Ginger and I found it as we were leaving town.  We had been driving all over the town and getting  discouraged that there wasn't another cemetery in the town when I stopped at a stop sign to head out of Millsboro.  I looked up as we were about to turn and there on a hill was a church with a cemetery behind.  So off my sister and went to explore it.  Later in the year on my trip with Dona I took her to see her distant ancestors including Henry Ammons (b. 1779 ) and his wife Amy (Bowel) Ammons. (b. 1798) their headstones and others were in what was known as the Millsboro Cemetery,  (Millsboro, Washington Co  PA).  Age had taken its toll on the stones and they were only partly readable. In speaking with a gentleman who lived above the cemetery he told us that 45 percent of the graves are now unmarked and no complete listing of the cemetery exists.   Henry and Amy are Dona's great-great-great grandparents.  Henry and Amy's son Joshua M. Ammons was a Justice of the Peace several times when the area was known as East Bethlehem and later Millsboro. His wife Rachel (Swindler) along with two grandchildren are buried with Joshua and are noted on the headstone.  Henry and Amy (Bowel) son John C. Ammons went into the civil war in his brother Henry's (Jr) place.  Henry and wife Rachel lived in Newton, Jasper Co, IA.  Just recently I located a document online for his brother Henry army registration in Iowa and it reports a substitute went in his place.  Unfortunately John contracted tuberculosis in the Civil War and was in very poor health he died before his 27th birthday. He has a marker by the GAR near his original headstone in the Millsboro Cemetery.  Included in his pension papers was a copy of the letter he sent to his mother Amy from the battlefield and is written in his own handwriting.  (Click on the link "pension papers" and "copy of the letter" for more information.  As for the rest of their children:  Eli P. and wife Jane Ryan moved to La Salle Co,  IL, (this is who Dona and siblings are directly related to) Issac H. and wife Susan Ryan moved to La Salle Co. IL, William B. and wife Mary Ann Smith moved to IL (Mary Ann was widowed and left Illinois to live by her son  David in Nebraska),  David Bowen and wife Sarah  moved to Madison Co, Ohio,  Hannah Ammons married Amos Ammons of the WVA line and moved to Ohio near brother David then later to Ohio. They later moved again back to Ilinois near her other siblings.  

  Family members of the WVA line of Ammons also lived within a county distance from the PA line.  Another son of Henry and Amy was Thomas Finley.  He married  Elizabeth Roseberry.  The Roseberry family was in America during the early 1700's.  Thomas and Elizabeth stayed in Rices's Landing area of PA. They are buried in Hewitts Cemetery.  Thomas died when he contracted Typhoid Fever along with about 60 others in the Monglehea River area of Rice's Landing.  There was at least one other son who was named George.  He died young per family documentation and their is a mention of a boy named Dan who can be presumed to of died as a infant or child.  There was daughter named Susan Ammons.  She was 23 in the 1850 census and his not listed as a living child when Amy has to give written testimony for her son's pension in 1866.   There was a child buried by the family in the Millsboro Cemetery which reads  "son of W. and M. Ammons-Died Jan 20, 1819 Age 1 yr 6 mos. 8 days.  I think it is likely this child was a nephew of Henry's since it is in his family plot. and is the same age range of children that Henry and Amy were having children.  It is also possible that he was connected via the Ammons part of the family that settled in the northeast area of West Virginia.  In the Ammons line W often found to be William and M for a woman is often Mary.  There was a William Ammons and family who lived in the area per the census takers prior to 1850.

 John Ammons Civil War 18th PA CAV

       After Dona and I left Rices Landing and Millsboro the next stop was Marion County WVA to try and find the old Ammons Farmhouse and Cemetery.  The farmhouse was built in the 1800's by Benjamin Ammons.  We knew the farmhouse existed because of the story titled "This Old House" by Bessie Ammons.  Bessie actually grew up in the old farmhouse and in 1952 was working with her sister Prudie on the family history story.   Those who were connected to the farmhouse were requested to correspond with her so she would have all their imput to write the story of "This Old House."  She did a wonderful job.  When I had taken my PA trip previously with my  sister Ginger to Waynesburg PA we had found the story at the Cornerstone Genealogy Society.  It took my sister's wonderful patience to convince the genealogy volunteer to copy it for us as it was very long.  My sister kept her talking to keep her copying until the 70 plus pages was complete.  

   Fairview WVA 1950's or 1960's.

     Dona and I knew from old photos that a fellow researcher sent to me that the farmhouse was close to a coal mine named Lovers Mine.  We drove up and down the road by the coal mine but could not see anything that looked like a farmhouse.   Finally we went back into Fairview. The local library was closed and the books were packed in boxes to move to a new building.  The people at the Library in Marion County previously were unable to give us directions to the farmhouse either.   We decided to stop at a house to see if we could get some help finding the place.  Dona went to a house and talked with a lovely elderly lady who told us the property was right back where we had come from.  She said the Ammons had to sell the property several years ago and the new owners had used it for target practice.  She told us that we would only see a path from the road and we might be able to fit out car on it and walk into the area.  We drove back along the road and saw a path with just enough area to park the car just as she said.  We walked around a gate and when we got out of view of the street we saw the farmhouse.  Sadly it was collasped upon itself.   We later learned it  was in such bad shape it was considered a  hazard in its delapilated condition.  It was made to collaspe on itself to prevent anyone from being in the broken down old house and have it collapse on them.  It was very sad to see it in such a state as we had seen pictures of it taken years ago when it was standing.   The farmhouse was built by Benjamin Ammons for his wife Permelia (Sine) and their family.  Years later Benjamin was widowed and he moved to Seymour Iowa to live by his son and  heis buried in Southlawn Cemetery in Iowa.  His headstone reads "born in Fayette Co PA."  Words like that are like gold to researchers.

 August 2005

Photo of the house taken in the 1950's or early 1960's.

    We walked farther into the property to see if the cemetery was hidden by trees and was out of our view.  We didn't have any luck finding it so we took some photos and headed back towards the car.  On the way back we could see a path that looked like it had not been used in years.  We decided to walk up it and see if we could see anything.  It was so hot and humid that we were worn out climbing up the hill.  About two years later I learned that we should of been carrying walking sticks because copperhead snakes were common on the property, ahhh.  Finally I got to the last bend in the path and could not see anything ahead of me but brush. The heat was getting to us and we were so dry and thirsty so we headed back into town disappointed. We drove around for a bit looking at other cemeteries near the town and headed for the Marion County Library about 35 miles away.  There was a person at the library this visit who said they knew that the cemetery was on the property and it was on a hill behind the farmhouse.    Well, no matter how hot and tired we were we didn't come all the way from California and Oregon to not see it if at all possible.  So we headed back to the property and began to climb the hill again.  It could not of been 20 feet further around the last bend I had walked up to before.  The view of it had been just a little farther than i could see the first time I made the climb.   But success at last.  It was an amazing feeling to see the name Ammons on so many headstones and a little creepy too.

Ammons Ammons Everywhere!

                                                   Surnames: Fletcher, Ammons, Morris, Bloodgood, Berman, McGuire, Tuck Goddard, Radway, Brown,  Davis, Newtson/Knutson, Wenzel, Hunley/Hundley, Kraeling, Doll, Bell, Aschbacher, Grable, Bowel, Crago, Ryan, Crum, Demaranville, and more.

My current genealogy email address can be found on ancestry.com message board under Ammons surname or genealogy.com message boards.