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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

AMMERMAN  FAMILY

It has been said in the chapter on first settlers in this county that Robert Johnson, uncle of James and Thomas Johnson and Mrs. George Snodgrass, disappeared from the picture in Kentucky as far as any connection with Maries County affairs was concerned. It is likely--more than likely--that he did; but he may not have. The follow­ing are the only known facts concerning him: He was a revolutionary soldier, and he moved away from the then home of the Johnson family in Kentucky.

 

About the year 1810 a Robert Johnson appeared in War­ren County, Missouri, having come there from Kentucky. He was an old man, as old age went in those days, and had been a soldier in the revolution on the side of the colonies, so such meagre facts as we know about both the Robert Johnsons--if there were two--agree. Still there were

 

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many Johnsons in the patriotic army in the revolution, and likely several of them were named Robert so the only thing the writer knows to do is to say what could have been: The Robert Johnson who moved to Warren County and who had a daughter, Jane, who married Isaac Ammerman, could have been an uncle of the Johnsons and Mrs. Snodgrass who settled in this county. Such few things as we know of both of them agree; more facts might confirm the possibility--or they might altogether upset it.

Anyway, Jane Johnson, daughter of Robert, and Isaac Ammerman were married, probably in Kentucky, and af­ter coming to Missouri made their home in Warren County the remainder of their days. Both died and are buried in that county, together with one of their ten children.

Nine of their children came to Maries County of whom Philip Hibler, not the oldest but the first to come here, arrived in 1838. He was soon followed by the remaining children: Nancy, Jennie, John, Samuel, Isaac, William, Joseph, and Sanford. Four of them stayed here the re­mainder of their lives, and the other five stayed here for varying times, but none of them any great length of time.

Of the five who moved away, Sanford, the oldest child was married here May 23, 1839, to Rebecca Newberry but later moved to and died in Polk County. Samuel mara Smithers, his heirs, listed in 1875, were recorded as his widow, Susan, and four children: Susan J., Isaac J., William B., and John W. Ammerman. The last three are recorded as being in Delaware County, Iowa. Isaac moved to Illinois and was there married; his wife was a Sutton. William married Lydia Newberry here and moved to and lived in western Missouri about the time of the Civil War. Joseph moved to and died in Idaho.

Philip Hibler (Hib) Ammerman, most widely known of the family, was born in Warren County in 1821, and came

 

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here about 1839 or 1838. Soon after coming here he mar­ried Sarah Ann, daughter of John and Elizabeth Carroll, who was born June 1, 1823, and died July 18, 1887. The young couple settled on the Dry Fork just north of the Johnson Settlement and thereafter made the place their home. Hibler Ammerman was thrifty and a good trader--traits inherited from his German ancestry--came to be a man of means. He drove much stock to St. Louis and Jacksonville in partnership with Hiram Lane, and on their return from one of these trips was threatened with hang­ing by a band of robbers who invaded his home. They par­tially carried out their threat, but did not pro fit by it, and he was thereafter reasonably free of inteference. Both died on the place they had settled.

 

Of the six children born to them one, Willard B. Am­merman, is still living at Belle. Joseph died single. James married a Sprewell and moved to Arkansas. All connection with him has been long since broken. Conrad was the father of four children by his marriage with Irene, daughter of John Wallace, but all of them died in infancy. The descendants of the only daughter, Jane, by her mar­riage with James, son of T. J. Johnson, is given else­where. After the death of Johnson she married W. L., son of Elijah Joyce, and by him was the mother of a son, John Joyce of Phelps County.

 

John Carroll Ammerman, the sixth son, who succeeded his father in the ownership of the home place, was born on it August 11, 1845, and died near Belle March 5, 1925. He was married February 14, 1867, to Jane, daughter of Dr. William W. Henderson, who was born in Jackson County, Missouri, October 10, 1850, and died in this county July 19, 1934. They were the parents of two chil­dren, of whom Thomas (Babe) died single Thanksgiving Day, 1917. Ida May, the other child, married Charles Perry Wofford, under which name her descendants will be found.

 

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John Ammerman, brother of Hibler, married Eliza Jane Carroll, the other daughter of John and Elizabeth Carroll. She was born in St. Louis County, August 15, 1821, and died in this county July 17, 1908, having out­lived her husband something like forty years. She was the mother of four daughters who lived to be adults, of whom Lee, wife of Richard Bucklew, died childless.

Of the remaining three, Enfield, the oldest, was mar­ried April 1, 1868, to Thomas Benton Huston, an ex-Con­federate soldier, who was born in Troy, Missouri, Decem­ber 2, 1838, and died in this county November 14, 1921. They spent most of the remainder of their lives in this county, having lived in St. Louis some twenty years. They were the parents of seven children.

George W., the oldest child, born January 30, 1870, was married in Cincinnati in 1914 to Ethel Bodie. Most of his active years were spent with the Spokesman Publishing Company in that city, publishers of several trade papers. He died there July 19, 1934, childless. Blanche, also de­ceased, married Henry Montgomery and died in this coun­ty. Of her seven children Douglas, Margaret, and Helen, now Mrs. Eugene Nanney, live in St. Louis; Ethel lives in California; James, Joseph, and George live with their father at Bowling Green, Missouri.

The Huston children living are: Eliza, widow of George O. Hambley in St. Louis; Edward R. at Vichy; Bettie, now Mrs. Otto Krebs, James and Don at Flint, Michigan.

Lydia, second daughter of John Ammerman, married Frank Lennaman, for many years a blacksmith here, and later at Lindell and Vichy. Both Mr. and Mrs. Lennaman have been dead many years, as has also their oldest daughter, Stella, who married Tom Rogers, under which name her descendants will be found. Bettie married Lee James and is also deceased; her children are listed under

 

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that name. John lives at Vichy, as does Lena who married Charles, son of Charles Dehn; Anna married Charles Ostrander and has lived most of her married life in St. Louis.

Ten children were born to Josephine Ammerman by her marriage with Henry Parker, of whom one, John, died in infancy. Jennie married Charles A. Ewen of Sedalia and died leaving one daughter, Lucille, who is now the wife of Jack Shoemaker of Ossawatomie, Kansas. Georgia mar­ried Trail Robb of Sedalia and died childless. Maude died single. The living ones are: Jessie, wife of Henry Gillispie of Vienna; Clarence and Clay, both of Colorado; Claude of Garden City, Kansas; Mamie, now wife of T. M. Russell of McPherson, Kansas; and Ray at Hammond, Indiana.

Jennie Ammerman, probably the youngest child of Isaac and Jane Ammerman, was the first wife of Philip Johnson, which see.

Nancy (Aunt Nan) Ammerman, the remaining daughter and the only one of the family to marry before coming here, was married to Charles W. Sherman in Warren County. They soon removed to this county and spent the remainder of their lives here. Their three children were: Margaret (Maggie), Joseph, and James M. Sherman. Mag­gie married Bert Hammond and removed to Colorado soon after the marriage, where she thereafter made her home. She is dead and relatives understand she left four chil­dren, but their names and present addresses are not known.

Joseph Sherman served throughout the war in the Con­federate Army and was thereafter married to Katherine Graham in Warren County. They, too, made their home in this county. Of their three children William and Shelby live in Rolla and Jesse lives on Lanes Prairie.

 

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James M. Sherman, the remaining son, married Mary E., daughter of William S. Johnson. She was born May 19, 1854, and died August 23, 1912, survived almost twenty-years by her husband. Their five living children are: Ray, wife of Thomas Tynes at Belle; Orpha, now Mrs. Bingham Burlingame of Blackwater, Missouri; Fern, now Mrs. Blake Johnson, Harrisburg, Illinois; Pearl, now Mrs. Wassaher of Los Angeles, California; and Amy, now Mrs. Bee Holloway of Louisiana, Missouri. Two children, Guy and Maude, died single; Mamie, wife of Edmond Miller, died June 6, 1903, leaving a daughter, Dale, now wife of Loyd Lough of Louisiana, Missouri.

Since the foregoing was written the writer has, in con­nection with another search, discovered an Ammerman and a Sherman who are unknown to such other mem­bers of these families as have been reached. William Sherman and Enfield Ammerman were married in what was then Gasconade County, April 12, 1830, by William Henderson, Justice of the Peace (in about six weeks, on April 23, 1839, he also married Sanford Ammerman and Susan Newberry). On February 19, 1842, William Sherman entered the upper forty acres of the present Charles Moman farm on the Dry Fork, and on May 1, 1845, he sold it to Philip Johnson. No further record of either of these people appears, but the name 'Enfield' which seems to have been an Ammerman family name, was repeated in the case of Mrs. Benton Huston, so it is likely Sherman's wife was a sister of Hibler and the others. They may have gone back to Warren County from which the Ammermans as well as the Shermans came, or they may have moved elsewhere.

 

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