The third of the pioneer families in Guernsey County who were ancestors of Mary Elizabeth Waller, second wife of John Major Amos, was that of William B. Waller, who settled in Westland Township ca 1812 with his wife Sarah and some or all of his nine children.
The Waller name is fairly common in the records of Maryland dating back into the seventeenth century. William Waller was probably born in Frederick County, Virginia, from which county Berkley County was formed in 1772. A family record states that he was born in 1752 and came from Berkley County. Virginia. Berkley County borders on Washington County, Maryland. When West Virginia was formed in 1863, Berkley County became a part of the new state.
William Waller was born possibly in Frederick County, Virginia, on November 5, 1752, and died in Guernsey County, Ohio, September 21, 1832. There is no cemetery record of his burial.
Much of the information about William Waller comes from the statements made in his deposition connected with his request for a pension from his Revolutionary War service. He enlisted in the United States Army on July 29, 1776, for a three-year term At that time he was living between Shepherdstown and Harper's Ferry in Berkley County (then in Virginia). He served his full term and was honorably discharged July 30, 1779, near Stoneypoint Fort by Brig. Gen. William Woodford. He was in a company under Captain William Brady and served in the rifle regiment commanded by Colonel Moses Rawlins of the Virginia Line. Captain Brady made him a corporal and he served in that position during his enlistment.
In October 1781 he was drafted for three months in the Virginia Militia in Captain McCormick's Company in the regiment commanded by Colonel Morgan of Shepherdstown. He served until October 14, 1781, the Sunday before the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, when he was honorably discharged because of illness.
In his deposition William refers to the battles of Germantown and Monmouth. He was with the army at Brandywine but was not sent into the battle because of illness.
The 1820 federal census of Ohio lists William Waller in Westland Township with his sons John and Samuel in the same township. By 1820 Jesse was living in Morgan County, Olive Green Township.
The 1830 census shows William and John Waller in Westland Township, Joseph in Jackson Township, Samuel in Spencer Township, and Elisha in Cambridge Township. The townships of Jackson, Cambridge, and Spencer each have a boundary with Westland, where William first settled and where he was living when he died in 1832. So the families stayed close together.
In STORIES OF GUERNSEY COUNTY by William G. Wolfe (1943) the author listed all of the landowners of the county, township by township in 1840. William Waller had died on September 21, 1832, leaving his land to his wife Sarah for her lifetime. She died in 1848. Samuel had died intestate in 1835. The list follows: Westland Township: William Waller, 80 acres, Sec. 20; Claysville lots, Westland Township, Joseph Waller (kept a tavern); West Boston (a town in Westland Township that was laid out but existed for only a short time) Joseph Waller and Samuel Waller, lots; Jackson Township, William Waller, Sr., 20 acres, Sec. 12; William S. Waller, 160 acres, Sec. 24: Spencer Township, Joseph S. Waller, 75 acres .Sec. 3; Joseph Waller, 80 acres, Sec. 25; Cambridge Township, Samuel Waller (heirs), 80 acres, Sec. 4.
There is a possibility that the kind of research in land and will records in Frederick County and nearby counties in Maryland that Helen Spurlin and Harold Woodrow did for the Woodrow Line will reveal the ancestry of William Waller, but I am unable to do that. Perhaps some one else will be able to trace the Waller line.
William Waller and his family may have decided to come to Guernsey County because his brother Jesse had settled in Belmont County before 1806. By 1816 Jesse had purchased land in Guernsey County. (Records of the Zanesville Land Office as printed in "Early Ohioan's Residences from Land Grant: Records" by Mayburt Stephenson Riegel 1976, p. 55) Henry Waller of Bellingham, Mass., is a descendant of Jesse Waller and believes that Jesse and William were brothers. Waller family records indicate that William Waller brought his family to Guernsey County in 1812. The first land record that I have been able to find is dated October 23, 1816 and is for a tract of land of 54 acres in Range 3, first township, first section, part of the twentieth lot. This land had been held by nonresident proprietors and had been sold at various times for taxes due. The deed does not indicate how much William paid for the land. An interesting fact in the deed is that the land was part of a four hundred acre tract which had been sold at one time for one dollar and sixty cents, for the entire tract, the taxes due for the year 1807. (Guernsey County Deeds, Book C,p.181)
The list of landholders in 1840 indicates that only Joseph and William S. of William Waller's sons were living in Guernsey County. Samuel had died in 1835 and Elisha had gone to Hancock County, Indiana. He wrote a letter dated Greenfield, Indiana, 1841, in response to a request for evidence supporting his mother's claim for a widow's pension based on her deceased husband's military service.
William had requested a pension in August 1832. He died in September of the same year. A pension of $80 per annum was granted but he did not live to collect it. However, the amount due was paid to his estate.
In 1838 Congress passed a law awarding pensions to widows of Revolutionary soldiers. In 1841 Sarah Waller applied for such a pension and was awarded 80 dollars per annum, which she received until her death in 1848.
In 1876 the Jeffersonian conducted a census of citizens who were 76 years old or older in each of the townships and the town of Cambridge. Joseph Waller, then living in Cambridge Township was on the list. He was born in 1791 and was 85 years old. (Henry and Mary (Jackson) Woodrow were on the list for Jackson Township)
Samuel Waller
Samuel Waller, son of William and ancestor of Mary Elizabeth Waller Amos,
was born in 1785 presumably in Berkley County, Virginia. He died in Guernsey
County, Ohio, in 1835 and is buried in High Hill cemetery near Cambridge. He
married ca 1808/09 Margaret Graham, who died in 1876 and is buried beside
Samuel in High Hill cemetery.
The 1820 federal census shows Samuel and Margaret in Westland Township with six children all under 10 years of age, three boys and three girls. In the 1830 census he was living in Spencer Township with these children, 6 boys and 3 girls.
When Samuel died intestate in 1835, Margaret was appointed administrator of the estate. The only record at the Guernsey County Court was a statement that she had completed the administration correctly. There was no record of the disposal of the property. Land records show that Margaret paid on April 30, 1835, the amount due on 48 and 38 hundredths acres in the northeast quarter of Section 4, township 1, range 3 in Guernsey County. This was in the military district and had been purchased under the provisions of the law of 1821 which permitted installment payments for such land. She received a certificate signed by Andrew Jackson, President of the United States. Margaret then sold this property to James Gray for $300.
There is no record of the names of the children of Samuel and Margaret Waller, but a quit claim deed executed in Hocking, County, Ohio, and recorded in Guernsey County gives the names of four men that I believe were Samuel's sons. Jonathan Waller bought from William G. Waller and his wife Mary Anne, David Waller and his wire Maria, and Elizabeth Waller, widow of Hiram Waller, deceased, in consideration of the sum of one hundred dollars in hand paid by Jonathan Waller for which they do forever quit claim unto the said Jonathan Waller his heirs and assigns forever all our title, interest and estate, legal and equitable in the following premises with the appurtenances, situate in the County of Guernsey, State of Ohio, in the district of lands sold at Zanesville. Bounded and described as follows: the west half of the northeast quarter of section four, Township 1, range three, December 24, 1845. This is the 80 acres listed by Wolfe in Cambridge township as owned in 1840 by the heirs of Samuel Waller. (Guernsey County Land Records, Vol. S, page 237)
Jonathan Waller and Nancy Woodrow
Jonathan Waller, son of Samuel Waller, married Nancy Woodrow, daughter of
Henry Woodrow and Mary (Jackson) Woodrow on January 21, 1842. Nancy was born
February 18, 1824, and died February 12, 1899, aged 75 years. She is buried
on the Amos plot in Northwood cemetery, Cambridge, Ohio, and the grave
marker reads "Grandmother." She was the oldest daughter of Henry and Mary
Woodrow and grew to young womanhood on the family farm in Jackson Township
near Byesville.
After their marriage Jonathan and Nancy lived on a farm in Cambridge Township for several years. As indicated earlier, Jonathan bought from his brother land in Cambridge Township originally owned by his father Samuel. On October 31, 1846, he bought from George Turner and his wife Eliza Jane 40 acres lying in section 22 and section 23 in the fourth quarter of township 3, range 2 of the military district lands. (Guernsey Court records)
Jonathan and Nancy had three children: Jasper, who died in youth: Henry Jackson, who settled in Lancanster, Ohio, after serving in the Civil War, and died August 1877 age 34 from disease contacted during the war; and Mary Elizabeth, who married John Major Amos.
Soon after the birth of their daughter Mary E. on December 24, 1849, Jonathan and Nancy moved their family to Ross County, Ohio, where Jonathan died of a fever in 1858. Henry Woodrow brought his widowed daughter and her children, Henry and Mary E., back to the Woodrow farm where they lived until Nancy married David Orr and moved to his farm, which is now a part of Byesville. None of the children of this marriage survived and David died before 1811. In September of 1871 Nancy, who again used the name Waller as her legal name, borrowed four thousand dollars from William K. Gooderl, husband of her sister Hannah Elizabeth, and gave him a mortgage deed for the land that she had inherited from David Orr, about 120 acres. In 1812 John F. Woodrow, Lorena’s father and Nancy's brother, returned to Guernsey County and planned to make his home there. He bought the Orr farm from Nancy end brought his second wife,Mary Elizabeth Patterson, to this home after their marriage on December 24, I872.
After the death of David Orr, Nancy had returned to the home of her
parents who were becoming more frail with advancing age. After Henry
Woodrow's death in 1876, John Woodrow bought out the other heirs to the
Woodrow farm and moved his family there, selling the Orr farm for nine
thousand dollars.
John Amos took his bride to the home that he had established in Caldwell, Ohio, where he was a practicing attorney and owner of the local paper, The Caldwell Press. Five of his children, Ernest, Thomas Edgar, Herbert, and Kate were in the home. The youngest child John Wiley, only two years old when his mother died, lived with his uncle Thomas Amos on his farm.
About 1877 Nancy Waller went to live in the Amos home in Caldwell to assist her daughter with the children. She lived with her daughter until her death in Cambridge, February 12, 1899. She was a much beloved grandmother. The obituary from the Jeffersonian, probably written by John Major Amos, states: "She was a benediction to all who came within her Strong character, cheerful disposition, remarkable intellectual power, and strong common sense."
In early womanhood she became a member of the Baptist church at Mt. Zion and later at Caldwell and Cambridge.
Henry married Minerva Graybill and they had four children: Clark married Ivy Wamsley and had two children, Mildred and Paul; Henrietta married _____ Macklin; Charles C. b. 1869 d. 1952 married Gertrude Schweikert and had four children: Ora Concordia married Carl Ohliger, Gladys Catherine married O'Day L. Chaney, and Goldie Ila married Lloyd F. Hedges; Francis Marion married Ella Kern and had four children, Lee, Dorothy, Edward Woodrow, and Mary Kathryn.
Ila Hedges, daughter of Charles C. Waller and grandaughter of Henry Jackson Waller, corresponded with Henry Amos and sent a handwritten copy of the Waller ancestors and the descendants as she knew about them. Without her assistance I would have known nothing about Jonathan's ancestors. This chapter would have started with Jonathan. She is one of the many people who have made this work possible.
Henry told me about the Lancaster Wallers coming to visit the Amoses in Cambridge. Mrs. Hedges recalled the visit also. She is now living in Florida.
More material about Mary Elizabeth (Waller) Amos and her descendants is given in the chapter on the Amos line.
John Major Amos was a believer in the "extended family." After his marriage to Mary E. Waller, her mother, Nancy Woodrow Waller, joined the family to help care for the children and remained until her death in 1899. Mary Elizabeth's grandmother, Polly (Jackson) Woodrow, one of the early pioneer settlers in Guernsey County, was living in the Amos home at the time of her death in 1893.
When John Woodrow died in 1902, his daughters Lorena and Carrie, were planning to enroll at Denison University in Granville. John was an uncle of Mary Elizabeth and the families had become close friends. John Major Amos invited Mrs. Woodrow to stay in his home while the daughters were attending Denison When Mary Elizabeth Amos became ill, Mrs. Woodrow managed the household until after the death of Mrs. Amos in 1904.
Mary Elizabeth (Waller) Amos was born in Guernsey County December 26, 1849, the daughter of Jonathan Waller and Nancy Woodrow. She was the great granddaughter of William Waller, Revolutionary soldier from Maryland and a pioneer settler in Guernsey County. She became ill in April of 1904, and when she did nor improve she went to Chicago, where her son Harry and his wife and son Henry were living. She entered a hospital where her illness was diagnosed as anemia with serious complications that were incurable. Her wish to be taken home was carried out She lived for a few weeks and died on September 11, 1904. She is buried in the J.M. Amos lot in Northwood Cemetery in Cambridge.
Fred L. Rosemond, a close friend of the family, wrote a tribute in which he praised her devotion to the Amos family, her belief in the importance of education, not only for her children, but for all the young people who came under her influence, her untiring support of the work of the Baptist Church, and her charming personality, courage, and devotion to high principles and ideals.
Persevering and enterprising, Mary Elizabeth worked untiringly for many causes. One of her projects was helping in the fund drive to build Burton Hall at Denison University. This she did by traveling extensively by train, carrying a brick and appealing for money to cover the cost of providing a certain number of bricks for the new building.