Posted on: Wood Co. Wi Bios Forum Reply Here: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Wi/WoodBios/10137 Surname: DEAN, GADDUS, HART, MERCER, MORRISON, STUCK, WHYSONG ------------------------- Ann Maria Burnworth Hart Dean Biography In a beautiful timbered valley that laid between the turbulent Monongahela and the swift, capricious Youghiokeny Rivers nestled a small clearing. It had been hewed out of a hardwood forest and most of the stumps still stood in the meadow and around the small cabin in a fertile valley in the southwest corner of the state of Pennsylvania. This one special valley laid in Fayette county and this one special cabin was the home of J.G. and Elizabeth BURNWORTH. Ann Maria was the first child born to J.G. and Elizabeth and was born on November 03, 1820. Ann Maria’s mother was born on December 31, 1788 and died February 13, 1860. The father of Ann Maria was J.G. BURNWORTH, he was born March 20, 1799 and died November 05, 1865: married Elizabeth WHYSONG when he was not yet 21. The childhood of Ann Maria must have been a happy one, “if” says one of her grandsons, “she ever had a childhood". She, like all pioneer children, learned early in life the tasks that would required of her. She probably started first be helping with the dishes, then there was the butter to churn with the wood plunger; then butter to “work” in a wooden bowl with wooden paddles; churn, plunger, bowl and paddles all made by hand in the home: wool to card; then there was sewing, spinning and weaving: sometimes there were candles to dip and all the other numerous tasks that kept the pioneer family clean, healthy and well fed. It is presumed that the home of J.J. and Elizabeth was exceptionally well cared for since all the persons from that home lived to a ripe old age, free from affliction which were common in those days. It was a happy home, judging from the tales that Ann Maria was to tell in later years. She attended the religious meeting when ever they were held in the valley. She joined in the frolicking and” funning” of the neighbors which consisted of house-raising, corn shucking parties (where the youthful shuckers were always on the look out for the coveted red ear which gave them the right to kiss the contestant of their choice); There were quilting bees and barn dances, or dancing in the various homes. Ann Maria used to tell a ghost story that had its setting at such a dance, only this time the dance was held in a deserted old cabin. The night of the dance the valley folks all gathered at the cabin, the Burnworth family coming later then the others. The neighbors of theirs were all fearless men and women. Such things as famine, wars, beasts, and fights were taken in their stride, but the supernatural “doings”, the ghost that lurked in dark areas and the hoot of an owl, or the howl of a hound dog, the eerie shriek of the wind, sometimes even the shape or color of the moon, foretold ominous dangers. Most pioneers believed in the superstitions with all their hearts, staking their very lives on the beliefs. Not so Ann Maria. She never lost an opportunity to “show up” the ghost and this ghost in the deserted cabin was just several such stories as she used to tell about. When the BURNWORTHhs arrived at the “gathering” the story of the ghost was told and it was about some unfortunate pioneer who had met a horrible death on the loft of the cabin. Ann Maria Picked up a lighted lantern and started for the now dark cabin. Neighbors pleaded with her not to go looking for trouble. Some of the young men, ashamed that a mere girl was not afraid of the ghost, joined her. Inside the cabin they found a pole ladder that led up to the loft and Ann Maria climbed this, lantern in hand. At the floor level, the lantern was held high and Ann Maria peered into the darkness until her eyes grew accustomed to the shapes about her and them she saw the ghost. It was a huge broken spinning wheel. A wind swept through the loft, turned the huge wheel on creaky old joints and when it reached a broken portion it shrieked and squawked a bit and then went back to moaning and groaning. Ann Maria always laughed when she told this story. She used to tell about other things that she recalled. Said she once seen a alligator in the Monongahela River. Since the alligator was not a native of those water it was presumed that some Mississippi River boatman dumped the critter there as a prank. She roamed the woods about her home, gathered hickory nuts in the fall; picked berries in the summer months; picked the flowers that grew in the meadows. Once, as she gathered flowers, she was bit on the little finger by a deadly copperhead. The treatment for that must have been rough as it left her finger scarred and twisted. There was no schools in the sparsely settled section of the state. Anyway, book -leaning was considered wasted on little girls. Ann Maria was a grown woman when she learned to read but she never did learn to write, used an X to sign her name. Ann Maria watched the pack horses Come over the mountains from the east, bringing new settlers; saw the lumbering red, white and blue Conestoga wagons moving westward; the flat-boats poled up the rivers toward the Ohio; saw the steam-boats churn up the Monongahela; and with the passing of time, she saw canals dug across the state of Pennsylvania, and when she was grown, she saw the steam trains come. She was still just a little girl (13 years, 8 months and 6 days) when she married Moses Jefferson HART. Her husband was 14 years older than her and very little is known about him. He was born September 11, 1806, died February 05, 1856. He and Ann Maria were married on July 09, 1834 in Fayette county, Pennsylvania. Moses was an herb doctor, probably never saw the inside of a medical school; but he, like many of the other pioneer doctors, is credited with giving these early settlers the only medical aid that they could reach or afford. He taught Ann Maria the curative values of the herbs which they gathered about the countryside; The pennyroyal; the wintergreen; yarrow, used for curing minor ills and as a tonic; the dandelion used as a vegetable or wine, or the roots used for treating liver complaints; he taught her how to distill essence from the herbs from their roots and leaves; how to make peach brandy and apple-jack for medicinal purposes, from her husband she leaned a charm used to stop bleeding. She often said that she would leave that secret to some member of the family but it is thought that the secret died with her. Another remedy which she often used in later years for rheumatism was a concoction of Needle Gum and Oleum Oil and rubbed into the aching joints. There were 12 children born to Ann Maria and Moses; the first, a son, Simpson B., was born before his mother was 15, there was Sarah, who lived but a day, Mary E., who lived a year and a half, then Martha Ellen, who married James MORRISON and lived to be 92 years old; the John GADDUS, the rebellious Ruth Ann, who walked out of her mother’s heart and life during her teen age; Eliza E., who become Mrs. Henry STUCK; then a little boy George Washington , who lived but a day, Lafayette B. was next; then Minerva J., who married George Wood; a little boy Anthony W., who lived a one year and a half; and last was Mary Ann who was only a year old when her father died, she later became Mrs. John MERCER. At the time of Moses’s death, there were eight living children, ranging in the age from 21 years to the baby. Simpson and Martha Ellen married shortly after their father’s death. That left 14 year old John as the eldest of the six children still at home. It was necessary for the children to take such jobs as the neighborhood offered and for Ann Maria to nurse or sew, work she was qualified to do. A granddaughter recalls hearing Ann Maria speak of tailoring men’s clothing, doing all the work by hand . It was 1860, when her mother died. That was the year when Lincoln became president; the year when bitter feeling were voiced between the north and the south, There were many families from the southern states that lived in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, and the tension between them and the dyed-in-the-wool northerners grew with passing time. In 1861, an elderly widower, Stephan DEAN, a Methodist circuit rider, rode into Ann Maria’s life. They were married February 17, 1861. It was in 1861 that the war between the north and the south started, Both Simpson enlisted in the Union forces; both took part in some of the important battles of the Civil War. John contacted eye disease during that time from which he later became totally blind. Both young men received honorable discharges in 1853/ . The Stephen DEANs and their little daughter Emma Jane, born February 05, 1862, and younger members of the HART family, Martha Ellen and James MORRISON and their three little children, Abigail, Ross and Joseph; William Morrison and his wife Susan, made up the party to settle in the Nasonville, Wood County, Wisconsin. Simpson, his wife and children moved first to Indiana and later followed their relatives to Nasonville. All of these families became pioneers in their new homes, respected members of the area and most of them lived the rest of their lives in Nasonville. In 1873, Stephan Dean Died at the age of 91; again Ann Maria was a widow. This time all her family was married except the 11 year old Emma Jane. Shortly after the death of Stephen, the first wife of Simpson HART died and he came to live with his mother. For the rest of her life, Ann Maria made her home with Simpson and his family. After the marriage of her daughter, Emma, to Andrew Gottfrey, Anna spent much of her time visiting the various members of her family; staying with each a few weeks or months, welcomed and loved by all of them. A year before her death on February 01, 1905, there were 5 generations. In an interview at that time , Grandma Dean said she had nine living children, 42 grandchildren, 72 great grandchildren and 10 great-great grandchildren, a group of 133 persons. At the time she was working on a 80 piece quilt, this one making a total of 50 pieced during her life time. This quilt was exhibited at the next county fair. In conversation she was very entertaining and recounts happenings of the pioneer days with a vivid recollection of the happenings of yesterday. She marveled at the changes in Marshfield and its vicinity, how the ox teams were giving way to automobiles and the little wooden buildings to the row of brick business blocks. When she died the following year, she was buried in the Nasonville cemetery, near her second husband, Stephen, and other members of her family. “She was a good representative of the pioneer stock of Americans, hardy, brave, pious, honest and upright” Submitted by Marlys Steckler Link: Marlys Steckler Homepage URL: <http://www.rootsweb.com/~wiwood/resource/r-marlys.htm>