Clement and Mary Voss

Related Page:
Voss burial site
Clement Voss will

My g-g-g-grandfather, Clement Voss, was born in Delaware or Maryland1 10 Mar 1786. He was of German ancestry. He moved to North Carolina2 and had married Mary Britton there by 1807. Mary (also known as May or Emily) was born in North Carolina 5 May 17813 and was of Welsh ancestry. The following sons were born to them in North Carolina:

  1. John G. Voss, born 1 Mar 1807,
  2. William Voss, my great great grandfather, born 1 Dec 1808,
  3. Francis Asbury Voss, born 10 Mar 1811,
  4. Thomas D. Voss, born 18 Dec 1813, and
  5. Emery B. Voss, born 15 Oct 1815.

I didn't have any information on just where in North Carolina Clement might have lived until I learned, via Judy Brown's web site, that there were Vosses listed in several different censuses in Stokes county. I found William, Phillip and Thomas Voss there in 1820, but no trace of Clement in either the 1810 or 1820 census. Judy says that a Thomas Voss, possibly her ancestor, was a witness at the wedding of a Clement Voss. We don't know if this was "our" Clement Voss, or how, or if, he was related to Thomas.

In 1816 Clement and Mary Voss moved to Lee County, Virginia, where their sixth and last son was born to them:

  1. Lorenzo Dow Voss, born 27 May 1818.

Lee County is located in the extreme southwestern tip of Virginia. After a short stay there, the Vosses moved on to Grainger county, Tennessee, which is not far from Lee County. Clement appeared in the 1830 census in Grainger county, on page 390, with a household which included:

These entries account for Clement and Mary, plus Francis through Lorenzo. Where are John and William? I couldn't find them anywhere in Grainger county in 1830.

In 1833, Clement and Mary Voss moved to Indiana, settling for awhile in Monroe County, where Bloomington is located, then moving one county south to Lawrence County by 1839. They may have brought some of their grown children with them, or the children may have come on their own at about the same time.

Some of the Vosses remained in Lawrence County, while others moved to other nearby counties. William Voss, cabinetmaker, and his family are listed in the 1850 U.S. census in Perry township, Lawrence county, IN. Lorenzo and his family have an adjacent entry. Clement and Mary moved to Clay township, Owen county, Indiana, in time for the 1840 census, which listed one person in each of the following categories in the Clemen Voss household:

We don't know who the teenaged male might be, perhaps a hired hand. Thomas is probably married and living elsewhere by this time. The 30-40-year-old male is probably John, who didn't marry until the following year. The Indiana Marriage Index lists a John C. Voss marrying Mary M. Wilson in Owen county, Indiana, 15 Jul 1841. John and Mary are listed in the 1850 and 1860 censuses in Owen county, in the latter on the page following Clemens Voss' entry. Some transcribers list Clement in 1860 as "Clemens Wise"! There were several Wilson families listed nearby in each census. By 1870, John and Mary had moved on to Greene county, which adjoins both Owen and Monroe counties.

Bureau of Land Management records include patents issued 30 May 1849 and 1 Oct 1852 to Clement Voss for two different 40-acre properties in Owen county. They were both in Section 10 of Township 9N, which would place them in the upper central portion of Clay township. It is possible these patents reflect the final legal transfer of Federal lands which Clement had occupied for several years.

Mary died 28 Feb 1858. On 17 Jun 1860, Clement married Mahala Wood in Owen county. Cousin Delores Starkman discovered this information in Indiana Marriage Collection, 1800-1941. Mahala Voss was born Jan 15, 1810, in North Carolina. Clement died in Owen county 25 Apr 1862 and Mahala 3 Dec 1867. We didn't have any information as to Clement and his wives' final resting places until Randi Richardson, who lives in Owen county, not only located their graves, but sent us photographs of their grave markers and of the Heddings Chapel cemetery.

Clement and Mary must have been devout Methodists, since they named two of their sons, Francis and Lorenzo, for early Methodist preachers.

The following information on the Vosses' North Carolina origins was taken from Descendants of Thomas Voss, by William Voss:

Some 200 years ago, my great-great-grandfather, Thomas Voss, settled in the Kernersville - New Garden area of Stokes County,4 along with some 20 other families from Maryland and Delaware. Thomas Voss (1769-1857) deeded his first land in the year 1796 on what is now known as Vance Road, 2 miles north of Dobsons Cross Roads, near Kernersville. Thomas Voss, married first Elender McDorman, the mother of William Voss, and possibly two daughters. He married second Mary Workman, daughter of William Workman...

The lands acquired by William Voss in the year 1826 remain in the hands of his direct descendants. This property is now located in Forsyth County and fronts approximately one mile on U.S. 158, 3 miles east of the intersection of U.S. 158 and N.C. 66.

See a map of this area (vosshome.jpg), approx 80 kbytes, then use your browser's BACK button to return to this page.

1 Delaware's 1790 U. S. Census records did not survive. A search of USGenWeb project's Delaware site failed to turn up a Voss. However, the Maryland site lists several Voss marriages in Dorchester county, next to the southwest corner of Delaware. One of the marriages was of a William Connerly Voss to an Elizabeth Keene on 21 Aug 1784. This is the only marriage listed there which would account for our ancestor Clement Voss' birth in 1786. Since Clement named his second son William, that's further evidence for this other William being his father. Clement's 1850 and 1860 census records both list his birthplace as Maryland.
2 There are two Vosses, Ephraim and William, listed in Dobbs county, North Carolina, in the 1790 census. That county formerly existed in the eastern part of the state, while Stokes county is in the northwest. There were several people named Britton in various counties of North Carolina, including a Joseph Britton who was listed on the same page in Dobbs county as the two Vosses.
3 The 1850 census for Owen county, IN, lists Clement and Mary's ages as 64 and 69, respectively. Clement's burial record and Mary's tombstone also indicate that Mary was 5 years older than Clement. The birth dates you see on this page are from a handwritten list I found tucked between the pages of William's daughter's family Bible. The list must have been written some time between John's death in 1872 and William's death in 1880.
4 The 1810 census lists a Thomas and a Philip Voss at different locations in Stokes county.

This page was last updated 21 Nov 2007.