Welcome to the history of the family of Henry Amos and his descendants and the history of the family of John Bonnell and his ancestors and descendants. This history looks at some of the ancestors of their spouses as well -- the Cooke family, the Childers family, the Frey family and others.
Both Henry Amos and John Bonnell came to western Virginia in the late 1700s. Their story is the story of people who lived in a time very different from ours and who came and settled in an area very different from the West Virginia of today. It is the story of people who risked their lives to settle in the wilderness and who fought for their land and for the rights of all people to live in freedom there. Out of the stong belief of the people who lived in the western part of Virginia, a new state was born -- West Virginia -- and the descendants of the Amos family and the descendants of the Bonnell family were found on both sides of the conflict. Our lives are enriched by the lives of those who came before us.
John McCutcheon, in his song “Water from Another Time” expresses it much better than I …
“New mown hay on a July morn
Grandkids running through the knee-high corn
Sunburned nose and a scabbed-up knee
From a rope on the white oak tree
Just another summer’s day at Grandpa’s farm
With Grandma’s bucket hanging off my arm
You know, the old pump’s rusty but it works fine
Primed with water from another time.
It don't take much, but you gotta have some
The old ways help the new ways come
Just leave a little extra for the next in line
They're gonna need a little water from another time.
…Newborn cry in the morning air
The past and future are wedded there
This wellspring of my sons and daughters:
This bone and blood of living waters
And, though Grandpa’s hands have gone to dust,
Like Grandma’s pump: reduced to rust,
Their stories quench my soul and mind
Like water from another time.”
Because all family information is personal, you'll need a username and password for this site. Contact me using the compiler link below for that. Once you have the password, click the second link in the menu above and have a sip of our “water from another time”
Dede Burnell