John Ames, Private of Marines

John Ames. According to his pension application #W-20601, John Ames was born in April 1762. He was the son of John Ames and Mary Seldon. “Before he was of age,” while residing in New London, Ames enlisted on board the Confederacy as a Marine for the term of the cruise. He served under Captain Hardy from March 1779 to June 1780 when he was honorably discharged in Philadelphia. He is described by a family member as “near six feet in height.” A resident of Chesterfield after the war, Ames was married to Sarah Fargo, or Sally as he called her, daughter of William Fargo and Anna or Mercy Beebe of the “North Parish” of the First Congregational Church in Montville, CT by the Presbyterian clergyman the Rev. Dr. Roswell Cook on 24 November 1785. John’s brother-in-law William Fargo also fought in the war and was successful in the West Indies trade with his partner Daniel Douglas until he lost two ships in a storm. William Fargo enlisted as a private in 1776, was made corporal in 1780 and sergeant at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 under Lafayette’s command. John Ames left Connecticut with his family and wife’s brother’s son William C. Fargo on 23 January 1807 for Chenango Co. He moved to Plymouth, NY where he was a farmer. John Ames was placed on the pension rolls on 7 August 1818, with commencement of his pension allowance of $96 dollars a year beginning on 27 April 1818. He was dropped from the rolls in May 1820 but restored in October 1823. Robert and John Ames’ ten acres and log house were auctioned in October of 1821, having been foreclosed on by Egbert Benson executor for the estate of John Lawrence. It is probable that Ames’ forty dollar note was held by the former Captain’s Clerk of the Confederacy. John Ames of New York was declarent for Richard Pearse pension application in 1818. John Ames died on 11 October 1844 and is buried in the North Cemetery in Plymouth, NY. His widow Sarah Ames of Chenango County, NY was declarent for the same Richard Pearse’s pension application in 1845. His wife Sarah, born in 1767, died at the age of 95 on 14 March 1862 and is buried in the Old Plymouth Cemetery. Their children included son John Fargo Ames born 1790 and a musician in the War of 1812, Rufus, Salter or Sally, Samuel, Seldon, William , Alice (1787-1870) who married Phineas Newton, Mehitable or Hitty (1789-1876) who married Jonathan Morton, Robert (1794-1826) and Joseph born 1805 and also grandsons John R. and David S. Ames.