Ann Honselman papers

Ann Honselman was a pioneer woman born on February 14, 1806 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania to John and Catherine Piatt. She married in Godfrey Honselman, son of Phillip Honselman, in 1832. Godfrey immigrated to the United States from Germany with his brother, Henry Honselman, who joined the Mexican War and was never heard of again. Godfrey and Ann moved to Piatt County, Illinois in 1939 and had five children together: William, born 1934, James, born 1936, Abraham, born 1838, Caroline, born 1841, and Melissa, born 1843. Godfrey Honselman died of a sickness in 1846. Honselman’s son, William, travelled to Colorado and Wyoming for mining opportunities and to fight the Indian tribes during the 1960’s. After William returned home, he lived with his mother until her death in October of 1905. He died in 1915 in Piatt County, Illinois. Another son of Honselman’s, James, married in 1865 to Nancy Keenan and had one son, Charles, born in 1870. During the American Civil War, he enlisted in Company H, Sixty-third Illinois Infantry in 1862 and served for one year. He died in 1912.