180th wedding anniversary
For members of the Longnecker (Longenecker) family
Lemuel Hall and Susannah Woofter were married on December 15, 1840. That’s exactly 180 years ago as of today.
They are my 4x great-grandparents, ancestors of my maternal grandmother, Belva Louise Longnecker.
They were both born in the early 1820’s in northwest Virginia (a part of the state that would eventually be part of West Virginia).
In 1841 — not long after they were married — the young couple set up their own homestead in Ritchie County, along a little stream called Bone Creek near what is now a town called Auburn. Lemuel’s two younger brothers, Lawson and Elisha, also both settled there with their own young families.
Lemuel and Susannah would have a whopping thirteen (!!!) children together. Perhaps even more impressive, given the time period, is the fact that all but one of them survived to adulthood.
Lemuel served his community as a magistrate, a kind of civilian judge that was commonly an elected position in isolated rural areas without easy access to formal courts. He was also a deacon at the local Baptist church.
I’m afraid we don’t know much specifically about Susannah. We do know she couldn’t read or write, but she did make sure that all her children got a good education. They all finished high school, even her daughters, so it’s clear that the family valued book learnin’ — which was not always expected in the mid-1800’s Appalachia.
As with most of our ancestors, we can’t really know a whole lot about the details of this couple’s personal lives. The qualities of their partnership, their parenting methods, how well each of them fit into their little community — we can only guess that they were content enough, based on the available evidence. And we can hope they lived happily together.
Happy 180th, Lemuel and Susannah.