• Her parents being Connecticut people of New England ancestry.598, p 741

• Annis Nettleton is daughter of Daniel, son of Amos I.592, p 10; margin note by Jim Scofield

• “Mother knew but little of her line – only knew of a floating idea of a very wealthy Nettleton back some where whose filthy lucre was yet to make them all rich. What family does not look back to some such mirage? My Grandsire Nettleton [Daniel Nettleton] kept hotel on the present site of Prescott. Mother often attended the bar. In 1812-13 as the English were about to cross the ice for the capture of Ogdensburg Mother distinctly remembered the scene. She served two officers to their drinks before they started. Both fell in the attack before they left the ice – one across the other.
“For fear you have forgotten the courtship scene I must give it. In an evening party at Prescott all the young men were to hold the girls in turn on their laps. John Martin was very shy and dropped each girl until Annis Nettleton came, when he held her as nice as could be. The Martin boys always did know a good thing when they saw it.
“In mother’s home was but the one son, Uncle Moses, and a lot of girls, so mother became an expert in many boyish lines. Could row passengers across the wide St. Lawrence with ease, could ride any colt they would bring. She was in the “sampler” business up in G. Could to old age make a fancy letter in worsted. When it came to carding, spinning and weaving your grandmother led the hosts.
“In her prime my mother for her limited advantages was clear above the average. Her study of grammar, by the laws of heredity, may account for your skill in its use. [Here I blush modestly.] She took a grammar to school and all went well until it came to “He loves. She loves. They both love,” when she gave up in disgust.”
The young Annis Nettleton doubtless got a lot of thrills out of the War of 1812 from the fact that she lived at Prescott, a town which was the center of considerable war activities. Once the Yankees crossed the river and there was a real smart fight and lots of men were killed and wounded, and they used the tavern her father kept as a hospital. I remember that when I was a small boy my Grandma Martin used to tell me about going into a room in the tavern where they had performed operations, and of their seeing an assortment of dismembered limbs. I can still remember that as a boy I used to picture a pile of arms, legs and heads several feet in height.
[I could now swap yarns with grandma about what I’ve seen in a war hospital, too.]
And I have often wondered about those British officers who were served at the bar by the young Annis Nettleton to their drinks before they started across the ice to attack Ogdensburg. My Uncle Wesley, historian of the scene, wrote “both fell in the attack before they left the ice, one across the other.” My uncle neglected to state, however, whether they fell across each other as a result of the drink grandma served them, or whether they were laid low by Yankee bullets.
But there were other soldiers that the young girl bartender served to drinks, “and thereby hangs a tale.” It seems that one night she had dreamed of seeing the young man whom she was to marry, for doubtless a century ago, the girls dreamed of matrimony the same as they do in our own unregenerate day. But it happened that this young man was unknown to her, she had never seen the face before. A day or so later a party of British soldiers entered and came swaggering up to the bar. [I believe that soldiers always “swagger” when they approach a bar.] But among them the young bar maid instantly recognized one as the very one she had dreamed about whom she was to marry. He turned out to be one John Martin.
[My sister Lillian has strongly protested against putting in these archives that our beloved Grandma Martin has been a “bar maid,” when a girl. So it behooves me to explain that in those Colonial days every hotel had a bar and practically everybody was a patron. Personally I do not consider that it was any reflection on the young girl’s character, for it was doubtless a household duty that all the girls in the family took a turn at. The fact that three of her sons became Methodist preachers, and that all her children were devout Christians is sufficient proof to me that there is no call to look upon her services behind the bar as a family skeleton.]
John evidently saw that his coming had caused a flutter with the pretty bar maid – that he had made a “killing.” So doubtless he had a growing thirst for which he found it necessary to take frequent trips to the tavern to quench.
[My sister Luna has today – March 25, 1924 – remarked to me: “Now, Riley, I don’t think you should have written that the way you have. Our relatives reading that in after years may get the idea that Grandpa Martin was a drinking man. Of course we know different, but the coming generations won’t and they may think that what you have written is true.”
So, for the benefit of Martins of future generations, the above allusion to our grandfather’s “growing thirst” is only a figment of my imagination.]
But it was not until three years after the close of the war that John Martin and Annis Nettleton were married. How different it was in those days and a hundred years later. That the young girl, who was destined to become our grandmother, should have fallen in love with a uniform is taken as a matter of course by us today, who have so vividly before our minds the days of our own recent war, and the feminine infatuation for anything in uniform. The girls and their rookie lovers in “our war” never thought of waiting until the war was over before getting married, and before our boys rode away to France war brides were thicker than June bugs on a summer night.592, pp 5-11

• This young woman - Annis Nettleton - was strong enough to row a boatful of people over the St. Lawrence, so that says something about her! Her grandfather, Amos Nettleton, had served on both sides of the Revolution War (many people had changes of opinion about the War).1346, p 2

• The Nettleton Hotel was also used as a hospital during the war, and Riley, as a young lad, remembers his grandmother speaking of it. The young girl had an indelible memory of the operating room where she once encountered a collection of “dismembered limbs.”1346, p 15

• At the age of 15, Annis was serving as a barmaid in the tavern during the War of 1812. That’s where she met young John Martin. She had dreamed of meeting the man she would marry but did not know what he looked like. She recognized Martin as the lad she had dreamed about.1348

• I did not know the father, but became well acquainted with the mother in later life. Her residence then was with her children in Rockford, Illinois. The traits of character prominent in her earlier days were still in evidence. Even then, she was remarkable for intelligence, vigor and saintliness. She loved the house of God, and communion with His people was her delight.
There were seven children, six sons and one daughter, and the mother’s traits seem to have been, in uncommon measure, inherited by them. They were virile, intellectual, ambitious and God fearing. I think that every one enlisted under the banner of the cross. Three of her boys became preachers, and each, in his own field, attained prominence and large usefulness. James was a spiritual evangelistic pastor and an eminent educator; Henry for fifty years served on prominent charges and districts in the great Rock River Conference, John Wesley for years engaged in successful city missionary work.1335, p 21

• Dad’s note: this was your great grandmother whom your dad remembers well. She visited us at Hamline in 1884 to attend graduation of your Uncle Edward. Dad was past 5 years old. Also Dad was taken to Rockford, Ill. in 1886 and saw her on her death-bed.1349

• An Annis [Nettleton] Martin apparently was in possession of some of [Samuel, b 1807] Bass's documents. The brother-in-law referred to, Freeman Woodcock, I find to have been the husband of Elizabeth Bass, a sister of Samuel. So far I don't quite understand why Annis had Samuel's papers. Annis was married to a John Martin, I believe.1350

• He had a brother-in-law residing in Ogle County, Illinois near Daysville. Annis Martin in that vicinity has his land titles & many other valuable papers in her possession. He says that his above mention Brother-in-law Freeman Woodcock knows where Annis Martin resides.1350, p 4

• 1806 Census: Augusta, Grenville, Ontario, Canada.1341
• 1813 Census: Augusta, Grenville, Ontario, Canada.1351
• 1823 Census: Augusta, Grenville, Ontario, Canada. 1 man, 1 woman, 1 son.1343, p 9
• 1840 Census: Washington Pct., Ogle, Illinois. 1111001/001001.1344
• 1850 Census: Nashua, Ogle, Illinois. Age 50, born Canada.603,604
• 1860 Census: Mt. Morris, Ogle, Illinois. Age 61, b Canada W.605
• 1870 Census: Rockford, Winnebago, Illinois. Age 70, b Canada. Living adjacent to son, Philetus.606
• 1870 Census: Ashton, Lee, Illinois. Age 71, b Canada.1345
• 1880 Census: Rockford, Winnebago, Illinois. Age 79, b Canada. Widow. Head. Father b NY; mother b Canada. Listed as Alice Martin [sic].1352

• In 1838, Mr. and Mrs. John Martin removed with teams from Canada to Ogle County, camping by night and journeying in primitive fashion by day for six weeks, at the expiration of which time they reached Lafayette Township.598, p 741

• John Martin and Annis Nettleton met one another during the War of 1812. Annis was in her early teens in those days, a bar maid in her father’s hotel, where the young soldiers would fortify themselves before facing battle. John was one of the soldiers.1355, No. 1