Annie Effinger: The Lost Effinger Connection

One of the most interesting interconnections in our overlapping family history is that of the Effinger family of Harrisonburg and the Massie family. George Michael Effinger was the eldest child of Ignatius Effinger, the Hessian Soldier who changed sides in the Revolutionary War and became George Washington’s bodyguard. He and his English wife, Elizabeth Hope, had eight children. The first daughter, Maria, was the fourth wife of William Massie of “Pharsalia”, the second daughter, Elizabeth, married William’s son, Thomas J. Massie. Thomas was the son of William’s first wife and was only a year younger than Elizabeth. The third daughter married B. B. Taliaferro of Amherst in 1867 and lived in Roseland. The fourth daughter married Philip Nelson as his second wife after he returned from the Civil War. This strong Nelson County connection was a result first of Elizabeth Hope Effinger’s death seven months after the birth of Frances followed by the death of their father 11 years later. Elizabeth married Thomas J. Massie in the same year that her father died, 1843, and while I do not have the date of the marriage, it was likely shortly before his death. Thus both Maria and Elizabeth were living at Pharsalia in the care of their elder sister and her husband as that is where they are shown in the 1850 census, but by 1860 Frances was living on the Blue Rock farm with her other sister, Elizabeth.

My interest in reviewing this history is that there was also in this time period yet another Effinger girl who I had struggled for years to place with the family. She was named Annie A. Effinger. She was of interest since she was married to John Ott, the U. S. and Confederate Treasury official who during the war had carried on an active correspondence with Maria Massie and at the time of Maria Nelson’s marriage to Robert Mahone had written him a wonderful letter of marriage wisdom that Robert retained his entire life. In December I discovered that Annie and John in fact had living descendants and I was able to contact one of them, Leigh Stoll Bryan, to determine just how they fit into the family. It turned out that Elizabeth Hope was George Michael Effinger’s second wife. He had first married Ella Pattie Good while still living in Woodstock, VA. As a veteran of the Revolutionary War his father presumably had been awarded land in Kentucky, and due to the opportunities that lay in the new west Michael took his young family across the western mountains to settle and begin a new life. It is likely not known how many children they had but one born in 1810 was named Joseph S. Effinger. At some point, likely before 1813, the family was attacked by Indians and all were killed except for Michael and baby Joseph. Unable to care for his young son and manage a farm in the wilderness, he returned to Woodstock, Virginia to start over. He likely married Elizabeth in 1813 since Maria Catherine was born early the following year. Together they raised Joseph who was the father of Annie Effinger who was born in 1837, ironically in Kentucky. She was named for her mother Ann Hoge and felt enough connection to her Effinger cousins that her husband maintained a correspondence with the family that is treasured as part of the family history.