According to the on-line Illinois marriage records, Lucinda Martin married Moses VanNess in Coles County on 31 March 1847.  Other records show that his middle initial was C.  He had also been born in Ohio about 1826 and was the son of John and Rachel VanNess, who were shown in the 1850 census to be residing in Coles County (Greasy Creek Precinct).  Twenty years earlier, the 1830 census showed a family headed by John VanNess in Logan County, Ohio, and that family did include a boy under 5 years old, so that probably is where Moses VanNess was born.

It should be noted that Moses's family name is spelled inconsistenly in the censuses and other early records. It is shown as "Vaness" in the 1850 and 1880 Federal censuses and in the Iowa State Census of 1856, "Vanesse" in the 1870 census, and "Van Ness" in the 1900 census.  However, I have favored the form "VanNess" here, as it appears in the 1860 census, in the roster of the Southern Border Brigade, and in a 1923 obituary of Moses' brother John, from the Fremont County [Iowa] Herald.  The early handwritten records appear even more inconsistent, because some of them use the old-fashioned "long s" (which looks like an f), hence: VanNeſs.

As of 1850, Moses and Lucinda were residing in Coles County, New Albany Precinct.  Sarah Martin (now a widow) and Archelaus are listed on the same census page, and Ambrose Martin and John Martin, Jr., are on the preceding page.  By 1854, when their fourth child was born, they had relocated to Iowa.  The Iowa State Census of 1856 shows them in Fremont County, Scott Township.  Four years later, the 1860 Federal Census puts them in Ross Township.  The family apparently remained in Fremont County through the Civil War, and Moses and his brother John both served in the local militia known as the Southern Border Brigade.

By 1870, Moses and Lucinda had relocated to Nodaway County, Missouri (across the state line, but no more than 50 miles from their previous home in Iowa).  As of 1880, they had moved a few miles west into Atchison County, Missouri (which actually adjoins Fremont County, Iowa).  The next available census, after 1880, is from 1900, and it shows only Moses, then a widower, living with his son John in Belleville, Republic County, Kansas.  So Lucinda had passed away sometime prior to 1900, and, indeed, according to Elza Martin's letter, she had died sometime before 1897.

I also have not yet learned when and where Moses died.  Some researchers assert, INCORRECTLY, that he died on 12 May 1901 at Marshalltown, Iowa.  There was, indeed, a man by that name who died that day at the Iowa Soldiers' Home in Marshalltown, but he was a different Moses VanNess, who had been born in New Jersey, who had served in the Wisconsin 32nd Infantry, who was married to a woman named Sarah born in Maryland, and who had lived in Clinton County, Iowa, before moving into the Soldiers' Home.

The last positive information I have about Lucinda's husband Moses comes from the Belleville [Kansas] Freeman of 17 October 1901.  A listing on page 10 shows that the Republic County Board of Commissioners that week had approved paying a "witness fee" of $1.60 to M. C. VanNess.  Page 6 of that same paper reports "John VanNess has moved to Courtland.  His father and son have gone to Graham county to raise stock."  So as of October 1901, Moses was alive and apparently well enough to testify in court, to undertake a 120-mile trip, and to negotiate for the purchase of livestock.

I know of seven children born to Moses C. VanNess and Lucinda Martin, but I have only the sketchiest of information about their later lives (for all except John):

• Sarah C. VanNess, 1847–???? (before 1880) (married Joseph Mooney).
• Rachel J. VanNess, 1850–???? (before 1892) (married Levi James York).
• John W. VanNess, 1851–1922 (married his cousin Ella S. VanNess).
• Isaac E. VanNess, 1854–???? (after 1910) (married (1) Ada J. George and (2) Susan Kleckner).
• Jasper VanNess, 1856–1944 (never married).
• Susannah VanNess, 1859–???? (after 1870).¹
• Cyrus VanNess, 1864–???? (after 1900).²

If you can provide any additional information about Lucinda, Moses, or their descendants, feel free to contact me at the address shown in the image below.