Staggs Family History

My ancestors in the United States

recent posts

      Thomas Ayers (1755-1836)

      BIRTH: 1755, Harford County, Maryland, USA
      DEATH: 13 Mar 1836, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, USA
      FATHER: Unknown1
      MOTHER: Unknown
      SPOUSE: Elizabeth Almony (1757–1857)

      Thomas Ayers was born in 1755 in Harford, Maryland. He served in the American Revolutionary War. He had four sons and three daughters with Elizabeth Almony between 1784 and 1800. He died on March 13, 1836, in Beaver, Pennsylvania, having lived a long life of 81 years.

      The life of Thomas Ayers

      A Maryland Soldier’s Life

      Thomas Ayres was born in 1755 in Harford County, Maryland, a region of rolling farmland, timbered hills, and tight‑knit families whose roots stretched back to the earliest colonial settlements along the Chesapeake. He grew up in a world where the rhythms of life were shaped by the land, the seasons, and the growing tensions between the colonies and the British Crown. By the time he reached young adulthood, the talk in taverns and meetinghouses had turned from taxes to liberty, and from liberty to war.

      A Young Man Goes to War

      When the Revolutionary War erupted, Maryland raised several regiments for the Continental Line. Thomas enlisted in the Maryland Line, the backbone of the state’s contribution to the Continental Army. His earliest surviving records place him in the 5th Maryland Regiment, under Colonel William Richardson, and later in Captain John Lynch’s Company.

      The Maryland Line was known for its discipline and its willingness to stand firm in the worst moments of the war. These were the men who had held the line at Long Island, who had fought at Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, and dozens of lesser‑known engagements. Thomas served during the middle and late years of the conflict, a period marked by constant marching, shortages of supplies, and the grinding endurance required of Continental soldiers.

      A surviving reenlistment return dated February 22, 1779 records Thomas as having reenlisted “agreeable to orders,” confirming his continued service as the war entered its final years. Additional muster and pay records from 1776–1783 show the Maryland Line’s movements, supply shortages, and the administrative machinery that kept the army functioning. Thomas appears again in the 1784 Maryland Line pay settlement, receiving compensation for his wartime service — a final acknowledgment of the years he had given to the cause of independence.

      Return to Harford County

      After the war, Thomas returned to Harford County, where he married Elizabeth Almony (1757–1857), a woman from another long‑established Maryland family. Together they raised a large household, as reflected in the 1790, 1800, and 1810 federal censuses. Their children included:

      • Thomas W. Ayres (1786–1788 – after 1850)
      • Richard Ayers (1797–bef. 1870) — our direct ancestor
      • Several other sons and daughters whose names survive only through census reconstruction

      Thomas farmed, paid taxes, and lived the life of a Maryland yeoman farmer. He was not wealthy, but he was respected — a veteran, a landholder, and a man whose family was woven into the fabric of Harford County.

      A Veteran in Old Age

      By the 1820s, Thomas was an elderly man. Congress passed the Pension Act of 1828, granting benefits to surviving Continental soldiers. Thomas applied and was approved. His pension records list him as a Private, Maryland Line, residing in Harford County. His name appears in:

      • The 1828 Act pension list
      • The 1835 Pension Roll
      • The Harford County pension tables
      • The General Accounting Office final payment voucher

      These documents confirm his identity, his service, and his continued residence in Maryland into his seventies.

      Sometime between 1815 and 1820, several of his adult children — including Richard and Thomas W. — migrated to Beaver County, Pennsylvania, part of the great westward movement of Maryland families seeking new land. Thomas himself followed late in life, joining his children in Beaver County, where he spent his final years.

      Death and Final Record

      Thomas Ayres died on 13 March 1836, a date preserved in the federal Final Payment Voucher issued by the General Accounting Office. This document marks the last official acknowledgment of his Revolutionary War service. His pension payments ceased with his death, and his name passed into the rolls of those who had fought for the nation’s independence.

      Legacy of Thomas Ayers

      Thomas Ayres left no grand monuments, no published memoirs, and no portrait to hang on a wall. His legacy survives instead in the quiet, durable records of a life lived in service — to his family, to his community, and to his country.

      He was one of the thousands of ordinary soldiers whose courage and endurance made the American Revolution possible. His service in the Maryland Line, his reenlistment in 1779, and his presence in the 1784 pay settlement place him firmly among the men who carried the burden of the war’s hardest years.

      His children and grandchildren carried his name from Maryland to Pennsylvania and beyond. Through his son Richard Ayers, and through Eliza Ann (Ayers) Stone, his bloodline continued into the generations that followed — farmers, laborers, soldiers, and citizens who built the communities of western Pennsylvania and, eventually, the families alive today.

      For our family, Thomas Ayres stands as:

      • A Revolutionary War soldier
      • A Maryland patriot
      • A pioneer ancestor
      • A man whose life bridged the colonial era and the early republic
      • And the foundational figure of our Ayers → McCreery → Stone lineage

      His story is now preserved — not only in federal records and pension rolls, but in our family’s history, where it belongs.

      Parents

      FATHER: Unknown1
      MOTHER: Unknown

      Married

      Elizabeth Almony (1757–1857) on 1 Jan 1784 in Maryland

      Children

      • Proven children
        • Thomas W Ayers (b. 1786-1788–d. Aft 1850)
        • Richard Ayers (1797–bef. 1870)
      • Probable children (census reports)
        • Mary Ayers (b. 1784-1788–d. Aft. 1805)
        • Sarah Ayers (b. 1790-1795–d. Aft. 1811)
        • John Ayers (b. 1795-1800–d. Aft. 1814)
        • Ann Ayers (b. 1795-1800–d. Aft. 1817)
        • William Ayers (b. 1800-1805–d. Aft. 1819)

      Documents

      Footnote

      1. Based on all surviving evidence, the man who most likely fathered Thomas Ayers (1755–1836) was John Ayres of Harford County, Maryland, one of the very few Ayres men living in the county at the time of Thomas’s birth. No primary document explicitly names Thomas’s parents, but the circumstantial evidence is unusually strong: Thomas was born in Harford County in 1755, and the only Ayres household in that area capable of having a son of that age was John’s. Tax lists, militia rolls, and the 1776–1778 allegiance and supply records show John Ayres living in the same district where Thomas later appears as an adult. The two families are consistently clustered with the same neighbors — the Almony, Forwood, Bond, and Montgomery families — and Thomas’s later marriage to Elizabeth Almony strongly suggests he grew up beside the Almony family, exactly where John Ayres lived. Naming patterns reinforce the connection: Thomas named a probable son John, following the common Maryland custom of naming the first son after the paternal grandfather. Taken together, these geographic, chronological, and cultural indicators make John Ayres the overwhelmingly likely father of Thomas Ayers (1755–1836), even though the mother’s name remains unknown. John Ayres was born between 1720 and 1735, and probobly died between 1783 and 1790.

      Relation of Thomas Ayers to Steven Barry Staggs: 4th great-grandfather

      Page last updated June 21, 2025

      Search the Staggs Family History site