06/01/2024
In the last 10 years or so, the Friends of Edgewood Cemetery has done yeoman work in restoring and maintaining Pottstown’s Edgewood Cemetery. A priceless piece of the borough’s history the cemetery was abandoned and inexorably descending into ruin before this group stepped in and saved it. To draw the public to the cemetery the group is now performing programs highlighting some of the famous people buried there.
Their most recent production, “Women of Edgewood” was given on May 18. Anna Maria Jones was one of the ladies portrayed. As an example of successful women in Pottstown’s history, Jones, even though she isn’t buried in Edgewood, certainly belonged on the program.
Over the years I have written about spoke about her many times. This is her story.
Anna Maria Jones owned a thriving business on High Street more than a century before women would have the right to vote in this country.
Born in what is now Upper Pottsgrove Township May 22, 1753, Anna Maria was a daughter of Melchior Shaner, who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1742.
For reasons now unknown she was living in Philadelphia where she met George Spangler. They were married April 17, 1775, just two days before fighting between Massachusetts militia and British infantry at Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
On September 26, 1777 the war came to the Spanglers as the British army occupied Philadelphia. Less than a year later, June 6, 1778, the occupation ended with the British marching back to New York City leaving behind people who were still loyal to the British crown.
The Revolution was America’s first civil war and, unlike the Civil War of 1861 – 1865, where combatants usually didn’t know each other, this one often pitted neighbor against neighbor. This poisonous atmosphere translated into serious trouble for those who backed the losing side.
This became apparent in Philadelphia, when in the wake of the British withdraw many of those who aided them were arrested. George Spangler was one of these unfortunates. Apparently, he had acted as a guide for British forces. This was enough to have him thrown into the old Walnut Street prison, where he was “loaded with irons.” At his trial Spangler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to be hung
The sentence was carried out August 14, 1778. He recorded in his almanac, “Am to Dye on Friday the 14th. God have mercy on me I humbly pray.”
Spangler’s ex*****on meant hardship and deprivation for his family. With her husband dead, Anna Maria Spangler was now responsible for their welfare; with no resources she asked for permission to leave Pennsylvania to go to New York, which was still under British control.
On arriving she petitioned the governor for aid, and her memorial stated that in the wake of her husband’s ex*****on “her goods were sold at public auction and herself and three children, and an aged mother [mother-in-law] were left with nothing.” The record then noted that “rations were ordered” for their relief.
After Spangler’s ex*****on that family changed their surname to Laub, the maiden name of Spangler’s mother, which was quickly anglicized to Leaf. Thus, the Leafs in Pottstown, are really Spanglers. It is a genealogist’s nightmare.
By 1781 she returned to Philadelphia and there married Englebert Mintzer, an inn keeper in the Northern Liberties. Eventually they bought a farm in Pottsgrove, that, since 1888, is now in Pottstown, east of Charlotte Street and north of Beech. They had three children, and Englebert Mintzer died in Pottsgrove Township February 24, 1791, aged 38 years.
Anna Maria married a third time to Amos Jones. It is known that he was in business in Pottstown, but left his wife and went to Baltimore. At some point he returned to the borough where he went into business with a partner, and his deserted wife had the pleasure of seeing that business fail.
The pleasure of seeing Jones go broke was probably extra sweet because she was successful. She owned property that had a 150-foot front on the south side of High Street. (That area includes the site of the Van Buskirk hardware store.) That, in addition to being her residence, also had an inn, which was a stage coach stop, and a dry goods store. Along with that parcel she owned property north of Beech Street, which was probably the farm she and her second husband had.
Anna Maria Jones died November 13, 1813 and was buried next to her son, Joseph, on that farm. In her will she donated about half an acre of ground for the first Catholic cemetery in Pottstown. Because there was no road leading to it she further stipulated that people would have the “liberty to pass and to go to and from the same at all times either to bury others and to see the graves of those who may be buried there.”
The cemetery was at the southeast corner of, what is now Evans Street and Lincoln Avenue. When the property was sold for development in the 1880s, the cemetery was decommissioned, and the bodies reburied in other locations. Anna Maria Jones’ body and her son, Joseph’s, were transferred by her grandson, Frederick Missimer, to his lot in the St. Aloysius Cemetery on East High Street.
Her gravestone is still there, but it is very difficult to read the inscription, which is “ANNA MARIA JJONES, Died Nov. 3, 1813. Aged 60 years, 5 months,
