John Aynes parents Gabriel & Sarah Aynes with their oldest children moved from Claiborne County, Tennessee to Indiana between 1828 and 1831. John, the seventh child, was born 31 Jul 1835 in Putnan County, Indiana. On 01 Mar 1855 he married Sarah Jane Russell Honeycutt, daughter of Urias Honeycutt and Mary Russell, in Nashville, Brown County, Indiana. John enlisted on 22 March 1865 at Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana in Company H, 13th Regiment of the Indiana Volunteers. He was discharged 18 July 1865 at McDougall General Hospital in Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina because of typhoid fever. He lived in the Salt Creek Township, Monroe County, Indiana following the Civil War and later in Lawrence County, Indiana. In 1876 he moved to Jackson County, Indiana. His Pension Certificate # 18209 lists him as 5 feet three inches tall, fair complexion, blue eyes and dark hair. Stories say that he suffered bad health as a result of medical problems in the Civil War. He was never in good health again, although he lived to be 65 years old.

John and Sarah packed up and boarded a train for Ft. Worth, Tarrent County, Texas in 1880. They stayed with relatives of Sarah until 1883 when they move to Brown County, Texas in an area that was later submerged when Lake Brownwood was created. This forced them to move to the Grosvenor, Brown County, Texas area. In 1892 John and his only son hauled limber form Coleman, Texas to build a nice frame house. This house is still occupied by his descendants. When John died on 12 Jul 1900 in 1900, Gabriel, who never married, bought his sister’s part of the place and he and his sister Phoebe and her children continued to live there. Phoebe’s two daughters Opal and Ocie Byrd lived there until they moved into a nursing home.

John and Sarah had eleven children, Mary Rebecca Aynes married Enoch Joseph Anderson, Gabriel Aynes single, Sarah Elizabeth Aynes married John Mitchell Starnes, Sarah”s twin that died in birth, two girls died in birth, John Francis Aynes who died of a broken neck in a fall from a school yard fence when 8 years old, Armilda Aynes married Oliver Wallis, Nancy Aynes married Sam Houston Martin, Phoebe Ida Aynes married David V. Byrd, Lucy Ann Aynes married James Jackson DeBusk.

Links to Aynes Sites
Aynes Genealogy and Family Resources
Aynes Surname – Aynes Genealogy