Amon Lane / Ammon Lane

AMMON LANE, who on the Gloucester City War Memorial is listed as Amon Lane, was one of six Gloucester City men who were "Lost in Sacrifice" during the First World War. His death was among a small number that were overlooked when the book "History of Camden County in the Great War 1917-1918" was compiled in 1919, and to date this website has found few records pertaining to his civilian life, military service, or his death. He was born in new Jersey on November 4, 1885 to Daniel F. Lane and the former Harriet Wirth.

Ammon Lane appears in the 1900 Census, which states that he was born in November of 1884 and was, as mentioned above, working as a machinist. He lived with his parents, Daniel and Harriet Lane, and five siblings, at 410 Monmouth Street in Gloucester City.

Daniel Lane was a somewhat prominent citizen in Gloucester at the time, as he was the City Clerk. Besides Ammon, the family included older siblings Hilda, 18, and Daniel, 16, as well as three younger children, Leo, 14, Sarah, 10 and baby Edward, 1 year of age. Two other children had died by 1900.

Ammon Lane had worked as a machinist in his youth, and is listed in the 1907 Camden City Directory as following that trade and living at 402 Sycamore Street. He later served in the United States Navy in the late 1900s and early 1910s. It also must be noted that spelling was an inexact science in those years, and at least one man, a sailor from Camden named William F. Laskowski, served under the name "William Laskon".

The 1910 Census shows that only Daniel Lane, now a widower, and the three younger children still lived at 410 Monmouth Street. Daniel and Leo Lane were working as pattern makers at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyards. Sarah Lane kept house while young Edward was still in school. Older brother Daniel, who worked as a bookkeeper for one of the railroads, had married and was living with his wife Martha at 424 Hunter Street in Gloucester City. By 1917 Leo Lane had married and moved to Audubon. He was still working as a patternmaker at New York Ship.

The 1910 Census shows that Ammon Lane had joined the United States Navy. He appears in the 1910 Census as Ammon L. Lane, being a prisoner at the United States Naval Prison at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California. He had been a coal passer prior to getting into trouble. In 1912, after leaving the Navy he enlisted in the United States Army. At some point he had married, however it did not last and in 1913 his wife Bessie sued for a divorce on grounds of desertion. The decree was granted in 1914. Still in the Army in 1917 when the United States made its entry into World War I, Ammon Lane served in France as a sergeant, and somehow became attached to a Vermont-based cavalry troop of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, the only U.S. Cavalry to see combat in France during the war, as it was soon noted that horses and trench warfare were incompatible.

That being said, a provisional squadron of 418 officers and enlisted men, representing the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, and mounted on convalescent horses, was created to serve as scouts and couriers during the St. Mihiel Offensive. On September 11, 1918, these troops rode at night through no man's land and penetrated five miles behind German lines. Once there, the cavalry was routed and had to return to Allied territory. Despite serving through the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, by mid-October the squadron was removed from the front with only 150 of its men remaining.

Family history and a newspaper article published long after his death say that Ammon Lane had been gassed. What is known is that he fell ill in France, was returned to the United States to Ellis Island in New York. On January 15, 1919 he died of bronchial pneumonia at the government hospital on Ellis Island. Whether this was brought on as a result of gas, the influenza pandemic, or other reasons is not known.

The 1920 Census and later records show that older brother Daniel Lane remained Gloucester City, where by 1947 he was, as his father before him, City Clerk. He and wife Martha had at least six children. Daniel Stanley, John A. William Gerald, Edward F., Francis A. and Marie C. Lane are listed in the 1930 census. Daniel and Martha Lane still lived at 424 Hunter Street in 1947. Younger brother Edward had moved to Philadelphia by January of 1920, where he lived with the Wirth family, cousins on his mother's side. Leo Lane passed away in 1978, last a resident of Haverford, Pennsylvania.