The family of Melissa Fincher Vissage and John Jackson Vissage (in the middle of the front row). Also in the front row are son Robert Lee and daughter Florence. From left to right in the back row are Anna, John Dock, Salina, Dora, and Leona.

Most of the information here about the Vissage family comes from Aunt Amy Lyles. I've supplemented Aunt Amy's information with data from the censuses of 1830, 1840, and 1850 of the western part of the Pickens District of South Carolina and with information from Ben, Hogan, and Wayne Vissage. Once in a while, Amy and the censuses conflict. I try to indicate those conflicts. --J. R. Lyles

the first generation THOMAS VISSAGE (born about 1780) married --?--HANSON (born 1780 -1790). They had at least four children--James Wessley Vissage, John Vissage (who reportedly moved to Texas), Mary (Polly) Vissage Lawrence, and Milly Vissage Leathers. Sometime before 1830, Thomas Vissage, a blacksmith, moved the family from Virginia to the western part of the Pickens District, S.C.

the second generation JAMES WESSLEY VISSAGE (born in Virginia about 1815) married MARTHA FOWLER (born about 1815). Martha, born in either Union or Pickens County, South Carolina, was a sister of Mary Fowler Lyles, the wife of William Albert Lyles. James and Martha probably married between 1830 and 1835, most likely in the Oconee part of the Pickens District. There, they had at least these eight children-- Lucy Vissage, Mangrum? (Martha) Vissage, John Jackson Vissage, Amanda Vissage, Elizabeth Vissage, Selena Ellen Vissage, Susan Vissage, and William Vissage. James Wessley Vissage, who was a blacksmith like his father, died in 1889 and is buried at Double Springs Church, near Mountain Rest, S.C. Many Vissages after him are also buried there. We do not know when Martha died.

the third generation   LUCY VISSAGE, born about 1834, is buried at Double Springs Church. MARTHA (Amy calls her "Mangrum") VISSAGE, born about 1837, married AARON FINCHER, and they produced at least two sons--Timothy Fincher and James Fincher. JOHN JACKSON VISSAGE was born about 1839, and during the Civil War, he served in Company F of the 1st South Carolina (Orr's) Rifles with his cousins Robert Martin Lyles and Obadiah Coleman Lyles and two other Lyles kin, James M. Lyles and John W. Lyles. John Jackson Vissage was the only one of these cousins to survive. At the end of the war, he married MELISSA FINCHER (born 1845). See the photo above. Their first child was Robert Lee Vissage, born November 15, 1866, at Tunnel Hill, S.C. Then in succession came Dora Vissage (born 1868), Ida Jane Vissage (born 1870, married Mace Symes, then --?--Rochester), Selena Vissage (born 1872, married Stebbens F. Johnson), and John Dock Vissage (1875-1934), who married Eliza Duncan, then Sallie Nicholson. Finally came the three youngest sisters--Anna Vissage (1878-1918), Della Leona Vissage (1881-1943), and Florence Vissage (1883-1933), who married Thomas Dean. AMANDA VISSAGE, born about 1841, married a man named GILBAIRD. ELIZABETH VISSAGE, born about 1843, married WILLIAM ROCHESTER, and they had at least five children--John, James, Mary, Martha, and Alice. JAMES H. VISSAGE was born about 1845. Aunt Amy Lyles omitted him, but the 1850 census lists him as 5 years old. SUSAN VISSAGE was born about 1847. SELENA ELLEN VISSAGE was born May 25, 1853, at Tunnel Hill, S.C. She married JAMES TURNER LYLES in the late 1870s. They had four children--James Robert Lyles (1879-1940), Amy Evelyn Lyles (1881-1953), Obadiah Coleman Lyles (18--), and William Clifton Lyles (1886-1948). Selena E. V. Lyles died on July 6, 1900, and is buried at Double Springs Church at Mountain Rest, S.C. WILLIAM VISSAGE, born in 1855, married CORNELIA OUTS. They had at least seven children--James (died in infancy), Clifton (1882), Lula (1884), Ella (1886), Albert (1888), Thomas (1890), and Leonard (1892).

The family of Melissa Fincher Vissage and John Jackson Vissage (in the middle of the front row). Also in the front row are son Robert Lee and daughter Florence. From left to right in the back row are Anna, John Dock, Salina, Dora, and Leona.