Our Story

Our funeral home has been a family owned and operated business since 1966. We are proud of our facilities and the way we care for our families. With chapels located in Montross and Haynesville, we can serve families in Northumberland, Richmond and Westmoreland Counties. We are large enough to give our families the same service as the largest city funeral home, yet we are small enough that each family gets the level of attention and care they deserve. 

The Welch Family has lived on the Northern Neck of Virginia for centuries. To go back in history a short time, John Welch was a riverboat captain on the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay and farmer on Newmans Neck in Northumberland County in the middle 1800's. He and his wife Lucy Doulin Welch had a son, Fleming Paul Welch, who farmed the same land. Fleming married Arabella Hughlett, who's family had operated Hughlett's Tavern in nearby Heathsville. Fleming and Arabella had a daughter, Flemintine, and a son John William. Flemintine married Marston Bray, a neighbor, and lived on Newmans Neck her entire life. 

John William was the first Welch to enter the business world. At the age of 16, he started an apprenticeship in the merchantile general store at Coan Wharf. This was during the steamboat era, when Coan Wharf was a thriving commercial center. In 1900 JWW married Estelle Inez Douglass, daughter of Thaddeus Hogan Douglass of Union Village & Lodge. In 1903, JWW purchased the Downings General Store in Richmond County near Farnham. The first part of the century, which started with such promise, brought difficulties. In 1904, John Paul Welch was born, but before 1907, he lost two other sons to illness and his wife to complications from childbirth. Now a single father, JWW threw himself into his business ventures. In 1915, he started his first tomato cannery on his farm at Downings. In 1920, he started his second canning factory, at Indian Point on the Great Wicomico in Northumberland County. In 1931 The Indian Point factory was relocated upsteam to the old Crabbe Mill site and renamed Indian Valley Cannery. The Welch family canning business continued until 1969, and included JWW, his son Paul, and grandson John W. Welch II. 

In the late 1950's JWW II became interested in the Funeral business through his friendship with Andrew Hobson "Boy" Jones, Jr., of the Jones Funeral Home in Rainswood. Although there were plans for a joint business venture, these plans were halted by Boy Jones untimely death as the result of a car accident. JWW II continued in this direction however, and opened the Welch Funeral Home in Montross in 1966. In 1985 Welch acquired the former Sanford Funeral Home in Montross and in 1991 he acquired T. D. Marks Funeral Home in Warsaw. In 1998 J. Paul Welch II joined the firm as the 4th generation of continually operated businesses owned and operated by the Welch Family. The business has continued to grow, with the Warsaw chapel being relocated to Haynesville in 2001, and Northern Neck Cremation Services which started early 2007. Excellence in service and genuine caring for families is our daily goal.