Dolly (Ellis) Abbey (1774 - bef. 1850)

Born 25 Feb 1774 in Keene, Cheshire, New Hampshire

Ancestors

Wife of Richard Abbe Jr. — married about 1798 in Casenovia, New York [uncertain]

Wife of John Smith — married 26 Feb 1823 in Alexander, Illinois, United States

Descendants

Died before 1850 before age 75 in Gulf of Mexico [uncertain]

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Leslie Franks [send private message]

Biography

Dolly's husband, Richard, died in 1823, perhaps in a yellow fever epidemic. According to the Abbe-Abbey book, she was baptized by John Mason Peck in 1824. The Reverend Peck was at that time living in St. Clair County, Illinois. She apparently remarried a Mr. John C. Smith in 1825, in Alexander County, Illinois.

After Richard died, it appears that all of her children (besides Lorena, who married a Mr. John Rumel in 1820 in Alexander County) left Illinois, most of them travelling to Mississippi. Her daughter, Lucinda, married a James Van Horn in Claiborne, Mississippi, in 1825. They moved to Tallahassee, Florida.

Dolly's son, Richard, Jr., became a successful plantation owner in Yazoo City, Mississippi. By the 1840 census, there is a female aged 60-69 living in his home. Presumably this is Dolly. Richard also owned a property called Gulfview. I have so far found no records that identify its location, but it surely had a view of the Gulf of Mexico. Cleveland Abbey says that Dolly died in 1850 in the Gulf of Mexico. Was she travelling somewhere by boat? Was there a storm?

Sources

• Abbe-Abbey genealogy, in memory of John Abbe and his descendants

by Abbe, Cleveland, 1838-1916; Nichols, Mary Josephine Genung, b. 1876, joint comp, Published 1916

• “New Hampshire, Birth Records, through 1900.” Online index and digital images. New England Historical Genealogical Society. Citing New Hampshire Bureau of Vital Records, Concord, New Hampshire.

• Ancestry.com. Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Illinois State Marriage Records. Online index. Illinois State Public Record Offices.

• 1830; Census Place: Alexander, Illinois; Series: M19; Roll: 22; Page: 9; Family History Library Film: 0007647

• Year: 1840; Census Place: Yazoo, Mississippi; Roll: 217; Page: 314; Family History Library Film: 0014841