Molly (Robinson) Lively (1762 - 1805)

Descendants

Died 1805 at about age 43 in Abbeville, South Carolina

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Biography

A SKETCH OF JOHN AND MOLLY LIVELY Written to H. A. Brown by his sister. Mrs. M. B. Pees

John Lively and his wife, Molly, had seven sons, of whom Joseph was the eldest.

Currently we have Joseph as son to Mark and Martha Porter

He married Mary Anderson. They were parents of several children.

Mary who was called Polly, and Jane, also Peggie and several others.

Peggie married a man named Bowerman.

All of the children listed next are different from what we have. Because it is recorded that Nancy Ellen Brown was the child of Edward and Mary, perhaps these all should be their children:^[1]

Jane married John Campbell. They became the parents of John Cauley, Margaret Elizabeth, Mary Ann, Alexander Carroll, and Nancy Ellen.

Nancy Ellen married William Eugene Brown.

Mary Ann married Henry Bertman Brown. :You and myself were among their several children. Alexander Carroll married Lena Mary Ellen Brown. Margaret Elizabeth married Amos Knap Glen. Among their children are Elizabeth Emily, Mary Jane, Amos Junior and Nancy. John Cauley Campbell married Eliza Bergfeld.

This brings us down to your own memory but you wanted not only our lineage, but a history of our ancestors. A former letter tells that the Andersons family were Scot, but the Lively's were Irish.

What I am now writing you has been handed down as facts or as a bit of history, and was gathered while visiting years ago among some of the descendants of the five Lively brothers who settled in an early day in Washington and Randolph Counties, Illinois.

Wesley Lively who lived in Vernon County, Missouri, was a descendant of the same Lively family.

John Lively Junior, a son of John Lively Sr. and one brother of the five who settled in Illinois, moved into the wilderness, taking his family with him against the advice of the others. He was killed, and his family were all killed by Indians, except one little girl who had been taken by friends on horseback to visit in Randolph County. Vandailia, Illinois now stands near the place of their death. Jennie, the little survivor of the family was reared by the friends to whom had been intrusted that luckless day. Nat Hill of Old Palestine, Illinois. She was in the line of ancestry of Emma (Caudle) Brown

How sturdy was that Irish stock of our forbears will unfold itself when we realize what long journeys taken and the keen woodsmanship of the g-g-grandfather John and his red headed wife, Molly. We find it difficult to realize the sturdy handyhood, and self reliance required of people in those far off days. I will try to give you a brief sketch of the fighting qualities of Molly Lively as handed down to me. But try as we have, we have been unable to locate the British Camp where the soldiers died by the hundreds of smallpox. If we could find that we would know where our ancestor enlisted in the Revolutionary army. We would also know from where they came to Illinois. Our mother has often said, "Father's people came from the East in the states but mother's came from South Carolina." The Livelys from Georgia, the Campbells from South Carolina and later from Tennessee.

One evening in the early days of the Revolutionary War, John Lively came home from a distant village, putting his rifle in the accustomed place on the buck horns above the huge fireplace, then laying his supplies on the table said " Molly, I have enlisted. I will have to start for camp just after candle light and Joe had best go with me."

"Go with you, John? Why Joseph is only twelve."

But Joe wanted to go and he pleaded with his mother saying, " The Red Coats will get me if only to keep me out of the army." But his mother prevailed and little red-headed Joe stayed with his mother for a time.

A few months later John Lively successfully evaded the British sentinel whose camp lay between his home and any source of supplies. So now under the cover of darkness as he had at first left, he came creeping back, bringing his brother-in-law who was sick of camp fever and privation and would soon have died if he had been left in camp. So with Molly's help he lifted the sick man to the attic. After fashioning a rope ladder, bedding was taken up there. Here Molly cared for her sick soldier brother.

Then after a good meal and with a well-filled knap-sak, John started again for the continental camp. In the meantime Joe had hidden out things he thought he would need and quietly followed his father back to camp. The next morning John Jr. Told his mother about Joe's going. There was still six left at home with her and among them twins. As they were all too young to fight they were considered safe so far in the wilderness.

That bed in the attic, with neither window nor stairs with only loopholes to betray it to the British, could not be left for long. It was warmed with Linsey-Woolsey blankets woven in the loom in the lean-to on the back of the house by this red-headed mother of seven. Long years afterwards she wondered at the prayers that crowded on her heart and mind. Her babies must be fed. The attic could not be left for long. She was wondering how her soldiers were for the nights were getting cold. But she could plan better in the open, where she could hear any unusual noise that might mean good or bad news.

There standing in the open she prayed "God pity my boy and care for my loved ones and I will attend to my enemy." Even then came footsteps out of the night. She stood outside her door waiting for she hardly knew what. "Calumet, as I live," she cried, as a huge but friendly Indain stood at her side and said "Ugh". It can't be put on paper as I heard it, nor what he said afterwards, but he made her understand that his papoose was very sick and he wanted her help. When recognized then that a part of her prayers were answered. That if she could save the baby's life she would have a life-long friend of "Pipe." So telling him of John's going to the army and that she would have look after her own babies, she made ready her own home remedies and followed him.

She soon had the ailing one quiet but not until it was sleeping naturally did she return to her own bunch and the attic.

Morning came clear and cold. On going out she met Calumet, who threw down at her feet a young buck and said "Ugh, feed 'um, warrior gone. Hungry, some some more," and turning he was gone.

Pillaging is a part of war. The Red Coats were constantly to be dreaded, for like most armies they lived mostly on the people of the land. The cabin in the wilderness was not left long in peace.

The thrifty Lively's had bounded a garden plot with clapboard pickets, and beyond which a thriving plum thicket grew. In this thicket the Red Coats hid their horses tying them to the picket fence. One day a larger squad than usual came and took everything they wanted: even went into the lean-to and started to take the Linsey cloth from the loom. Then her red-head temper took fire, and Molly Lively told them that no --- --- --- Red Coat should have the work of her hands to warm his --- hide. She grabbed the blankets and they fought till she pulled them through the other room and out the door into the yard fighting and swearing. She was not small but no match for the soldiers. Just then the Capitan came up and said" Tut, Tut, boys. Give the lady her goods and go help yourselves in the larder. Those things will be more to your need. You don't need this stuff. I have three sturdy youngsters at home." He turned to apologize to Molly but she was gone. She put the cloth on a cord and fastened it around her waist where she wore it as long as the British were camped in her door yard.

Late one night, dark with clouds and dread, Molly heard the signal that told here that her beloved John had again eluded the sentinel. She hastened to the loophole to make sure it was John before opening the door. "Oh! Joy! It is John. But what is that he is carrying? Another sick soldier? Well, so be it, but oh! the pity of it. He is so little." Then the light of the hearth fell on them and their hearts turned cold. No need of the ragged butternut clothes of the tangled red curls to tell her. One look from John's sad eyes and she knew who the little soldier was. Neither had a word to say. The anguish each felt, who can say? With aching hearts they placed the rope ladder in place and soon the little fellow was resting on the pallet where the soldier brother had found a haven for recovery. But it was not camp fever this time, but smallpox and no mild case. She prevailed on John to stay and rest till night and get some food. Being uneasy about the boy he stayed until morning. In the morning, no need to coax him to stay for he too was burning with the fever. The smallpox had got him. Not yet was his the hideous scab as was the face of the tossing boy, but a tremendous aching prevented him from getting up.

The fever raged on for weeks. He lay prostrate. Before he awoke sane and cool, the boy from the other pallet had been laid in the damp ground for two weeks. Not then, but long afterwards did they learn that the little sufferer was not their son. their boy returned and lived to become the ancestor of the writer of this sketch.

Smallpox broke out in the British camp during that hard winter.

Molly Lively had swore with blood curdling oaths that no --- --- --- Red Coat should warm his -- --- hide with her cloth. She told them she would kill the whole --- regiment first and she came near keeping her word. With the aid of Calumet she had been able to nurse John back to health and care for her little ones. Then John shouldered his rifle and knap sack and returned to the army.

Molly's mind kept reverting to the "army of guns" she had in the attic. " Why not? They had no mercy on me," she said to herself. " Why should I have mercy on them?" "Those Linsey sheets up there are as deadly as a rifle bullet and more powerful than any army Washington can muster." Long she considered and in the end she hooked up the rope ladder and went up and gathered the germ laden blankets in a clean one and took them out and spread them on the stringers of the picket fence and in and around the plum thicket. Then she waited the sure coming of the enemies. " They came, she saw, she conquered. " No doubt she got more Red Coats with her "guns" than did her husband and son during the entire Revolutionary War.

Sources

1. ↑ "Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N3NH-7YF : 27 December 2014), Nancy Ellen Brown, 20 Mar 1922; Public Board of Health, Archives, Springfield; FHL microfilm 1,556,733.

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/116784214/molly-lively: accessed 06 January 2023), memorial page for Molly Robinson Lively (1762–1805), Find a Grave Memorial ID 116784214; Burial Details Unknown, Unknown burial location; Maintained by Amanda Trill (contributor 47012678).