F. A45
853,1149 -





Published with the assistance of the J. J. Seaver Fund
and the Bentley Historical Library's Friends Fund.
Printed by U-M Printing Services.
Front Cover: Ann Allen, circa 1860.
Allen Family Collection, Bentley Historical Library.
ISBN 0-9668205-C-9




Ann Arbor's First Lady
Events in the Life of
Ann I. Allen
Russell E. Bidlack


1935


The Bentley Historical Library
The University of Michigan




To Sarah W. McCue
who has kept alive the family memories
of her great-grandmother
Ann I. Allen




Table of Contents


Foreword, by     Francis  X. Blouin,Jr.........................................................................  v
In tro d u ctio n..............................................................................................................  vi
I.     A Little Orphan, Her Huguenot and Irish Heritage: 1797-1806............                    1
II.     Schooling in Virginia and Baltimore: 1807-1812.................................         15
III.   Youthful Romance and Early Widowhood: 1813-1820................................19
IV.    A Marriage of Convenience and Michigan Territory: 1821-1824...............27
V.      A Presence in Ann Arbor's Beginnings: 1825-1836.....................................45
VI.     A Home in New York City and a Virginia Reunion: 1837-1838..................63
VII.    Economic Depression and Marital Discord: 1839-1843..............................75
VIII.   Return to Virginia; Again a Widow: 1844-1851.................................           89
IX.    At Home with Family in Virginia: 1852-1860...............................................97
X.     War, the Deaths of Sons, and Closing Days: 1861-1875............................... 103
A   N ote  on  Sources.................................................................................................... 116


iii








Foreword


Tell someone you are from New York, Boston, or Detroit and rarely do they
pause at the name of the place. But, tell someone you are from Ann Arbor and
more often than not there are the questions. Was there an Ann? Was there an
Arbor? Those of us who have lived in this city for many years have come to expect
the questions and usually try to recall some of the local lore in formulating an
answer. Thanks to the efforts of Russell E. Bidlack, we have a definitive source on
the matter. There certainly was an Ann and her story is both historic and modern.
Prof. Bidlack has done painstaking research on the life of Ann Allen, exhausting
the relevant resources of the Bentley Historical Library and consulting a variety of
other libraries, archives, and county courthouses locally and along the eastern
seaboard. In the process, Prof. Bidlack has uncovered the story of a remarkable
woman whose experience challenges any notions we might hold of the romance of
frontier America in the early nineteenth century.
In the course of his research he made contact with several of the descendants
of Ann Allen who privately held much of her extant correspondence. In recognition of the work of Prof. Bidlack, they agreed to donate her surviving
correspondence to the Bentley Historical Library so that these documents would be
available to the community. I am particularly grateful to Miss Sarah McCue of
Harrisonburg, Virginia for the gift of several letters of Ann Allen to her son Thomas
W. McCue and for her contribution toward the publication of this volume.
In serving as publisher for this definitive history, the Bentley Historical Library
is pleased to make this important story available to the Ann Arbor community as
well as others who have an interest in what many consider to be the quintessential
college town. I particularly want to acknowledge the J. J. Seaver Fund of the Bentley
Library and the library's Friends Fund for underwriting the costs of this publication.
Since its founding in 1935, the Bentley Library (formerly the Michigan
Historical Collections) has served as a repository for papers of early citizens of the
city and for many of the city's earliest records. Over the years, we have been pleased
to serve the Ann Arbor community as a repository for a variety of
textual and visual resources relating to its history. We are grateful to Prof. Bidlack
for the many years he has devoted to this project. He has provided Ann Arbor with
a study that will truly enrich our understanding of the origins of this place.
Francis X. Blouin,Jr.
Director


v




Introduction


When the editor of the Ann Arbor Register published a brief obituary of Ann
I. Allen that had been sent to him from Virginia in the spring of 1877, he noted that
"few residents of Ann Arbor are aware that the one to whom our beautiful city is
indebted for its name, has but recently ended her earthly pilgrimage." Over three
decades had then passed since Ann I. Allen had taken her last farewell of the town
that had flourished in its oak opening on the Huron River that she had glimpsed
for the first time on October 16, 1824. It had been her home for the next twenty
years, except for a brief sojourn with her husband and their daughter in New York
City in 1837, followed by a year-long visit in Virginia.
Named in her honor five months before Ann's arrival, his having rejected
"Allensville" and "Annapolis" as possibilities, John Allen, the town's principal
founder, had chosen the word "arbour" to follow his wife's first name, it being commonly used in Virginia for a bower of trees. In Michigan Territory, arbour seemed
appropriate to describe the setting of sunshine and shadow produced by the
scattered oaks in the "opening." In so doing, he created a place name that would
remain unique. Recorded officially for the first time in a plat map of the village on
May 25, 1824, the name was written "Annarbour," but thereafter it appeared as two
words. The Aliens insisted throughout their lives, however, on the pre-Webster
spelling of arbor.
The events of Ann Allen's life during her Ann Arbor years were determined
largely by her husband's speculative business enterprises, leading from massive
debt to apparent wealth, then to painful poverty, and finally, in 1844, to marital
alienation.
Although Ann Isabella Barry had become motherless nine days following her
birth in Staunton, Virginia, on January 22, 1797, and an orphan from age three, her
considerable inheritance had assured that her father's wishes for her education
would be fulfilled. The love of a Scotch-Irish grandmother, with that of a doting
aunt and a caring uncle, helped to groom her for the role of the "Southern Lady"
that her parents had envisioned for her. Married at age sixteen to a respected
physician and gentleman farmer in Lexington, Virginia, Dr. William McCue, Ann
was the mother of two sons when she became a widow in 1818, at age twenty-one.
Her second marriage, following a widow's customary period of mourning, was on
June 7, 1821, to a young widower named John Allen. He, like Ann, had been left
with two small children. It was a marriage of convenience.
As the eldest son in the fourth generation of Scotch-Irish Virginians, John
Allen had found himself encumbered by massive debts resulting from his father's
foolish investments. Plantations and slaves would soon be lost to demanding creditors, and John's father, the dignified Col. James Allen, was ordered to vacate his
stately home on Middle River by the end of October 1824.
The possibility for a fresh beginning with cheap government land in the West,
timed with the completion of the Erie Canal, was a temptation John Allen could not
resist in the autumn of 1823, the same year as the birth of his and Ann's only child.
His course of action to promote this scheme was recorded beside his name by the
local Virginia tax collector with one simple word: "Absconded."


vi




So it was that in August 1824, Ann Allen complied with her distant husband's
directions contained in a letter from Michigan Territory. She and their infant
daughter, Sarah, would accompany his parents and John's own children on a
covered wagon route that he had outlined. AsJohn expected, and Ann feared, her
first husband's wealthy brother, in his role as guardian of Ann's small sons, John
and Thomas McCue, declared that his nephews would remain in Virginia. It was a
tearful parting.
As a Southern lady, Ann I. Allen had been spared from household labor by the
presence of slaves, always called "servants" in the South. Shy and naturally modest,
and of delicate physique, she was ill equipped to play the role of pioneer wife
among the Yankees and German immigrants who would populate the village
named for her. During all of her years in Ann Arbor, Ann also grieved for the small
sons whom she had left in Virginia, fearful that they would soon forget their "Ma."
Although she had been powerless to do otherwise, she was plagued with a sense of
guilt for having deserted them.
After her return to Virginia, Ann's unhappy memories of her Ann Arbor years
outweighed those that she could recall with pleasure. As John Allen's wealth had
increased during the 1830s and there had been money for servants, a commodious
home, and fine clothes, Ann had enjoyed physical comfort, but there was marital
discord. With the Panic of 1837, the Aliens again endured poverty, worsened by
humiliation. Writing her son, Thomas McCue, in 1841, Ann revealed her state of
depression: "When I look back, all I had is gone to the four winds; when I look
forward, all is darkness."
It was three years later, in 1844, that Thomas McCue came to Ann Arbor to
take his mother and his half-sister home to Virginia. It was there, near the place of
her birth, that Ann I. Allen spent her remaining years, a witness to the Civil War and
the Shenandoah Valley's devastation by the Yankees, and present at the early deaths
of her two sons. She died, blind and deaf, in her daughter's home in the village of
New Hope, on November 27, 1875. John Allen had been a victim of the California
Gold Rush a quarter century earlier.
In a tribute to Ann Allen at her death, Joseph A. Waddell, then Augusta
County's leading historian, observed: "The incidents connected with the long and
eventful life of Mrs. Allen would furnish material for quite an interesting volume."
Perhaps, the following attempt to tell her story, one hundred and twenty-three years
later, may affirm Mr. Waddell's assertion.


vii




--
hi -


Photograph of Ann I. Allen, circa 1860. Allen Family Collection, Bentley Historical Library.




I.
A Little Orphan, Her Huguenot and Irish Heritage
1797-1806
Mrs. Allen was remarkable for her unassuming modesty and diffidence, which caused comparatively few to know and appreciate the
varied excellencies of her character; but those few will ever cherish
the remembrance of her many virtues.
Thus did Joseph A. Waddell, early historian of Augusta County, Virginia, characterize Ann I. Allen, the woman for whom Ann Arbor, Michigan, had been named
a half-century earlier.' Mr. Waddell's tribute appeared in two successive issues of
The Spectator, a weekly newspaper published in Staunton, Augusta County's seat of
justice, in December 1875.2 Because it was then considered "unseemly" to identify
oneself when writing for the local press, Mr. Waddell signed his name as "Nestor,"
although interested readers easily recognized the local author's pen. He continued:
She was a lady of no ordinary character and remarkable for
strength of intellect, and in her death severed the last link that
connected her family with Staunton.
Mrs. Allen had died some weeks prior to the publication of this tribute, and a
death notice had appeared at that time.3 Mr. Waddell believed, however, that the
story of the little orphan girl who had traveled to and from Ireland before she was
ten and who, as a young mother carrying an infant daughter, had followed her
adventurous husband in 1824 from Virginia to the settlement he had named for
her in Michigan Territory, deserved a more detailed telling.
"In the last decade of the last century, she first saw the light in Staunton,"
Waddell noted, adding that she had been the only child of Thomas Barry, "a native
of Londonderry, and one of the first and most prominent merchants of his day."
It had been on January 22, 1797, that Ann Allen "first saw the light of day" as
she was delivered by a midwife into the arms of her twenty-year-old mother, Ann
Isabella Smith Barry. A native of Kent County, Maryland, where the Smith family
had been land and slave owners for three generations, Ann Smith had been born
in 1777, the youngest child of William and Ann Martha Smith.4 She had few
memories of her father, however, for he had died in January 1783 when Ann Smith
was seven.5 In keeping with the custom of primogeniture, her father's land had
been inherited by her oldest living brother, James Smith, who also became Ann's
guardian. When the estate was finally settled in 1791, Ann Smith's share of her
father's personal property (which had included thirteen slaves), amounted to
~181.16.10 (i.e., 181 pounds, 16 shillings, and 10 pence). This included a "Negro
boy Isaac" valued at ~57.10.0; a "black horse 7 years old" and side-saddle, worth
~25.5.0; and the payment of a debt that Ann Smith owed to one Becky Maxwell for
~3.0.0. The remainder of her inheritance was in the form of a bond from her
brother, James Smith, for ~96.1.10.
When Ann Smith signed the receipt for "my part of my father's personal
estate" on August 12, 1791, her witness was Thomas Barry, a man ten years her
senior, to whom she would be married in the following year.6
1




Born in 1767 on his father's farm in County Donegal, Ireland, Thomas Barry
was of the third generation of the Barry family to be born in Ireland, although he
considered his heritage to be more French than Irish.7 His great-grandfather,
Richard Barry, had been one of some 400,000 Protestants (Huguenots) who had
fled to the British Isles and the English colonies following Louis XIV's revocation
of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. His Scotch-Irish mother, Sarah McKim Barry, was a
great-granddaughter of Sir John McKim, who had migrated from Scotland in
Cromwell's time and had been knighted by William of Orange for his service in the
Siege of Londonderry.8
Writing to a cousin in 1867, Ann I. Allen, only child of Thomas and Ann
(Smith) Barry, said of her grandfather, Thomas Barry, Sr.:
As I recollect hearing Grandma say, he [her grandfather] was of a
noble family, a gentleman of excellent education, which was a rare
thing at that time. His judgment considered of the first class, pious,
beloved by his neighbors. Grandma said he had a genealogical tree
which he kept a long time after his marriage, but unfortunately, it
was destroyed. Being engaged in commercial business, he lost
largely during the American Revolution....Grandma lived on a
farm where he had died [in 1783]. It was called Burt, five or six
miles from Londonderry.9
With an older sister, Eleanor, nicknamed Ellen, and a younger brother,
Andrew, Ann Allen's father had grown up in Ireland with three McKim cousins,
children of his mother's brother; they had been taken into the Barry household
following the deaths of their parents'0
It was one of these cousins, John McKim, who had migrated to America in
1780 at the invitation of a granduncleJudge Thomas McKim, of Philadelphia. After
a year or two, John McKim went to Baltimore where a much older Quaker relative
of the same name was prominent. Thereafter, the younger John McKim added Jr.
to his name. Not long after moving to Baltimore, John McKim inherited a West
Indies fortune and, with an acumen for commerce and banking, he quickly became
one of Baltimore's leading merchants. It had been John McKim, Jr.'s success in
America that, in 1787, prompted Thomas Barry, at age twenty, to follow him to
Baltimore, having the promise of a clerkship in the McKim store."
After three or four years of practical training in the ways of commerce, and
having accumulated some capital, Thomas was ready to enter the mercantile business in his own right. With his cousin's support, he chose to launch his career on
the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in Kent County, and it was there that he met, and
fell in love with, Ann Smith.
We know that Thomas Barry was in Kent County in the summer of 1791 when
he witnessed Ann Smith sign a receipt for her inheritance. It was not until the close
of the following year, however, that Barry purchased land on which to operate his
store. Perhaps he had been a renter before this.
It was to "Bartholomew Foreman, Tavern Keeper," that Barry paid ~43.10.0 on
December 22, 1792, for a triangularly shaped lot comprising one and one-half acres
"with all appurtenances...at a place called Newmarket... on the Road leading to
Georgetown."''2 Foreman had purchased this lot only four months earlier from Ann
Smith's brother-in-law, "Richard Peacock, Gentleman," who, in 1784, had bought it
2




from Ann Smith's uncle, Matthew Smith. So it was that Thomas Barry and the Smith
family became neighbors.
According to family lore as recalled by Ann Allen in her old age, the older
members of the Smith family considered Thomas Barry to be an unworthy suitor of
their sixteen-year-old daughter, considering him "a stranger and a young Irishman."
Without her mother's approval, nor that of her brother, James Smith, who was also
her guardian, Ann Smith and Thomas Barry were married in the home of another
of Ann's brothers sometime in 1792.13 A statement of Ann Allen in 1867 that her
mother had been "cut out of her fortune by her marrying" may mean that James
Smith refused to redeem the bond that he had given his sister in 1791 for ~96.1.10.
Thomas Barry, with his bride, prospered at New Market, the name of which
was changed later to Chesterville and has since nearly disappeared. According to a
Maryland historian, a brick house built about 1780, stood on the northeast corner
of the village, but in the 1980s it was moved "because it obstructed the view of
motorists and was considered a traffic hazard." This may have been Thomas and
Ann Barry's first home.14
Although Thomas Barry prospered at New Market, after a year or two he
began having health problems. His daughter recalled many years later that John
McKim had told her that her father had suffered "frequent attacks of fever and
ague which impaired his constitution." It was believed that his illnesses were caused
by the damp climate of Maryland's Eastern Shore. Considering later developments,
Thomas may have been in the early stages of tuberculosis.
It was in the spring of 1795 that Thomas Barry, determined to seek a healthier
climate, sold his New Market lot and store to a fellow merchant named Bodien
Warner.'5 His financial success and improvements on the property, despite his poor
health, can be measured by the fact that the selling price of his establishment was
300 pounds compared to the 42 pounds and 10 shillings that he had paid for it two
and one-half years earlier. At the completion of this sale, the Barrys went to
Baltimore for an extended visit in the McKim home.
In 1796, Thomas Barry decided to move his wife and possessions west, beyond
the Blue Ridge Mountains, to a town called Staunton, in the Shenandoah Valley of
Virginia. Known even then for the healing powers of the medicinal springs nearby,
Staunton was attracting settlers along with numerous visitors in search of better
health. Not only did young Barry hope to gain back his physical strength at
Staunton, but, also, that the town's location would provide a continued prosperity
for his mercantile business. In the latter anticipation, he would succeed.
In what manner the Barrys traveled, and what assistance Thomas may have had
in transporting goods from his cousin's warehouses with which to equip a new store
in Staunton, we can only surmise. We know, however, that they were accompanied
by Ann's "Negro Isaac," although with her marriage, Isaac had become the property of her husband. Reaching their destination in mid-summer, we can assume that
the young couple took up temporary residence in one of Staunton's eight inns,
which served also as taverns, until such time as a suitable dwelling and business site
could be located and purchased. With John McKim's knowledge of trade and commerce extending well beyond the city of Baltimore, it is quite possible that Thomas
Barry carried letters of introduction and recommendation to some of Staunton's
men of influence.


3




It was on August 31, 1796, that Thomas Barry purchased from Robert and
Mary Douthat for $2,000 the east half of Lot No. 8, facing Beverley Street, the original patent for which had been issued in April 1749."' The patentee had been
William Beverley, for whom the street had been named. Barry's east half of Lot 8,
measuring 363 feet on its north end, extended "about 91 feet" south along New
Street on the east side. According to the deed of purchase, there was a house on
the property facing Beverley Street. This would become the birthplace five months
later of the Barry's daughter, their only child, for whom Ann Arbor would be
named in 1824.
The Virginia town of Ann Allen's birth was a thriving community when her
father set up his store there. It had been laid out in 1748, although it was not until
1761 that the Colonial Assembly of Virginia had provided Staunton with a charter.
As the seat of justice for Augusta County, it had acquired a post office in 1793, and
in 1795 the first instructor for the Staunton Academy for Boys was engaged to teach
Latin and Greek.
It was in May 1796, the same year that the Barrys arrived, that an Englishman
named Isaac Weld passed through Staunton on ajourney that he later described in
his Travels Throughout the States of North America. Weld wrote:
This town carries on a considerable trade with the back country,
and contains nearly two hundred dwellings, mostly built of stone,
together with a church. This was the first place on the entire road
from Lynchburgh, one hundred and fifty miles distant, and which
I was about ten days traveling, where I was able to get a bit of fresh
meat....Salt pork boiled with turnips tops by way of greens, or
fried bacon, or fried salted fish, with warm sallad, dressed with
vinegar and the melted fat which remains in the frying-pan after
dressing the bacon, is the only food to be got at most of the taverns
in this country.17
In 1797, in the summer following Ann Allen's birth, Staunton again entertained a European traveler, a French nobleman, no less: the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld Liancourt. He, too, was gathering information about America for a
book, although he often hid both his purpose and his true identity from the people with whom he conversed.' Prior to his arrival in Staunton, the duke had spent
several days at Monticello. There he had contracted "distemper," an illness that he
described as "very common throughout this country in the hottest part of the
season, especially with those who expose themselves to the sun." After finding
accommodations in one of Staunton's eight inns ("three of which are quite large"),
the Frenchman consulted one of the town's four physicians. "I was obliged to have
recourse to bleeding, physic, and blisters," he wrote, "and to remain four days in
that small town." As a result of his forced stay, the duke was able to describe the
place in some detail, estimating that there were "eight hundred inhabitants, a
fourth of whom are negroes." He continued:
The houses are tolerably well built. From fifteen to eighteen stores
receive the produce of the back country, which chiefly consists in
wheat, Indian corn, rye, hemp, linseed, wax, and honey. Pretty
large quantities of bear-skins and beaver-skins are also carried


4




hither, as well as ox-hides, for the supply of the tan-yard, which has
been established in the place....Two market-days are weekly kept in
the town.
Staunton's brick church, measuring 40 feet in length, with a width of 25 feet,
was noted by the duke as then being under the control of the Presbyterians,
although it had been built between 1760 and 1762 under the authority of the
Church of England."' In the absence of a rector following the Revolution, the
Presbyterians had taken possession. "It is well frequented every Sunday by the followers of that sect," according to la Rochefoucauld, who added: "A Baptist preacher
delivers now and then a sermon in this church, which does not, however, make the
least alteration in the composition of the audience."
It had been in the spring of 1796, as Thomas and Ann had been contemplating their move to the Shenandoah Valley, that Ann had become pregnant. The
two-hundred mile journey to Staunton that summer, with her weakened husband,
doubtless sapped Ann's own strength at this critical time in her short life.
As noted earlier, the birth of the Barrys' daughter occurred on January 22,
1797, nearly five months following the purchase of their home on Beverley Street.
Ann was now twenty years of age and Thomas was thirty. The baby was born on a
Sunday, and considering the promptness with which infants were baptized in those
days, we can probably assume that she was carried by her father to Staunton's brick
church for this purpose on the following Sabbath. At her christening, the Barrys'
daughter was given the name Agnes, probably to honor Thomas' favorite aunt back
in Ireland. As will be noted later, however, little Agnes came to be called "Ann
Isabella" after 1800, in memory of her mother.2
Death from childbirth was a common fate for young American mothers of the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. We can wonder what medical attention
may have been provided by one or more of the four Staunton physicians as Ann
Barry's condition worsened following her daughter's birth. The "bleeding, physic,
and blisters" noted by la Rochefoucauld were then among the standard treatment
supplied by doctors, regardless of the nature of their patient's illness. Whatever the
treatment given Ann, it proved to be fruitless, and, as reported two weeks later in
the Virginia Spectator, she died on January 31, 1797, "leaving an only child, an infant
nine days old."'2 Ann Allen recalled in her old age that the only knowledge she ever
had of her mother was that provided to her by Mr. and Mrs. McKim. She never met
any of her Smith relatives.
Thomas Barry's grief in the loss of his young wife was compounded by his
anxiety for the future of his infant daughter. Writing to his mother, now fifty-two
years old, he urged that she and his unmarried sister, Ellen, come to America to
provide a home for his child, as well as for himself and his teenage brother, Andrew,
who, like Thomas before him, was now learning the mercantile trade with John
McKim in Baltimore. Ann Allen recalled many years later having heard it said that
her grandmother had been willing, but her Aunt Ellen refused; "she was afraid to
cross the sea."22
Thomas Barry engaged a young woman in Staunton named Patsy Dold to care
for his daughter. When Patsy was married the following year to Robert McDowell,
she continued to care for little Agnes in the McDowells' home, located just west of
the site bordering Beverley Street on which a new Presbyterian Church would be


5




built in 1804.23 It was also near the spot where, a half-century later, the twenty-eighth
President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, would be born.
Because Andrew Barry, Ann Allen's uncle, would play a significant role in her
life, a word regarding his following his brother to America is appropriate. It had
been prior to his move to Staunton that Thomas had written to his mother and to
Andrew urging that his brother, though only fourteen, be permitted to join him in
his American adventure. Andrew could begin as a clerk in the McKim store, just as
Thomas had done, and then join Thomas in partnership. Andrew readily agreed,
his mother consented, and he soon set sail on an English vessel for the land that
would become his permanent home. As Ann Allen explained to Andrew's son some
seventy years later, this was during the French Revolution, at a time when France
and England were at war. Both English and French merchant and passenger ships
then sailing the Atlantic were at considerable risk.


John McKim (1766-1842)
Ann Allen's "Uncle McKim," herfather's first cousin, who was her benefactor in her
youth. Portrait painted by Rembrandt Peale ca. 1815, now owned by the Museum and
Library of Maryland History, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
6




Having received word of the approximate date of Andrew's departure, and
"allowing the time it usually took vessels at that date to cross the Atlantic," Ann
recalled the story of how both her father, who was then in Baltimore, not yet having begun the move to Staunton, and John McKim, were "on the lookout" for the
boy in the spring of 1796. Intelligence finally reached them, however, that Andrew's
vessel had been taken captive by a French privateer shortly before reaching the
Baltimore harbor. A "prisoners' roll" released by the French captor included
Andrew's name.
John McKim, according to Ann Allen's memory of the oft-told story, "was
acquainted with influential French persons" living in Baltimore, and he and
Thomas Barry "offered a ransom for Andrew's release, which was accepted." Ann
further recalled John McKim telling her that when young Andrew had been
delivered by his captors, he "had nothing but the clothing he had on."
As he had done earlier for Thomas, John McKim now took young Andrew into
his own home and because of his youth enrolled him in a Baltimore school. A
neighbor ofJohn McKim at that time was a fellow immigrant from northern Ireland
named William Patterson, said to be the second richest man in America. Patterson's
daughter, Betsy, and Andrew attended the same private school and even shared a
youthful romance. Betsy would later gain international attention when, in 1803,
she was married to the Emperor Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome Bonaparte.
(The Emperor declared the marriage null in 1806.)24
After spending his "apprenticeship" in his cousin's mercantile establishment
in Baltimore, Andrew Barry joined his brother in Staunton, probably in 1798.
One of the observations of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt in 1797
was that the manufactured goods sold by Staunton storekeepers were transported
from either Baltimore or Philadelphia. It was in Baltimore, of course, that Thomas
Barry obtained the supplies for his store in Staunton, from his cousin's wholesale
establishment. Twice each year, Thomas traveled north on what Isaac Weld had
called the "great road," known earlier as the "Great Indian Warpath," to the point
at which it crossed the Potomac River, then east, on what would later be called the
National Road, to Baltimore. Every traveler on these roads decried the deep mud
whenever there was rain, as well as the stones that seemed constantly to work their
way to the surface.
Thomas Barry probably made the semiannual journey on horseback, there
engaging one or more teamsters to transport by wagon back to Staunton the goods
that he had selected from his cousin's large offering. It was customary then to
advance six months of credit, whether at the wholesale or retail level, so Barry probably paid McKim on each visit for the goods that he had purchased the time before.
He was doubtless a guest in his cousin's home on these occasions, and, according
to Ann Allen's memory of the account given to her years earlier, John McKim had
been much concerned that Barry's health seemed continually to worsen.
Despite his illness, Barry's mercantile business prospered, not only from the
community's patronage, but from the stream of travelers who passed through
Staunton in spring, summer, and fall on their way to Kentucky and Tennessee, some
to "explore," others to settle on a new frontier. Many others took lodging in the
town while they sought to improve their health by drinking from, and bathing in,
Augusta County's mineral springs. Joseph Waddell, in his Annals of Augusta County,
noted that "even before the year 1800, Staunton was thronged every summer and
7




fall with people going to and returning from 'the Springs'. The Warm and Sweet
Springs were then much frequented by invalids and pleasure seekers."25 J. Lewis
Peyton, a resident of Steephill, a village near Staunton, described "the Springs" in
1882.
The Augusta or Stribling Springs are situated on the eastern slope
of the North Mountain, about thirteen miles from Staunton. The
medicinal effects of the waters are acknowledged, and there are
several kinds of water here-alum and chalybeate being among
them. The water from the principal spring is strongly impregnated
with sulphuretted hydrogen, and is said to equal the celebrated
springs of Harrowgate, England....On the eastern slope of the
Blue Ridge, about eighteen miles southeast of Staunton, is the
Black Rock Spring... [whose] waters contain iron, soda, lime,
magnesia, with carbonic acid gas, and has been found efficacious
in dyspepsia, scrofula and other diseases.26
Patrons of the springs were largely persons of wealth and leisure, many of them
proving to be good customers for the variety of goods available in the Barry store
on Beverley Street.
Parties of Indians often passed through Staunton, sometimes continuing on
the road through the town, other times disappearing into the woods to follow lesstraveled paths. Their presence always caused some uneasiness, but they too, were
good customers in Barry's store.
In her 1867 letter to her cousin, noted earlier, Ann Allen recalledJohn McKim
telling her that "when Father came down after goods he often spoke of his ill
health; [he] did not know how soon God would call him home. What gave him the
most unhappiness was leaving me so young and unprotected."
It was during his last trip to Baltimore in the summer of 1799, when his daughter was two and one-half years old, that Thomas Barry, now in his thirty-third year,
drew up his "will and testament" in the presence of John McKim and the famous
William Patterson. Describing himself as "sick & weak in body, but of sound mind
and memory," citing "the certainty of death & the uncertainty of time," Thomas
made his will "that I may be the better prepared to leave this world."27 He designated his brother, Andrew, and John McKim to be co-executors, signing the
document on July 21, 1799. By late January in the following year, Thomas Barry was
in his grave, beside that of his wife, on the west side of Staunton's brick church. His
motherless daughter, whose third birthday also fell in January 1800, was now an
orphan, indeed.
Although Thomas Barry's will could not be probated until the next quarterly
meeting of the Augusta County Court in April, an inventory of the scores of items
in his store and home was completed on February 6, 1800.28 The three men charged
with this task filled twenty large and closely written pages in the store alone, arriving at the total worth of ~1,934.14.7 (i.e., 1,934 pounds, 14 shillings, and 7 pence).
The most valuable single item was listed as 463 gallons of whisky, worth ~94.10.7.
(There were also 32 gallons of peach brandy, ~25.12.0; 41 gallons of spirits,
~21.17.4; and 10 gallons of rum, ~4.0.0.) Other sample items in the list were: 1,033
pounds of brown sugar, ~47.0.4; 180 yards of "fancy dark callico," ~38.18.11; and
20,000 10-penny nails, ~13.6.8.
8




Two pages of the inventory were devoted to Thomas Barry's personal belongings, their total worth coming to ~215.9.0. His single most valuable asset was his
"Negro Isaac," valued at 45 pounds, Isaac having been part of his wife's inheritance
nine years earlier. His horse was priced at 39 pounds, his "clock & case" at 30
pounds, and his "desk & book case" at ~10.10.0.
No debts were shown against the estate, but over four pages of the inventory
were filled with the names of the 178 individuals who owed money to Barry, totaling ~966.13.6X. The names of many of the most prominent persons of the area
appear on these pages, including the Rev. John McCue, a future father-in-law to
Thomas' daughter, who owed Barry ~1.3.8. These many debtors can be explained
by the fact that much of a merchant's business at that time was conducted on credit.
Unpaid debts came due, however, at the death of the creditor. Barry was also the
owner of nearby Lot 28 in Staunton, on Market and Frederick Streets, that he had
purchased in 1797.
Thomas Barry had directed in his will that his real estate be sold and that twothirds of the proceeds be invested in "bank stock." The interest was to be used as
needed toward "the maintenance and education" of his daughter, with the principal to be held for her until her twenty-first birthday, or, if she should marry before
then, until the day of her wedding. The other third was to go to Andrew, but the
interest therefrom was to be paid to his mother and sister in Ireland "during their
natural lives." Likewise, two-thirds of Thomas' personal estate, that is, the value of
the goods in his store, the furnishings of his home, and the debts due him, was designated for his daughter, but those assets were to remain in the hands of Andrew,
with their inventoried value to be paid to her, with interest, also at age twenty-one
or at her marriage. The remaining third was to be Andrew's.
Throughout his will, Thomas Barry had referred to his daughter as "Agnes
Barry," a fact that caused consternation many years later when a researcher into
Ann Arbor's history visited the Augusta County Courthouse in 1925. Fortunately, a
granddaughter of Ann Allen, Phoebe W. Bell, was living at the time and recalled the
story that on his deathbed, Thomas Barry had requested that his daughter's name
be changed from Agnes to Ann Isabella in memory of her mother.29 No legal action
was considered necessary, and we can assume that Andrew Barry simply reported
Thomas' desire to the McKims and to his mother in Ireland.
When writing to her cousin in 1867, Ann Allen told of a promise made byJohn
McKim to her father before his death: that he should not "make himself unhappy
[for] if anything should happen in his lifetime, he would take me in his family, and
follow out his directions." Those directions had been that "if, after his death, a good
opportunity should offer, to send me to Grandma's."
So it was that Ann was taken from Mrs. McDowell's simple house in Staunton
to the McKim mansion in Baltimore following her father's death. John McKim was
a very wealthy man by the year 1800, owning both a "city home" and a "country
home," the latter called "Darley Hall." His house in the city was on Holliday Street
and was surrounded by wide lawns in front and rear.:o
The change for Ann must have been traumatic-we can only imagine the
scene when she was taken from the arms of Mrs. McDowell, the only caregiver she
had known, to live with strangers in a great city. John McKim had been married to
Margaret Telfair, the daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, in 1793, and by 1800
they were the parents of children named David, Jane, Elizabeth, and John. Our
9




single glimpse of Ann's new life in Baltimore at age three is found in her statement
that, hearing the McKim children call their parents "Papa" and "Ma," she did the
same, although there would come a time when she would be told that this was
not proper.31
Remembering his promise to Ann's father, John McKim made arrangements
sometime before Ann's fourth birthday to send her to her grandmother in
Ireland-to Sarah McKim Barry who, many years earlier, had taken John McKim,
then also an orphan, into her home. He engaged "a trusty nurse," according to
Joseph Waddell's account, and after "a tedious voyage," Ann was delivered to her
grandmother's farm near Londonderry. We can imagine the child's anxiety as she
was taken from the family where she had learned to call the parents "Papa" and
"Ma," but we can also imagine her seeing the open arms of an Irish grandmother
who would provide loving care akin to that of a mother.
In her old age, Ann Allen treasured a Barry family heirloom that she remembered from her childhood. It was a small, leather-bound book containing the New
Testament, in French, that had been published in Paris in 1668. Included were also
the Psalms, the Huguenot Catechism and Confession of Faith, and the Ten
Commandments. It had been one of the few possessions carried by her forefather,
Richard Barry, as he had fled to Ireland following the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes in 1685. As the eldest son in his generation, Thomas Barry had inherited
this remnant of his French heritage, and, as it had been carried a century earlier by
an ancestor seeking asylum in a new land, Thomas had brought it to America in
1787. It was packed with Ann's other belongings in a small trunk and thus returned
with her to Ireland.32
Ann recalled that her grandmother's farm was called "Burt," but she shared no
other memories of her five years in Ireland when she wrote about her past in 1867,
nor have any of the stories been preserved that she doubtless told her children as
they inquired about her childhood.
Andrew Barry, although he was not yet "of age" when his brother died, continued to operate the store in Staunton, taking a partner, Joseph Cowan, to assist in
the enterprise. On March 22, 1802, shortly after reaching his twenty-first birthday,
Andrew Barry purchased for ten pounds the west half of Lot 8 on Beverley Street,
adjoining his late brother's property, which he also gradually acquired.33 Andrew
succeeded financially as had his brother, and he quickly gained the respect of the
community. In 1804, for example, when a new Presbyterian church was completed
in Staunton, he was chosen, at age 24, to be one of its four ruling elders.
Andrew was a handsome and engaging young man, and, although his formal
schooling had not been extensive, he was highly intelligent and widely read.34 An
acquaintance writing about him in 1880 assumed that he had been "well educated."
In 1802, Andrew was married to Margaret Matthews, the youngest daughter of one
of Staunton's leading citizens of an earlier day, General George Matthews. A hero
of the American Revolution, Matthews had moved his family from Staunton to
Georgia following the war, and there he had served two terms as governor, as well
as representing the state in Congress from 1789 to 1791. He returned with family
members to Staunton periodically, however, to partake of Augusta County's famous
Springs. Members of the General's family were shown as debtors to Thomas Barry
on the 1800 inventory of his store.


10




A son was born to Andrew and Margaret Barry in September 1803, whom they
named George Matthews Barry. Three months later, on December 19, Margaret
died. Recalling his brother's situation six years earlier, Andrew also found a foster
mother for his infant. She was his partner's wife, Mrs. Joseph Cowan.
In 1805, still grieving for his wife, Andrew Barry left Staunton for Highland
County, Ohio, there to begin a new life in a new land. In the following year, however, shortly after buying land there on Brush Creek, Andrew received word from
his mother that his sister had finally agreed to risk the perils of ocean travel-they
would be bringing Ann back to her native land where Mrs. Barry would provide a
home for still another motherless grandchild as well as for her only remaining son.
In the words of Joseph Waddell, "knowing that such a place as his then wild home
on the frontiers of Ohio would not be congenial to them, he returned to Staunton
and again entered into partnership with Mr. Cowan."35
So it happened that, in the summer of 1806, at the age of nine, Ann Barry
found herself once again in Baltimore. There her grandmother, her Aunt Ellen,
and Ann were welcomed byJohn McKim who had bidden farewell to his Aunt Sarah
a quarter century earlier. As the orphaned nephew for whom Sarah McKim had
provided a home back in Ireland, we can imagine McKim's pleasure in showing her
and Ellen the American city in which he had prospered.
Ann had vague memories of her time at age three in the McKim home.
Recalling in her 1867 letter that she had then known her father's cousin as "Papa,"
she greeted him in 1806 in the same manner. However, "he said I must call him
Uncle," an admonition that Ann still remembered vividly sixty years later. An
orphan girl should not pretend to have a "Papa."
Andrew Barry had arranged to be in Baltimore to greet his mother, sister, and
niece upon their arrival. After a brief visit with the McKims in Baltimore, they
accompanied Andrew to Staunton, thus fulfilling in part the dream of her son
Thomas nine years earlier: that his mother and sister might come to America to
help rear his daughter as well as to provide a home for himself and Andrew.
Thomas was dead, of course, and Andrew now had a house of his own, but Andrew
had a two-year-old son who, like his niece, needed the loving care of an Irish
grandmother.
For Sarah McKim Barry and her daughter, Ellen, the departure from the family farm and the saying of what they could be sure was a last farewell to relatives and
old neighbors, was doubtless traumatic, as was their "crossing the sea" which Ellen
had refused to undertake earlier. For nine-year-old Ann Barry, secure in her grandmother's protection and the tender love of her maiden aunt, the long ocean
voyage, with its joyful end in the McKim mansion in Baltimore, had likely been a
splendid adventure. We may wonder, however, whether Ann experienced some
anxious moments during the slow journey to Staunton as she thought of her twoyear-old cousin there with whom she would have to share the attention of Grandma
and Aunt Ellen. Learning from her Uncle Andrew that she would begin an instructional program under a demanding tutor in Staunton, may, also, have given her
pause.


11




END NOTES - CHAPTER I


1. Prior to her first marriage, Ann I. Allen was called Ann Isabella Barry, although her parents had
named her Agnes Barry at her birth. Her name was changed by family members to Ann Isabella
Barry in 1800 in memory of her mother. With her first marriage in 1813, her name became
Ann Isabella McCue. With her second marriage in 1821, she became Ann Isabella Allen. For the
remainder of her life, she signed her name "Ann I. Allen," the name used in this biography.
2. The first part of Waddell's tribute to Ann I. Allen appeared in The [Staunton] Spectator of December
21, 1875, which is on microfilm at the Augusta County Historical Society in Staunton. The successive issue of The Spectator, in which Waddell's tribute was continued, does not exist on the film, but
a portion of it is found as a clipping in a scrapbook kept by Lucy Chapin in Ann Arbor, and is now
preserved in the Bentley Historical Library, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. (Hereafter
referred to as BHL.)
Joseph A. Waddell, Staunton's first historian of note, not only wrote for Staunton's weekly
newspaper, but his Annals of Augusta County (Richmond, VA: J. W. Randolph & English, 1888) is a
rich source for information on Augusta County's early families.
3. Ann I. Allen's death notice had appeared in The Spectator of Nov. 30, 1875.
4. Dr. Carson Gibb of Annapolis, MD, was engaged by this writer to search probate, land, and church
records from Kent County, MD, now preserved at the Maryland Hall of Records in Annapolis, for
information on the family of Ann Isabella Smith, mother of Ann I. Allen. Her earliest identifiable
Smith ancestor was named William Smith, a name regularly bestowed upon the eldest son in subsequent generations. The writing of the will of this first William Smith, on September 21, 1701, was
prompted by his then being "designed for England." He returned safely, dying in 1707. He left the
"plantation I live on in Langfords Bay with 200 acres" to his wife during her widowhood, then to be
divided among his four sons. The Smith family records compiled and reproduced at the Hall of
Records for this writer will be placed in the Bentley Historical Library.
5. The undated will of William Smith, father of Ann Isabella Smith, was probated on January 28, 1783.
Kent Co., MD, Wills, Vol. 7, p. 23, Maryland Hall of Records, Annapolis, MD.
6. Kent Co., MD, Guardian Accounts, 1781-98, pp. 175, 192, and 293, Maryland Hall of Records
7. Caroline P. Campbell did research on Ann I. Allen in 1925, during which she visited a granddaughter of Ann named Phoebe W. Bell (she was a daughter of Thomas W. and Elizabeth McCue).
Phoebe Bell was then keenly interested in her grandmother's history and showed Mrs. Campbell
"torn leaves from an old family Bible" from which Mrs. Campbell copied the following entry: "Thos.
Barry born in County Donegall, Ireland, in 1767, died in Staunton, VA, January 1800." This was Ann
I. Allen's father. Mrs. Campbell's papers are in the Bentley Historical Library, a number of which are
undated notes intended for her later use in writing her proposed biography of Ann I. Allen. She
died in 1926 following a gall bladder operation in the ten-patient Cowie Private Hospital, 320 S.
Division St., Ann Arbor, MI.
8. An article devoted to Thomas and Andrew Barry appeared in The Spectator of January 11, 1876.
Signed "N," this was written by Joseph A. Waddell, who had obviously obtained much of his information from Ann I. Allen and from her uncle, Andrew Barry.
Thomas Barry, a son of Andrew Barry and a cousin of Ann I. Allen, traveled to Ireland sometime
after 1868; he diedJune 4, 1888. The purpose of his journey was to find Barry relatives. His nephew,
Charles A. Barry, wrote on March 16, 1906, to Phoebe (McCue) Bell, a granddaughter of Ann I.
Allen, regarding family records: "I also have several letters from Margaret Barry near Londonderry,
Ireland, to Uncle Thomas after his return home. She goes into the family history and has sent
inscriptions of old tomb stones away back as early as 1699 which is the birth date of Thomas Barry,
but Richard Barry's Student of Divinity death is dated 1713, and I have gained the impression that
he was the first Barry in Ireland and arrived there shortly before the 'siege of Derry' which he
helped defend....Our direct line is something like the following: Thomas Barry born in County
Donnegall [sic] 1714; his son, Andrew, born 1736; his two sons, Thomas and Andrew, born, 1st,
Thos. 1767; 2nd, Andrew, 1780." This letter was in the possession of Sarah W. McCue in 1978, when
it was copied by this writer.
9. The information regarding the Barry family given here comes primarily from a letter written by Ann
I. Allen to her cousin, Thomas Barry (son of Andrew Barry) of Hillsboro, Ohio, on December 25,
1867. (It will be cited hereafter simply as "Ann I. Allen's 1867 Letter.") This lengthy letter begins:
"You ask me a number of questions about our forefathers...." The original seems not to have been
preserved, but a handwritten copy was made by Charles A. Barry for Phoebe (McCue) Bell sometime after the Civil War. In making this copy, Barry appears to have done some editing with regard
to punctuation, capitalization, and spelling; it was among the family papers owned by Mary and


12




Sarah W. McCue in 1978 when a photocopy was made by this writer. A typewritten carbon copy of
Barry's transcription, with minor changes, was owned in 1962 by Mrs. Hugh Andrews, 79 West 12th
St., New York, NY
10. In her 1867 letter, Ann I. Allen identified the three McKim children as Edy,John, and Isabella. Their
father, John McKim, was a brother of Sarah (McKim) Barry, Ann's grandmother. In her 1867 letter,
Ann stated that Isabella McKim had been married to a Mr. Hazlett of Baltimore.
She added: "The oldest son, Edy McKim...went to the West Indies, made a fortune and died; left it
to [his siblings] Uncle McKim and Aunt Hazlett."
11. The most detailed record of the life of John McKim, sometimes called John McKim, Jr., is found in
an article in the Baltimore Sun of January 20, 1924, entitled "Maryland Historical Society Gets
Portraits of Rembrandt Peale." Information, along with reproductions of McKim family portraits
can also be found in "The McKims...Maritime Merchants of Maryland," contained in a volume entitled the Fourth Annual Maryland Antiques Show & Sale, published by the Maryland Historical
Society, 1982.
12. Kent Co., MD, Land Records, Book BC # 3, pp. 351 and 413; and Book EF 6, pp. 387-8. Maryland
Hall of Records.
13. No official record of the marriage of Thomas Barry and Ann Isabella Smith has been found, but
circumstantial evidence places it in 1792. In her 1867 letter to her cousin, Ann I. Allen stated that
her mother had been "aged 20k years" when she died on December 31, 1797. She also stated that
her mother had been sixteen when she was married to her father.
14. The Maryland historian quoted here is Dr. Carson Gibb of Annapolis, MD.
15. Kent Co., MD, Land Records BC #4, p. 244.
16. Augusta Co., VA, Deed Book 29, pp. 104-05.
17. Isaac Weld, Jr., Travels Through the States of North America, and the Provinces of Upper Canada During
1795, 1796, and 1797 (London: Printed forJohn Stockdale, 1799), p. 136.
18. Le Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, Travels Through the United States of North America (London:
1799), pp. 90-3.
19. Detailed information regarding the Staunton church, including its measurements, can be found in
J. Lewis Peyton, History of Augusta County, Virginia (Staunton: Samuel M. Yost & Son, 1882), p. 102.
20. Speculating why Thomas and Ann Barry named their daughter Agnes, Norma Bell Norris, a granddaughter of Ann I. Allen, in a letter to Caroline Campbell dated June 8, 1925, noted that Thomas
Barry's grandfather, Andrew Barry, Sr., had a sister named Agnes. Caroline Campbell Papers, BHL.
21. Reported in the February 6, 1797, issue of the Virginia Spectator, then called the Staunton Virginia
Gazette.
22. Ann I. Allen's 1867 Letter. (See above, note 9.)
23. Mrs. McDowell was identified byJoseph A. Waddell in his article in The Spectator ofJan. 11, 1876. She
was married to Robert McDowell on March 1, 1798, according to "A List of Marriages Solemnized
by the ReverendJohn McCue" in First Marriage Record ofAugusta County. Virginia, 1785-1813 (Verona,
VA: McClure Press, 1970), p. 30.
24. This account of Andrew Barry's journey to Baltimore is contained in Ann Allen's 1867 Letter.
A similar account appeared in Joseph A. Waddell's article on the Barry family in The Spectator of
January 11, 1876, along with the story of Andrew's youthful romance with Betsy Patterson.
25. Waddell, Annals, p. 222.
26. Peyton, History of Augusta County, p. 277.
27. The will of Thomas Barry was recorded in the Augusta County courthouse sometime in 1800, in Will
Book 9, pp. 68-71. That it had been written in Baltimore is proven by the fact that the witnesses,
William J. Moore and Nimrod Owings, were both residents of Baltimore at the time.
28. The inventory of Thomas Barry's estate was recorded in Augusta County Will Book 9, pp. 123-54.
Deeds relating to his estate are found in Augusta County Deed Book 36, pp. 137-42.
29. The explanation of the change of name of Ann Isabella Barry from Agnes is contained in an
undated six-page document in the handwriting of Phoebe (McCue) Bell, doubtless written in 1925,
owned by Virginia Somerville of Montreat, NC. Part of this was copied from Joseph A. Waddell's
tribute to Ann I. Allen that appeared in The Spectator ofJanuary 11, 1876.
30. The location of the McKim home in Baltimore is found in Vol. 1 (June 1906), p. 116, of the
Maryland History Magazine in an article giving the location of various Baltimore families in 1824.
Darley Hall, the McKim country home, had been purchased byJohn Montgomery Gordon followingJohn McKim's death in 1842 and renamed "Kenmuir."
31. Ann I. Allen's 1867 letter. (See Chapter I, note 9.)


13




32. No written account of this French Testament has been found. The account given here was provided
in 1978 when this writer visited two of Ann I. Allen's great-granddaughters, Mary and Sarah W.
McCue, then living at Belvidere, the country home built by Ann's son, Thomas W. McCue, in the
early 1850s in the community known as Fort Defiance, near Staunton. The Misses McCue continued
to provide information to this writer based on their memories of family discussions and from
family records. Mary McCue died irL1989.
33. Jacob Deary to Andrew Barry, March 22, 1802, Augusta Co., VA, Deed Book 31, p. 460.
34. History of Ross and Highland Counties, Ohio (Cleveland: Williams Bros., 1880), p. 360. "Mr. Barry was
a native of Ireland, was well educated, and was, early in life, a merchant in Staunton, Virginia. He
came to Highland [County] with ample means, which he invested near Hillsborough. He was an
elder in the Presbyterian church, both in Virginia and in Hillsborough. He left his farm and
removed to Hillsborough where his useful life was closed, and where his memory and worth are
revered." (The spelling of "Hillsborough" is now Hillsboro.)
35. The Spectator, January 11, 1876.


14




II.
Schooling in Virginia and Baltimore
1807-1812
Andrew Barry had a high regard for education, not only for boys but for girls
as well. His Baltimore cousin held similar views, and as stewards of Ann's rather substantial inheritance, they could provide schooling for her at no expense of their
own. James Waddell, then principal of the Staunton Academy for Boys, agreed to
take Ann as a private student for a time. Later, she was placed under the tutelage of
the Rev. William Calhoun, the pastor of the new Presbyterian Church in Staunton.
She doubtless lived in her uncle's home, with her grandmother and Aunt Ellen,
during this period.
On August 18, 1807, Andrew Barry was married a second time. His bride was
Mary (nicknamed Polly) McCue, eldest daughter of the Rev. John McCue, a
Presbyterian clergyman then preaching in a nearby village called Tinkling Spring.
It was after Andrew's second marriage that, in the words of Joseph Waddell, Ann
"was sent to Winchester, and enjoyed the instruction and counsels of the Rev.
William Hill, D.D., and was boarded in his family." This was Ann's first separation
from her grandmother since she had been taken to Ireland in 1800.
Located some eighty miles northeast of Staunton in Frederick County,
Virginia, Winchester was a thriving village with some two hundred "freeholders,"
i.e., owners of real estate, located on the Great Trading Path (or "Great Road")
across Virginia to the Potomac River.
The Rev. William Hill, a native of Cumberland County, Virginia, had been
born in 1769; he had but recently reached his fortieth year when Ann came under
his tutelage. A liberal in his day, Hill belonged to the "New School" element in the
Presbyterian Church and was described by his biographer as "a man of strong convictions and a genius for controversy." He and his wife had two daughters, Elizabeth
and Sarah, who were very nearly the age of Ann when she studied at the Hill home
at 132 North Cameron Street in Winchester. It was in 1816 that Hill was awarded
the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by Dartmouth College, and in 1839 his
History... of American Presbyterianism was published.1
It was in either 1809 or 1810 that it was deemed appropriate byJohn McKim
and her Uncle Andrew that Ann's education now be completed in Baltimore.
Living with the McKims, she was enrolled in what Waddell described as "a seminary,
under the management of a celebrated French lady."2
The "celebrated French lady" under whom Ann studied has not been identified, although it is probable that at this stage of her education emphasis was placed
upon the social graces, including the art of conversation, parlor and dining
manners, the appreciation of fine literature and music, along with letter writing
and, perhaps, an introduction to the French language.
Baltimore in 1810, with a population of nearly fifty thousand, was third in size
after Philadelphia and New York among American cities.3 It was a prosperous and
bustling metropolis and port at the time Ann returned there to complete her education. She doubtless observed with awe the massive walls of the Roman Catholic
Cathedral then rising, although the coming war with England would delay its completion for many years. Her "Uncle McKim" surely pointed with pride to the new
15




courthouse, for the building of which he had been one of the eight commissioners.
He may have explained, also, that the space left by the demolition of the old
courthouse was being considered as a site for a monument to honor President
Washington, who had died a decade earlier, with its estimated cost of $100,000 to
be raised through lotteries. Several stone bridges were under construction, a ship
was being built in the harbor, and a four-story addition to the City Hospital had just
been completed. In November 1808, John McKim had been one of the founders of
the Baltimore Water Company to "introduce a copious supply of wholesome water
into the city."
Baltimore, even at this early date, was gaining renown as a medical center with
a number of practicing physicians in residence who are remembered as pioneers in
modern medicine. Eye surgery, although without benefit of anesthetic, even
included the removal of cataracts for patients brave enough to endure the operation. Vaccination for smallpox, rather than inoculation, discovered in 1796 by Dr.
Jenner in England, was, by 1810, an increasingly common practice in Baltimore
where a local society was formed that year "for promoting vaccination generally."
We can speculate that Ann Barry may have been vaccinated at this time. A young
man from Staunton then studying medicine in Baltimore was Dr. William McCue,
a brother of Andrew Barry's second wife. There can be little doubt that Dr. McCue
had known Ann Barry as a child in Staunton, but in Baltimore he found her to have
become an engaging young lady.
Ann returned to Augusta County in 1812. The timing of her return was determined in large part by national events. On June 18, 1812, the United States
declared war against the British. Political leaders in Baltimore were sharply divided
on the war issue, the Federalists in opposition and the Republicans (includingJohn
McKim) in support. In June and July that year, there were riots in Baltimore resulting in several deaths, and John McKim concluded that fifteen-year-old Ann Barry
would now be better off with her uncle in Virginia.
The home of Andrew Barry to which Ann returned, however, was no longer in
Staunton. With his wife and their two children (William born in 1808 and Elizabetk
born in 1810), along with his mother and sister and his nine-year-old son by his firsi
marriage, Andrew had just moved into a fine new brick residence built on land thai
he had purchased from his father-in-law some sixteen miles north of Staunton, neai
the village of Mt. Solon. The Rev. John McCue, through inheritance and wise invest
ments, was an extensive land owner in Augusta County, and he had sold 400 acre:
"on the head waters of Mossy Creek" to Andrew for the nominal sum of ter
pounds.4 The first house to be built of brick in that area, the Barry residence wa:
within sight of the home of his wife's brother, James A. McCue. The latter woulc
play an important role in Ann's life at a later date.
The Mossy Creek Presbyterian Church, located two and one-half miles fron
Mt. Solon, near the Rockingham County line, soon made Andrew Barry an elder a
well as its clerk of sessions.
Not long after Ann's arrival, Dr. William McCue, Andrew's brother-in-lax
whom Ann Barry had known during her stay in Baltimore, arrived at Mt. Solon
Having but recently completed his medical studies, Dr. McCue had decided to se
up his practice there, "the first physician outside of Staunton who ever practiced ii
that section of Augusta County," according to a nephew, Marshall McCue, writin1
in 1888.5 Dr. McCue took temporary lodging with his sister and brother-in-las
16




where, also, Ann Barry was now a family member. A courtship that may have begun
in Baltimore now progressed in earnest.
Dr. William McCue was the second son of the highly respected Rev. John
McCue, who had founded the first Presbyterian church west of the Alleghenies, in
Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, Virginia. A member of the second generation of his
Scotch-Irish family in America, John McCue was a graduate of Liberty Hall in
Lexington, Virginia, the predecessor of Washington College.6 He had then studied
theology under Dr. James Waddell, Augusta County's famous "blind preacher." In
1781, he had been sent by the Synod of Philadelphia "to take pastoral care of
Tinkling Spring and Staunton." Although he preached in English, John McCue
wrote his sermons initially in Latin. His wife, and the mother of his eleven children,
was Margaret Allen, sister of Col. James Allen, the latter destined one day to
become the second father-in-law of Ann Barry.


The Home of Andrew Barry Near the Village of Mt. Solon
It was in this house on the head waters of Mossy Creek that Ann Barry lived with her
Uncle Andrew following her return to Augusta County from Baltimore in 1812. It was
here, also, that her grandmother, Sarah McKim Barry, made her home with her son, as did
also Andrew's sister, Ellen Barry. Ann celebrated her sixteenth birthday here on January
22, 1813, and it was in this house that she was courted by Dr. William McCue, brother of
Andrew Barry's wife, Mary McCue Barry. Ann Barry and Dr. William McCue were
married on April 20, 1813. From Sarah W. McCue.
17




Not surprisingly, William McCue was also a graduate of his father's alma mater
in Lexington. While a student there, he had decided upon a medical career, thereafter becoming a private student and assistant of Dr. William Boys who had come to
Staunton from Philadelphia in 1800. Dr. Boys had received his medical training in
Edinburgh. His practice in Staunton had flourished, particularly among those traveling to Augusta County to visit the famous Springs. After studying with Dr. Boys,
McCue had obtained his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania's School
of Medicine, the oldest medical school in the United States, founded in 1765.
From there he had gone to Baltimore for further study. Thus, at age twenty-five,
Dr. McCue was a highly trained physician for his time.
An incident in the life of young McCue while he was studying with Dr. Boys had
gained widespread attention. A rich Baltimore merchant namedJohn Comegys had
become a patient of Dr. Boys for some type of surgery, following which the patient
was determined to return home before his doctor thought wise, the latter fearing
not only the adverse effect of the long journey would have on Mr. Comegys, but on
his own reputation as well. Young McCue provided a solution that was satisfactory
to both doctor and patient, as recalled in the words of his nephew, Marshall McCue,
many years later.
Uncle William's ingenuity was equal to the occasion. He procured
two quiet horses, fastened or suspended a mattress between them,
laid Mr. Comegys upon it; with a Negro boy on a horse to lead
them, he on horseback, superintended. Thus Mr. Comegys was
safely carried to his mansion, that was ever after open with its
hospitalities to the young physician during his sojourn here
[Baltimore] as a student.7
While living with the McKims in Baltimore during her instruction by the
"celebrated French lady" there, Ann Barry had doubtless heard of this achievement
by the young physician from Staunton. Perhaps he had even related its details to
her himself.
END NOTES-CHAPTER II
1. "Rev. William Hill, D.D. (1769-1852)," in Some Worthy Lives by Garland R. Quarles (Winchester, VA:
Frederick County Historical Society, 1988), pp. 120-22.
2. The Spectator, December 31, 1875.
3. Thomas W. Griffith, Annals of Baltimore (Baltimore: W. Woodly, 1833).
4. John and Elizabeth McCue to Andrew Barry. Augusta Co., VA, Deed Book 37, p. 406.
5. J. Marshall McCue to Samuel N. Kerr, March 4, 1888. A photostat of this letter is in the John Allen
Papers at BHL. On the back of this photostat, Caroline P. Campbell wrote: "Copied at the U.S.
Bureau of Commerce for me July 1925 from original in possession of Elizabeth Barry Kerr, lineal
descent from Ann I. Barry &John Allen." J. Marshall McCue was a son of James A. and Margaret
(Trimble) McCue,James A. being the eldest son of the Rev.John and Elizabeth (Allen) McCue, and
was thus a first cousin ofJohn and Thomas W. McCue, sons of Dr. William and Ann (Barry) McCue."
Samuel N. Kerr, a grandson of Sarah (Allen) Waddell, apparently had written toJ. Marshall McCue
for information regarding his memories of Ann I. Allen. (Cited hereafter asJ. Marshall McCue 1888
letter.)
6. 'The M'Cue Family," in Peyton, History of Augusta County, pp. 315-16. (See Chapter I, note 19.)
7. J. Marshall McCue 1888 letter. (See note 5, above.)
18




III.
Youthful Romance and Early Widowhood
1813-1820
Ann Barry was only fifteen when she returned to Virginia, but she celebrated
her sixteenth birthday on January 22, 1813, thus reaching the age at which it was
then quite common for girls to marry. Her mother had been sixteen when she had
been married to her father. The fact that Dr. McCue was nearly a decade older than
Ann was also considered to be quite proper. (He had been born on July 14, 1787.)
Ann and William were married by the latter's father, the Rev. John McCue, on
April 20, 1813.' Where the marriage was performed, however, is not a matter of
record, although one can speculate that it was likely in the Rev. Mr. McCue's
church at Tinkling Spring. We can be sure that Ann's 73-year-old grandmother was
in attendance.
No description of Ann Barry's physical appearance during her youth seems
to have survived, but a granddaughter remembered that she was quite small. A
photograph taken in her old age indicates that she was slender. Perhaps Ann's
description of her own daughter at age eleven was not unlike that of herself as a
girl. Writing to her son, Thomas McCue, in June 1834, she noted: "Sarah Ann
enjoys good health but is very slender and delicate....she is a very livly child
full of mirth and glee, she is very affectionate to me and to every one, it is her
natural disposition."2
One can be sure that Ann was an attractive bride and, with her good education, well suited for the role of physician's wife. As determined in her father's will,
she would come into a substantial inheritance with her marriage, a fact that may
have made Ann even more attractive in the view of the young doctor. Thomas
Barry's will had directed that two-thirds of the amount received form the sale of his
real estate be invested in bank stock for his daughter, with the other third to belong
to his brother, Andrew. Thomas had made the same division of his personal property, the value of which had amounted to well over three thousand pounds
according to the inventory taken shortly after Thomas' death. Ann's share, however,
was to remain under the control of her Uncle Andrew until she came of age, or at
her marriage if that occurred earlier. At that point, Andrew Barry was to make payment to Ann, including the accumulated interest. (Although not stated in Thomas'
will, the interest rate at that time was usually 6 percent.)
It was doubtless because of Ann's approaching marriage, with the need for this
settlement to be made, that on March 22, 1813, Ann Barry had requested the
Augusta County Court to appoint a guardian for herself in the person of Joseph
Cowan. Cowan, an immigrant from Ireland like the Barry brothers, was Andrew's
business partner, so his selection as Ann's guardian was surely satisfactory to
Andrew as well as to Ann.3
As dictated by common law and custom in Virginia, Ann's inheritance immediately came under her husband's control following their marriage, as would a
dowry. Then, also, of course, Joseph Cowan ceased being Ann's guardian.
On November 9, 1815, Dr. McCue was chosen to become a member of the
Board of Trustees of Washington College, his alma mater in Lexington.4 With a
$50,000 endowment from George Washington, this institution had been called
19




2, Xl2ovCtK %rrexz
%. XCados TLL-Vor
S. To PtlWv e
5 UoveruhI Rivex
EmS $*osLtV SizYev


Map of Augusta County, Virginia
Reproduced from Annals of Augusta County, Virginia...by Joseph A. Waddell, published in Richmond,
Virginia, in 1888.
Washington Academy until 1813 when its name was changed to Washington
College; today it is Washington and Lee University. To be chosen as a member of
its self-perpetuating governing board was a distinct honor for Dr. McCue at age
twenty-eight.
How long Dr. McCue continued to practice medicine at Mossy Creek following
his and Ann's marriage is not known. It is possible that they were already living in
Lexington when William was chosen as a trustee of the college. At least by the
autumn of 1816 they were there, for on November 14, 1816, as a resident of
Rockbridge County, Dr. McCue purchased Lot 5 and half of Lot 4 on Nelson Street
in Lexington for a total of $800. The seller's name was John Dalton.
There is another deed on record in Rockbridge County by which, for $5,740,
Dr. McCue purchased from brothers named James and David Moore two adjoining
farms comprising 287 acres.6 This was an impressive amount of money in McCue's
time, and the land must have been well improved. There can be little doubt that
this purchase had been made possible by Ann's inheritance which had come under
20




her husband's control at their marriage. Although a married woman was then
required by Virginia law to sign the deed when her husband sold land (relinquishing her dower rights), she was not mentioned in a deed of purchase, even if the
money paid by her husband had been hers before their marriage.
It was in 1816 that Ann Barry McCue, now nineteen years of age, bore her first
child, a son. The name chosen for the infant, John McCue, was probably to honor
the baby's paternal grandfather, the Rev. John McCue. Two years later, on January
2, 1818, a second son was born; he was named Thomas William McCue, thus honoring the infant's maternal grandfather as well as his father. It was later the same
year, on September 20, 1818, that Dr. McCue's father was thrown from his horse on
the way to his church. He died instantly.
Few contemporary references to Dr. McCue have been found. His nephew,
Marshall McCue, responding to a relative's query in 1888, could recall only a
remark by a Lexington clergyman: "I remember as a boy, seeing your uncle, Dr.
William McCue, on a very cold morning, in his shirt sleeves, chopping wood, and
his house was on the spot now covered by the Presbyterian Church."7
Considering Ann's many heartaches and disappointments during the remainder of her long life, there is reason to believe that the period from her wedding in
1813 until November 7, 1818, were the happiest years of her life. It was on the
latter date, perhaps the saddest day in her seventy-eight years, that Dr. McCue
died suddenly from typhoid fever.
Thus, at age twenty-one, Ann McCue became a widow with two small sons,
John, age two years, and Thomas, ten months. Having been dependent upon relatives while a child, she found herself dependent again, now upon her late
husband's brother, James A. McCue, a gentleman farmer and justice of the peace
living near her Uncle Andrew on Mossy Creek. The son of James McCue, Marshall
McCue, quoted earlier, who had been born in 1817, recalled growing up with his
two cousins: 'John, a year older, and Thomas W., a year younger [than Marshall],
we were some size boys before we knew we were not brothers. "Just as Ann had once
called John McKim "Papa," so now her sons came to assume that their father's
brother was their papa.
Among the fifteen extant letters written by Ann, on only one occasion did she
provide a glimpse of her first husband. This is found in her letter of August 15,
1842, to her son, Thomas, at a time when the waywardness of her older son, John
McCue, was giving his mother considerable grief. She wrote: "I look back to the day
of his birth and recollect how rejoiced your Father was; he had a son; he kissed
him-held him in his arms with delight."8
Ironically, the documents settling Dr. McCue's estate best provide a view of his
and Ann's few years together. Because of his sudden illness and death, Dr. McCue
did not leave a will. At the request of John McCue, Dr. McCue's younger brother,
and Andrew Barry, the two of them were appointed by the Rockbridge County
Court to administer his estate." The inventory of the doctor's personal property
reveals that, in addition to his medical practice, he had managed his farm, owning
livestock valued at $1,390.50 when he died (38 head of cattle, 29 sheep, 44 hogs,
and 6 horses). He possessed the usual farm implements of the time, along with
eight African Americans. (Slave owners rarely used the term "slave," preferring
"negro" or "servant.") Valued in all at $2,700, the doctor's "negroes" were named
Connell, Callomid (wife of Connell), Judy, Winey, Louisa, Maria, Henry (a boy),
21




and Sally (a girl). Some were doubtless house servants who had relieved Ann of
many household tasks.
There was the usual list of household goods, including such items as a "Flax
wheel, $1.50," "Sundry Delph ware, $20.00"; "X doz. silver teaspoons, $4.00"; "1
Mahogany bureau, $20.00"; "a Trundle bed, bedstead & clothes, $50.00"; "a cradle,
$2.00"; "a Ladies saddle, $12.00"; etc. Numerous books were listed, the most valuable title being "1 Set, Scots family Bible, 5 vol., $20.00." Valued at $100 were "55
Vols. of Medical books."
A local physician, Dr. S. L. Campbell, assisted in taking inventory of the
remarkably large supply of medicines that Dr. McCue had on hand, no fewer that
128 separately listed items in all, from castor oil and white arsenic, to oil of cloves
and oil of peppermint. There were over two pounds of quick silver, one ounce of
"Extract Hemlock," over a pound of calomel, and 12 ounces of "Balsam of life." Dr.
McCue's medical instruments included a "Spring lancet," "Accoucher instruments,"
and "Tooth instruments." He owned a skeleton valued at $3.00. In all, McCue's
medicines and equipment were inventoried as worth $325.20.
Ann McCue and her sons lived for two and one-half years in the home ofJames
and Margaret McCue. No record of a personal nature appears to have survived for
this period of Ann's life. While we can be certain that she was treated kindly, her
dependence upon her late husband's brother must have been painful as she
remembered her few happy years as mistress of her own home.
James Andrew McCue had been born in 1783. At age twenty-five, he had been
married in 1808 to Margaret Trimble. The story was told that Margaret, at age
seventeen, had been brought by her mother, Jane (Allen) Trimble, on horseback
from their frontier home near Hillsboro, Ohio, for the purpose of finding a suitable husband for her daughter. Whether as a result of youthful romance or parental
planning, perhaps a combination of the two, the mother's quest had settled on a
son of her own sister, Elizabeth (Allen) McCue, and the Rev. John McCue. James
and Margaret were thus first cousins. The marriage lasted for forty-seven years, until
James's death in 1857. His widow lived for twenty more years. In her obituary
appearing in the Virginia Spectator, her husband was remembered:
A gentleman of the olden days, [he] was for more than 45 years a
magistrate, and for more than 20 years a commissioner of the
revenue for the county of Augusta. He was a man of substance
and large-hearted Christian liberality. He looked well to the ways
of the farm and his wife did to those of her household, and both
dispensed a generous hospitality....10
The probating of an estate was a time consuming procedure in the early 19th
Century, especially in those cases where there was no will. To settle Dr. McCue's
estate, not only was there a large number of personal items to be sold, but many
debts to be paid as well. At the time of the appraisement, his widow had been
permitted to keep "sundry articles" valued at $239.00, but this sum, along with
occasional advancements of small amounts for Ann's support during the years
following, were carefully calculated as part of her ultimate dower's third. It was
in Ann's interest, therefore, to keep informed, as best she could, regarding
the progress of the estate's settlement, no doubt through her Uncle Andrew Barry,
a co-administrator with John McCue.
22




23




Court records reveal that in the spring of 1820, Ann learned that, while several
of Dr. McCue's slaves had been sold, John McCue had agreed with his brother,
James McCue, to take the "Negroes" named Connell and wife, Callomid, with their
two small children, Henry and Sally, for which he would pay an annual rental to his
late brother's estate to aid in the support of Ann's sons. While performing an apparent act of kindness toward faithful servants, as well as contributing to the support
of Ann's sons, his action removed the worth of these "Negroes" from the estate to
which Ann was entitled a third part. Ann protested, obtained advice from a lawyer,
and actually brought suit against her own sons for her share of the value of these
slaves. James McCue acted as the McCue boys' defender."
While none of the details in this curious case have been preserved, the record
shows that Ann was judged to be in the right, and the Augusta County Court
appointed Joseph Cowan, Ann's former guardian, and a man named Will Clark,
"for the purpose of assigning to the Complainant her dower in the slaves..." This
action must have strained the relationship between Ann and her McCue relatives.
Might Ann at least have been tempted to point out that many of her late husband's
assets had been acquired through her own inheritance?
Because Andrew Barry lived on land adjoining that ofJames McCue on Mossy
Creek, with the Barry house "within sight" of the McCue place, we can assume that
Ann was often a welcome visitor in her Uncle Andrew and Aunt Polly's home,
greeted there also by her grandmother and Aunt Ellen. Ann shared the Barry family's grief in 1820 when her cousin, George Matthews Barry, only child of Andrew
and his first wife, died suddenly at age seventeen while visiting a Matthews relative.
Polly Barry, Andrew's second wife, was a sister of James A. McCue, as she had
been, also, of Ann's late husband. Through their mother, Elizabeth (Allen) McCue,
they were related to the Scotch-Irish Allen family whose plantation and milling
establishment were on Middle River, but a few miles from Mossy Creek.2 Col.James
Allen then headed the family, having inherited the 500-acres of rich bottom land
granted to his grandfather in 1740. Because John Allen, eldest son of Col. James,
was a first cousin of Dr. McCue, John and Ann had been acquainted for a number
of years.13 Six months after Ann had become a widow, John Allen was left a widower
following the death of his wife, Mary Crawford, to whom he had been married in
1815. Like Ann,John had two small children,James Crawford Allen, born October
14, 1816, and Elizabeth May Allen, born December 19, 1818.
In the 19th century, young widowers left with small children were expected to
marry again rather promptly, for the sake of their children as well as for themselves.
Young widows, with or without small children, even those blessed with substantial
inheritance, were thought to require the "protection" that only a husband could
provide. With the high rate of death from childbirth among young wives then prevailing, opportunities for remarriage were about even between the sexes, except in
the time of war. Neighbors and relatives of eligible parties within a community often
served as go-betweens in matchmaking. We doubt that John Allen required such
assistance, however, as he considered his cousin's widow for courtship.


24




END NOTES-CHAPTER III


1. "A List of Marriages by John McCue since the 24th May 1812...." in First Marriage Record of Augusta
County, Virginia, 1785-1813 (Verona, VA: McClure Press, 1970), p. 60.
2. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, June 20, 1834, Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
3. Joseph A. Waddell wrote of Joseph Cowan: "[He] was a conspicuous citizen of the county for many
years, although he never held any public office, except that of treasurer of the Western Lunatic
Asylum. He was a native of the North of Ireland, and possessed all of the characteristics of his race
in a prominent degree. There was no bank in Staunton during his time, and he acted as banker for
many citizens of the county. His store was a favorite place of resort for elderly men. He was an elder
in the Presbyterian church, and very rigid in his observance of the Sabbath Day." Waddell, Annals,
p. 213. (For full citation see Chapter I, note 2.)
4. The following statement appears in Rockbridge Co., VA, Will Book 5, p. 193: "I do hereby certify
that Docts William McCue and William Taylor, Esqrs duly qualified according to law as Trustees of
Washington College before me a ustice of the peace for Rockbridge County. Given under my Hand
this 9th day of November 1815. [signed] Robert White."
5. Rockbridge Co., VA, Deed Book K, p. 253.
6. Ibid., p. 228.
7. J. Marshall McCue 1888 Letter. (See note 6, chap. II.)
8. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, Aug. 15, 1842. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
9. Documents pertaining to the estate of Dr. William McCue were recorded in Rockbridge Co., VA,
Will Book 5, pp. 201-05 and 481-5; and Will Book 6, pp. 476-7.
10. The obituary of Margaret (Trimble) McCue appeared in The Spectator of November 6, 1877. A copy
is preserved as a clipping in the manuscript booklet byJames Turner Allen owned by Samuel Smith
of Markesan, WI, in 1962. A copy of this clipping has been placed in BHL.
11. Augusta Co., VA, Court Order book 30, pp. 223, 254-5.
12. A genealogical record of the Allen family of Augusta Co., VA, prepared by A. M. Prichard, is in Vol.
13 (1933), William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Second Series, pp. 186-9.
13. The claim has sometimes been made thatJohn Allen had a middle name beginning with letter "J".
In fact, in Waddell's obituary of Ann I. Allen in The Spectator of December 21, 1875, he was called
"John J. Allen." A copy of this obituary was clipped and mounted for preservation by John Allen's
brother, James Turner Allen; it was loaned to this writer in 1962, along with other papers of James
Turner Allen, by a descendant, Samuel Smith of Markeson, WI. James Turner Allen had made a
handwritten note on this clipping: "He had no middle name."


25




Boyhood Home of John Allen
Built by Col. James Allen in 1810, the Allen house is located on Middle River in Augusta County, Virginia.
Photogaph by R. Bidlack, 1978.


26




V.
A Marriage of Convenience and Michigan Territory
1821-1824
It probably came as no great surprise to neighbors of the Aliens and the
McCues when, in the spring of 1821,John and Ann announced their intention to
marry. They were nearly of the same age, Ann was twenty-four andJohn was twentyfive. The youthful widow and widower were, however, very different from each
other in personality and temperament. While there was good reason for them to be
attracted to each other, their union was basically a marriage of convenience.
According to family tradition, members of the McCue family were not pleased
with Ann's decision to marryJohn Allen, despite the close family ties between the
McCues and the Aliens. They were concerned for Ann's future happiness with a
husband so different from herself-John was outgoing and self-confident, even
boastful, with an adventurous and friendly spirit, while Ann was retiring and shy,
deeply religious and private. The McCues were even more anxious for the welfare
of Ann's two sons. Basic to these concerns was the common knowledge that John
Allen had serious financial problems rooted in his father's heavy indebtedness and
impractical investments of long duration. As his father's eldest son and principal
heir, John had become embroiled in James Allen's debts in an attempt to save at
least the family's home place on Middle River. The Allen home there is considered
even today to be one of Augusta County's old stately houses. Its construction in
1810 had contributed to the colonel's debt problems, along with an impractical
expansion of the Allen milling operation.'
Despite family objections, however, Ann McCue became the wife ofJohn Allen
on June 7, 1821. After two and one-half years as a guest in the home of her former
brother-in-law, Ann could now be mistress again of her own household, on Allen's
farm on Walker's Run of Middle River. Her sons, however, remained with their
uncle and aunt at Mt. Solon, and the Allen children continued living with John's
parents. The young couple doubtless planned that all four children would join
them later, when the Allen family's financial woes had been resolved.
While the settlement of Dr. William McCue's estate would not be closed for
several more years, thus keeping control of the McCue boys' inheritance in the
hands of its administrators, John Allen did succeed in convincing the Rockbridge
County Court that Ann should have her dower (one-third) of her late husband's
personal property. On January 1, 1822, John and Ann signed a receipt for
$1,733.45. Although Ann signed her name on this document, under Virginia law it
was a husband's right to dispose of, as he saw fit, any property that his wife brought
to their marriage.
John Allen had been only nineteen years of age in 1815 when he had been
married to seventeen-year-old Mary Crawford. His future had then appeared bright.
Not only was Mary an heir to her deceased parents' considerable amount of property in Virginia and Kentucky, but Col. Allen had also promised to convey to John
a 397-acre tract of land known as the Samuel Frame farm when he came of age at
twenty-one.2 Located on "a branch of Middle River called Walkers Run," Col. Allen
had paid ~3,186 (equivalent to some $10,000) for this farm. This conveyance when
it came, however, seems to have carried more debt than gift. Within a very few years,
27




After her marriage to John Allen in June 1821, this farm was Ann I. Allen's home until John's departure for
Baltimore in Autumn 1823. Purchased by Col. James Allen in 1814 and given to John in 1815, the 397-acre
farm was located on Walker's Run, a branch of Middle River in Augusta County, Virginia. The farm was lost
to Allen's creditors after 1824. From Allen Family Collection, Bentley Historical Library.


the extent of James Allen's indebtedness became evident as creditors began to
threaten foreclosure. Using his first wife's inheritance and his own land as collateral, along with the limited resources of his younger brother, William Allen, John
had attempted at least to delay foreclosure on Col. Allen's home plantation by
shouldering the debts with William.
William Allen, however, soon recognized the folly of this effort and withdrew
in the summer of 1822, leaving John owing creditors the then astronomical sum of
$40,000. This crisis was concurrent with the first anniversary ofJohn and Ann's marriage. In desperation, John shifted the debts back to his father. Creditors then
foreclosed, and white-haired Col. James Allen and his wife were given until October
1, 1824, to vacate their home. The Frame farm that had been a gift to John from
his father was lost as well, as was Ann's dower from her first husband's estate.
Amid this family dilemma, Ann gave birth on May 10, 1823, to a daughter, her
and John's only child. They chose the name Sarah to honor Ann's beloved grandmother who died at her Uncle Andrew's home in the same year, at age eighty-three.
In the autumn of 1823, John Allen left Augusta County never to return. Ann,
with her baby girl, again took shelter in the home of James McCue on Mossy Creek.
The degree of warmth in the welcome extended to her is not known, but for a
while, at least, she again could be united with her two sons.
Increasingly concerned for the future welfare of his nephews as stepchildren
of John Allen,James A. McCue now convinced the Augusta County Court that their
inheritance could best be protected with himself as their official guardian. The
28




court agreed, and, beginning on January 1, 1824, any decision regarding the wellbeing of young John and Thomas McCue, including their place of residence and
the management of their inheritance, would be determined by their uncle.3
No document contemporary with these events has been found detailing the
circumstances of John Allen's departure from Augusta County, and the accounts
given later by McCue and Allen descendants differ. Marshall McCue, who had been
a child of seven at the time, recalled sixty-five years later having been told that
Allen had "bought up a considerable lot of cattle," on credit that "he carried to
Baltimore" to market.4 (The expression "carried" meant that he drove them, probably with some assistance.) Another version of the story has the cattle belonging to
relatives and neighbors who simply entrusted Allen to return with the proceeds
from the Baltimore market to be divided among the cattle owners. Whatever the
case, those proceeds were not Allen's to keep.
Weeks, then months, passed with no word regarding John Allen's whereabouts.
"The impression became general that he had been assassinated, in which his
parents shared, or seemed to at least," according to Marshall McCue's 1888
account. An entry in the Augusta County tax record for 1824, however, explains the
mystery with one word: opposite Allen's name was written "Absconded."5
We can only imagine Ann Allen's anxiety and embarrassment at this turn of
events. She doubtless endured "we-told-you-so" reminders from her McCue relatives, along with disparaging evaluations of her husband's character.
From letters to John Allen now preserved in the Burton Historical Collection
at the Detroit Public Library, we know that no harm had befallen him in Baltimore,
but that he had journeyed from there to Buffalo, New York, late in October 1823.
There he had investigated the possibility of investing "his" cattle money, amounting
to several hundred dollars, in western land. Later, he would explain to his Aunt
Jane Trimble that, while he had, indeed, left his family "to suffer persecutions
unheard of," he had no intent of "defrauding any one of their just rights." He
assured his aunt that, given time, he would "prove to the world that I only detained
from them a few pence to enable me to pay them the pounds.""
To encourage westward migration, the federal government was then offering
land to settlers for as little as $1.25 per acre. Aware of the near completion of the
Erie Canal and the anticipated increase in migration that would follow, Allen conceived a plan while in Buffalo of purchasing a strategically situated tract on which
he would create a town. He could then divide a portion of his land into lots to be
sold at a considerable profit.
From letters that Allen later received from two Buffalo merchants, we know
that while there he had even discussed what he might call his town: "Allensville," perhaps, or "Annapolis."7 The latter, while not original, would honor his Virginia wife.
Early in January 1824, John Allen engaged a French-Canadian guide to lead
him through Canada to Detroit, then Michigan Territory's "capital city," containing
1,325 inhabitants, exclusive of an army garrison and "55 persons of color."' From
Detroit, Allen planned to go to the Maumee Valley to search for a site for a town,
but in a Detroit tavern he met a man from Genesee County, New York, who convinced him that Michigan Territory offered greater opportunities for such an
enterprise than did Ohio. His name was Elisha Walker Rumsey and, like Allen, he
was running away from a debt-ridden past. Eleven years Allen's senior, Rumsey had
borrowed a few hundred dollars from his aging father in Vermont with which he
29




hoped to begin a new life, in a new land, with his youthful second wife, Mary Ann
Sprague. There was also a marital scandal that the Rumseys hoped they could leave
behind in New York.9
In an earlier flight to Michigan Territory that had ended in his arrest and
return to New York on a charge of embezzlement, Rumsey had recognized the
financial potential in founding a town in the territory, information that he shared
with Allen. So it was that these two very different men agreed to pool their
resources (cash being required for the purchase of government land), and by
February 12, 1824, they had chosen a site on the Huron River on which to create
their shared dream.
At what point in his journey from Baltimore to Buffalo to Detroit, John Allen
advised his wife and parents of his whereabouts and his plans, we do not know.
Family memories refer to only one such letter, received byJohn's father in August
1824. While this letter is not extant, we know a portion of its contents from a contemporary reference preserved in Ohio. Jane Allen Trimble, John's aunt, who was
also the mother-in-law of James McCue, was on a visit at Mossy Creek from her
home in Ohio. Writing on August 20, 1824, to her son, Allen Trimble, a future governor of Ohio, she reported that her brother, Col. James Allen, "was here yesterday,
with a letter to Ann; he has one from John Allen directing him what way to go &
insists on his not coming without Ann, as he cannot live without her; her friends are
all opposd to her going."'
From Mrs. Trimble's choice of words, it appears that there had been earlier
word from John informing his parents and wife of his activities in Michigan
Territory, and that Col. and Mrs. Allen were already planning to join him there.
Knowing that his parents would be forced to vacate their home by October first,
John now described the route that they should follow in their covered wagon from
Augusta County to Detroit, where he would meet them.
In his letter to Ann,John obviously urged, perhaps insisted, that she, with their
infant daughter, accompany his parents on their journey. He doubtless assured her
that a suitable home had been constructed in which to receive them. Knowing that
James McCue was the court-appointed guardian of Ann's sons, he also knew that
John and Thomas McCue, eight and six years of age, would remain in Virginia.
Allen and Rumsey had first viewed the land on which they would establish
their town from a one-horse sleigh in early February 1824. There is reason to
believe that Michigan Territory's governor, Lewis Cass, had told them of this oak
opening on the Huron River, with which Cass was personally familiar." Located in
the recently created county of Washtenaw, it could be reached by following either
of two old Indian paths. The Sauk Trail was through the woods, while the
Potawotomi Trail hugged the north side of the Huron River. It being February,
Allen and Rumsey wisely chose the Sauk Trail.
There was then another small settlement in Washtenaw County dating from
the spring of 1823. Four men from Sandusky, Ohio, including a school teacher
named Benjamin Woodruff, had bought land and built cabins for their families
about ten miles southeast of the site chosen by Allen and Rumsey. Because
Woodruff was the best educated of the group, he had been the one chosen to go to
Detroit to make the case before Governor Cass of the need for a post office. The
governor was sympathetic, but he pointed out that the settlement would have to
have a name. So it fell to Woodruff to provide the answer: "Woodruff's Grove."'2
30




While most of Michigan Territory's land was heavily timbered, there was an
occasional large "opening" where the trees grew far apart and where settlers could
immediately plow and plant. Furthermore, the "oak opening" visited by Allen
and Rumsey possessed other attributes that they desired. A spring-fed creek, later
christened "Allen's Creek," flowed through fertile soil into the Huron River.
There would be easy access to the Huron both for water power and transportation, and the site's proximity to the growing commercial center of Detroit would
surely attract the mechanics and artisans, along with traders and farmers, vital for a
frontier town's success.
Having found their site, Allen and Rumsey had lost little time in claiming it.
Back in Detroit on February 12, 1824, Allen purchased 480 acres for $600, and
Rumsey bought 160 adjoining acres for $200.13 Between them, they acquired all of
Section 29 in what would become Ann Arbor Township. Together, they also purchased 40 acres on the Huron River in Section 21 for a mill site.'1 From the start,
the partners were called "Allen and Rumsey" because John Allen assumed the leading role in the town's development and promotion. Rumsey sought only financial
security in a new land where past indiscretions could be forgotten, while Allen
viewed the founding of a town as a stepping stone toward higher goals, including
public office, through which he could rise to prominence and power.
On February 14, 1824, Governor Cass announced that "application has
recently been made to me by persons interested in...the establishment of the
County seat," and, therefore, he had appointed five commissioners to explore
Washtenaw County for this purpose. In their report on March 6, 1824, the commissioners stated that they had chosen a spot on "the south bank of the Huron of
Lake Erie...upon lands owned by Allen and Rumsey, Esquires." The selection of
their settlement as Washtenaw County's seat of justice assured Allen and Rumsey of
success in their endeavor.15
At what point John Allen revealed to Ann the name he had chosen for his
town, we do not know, nor is the precise date known on which he, no doubt with
Rumsey's approval, made the decision.16 (Rumsey's wife had the middle name Ann,
but she was not called by that name.) We know that the choice had been made prior
to May 25, 1824, however, because on that date Allen and Rumsey were again
in Detroit to register, and thus make legal for future sales of lots, a map of their
village. This map, including the names of the first twelve streets, was drawn by
a Detroit surveyor named Philo E. Judd from a less elegant drawing done by Allen.
It is our earliest known record on which the name of the village appears. In an
endorsement in one corner by Justice of the Peace Richard Smyth, the name was
written "Annarbour." In another corner appears:
Recd for record at Detroit, Register's office this 25th day of May
A.D. 1824 at seven of the clock P.M.
[signed] Jeremiah V. R. Ten Eyck
Register M. T. Co. Wayne'7
With Huron Street marking the east/west dividing line between the two men's
property, Allen's lots lay to the north of Huron Street while Rumsey's were to the
south. Agreeing to use ordinal numerals to designate five streets running north and
south (Third Street was also called Main), each man had chosen names for the
three streets on his own land to run parallel with Huron. Allen called his three Ann,
Catherine, and North, while Rumsey chose Washington, Liberty, and William.
31




I4nnrl lcu^..


'   1.
I]aZ  ]] II
A_


eAl.^.
* e    *-^ </
INt p -
Ir" am


-j am ILS IO A11 Ij I ' Li                         1-3. j
rJjj                                       L.LJ LIUUIL                           -
Portion of "Plan Of The Village Of Annarbour" drawn by Philo E. Judd on May 25, 1824, showing the
streets and numbered lots on John Allen's side of Huron Street. (Reproduced from Liber 7, pp. 82-83,
Wayne County Deeds.)


32




On May 26, 1824, Governor Cass issued a proclamation making official his
earlier acceptance of his commissioners' selection of the site for the county seat:
"I do hereby establish the seat of Justice of the said County of Washtenaw at the
Town of Ann Arbour."'8
Now calling themselves "Proprietors," Allen and Rumsey arranged with John
Sheldon, publisher and editor of Detroit's weekly newspaper, the publishing of
an advertisement on their behalf. Thus, in the June 4, 1824, issue of the Gazette,
appeared the following:
TO THE PUBLIC
The subscribers invite the attention of EMIGRANTS, particularly
of Mechanics and Artisans, to the village of
ANN-ARBOUR
The County-seat of the County of Washtenaw, pleasantly located
on the Lower Huron.
Ann-Arbouris in the heart of a rich and rapidly populating country,
distant about thirty miles from Detroit. The village has been laid
out into convenient lots, and the proprietors now offer them for
sale on the most liberal terms, to persons desirous of permanently
locating.
A map of the village may be seen at the office of the Register of
Wayne County in Detroit, or by application to the subscribers, at
Ann-Arbour. It is expected that a road, to run direct from the
county-seat to Detroit, will be surveyed and laid out in the course
of the summer.
The subscribers pledge themselves to facilitate, as far as possible,
the views of emigrants and others, who may visit the county, for the
purpose of locating.
JOHN ALLEN
ELISHA W. RUMSEY
Proprietors.
While map-maker Judd spelled the name "Annarbour," and Governor Cass
wrote it as two words, John Sheldon inserted a hyphen between Ann and Arbour.
The Governor's choice became standard, except for the gradual acceptance of
Noah Webster's "American" spelling of arbour, i.e., arbor, although neither John
nor Ann ever made the change. Ann Arbor's first historian, Mary Clark, writing in
1863, correctly explained the choice of arbor: "It was called 'Arbor' on account of
the noble aspect of the original site of the village-which was a burr oak opening,
resembling an arbor laid out and cultivated by the hand of taste."' Its use was common in Virginia, there even being an "Arbourhill" a few miles south of Staunton.
Col.James Allen's visit with his sister and her daughter's family on Mossy Creek
on August 19, 1824, was to acquaint them with the plan for the family's imminent
journey by covered wagon to Detroit, but he also brought John's letter to Ann.
There followed great consternation and distress in the households ofJames McCue
and Andrew Barry. Jane Trimble's observation written to her son the following day


33




that Ann's friends were "all oposd to her going," doubtless involved all of the
McCues and their in-laws.20 Their disillusionment with, even distrust of, John Allen
was coupled with a deep concern for Ann's ability to cope, not only with such ajourney, but with the rigors of the pioneer life she would face among strangers in the
North. Although she had been an orphan, Ann had received tender care from an
indulgent grandmother and a gentle Aunt Ellen, and from other relatives as well.
With a substantial inheritance, she had been remarkably well educated for a young
woman of her time. Married at sixteen to a successful physician and slave-owning
gentleman farmer, Ann had been spared the household labor that would be
demanded of a pioneer wife and mother in Michigan. Jane Trimble could attest to
the fact that the leisure "Negro" servants provided Southern ladies for "the niceties
of life" would not be found on the American frontier. Furthermore, the emotional
trauma that would accompany her separation, not only from all of her Virginia
relatives and friends, but from her two small sons, also would provoke anxiety,
even fear. (Today we would use the word depression.) Yet, even the McCues and
her Uncle Andrew recognized the legal, even sacred, obligations of a dutiful wife
of that era to follow her husband. Ann, after all, had promised to obeyJohn Allen
in her marriage vows. Everyone involved being a devout Presbyterian, it followed,
naturally, that the dilemma should be faced in communal prayer.
Marshall McCue remembered the assemblage of relatives "at our house... to
consult as to the propriety of Aunt Ann, with her infant, accompanying her fatherin-law and family to Michigan....After praying over it for 24, 36, 48 hours, cannot
remember the time, it was decided she had better go.1"21
Although McCue's memory probably exaggerated the length of the prayer
session, its occurrence is included in other family stories of these events.
So it was that on August 28, 1824, the Allen family began their journey to
Detroit; it would end nearly two months later, on October 24. Besides Ann and her
daughter, Sarah, now 15 months, with John's parents (Col. James, age 52, and
Elizabeth, age 49) and John's children by his first marriage, (James C. Allen, age 8,
and Elizabeth May, age 5), the party included, also, the Allens' youngest son, James
Turner Allen, who had reached his twentieth birthday in the previous March.
Unrelated to the family was the seventh member, a young school teacher originally
from Connecticut, named Orville Barnes who also had plans for settling in Michigan
Territory. He would prove to be a helpful member of the group in its journey.
It was scarcely a joyful departure. Ann Allen, ill equipped to play the role of a
pioneer wife, bade farewell to her two sons knowing that, at best, years would pass
before she would see them again. Henceforth her loyalties would be torn between
her venturesome and public spirited husband in Michigan and her orphaned sons
in Virginia. Ever after, Ann Allen was plagued with a quiet sense of guilt, interpreted
as melancholy by those who came to know her in Michigan.22
Fortunately for the historical record, James Turner Allen, who was called
Turner by family members, prepared a narrative account of the journey in 1880
that he shared with relatives. Recalling their departure from Virginia, he wrote of
his father:
[He] inherited the old homestead, which he owned and cultivated
for many years, but having become involved in pecuniary matters,
he gave up the old homestead, with considerable other real &


34




personal property, all that he possessed, to his creditors to satisfy
their claims. His circumstances being so changed, he concluded to
move to a New Country, and commence the race of life anew, and
try and retrieve that which he had lost. And accordingly on the
28th of August A.D. 1824, he, with his family, left the land of their
birth with all its associations, and numerous relatives and friends,
for Michigan.23
Turner Allen might have added that his parents left behind five married
children, four of whom Col. Allen would never see again. He might have noted
also, that his father would fail in his quest to "retrieve that which he had lost";
Col. Allen would die in 1828 still in serious debt to creditors back in Virginia. Many
years later, an Ann Arbor settler remembered when Col. Allen had played his
violin for a New Year's party in 1826, describing him as "then an old man with locks
as white as snow."24
Of their equipment taken for the journey, Turner Allen wrote:
Our traveling outfit consisted of an old fashioned Pennsylvania
Wagon (covered) drawn by four horses, and three riding horses
with saddles. The riding horses were a great convenience, for any
one of the party becoming fatigued or weary riding in the wagon
could relieve themselves by taking a ride on horseback.
A granddaughter of Ann Allen named Phoebe (McCue) Bell, recalled hearing
her grandmother say that she had ridden nearly all the way on horseback, holding
Sarah on her lap.25 She would have ridden sidesaddle, of course, perhaps using the
"ladies saddle" that had been listed in the inventory of her first husband's estate. It
was by no means unusual for Virginia women at that time to be adept at horseback
riding. A German tourist, Karl Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, whose
Travels Through North America...included a description of his journey from
Woodstock to Staunton in November 1825, noted:
It appeared they [the farmers] travel here much on horseback, on
account of the great distances between the plantations; almost all
the ladies can ride on horseback; we met several of them elegantly
dressed, and also black women.26
The route that John Allen had instructed his father to follow across Virginia
was known as the Great Kanawah River Road, ending at the Ohio River, above the
town of Gallipolis. To reach this road from Staunton, however, required that the
Aliens first travel nearly one hundred miles to Lewisburg, in Greenbrier County,
now in West Virginia. Turner Allen recalled that, after leaving Lewisburg, "not one
of the party slept in a house during our long and tedious journey to Lake Erie."
He continued:
We had a good tent which we pitched every night, and which was
occupied by all of our company except Mr. Barnes and myself; our
lodging place was in the wagon....We did not experience or meet
with any accident or trouble (worth mentioning) until we arrived


35




at the Great Kenawha River in Va. The road for some distance
down the river had been lately turnpiked, and as far as it was
finished, it was splendid going, almost as smooth as a floor, but
after we left the Pike, the old road was very bad.
He went on to describe their most serious accident when, on the side of a hill
"our wagon upset, turned completely up side down, the running gear being exactly
on top of the wagon box." Fortunately, Col. Allen was riding the lead horse pulling
the wagon, while the others were walking or on horseback. No one was injured,
and, with the help of two men working on the road further back, they were able to
get the wagon on the road again "with what few worldly treasures we had stowed
in it."
Upon reaching what Turner called "the Village of Charleston," now West
Virginia's capital, they took a suggested shortcut through "what was called Tease's
Valley." Although the road proved nearly impassable, he recalled: "I never saw
such quantities, and such fine peaches as I saw there." The generous owner of the
peach orchard gave the Aliens permission to "load our wagon with them if we chose
to do so."...they were cling stones and proved to be splendid. Mother would
slice them up, and fry them in ham gravy, and I think I never tasted
anything that I liked any better.
This was Turner Allen's only description of food preparation during the entire
two months they traveled, nor did he once mention their washing of clothes or
bathing themselves. This aspect of the journey must have been especially distressing for Ann as she cared for her infant daughter.
The Aliens crossed the Ohio River "in the rain in a Ferry Boat" at the mouth
of the Great Kanawha. On reaching the Ohio side, however, they found "the road
so slippery that our horses (being smooth shod) could not pull the wagon up the
bank." The captain of a passing keel boat, however, agreed to take their goods to a
warehouse in Gallipolis, and, with an empty wagon, the horses were able to get up
the bank.
On reaching Gallipolis, Col. James realized that he had not asked for the keel
boat captain's name, nor had he obtained a receipt for their belongings; when
asked at the warehouse the name of the boat, he had to admit that he had not
noticed. Turner Allen remembered the warehouse owner's response:
If we had delivered our goods to the captain of any of the river keel
boats without taking a receipt for them, or knowing the name of
the captain or the boat, the chances were against us of ever seeing
them again-that they were probably at that time a good many
miles down the River. Father said he took the captain of that boat
to be an honest man, and he was loth to believe that he was mistaken in his judgment in regard to him. After keeping us in
suspence some time, he [the warehouse owner] said to Father, that
he was not mistaken in the man, that he was honest, and that it
was lucky for us that we happened to give them in charge of the
person we did, that as a general thing, the captains on those keel
boats were not any too honest.
36




We felt pretty well after learning that our goods were safe. We went
to work and loaded them into the wagon and started on our journey through Ohio.
Regrettably, Turner Allen rarely mentioned his sister-in-law in his account,
and although Phebe Bell recalled that Ann had often entertained her family with
stories of her journey to Michigan, no one appears to have recorded them in any
detail other than her fear of being attacked by Indians.27
An incident noted by Turner that must have especially interested Ann Allen
occurred as they were traveling up the Scioto River.
We met a man on foot with a pack on his back, who stoped us and
made inquiry as to where we were moving to. We told him to Ann
Arbor, Michigan. He said the reason he made the inquiry was that
he was then direct from Ann Arbor and knew a Mr. Allen there,
and that he had heard him say that he was expecting his father and
family, with his wife and children who he thought were then on
their way from the Valley of Va. to that place....We stoped quite a
while, conversing with him. He gave us a description of the country around Ann Arbor, spoke well of it, said it was in a wild state just
as nature made it, but would be, when improved, a splendid country... He said one great draw back was, it was quite sickly there,
nearly every one had to have a siege or seasoning from the fever
and ague.
"Fever and ague" was, indeed, an illness experienced by most immigrants to
Michigan Territory, and there exist many personal accounts of the suffering that
was endured, along with remedies for its cure. Turner Allen, who would become a
victim, was convinced that his cure had come after walking barefoot in a freshly
plowed furrow. Decades would pass before the disease was finally identified as a
form of malaria, spread by the common mosquito.
The Allens progressed without mishap through the Ohio towns of Chillecothe,
Columbus, and Marion, but thereafter they found the area to be "new and sparsely
settled."
We heard that there was a swamp which was called the Black
Swamp which extended some distance around the head of Lake
Erie, and out into the country, and through which we would have
to pass if we continued our journey by land. We made inquiry in
regard to the practicality of our passing through it with our wagon
and teams, but could not get any reliable information... When we
came to the road that we were informed led through it, we took it,
and after traveling it something over half a day, we came to a place
in the Wyandotte Indian reservation in northern Ohio, that was
called the Big Springs. Here we found ourselves right among the
Indians, and from what we had heard and read of the Savage
Character of the Indians, we felt afraid of them. My Brother's wife
said that their cattle lowed savage.
37




James Turner Allen, called "Turner" in his youth, was born on March 4,
1804, the youngest son of Col. James and Elizabeth (Tate) Allen. At age
twenty, he accompanied his parents and his sister-in-law, Ann I. Allen, on
their two-month journey to Ann Arbor to join his oldest brother, John Allen.
In 1880, he compiled a lengthyfamily record in which he described this
memorable event in his lifefrom notes he had made at the time. As one of
Ann Arbor's pioneers, Turner's interest in the town continued, although he
had moved to Chicago after 1856. In August 1883, Turner wrote a letter
to Lorenzo Davis, one of Washtenaw County's historians: "I have just
received some photographs, and as per your request, inclose [sic] one to you
to be placed, as proposed, in the old settlers' album." From Allen Family
Collection, Bentley Historical Library.


This is the only instance in his account that Turner Allen quoted Ann Allen.
Of necessity, they camped there that night with considerable trepidation.
With the coming of darkness, however, Col. Allen decided to "reconnoiter around
a little," and while doing so he observed "an oldish Indian" on his knees in prayer.
His report calmed the nerves of his family, and "the next morning we found
ourselves all right with our scalps on." It had probably been a sleepless night for
Ann, however.
From a young Wyandotte who rode up on horseback while they were repacking their wagon, they learned that it would be impossible for them to drive through
the Black Swamp. This "good Indian," as Turner Allen characterized him, then
agreed to guide them "over the Prairie and around the Swails" to a road leading to
Sandusky City where they might catch the only steam boat on Lake Erie, the
Superior, on its way from Buffalo to Detroit. Waiting in Sandusky City several days,
however, they saw the Superior pass without stopping.
38




There was then in the harbor, a schooner called the Hannah, the
captain of which offered to take the family and all our stuff aboard
and take them up to Detroit, except the horses, and this being the
only chance we had, Father made a bargain with him to do so. We
took our wagon apart and shiped it with all of our other articles,
except our tent, which was forgotten and left on the dock.
To Turner Allen and Orville Barnes fell the lot of taking their six horses
through the swamp. Four days later, the two young men arrived in Detroit with the
horses and a tale to tell for the rest of their lives about their ordeal and their terror
in crossing the Black Swamp.
Allen and Barnes found the other members of their party "all safe and well,
and there we found Bro.John, he having previously arrived there from Ann Arbor."
Turner Allen's account of the journey from Detroit to Ann Arbor, while including no mention of Ann, provides an amusing end to his record.
Father had the wagon put together, and our stuff all stowed away
in it previous to our arrival, ready for a start for Ann Arbor which
was about forty miles distant and over a very bad road most of the
way which we yet had to travel before our long and tedious journey
would come to an end. We left Detroit the twelfth or thirteenth day
of October, and arrived at Ann Arbor on the sixteenth day of the
same month....When we left Detroit for Ann Arbor, Mother and
myself rode in a buggy, one I think Bro. John came in from A.A.,
and in those days there were but few streams that were fordable
that had bridges over them. When we came to the River Rouge, in
fording it, we found the water quite deep, and the bank where we
had to go out being quite high and steep. When we came to it, our
horse refused to pull us up. The buggy being in the river and he
partly on the bank, I could not get out of the buggy without getting into the water. I was about to try what virtue there would be in
the whip, when Bro. John called to me, saying hold on, that is a
Yankee horse and it would not do to whip him, said we would have
to coax him. He came down the bank, talked to him and patted
him and stroked him over the nose, and after doing so a little while,
he took him by the bridle and said, "Come along now, if you don't,
I won't give you any pumpkin pie tonight," and the little fellow
started and took us up the bank as nice as could be. That took me
down, being about the first Yankee performance I had seen.
There were two possible routes, Indian trails actually, for travelers to follow
from Detroit to Ann Arbor. While the Sauk Trail through the woods was wide
enough to accommodate the one-horse sleigh used by Allen and Rumsey in
February 1824, the Potawatomi Trail that hugged the shoreline of the Huron River
was the only choice for the Aliens with their heavily-loaded wagon. Turner Allen
recalled years later that at Mallet's Creek they had become thoroughly "stuck in the
mud." Fortunately, Ezra Maynard, who then "had the body of a log house up, but
had no roof on it" on the land he had purchased there, "helped to pull us out with
his oxen."28
39




So it was that on October 16, 1824, a Saturday, Ann Allen had her first glimpse
of the settlement her husband had named in her honor. He doubtless called Ann's
attention to the line of stakes marking Ann Street, named for her along with the
village itself. Perhaps he also explained the origin of the name Catherine for a
street running parallel to Ann Street, but today his choice of that name remains
a mystery.29
In the absence of any record of Ann's reaction, we can only imagine her feelings as she looked at the primitive setting. After the difficult journey that she had
endured, however, its end must have been welcome even though the view was
doubtless depressing.
Six months earlier, anxious to begin selling their lots as quickly as possible,
Allen and Rumsey had driven stakes to mark the boundaries of each, a total of 447,
as shown on their map. Next it had been necessary for them to think about their
own shelter, where they could also "entertain" prospective settlers. Typical of pioneer neighborliness and cooperation, as Woodruff's Grove settler, Daniel Cross,
recalled later, "we all turned out and helped to build their homes.""' There are also
references among John Allen's papers to three young men from Detroit whom he
and Rumsey had engaged to assist them, rewarding them with free lots.
It was the Rumsey house that was built first, no doubt because Mary Ann had
accompanied Elisha, whereas Ann Allen was still in Virginia. Furthermore, consideration was surely given to the fact that Mary Ann had given birth to a daughter
near the end of February while under the care of Mrs. Woodruff at Woodruff's
Grove. The baby had died at birth, and Mary Ann doubtless required some quiet
rest as well as protection from the elements. The Rumsey house stood on the southwest corner of the intersection of Huron (now West Huron) and First Streets.
The Michigan pioneer named Ezra Maynard, whose oxen had pulled the Allen
wagon out of the mud on October 16, 1824, had described Ann Arbor in a letter
four months earlier to his son in New York:...now there are about 100 lots taken up, several houses commenced, Mechanics of allmos all kinds on the spot near the county
seat which has been established by the Governor since we came
here. I presume that it is the most delightsome place for a county
seat and an extensive village or city in the west, no man that has
viewed it says to the contrary. 400 village lots are already staked out
and many of them sold and given to Mechanics who are building
frame houses. Two saw mills are commenced and a grist mill is to
commence soon. The Huron will admit of the most good mill sites
of any river I ever saw all though the law forbids of the navigation
being obstructed for 150 miles from its mouth. But owing to the
great migration into this place, provisions are high and we shall
have to pinch a little till we can raise them ourselves.:
John Geddes, another early settler, had arrived on July 15, 1824. He remembered that Allen was then sleeping in a tent and that his "log block house, one story
and a half high [still] had no rafters nor roof on it."32 It stood on Main Street, near
the corner with Huron, facing the public square.
Until Ann Arbor's saw mills became operational, lumber for building frame
houses had to be hauled from Detroit, which is the reason the Allen house was
40




made of logs. Although it was described as being large for a log house, never before
had Ann lived in such limited space, even without guests, and always before there
had been "Negro house servants" to perform the more unpleasant household tasks.
Because no house had been built forJohn's parents, they, along with Turner Allen
and John's two children, lived with John and Ann for a number of weeks, as did,
also, Orville Barnes, who had agreed to work for Allen and Rumsey for a while.
On November 3, 1824, only two and one-half weeks after Ann's arrival with her
Allen relatives, by which time, perhaps, she was beginning to adjust to the crowded
conditions, space had to be provided in the Allen house for still others. Two men,
brothers named Noble from the state of New York, had been among the first to
use Allen's service in "viewing land" during the previous March. Buying land
jointly that was located "a little above town on the River Huron," the brothers had
returned home immediately to bring their families. Between them, they had nine
children, and two other young men had accompanied them. Years later, Harriet L.
Noble, one of the wives, recalled their arrival "in the middle of the afternoon of
November 3rd":
There were six or seven log huts occupied by as many inmates as
could crawl into them. It was too much to think of asking strangers
to give us a place to stay in, even for one night, under such circumstances. Mr. John Allen himself made us the offer of sharing
with him the comfort of a shelter from storm, if not from the cold.
His house was a large one for a log one, but quite unfinished; there
was a ground floor and a single loft above. When we got our things
stored in this place, we found the number sheltered to be 21
women and children, and 14 men. There were but two bedsteads
in the house, and those who could not occupy these slept on
feather-beds on the floor. When the children were put to bed, you
could not set a foot down without stepping on a foot or hand; the
consequence was, we had music most of the time. We cooked our
meals in the open air, there being no fire in the house but a small
box stove. The fall winds were not very favorable to such business;
we would frequently find our clothes on fire, but fortunately we
did not often get burned. When one meal was over, however,
we dreaded preparing the next. We lived in this way until our
husbands got a log house raised and the roof on; this took them
about six weeks, at the end of which time we were into it, without
door, floor, chimney or anything but logs and roof....3
If Harriet Noble remembered the number correctly (a total of thirty-five),
there must have been even more guests in the Allen household than those we can
account for. It may be significant that she made no mention of Ann in her memoir.
It had been John who extended the invitation to the Nobles to move into his house,
probably without even consulting his wife.
Hearing the Noble children laugh and cry in the Aliens' crowded cabin
during November's days and nights of 1824, we can imagine the frequency with
which Ann's troubled thoughts dwelt on her orphaned sons back in Virginia. With
her quiet prayers for their well-being, she doubtless added her thankfulness for the
nearness of her daughter, 18-month old Sarah Ann.
41




END NOTES-CHAPTER IV


1. Many documents pertaining to the financial problems of John Alien through his father's unwise
investments are found in File 127 of Chancery Causes, Staunton District Court, and were copied for
this writer by Katherine C. Anderson, professional record searcher, in 1961-62.
2. James Alien had purchased the Frame farm from William Wilson and William Robertson, executors
of the will of Samuel Frame. Augusta Co., VA, Deed Book DB, p. 39.
3. James McCue's detailed accounts of his management of his nephews' inheritance between 1824 and
1839, amounting to dozens of pages, were turned over to the Augusta County Court by McCue on
August 29, 1839. A photocopy of this entire document was obtained by the present writer.
4. J. Marshall McCue 1888 Letter. (See Chapter II, note 5.)
5. Augusta Co., VA, Land Tax Book 1820-25 Section for 1824.
6. John Alien to Jane Trimble, February 20, 1825, John Alien Papers, BHL.
7. These letters, saved by Alien, are among the large collection of his papers preserved at the Burton
Historical Collection in the Detroit Public Library. A microfilm of this collection is in BHL, and this
writer owns a complete printout in 13 vols. Two merchants with whom Alien had become acquainted
while in Buffalo in the winter of 1823-24, wrote a number of business and personal letters to Alien
after he settled in Michigan. These were in response to letters that Alien had written to them, but
Alien did not keep copies of his own letters, nor do those received from him by his Buffalo friends
seem to be extant. On April 29, 1824, William A. Moseley wrote in reply to Allen's letter "of February
last." It is apparent that Moseley had not known that Allen had a wife in Virginia while Allen had
been in Buffalo. In acquainting Allen of the marriage on April 13, 1824, of a friend named William
W. Williams, who "has nothing particular to say to you, but 'go friend & do thou likewise!'" Moseley
continued: "I saw one of your female friends a few moments yesterday, she bid me remember her to
you in my letter. She is to go to Fort Meigs three weeks hence, or remain in this place until late in
the fall; whenever she does go, I shall not fail to acquaint you, believing you think lightly of a ride
from Allensville to Ft. Meigs to see so amiable and agreeable a girl, & to hear in detail from her the
welfare of your friends in this place."
Another Buffalo friend, Abner Bryant, wrote to Allen on May 24, 1824, in response to a letter
from Allen "last winter." Bryant addressed his letter to "Mr. John Allen, Anapolis, M. Territory." He
sent it in "care of Colo R. Smith, Detroit."
In a letter from Williams to Allen dated April 5, 1826, there is this further reference to Allen's
marriage: "Mr. Mosely [sic] was very happy to hear of you and wishes to be heartily remembered.
Mrs. W. thanks you for your kind remembrance of her & joins me in the wish that [we] may shortly
see you and Mrs. A. at our house. (I say Mrs. A. as I have understood you are married altho you say
nothing of it in your letter, if so recommend me to her....)"
Another reference to Annapolis as a possible name for Allen's town appears in the Michigan State
Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1863 (Detroit: Charles F. Clark, 1863). At the beginning of the section on Ann Arbor, the editor quoted (p. 173) from "an interesting account, prepared for this work
by Miss Mary H. Clark, of Ann Arbor....The original site of the village was a burr oak opening, having the appearance of an arbor, laid out by the hand of taste. Mrs. Allen always denied all claim to
the title, and declared that she could not tell how it came about; that her husband at first proposed
it should be 'Annapolis,' after a place with which he was once familiar, but she preferred the name
'Ann Arbor,' as being more original." We must doubt, however, that Ann Allen played any direct role
in choosing the name, since she did not arrive at Ann Arbor until October 1824.
8. Proof that Allen went from Buffalo to Detroit by land through Canada and not by way of Cleveland
as has been claimed by some, is found in a letter dated Feb. 15, 1824, written in Buffalo by William
W. Williams to Allen in Detroit. This letter begins "yr favour of the 27th ult. [January 27, 1824] was
received two days since, and believe me nothing could have given me more pleasure than the hearing of your safe arrival in Detroit. I did not at all like the scape gallows look of that fellow who took
you from here....And pray now my good Sir, what do you think of John Bull's people?, having had a
long route throug[h] his dominions."
In the January 2, 1824 issue of the weekly newspaper, the Detroit Gazette, the editor, John P.
Sheldon, gave a detailed description of Detroit. Sheldon was then in his seventh year as editor of
the Gazette.
9. A detailed biographical study by this writer entitled "The Short and Troubled Lives of Elisha and
Mary Ann Rumsey" has been placed in BHL.
10. Jane Trimble to Allen Trimble, August 20, 1824. Trimble Family Papers, Ohio State Museum,
Columbus, OH. John A. Trimble, a younger brother of Allen Trimble, accompanied his mother on
her 1824 visit in Virginia. Many years later, in an article entitled "Romance of Ann Arbor," he
recalled a visit with his Allen relatives in Ann Arbor in the autumn of 1828. He also recalled the
42




discussion when the decision had been made four years earlier that Ann I. Allen should join her
husband in Michigan Territory: "The writer happening to be in Virginia about the period of
Mr. Allen's adventure in Michigan, and being a relative and interested in this romantic history, was
present at a family and social meeting when Mr. James] Allen was conferring with friends as to the
propriety of undertaking the laborious and formidable journey of twelve hundred miles to join her
adventurous and enterprising husband, who had prepared a home and a town to commemorate her
worth and her virtues. It was quite a sad and sorrowful parting with a numerous and attached circle
of relatives and friends, but she made the noble and heroic sacrifice, joining her husband, surviving
him several years." The Old Northwest Genealogical Quarterly, July 1905, p. 193.
11. In the spring of 1820, Governor Cass had set out from Detroit with an exploring party to view
Michigan Territory, a journey of some 4,200 miles. By the late summer, Cass had reached Fort
Dearborn (Chicago), and it was from there that he had "set out on horseback and returned...to
Detroit over the Old Sauk Trail, now U.S. Route 112." F. Clever Bald, Michigan in Four Centuries by
(New York: Harper & Brothers), p. 150.
12. Chapter XV, entitled "Reminiscences," in History of Washtenaw County, Michigan (Chicago: Chas. C.
Chapman & Co., (hereafter cited as History of Washtenaw County, 1881) includes an autobiographical sketch by Elona (Rogers) Cross, a member of the family of Oronte Grant, whose farm near
Sandusky, Ohio, had been lost through a faulty title (pp. 449-57). Grant was determined, in 1823, to
find a new home "situated where no previous title would disturb him in the wilds of Michigan."
According to Mrs. Cross: "At the time of which I write there resided on a part of Mr. Grant's farm a
Mr. Benjamin Woodruff, pettifogger and school teacher, whose wife had just fallen heir to several
hundred dollars from her grandfather's estate. They wished to invest this in a home where land was
cheap, and they decided to accompany Mr. Grant." History of Washtenaw County, p. 450.
By July 1823, according to Mrs. Cross, six other men had chosen to settle with Grant and
Woodruff. "Detroit was their only postoffice [sic], and wishing a more definite address for letters,
Mr. Woodruff visited the city, and after consulting with the Governor [Cass], gave the settlement the
name of Woodruff's Grove."
13. Facsimile copies of the land grants from the U.S. Government to Allen and Rumsey are in the BHL.
14. On March 7, 1825, Allen and Rumsey purchased jointly from the U.S. Government a tract of slightly
less than 37 acres in the "South fraction of fractional Section Twenty one." The certificate signed by
John Quincy Adams is extant at BHL, it having been found in the files of Ayres, Lewis, Norris & May,
Inc. in 1974. It was reproduced for the Ann Arbor Sesquicentennial Celebration by the Ann Arbor
Federal Savings.
15. The appointment by Gov. Cass of the commissioners for "fixing the seat of justice in the new county
of Washtenaw" was reported in the Detroit Gazette of March 26, 1824. The Governor's Proclamation
establishing Ann Arbor as "the seat of Justice of Washtenaw," dated May 31, 1825, may be found on
p. 582 of Vol. XI, "The Territory of Michigan, 1820-1829," in The Territorial Papers of the United States
(Washington, DC: Clarence Edwin Carter, comp. & ed., 1943). The text of the instructions given by
Cass to the commissioners, dated February 3, 1824, appears in ibid, p. 514.
16. Among the references made by Michigan's early settlers to the naming of Ann Arbor was W. C.
Ransom's "Michigan, My Michigan," an address he delivered before the Society of Michigan in
Lawrence, Kansas, and later published in Vol. 6 of the Michigan Pioneer Collections, pp. 106-112.
"From there [Detroit] westward we Journied to Ann Arbor (called after the buxom helpmate of
John Allen), then a mere opening in the woods...." (p. 109) This is the only reference to Ann I. Allen
found in which she was described as "buxom." Ransom may not even have met her.
17. Ten Eyck recorded Ann Arbor's first map in Wayne Co., MI, Liber 7, pp. 82-3.
18. Detroit Gazette, May 28, 1824.
19. Michigan State Gazeteer and Business Directory for 1863-4, 2d ed. (Detroit: Charles F. Clark, 1863), p.
173. A decade earlier, James Dale Johnston, having published his Johnson's Detroit Directory in 1853,
set out to compile a similar work for the state of Michigan. He sent questionnaires to Michigan
towns and villages to acquire this information. Apparently his lack of response discouraged him
from ever completing his project. In 1862, he sent a number of the reports he had received to the
Michigan State Historical Society, and these were published in Vol. 12 (1888) of the Michigan Pioneer
Collections. That for Ann Arbor appears on pp. 398400. While unsigned, there can be little doubt
that this had been prepared by Mary Clark, including the following statement regarding the origin
of the town's name: 'John Allen of Virginia and Walker Rumsey of New York located the land.
Finding it abounding in natural groves and arbors, formed by the burr oak and beautified by multitudes of wild flowers, with a spirit of romance truly commendable, called the place Ann Arbor...."
20. See note 10, above.
21. J. Marshall McCue 1888 Letter. See Chapter II, note 5.


43




22. In a letter dated September 21, 1925, from Phoebe W. Bell, granddaughter of Ann Allen, to
Caroline Campbell, she referred to descendants of Ann's daughter, Sarah (Allen) Waddell, having
criticized Ann for leaving her sons in Virginia to join John Allen in Michigan Territory: "I cannot
see why they should blame Grandma, for not taking her boys when all of her family thought John
Allen not a suitable one to have the boys, & really [I] think it took a brave heart in his wife to go to
him. Not many women would have gone under the circumstances & live as she did." Caroline
Campbell Papers, BHL.
23. James Turner Allen's 35-page handwritten account of the 1824journey to Ann Arbor was completed
in "Chicago January 28th 1880," and entitled "Family Record...." It was owned by Samuel Smith of
Markesan, WI, in 1962 and was loaned to this writer. A photostat copy was placed in the BHL. James
T. Allen also made abridged copies for other family members.
24. See "History of the Cities, Villages, and Townships of Washtenaw County," pp. 17-24 in Combination
Atlas Map of Washtenaw County, Michigan (Chicago: Edwards & Stewart, 1874). One of the persons
interviewed had been Jonathan Morton, born in 1802, who settled in Ypsilanti in 1825. Morton
recalled that: "The first party with dancing that occurred among the earliest settlers of Ypsilanti and
Ann Arbor combined was at Mr. Rumsey's in Ann Arbor. The young people of Ypsilanti, on or about
the 1st ofJanuary, 1826, got up a sleighride, for the purpose of making Ann Arbor a visit. It was good
sleighing, but there was only one sleigh in the vicinity, and this had been brought from New York.
The balance of the company went in 'jumpers' made of poles. On arriving at Ann Arbor they
stopped at the log house of Mr. Rumsey, who kept a public house. It was proposed to have a dance,
if music e6uld be obtained. It was soon assertained that John Allen's father owned a violin, and
could play in good style. He was an old man, with locks as white as snow. He was induced to play for
this party....A number of the settlers of Ann Arbor were there, and ajolly time was had. Society then
was a unit, and all were welcome...."
25. Phoebe (McCue) Bell was urged by Caroline Campbell to record her memories of her grandmother.
This she did, in an undated manuscript that was copied at a later date by Mrs. Bell's daughter, Janie
E. Bell. This seven-page handwritten account is preserved in the Caroline Campbell Papers, BHL.
26. Karl Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Travels Through North America During the Years 1825
and 1826. (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1828),Vol. II, p. 189.
27. See note 25, above.
28. See a handwritten "Reminiscence of James T. Allen," BHL. Also quoted on p. 884 of History of
Washtenaw County, 1881, where the source was identified as "a letter written byJames T. Allen...to
John Geddes."
The Potawatomi Trail was recalled in an "Historical Address" by the Rev. John D. Norris, delivered on the occasion of the "semi-centennial celebration of the settlement of Washtenaw County"
in Ypsilanti and later printed in full in the History of Washtenaw County, 1881, p.528: "...the
Pottawatomie [sic] trail up and down the Huron [was] used by the Indians on their way from the
far West to their payments at Malden....Most of you remember it well, and how the Indian-file made
of progress had worn it in places to the depth of two feet...ever hugging the shore-line in its
serpentine windings to the blue waters of Erie."
29. The third street named by Allen on his side of Huron Street was simply "North Street." This name
was changed in the summer of 1892 to Kingsley Street according to a newspaper clipping datedJuly
5, 1892, in Lucy Chapin's Scrapbook, BHL.
30. Reminiscence of Daniel Cross in Combination Atlas Map of Washtenaw County. (Chicago: Everts &
Stewart, 1874), pp. 17-18.
31. Ezra Maynard to William S. Maynard,June 5, 1824. Maynard Papers, BHL. This letter was presented
to the Washtenaw County Historical Society by Mrs. Julia Wilson, and an edited version was published in the Michigan Argus, November 20, 1874.
32. See under "Correspondence" in the Peninsular Courier, April 8, 1870, a letter from John Geddes
dated March 26, 1870.
33. See "Reminiscence" by Harriet L. Noble, History of Washtenaw County, 1881, pp. 431-36.


44




V.
A Presence in Ann Arbor's Beginnings
1825-1836
If Ann Allen had not discovered back in Virginia that in her second marriage
she would have but a minor role in decision making, she soon discovered that fact
in Michigan. While no letters written by Ann during her first decade in Ann Arbor
have come to light, those written to her son, Thomas McCue, thereafter, clearly
reveal that John rarely, if ever, sought her counsel, nor did he even inform her of
his plans and the nature of his daily activities. To Ann, John was always "Mr. Allen."
No children other than Sarah were born to this union. Ann would doubtless have
agreed with her first husband's nephew, Marshall McCue, in his description of her
andJohn's marriage as "an unhappy and unfortunate one."'
By nature, a shy and retiring young woman (she was twenty-seven years of age
in 1824), Ann soon found that she had little in common with the wives of the
"mechanics and artisans" whom John welcomed to his and Rumsey's village. The
Aliens were the only settlers from the South until 1826 when a sister ofJohn, Polly
Welch, arrived with her husband and children. The others, including the Rumseys,
were from the state of New York, almost without exception, and all had a New
England heritage. Bitter toward many of his relatives and former neighbors in
Virginia for their harsh judgment of his father's and his own financial failures, John
was determined now to learn and to emulate Yankee customs in business and commerce, and to accept their culture. Ann, however, born and bred a Southern lady,
yearned for the life she had known in Maryland and Virginia, and longed to hold
her beloved sons close to her, a longing that would haunt her for years to come, as
her fear grew that those sons were gradually forgetting her.
An example of John Allen's quick acceptance of Yankee values may be found
in the letter that he wrote to his AuntJane Trimble in Ohio on February 20, 1825.
Although he had been a member of a slave-owning family in Virginia, and had
owned a number of slaves himself until his financial problems forced their sale,
John wrote:
Oh how great a curse are we delivered from, the thoughts of which
at all times constrains me to bless and praise the disposer of all
events, for his thus delivering us, by a strong hand, from a land of
oppression and Tyrany, and placing us in a land of liberty and
peace, where the sweat, the groans, and blood, of the Afflicted
Sons and Daughters of Affrica, shall never rise in Judgment to
condemn us.2
As in so many other areas, Ann's attitude and convictions differed from her
husband's on the matter of slavery. Her view was like that of John's brother-in-law,
Charles Lewis, Jr., who lived in Monroe County, Virginia. Responding to a letter
John Allen had written to him on November 29, 1825, in which John had also
expressed his new-found opposition to slavery, Lewis wrote:
That slavery is an evil of great magnitude, we are fully sensiblebut it is an evil that is irremediable-and the Master who keeps his


45




slaves in a proper state of subjection, and at the same time treats
them with humanity, in my opinion, discharges his duty, both in a
moral and religious point of view.3
In his letter to his AuntJane Trimble, John Allen also provided an interesting
description of his Michigan settlement. He exaggerated somewhat, however, as was
his nature-he always tended to overstate the positive and minimize the negative in
describing his own accomplishments and prospects.
It is now twelve months since I settled here when there was not an
inhabitant within ten miles-how different is the scene now, in the
village and neighborhood there is between thirty and forty families
many of whom are of the first respectability, roads have been
opened in various directions, mills of every kind started, tradesmen putting their shops in operation, by way of preparation for
the flood of emigration that is expected next summer, farmers
busily engaged in fencing farms-in short it already wears the
appearance of an old settled country, except the want of houses
and barns.4
From scattered references, it is apparent that by February 1825, a cabin had
been built forJohn's parents on the corner of Huron and Second Streets. John later
sold this lot to his father for the nominal price of one dollar.5 Not only did John's
brother, Turner Allen, accompany his parents to their new home, but John's children, James C. and Elizabeth May Allen, also went to live with their grandparents,
as they had done ever since their mother's death. The Nobles, likewise, had gone
to their new dwelling, and the next influx of settlers would not occur until the following spring or summer. John and Ann, with their daughter, Sarah, were now
alone in the log house, to which there had been added a fireplace besides the
"small box stove" that Harriet Noble had remembered. John Allen continued in his
letter to his AuntJane:
We live in a small log house with but one room down and one
upstairs (or ladder) rather, with a good fireplace and cooking
stove, by which Ann does the work of our family with ease, and
none to fret or put her out of temper. When the business of the
day is through with, and we have seated ourselves around the
fire, there is none to disturb us; we lye down and rise up contented
and happy.6
John's use of the phrase "fret or put her out of temper" doubtless had reference to Ann's state of mind in the previous autumn. Even now, in February,
however, we doubt whether she would have described herself as "contented
and happy."
A lover of books and reading, Ann found few housewives in Ann Arbor with
similar interests, and she was doubtless shocked by Yankee manners and daily customs. The talk was of land and livestock, markets and credit. Yankee women did
men's work along with their husbands and dressed accordingly; having never had
servants, they scoffed at the idea of needing them. There were cutting remarks
about the evils of slavery. The leisure that the South's "peculiar institution"


46




provided for its ladies to nurture their children, with time for reading, gracious
entertaining, and enlightened conversation, was considered akin to laziness by
Yankee women.
Although Allen and Rumsey were partners, their wives had little in common.
Mary Ann, three years Ann's junior, was admired and remembered by early Ann
Arborites for her happy and outgoing nature, along with her excellence as a cook
in the "Rumsey Coffee House." Ann, however, was mentioned by no one when,
years later, the County Pioneer Society collected memoirs from the town's early
settlers. Her neighbors had scarcely known her, although Ann Arbor was her home
for some twenty years. Nor did Ann ever mention by name a single Michigan
friend, other than members of the Allen family, in her letters that have survived.
Mary H. Clark, head-mistress of a famous school for girls that flourished in
Ann Arbor between 1839 and 1875, wrote an article for the May 1852 issue of
Godey's Lady's Book entitled "Ann Allen." It was one of a series being edited by Mrs.
E. F. Ellet for her Pioneer Mothers of the West. Miss Clark, who had regularly included
John Allen's name among the half-dozen leading men of Ann Arbor endorsing her
efforts to promote female education, had had opportunity to know Ann personally,
yet she told her readers virtually nothing about her, except that, in her journey with
the Allens from Virginia, she had ridden horseback, "carrying her only child in her
arms." In fact, the title of the article was a misnomer; its contents were devoted
largely to John Allen's mother, not his wife.7
Ann Allen doubtless found some solace in her association with the eight
other women, including John's mother, who "entered into covenant to form the
First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbour" on August 21, 1826.8 John Allen was
not among the eight men who signed, however, although his father and Orville
Barnes did so. John had not been a church member in Virginia, nor did he become
one in Michigan until 1844, and it was then a church of which his wife strongly
disapproved.
In the earliest letter written by Ann Allen known to exist, though dated nearly
ten years after her arrival in Ann Arbor, she described herself to her son, Thomas
McCue: "I am a great home body; [I] never consent to go without I am compeled."9
She might well have used the same self-description a decade earlier. John Allen, on
the other hand, was a constant traveler, and in his frequent expeditions in the
buying and selling of Michigan land, along with other schemes to make money,
he was often absent from home for weeks at a time.
Determined to take advantage of "the flood of emigration that is expected
next summer," to use John Allen's own words, he and Rumsey sent copies of their
advertisement from the Detroit Gazette to a number of weekly papers published in
New York. In order to place Ann Arbor on the national map and to enhance its
status among prospective settlers, in the autumn of 1824 Allen had made application to Postmaster General John McLean to have the village declared a post office,
with himself as postmaster. McLean approved, and on December 30, 1824, he
signed a rather handsomely printed "declaration" to this effect, a document that
'John Allen, Esqr." carefully preserved among his papers. The appointment not
only carried a small annual stipend, but, more important, at a time when the
twenty-five-cent charge for a one-page letter sent through the U.S. mail was
normally collected from the recipient, postmasters could receive letters free.10
47




As the town's first postmaster, however, Allen was obliged to transport the mail
weekly to and from Detroit, a task that he knew would be much too demanding of
his time. He promptly contracted with Bethuel Farrand, a settler from Cayuga
County, New York, to perform this task for an annual salary of $100. Farrand's wife
recalled years later that "it was a three day trip-the first night he would stop at Elder
Hickock's store on the [River] Rouge-the second day he would go on to Detroit
and back again to Elder Hickok's-and the third day he would return home."1
It was also in anticipation of the migration west in 1825 that U.S. Surveyor
General Edwin Tiffin agreed to have the primitive Potawotomi Trail surveyed along
the Huron River, after which Farrand obtained the contract to make the "improvements" deemed necessary.12 This accomplished, he further augmented his mailcarrying salary by providing a "stage" between Detroit and Ann Arbor. Seeing his
announcement, immigrants expected to ride in a stagecoach, but they found his
means of conveyance not only to be an ordinary wagon, but in bad weather they
often had to walk part of the way.'3
True to predictions, there was, indeed, a flood of immigrants to Michigan in
1825, with a large proportion at least passing through Ann Arbor. Some tarried,
however, buying government land or a lot in the village. If a particularly needed
artisan appeared, such as a carpenter or blacksmith, Allen or Rumsey would offer
him a free lot.
In March 1825, Governor Cass had appointed Elisha Rumsey and a settler
named Oliver W. Whitmore justices of the peace, thus making it possible to have
deeds properly witnessed.'4 Because a wife's signature was required on a deed to
relinquish her dower rights to the property involved, Ann dutifully signed her
name, "Ann I. Allen," belowJohn's signature on scores of occasions. She thus had
some knowledge of his financial activities, but she was not informed of his land
purchases, nor of his mounting debts.
Convinced that a fortune could be made within a few years through the
increasing market value of Michigan land, Allen was determined to purchase as
many acres as possible, even with borrowed money, at the bargain government
price of $1.25. Rumsey, on the other hand, was not tempted to play the dangerous
game of land speculation. As he sold his village lots, he repaid debts, improved his
tavern, and tended his farm land. Mary Ann managed and cooked for the "Rumsey
Coffee House," which offered considerably more than coffee to quench travelers'
thirst, along with food and lodging.
Testimony regarding Ann Arbor's early growth was provided by Dr. Benjamin
Packard who first visited the place in April 1825 when, in addition to the Rumsey
house, it "contained seven log houses." Seeing its potential for growth, he decided
he would become the town's physician. Returning the following autumn to set
up his practice, however, Dr. Packard not only found that "a number of new
frame buildings had been put up during the summer," but that two of them were
occupied by "physicians Dr. Lord and Dr. Denton, and I was the third."'5
By 1826, Washtenaw County, including its seat of justice, had become sufficiently populated by tax payers to justify its becoming independent from Wayne
County, with its own court and county record keeping.16 This new status became
effective late in December 1826, and henceforth there was no need for one to travel
to Detroit to register a deed or probate an estate. The first meeting of the county
court was in January 1827, with Samuel Dexter, proprietor of a new settlement
48




called Dexter, presiding as judge. Two licenses were granted to John Allen during
this court session, one to keep his tavern, "necessary for the accommodation of
travelers," and the other to retail "strong or spirituous liquors.""7
In June 1826, Mary Ann Rumsey bore a son whom she and Elisha christened
Lewis Walker Rumsey. While it is doubtful that the two women ever became close
friends, Ann Allen would probably have considered it her duty to call upon Mary
Ann on this occasion, perhaps bringing three-year-old Sarah Ann "to see the new
baby."
In the late summer of the following year, both Elisha and Mary Ann became
seriously ill, and although Mary Ann recovered, Elisha died on September 5, 1827,
at the age of forty-one. The value of Elisha's estate, after the portion for Mary Ann
and her son's support had been set aside, did not equal the total of his debts
($2,081.95), and his many creditors, including his aged father in Vermont, had to
be content with 78 percent of the amount owed them. Elisha Rumsey's death dissolved, of course, any remnant remaining of the Allen and Rumsey partnership."
In the year following Elisha's death, in 1828, Mary Ann, at age twenty-eight,
was married to a young farmer named William Van Fossen. By the spring of 1832,
she was again a pioneer wife, in Jackson County, Michigan. She and her husband
both died from Asiatic cholera in Indiana in 1849, leaving three sons and one
daughter.
The departure of Mary Ann Van Fossen from Ann Arbor in 1828 was of
little significance to Ann Allen, for the two women had never been more than
acquaintances.
No record has been found to suggest what the personal relationship between
Ann Allen andJohn's parents may have been. Elizabeth Tate Allen, John's mother,
was still living when Mary H. Clark wrote about the Aliens and Rumseys for Godey's
Lady's Book. Describing Mrs. Allen's appearance at age seventy-six as still "most prepossessing," Miss Clark added: "...she is noted for the strong practical sense which
fits its possessor for every event and vicissitude, in every station of life." It is not difficult to imagine that Ann was intimidated by her mother-in-law's strength of will
and patient fortitude, nurtured, perhaps, by a lack of those same traits in Mrs.
Allen's sometimes quixotic and undiscerning husband. On the other hand, Col.
Allen's gentile manners and trusting nature, with his innate kindness, surely
endeared him to his like-minded daughter-in-law."'
Col. Allen's attempt to "retrieve that which he had lost" (using Turner Allen's
words) began in Ann Arbor with his renting a grist mill that had just been built on
the Huron by a man named Hill. This "was a great help to us in procuring for us
something to live on," according to Turner Allen, and, hoping to do even better for
themselves, the father and son built a sawmill. This, however, "did not prove [to be]
a very profitable investment, but left us in debt some hundreds of dollars." The
colonel's pattern of failure seemed to be repeating itself. In 1826, however, he built
a boat, propelled with poles, "to transport families and their goods that were
moving into the country, and all kinds of freight." The Detroit Gazette of April 25,
1826, reported:...a few days since, Col. Allen's boat from the Lower Huron [was]
lying at one of our wharves. This boat is of a different construction
from any one that has been built here. It is seventy feet in length


49




and seven in width, with a light draught of water, and will carry one
hundred barrels; I am informed that it is built on the plan of the
James River boats of Virginia, which have been found best adapted
to the navigation of rapid streams without much depth of water.
Turner Allen's account continues:
The roads being very bad between Ann Arbor and Detroit, he had
all business he could do. He run the boat one or two seasons, but
the country at the mouth of the river, and on the lake through
which he had to pass being low and marshy, he was taken sick and
was just able to get home, and only lived some seven or eight
days....20
When Col. James Allen died on July 18, 1828, we can imagine that Ann Allen
may have lost her most understanding friend in Ann Arbor.
Following her husband's death, Elizabeth Tate Allen returned to Virginia to
visit family, taking with her John's two children by his first wife. Her visit to her old
home community would last for five years.
Ann Allen's lonely and unhappy years in Ann Arbor were mitigated by the
presence of her daughter, Sarah Ann, on whom she lavished her love, time, and
attention. Sarah Ann's early education was provided by her mother at home, but in
1828, at the age of five, she began attending school with other children. Her first
teacher was Mary M. Page who announced the opening of her school in the Detroit
Gazette, as follows:
MISS MARY M. PAGE
Would inform the public, that the spring
term of her SCHOOL will commence,
in Ann Arbour, on the 24th inst. Her
terms of tuition are as follows:
Reading, Spelling, Cumming's small
Geography,                     $2.00
Writing, Arithmetic, Grammar, Composition, Modern Geography, Maps
and Charts, and History,       $2.50
Ancient Geography, Astronomy,
Natural Philosophy, Globes,
Rhetoric,                      $3.50
Chemistry, Moral Philosophy,
Theorem Painting               $5.00
Board can be had in the first families
by applying to the Teacher.
Ann Arbour, March 4, 1828.21
Mary Page's school was by no means Ann Arbor's first. Among John Allen's
papers, there are references to a Miss Monroe conducting a school as early as 1825
in a log structure built by Allen, on the northwest corner of Main and Ann Streets.22
It was in this same crude building that Miss Page began teaching in 1828.
50




Not only did John Allen know the personal value of education, he recognized
that the presence of schools in his town, like that of churches, would attract settlers
of quality. So it was, also in 1828, that he established a "select school" for older
students, called the Ann Arbor Academy. Its first instructors were brothers named
Merrill. A half-century later, the Rev. O. C. Thompson recalled:
In the autumn of 1832, I accepted the appointment of principal in
the Academy at Ann Arbor. This, so far as I know, was the only institution of learning in the Territory of a higher grade than the
common school....Some of my best scholars in [the] Ann Arbor
Academy were from Detroit....There were one hundred pupils in
that school that winter. This institution, humble as it was, was the
beginning of better things in education in Michigan, especially in
Ann Arbor....A few years later...when the question was agitated,
"Where shall the University be located?" I think the claims of Ann
Arbor were respected on account of the advanced standing of her
school privileges....23
While Ann Allen was doubtless interested in, and approved of, her husband's
activities in the area of education, we can be sure that she had less regard forJohn's
growing passion for politics, specifically in a new political party that had sprung up
in New York with the goal to discredit, even destroy, Freemasonry. In Samuel
Dexter, founder of the nearby village of Dexter, Allen found a kindred political
spirit, and, with the dual purpose of promoting their towns and spreading AntiMasonic propaganda, in December 1829 they purchased from Thomas Simpson
Ann Arbor's first newspaper. Simpson had brought his press to Ann Arbor three
months earlier and had managed to issue five weekly numbers of what he called the
Western Emigrant. Apparently discouraged by his prospects for financial success in
Ann Arbor, however, Simpson welcomed the opportunity to sell his press and
weekly paper to Allen and Dexter, as he announced in his fifth number on
December 23. "Addicted to the excessive use of whiskey," according to a later biographer, Simpson left for what he hoped would be greener pastures in the village of
Pontiac.24 Allen and Dexter were able to continue the Western Emigrant with an issue
dated December 30, 1829. They engaged a fellow Anti-Mason, George Corselius, to
serve as the paper's editor and employed a printer named Thomas M. Perry. Six
months later, however, Allen turned over to Dexter his interest in the enterprise.
The year 1829 was significant in Ann Allen's life because that summer she had
opportunity to see her oldest son, John McCue, during a visit to Hillsboro, Ohio.
James McCue, guardian of Ann's two sons, kept an exact account of their
income and of his expenditures for their support.25 These records have been preserved in the proceedings of the Augusta County Court and provide an insight into
the rearing of John and Thomas McCue, including the purchase for John of "a
young mare to ride to Ohio" and "$20.00 cash for expenses to Ohio." These entries
were dated July 31, 1829.
The sources of the McCue boys' annual income managed by their uncle were:
the 6 percent interest from the bonds into which had been placed their inheritance
of $4,326 from the sale of their father's personal property; the annual rental of Dr.
McCue's house in Lexington ($47.50), the vacant lot there ($5.00 to $7.00) along
with that of his farm in Rockbridge County ($125.50); and the "hire" by John
51




McCue of the "Negroes" ($90.00), noted earlier. Because Ann Allen still held her
dower interest in Dr. McCue's real estate, she was entitled to her "dower third" from
the rental income (afterJames McCue had deducted 5 percent as a commission for
himself and had paid the taxes and upkeep). He was also allowed $100 per year by
the court for "boarding" the boys. Expenses for clothing and tuition were carefully
itemized, as were also charges for postage on letters from their mother.
There can be no doubt that "to ride to Ohio" meantJohn's going to Hillsboro,
in Highland County, to visit the family of Andrew Barry and his mother's Aunt
Ellen. At age thirteen, John was doubtless accompanied by one or more adults,
perhaps relatives of the Trimble family, also of Hillsboro.
The opportunity to see her eldest son after the passage of five years was
enough to overcome Ann Allen's reluctance to travel. She was thirty-two years old
in 1829, quite capable of undertaking a horseback journey of over two hundred
miles. Who may have traveled with her to Hillsboro, and whether six-year-old Sarah
Ann accompanied her, we do not know. In a letter to her son Thomas, written in
1834, Ann noted: "The Doctors think, if I would travel this summer it would be very
beneficial to my health as it contributed so much before to my general health when
I went to Ohio."26 One might wonder whether it was her travel in 1829, or the
opportunity to see her son and her beloved uncle and aunt, that had been the
primary contributor to her improved health.
In the summer of 1830, John Allen was appointed a justice of the peace, and
at the same time, he began "reading law" with James Kingsley, Ann Arbor's most
prominent lawyer. This was the typical means by which one qualified for the Bar
then, and Allen learned from a Detroit attorney that the usual fee charged by an
experienced lawyer for this tutoring service was $300.27 Kingsley was also Washtenaw
County's judge of probate, and in February 1831, Governor Cass appointed Allen
to be the register of probate, a position that enabled Allen to receive a modest
salary while receiving the judge's instructions. On November 3, 1830, the governor
had appointed Allen to the post of "brigade quartermaster with the rank of
captain in the M.T. Militia," and by 1831 Allen also held the post of commissioner
of highways for Ann Arbor Township. Small wonder that Ann saw little of her
busy husband.
Allen had continued to improve his property along Main Street opposite the
west side of the public square. In May 1827, he sold a sawmill on the Huron River
that he and Rumsey had built in partnership. The purchasers, Eri and Aschel Higby,
agreed to pay Allen the equivalent of $2,000 in lumber totaling 75,000 feet in twelve
monthly installments, with designated portions of "white pine, basswood, white ash,
black walnut, and oak." This lumber "sawed in such reasonable thickness and
width" as Allen "shall direct," was used in part to build a new two-story house facing
Huron Street on the south half of lots one and two, west of the courthouse square.2
A portion of the Aliens' new house was designed for John's general store as
well as his law office, while his original log house became solely a tavern. With his
brother, Turner Allen, he created the 'John Allen & Co.," giving his brother responsibility for operating both the tavern and his store. Turner painted the tavern red,
and because taverns in those days usually had striking names, it came to be called
"Bloody Corners," much to Ann's displeasure, no doubt.


52




An advertisement in the Western Emigrant listed the variety of items then on
hand in Allen's store:
Dry goods, Groceries, Hard-ware, Crockery, Stone-ware, Paints,
Window-glass, Putty, Dye-stuffs, Lamp oil, Ploughs, Plough-castings, Hollow-ware, Nailes, Iron and Steel. Also, Ladies and
Gentlemen's shoes and boots, &c.
N.B. The highest price will be paid for Hydes, Bees-wax, and tallow.29
While Ann Allen was doubtless pleased to have a home greatly superior to the
log house the Aliens had occupied since 1824, she probably found her husband's
thriving store under the same roof to be disquieting and living next to a tavern,
especially one called "Bloody Corners," embarrassing.
The partnership of the Allen brothers did not last long, being dissolved "by
mutual consent" in December 1829.'~John then made still more improvements in
his tavern and gave it a more dignified name, calling it "The Mansion House." In
the following January, a young man named Colban Cornwall announced in the
Western Emigrant, under the "Mansion House" heading that
he has taken the inn formerly kept by Mr. John Allen, on the corner of Huron and Main Streets. He has procured a supply of
necessaries, and flatters himself by strict attention to business to
merit a share of public patronage.3'
To operate his store, Allen gave responsibility to Henry Welch, husband of his
sister, Mary Allen. The Welch family had followed the Aliens to Ann Arbor in 1826
after Henry had failed in the mercantile business back in Virginia. He was also ill
from tuberculosis.
An insurance policy issued to Allen by the New York Farmers' Fire Insurance
and Loan Company survives among his papers.32 Dated June 25, 1830, it described
the Allen's new house as a "two story building of wood situated on the corner of
Huron and Main Streets occupied as a Store, Law office and private dwelling"
valued at $1,000. Also included in Allen's policy was his tavern ($400), and a twostory house "occupied by Thomas M. Perry, printer of a newspaper [the Western
Emigrant]" ($500). This latter structure had been built by Allen on the public
square, which he considered still to be his property.
AlthoughJohn Allen's increasing involvement in partisan politics brought him
enemies, his prosperity continued to increase, as did Ann's physical comforts. As in
an earlier time in her life when African-American servants had performed the physical labor in her household, so now Yankee "hired-girls" were engaged as domestics.
By 1831,John Allen had concluded that, in keeping with his current status in
his community, he and his family should live in a finer home. We can be sure that
Ann welcomed the plan-no longer would she have to live next to a tavern and to
share her space with a general store. A large, brick structure, the Aliens' new home
was at the southeast corner of the intersection of Huron and Second (Ashley)
Streets, facing Huron.
In a May 1831 issue of the Emigrant, formerly called the Western Emigrant, Allen
announced that his former "Large Two Story House and Lot" was for sale, adding
that its "pleasant situation" made it "well suited for a tavern, or other business."


53




On December 1, 1832, a new physician in town named Philip Brigham announced
that "his residence is in the house lately occupied byJohn Allen, Esqr."33
Allen was not alone in believing that a man's wealth could increase indefinitely
through land speculation in Michigan Territory. Allen's apparent success in this
regard, along with his convincing enthusiasm, prompted a number of neighbors
and friends to conclude that they should trust him not only with their savings, but
that they should even borrow money toward that end. A number of capitalists in
Detroit and elsewhere were happy to invest in his plans to found other towns that
would emulate Ann Arbor's growth and prosperity.
Allen was admitted to the Michigan Bar in May 1832. It was also in 1832 that
he visited the city of New York for the first time, his primary purpose being to
purchase goods for his store, an investment on credit, amounting to over $3,000.
From later events, we know that Allen was intrigued by the great city, and that
even in 1832 he began imagining himself as an entrepreneur there.
Just as Allen bought goods for his store on credit, so he also sold those goods
on credit, and just as Allen's creditors had difficulty collecting from him, so were
those indebted to Allen slow to pay their bills. In the Michigan Emigrant of
December 21, 1832, appeared the following appeal by Allen:
SELF PRESERVATION IS THE FIRST LAW OF NATURE
I owe money in New-York, that must be paid. I cannot pay it without the aid of those who are indebted to me.
All Notes and Accounts that were due me on the first of October
last, that are unpaid on the 1st of February next, will be left with
Geo. W.Jewette, Esq. [a local lawyer] for collection. Those who call
on or before the 10th and confess judgment, will save costs. Self
preservation is the first law of nature.
As has been noted earlier, following the death of Col. James Allen in 1828,
John's mother had taken her two grandchildren byJohn's first marriage for a long
visit back in Virginia. Five years passed, during which John was so preoccupied with
business and politics that he gave little thought to family, whether in Ann Arbor or
Virginia. A single letter from his Virginia family during this period is preserved
among his papers; it was written by his sixteen-year-old son, James Crawford Allen,
on March 30, 1833. Revealing a father's neglect, as well as a son's anxiety to return
home, it reads in part as follows:
I am at Uncle Billy Bells a going to school to Mr Alfred at
present. Uncle Bell has been very kind to me, if it had not of been
for him I don't know what I would of done for clothing. I received
a letter from you a few weeks ago and have neglected answering it
knowing that Grandma would. It gave me much gratification to
know that you intend to send for us this spring. Dear Father, do not
neglect sending for us, I am almost crazy to get home. I think the
most of the friends will be twice glad, if they were glad when we
came they will be glad when we go I think that they would be
willing to keep Grandmother but sister and myself must go....
dear Father I would like to have a horse to ride out if you think
54




you could afford it. If we all ride in the carryall it will be almost
too heavy loaded....34
John sent money for a pony, and Mrs. Allen and her grandchildren did,
indeed, return to Ann Arbor in 1833. On July 5th of that year, Mrs. Allen began a
charge account at a grocery store then conducted by Chauncey Branch and Edward
F. Gay. In opening the account, the store's proprietors noted that the items would
be charged to John Allen; when they presented their first bill to him on May 13,
1834, the total came to $160.78. One of the items regularly purchased by Mrs. Allen
was a quarter's worth of snuff.
John provided a house for his mother where James and Elizabeth continued
living with her.
It was on April 22, 1833, that Michigan Territory's Legislative Council passed,
and Governor Cass approved, an "Act for the Incorporation of Ann Arbor" as a
village. Under this act, an election was held on July 7, 1834, to elect a president,
a recorder, and six trustees. Fifty-five votes were cast, and John Allen was elected
the village's first president.35
From a political point of view, as wife of the village president, Ann was Ann
Arbor's "first lady," although in terms of her southern upbringing and unusual education, as well as her social graces, Ann Allen had been the settlement's first lady
from the day of her arrival a decade earlier.
The first ordinance passed at the second meeting of the village officials
headed by John Allen in 1834 was to "prevent swine from running at large in the
village limits." It was also agreed that there should be no shooting nor "running of
horses" in those same confines.36
In the summer of 1834, a traveler from Germany named Karl Neidhard visited
Ann Arbor. He wrote later for a German magazine describing his American tour,
and, in translation, he noted the following regarding John Allen:
Six years ago he had considerably less than nothing. Now he lives
like a prince in a magnificent house and his property increases
daily. No wonder! The half-acre building lots which cost him
seventy-five cents he is now selling for several hundred dollars.37
Ann Arbor was home for Ann Allen for twenty years, from 1824 until 1844,
except from November 1836 until the autumn of 1838 when she was in New York
City and Virginia. No letter written by Ann prior to 1834 is known to exist, but during her second Ann Arbor decade, thirteen letters, and a fragment of a fourteenth
written to her son, Thomas McCue, are preserved in the University of Michigan's
Bentley Historical Library, a gift from Ann's great-granddaughter, Sarah W. McCue.
Miss McCue has given to the Washtenaw County Historical Society Ann's
"Huguenot Bible" (the New Testament, Psalms, etc.) published in Paris in 1668.
This family heirloom had been brought to America by Ann's father, Thomas Barry,
in 1789 and had accompanied Ann to and from Ireland in her childhood.
In her earliest extant letter, dated March 20, 1834, Ann reported a limited
amount of local and family news to her son, but, as was true in her later letters as
well, she devoted much of her space to admonishments on religion and education.
Urging Thomas to begin correspondence with his cousin, William Barry in Ohio,
she noted that "it will improve you the more you accustom yourself to epistlatory


55




writing," while hoping "my, Dear Son, you will be good, learn all that will make you
wise and useful." As was her custom, Ann closed on a religious note: "...love God,
my Dear Son, and keep his commands, and He will never forsake you, in youth, or
old age; you have...the prayers of your poor mother for your spiritual and temporal
happiness while life lasts."38
Knowing that Thomas was then studying under a Mr. Hoggshead, Ann
provided a more detailed admonition regarding education in her letter to him in
June 1834.
I feel very anxious about your improving your mind. Now is the
time to lay up a store of useful knowledge. I see your deficient in
the first rudiments of learning, you and John are awful spellers. Do
pay some attention to that branch of your learning....I think if you
would give attention to your books for a few years, you might make
a smart man.39
An interesting glimpse of Ann Arbor's progress at the beginning of its second
decade is found in this same letter.
This place improves quite fast. Emigration to Michigan is great; we
have I might say from all parts [a] great many from York State, New
England, quite a number from London in Europe and the countries adjacent; Ireland, Scotland, and a large number of German
Swiss-they are three daily line of stages runs to this place.
Elizabeth & James enjoys themselve[s] quite well, they live with
Grandma. Mr. Allen just return [ed] from New York where he has
been on business for a few weeks. We have a Presbyterian,
Methodist, Episcopal places of worship and also, I am sorry to say,
a building just finish[ed] for a Universalist Church. The court
house is completed this summer.
Washtenaw County's first courthouse was built on the "public square" that had
been donated for this purpose by Allen in 1824.
In this same 1834 letter, Ann told her son that although she had contemplated
a Virginia visit for herself that summer:
I suppose ere this, you have hear[d] I have given up going to Vir.
for the present. Much my beloved son do I long to see you. The
distants is great and suitable company not to be had, but I do not
despair of seeing you if God gives me health and length of days.
Just as John McCue had paid a visit to his Ohio relatives in 1829, Thomas
McCue, at age seventeen, made the same journey in the spring of 1834. While at
Hillsboro, Thomas had written to his mother, but, contrary to her expectations, he
did not come to Ann Arbor. "I did not know of your return to Vir. untillJohn wrote
me," Ann complained in a subsequent letter to Thomas. Although greatly disappointed, she did not scold, saying simply: "You must write me, tell me all the
news of your journey to Ohio."4" She acknowledged that when her nephew, John
Barry, had stopped to see her that year on his way to Niagara Falls, it had required
six days on horseback for him to travel from Hillsboro to Ann Arbor.


56




*^ oA- a' L;e   ":::It...W  'I...  4r   C


m9Y     gt  oA /,.o  A 7 }+.- *.Y, Aw~y ~.,, #   f-(-'
~~I '  *" "'~-"t', -~.  >-.......-..
k -  9a '"' 47
~ ~
rh-  T -,.,,,.,,,,;,.:- '7/ ~...Z_~/.7'"';-T'
w /. 's.1 ~,,.."  #~.7,/.  -  ~ ', ~
_.,,-'-. *...'_L,,,. a.^',,/'  ' -;:... / & '...^ ~,-,,., - co
A3Lt!zy y ^-  o f,,,/ bi (c q,,,_+ et   .,.. -~       0  '
*,., '    - -..          *  J..


A Sample of the Handwriting of Ann I. Allen
From her letter to Thomas W. McCue dated June 20, 1834.


57




By 1833, the political leaders of Michigan Territory, certain that its population
had exceeded sixty thousand (the minimum number required in the Northwest
Ordinance for statehood), petitioned Congress to pass the required "enabling act."
Congress delayed, however, because of a continuing boundary dispute between
Ohio and Michigan. To pressure Congress, the Territorial Council ordered a
census to be taken, which proved that Michigan's population even exceeded
ninety thousand, and, thereafter, the Council called a constitutional convention.
John Allen had participated in these decisions, and when it was agreed that
Washtenaw County should have fifteen of the ninety-one delegates to the convention, he declared himself a candidate on the Federalist slate.
A Democratic newspaper called the Michigan Argus had begun publication in
February 1835, and in an issue in the following March appeared a "review" of each
candidate. Regarding Allen, two questions and one answer were printed:
Men, freemen of Washtenaw. Do you regard domestic peace and
happiness? Do you care aught for those virtues which endear and
render private life happy? Let your vote answer.41
From this, it would appear that Allen's political enemies knew of his and Ann's
strained marital relationship. We can imagine Ann's embarrassment and John's
anger on reading this attack.
Because all the Federalist candidates lost, the attack on Allen's personal life
may not have led to his defeat, but, nevertheless, he was third from the bottom in
votes cast.
Perhaps his poor showing was somehow related to Allen's active involvement
with the Washtenaw County Temperance Society; he was elected its president in
February 1835. As announced in Ann Arbor's Michigan Whigat that time, there were
then 2,000 members throughout the county. It was claimed that "there have been
45,000 gallons of spirits consumed in the county during the year, at an average
expense to the Consumer of one dollar. The expense of supporting paupers made
so by intemperance has been $500."42
To Ann Allen's delight, her son John paid her a visit in the Spring of 1835, but
her joy was dampened; she had expected Thomas to accompany him. In writing to
Thomas in June 1835, Ann did not hide her feelings.
Your Brother has left us for Ohio. I need not describe to you my
disappointment in not seeing you with him. I am afraid if you had
any love for your mother it is long gone from you....Ask yourself
the question, is it not my duty to write to my Mother, is their any
one on earth as near [dear?] to me, or would do more for me in
all situations of life? Who watch'd over my helpless infancy? Shall I
forget her?...I thought it a good oppertunity for you to come with
your brother, as you did not come when your [you were] half way
before....If you have forgot your Ma, she has not forgot her son....43
Thomas McCue was a sensitive and kindhearted young man, and he was
touched by his mother's fear that he had forgotten her. In truth, however, his memory of her had, indeed, faded. He and John had remained with their Uncle James
and Aunt Margaret in 1821, when Ann had been married to John Allen, thereupon
moving with her husband the several miles to his farm on Walkers Run. Thomas
58




had been but three years old in 1821, and he had been only six in 1824 when he
saw his mother for the last time, as she had departed for Michigan Territory. There
were no photographs in those days to remind a little boy of his mother during the
eleven years that followed.
James McCue may, also, have felt a pang of regret for not having encouraged
Thomas to accompanyJohn on his Ann Arbor visit. In any case, on March 20, 1836,
in his role as guardian, McCue purchased a horse for $85.00 from his ward's inheritance and advanced him $50.00 to travel to, and to spend the summer of 1836 in,
Ann Arbor. Shrewd businessman that he was, McCue directed his nineteen-year-old
nephew to maintain a record of his expenditures and, upon his return to Virginia,
restore to his father's estate any part of the $50.00 that he had not spent.44
Thomas arrived in Ann Arbor sometime in April 1836. We can imagine the joy
with which Ann greeted him. He was also given a warm welcome by his stepfather's
children, James and Elizabeth Allen, and by their grandmother. They had become
well acquainted with Ann's sons during their extended visit in Augusta County
between 1828 and 1833. Thomas called James and Elizabeth "Brother" and "Sis"
and, like them, he called Mrs. Allen "Grandma." He called his mother and stepfather "Ma" and "Pa."
The 1830s were a "boom period," not only in Michigan, but in the nation generally. Cheap paper money abounded as a result of PresidentJackson's "war on the
Bank of the United States" beginning in 1832. Inflation increased dramatically as
the number of state banks grew to over seven hundred, seventeen of which were in
Michigan Territory. Called "wildcat banks" by Michigan historians, few held more
than a small fraction in specie (gold and silver) to secure the bank notes that they
freely loaned to speculators. Debtors were able to pay off their old obligations with
these bank notes, while borrowing more for further land purchases. Although buyers of government land were required to pay in cash, paper money was accepted as
cash. By 1835, the entire national debt had been paid off as a result of land sales,
and Congress passed an act to distribute its surplus to the states. In retrospect, it is
difficult to comprehend how land speculators like John Allen could fail to recognize the danger signals foretelling their financial collapse.
Ann Allen had no reason to doubt her husband's continued prosperity. Typical
of the antebellum Southern lady, she had little knowledge of, nor interest in, financial affairs, whether national or local. She dutifully signed away her dower right to
land represented in grantor deeds thatJohn brought home for her signature. She
knew little of, nor cared much about, his regular acquisition of sites for future
Michigan towns, while his joining in partnerships to promote "internal improvements" came to her attention only by his frequent absences from Ann Arbor.
In a day when most business was conducted on credit, Ann simply charged to
her husband's accounts at local stores whatever she desired for herself and for
Sarah Ann.


59




END NOTES-CHAPTER V


1. J. Marshall McCue 1888 Letter. (See Chapter II, note 6.)
2. John Allen to Jane Trimble. (See Chapter IV, note 4.)
3. Charles Lewis, Jr. to John Allen, January 10, 1826. John Allen Papers, Burton Historical Collection,
Detroit Public Library. (Cited hereafter as BHC.)
4. John Allen to Jane Trimble. (See Chapter IV, note 4.)
5. Until Washtenaw County was organized in December 1826, it was attached to Wayne County for
legal proceedings and record keeping; thus, deeds pertaining to Washtenaw County were registered
in Detroit. At some point after Washtenaw County was organized, all earlier deeds for land transactions were copied from Wayne County deed books into a separate volume, now called the "Old
Book," which is preserved in the Register of Deeds Office in the courthouse in Ann Arbor. The deed
by which John Allen sold to his father for $1.00 the one-fifth acre comprising "Lot 4 in Block no. 1
North of Huron St. of Range 3 fronting Huron & Second Streets," dated September 1, 1825, is
recorded on page 26 of the "Old Book." It was co-signed by Ann I. Allen and witnessed by Aaron
Doan and E. W. Rumsey. Also on September 1, 1825, John Allen and Ann I. Allen sold to John's
brother, James Turner Allen, for $100 "Lot 3 and the south half of Lots 1 & 2 fronting on Main and
Huron St. containing 1/5 of an acre each, situated in Block 1 N. of Huron St. & in Range 3." Aaron
Doan and E. W. Rumsey were, again, the witnesses. (Page 27 of the "Old Book.")
6. John Allen toJane Trimble. (See Chapter IV, note 6.)
7. Mary Clark's article in the May 1852 issue of Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book entitled "Ann Allen,"
is found on pp. 317-19. From the several paragraphs in her article devoted toJohn Allen's mother,
Elizabeth (Tate) Allen, it is apparent that Mary Clark had interviewed her with keen interest. "The
character of this excellent matron, who is often described as the ideal of a pioneer, is so remarkable
as to call for a brief notice....In her youth, she was eminently handsome, and even at the age of seventy-six retains a most prepossessing appearance, having a tall and symmetrical figure, but slightly
bent, with a complexion showing the freshness of habitual health." Referring to her sixteen offers
of marriage before she had reached her 18th birthday, Miss Clark noted an unusual proposal that
provides an interesting glimpse of life in Virginia when women even rode their horses to church:
"Miss Tate (afterwards Mrs. Allen) was one day in attendance at a funeral, after the conclusion of
which the newly bereaved widower rode up to the side of her horse, and, to her extreme surprise,
expressed a wish that she might be induced to consent to fill the place of the dear departed one
whose mortal remains had just been laid in the grave. The young lady regarded him with astonishment and displeasure, and sternly forbade him to name that subject to her again under a year. Just
a year from that day he proposed in due form, and was rejected!" Almost as though she were contrasting Ann Allen's quiet, retiring nature with that of her mother-in-law, Miss Clark noted: "Mrs.
Allen is accustomed to express herself at all times in a manner so forceful and decisive, and at the
same time with so much dignity, as to evince talent of no ordinary kind."
It was John Allen's mother who reared his two children from his first marriage. Mary Clark
quoted Mrs. Allen's answer to the question of whether she had had a large number of children: "Oh,
no, I have only had seven children. I laid out to have no less than a dozen; but the granchildren [sic]
left motherless, whom I have brought up, perhaps make out the number." Besides Elizabeth and
James C. Allen, children of John, she had taken the three youngest children of her daughter, Mary
(Allen) Welch, when Mary died in Ann Arbor. Mary Clark's articles from Godey's Lady's Book also
appeared in Elizabeth Fries Ellet, Pioneer Women of the West (New York: Scribner, 1852).
8. A scrapbook kept by Lucy Chapin of Ann Arbor is preserved in BHL. A newspaper clipping therein,
the source of which is not given, tells of the opening of the cornerstone of the "Old Presbyterian
Church" in which was found a list of the men and women who "entered into covenant" to form "the
First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor on August 21, 1826. Eight men and nine women signed the
covenant." The nine women were: Mary Branch, Clarissa Mills, Deborah Farrand, Agnes Parsons,
Harriet Parsons, Elizabeth Allen, Mrs. Monroe, Ann Isabella Allen, and Phoebe Whitmore.
9. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, March 20, 1834. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL. Only a photostat of
this letter appears to exist; it had been borrowed from Phoebe (Allen) Bell by Caroline P. Campbell
for photostating with the new equipment in 1925 in the University of Michigan Library.
10. In addition to the formal appointment of Allen to be postmaster in Ann Arbor, dated December 30,
1824, among theJohn Allen Papers at BHC, there is a printed sheet of detailed instructions for postmasters datedJanuary 20, 1825, sent to Allen byJohn McLean, Postmaster General.
11. A biographical sketch of Bethuel Farrand exists as a clipping in Lucy Chapin's scrapbook at BHL.
The anonymous author based his account in part on an interview with Mrs. Farrand. The Farrands
had left Cayuga County, NY, for Detroit in May 1825; they came to Ann Arbor the following autumn.
A brief record of Bethuel Farrand's appointment, based on this same biographical sketch, appears
60




in History of Washtenaw County, 1881, p. 889.
12. The surveyor for the road was William Brookfield, a resident of Detroit. In a letter from Brookfield
to Tiffin dated December 31, 1824, he reported: "I yesterday returned from running a road from
the R. Rouge to the County seat of Washtenaw," The Territorial Papers of the United States, Vol. XL, "The
Territory of Michigan, 1820-1829" (Washington, DC, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1943), p. 623.
13. Detroit Gazette, May 9, 1826. "Stage to Washtenaw. A stage will run hereafter (or walk, if the roads are
bad) between this place and Ann Arbor, the seat of justice in the county of Washtenaw. It leaves
Detroit three times a week."
14. "Executive Proceedings of Michigan Territory, January 1, 1825 - December 31, 1825," in Vol. XL,
p. 847, The Territorial Papers of the United States (see note 12, above).
15. The autobiographical sketch of Dr. Benjamin H. Packard partially quoted here consists of 6 small,
handwritten pages, beginning with: "I came to Michigan from Niagara Co., N.Y My first visit for
exploring the country was made in April 1825." This document is contained in the Emily Mary
Sheldon Stewart Papers, BHC. It is entitled "Dr. Benjamin H. Packard, Ann Arbor." It is not dated.
Dr. Packard's wife was Anna Bennett, and her brother, James Bennett,Jr., was married to Alta Maria
Rumsey, sister of Elisha Walker Rumsey. In his autobiographical sketch, Dr. Packard noted that,
upon reaching Ann Arbor, he "found to my joy that a former friend, Walker Rumsey, was keeping a
pioneer's hotel in a log house. This family were very kind and hospitable and I fared well."
16. This act of Michigan Territory's Legislative Counsel on November 20, 1826, is quoted in full in
History of Washtenaw County, 1881, pp. 123-24.
17. Ibid., pp. 220-24.
18. The extensive file of papers in the probating of Rumsey's estate, preserved by the Probate Court of
Washtenaw County, provide a rich source of information on early Ann Arbor. It is there, also, that
we learn of Mary Ann Rumsey's illness.
19. See the quotations from Mary Clark's article in Godey's Lady's Book in note 7, above.
20. In his manuscript entitled "Family Record" (see Chapter IV, note 23, above), after recounting the
Allen family'sjourney to Ann Arbor in 1824,James Turner Allen wrote of his father's reliance "upon
our own labor to produce the necessities of life." Of his father's death, he wrote: "His death was a
severe stroke to us all. It was the first break in our family circle."
21. Detroit Gazette, March 27, 1828. Although Miss Page's advertisement was dated March 4, 1828, it did
not appear until the issue of March 27; it continued to be published in the Gazette through May 29,
1828.
22. For a gathering of data pertaining to Miss Monroe and her school, see Lela Duff, Pioneer School (Ann
Arbor: Board of Education, 1958), pp. 1-2.
23. The Rev. O. C. Thompson's "Observations and Experiences in Michigan Forty Years Ago" was read
before the Detroit Pioneer Society on January 13, 1873. It was published in Michigan Pioneer and
Historical Society Collections (1877), Vol. 1, pp. 395-402. This quotation is from p. 400.
24. Louis W. Doll, A History of the Newspapers of Ann Arbor, 1829-1920. (Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 1959), pp. 5-7.
25. See Chapter IV, note 3.
26. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue,June 30, 1834. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
27. Joseph W. Torrey to John Allen, December 11, 1829. John Allen Papers, BHC. Allen had obviously
written to Torrey for advice on becoming a lawyer. Then holding the office of Recorder for Detroit,
Torrey was appointed Judge of Probate for Wayne County, MI, on December 26, 1829. "The fees in
the office where I studied were 300 dolls. of which I paid 150 in my attention to the business of the
office...by drawing papers, declarations, pleas, etc....Kingsley will undoubtedly deal not only fairly
but very liberally with you....If my advice be worth anything it is GO ON! and you will succeed not
only in being admitted in due time, but also in the business of the profession."
28. This agreement, dated May 7, 1827, is among the John Allen Papers, BHC.
29. Western Emigrant, November 18, 1829.
30. With this deed, dated December 15, 1829, signed byJames Turner Allen and his wife, Abby H. Allen,
John Allen's brother acknowledged payment byJohn Allen of $600. John Allen Papers, BHC.
31. Western Emigrant, January 20, 1830.
32. Signed not only by the agent, E. P. Hastings, who sold Allen the policy, but by the company's president, John T. Champlin, and its secretary John King, the policy cost Allen an annual premium of
$17.22. The company's address was 34 Wall Street, New York City. It was not until 1834 that the
Washtenaw County Courthouse was built on the public square. John Allen Papers, BHC.
33. The Emigrant, May 16, 1831. (The name of Ann Arbor's first newspaper had been changed from the
Western Emigrant by February 2, 1831, the earliest issue in 1831 that is extant.)
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34. James C. Allen to John Allen, March 30, 1839. John Allen Papers, BHC.
35. A detailed account of the incorporation of Ann Arbor as a village, and the actions taken by its
trustees during their early meetings, appears in the 1881 History of Washtenaw County, pp. 904-05. It
was in 1851 that Ann Arbor was elevated to city status by the State Legislature. A listing of the village
officers from 1833 to 1851 appears on pp. 905-06 of the county history.
36. Ibid., p. 904.
37. "Karl Neidhard's Reise nach Michigan," edited by Robert Benaway Brown, Michigan History, XXV
(March 1951) pp. 32-84. Neidhard's article had appeared in a German magazine, Amerikanisches
Magazine, in May 1835; it had been written "im Sommer 1834." Describing Ann Arbor as a town of
about "800 souls," he stated: "Ann Arbor is only six [sic] years old. Its founder, a planter who met a
fatal accident in Virginia, gave the town its name in honor of his wife." Here, Neidhard had obviously confused Dr. William McCue, Ann I. Allen's first husband, with John Allen, although Dr.
McCue had not died from a "fatal accident," nor did he ever know about Ann Arbor. On p. 64 of
Brown's translation, appears the following: "Right now there is no better way of investing money
than by buying government land in the best sections of Kalamazoo and letting it lie. Those with
enough vision to recognize ahead of time the sites best suited for the founding of future cities can
establish the prosperity of their families for generations. Among many examples let me mention
only the nearest one, that of the founder of Ann Arbor...." This is followed by the quotation in the
text. Neidhard's words were doubtless those from John Allen's own lips.
38. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, March 20, 1835. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
39. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, June 20, 1834. Ibid.
40. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, March 20, 1835. Ibid.
41. Michigan Argus, March 12, 1835.
42. Michigan Whig, February 12, 1835.
43. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, June 28, 1835. Ibid.
44. See Chapter IV, note 3.


62




VI.
A Home in New York City and a Virginia Reunion
1837-1838
Eighteen hundred and thirty-six, the year in which Thomas McCue came by
horseback to Ann Arbor to visit his mother, was also the year that marked the zenith
ofJohn Allen's rise from poverty to apparent wealth, from obscurity to prominence
within Michigan Territory. Allen was now acknowledged locally to be a successful
entrepreneur, and a growing number of men of means not only in Michigan, but
outside the Territory as well, sought his advice on investments for quick profit.
Some trusted his judgment so completely that they simply transferred money to
him to invest as he saw fit. For example, among Allen's papers is an agreement by
which Edward Brooks of Detroit furnished "said Allen with ten thousand in Money
to be used in land speculation...and [at the end of four years to] pay said Brooks
one half of the increase, said Allen to have the other half for his services and
expenses. "1
A growing number of John Allen's associates now began addressing him as
"Colonel Allen." On what basis, and by what authority, this title was bestowed upon
him is not a matter of record, although there can be little doubt but that it was used
simply to recognize his leadership role and his growing wealth. There were those,
of course, who remembered that his father had been called Colonel Allen, but in
James Allen's case, he had actually held the rank of colonel in the Virginia Militia.
Late in 1835, Allen had joined with five capitalists (Lucius Boltwood and Luke
Sweetser of Amherst, Massachusetts; Henry and Edwin Morgan of Aurora, New
York, and Charles Mosley of Ann Arbor) in forming the Richmond Company, the
purpose of which was to acquire over two thousand acres of land in Allegan County
on which to create a major town. In May 1836, when Mosely asked to withdraw
from the scheme, the remaining proprietors bought his share for $20,000, after
which they agreed on a plan on how to divide the profits beyond the $100,000
figure.2 A New York lithographer, C. B. Graham, was engaged by Allen to design
and print 600 copies of a "Plan of the Village of Richmond."3 Although quadruple
the size of Allen's 1824 plat for Ann Arbor (Richmond was shown with thirteen
named streets and twenty-three with ordinal numerals), the two plans were remarkably similar.
In 1836, Allen was also closely involved with a similar project on the Kalamazoo
River called Bronson, later changed to Kalamazoo. In Van Buren County, he had
purchased lots in nearly every township and was planning for towns to be called
Mason on the Paw Paw River (later called Lawrence) and Middletown on Hog
Creek. In March 1836, Allen and Henry Morgan agreed to a $10,000 purchase of
land in "Campau's Addition to Grand Haven," and in August 1836, Allen purchased
for $3,000 a section of land in Jackson County where, with Dr. Benjamin Packard,
he began planning a town to be called Spring Arbour. The list goes on, totaling
thousands of acres to which Allen held title. He was convinced that in the not too
distant future, these lands would be worth many times the amount of borrowed
money (paper bank notes) with which he had purchased them. He spent time in
the spring of 1836 not only in Detroit, but also in Chicago, cultivating prospective
investors. Because internal improvements in transportation were vital for the
63




success of these endeavors, Allen had become an active shareholder and promoter
of the Detroit and St. Joseph Railroad Company.
Although she was neither consulted nor advised by her husband in his borrowing and spending, Ann's future would be vitally affected by his activities in this
regard. His absences from Ann Arbor increased in number and length. In June
1836, Lucius Boltwood wrote from Amherst to Allen suggesting: "If you can make a
good beginning at Chicago or Detroit, what should you think of trying in N. York?"
He added: "If you think it expedient to try to make sales in N. York we will one of
us meet you there."4 Well before Boltwood had this idea, however, Allen had
decided on his own that he should spend some time in New York City.
In planning this journey in the spring of 1836, Allen had his business interests
primarily in mind, of course, but he recognized that the trip could also provide an
opportunity for him to place his children, James and Elizabeth, in eastern schools,
a matter that had been on his mind for some time. "My long neglect of your education hangs like a Millstone upon my conscience," he once confessed in a letter to
his son.5
A school for girls conducted by sisters named Gilbert at Avon in Livingston
County, New York, had been recommended to Allen as a proper place for Elizabeth,
it being located at a health spa where she could also take advantage of "the waters."
Elizabeth's persistent cough had become a concern to her grandmother. Dr.
Benjamin Packard, an old friend of Allen's and, more recently, a partner with him
in the Spring Arbour project, may have been the one to suggest Avon for Elizabeth.
He was surely the one to recommend that James be enrolled at Genesee Western
Seminary conveniently located at Lima, a few miles from Avon. His son, Jason
Packard, was then a student there.6 (Genesee Western Seminary, later to become
Genesee College and an ancestor of Syracuse University, offered courses in a
variety of areas, including surveying, for which James was enrolled.)7
Because custom required female companionship for an unmarried eighteenyear-old girl on such ajourney, it was decided that Ann Allen should accompany her
husband and stepchildren. After leaving Elizabeth and James at Avon and Lima,
John would take Ann to Saratoga Springs, a flourishing vacation and health resort
for people of wealth, located near New York's eastern border with Vermont, after
which he would go on to New York City. Sarah Ann, now thirteen, would be left in
Ann Arbor under the loving care of her grandmother; Mrs. Allen agreed, also, to
provide boarding for Thomas McCue. Thomas seems to have impressed everyone
in Ann Arbor favorably, including "Grandma" Allen, who wrote in July 1836:
I have taken grate comfort with Tommis He is a real true noble
minded Virginien. I love him very mutch.8
Ann doubtless sensed the irony of leaving behind in Ann Arbor the son whom
she had not seen for twelve years prior to his arrival six weeks earlier, but she had
no choice. Thomas promised that he would remain until her return. John had
arranged for him to be enrolled in a new school that had just opened through the
efforts of himself and Henry Rumsey, a brother of John's earlier partner. The two
men had created a corporation, accumulated $4,000 in capital, and had but
recently completed an impressive frame schoolhouse on the northwest corner of
William and Fourth Streets. An announcement had appeared in the Michigan Argus
that Henry H. Griffin of Andover, Massachusetts, had opened his school there "for
64




the purpose of qualifying youth of both sexes to become teachers," tuition being
"from three to four dollars per quarter of eleven weeks, according to the studies
pursued."9 In a letter to James C. Allen addressed to him at Lima, Thomas McCue
reported: "Mr. Griffin has about 75 Scholars at present, one or two comeing every
day or two."'
It is doubtful that Ann Allen was sufficiently aware of John's business activities
to sense that their financial future might be uncertain, butJohn's wise old mother,
recalling, perhaps, how her own husband's reckless investments had led to disaster
in an earlier time, was worried that her son was following a path similar to his
father's. She confided to her granddaughter: "There are a number of indentures
with New York merchants running into thousands of dollars.""
It was in July 1836 that PresidentJackson issued his "Specie Circular" providing
the first prick in the nation's speculative bubble. Henceforth, purchasers of government land would have to pay in gold or silver, although actual settlers could continue
buying up to 320 acres with paper money (state bills) until December 15, 1836.
While no record has been found of the Allens' actual journey, they probably
went in their own carriage. A business letter written by Jonathan Stratton, a surveyor for the Detroit and St. Joseph Railroad, dated June 4, 1836, and addressed to
Allen at Saratoga Springs, suggests that they began their journey in late May, before
the arrival of Mr. Boltwood's letter. By June 12th, Elizabeth and James had been
enrolled at their respective schools, Ann was settled at the Springs, and John had
progressed as far as Albany. That evening, he wrote a long letter filled with fatherly
advice to James at Lima. In this, he mentioned writing one, also, to Elizabeth, but
only that to James has survived. Among his words of wisdom for his son, John
revealed something of himself....I am now past the Meridian of life [he was forty], and have lost
many opportunities for improvement, which I now look back upon
with regret....Every man takes his stand in Society, just where his
mind and manners entitle him....You must have a mind well stored
with information on a variety of Subjects, and possess what is
termed, polished Manners. Literature with awkwardness or Riches
with Vulgarity-never will enable the possessor to move in good
Society-I mean pollished Society. How rare in Michigan are young
men of good breeding.12
On this latter point, Ann Allen would certainly have agreed with her husband.
The letter from Thomas McCue to James C. Allen dated June 29, 1836, cited
earlier, includes the sentence: "I got a letter from Ma a day or two ago and she was
at Saratoga Springs." Regretfully, Thomas did not save this letter; whether Ann
enjoyed her time there is not known. Likewise, we know little ofJohn's activities in
New York City, other than from his copy of an extremely complicated agreement
with aJohn P. Huntington of New York by which Allen conveyed 3,551 acres of land
in Kalamazoo County to Huntington for the consideration of $9,100.'3 Like Allen,
Huntington was a land speculator and, except for a lease on two lots with buildings
on Hamersley Street in New York, Allen would have to wait for the remainder until
Huntington sold the Michigan land.
It was shortly after the signing of this agreement that John left New York City
for Saratoga Springs. From a letter that he wrote to his son early in August 1836, we
65




know that he and Ann stopped at Lima and at Avon on their homeward journey,
arriving back in Ann Arbor on July 28, 1836. "After a pleasant journey from Avon,
we arrived at home on Last Thursday evening, having stopd one day in Buffaloe and
one day in Detroit."'4
Sometime during his brief stay in New York, John Allen made a decision that
would affect his family dramatically-he decided that he could best conduct his
financial affairs in the future by living permanently in New York City. No document
is known to survive to reveal his reasoning on this matter, nor do we have any record
of Ann's reaction. With little knowledge of her husband's affairs and no foreknowledge of the approaching "Panic of 1837," she may well have been pleased
with the prospect. Recalling her pleasant times in Baltimore during her youth, she
could anticipate a quality of social life more to her liking than that offered by Ann
Arbor. Furthermore, the possibility of journeying from New York back to Virginia
for an extended visit was something to dream about.
There was one member of the Allen family whose reaction to the plan has
survived. This wasJohn's mother writing to her grandson in Lima:
Your Pa is in a grate notion of going to new York and takeing you
all with him I dont like it mutch I dont know what he is going to
do with me I will find out when you get home I still hope the[y]
wont get of[f] he has made up his mind to go and take your ma
and the girls Hant sure I will let Elizabeth go I will know better
I see hir and you.'5
On August 15, 1836, John Allen received a letter from his son reporting that
the Gilbert sisters might be closing their small school in four or five weeks to move
to Ohio with their father. If this were to develop, James had inquired whether
Elizabeth should accompany her teachers to Ohio, as they suggested, or should she
"come to Lima and stay with me until I come [home] in the fall?" He added that it
would be "considerable trouble for me after I got to Cleveland to go fifteen miles
after sister."'6
This incident probably played no role in the life of Ann Allen, but John's
response to James provides an interesting glimpse of American mores of the early
19th century. Emphasizing his concern that Elizabeth "be protected alike from
insult and seduction,"John wrote:
Nothing could have tempted me to place her so far from home,
and among strangers, only the absolute necessity, for the improvement of her health and mind.
When a young man leaves the path of virtue, he seldom, if ever
gets back into Virtuous habits. He generally goes on from one Step
to another in guilt, until he is lost to all sense of guilt, or shame.
But with females the case is far different. With them, there is no
repentance-once gone-they are gone forever. A whole life of
pentintance will not Suffice to reinstate them in the good opinion
of the world.'7
As it developed, the Gilbert sisters remained at Avon, and Elizabeth continued
living with them there until she and James returned to Ann Arbor, probably by


66




stagecoach and steamboat, in the early autumn of 1836. Again, they took up
residence with their grandmother. Thomas McCue left for Virginia sometime in
October. He arrived at his uncle's home on November 23rd, according to James
McCue's accounts: "Returned by the said Thomas on his return from Michigan,
$75.00." Thomas had sold his horse while in Ann Arbor, which accounts for his
rather large reimbursement to the fund supporting him and his brother.
John Allen had many matters to attend to in Michigan in preparation for his
move to New York City, and it was not until late November that he was ready to
depart. Ann was equally busy, no doubt, with packing, sorting, and storing. John
arranged to rent their house, but to whom we do not know. In an earlier letter to
his son, John had noted: "I have hired a young man to drive our carriage and take
care of the horses. He is very careful and attentive."'
A week before the Aliens started for New York, Ann wrote a hurried note to
Thomas: "I write by candle light and in some haste." She continued:
Mr. Allen returned the middle of the week you left. He has purchased a small carriage for us to go to New York in. James the
hostler goes in a lumber waggon and carries our baggage. We start
next Monday [November 21, 1836] to go by land, to...Monrow
[Monroe], then intersect the national road some where in Ohio.
There was quit[e] a fall of snow here yesterday, a dull prospect for
good roads. I dread my journey, but I think it is for the best to go
by land. It has got too late to cross the lake.19
In this same letter, Ann mentioned having tried to persuade the father of a
servant named Rachel to permit her to accompany the Aliens, but the unnamed
father was adamant in his refusal.
Our next word of the Aliens is found in a letter from Ann and Sarah to
Thomas McCue dated January 3, 1837. If Ann was precise in stating that their
journey had taken four weeks, their arrival must have been about December 25th,
although neither she nor Sarah mentioned how they had spent Christmas.
Thirteen-year-old Sarah wrote first:
We have arrived here safe. And I am much pleased with the City;
what little I have seen of it. We had quite a pleasant trip. I will give
you a short Description of it. We came in our Carriage to Columbia
in Pennsylvania. We had also a lumber waggon to carry our baggage in. James [the Aliens' groom, not John's son] drove the
cream colour horses in the baggage wagon. And Pa drove the
white horses, in the carriage to Columbia. Then we took the railroad to Philadelphia and took our baggage with us, and James
went with the carriage & four horses round on the turn-pike, then
we took the steam boat to Borden town. From their we went in a
Car to Amboy. From their in a steam boat to New York. I like riding in the Car very much; but the steam boat I can say I do not like
as well. What little I have rode in them does not make me sick. I
presume you were sick when you crossed the Lake. I could have
enjoyed myself very much had it been warm weather....We pass[ed]
through Pittsburg[h] but it was a dolful looking place. They burnt


67




coal entirely. Just before you enter the place it appears as if thair
was a huricane. I am sure I should not like to live their. They burn
coal in this City but it is [an] altogather different kind....
Ann's letter to her son follows:
I perceive Sarah has left some room for me to write; Sarah says we
had a pleasant journey, for the time of year, [the] road was better
than we could expect but the journey was quite fatiguing for me.
The weather was cold. We were 4 weeks coming. I took some cold
on my journey, it layed me up for a few days after I came. When we
arrived here, we went to board in [a] private family. We was not
very comfortably situated. The room was small and confined. Mr
Allen has been trying to get a house and at last obtained one. I cannot tell you whether he has bought or rented it; it is a pleasant
convenient house quite up in the city How I shall like it, time can
only tell. I have formed no acquaintance, but the family I boarded
with a few days. I have some letters of introduction from friend[s]
in Ann Arbour; to their friend[s] here. I have been so unwell, and
so much hurried about moving, that I have not made myself
knowen to any one, indeed I have not had a moment time to call
my own when well enough. If I had, it would have been in writing
to my dear son. I have been very anxious to hear from you, but
being so unsetled not knowing where to tell you to direct your letters, to make me defer it to the present. We have only been here a
few days an[d] are not fixed yet comfortable, but I hope after we
get the house clean and get some furniture we shall. I have since I
came here understood their is an old acquaintance of mine living
in New York, her name in Mrs. Mahand.... I became acquainted
with her in Michigan, she stayed at our house in Michigan before
she was married. If she will remember me, it will be of advantage
to me, as she moves in such society as I have allways been accumstomed to; she is pious and intelligent....You had better direct your
letters thus Mrs. Ann Isabella Allen (Seventh Avenue) 14 Street,
City of New York. Their so many of our name in this City if not
direct[ed] thus, I may not get them....
In the same year that the Allens moved to New York City, an article appeared
in the Daily National Intelligencer entitled "New York City Around the Clock in
1836."2o From the anonymous author's observations of the city at different hours,
his description of mid-day follows:
At twelve the great highway of the city [Broadway] is thronged.
Carriages, driven by liveried coachmen and adorned by a footman,
roll majestically along-bright faces or wrinkled and lace-bordered
visages peeping from the windows.
Now young gallants dash by in tilburys [light two-wheel carriages]
or on trotting horses (from which preserve me,) and by two
o'clock taste, fashion, and wealth (to say nothing of the omnibuses,
68




which are at the same time the greatest blessings and the greatest
nuisances of New York) reign paramount in Broadway.
At three the "town" emphatically hold sway there. Fashionable
citizens and strangers are then at dinner, and appear no more
before four.
Either Thomas McCue was highly negligent in writing to his mother following
his return to Virginia, or a letter had been lost, for Ann did not hear from him until
mid-February, 1837. In her prompt reply, after expressing her great relief to learn
that he was safe and well, she responded to his apparent query whether she would
make her long anticipated visit to Virginia in the following summer:
I should like it very much, but Sarah A. has lost so much time, at
her age when she should improve every moment. Her papa has
employed a teacher in the house. Her teacher says she applys herself very well....I should not like to take her from her studys...and
I wish her to go with me if God spares our lifes.21
In his letter, Thomas apparently had mentioned the possibility of his "going
west" in the spring of 1838 to look for a place to live after coming of age on January
2, 1839. Ann's response reminds us of her own unhappiness in Michigan:
You mention of going to the west in the Spring You better mature
that well, before you undertake it. Ohio I should give the preference too. Michigan is chiefly settled by New England Yankee's
(cunning as foxes), and northern speculators, so I do not know
what chance you would stand amongst them. As to Illinois &
Indiana I know not much about....
I have not formed any acquaintance worth mentioning, so you
must give me time to form my opinion of the people and place I
am in. We are quite far up in the city. I like the situation much better than lower down, the air is purer, the water better, not so much
noise and bustle. We live on the east corner of Seventh Avenue....22
To conduct his Michigan real estate business, John Allen formed a company in
which he expected to sell shares. It was called the American Exchange Company,
and to impress both investors and clients, he obtained an office on Wall Street, just
two doors from the New York Stock and Exchange Board. Among his relatively few
surviving business records of 1837, we find the earliest reference to his office in a
letter dated January 30 of that year from Lucius Boltwood. It was addressed:
John Allen, Esqr.
(Late of Michigan)
44 Wall St.
New York
Not satisfied with his house on Seventh Avenue, in March 1837 Allen found
one for sale that was more in keeping with the status in New York society to which
he aspired. For $16,000, he agreed to purchase from one Oliver Kane "all that certain lot of land with the three story brick dwelling house there on erected, situate
69




in Broadway in the city of New York known and distinguished as lot No. 766...."
Under the agreement, the purchase price would be secured "by the bond of the
said Allen and a mortgage...bearing interest at seven percent, payable semiannually
from the first day of May next...."23
Curiously, this document and its amendments reveal the short period of time
during which John Allen's financial empire collapsed. In March 1837, he could
confidently enter into contract to pay $16,000 for what must have been a splendid
home, with payments to begin in May. By the end of April, however, Allen found he
could not make the first payment. Kane agreed to delay that initial installment until
July 29th. By the end of July 1837, however, Allen was forced to break the contract.
In his Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State, Willis Dunbar explained, by
chance, the significance of these same dates in the nation's history:...onJanuary 1, 1837, when the distribution of the government surplus began, banks were called upon to pay over to the states specie
that the federal government had deposited with them. The second
quarterly payment [March 1st] exhausted their resources, and in
May, 1837, banks throughout the nation suspended specie payments. This meant that no longer could a bank note be presented
for payment at full value in gold and silver. Very quickly these
notes-the paper money of the time-depreciated in value, and
within a short time many of them became virtually worthless.
By the middle of 1837, thousands of people in the eastern part of
the nation were unemployed. Hundreds of firms went bankrupt
and business was almost at a standstill....24
Never closely informed regarding her husband's business activities, Ann probably had little inkling that after six short months of comfortable living in New York
City, they now, in the early summer of 1837, faced financial ruin. In fact, John, himself, did not yet realize that he was experiencing more than a temporary crisis.
Michigan land was continuing to sell, but at a much slower pace.
It was doubtless because of his changing situation that Allen decided that his
wife and daughter should make their Virginia visit in 1837 rather than waiting until
the following year. Furthermore, it was John's intention to return briefly to Ann
Arbor late in August that year to attend to pressing business, and having Ann and
Sarah in Virginia at that time, would make his absence from New York much
simpler. He arranged for a "young man" (apparently 'James the Hostler" who had
assisted in driving the Aliens to New York the previous autumn) to drive Ann and
Sarah to Virginia in his carriage. In a letter to his son in August 1837, he noted:
Your Ma and Sarah Ann are now in Lexington, Va. on a visit to
see John and Thomas. They left here last Thursday morning
[August 10]-as to the time of their return, nothing is yet fixed
upon determinedly.25
No letter written by Ann regarding her journey to, or her stay in, Virginia
appears to be extant, but a short letter from her son, Thomas, written in Lexington
on July 31, 1837, happens to survive among John Allen's papers. It had arrived after


70




his mother and Sarah had departed. In this, Thomas referred to a letter from his
mother dated July 24th telling him of her travel plans. Ann had asked her son
whether the young man driving the carriage could "get into business" in Lexington
while waiting to drive them back to New York. Thomas replied:
There is no vacant places at present in Lexington that I know of.
Boarding can be got in private familys for 80$ [per] year....I saw
Brother Jno. today. He told me that he would prepare for you....26
The reason that Thomas was then in Lexington was that he was a student
at Washington College, his father's alma mater; John was nearby, living on the
287-acre farm that had belonged to their father and that had been rented out by
James McCue through the years to aid in his wards' support.
James McCue's accounts as guardian for Ann's two sons reveal that John,
having reached his twenty-first birthday in 1837, thus becoming eligible for his
share of his father's estate, had been permitted by his uncle to begin managing his
father's land in Rockbridge County that year. It was the house there that John
would "prepare" for his mother and half-sister's visit. Furthermore,James McCue's
accounts reveal that the "Negroes" ("Connell and wife," with their children, Henry
and Sally), had been transferred from their rental status with James's brother,
John McCue, to his nephew of the same name. (The latter was sometimes identified as 'Jr." in his uncle's accounts, at other times as "ward.") Because the assets
from Dr. McCue's estate supporting his two sons could not be divided among his
heirs until both sons came of age, John was required to pay rent into this fund
managed by his uncle until Thomas became twenty-one. Whereas the elder John
McCue had paid $90.00 annually for his "hire" of all four slaves, Henry and Sally
were now old enough to be of "hire" value. John McCue, Jr.'s "hire price" per year
for Connell and Callomid was $35.00; for Henry, $65.00; and for Sally, $50.00 We
assume that they were serving John when his mother arrived at the McCue farm
home. We can only imagine the nature of the greeting extended by Connell and
Callomid as they remembered their old mistress; Henry and Sally probably had no
memory of Ann, however.
Unfortunately, no record has been found to reveal the date on which Ann and
Sarah arrived at Lexington, nor how they spent their time in Virginia. This being
Ann's first visit since leaving for Michigan Territory thirteen years earlier, we can
picture her pleasure in greeting relatives and old friends yet surviving. IfJohn Allen
received letters from Ann or Sarah during their Virginia visit, he did not preserve
them among his papers.
Writing to his son in August 1837, John Allen indicated that he was postponing his earlier plans to spend time in Ann Arbor: "...my business here is now in
such a shape, that it would be death to my future prospects to leave at this time."
He told James of the American Exchange Company "which mostly belongs to me,"
adding that "the bearer of this letter is a Mr. Cormerais of Boston, now in the
employ of the Co."27
The purpose of Mr. Cormerais' visit to Ann Arbor was to obtain, and to return
to New York with, some $1,500 with which to repay a man named Sutton who held
a mortgage against "the whole of the land by the Village." Allen was counting on


71




his old Ann Arbor friend, Ezra Maynard, to whom he had written, to raise the
$1,500 for Mr. Cormerais to take back to John. As an indication of Allen's desperate situation, he told James:
If Mr. M[aynard] will raise the money to pay it and wants it immediately-you must put your shoulder to the wheel-and put every
note, judgment, horse, cow, family utentials, hay, grain, in short
everything you have there-if necessary not excepting Elizabeth's
piano-to pay the debt. If it is not paid the sacrifice is the whole of
the land by the Village....
BrotherJames [Turner Allen] must take charge of Mother and let
her either board with him or some one else where she will be
attended to well, and let BrotherJames rent the house and garden
where you live for her benefit.28
In a postscript to his August 14th letter, Allen had urged that his daughter,
Elizabeth, now nineteen years of age, accompany Mr. Cormerais back to New York
City. He was certain that this would be a "safe opportunity" for her to make the
journey: "Mr. C. I believe to be a strictly virtuous and pious young man."29
Allen's financial straits had obviously altered his earlier view regarding the
danger of "insult and seduction" facing a young, unmarried woman lacking a
proper chaperon's "protection." To reassure Elizabeth that the possible loss of her
piano would not be irreparable, Allen had noted: "Tell Elizabeth not to worry about
her piano, as I have one here for her worth double that one."30
The "land by the Village" to which Allen referred in his letter to James was a
tract of one hundred acres in Section 29 that had been part of his original purchase
from the U.S. Government in February 1824. This land was rented to David Swaney
during 1837 and was valued for tax purposes that year at $3,000. James C. Allen,
following his return to Ann Arbor from the Western Genesee Seminary, was now
determined to be a farmer, and he was hoping to begin his agricultural career on
this very land.
It appears that Ezra Maynard did, indeed, come to Allen's assistance in this
matter, and that the "Sutton claim" was paid. The "land by the Village" was saved
for James, to whom John succeeded in transferring ownership, but Allen's debts
and demands for their repayment continued to grow.
Elizabeth did, indeed, accompany Carmerais to New York City to live with her
father. In a letter to her brother the followingJanuary, she reported that "Pa is well,
[but] he has but little business to attend to." She also reported that he had rented
"our house and furniture for our board. We put an advertisement in the paper, and
got a Quaker family to take it," but she complained, "they do not set a good table."'
Although Ann and Sarah had expected to spend only the summer of 1837 in
Virginia, their visit extended for a year, until the late summer of 1838, by which time
John had finally faced the reality of his financial ruin. In a letter to William
Woodbridge in Detroit, he confessed:...in Money matters-to use a common saying-"I am used up."
I have at length determined on returning to Michigan-and try
the hasle [?] once more. It is the safe place through such times
as those we have passed.32
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In the absence of any letters explaining the sequence of events in Ann's life
during 1838, we can only conjecture, based on later clues. In a much later letter to
Thomas McCue, she referred to the failed Franklin Bank in which she had a "little
money," and the fact that it would pay out only 5 percent, "which leaves me 28
dollars in Uncle McKim's debt-for the money he advanced to me to pay my traveling expenses to New York...."33 From this, we know that she and Sarah had gone to
Baltimore, probably in July or early August, 1838, in the carriage with the team and
driver that had taken them to Virginia a year earlier, and from Baltimore, after
visiting the McKims, back to New York City.
It appears that the Aliens, including Elizabeth and Sarah, arrived back in Ann
Arbor early in October 1838. In a letter written in 1839, Ann indicated that they
had lived and boarded at the Ann Arbor Exchange from October 3, 1838, until the
summer of 1839.34 Their fine house had been lost to creditors. (The Exchange, but
recently completed when the Aliens took up residence there, was a combination
hotel, office building, and market, located on the corner of Main and Ann
Streets.) 35
Having departed Ann Arbor in style two years earlier, amid John's confidence
and Ann's expectation that his prosperity would soar to new heights in New York
City, the Aliens' return, in the common knowledge that John now faced poverty,
must have been traumatic for John and devastating for Ann. She may have been
reminded of an earlier time when John had failed to return to Augusta County
from Baltimore with the cattle money. Not only had his orgy in land speculation
brought aboutJohn's own ruin, it had resulted, also, in the same fate for a number
of his friends and associates who had loaned him money and followed his advice in
buying Michigan land. His saving grace, however, was that thousands of others like
him had convinced themselves that the increasing value and mounting sales of
"western land" would go on forever. Allen was not alone in misjudging the times.
END NOTES-CHAPTER VI
1. "Agreement Between Edward Brooks and John Allen," July 28, 1836. John Allen Papers, BHC. A
copy of this agreement is also among the papers of William Woodbridge, BHC, with an addendum
datedJanuary 15, 1838.
2. John Allen not only signed this agreement on his own behalf on May 30, 1836, but he did so also
"for Bottwood, Sweetser, and Morgan." William J. Maynard was the sole witness. John Allen Papers,
BHC.
3. In the John Allen Papers, BHC, there is a receipt signed by B. G. Graham dated New York, August
15, 1836. Graham had charged Allen $65.00 for "Lithographing Map of the Town of Richmond,"
plus $18.00 for "printing 600 impressions," and $17.50 for paper. One of the copies of the plan for
Richmond is in BHC.
4. Lucius Boltwood toJohn Allen,June 7, 1836.John Allen Papers, BHC. This letter begins: "When Mr.
Sweetser & myself left Michigan, it was expected that one of us would return about this time. But we
find it impossible to leave home before September. Having heard nothing from you since we left,
we are desirous of learning the prospects of our Village on the Kalamazoo. Have you caused it to be
surveyed & Lithographed? What is the chance of water power? What do you view the property to be
worth & will you probably be able to effect any sales this summer? A man by the name McFarland
who owned 1/5 of a Village Platt ten miles below Grandview, on the Grand River has been in N. York
a few weeks past & has sold a part of his 1/5 for $5,000...."
5. John Allen to James C. Allen,June 12, 1836. John Allen Papers, BHC.
6. An amusing letter from Jason B. Packard toJames C. Allen and Mark Howard, dated November 19,
1836, is among the John Allen Papers, BHC. Packard was still a student at the Genesee Western
Seminary, whereasJames C. Allen and Mark Howard had returned to Ann Arbor.
73




7. Elizabeth Alien to James C. Allen, September 3, 1836.John Alien Papers, BHC. Because Thomas W.
McCue, in his letter to James C. Alien of this date, "has not filed [sic] up his paper," Elizabeth Alien
wrote to her grandson. Included in her letter was the following in response to a letter from James:
"...you said nothing about the box of surveying instruments we sent with your cloths. I presume you
got them...give my respects to Jason [Packard] and be careful of your health...."
8. Elizabeth Alien to James C. Allen, July 22, 1836. John Allen Papers, BHC. A number of letters to
James C. Alien, written while he was a student in Lima, are among the papers of his father.
ApparentlyJames placed them with his father's papers while they were in his custody followingJohn
Allen's death in 1851, and thus became the property of BHC.
9. Michigan Argus, December 10, 1835.
10. Thomas W. McCue to James C. Allen, June 29, 1836. John Alien Papers, BHC.
11. Eilzabeth Alien to Elizabeth M. Allen, July 22, 1836. Ibid.
12. John Alien to James C. Allen, June 12, 1836. Ibid.
13. "Articles of Agreement,"July 15, 1836, between John Alien and 'John J. Huntington of the City of
New York." Ibid.
14. John Alien toJames C. Alien, August 4, 1836.John Alien Papers, BHC. In this letter, Alien reported
the local news to his son as well as giving him advice. Of the former, he noted: "The citizens of Ann
Arbour are generally in health. Old Mrs. Page is sick &Jas. Humington's wife. Mrs. Mayo, Geo. M.'s
wife, was buried on Monday-she died with the quick consumption. While in life, we are in the midst
of death." Again in this letter, John Alien noted the importance of education: "I am aware how little young persons of your age think of education. We are not fully conscious of its importance, until
we feel the want of it. We do not feel the want of it until we are called upon to take our place in the
social, political, & religious world...."
15. Elizabeth Alien to James C. Allen, September 3, 1836. John Alien Papers, BHC.
16. James C. Allen toJohn Alien, August 7, 1836. Ibid..
17. Ibid.
18. John Alien to James C. Alien, August 4, 1836. Ibid.
19. Ann I. Alien to Thomas W. McCue, November 19, 1836. Ann I. Alien Papers, BHL.
20. "New York City Around the Clock in 1836," in The American Magazine published by the Clements
Library, The University of Michigan, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn-Winter, 1986-87), pp. 63-4. Reprinted
from the Daily National Intelligencer, June 15, 1836.
21. Ann I. Alien to Thomas W. McCue, Feb. 24, 1837. Ann I. Alien Papers, BHL.
22. Ibid.
23. "Articles of Agreement...this twenty-fifth day of March A.D. 1837 between Oliver Kane of the city of
New York of the one part and John Alien of the said city of the other part...." John Allen Papers,
BHC.
24. Willis Dunbar, Michigan, a History of the Wolverine State (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub.
Co., 1965), p. 336.
25. John Alien to James C. Alien, August 14, 1837. John Alien Papers, BHC.
26. Thomas W. McCue to Ann I. Allen, July 31, 1837. Ibid.
27. See note 25, above.
28. Ibid.
29. M. Cormerais, about whom we have learned little, was able to borrow $20.00 from James C. Alien to
pay for his return journey to New York, accompanied by Elizabeth M. Alien. His receipt is preserved
in the John Alien Papers, BHC: "Ann Arbor, Aug. 28, 1837. Received of Mr. James C. Alien, Twenty
Dollars for travelling expenses for and ofJohn Allen, Esqr. to be made good to saidJ. C. Alien when
in New York."
30. See note 27, above.
31. Elizabeth M. Alien toJames C. Allen, January 10, 1838. John Allen Papers, BHC.
32. John Alien to William Woodbridge,July 16, 1838. Woodbridge Papers, BHC.
33. Ann I. Alien to Thomas W. McCue, June 9, 1841. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
34. Ann I. Alien to Thomas W. McCue,July 30, 1839. Ann I. Alien Papers, BHL. Although undated,John
W. McCue noted: "Ann I. Alien Letter date 30th July 1839." It had been postmarked July 31, 1839.
35. Among the John Alien Papers, BHC, is a bill dated July 1, 1839, marked paid by Clark & Petty,
proprietors of the Ann Arbor Exchange: "For Board of Family" for three months, April through
July, for a total of $153.66.


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VII.
Economic Depression and Marital Discord
1839-1843
With the Allens' return to Ann Arbor in the autumn of 1838, Ann could foresee only gloom and dread in her future. The affection that had once seemed to
exist between herself and John had withered long since, without hope of rekindling. Likewise, the economic security that had appeared to exist for her as the wife
of a man of wealth had now vanished. Although only 42 years old, the thought of
finding a means by which she might earn personal income never occurred to her.
For her far-distant sons, about to enter adulthood, she knew that a destitute mother,
whom they had scarcely known as children, could be only an unwelcome burden.
Only in her daughter, now 15, could she take comfort.
Sarah Ann had become a self-confident and joyful young lady, with a playful
sense of humor. Unlike her mother, she made friends easily and enjoyed social
activities. Like her father, she looked to the future with confidence. When, on
November 18, 1839, the Misses Clarks' School began its long and distinguished history in Ann Arbor, offering "a thorough and polite education for young ladies,"
Sarah Ann became one of the first pupils. Among the ten "Gentlemen" who agreed
to serve as references for the school was 'John Allen, Esq." One wonders whether
Sarah's tuition may have been reduced for this favor ($2.50 to $5.00 per term,
depending upon the course of study pursued).'
Always the optimist, John Allen was confident that, once again, he could find
a way not only to repay his mountain of debt, but to restore financial security for
his family as well. A typical response to the demand of one of his many creditors is
found inJohn's letter in February 1839, to William Woodbridge:
You no doubt think it strange, that I do not, or cannot raise the
requisite funds....but strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless
true, that I am at present, unable to raise ten dollars....I will state,
that you need have no fears as to the result of ultimate payment....
I hope soon to obtain my property again, so as to be able to
command means. I would have been in Detroit several days ago,
had I possessed the means of paying expenses &c.2
In Ann Allen's letter to her son, Thomas, in late July 1839, she reported:
Mr Allen was gone west when your letter arrived; he was absent
three months....I did not know what his determination would be
until he returned. He is, I believe, engaged in superintending
building two saw-mills out in a village he calls Richmond, on the
Kalamazoo River.3
Indeed, the Amherst capitalists, Boltwood and Sweetser, still sustained their
faith in John Allen's ability to promote and manage the Richmond project. The two
saw mills now under construction there would be the key, they and Allen believed,
to assure the village's growth, while profiting its founders. Allen was even able to
obtain a post office for its eight settlers.


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The Ann Arbor to which the Aliens had returned in 1838 was described by the
editor of the Michigan StateJournal:
It has a courthouse, jail, 4 churches-one, each, for Presbyterians,
Baptists, Episcopalians, and Universalists-2 printing offices, which
issue two weekly newspapers, a bookstore, 2 druggists, a flouring
mill of 6 run of stone, a saw mill, woolen factory, carding machine,
iron foundry, an extensive plough manufactory, 2 tanneries, 17 dry
goods stores, 11 lawyers, and 9 physicians. Here is a flourishing
academy-number of pupils, about 70. The legislature has established the location of the University of Michigan at this place. It is
passed through by the Detroit and St. Joseph state road, and by the
state rail-road between those two places. There is likewise a charter
for a rail-road connecting it with Monroe. Ann Arbour bears the
reputation generally, of being one of the most pleasant and flourishing inland towns in the State. It is regularly laid out, on an
elevated and dry soil; but is not very compact. There is considerable hydraulic power in the vicinity. Population estimated at 2,000.4
A stranger reading this laudatory description would have been disappointed
had he tried to ride "the cars" from Detroit to Ann Arbor. It was not until October
17, 1839, that the first train reached the village, prompting a celebration unequaled
even by the Fourth of July. Whether Ann Allen ventured out to observe the spectacle, we do not know, but we can be sure her husband, still a shareholder in the
Detroit and St. Joseph Railroad Company, was one of the cheer leaders.5
ByJanuary 1839,John Allen had reopened his law office according to a notice
in the Daily Michigan Argus: 'John Allen, Attorney & Counsellor at Law, corner
of Main and Huron St."6
Also in January 1839, Allen had announced that he would give a series of four
evening lectures at the courthouse on "Credit and Currency," a subject on which he
could speak with some authority.7 From comments in the Argus, we learn that in the
first of these lectures, Allen attacked American banks and banking with such vigor
that he and his audience found the courthouse locked and the key hidden for his
second appearance, although no one admitted being the culprit. They adjourned
to the Methodist Church. What, if any, admission fee Allen charged is unknown, but
the Argus reported that his lectures were well attended. Thereafter, Allen became
increasingly popular as a public speaker. He was chosen to read the Declaration of
Independence during the following Fourth ofJuly celebration, America's only genuine holiday at that time.8 A little later, he addressed the Young Men's Lyceum in
Ann Arbor on "the perfectibility of man's nature." Again envisioning a political
career, he now abandoned a short membership in the Whig Party and declared
himself a Democrat. Regaining his old self-assurance, he looked to the future with
growing confidence.
Ann could not share her husband's optimism. At age forty-two, her future, she
believed, held only more heartache, regret, and disappointment. In a July 1839,
letter to Thomas, she reported that, since moving from the Exchange:
We keep house in [a] small house owned by James C. Allen, his
son. We live on a small scale. He is gone again West, he could not


76




tell how long he should be gone. He talks sometimes of living in
Ann Arbour, at other times going out to this new place which I
speake of. Before he started west he said when he returns he
thought he should visit Texas this winter. His mind is as unsettled
as ever. He has given up that brick house we used to live in when
you were here, to Col. Brooks. Mrs Welch [John Allen's widowed
sister, Polly] lives there now, and takes boarders. We live as we can,
adopting the stectes [strictest] economy....I am poor and cannot
command a shilling....9
During Ann's long Virginia visit, she had come to know her sons as young men,
during which her observations and conversations with her eldest son, John, had
gradually caused her concern, even anxiety. From what is known today of "Traveling
John," as he came to be known, it is apparent that his mother's worry about him was
not unwarranted. His spendthrift waywardness during the coming years would only
add to Ann's feelings of guilt for having "deserted" her sons when she had chosen
to marryJohn Allen.
John McCue had been born in 1816, but no family record has been found to
reveal the month and the day of his birth. As noted earlier, he had reached his
twenty-first birthday in 1837, at which time his guardian, James McCue, had been
required, under terms of his guardianship agreement, to give him his share
($2,181.76) of what remained in his uncle's accounts from his late father's personal
property. His brother, Thomas, received his share at the end of December 1838, two
days prior to his coming of age, with a final payment also to John.
So it had happened that Ann was present, either shortly before or shortly
after, John McCue received the bulk of his inheritance, which incident may have
triggered the concerns about him that she expressed in her letter to Thomas in
July 1839.
I had a letter from John last week. Poor fellow, how I feel for him.
I hope God will preserve him and keep him from all harm. Do
consul him. Support him under all his trials. He has a kind and
affectionate heart as ever beneath. He write[s] me [that] his relations are kind to him; I hope God will open your hearts to do him
good-if sick, take care of him; keep him out of low company,
encourage him on all occasions, in that that is right (never slight
him). He is very sensitive. O my son, be a brother indeed like
Jonathan to David, let your affections be semented together. He
has not that knowledge of human nature that God has given
you....I think he ought to take an independent course with regard
to Margret...act like a man & gentleman, not disgracing himself or
the noble family from which he sprang....10
The "Margret" to whom Ann referred in her July 1839 letter was Margaret
Irvine, daughter of Robert and Jane Irvine, whose land in Rockbridge County
adjoined the McCue farm where John was then living. Like the Barry family, the
Irvines had come to Virginia from near Londonderry, Ireland, shortly after
Margaret's birth about 1820. John McCue and Margaret Irvine were married
sometime prior to 1850. They had no children."


77




Only a fragment of a letter that Ann wrote to Thomas on February 29, 1840,
survives-scissors were used long ago to destroy most of its contents. We can only
wonder what family information may have been lost thereby.
Sarah Ann Allen reached her eighteenth birthday on May 10, 1841. Although
her father was still struggling financially, he was able to present his daughter with a
gold watch. This watch was inherited eventually by a granddaughter of Sarah
named Ann Janetta (Kerr) Jones, and was described by Mrs. Jones in 1925 in an
advertisement through which she was attempting to sell it following the bankruptcy
of her ill husband.
The watch has an open gold face with the hours in raised Roman
numbers and hands of gold in a dainty lacy design pattern. Around
the edge of the face is a tiny wreath of leaves and flowers in tinted
gold. The crystal is held by a delicate engraved rim and the name
Sara A. Allen is engraved on the back. 12
Whether Mrs. Jones, who lived in Waynesboro, Virginia, succeeded in selling
this heirloom is unknown.
Perhaps it was also for Sarah's eighteenth birthday that her mother wrote
a long, but undated, letter of advice. A few of the maxims expressed by Ann
were the following, reflecting in an interesting manner Ann's own personality
and character.
Your reputation is in a great measure, in your own hands; and
your character is, with divine assistance, to be formed by yourself.
You will, therefore be courteous to all with whom you associate, but
intimate with very few, and these, well known and tried friends. Let
rigid virtue and the strictest modesty characterize your deportment. Let piety place her signet on your brow; and let religion be
your diadem....
Pay great attention to the suggestions and kind cousels of true
friends. You cannot tell true friends on short acquaintance, it takes
time and reflection, and if they prove themselves to be true
friends, prise them. It is a gem rarely to be found.....Live in the fear
and love of God, confide in his goodness. Keep holy the Sabbath
day. Be honest in your dealings-be very temperate in all your pleasures. Attend to your health, vary your habit or dress as the state of
the air and the nature of exercise are varied. Treat all classes of
people with whom you associate with civility, and the more
respectable part of the community with attention and politeness.
Allow not yourself to go abroad alone.....Improve your leisure
moments in the cultivation of your mind and in the perusal of
moral, religious and philosophical essays to the neglect of novels,
which too often abound with impure sentiments....
Now my dear child, when you read these lines, reflect that it is the
sentiments of a Mother who loves you more than she can give
utterance to expression. Cherish them, and practice them, and it


78




will render you useful to yourself and your fellow beings, and when
I am no more, may this speak as one from the dead. My prayer is
for your present & eternal happiness.
Your affectionate Mother
Ann I. Allen'3
In a letter to ThomasJune 1841, after chastising him for "your long silence,"
Ann Allen painted an especially gloomy picture of her life:
I am poor and needy-I cannot get the cheapest calico dress without some one gives me the means to purchase it. If Mr. Allen makes
anything, which I doubt is little, he never has a cent to spend in
clothing me. He makes out to feed us, that seems hard work. It is
excessive hard times in Mich....Mich. money has fell, one dollar on
the Bank of Mich. [in] Detroit passes only for half [a] dollar.
Eastern money can scarcely be obtained and people have losst all
confidence in each other, as it regards buying and selling. Very
little business [is] done on credit, so business is at a stand[still]
in this place....
After telling Thomas of a letter she had received from John McKim reporting
the failure of the Franklin Bank and of her indebtedness to him for $28.00, as was
noted earlier, she continued:
He [McKim] is very sorry on my account as it was all the little I had,
and also on his account, as he has lost considerable in the same
bank-so when I look forward all is darkness. When I look back, all
I had is gone to the four winds. Sarah does not go to school this
summer, she stays at home and helps me work. She occasionally
sews a little for a friend, and they give her something which helps
her along. So this is the way we get along in the troublesome world,
and I can see nothing to cause me to think times will alter for the
better for me. Sarah, of course, is young and may hope, but all my
hopes are realized in disappointment....How does poorJohn come
on, do write me fully about him....14
Her letter fromJohn McKim (her "Uncle McKim") to which Ann referred, was
probably his last to her. He died on January 16, 1842, at the age of seventy-five.
By 1842, the Allen home that Karl Neidhard had described in 1834 as
"magnificent," and in which John's sister had kept boarders for a while, had been
rented by a man named Hickcox. A notice appearing in a local paper in December
1841, announced:
Mr. A. Hickcox would inform the citizens of Ann Arbor that he has
taken the House on Huron Street, recently occupied by John
Allen, Esq., which he has opened as a Boarding House, and where
he is prepared to receive a few gentlemen as boarders. Students at
the University will be accomodated with board at his house upon
as reasonable terms as elsewhere.'5


79




Although but one of Thomas McCue's letters to his mother appears to survive,
it is apparent from letters written to him by his mother and Sarah in 1842 that he
had told them of his plans to be married that spring, although the date had not
been set. A letter survives that Sarah wrote to him in May 1842, congratulating him
"on your anticipated happiness." In her lighthearted manner, Sarah added:
Harriet Williams, your old friend-the one you had so much fun
with [in 1856]-is in town, she sends her love to you (and says) I
think he might have come to Michigan and married me (these are
her very words).16
On a more serious note, Sarah wrote:
How is brotherJohn? Mother and I wrote to him a long time ago,
but have not received an answer yet. Do cheer him up, for he has
no mother near to sooth his aching heart, no sister by to meet him
with a smile.
Thomas McCue's marriage to Elizabeth Wilson took place the day after Sarah
wrote her letter, on May 20, 1842.1' Born on January 14, 1824, Elizabeth was a
daughter of Dr. James Wilson, M.D., and Elizabeth Kenney. Her grandfather, the
Rev. William Wilson, had been the second pastor of Augusta Stone Church, serving
from 1780 to 1814; he was described byJoseph A. Waddell in his Annals of Augusta
County as "an admirable classical scholar and an attractive preacher.""
On what date Thomas McCue had completed his studies at Washington
College is not known, but at the time of his marriage, he was engaged in the
mercantile trade, as had been his Grandfather Barry at Thomas' age some forty
years earlier. Thomas had a country store called Barterbrook located near
the Presbyterian Church at Tinkling Spring, although mail reached him at the
nearby village of Fishersville.
We have only one letter that Ann Allen wrote to Thomas McCue during 1842.
In this, she gave him advice regarding a husband's responsibilities in marriage,
based primarily on religious principles, concluding with: "I hope you will be mutual
helpmates to each other, studying each other's happiness as your own."1" Was she
recalling her own happy, but all too few, years with Thomas' father a generation
earlier as she penned these words?
Most of this letter pertains to Ann's continuing anxiety regarding her son,
John:
I had a letter from him a few weeks ago-his mind appears to be in
[an] unsettled state. I think he better live at his Uncle James, if
he will take charge of him and get him out of this nest of bad
company, which I fear he has fallen into, and give Margret up, and
never think of her more....
He said something about coming west; this is no place for him, or
you, depend upon it. If I thought it were for either of your interest
to come, I should hail you with a harty welcome. No, Thomas, no;
you have no friends here but Sarah and I, and the western counties are generally made up of scape goats who have made this place
a refuge from creditors or unlawful deeds. Unprincipled, [they]
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live by art or cunning, and him who can outwit his neighbors is the
greater man. I now speak generally of the inhabitants.
Again, Ann confided in Thomas regarding her own unhappiness:
Mr Allen I think will leave for St. Louis in Nov. He wants to get
another new home. How pleased I should be, if he was of a contented disposition. I know he could make a living here if that
was all the object. The times are excessive hard with us; we live by
the strictest economy-we keep no servant, do our own work, make
our wants but few....I cannot tell whether we shall board (or what)
as Mr. Allen does not communicate what his intention[s] are....
We are living in a very pleasant cottage at present; our time is up
in Nov.


John Allen
The only known photograph of the founder of Ann Arbor, it was probably taken in
the late 1840s. From Allen Family Collection, Bentley Historical Library, University
of Michigan.
81




John Allen's "intentions" were as vague in his own mind in 1842 as they were
a mystery to Ann. He did not go to St. Louis, and his dreams for the Richmond
project were finally abandoned. The mills were never finished. His last letter from
Lucius Boltwood found among Allen's papers was dated January 20, 1842, and
expressed his shock, as well as that of Luck Sweetser, on having learned that ajudgment had been obtained against them for $600.20 "Richmond" was soon erased
from Michigan's map, and its site, with taxes unpaid, was added to the mounting
category called "State lands." So, also, was John Allen's name gradually dropped as
owner of the other thousands of acres of Michigan land that he had purchased on
borrowed money from "wildcat" banks before the Panic of 1837, and on which he
could not now pay the taxes. Fortunately, he had been able to transfer to his son,
James C. Allen, "the land near the village," and James was now a contented farmer
there, with his grandmother keeping house for him. His father had hoped for a
more publicly acclaimed career for his only son.
By 1842, Allen had moved his law office to "over the west end ofJ. C. Mundy's
store, next to the post office," on the corner of Ann and Fourth Streets.21 Business
was picking up, and his papers for the next two years consist largely of documents
pertaining to his growing number of clients. He had become a skilled defense attorney, and before the year was out he had added a partner, John Gott.22 Practicing law
in a quiet Michigan village, however, did not offer the excitement thatJohn Allen's
roving nature demanded, and the "contented disposition" that Ann longed for him
was alien to his being.
On Christmas Eve 1842, Sarah Allen took time from "making wreaths to trim
the Episcopal Church" to write a lighthearted letter to Thomas and his wife.
We shall remain in the house we occupy untill spring; our family is
small, numbering four [her half-sister, Elizabeth Allen, was living
with them]. We are our own domestics. I have become a thorough
bred housekeeper; I play the pots and kittles as well as the piano.
Thus far we have had a very cold & severe Winter, snow is in
abundance, plenty of Sleighing parties. The society of young
people is quite large with the additions we have from the east of
a few old maids.
Ann Arbor has become quite a city since you were here, a great
deal of style and formality. We have Merchants without number
& goods are very low, business is carried on by trading; no specie
in circulation. The farmers daughters come out as gay as the
City bells.23
Sarah closed her letter with mention of the "melancholy news of the death of
Uncle Barry," noting that her mother "is the only one of her father's near relatives
left." Ann had written a tear-stained letter of condolence to Andrew Barry's family
in Hillsboro on December 8, 1842. As a postscript, she wrote:...relative to what CousinJohn [a son of Andrew Barry] wrote at his
father's request. I have not mentioned it to Mr Allen, as I thought
it would do no good....I should like to know, how much was due,
from this time, to lequadate that debt, which Uncle's Estate holds


82




against Mr Allen. I feel very grateful for the kindness Uncle
bestow[ed] I have no doubt Mr Allen will take the benefit which
I derive from me as soon as Uncle's debt is payed. That is my
reason for wanting to know what was due.24
It appears that Ann's question pertained to a matter going back to the time of
her marriage to John Allen. Andrew Barry had played an important role in Ann's
life. With John McKim, he had been a co-executor of her father's estate, managing
her inheritance until her marriage in 1813. Following Dr. McCue's death in 1818,
he had co-administered that estate. One of the debts still owed when the McCue
estate was closed in 1830, had been a claim by James McCue, as guardian of Ann's
sons, in the amount of $640.50 for "boarding & tuition & clothing" of John and
Thomas from June 1821, when Ann had been married toJohn Allen, untilJanuary
1, 1824, the date on whichJames McCue had been entrusted to manage the income
from the boys' inheritance. This charge by James McCue had been made on the
basis that John Allen had automatically assumed responsibility for his stepsons'
support when Ann became his wife, continuing until McCue had become their
guardian. Andrew Barry had taken this debt on himself in order that the estate
could be closed. Because Ann still held her dower interest in Dr. McCue's real
estate, she was entitled to a third of the annual income from that property, but with
the unpaid (and then uncollectable) debt of John Allen, her dower income had
been given annually to Barry for application toward it. Over the years, Ann's
income had totaled some $735. How the matter of interest was calculated is
unknown, but a small surplus was due to Ann at her Uncle's death. Before he died,
Barry had asked his son to see that Ann received what was due her, rather than
giving it to her husband. Indeed, this had been accomplished.
Much of a letter that Ann wrote to Thomas in March 1843, pertained to the
real estate once owned by Thomas's father, i.e., the McCue home in Lexington,
along with an empty lot there, and the farm in Rockbridge County.25
Deeds recorded in Rockbridge County reveal that in March 1841, John and
Thomas McCue had sold, for $200, their interest in the two-acre lot in Lexington,
and, a week later, Thomas had sold to John, for $4,018, his share of their father's
farm.26 (Apparently it was through a mortgage on the land thatJohn was able to pay
his brother this amount.) John had been operating the farm since receiving his half
of his father's remaining personal estate in 1837. By 1841, Thomas was anxious to
begin his mercantile business, so the sale was advantageous to both.
Even though it was not until March 1841, thatJohn became the legal owner of
his father's farm, he had signed a deed nearly a year earlier with Andrew B.
Davidson who owned adjoining land, by which John and Davidson "exchanged
lots of ground for their mutual accommodation." This exchange made the "road
leading to Davidson's Mill" a more convenient dividing line between the two
properties.27
No mention was made in any of these deeds of John and Thomas' mother's
"dower third." Just as when Ann's share of her first husband's personal estate had
been paid to John Allen on her behalf, so, also, under Virginia law, he would have
authority to collect her "dower third" of the real estate that her first husband had
owned. Furthermore, Allen could use the money as he should see fit.


83




It is possible that Ann's sons simply failed to consider, or even realize, perhaps,
that their mother held a right of inheritance along with themselves when they made
these sales. She seems not to have been informed of their action at the time.
The McCue brothers continued to collect rent on the house in Lexington
where their parents had once lived and where Thomas and John had been born.
Besides Lot 5, on which the house stood, Dr. McCue had also owned the adjoining
half of Lot 4. By the spring of 1843, however, it was in the interest of the brothers
to sell this remaining portion of their father's property. John McCue had owed
money to Andrew Barry (the reason not known today), and with Barry's death, that
debt had become due to the Barry estate. Thomas was then considering the purchase of a farm located near Mt. Sidney in Augusta County, some ten miles from
Staunton. It was, of course, his father's inheritance that would enable him to do so.
It appears that it was in the settlement of John's debt to the estate of Andrew
Barry that Thomas realized that he and John may have violated the law for having
failed to notify, and involve, John Allen in these transactions. Thomas wrote to his
mother on March 9, 1843, regarding the matter. Although his letter is not extant,
Ann's reply, two weeks later, enables us to deduce the nature of its contents.
Concerned that, indeed, her sons might face legal problems for their actions, she
had consulted a young man in Ann Arbor who had a law degree, but was not
practicing his profession.
Dear Son. Your letter of the nineth of March came safe to hand a
few days ago. I should have answered immediately, but I wish [ed]
to consult a young lawyer of my acquaintance (Dwight). You used
to know him. He does not practice law here, but was, I understood,
admitted to the bar at Franklin, Louisiana... It is his opinion that
Mr Allen would know it would not be [in] his interest to institute
a[n] expensive law suit in Vir. when their was so much risk to run
on his part. Better not for you to write to him, as you might
commit yourself as you are not so well acquainted with the law,
he might take advantage of some quible of law. He [Dwight] says
he think[s] it is better for you to let it remain as it is. Mr. Allen, of
course, if he does any thing, must first informe you of it; you then
can see what if it should be necessary, consult a comptant lawyer
before you make a reply; he [Dwight] thinks if he did sue, he
would sue the estate or both heirs. For my own part, I am affraid
you have place[d] yourself in his power by selling it, without first
informing him of your intentions according to the law. If this is the
case, you will have to withdraw your hand out of the fox's mouth
as waery [wearily] as you can-for this reason I have not showen
your letter nor have I made him [Allen] acquainted with your wish
with regard to my right of dowery. He neither consults my interest
or feelings by words or actions-that is the reason Sarah and I take
it for granted he would not be willing for me to receive the benefit resulting from it, if he could prevent it. He does not know Uncle
Barry give me what was coming to him, until it was paid.... 8
Ann mailed her letter to Thomas on March 29th. Whether Thomas and John
proceeded to sell the remainder of their father's property before receiving their
84




mother's letter, after reading it, or perhaps after consulting a lawyer, we do not
know. Whatever the case, a Rockbridge County deed dated April 27, 1843, reveals
that Thomas paid John $1,500 to relinquish his claim to the McCue house and lots
in Lexington.29 Other Rockbridge County deeds reveal that Thomas sold Lot 5,
including the house, to Robert Paine for $1,400, and the adjoining half of Lot 4 to
the "Trustees of the Baptist Congregation in Lexington," for $500.30 Curiously, both
of these deeds were dated April 25, 1843, two days prior to the date ofJohn's deed
to Thomas; furthermore, there were doubtless considerations made in these sales
figures that are not explained in the deeds. If John's interest in the property was
valued at $1,500, that of Thomas would surely have been of a similar amount,
making the total value at least $3,000. Perhaps Thomas sold to Paine and the
Baptists only his own portion of the property, retainingJohn's portion, for which he
paid $1,500, in his own name until a later date.
So far as we know, John Allen offered no objections to his stepsons' sales of the
McCue property, probably because of events that transpired the following year, as
will be noted hereafter.
The last letter written in Ann Arbor by Ann Allen that was saved by her son was
dated February 12, 1844. In this, she suggested that her sons pay her interest on the
dower third of their father's land that they had sold. "You may think I ought not to
ask of you that," Ann wrote, "but in fact it is all I have in the world."
In this 1844 letter, Ann provided an interesting view of her own physical health
and her attitude toward patent medicines of the day:
I hope John's health is better. Tell him not to tamper with ever[y]
kind of medicine. I presume I have the same disease in my blood
that he has, and I would recommend him not to take every thing
people recomend him. The use of ointment might make it strike
in upon his lungs. Keep his blood cool, his bowels gently open.
The medicine I mentioned in my former letter has been highly
recommend[ed], but I have never taken it. I think it has been of
so long standing in my case that it might injury me more than not
to take any thing. I make very little use of medicine for the past 6
year[s].
Regarding her mental health, she wrote:
My situation here is very precarious as it regards my domestic
home. Mr Allen changes not. Our family of late has much
increased; we are boarding a family by the name of Gott. Consists
of wife, husband, and child, a partner in the law office. We keep
a girl to assist doing the work. Much I have to say, Thomas, which
I cannot transmit to paper....
As she closed her letter, Ann asked: "What has become [of] Connell &
Calomid? Are they still living? Is Louisa living?" Here she referred to three of the
"Negroes" who had been the property of Dr. McCue a quarter century earlier.
Perhaps they had been her house servants then. Ann also noted: "I hope before this
your wife has had a safe delivery."'
Indeed, Thomas' wife had had "a safe delivery" a month earlier.32 A daughter
had been born to Elizabeth and Thomas on January 11, 1844. The name chosen
85




for this first grandchild of Ann doubtless pleased her, for it was her own: Ann
Barry McCue.
Ann Allen's characterization of her "domestic home" situation as "precarious"
in February 1844, along with her statement that she could not "transmit" to paper
other matters that were obviously of deep concern to her, must have pertained, in
part, to decisions then being made by her husband. One of these involved his newfound religion. He had become intrigued with, and was later baptized into, the
Church of the New Jerusalem. This sect was an outgrowth of the voluminous writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish scientist who had become a
religious seer, claiming that on three occasions he had physically and consciously
visited and observed the spiritual world. The New Church denomination formed
long after his death, never achieved a membership of over a few thousand in the
United States, but in the mid-19th Century it attracted several of Michigan's political leaders. The Rev. George Field was the sect's chief evangelist in Michigan, and
from his autobiography we know that he was in Ann Arbor in 1843.33
While in Ann Arbor, Field left with convert George Corselius, printer, local
politician, and close friend ofJohn Allen, twelve volumes of Swedenborg's books as
a gift to the library of the University of Michigan.
Although Allen had encouraged, even contributed to, the establishment of
traditional religious societies in Ann Arbor, and the building of their churches, he
had never become a member of any denomination. To understand why Ann was
now so disturbed at John's attraction to the Swedenborgians, one need only note
the reaction of the Rev. George Duffield, then Michigan's leading Presbyterian
minister and a University regent, upon reading one of the volumes left with
Corselius, Scortator Love.
Its language and thoughts, in many pages, cannot but prove
injurious to youthful minds....I am perfectly disgusted with its
pages. The dissemination of such a work cannot fail to excite a
most pestilential influence in Society, by corrupting the minds,
and morals, of youth.34
Another disturbing matter to add to Ann Allen's depression in 1844 was John
Allen's decision to seek the Democratic Party's nomination to represent the Second
Senatorial District in the State Legislature. This would mean, in Ann's view, even
more turmoil in the household, and if he were elected (which he was), Allen would
be in Detroit, still the state's capital city, much of the time.
Sarah Ann Allen, now in her twenty-first year, had been her mother's one great
comfort during the years following the family's return to Ann Arbor in 1838. From
Sarah's few extant letters and her mother's references to her in her own letters, we
sense that Sarah did not share her mother's constant gloom. Unlike Ann's reluctance to mingle in the town's society, Sarah was vivacious, fun-loving, and popular
with her fellow youths of both sexes. It is obvious that Sarah had inherited her
father's outgoing personality as well as his optimistic nature.
In the fragment that remains of Ann's letter to Thomas in February 1840,
when Sarah was seventeen, Ann had written:...she is high minded. If she does not get the best, she will not put
up with the worst. Their has been a gentleman from New York City


86




who has paid her considerable attention. They call him her beau.
I suppose he may go under that appallation as he pays no attention
to any other lady. He is much of the Gentleman, a man of good
education. There is also another young gentleman who's father is
very wealthy; he is very smart and enterprising, of good family.35
In a letter that Sarah wrote to Thomas McCue in 1842, she revealed her keen
sense of humor, observing:
Men are such Flirts, their is no believing them. I have had a number of offers, but something lacking in all. I am hard to suit. They
say [that] I am a desperate flirt, but I deny the accusation. There
is not many advantages [advantageous] matches here; they are all
very polite to me, however.3
One may wonder whether Sarah's failure to find any of her suitors to be satisfactory was because of her daily awareness of her parents' unhappy marriage.
Marshall McCue, son of James A. McCue, whose childhood was spent with Ann's
sons, remembered that the marriage of Ann and John Allen had been "unhappy
and unfortunate."37 James Turner Allen, brother of John, writing in 1880, recalled
thatJohn and Ann "not living happy together, agreed to separate."38
The separation, but not divorce, came in 1844, not long after Ann wrote to her
son regarding the "precarious" nature of her "domestic home," and it was Thomas
who made the separation possible. According to McCue family memories, he came
to Ann Arbor to take his mother and Sarah "home."
END NOTES-CHAPTER VII
1. For a short history of this school, see "The Clark Sisters, 'Ladies' Extraordinary," in Lela Duff, Pioneer
School, Some Chapters in the Story of Ann Arbor High School (Ann Arbor, MI: Board of Education, 1958),
pp. 6-8.
2. John Allen to William Woodbridge, Feb. 9, 1839. Woodbridge Papers, BHC.
3. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, July 30, 1839. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
4. Michigan State Journal, June 5, 1839.
5. Published the day before the opening of the railroad to Ann Arbor, a lengthy description of the
plans for the celebration appeared in the Michigan StateJournal, October 16, 1839.
6. Daily Michigan Argus, January 15, 1839. The Daily Argus was a stepchild of the weekly Argus and was
Ann Arbor's first daily newspaper. It survived only three months.
7. A detailed review of the first three of Allen's lectures appeared in the Michigan Argus ofJanuary 24,
1839. A short review of his final lecture appeared in the February 7, 1839, issue of the Argus.
8. We may wonder whether, on this occasion, John Allen recalled that his father, Col. James Allen,
had been chosen to read the Declaration of Independence at Ann Arbor's first Independence Day
celebration in 1825, as remembered years later by Ezra Maynard. See History of Wastenaw County,
1881, p. 902.
9. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, July 30, 1839.
10. See Chapter VI, note 34.
11. An undated clipping from a newspaper containing the obituary of Margaret (Irvine) McCue was
sent to this writer by Miss Sarah W. McCue. Margaret's home at the time of her death (date
unknown) was near Lexington, VA. She was 81 years old when she died.
12. The proposed advertisement prepared by Ann Janetta (Kerr) Jones was enclosed in a letter from
Elizabeth (Barry) Kerr to Caroline Campbell, dated August 12, 1925. It is with Mrs. Campbell's


87




papers in BHL. Ann Jenetta Kerr and Elizabeth Barry Kerr were daughters of Lucy Gordon
(Waddell) and Samuel Homes Kerr, Lucy being one of two daughters of Sarah Ann (Allen) and Dr.
John Addison Waddell. Sarah's other daughter, Isabella Barry Waddell, was married to Z. Taylor
Kerr and had one child, Carroll Waddell Kerr. In a response from Elizabeth Barry Kerr dated June
11, 1963, to a query from this writer, Miss Kerr copied from a letter she had received from her sister, Ann Janetta: "I think all you can tell Professor Bidlack is that when our mother [Lucy Gordon
Waddell] married, she went to live in the home of our father's family, leaving for the time being
everything in the home of her father, Dr. Waddell, where her sister, Isabella, continued to live. That
our mother died when we were very small children-not old enough to be interested in such things
as we would love to have now-especially letters, pictures, silver, etc. That our father married again
while we were still too young to be interested. When our Aunt Isabella died, the home was sold and
we don't know what became of anything in it."
13. The whereabouts of the original of this undated letter from Ann I. Allen to her daughter, Sarah
Ann, is unknown. A photostat of it is among the papers of Ann I. Allen, BHL. It is probable that
Caroline Campbell borrowed the original in 1925 from a granddaughter of Sarah Ann (Allen)
Waddell to have this photostat made.
14. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, June 9, 1841. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
15. Michigan StateJournal, December 27, 1841.
16. Sarah Ann Allen to Thomas W. McCue, May 19, 1842. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
17. From family records shared with this writer by Sarah W. McCue.
18. Waddell, Annals, p. 135.
19. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, August 15, 1842. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
20. Lucius Boltwood to John Allen, January 20, 1842. John Allen Papers, BHC.
21. Allen had actually occupied the office over the west end of the Mundy store as early as April 1, 1840,
as he announced in the Michigan StateJournal of that date: "...entrance first door north of the Post
Office."
22. John N. Gott became a prominent lawyer in Ann Arbor. Still living when the 1881 History of
Washtenaw County was published, his biography was included, pp. 999-1,000. Born in Amherst, NY,
in 1814, he had come to Detroit in 1840, then to Ann Arbor where he "taught school, at the same
time reading law with John Allen....During this time, Mr. Allen and Mr. Gott organized the system
of abstract books now in general use [in 1881]."
23. Sarah Ann Allen to Thomas W. McCue, December 24, 1842. This letter was in the possession of
Gretchen Bell of Staunton, VA, in September 1961, when it was loaned to this writer and a photostat made. A copy is in the Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
24. Ann I. Allen to Joseph McD. Mathews, December 8, 1842. This letter is probably no longer extant.
A typewritten copy was made on January 29, 1954, by Norma Bell Morris, a great-granddaughter of
Ann I. Allen, of which a photocopy was made for this writer by Virginia Somerville of Montreat, NC,
a great-great-granddaughter of Ann I. Allen.
25. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, March 26, 1843. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
26. Rockbridge Co., VA, Deed Book W, p. 6, and Book X, pp. 95-96.
27. Ibid., Book Z, p. 344. Although dated March 23, 1840, this deed was not recorded untilJuly 27, 1847.
28. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, March 26, 1843. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
29. Rockbridge Co., VA, Deed Book W, p. 6.
30. Rockbridge Co., VA, Deed Book X, pp. 95-6.
31. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, Feb. 12, 1844. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
32. The family Bible of Thomas W. McCue in which he recorded family births and deaths, is preserved
by the McCue family in Virginia. A transcript has been made of these records by the present writer.
33. George Field, Memoirs... (Toronto: R. Carswell & Co., 1879), pp. 99-100. John Allen's association
with the Church of the NewJerusalem is described in this writer's John Allen and the Founding of Ann
Arbor (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1962), pp. 48-9.
34. George Duffield to the Rev. J. Inglis, March 10, 1847. Quoted by Field, Memoirs, p. 155.
35. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, February 29, 1840. Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
36. Sarah Ann Allen to Thomas W. McCue, December 24, 1842. This letter was in the possession of
Gretchen Bell, great-granddaughter of Ann I. Allen, in 1961 when this writer was permitted to make
a transcription, a copy of which is in BHL.
37. J. Marshall McCue 1888 Letter. (See Chapter II,note 5.)
38. James Turner Allen, "Family Record...." (See Chapter IV, note 23.)


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VIII.
Return to Virginia; Again a Widow
1844-1851
Curiously, it is an extant letter written by the "gentleman from New York City"
whom Ann Allen had mentioned in her letter of February 1840, that reveals the
approximate date of her and Sarah's journey to Virginia.' That "gentleman" was
named John L. Broome. It appears that the Allens had become acquainted with
members of the Broome family during their stay in New York City, and that John
Broome and his half-sister, LydiaJustice, had later visited the Allens in Ann Arbor.2
In some manner, John Broome had also become acquainted with Thomas McCue.
Through his letter to Thomas McCue dated April 18, 1845, which Thomas
saved, John Broome hoped to learn why he had received no replies to his several
letters written to Sarah "since I returned from China."3 (Broome had been involved
"in the ship furnishing line" and had gone to China in that connection in 1842.)
Having learned that Sarah and her mother were now living with Thomas in
Virginia, he wrote to Thomas to inquire,
perhaps through your explanation...on some points to which at
present, I remain completely mistyfied. You are not aware perhaps,
that I have long and ardently loved your Sister Sarah Ann, yet such
is the case, I have written several letters to Miss Sarah but as yet
have received no answer since I returned from China. I directed
some letters to Lexington, in June [18]44, which I suppose were
not received. I only became acquainted with your present residence some few weeks ago-I understood your Mother & Sister
were residing at your house, I directed one letter there but
received no answer...if my letters have become troublesome to your
Sister, you as her Brother, can with great propriety, inform me...
John Broome also asked Thomas "to present my best respects to your
Mother-tell her I hope she enjoys good health and is in good spirits."
John L. Broome had been born in New York City on March 8, 1824, and was
thus a few months younger than Sarah. Perhaps it was this fact that caused her to
find "something lacking" in him as a suitor, but had she returned his "ardent love,"
our story of Ann Allen might well be different, as would that of Sarah. At the age of
twenty-four, young Broome entered the Marine Corps and was commissioned in
1848 to serve in the Mexican War. Likewise, he served in the U.S. Navy during the
Civil War, as captain of the Marine Guard on Farragut's flag-ship, the Hartford,
during the Vicksburg and Port Hudson engagements that restored the Mississippi
River to Yankee control. At the close of the war he "was brevetted lieutenant colonel
for meritorious service." He died at Binghamton, New York, on April 12, 1898.4
Because John Broome had learned that Ann and Sarah had returned to
Virginia by June 1844, and had sent letters to Lexington thinking that they had
joined Thomas there, we know that Ann's journey "home" had taken place in the
spring of 1844.
What means of conveyance Thomas used to take Ann and Sarah to Virginia,
and the route that they followed, is unknown.
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If James Turner Allen chose his words deliberately in stating that John and
Ann "not living happy together, agreed to separate," we may assume thatJohn Allen
offered no objection to his wife's departure. With what degree of regret he bid
farewell to his daughter cannot be determined. He never saw either of them again.
Unlike her sad departure from Virginia to Michigan Territory twenty years
earlier, Ann's farewell to Ann Arbor probably held few regrets. The breaking of ties
with her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Allen, and with her two step-children, may have
brought tears, but Ann's anticipation of a more peaceful life in the South, near her
sons and other relatives, with her daughter near, was surely pleasing. For Sarah,
however, now twenty-one, having no memories of Virginia other than those of her
lengthy visit with her mother in 1837-38, her good-byes to virtually all the friends
that she had known, realizing that they probably would never meet again, must
have been much more traumatic.
It had been on September 1, 1843, that Thomas McCue, with a portion of his
inheritance, had purchased the 425-acre farm that would be his and his family's
home for the remainder of his life. Known as the King Farm, so named for its late
owner, Henry King, it was located on the north side of Middle River near the village
of Mt. Sidney in Augusta County, about ten miles northeast of Staunton. Thomas
agreed with "the surviving executor" of the King estate,John Cochran, to pay a total
of $8,117.50 "current money of Virginia" to the estate. After an initial installment
of one quarter of the total ($2,029.37 %), Thomas was able to stretch out the three
remaining annual payments until June 1, 1845, without interest.5
Considering that Thomas McCue was the father of an infant daughter in the
spring of 1844, and that he was just beginning to farm over four hundred acres of
land, he made no small sacrifice in taking time from his labors to go to Ann Arbor.


The Old Augusta Stone Presbyterian Church at Fort Defiance, Virginia
Ann I. Allen had been a member of this church before going to Michigan in 1824 and
again following her return to Virginia in 1844. Her funeral was conducted here in 1875,
and she was buried in its "New Cemetery." The solid, stone building, completed in
1749, has the distinction of being the oldest Presbyterian house of worship in continuous
use in Virginia. From Allen Family Collection, Bentley Historical Library.
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The home to which Thomas took his mother and Sarah was a simple log cabin
that was already standing on the King Farm when Thomas bought it. Upon her
arrival, Ann must have been reminded of the crowded log cabin that had met her
arrival in Ann Arbor in 1824, but now, we can be sure, she wore a smile. We can
imagine the joy in her heart as she held her first grandchild, Ann Barry McCue. In
the following August, another daughter was born to Thomas and Elizabeth, Betsy
Kenny McCue, and, two years thereafter, MargaretJane arrived.
No records are known to survive by which Ann Allen's story after 1844 can be
told in any detail. If she ever wrote any letters to her husband in Ann Arbor after
her return to Virginia, he did not save them, nor did he ever mention her in any of
his surviving records. There is a receipt that he signed, but apparently never delivered, dated December 20, 1844, for $84.37 paid by a man in Ann Arbor named
C. J. Garland, for several household items, including a dining table, a half-dozen
chairs, 60A yards of carpeting, and some blinds.6 It appears that he was selling
household furniture in preparation for moving to Detroit to assume his duties as a
state senator. He had rented a room there in the National Hotel.
A single letter written by Sarah Ann Allen from Virginia to her father survives
among his papers. Its nearly complete text follows:
Mount Sidney Nov 23rd 1847
Dear Father
I would have answered your letter ere this, but I thought it would
not be worth my while to write untill I could tell you what I
intended to do.
I have come to the conclusion to marry. The gentleman of my
choice is intelligent; a physician by profession; a man of unacceptional [unexceptional] character, with habits & tastes congenial to
mine. His family stands high as it regards respectability. He is a
nephew of old Dr. Waddel of Staunton. His age is somewhat of an
objection; he is some ten or fifteen years older than me & I fear of
rather a delicate constitution, & what you would call decidedly
homely; with rather too much indipendence and decision of character to be popular. His practice is at present somewhat limited as
their are many to compite with the same profession. But I think by
the strictest economy, and industry, we will be enabled to get
along. His profession is his fortune. I hope you will assist me all
you can, for I do not want him to run in debt any more than he
can possibly help, to procure a house & furnish it in the plainest
manner. I have not succeeded in selling my Piano, but I hope
I shall. I want to help pay for the house & lot with it.
I do not intend to have any wedding, just enough to witness the
ceremony. I shall be married in the dress I wore when I was bridesmaid in Michigan. But I should like to get a good winter dress that
would suit all occasions. I wish you could send me some money
now. Perhaps you could make some trade and get me something
towards housekeeping; a carpet, or two, (or...a set of china), or any
thing that would be useful, that you could pack in a box, and send
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it by John Perkins to New York & he could forward it to me. I
expect nothing more from Brother Thomas as he has given me
my board thus far.
We have had a very pleasant fall, very much like Michigan falls,
long Indian summer. The wheat crop generally in this county has
failed with a few exceptions. I suppose you know Alpheus Poage
went to Mexico. Is your health good as usual? How is Elizabeth?
How many children has she? How many has Mrs Hawkins? I heard
Laura is to be married, is she married? My health has been generally good, with the exception of a bad cold that I have now.
Father any thing you chose to send will be gratefully received.
Answer this soon as it takes some time for a letter to reach here.
I remain your affectionate daughter.
A. A. Allen
P.S. Father I suppose you have no objections to my marrying that
gentleman, give me your advice on the subject, his name is Dr.J. A.
Waddel [Waddell] of New Hope, a small town about 4 miles from
here. The place is about the size of Dexter.7
Sarah Ann Allen was married to John Addison Waddell on January 20, 1848.8
Born on March 23, 1808, Dr. J. Addison Waddell, as he was called, was thus fifteen
years Sarah's senior; Sarah was twenty-four and Dr. Waddell was thirty-nine. It was
his first marriage, as well as Sarah's. The Waddell family did, indeed, belong to
a family that "stands high," to use Sarah's words, in Augusta County. For three
generations it had included doctors, lawyers, teachers, editors, and Presbyterian
ministers. Dr. Waddell's father, James Gordon Waddell, had been the principal of
Staunton Academy for Boys in 1806, and it had been he who had taken Sarah's
mother, nine-year-old Ann Barry, as a private student upon her return from Ireland
that year.
From Sarah's letter, we know that she had received a letter from her father;
from the wording of her first sentence, we may wonder whether he might have suggested that she return to Ann Arbor. It is interesting, and sad, that she made no
mention of her mother, suggesting that the bitterness between Ann and John
remained deep. The Elizabeth about whom Sarah inquired was her half-sister,
Elizabeth Allen, who had been married to William Wallace Wilson in Ann Arbor in
1843.' Perhaps it had been at Elizabeth's wedding that Sarah wore the bridesmaid
dress that would now serve as her wedding dress. The first child of Elizabeth was not
born until March 28, 1848. It seems apparent, therefore, that there had been no
communication between Sarah and Elizabeth after Sarah's departure for Virginia.
(In 1864, the Wilsons moved to Markesan, Wisconsin.) Alpheus Poage was a
nephew of John Allen, a son of his sister, Peggy. The Mrs. Hawkins about whom
Sarah inquired was Mary (Welch) Hawkins, wife of Olney Hawkins, and daughter of
John Allen's sister, Mary Welch (called Polly), as was also Laura.
WhatJohn Allen's response may have been to his daughter's letter, we do not
know, but a granddaughter of Sarah reported in 1925 that she and her sister had
inherited "a small leather trunk with an old brass plate on which is engraved 'John
Allen: Ann Arbor, Mich.'"'1 Perhaps he used this container to send Sarah his
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wedding gift. He was then in his second term in the Michigan Senate, but his financial situation had not greatly improved. At the time Sarah wrote to him, he was
considering a candidacy for the Michigan governorship, but later decided against
it. He was still active in the Church of the NewJerusalem and was giving thought to
becoming a full-time lecturer on its behalf. William Woodbridge, now a United
States Senator, was attempting to secure for him the federal post of Receiver of
Public Lands at Sault Ste. Marie, but he would fail.
Despite her alienation from her husband, Ann must occasionally have remembered, perhaps as she held an infant granddaughter, times of happiness that she
and John had shared during their nearly thirty years of marriage. She could not
help but wonder how he was coping with his mountain of debt, whether he had any
health problems, and whether he sometimes thought of her with remembered
affection.
A few weeks after receiving Sarah's letter occurred the event that would determine the ultimate fate of John Allen. It was the discovery of gold on the American
River, about forty miles east of present-day Sacramento, in January 1848. The news
of this discovery was carried to the Atlantic states by sailors, and from there the
excitement spread west, south, and north, including Virginia and Michigan. By
January 1849, the Gold Rush to California had begun, and, before the year ended,
some fifty thousand individuals would be known hence-forth, in life or memory,
as "Forty-Niners." The name was quickly added to the lexicon of American history.


The Waddell Home at New Hope, Augusta County, Virginia
The home of Dr. J. Addison and Sarah Ann (Allen) Waddell in New Hope where Sarah's mother, Ann I. Allen,
lived following Sarah's marriage in 1848, although she spent long periods of time at Belvidere. From Allen
Family Collection, Bentley Historical Library.


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Men from Augusta County, Virginia, and Washtenaw County, Michigan,
responded to this siren call from the New El Dorado, as did citizens of every other
county in the United States, in ones and twos, or in companies of a score or more.
The eleven men from Ann Arbor who left for "the diggings" at various times
during 1849, included two ofJohn Allen's closest friends, George Corselius and Dr.
Caleb Ormsby, neither of whom lived to return home." John Allen just missed
being a Forty-Niner; he did not start until the following January, thus becoming one
of the nearly one hundred thousand immigrants to California in 1850.
From the publicity given to this dramatic migration in every American newspaper, Ann Allen could not have been unaware of the event, but when and how she
learned thatJohn had joined the throng, we cannot be sure. Either he or a relative
doubtless informed Sarah, if not Ann. Whatever her source of information, however, Ann was surely not surprised that "Mr. Allen" found it impossible to resist
being part of this great American adventure even though, at fifty-three, he was twice
the age of the typical gold seeker.
There were three possible routes to the "gold fields": (1) by wagon, horseback,
or foot across the plains; (2) by ship around Cape Horn; or (3) by way of the
Isthmus of Panama. Allen chose the latter, believed to be the quickest, but it was
also the most expensive. The journey cost him two hundred dollars, according
to his first letter back to Ann Arbor intended as a guide for others who would
follow him.
Allen was accompanied by a political friend, Abner A. Wells, of Tecumseh,
Michigan, along with Wells's brother-in-law, William Wilson, and a young man
named George Van Nest. They left by wagon from Tecumseh on January 7, 1850,
for Tiffin, Ohio, where they "took the cars running from Sandusky to Cincinnati,":
and then by steamboat to New Orleans. From there they went by brig to Chargres,
arriving on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus on February 11th. They crossed the
Isthmus by canoe and on foot, with the aid of natives, to Panama City on the Pacific
side. There on February 20th, with some 160 other passengers, they boarded the
ship Brutus and arrived in San Francisco on April 25th. The three men went with
their picks and shovels to "Matsell's Creek, 4 miles from its junction with the
Mercedes River at the Horse Shoe Bend, Maraposa County."12
In addition toJohn Allen's remarkably detailed account of their journey, published in the Michigan Argus in June 1850, a long and insightful letter to his mother
begun on July 27th and closed on August 2nd, describing his experiences as a
miner, appeared in the Argus in October 1850. His third and last letter, dated
August 10, 1850, is likewise filled with information and keen observations, but it
also tells of his and Wells's disappointment that, after three months, "we have not
been able to lay up three hundred dollars between us." In a post-script dated
October 24th, written at San Francisco, Allen tells of their having abandoned
"mines and mining" in September to purchase a team of horses and a twenty-acre
"garden" five miles outside the city. With Wells and Wilson, he was now in partnership producing and selling supplies to miners, an enterprise they were certain
would prove much more profitable than digging for gold themselves.
As he closed this letter, Allen noted that "my health has not been very good for
some days, having a somewhat severe attack of the Dysentery, now prevailing here."
He added that "the cholera is also in the city."'3


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The issue of Ann Arbor's Michigan Argus of April 30, 1851, carried a notice that
John Allen had died in San Francisco nearly two months earlier. We know
nothing about the settlement of John Allen's estate, or whether Ann or Sarah may
have inherited any portion of whatever assets he had possessed. Records pertaining
to these matters were lost in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
Died-In San Francisco, on the 11 th of March last, after a protracted
and painful illness, Hon. John Allen, in the 56th year of his age.
The deceased was the first proprietor of the land upon which our
flourishing city is now built, and may therefore be regarded as the
pioneer of our city, and one of the first settlers of the county. He
was twice elected to a seat in the Senate of the State, and witnessed
this beautiful Peninsula when only the home of the red man of the
forest, and saw it teeming with the busy hum of civilization, and
occupied by a population of nearly 400,000. Yet, after all, it was his
lot to die among strangers. He was a man talented, and has left a
numerous circle of friends to lament his loss.
When it was that Ann learned that she was again a widow under law, we do not
know. Although the love that she and John once shared had faded long ago, Ann
was doubtless saddened as vague memories of their earlier happy times came to
mind, and she pondered what might have been.
Now in her mid-fifties and twice a widow, Ann Allen would have been considered a "senior citizen" by her Virginia friends had the term then existed. Her
health was good, however, and she felt needed in her role as a caring grandmother,
recalling, perhaps, a grandmother's importance in her own childhood. While her
possessions were few, she felt secure in the love and protection of her prosperous
son, Thomas, and her attentive and happily married daughter, Sarah Ann.
Gone was the darkness that the future had seemed to hold for her a decade earlier
when she had lamented: "all I had is gone to the four winds" with "nothing to cause
me to think times will alter for the better for me." One persistent heartache
remained, however: the waywardness of her son,John McCue. Her sense of guilt for
her absence during John's formative years that had clouded her life in Ann Arbor
continued to haunt her.
END NOTES-CHAPTER VIII
1. Ann I. Allen to Thomas W. McCue, February 29, 1840, Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
2. Records in the John Allen Papers, BHC, pertaining to the Broome family are puzzling. The mother
of John L. Broome, with two daughters by an earlier marriage (Lydia and GeorgianaJustice), were
living in the New York home of John Allen in 1838, as wasJohn's daughter, Elizabeth M. Allen. In a
letter to her brother,James C. Allen inJanuary 1838, Elizabeth wrote: "I think I would feel very lonesome if it were not for the Miss Justices. I think I mentioned to Grandmother in one of my letters
that we talked of renting our house and furniture for our board, we put an advertisement in the
paper, and got a Quaker family to take it, and board Mrs. Broome's family, Pa, and myself." Elizabeth
M. Allen to James C. Allen, January 16, 1838. John Allen Papers, BHC. It will be recalled that Ann
I. Allen was then in Virginia with Sarah Ann.
There are two letters from Lydia H. Justice to John Allen written from New York City in 1842.
They are filled with self-pity and are quite accusatory, while appealing for financial aid. Georgianna
Justice had died of consumption on January 8, 1842; Lydia had had an illegitimate child named


95




Charles. At some point, Lydia had spent time in Ann Arbor, and in her letter to John Allen of
January 16, 1842, (John Allen Papers, BHC) she wrote: "I was told before I left Ann Arbor that Mrs.
[surname omitted by this writer] was a very bad woman, that Mr. [surname omitted by this writer]
and yourself kept her before marriage, and still continue to do so, also that you wished me for your
convienence, now Mr. Allen, I cannot believe this. I know your motives were pure in that respect-it
was only for me to have a home, but I am surprised if you knew her character that you would think
of such a thing-and suffer your wife and daughters to associate with such a wretch...."
3. John L. Broome to Thomas W. McCue, April 18, 1845. This writer obtained a photocopy of this
letter in 1978, borrowing it from Mary and Sarah W. McCue at Belvidere,
4. A lengthy obituary of John Lloyd Broome (1824-1892) appeared in the Binghamton Republican of
April 12, 1892, in which it was noted that he was a son ofJohn Lloyd Broome, Sr. and a grandson of
John Broome, an early Lieutenant Governor of the state of New York, for whom the county of
Broome, in which Binghamton is located, had been named. According to this obituary, John L.
Broome had been married to Miss Mary Cochran who had lived until 1892. They had one child,
Captain George Cochran Broome.
5. Augusta Co., VA, Deed Book 64, p. 154.
6. Receipt,John Allen to C.J. Garland, December 20, 1844. John Allen Papers, BHC.
7. Sarah Ann Allen to John Allen, November 23, 1847. John Allen Papers, BHC.
8. This writer is indebted to Lilly Waddell Hawpe of Fort Defiance, VA, for information on the Waddell
family taken from family records in her possession.
9. Elizabeth M. Allen's full name was Elizabeth Mary Crawford Allen, obviously named for her mother,
Mary (Crawford) Allen. Elizabeth was born on December 19, 1818; she died on April 21, 1905, in
Markesan, WI. She was married in Ann Arbor in 1843 to William W. Wilson (1816-1897). Their first
child, Frank Seymour Allen Wilson, was born on March 28, 1848. This information has been furnished to the present writer by Frances S. Lamont of Aberdeen, South Dakota, from family records
in her possession. Her late husband, William Mather Lamont, was a great-grandson of Elizabeth
(Allen) Wilson.
10. Elizabeth Barry Kerr to Caroline P. Campbell, August 12, 1925. Caroline Campbell Papers, BHL.
11. This writer's Letters Home, the Story of Ann Arbor's Forty-Niners (Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Publishers,
1960), contains texts of letters written by several of the eleven men who went, or started, from Ann
Arbor to California during 1849, including George Corselius and Dr. Caleb Ormsby, close friends of
John Allen. Corselius, suffering from tuberculosis and hoping California's climate would provide a
cure, attempted to go by way of the Isthmus of Panama. Too ill to continue after reaching Panama
City, he turned back only to die on board the Crescent City on May 10, 1849. Dr. Ormsby, going overland, succeeded in reaching California, although his nephew and a neighbor who accompanied
him, both died on the way. Dr. Ormsby prospered in California for seven years, but returning home
in the summer of 1857 on the Central America, he was one of some 500 passengers lost at sea when
the steamer sank in a hurricane off Cape Hatteras.
12. Three detailed letters written byJohn Allen regarding his California adventure survive because of
their publication in a weekly Ann Arbor newspaper called the Michigan Argus. Then owned and
edited by L.W. Cole and E.P. Gardner, the Argus had been owned jointly by Allen and Orrin Arnold
in 1846 and, briefly in 1847, by Allen alone. Allen's first letter appeared in the June 19, 1850 issue
of the Argus, and had been written on April 30, five days after his arrival in San Francisco. It
describes his journey and his impressions of the city, particularly the price of goods and the cost of
labor. His second letter, written to his mother, appeared in the Argus issue of October 9, 1850.
Penned on "Matsell's Creek, 4 miles from its junction with the Mercedes river at the Horse Shoe
Bend, Maraposa County, State of California," it was begun on July 27, 1850, and concluded on
August 2. In this, he described the difficult and disappointing life of a miner. Allen's third letter
appeared in the Argus on January 8, 1851. The "Dear Friend" to whom Allen addressed this letter
was probably one of the paper's editors. Begun, also, at the mouth of Matsell's Creek on August 10,
1850, Allen did not complete this letter until October 24, 1850, in San Francisco, where he and a
partner had purchased land from which to sell supplies to miners. Filling many pages, Allen proved
himself in these letters to be a remarkably talented observer of his natural surroundings, his fellow
men, and the events shaping California's future.
13. A daughter ofJames C. Allen named Elizabeth Tate Allen, in a letter to Ellen B. Bach in Ann Arbor,
dated March 4, 1937, recalled: "My father had a large bundle of letters from his father John Allen],
& the last he wrote from California telling him all he had, & said if he could live two years [he]
would have all the money they could swim thru. Just after that he had what they called mountain
fever & died at the age of 56-but it was typhoid fever. I wrote my sister [Genevieve (Allen) Carter]
about it and she said her mother James C. Allen's third wife] burned most everything when they
broke up."James C. Allen Papers, BHL.


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IX.
At Home with Family in Virginia
1852-1860
With Dr. Waddell's eventual purchase of a house in New Hope, Ann Allen
made her home with her daughter, although she returned regularly to Mt. Sidney
for lengthy visits with her son and his family. It was doubtless a great comfort to Ann
to observe Thomas' growing success as a farmer, along with his devotion to his
family. Not only had he provided a home for his mother and Sarah prior to the
latter's marriage, but, recognizing his mother's "dower right" to the land he and
his brother had sold, Thomas began regularly to pay her "interest," a part of which
she carefully saved.
Sometime between 1848 and 1849, Thomas McCue built a four-room frame
house for his growing family to replace the log cabin. It was in this house that
Elizabeth bore two children, William on May 9, 1850, and Phoebe onJune 21, 1852.
Then, in 1850, Thomas contracted with two men to build a fine brick house that
required three years to complete. When this home was finished, the nearby frame
structure became housing for the African-American slaves that Thomas had begun
to acquire. After the Civil War, it became a schoolhouse for the McCue and neighboring children.
When the 1850 federal census was taken of Augusta County, Thomas McCue's
real estate was valued at $14,424, suggesting that, in the seven years since his
purchase of the King Farm, his improvements had been substantial. The census
also enumerated his eight slaves, five males and three females. Four were adults
(two males age 35; one female, 32; and a male who was 17). The other four were
children, ranging in age from one year to ten.
Thomas McCue chose the name Belvidere for his spacious new home when it
was completed. Meaning "beautiful view" in Italian, the name was suggested
because a mansion of the same name in Baltimore had been purchased in 1841 by
John S. McKim, a son of Ann's "Uncle McKim." The Baltimore "Belvidere" had
been the estate of Revolutionary War General John Eager Howard.'
A descendant of Ann Allen, Barry Thrift Brown, who has made a study of the
McCues' "Belvidere," has written the following:
In the year 1850, Thomas McCue contracted with John C. Webb
and George Peters to build a brick house 36 feet deep and 48 feet
wide for the sum of $2,000. It took three years to build the house.
The bricks were made on the property, and the lumber was hewn
from trees on the farm. The house was designed by Thomas
McCue, and his specifications called for the first floor "apartment"
to have walls 18 inches thick, and those of the second floor "apartment" to be 13 inches thick. Under half of the house was
constructed a cellar, and here was located the kitchen, dungeon,
and dairy room....
Thomas McCue farmed all 425 acres of his land, raising cattle,
hogs, turkeys, chickens, and crops to maintain the virtually independent community which lived on the farm. Since Staunton was
97




a good day's journey, it was necessary for the farm to be self-sufficient. Thus, it was not unusual for 20-25 people to live on the
grounds. In addition to the large family, there was a tanner, blacksmith, seamstress, shoemaker, and servants, all of whom helped
with the farming and upkeep of the house.2
Four children were born to Thomas and Elizabeth after the family moved into
Belvidere: James Andrew, October 4, 1854; Mary Abney, November 11, 1856;
Edward McKim, October 11, 1860; and Ruth Lee, September 1, 1862. Sarah's first
child, Lucy Gordon Waddell, was born in March 1852, and in May 1855, she bore a
second daughter, Isabella Barry Waddell. The name of the latter honored her
grandmother, with Ann's middle name as well as her maiden name. On January 11,
1861, Sarah gave birth to a son named William, but called "Willie."
While Ann Allen found pleasure in Thomas' prosperity, and in her daughter's
happy marriage, her anxiety for her son, John, only increased. Sarah W. McCue,
great-granddaughter of Ann, has written: "The family had little to say about him.
I am afraid that he did not measure up to what the family felt he should. He was
called 'Traveling John. "3
John McCue's name cannot be found on the federal census of 1850 in either
Augusta or Rockbridge County. His wife, Margaret (Irvine) McCue, age 30, was
recorded by the census taker of Rockbridge County that year as living in the home
of her parents, Robert and Jane Irvine. She, like her parents and a younger sister
named Elizabeth, were shown as natives of Ireland. As noted earlier, descriptions of
the McCue farm indicate that it adjoined Robert Irvine's property, but in 1850
John McCue no longer occupied his father's land.
A deed recorded in Rockbridge County reveals that, prior to September 1850,
John D. Imboden, a commissioner of revenue in Augusta County, had been
appointed as "the committee of John McCue, a person of unsound mind," to control's John's assets for him.4 In a later document, Imboden was called the trustee
for John McCue.
Imboden doubtless assumed this responsibility for John McCue's welfare
because of a family relationship. He had been married in 1845 to a daughter of Col.
Franklin McCue, a brother of the late Dr. William McCue. Imboden's wife, Eliza,
was thus a first cousin of John McCue.
Somehow, the 287-acre farm that had once belonged to Dr. William McCue,
and for which John had paid his brother $4,018 in 1841 for Thomas's share, had
become the property ofJohnJ. Hammond of Rockbridge County, perhaps through
the default of a mortgage. Hammond still owed $1,479.03 for this land, however,
and it was through this deed, dated November 1, 1850, that Imboden agreed that
Hammond should have three years to pay this amount. On September 2, 1853,
Imboden signed a "deed of release," acknowledging payment. In this 1853 deed,
as in that for 1850, Imboden was identified as "the Committee of John McCue, a
person of unsound mind."5
John Daniel Imboden, a graduate of Washington College, is remembered in
Augusta County as a prominent lawyer, town alderman, commissioner of revenue,
and member of the Commonwealth General Assembly. At the beginning of the
Civil War, he organized the Staunton Artillery and in 1863 was promoted to the
rank of brigadier general, C.S.A. Historians of the Civil War remember him best for


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taking charge, at the request of General Lee, of transporting the Confederate
wounded back to Virginia after the Battle of Gettysburg.6
When Ann Allen returned to Virginia in 1844, one of her joys was to take her
first grandchild into her arms, the infant named for her, Ann Barry McCue. During
the following eighteen years, that number grew to twelve, with Thomas' nine and
Sarah's three. As a resident grandmother, Ann doubtless played a significant role
in both families in the care and training of each new grandchild. She was able to
care for grandchildren in a manner of which she had been deprived during the
boyhoods of her two sons.
In the absence of letters and other family documents, we have little of a
personal nature with which to complete Ann Allen's story. We know that she wrote
regularly to her cousins in Ohio, but today's Barry descendants seem not to have
preserved her letters. Fortunately, her letter of December 25, 1867, answering
queries regarding her father and his brother, Andrew, made by Andrew's son,
Thomas, was copied for Phoebe McCue Bell in 1906 by Charles A. Barry, a nephew
of Thomas. While the original appears to be lost, the copy survives. In a letter to
Phoebe, daughter of Thomas W. McCue, Charles Barry noted in 1906: "I have just
read an old letter from cousin Ann Allen to my mother dated 1858 in which she
mentioned your Father's health as not being good and her daughter, Sarah, [who]
had just gone through a very serious illness."7


Belvidere
Photograph taken about 1950, a century after Belvidere was built by Thomas W. McCue on hisfarm in
Augusta County, about four miles from the village of Mt. Sidney. Ann I. Allen spent long periods of time here,
with her son and his family, during the last twenty years of her life. The frame house to the reader's left became
quarters for African-American servants upon completion of Belvidere in 1853. The barn that was spared by
Union troops in 1864 was torn down about 1917; the roof of the "new barn" is shown at the bottom of the
photograph. From Sarah W. McCue.


99




In his Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, Joseph A. Waddell, first cousin of
Sarah's husband, recalled only two events of the 1850s in Augusta County worthy
of mention, other than local politics. The first was the "Irish Rebellion" involving
two rival groups of Irish laborers employed by the Central Railroad.8 Those working on a section of the track near Fishersville, called the "Fardowners," having
come from northern Ireland, were assailed on February 11, 1850, by the faction
called "Corkonians" from the south of the Emerald Isle who were employed at the
Blue Ridge tunnel. "They [the Corkonians] beat the men, broke into boxes, tore
up clothing, burnt down the house [occupied by the Fardowners], and then
returned to the mountain." What made the brawl memorable was that "we heard
that many persons had been killed, and that human heads were rolling about
like pumpkins."
In response to these ugly rumors, the county militia units were called out,
marched to Fishersville, then to Waynesborough, and, finally, to the mountain for
a night attack on the rioters. The surrounded "Corkonians" surrendered peacefully,
however, and about fifty were taken prisoner and marched to Staunton. Waddell
ended his account of the incident: "Finally the community lost sight of the lawlessness of the occurrence in amusement over the affair; and what at first appeared a
dreadful tragedy, ended in general laughter.
With her own Irish heritage, Ann Allen may have found this incident
embarrassing.
The other event of the 1850s that Waddell considered memorable was the
great snowstorm of January 1858. He wrote:
Snow began to fall about 7 o'clock Saturday night, the 17th, and
continued without cessation for twenty-four hours. All day Sunday,
the 18th, the mercury stood at zero, and the wind blew in a gale
from apparently every point of the compass, driving the snow into
houses through every crack, piling it up many feet in some places,
and in others sweeping the earth bare. The running of trains
on the Virginia Central railroad was suspended for ten days, and
as there was then no telegraph line to Staunton, the people of
the town and county were cut off from communication with the
outside world.9
We can imagine Ann Allen and her daughter, Sarah, smiling at their awed and
frightened relatives and neighbors who had never experienced a Michigan winter.
With her return to Virginia, Ann had transferred her Presbyterian Church
membership back to Augusta Stone Church, now known as the Old Stone Church,
located in the Fort Defiance community on the road from Staunton to Winchester,
two miles southwest of Mt. Sidney. Established in 1740, it is one of the oldest
Presbyterian organizations in Virginia, and its solid, stone building, completed in
1749 to serve as a fort as well as a church, is the oldest Presbyterian house of
worship in continuous use in the state. We can be sure that Ann was a regular
communicant, weather and roads permitting. In its "old" and "new" cemeteries are
to be found generations of the McCues and the Aliens.
The federal census of 1860 included a question not asked in 1850-the value
of one's personal property as well as that of his real estate. The value of Thomas W.


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McCue's land, including Belvidere and the other buildings, was reported as
$17,460; his personal estate, including his slaves, stood at $20,000. He was a man of
means. His slaves now numbered fourteen, one of whom, an eighteen-year-old
female, was rented to a neighbor, G. G. Stout. Ranging in age from one year to
sixty-three, there were seven males and seven females.
Ann Allen was recorded in 1860 as a member of the household headed by
'J. A. Waddell, Physician," whose real estate in New Hope was worth $1,000, as was
also his personal estate. He owned no slaves. Curiously, Ann Allen was shown with
real estate valued at $6,000, but this must have been an error on the part of the
census taker.
It was about 1860 that Ann Allen posed for a photograph, the only one of her
known to exist. A story handed down in the McCue family is that her son, Thomas,
was so displeased with it that he threw his copy into the fire. Fortunately, there were
other copies, one of which Sarah McCue has given to the Washtenaw County
Historical Society's museum in Ann Arbor. The reason for Thomas' displeasure has
been forgotten; possibly he objected to the wig that his mother wore. The fact that
her straight black hair parted in the middle was actually a wig is confirmed in notes
taken in June 1925 by Caroline P. Campbell during an interview with Phoebe
(McCue) Bell, the fifth child of Thomas and Elizabeth McCue. Mrs. Campbell, the
widow of a prominent lawyer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had been distressed
during Ann Arbor's centennial celebration in 1924 that so little was known about
the woman for whom Ann Arbor had been named. In the following spring, Mrs.
Campbell went to Augusta County to seek information, and there she met Mrs. Bell.
During one of her interviews, Mrs. Campbell recorded: "She [Ann Allen] wears a
wig in the photograph. I saw the original in Mrs. Bell's hands.""' (Mrs. Campbell
died in Ann Arbor on January 7, 1926, without completing her research on Ann.)
As Caroline Campbell discovered during Ann Arbor's centennial celebration,
little was then known of the town's "first lady." Even had such inquiry been made a
half-century before, when a number of the early settlers were still living, surprisingly
little could have been gleaned, including an answer to the question: "Whatever
became of her?"
Eyebrows had doubtless been raised throughout the community when it
had been realized in 1844 that the Allens were separating. Deeply humiliated as
well as heartsick, Ann would have found it difficult to explain the matter to anyone except close family members. Having never become accustomed to Northern
ways, and distrustful of most the Yankees she had met, she left few close friends
behind in the town that had been named for her twenty years earlier. So far as
is known, she did not write from Virginia to anyone in Michigan. From Sarah
Ann's letter to her father in 1847 regarding her prospective marriage, it is apparent
that she knew nothing of the activities of her own Ann Arbor friends during the
previous three years.
With John Allen's death in California in 1851, local memory of the Allens had
begun to fade, while Ann's own memories, many of which she preferred not to
recall, gradually dimmed. Then, as the coming armed conflict between North and
South loomed ever closer, the growing bitterness of each side toward the other
formed a further barrier to communication between Augusta County, Virginia, and
Washtenaw County, Michigan.


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END NOTES-CHAPTER IX


1. Francis F. Beirne, The Amiable Baltimoreans (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1951), p. 198. The
Belvedere [sic] Hotel on the southeast corner of Charles and Chase Streets in Baltimore, opened in
1903, "took its name from the country estate of John Eager Howard, on the site of which the hotel
was built." Howard had spelled the name Belvidere, as did Thomas W. McCue.
2. "Belvidere" by Barry (Thrift) Brown, an undated manuscript, has been shared with this writer by
Mrs. Brown.
3. Sarah W. McCue to this writer, March 3, 1991.
4. Rockbridge Co., VA, Deed Book DD, p. 78.
5. Ibid., Deed Book V, p. 78.
6. For a graphic description of this 17-mile column led by Imboden, see Vol. 11 of Shelby Foote, The
Civil War, a Narrative (New York: Random House, 1963), pp. 584-5.
7. Charles A. Barry to Phoebe (McCue) Bell, March 16, 1906. The original of this letter was in the possession of Virginia Somerville of Montreat, NC, in 1988. A photocopy provided by Mrs. Somerville,
a great-great-granddaughter of Ann I. Allen, is in the Ann I. Allen Papers, BHL.
8. Waddell, Annals, pp. 272-73.
9. Ibid., p. 275.




10.


These notes taken by Mrs. Campbell are undated, but were doubtless made in the summer of 1925.
They are in the Caroline Campbell Papers, BHL.


Belvidere, 1930s[?]. From Allen Family Collection, Bentley Historical Library.


102




X.
War, the Deaths of Sons, and Closing Days
1861-1875
The Civil War, or the War of Secession as it was called in Virginia, must have
been agonizing for Ann Allen and Sarah in a way that was different from that of
their neighbors. Although Ann's sympathies were certainly with the South as the
war became real, her views before it commenced were surely those of the vast
majority of Augusta County citizens: Virginia must remain in the Union. While she had
left few close friends in Ann Arbor, we can be sure that Ann feared the possibility
that young men whom she had known there, as well as her Barry relatives in Ohio,
might face their Virginia relatives and friends on the battlefield. For Sarah, that
prospect must have been even more depressing, for her youth had been spent in
the North.
Almost immediately following the surrender of Fort Sumter and President
Lincoln's proclamation on April 15, 1861, calling for seventy thousand volunteers,
with Staunton designated as one of the places of rendezvous for Virginia's quota of
troops, sympathy for the Union vanished, and Augusta County considered itself,
along with the rest of Virginia, to be at war with the North. In response to a miscarried order from Richmond, the county's militia companies, including that of Mt.
Sidney under command of Capt. Stuart M. Crawford, a relative of John Allen's first
wife, prepared to march.
At the age of forty-three and the father of a large family, Thomas McCue was
probably no longer a member of the Augusta County Militia, nor would he have
been expected to volunteer for service in the Confederate Army, although the time
would come as the war continued that men up to fifty were drafted. It was then,
no doubt, that, according to family memories, Thomas hired a substitute to serve
in his place.
In Charles Barry's quotation from a letter written by Ann Allen to his mother
in 1858, as noted earlier, Ann had referred to the health of her son, Thomas, as
"not being good." This was not a temporary illness. McCue family memories indicate that his health continued to fail during the years that followed. The cause of
his extended illness, however, is not remembered. Elizabeth McCue, a woman of
strength and will, gradually took over the management of the farm.
The physical and mental health of John McCue, Ann's eldest son, made him
ineligible for military service, while Dr. J. Addison Waddell, at age fifty-three, was
considered too old to serve, although as a local physician, he would be called upon
frequently to treat the many wounded soldiers who were brought to Staunton. Ann
Allen was thus spared the ordeal of having members of her immediate family go off
to war, although both Thomas and John would have been glad, no doubt, to trade
their invalid status for the good health required for soldiering.
When the Civil War began, Staunton, where Ann's father had been a merchant
sixty years earlier, now had a population of about four thousand, making it the
largest town in the Upper, or southern, Shenandoah Valley, known as "the breadbasket of the Confederacy." The building of the Virginia Central Railroad had
reached Staunton in 1858, followed by telegraph and gas lines, the latter providing
the town's homes and street corners with illumination. There was a boot and shoe
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factory of considerable size, as well as a steam mill, a wagon manufacturing plant,
and a large woolen factory. Located on the broad and main-traveled road called the
Valley Pike leading to Winchester, Staunton and its environs were a prize that the
Yankees coveted and that the Confederate troops vigorously protected. Joseph A.
Waddell, Staunton lawyer, newspaper publisher, and author, and a first cousin of
Ann Allen's son-in-law, noted in his Annals of Augusta County, that:
Staunton soon became an important military station, and a great
depot for army supplies....Extensive hospitals for sick and
wounded soldiers were also organized and maintained here during
the war.1
Whether Ann Allen was with Sarah in New Hope or with Thomas at Mt. Sidney,
four miles apart, she was never far from war during the North/South struggle. It
would be interesting to know when it was that she learned of the death of her
mother-in-law back in Michigan. Elizabeth (Tate) Allen died onJuly 15, 1861, in the
farm home of her grandson, James C. Allen.2 She was eighty-five years old.
According to the obituary that appeared in the Michigan State News, Mrs. Allen's last
question from her death bed had been: "Is the war going on yet?" She was doubtless thinking of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren who would serve on
opposite sides in the conflict.3
Included in his Annals, were numerous extracts from the diary that Waddell
kept through the Civil War. His daily observations provide a glimpse of life not
far removed from Ann's own experiences and observations. Following are a few
pertinent extracts:4
July 20, 1861. On Thursday evening two wagons full of sick soldiers
arrived from Monterey, Highland County. Before these could be
provided for, others were brought in....George M. Cochran, Jr.
arrived from Winchester yesterday evening, and says General
Johnston has gone across the Blue Ridge to reinforce Beauregard
at Manassas.
July 24, 1861. The streets are full of soldiers, many of whom are
lying against the houses and on store boxes. A free negro woman
took three of them home with her to get something to eat and a
place to lie down.
July 29, 1861. Two railroad trains arrived yesterday with troops,
Tennesseeans, I believe....General Lee arrived in the mail train late
this evening.
August 2, 1861. Troops! Troops!! They have been pouring in
yesterday and to-day, from Southwest Virginia and Tennessee.
September 3, 1861. About one hundred Federal prisoners arrived
last night from the west by railroad. Most of them are from Ohio.
March 19, 1862. About 2 o'clock to-day seventy odd men were
brought in, having been captured by our cavalry scouts in
Pendleton or Hardy. They were endeavoring to make their way in
small parties to Ohio, to escape military duty. Some, if not all of
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them, are simple-hearted, inoffensive people, belonging to the
Dunkard church whose tenets forbid going to war. They will be
sent to Richmond tomorrow.
April 17, 1862. Just a year ago the two volunteer companies of this
place started to Harper's Ferry. The war then began....At this time
there are nearly a million men in the field, including both sides.
The enemy is coming nearer and nearer to Staunton. Large portions of the State are devastated.
May 5, 1862. Cannonading was heard to-day from early morning
till 4 o'clock, P.M., in the direction of the Shenandoah mountains.
J. D. Imboden has arrived with authority to raise companies for
guerrilla service in Western Virginia.
July 17, 1862. The town is quiet all this week as if no war were
raging in the land. Brown sugar selling in Staunton at 75 cents
a pound. No coffee here for sale, but selling elsewhere at $2
a pound.
May 5, 1863. General R. E. Lee states in his official dispatch that he
gained a great victory [at Chancellorsville], but that General
["Stonewall"] Jackson was severely wounded.
May 11, 1863. A report of GeneralJackson's death was current this
morning....Between 1 and 2 o'clock, the telegraph operator
stepped into the room where I was writing, and handed me a
dispatch from the War Department at Richmond to forward to
Lexington by express, announcing the fact. There is universal
lamentation in this community.
May 17, 1863. About sixty women and children from northwestern
Virginia arrived in town last night. They were sent off by the
Federal authorities for sympathizing with the South, and were
allowed to bring only necessary wearing apparel and $100 each.
June 22, 1863. About 10 o'clock this morning, upwards of
sixteen hundred Yankees taken at Winchester, arrived....The
prisoners were much better clothed than the Confederates who
guarded them.
July 7, 1863. The atmosphere seemed full of exciting rumors
yesterday. Great battles at or near Gettysburg, were reported.
July 9, 1863. Blue! Blue! the Richmond newspapers of this
morning publish a dispatch from General Johnston, dated
Jackson, Mississippi, July 7th, stating that the garrison at Vicksburg
capitulated on the 4th.
July 10, 1863. Soldiers wounded at the battle of Gettysburg give
fearful accounts of the slaughter of our army. Pickett's division
annihilated. Many persons known to us were killed. A disastrous
affair.
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July 11, 1863. Wounded soldiers have come into town today in a
constant stream; some of them in vehicles and some on horseback, but most on foot. Many of them are without shoes.
July 12, 1863. The stream of wounded men arriving has been uninterrupted, and not a third of those disabled has arrived yet.
July 25, 1863. Crowds of sick and wounded soldiers have been
arriving in ambulances, wagons, and on foot....
On September 30, 1863, personal tragedy struck the household of Thomas
McCue in the loss of his oldest daughter, nineteen-year-old Ann Barry McCue.
According to family memories, she died from a fever contracted while nursing
ill slaves. Ann Allen's grief was doubtless as deep as that of her son and daughterin-law, for Ann Barry McCue was not only her first grandchild, but her namesake
as well.
In 1862, Ann Allen had given to her granddaughter on her eighteenth birthday a prized family heirloom passed down through five generations of the Barry
family. This was a Huguenot Bible (New Testament, the Psalms set to music, a catechism, and the Ten Commandments) that had been printed in Paris in 1668. It had
belonged to Richard Barry, Ann Allen's great-great-grandfather, who had been one
of some four hundred thousand Protestants who had fled from France following
King Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. (From the issuance of
this Edict by Henry IV in 1598 until its revocation, French Protestants had enjoyed
political rights equal to those of Roman Catholics.)
The title page of this tooled, leather-bound volume, measuring six inches by
three, is lacking, perhaps removed by Richard Barry in his flight from France so that
he would not be easily identified as a Huguenot refugee. A separate title page, however, Les Pseaumes deDavid, Mix en Rime Francoise, provides the imprint, noted above.
Written at the top of what is now the first page, the beginning of the Book of
Matthew, appears: "A. B. McCue, AE [age] 18, Belvidere."
Ann's father had brought this family treasure to America in 1787, perhaps as a
charm to assure his safe journey to a new home as it had accompanied his forefather to Ireland a century earlier. When Ann was taken to her grandmother in
Ireland following her father's death, the Bible had accompanied her, as it did, also,
when she returned to Virginia with her grandmother and Aunt Ellen in 1806.
Following the death of Ann Barry McCue in 1863, the Huguenot Bible
remained at Belvidere and eventually came into the possession of Sarah W. McCue,
daughter of Edward McKim McCue (1860-1943). In 1991, Miss McCue presented it
to the Washtenaw County Historical Society for preservation in the society's
museum in the town named for her great-grandmother, Ann I. Allen.
In later years, the loss of her eldest grandchild doubtless became intermingled
in Ann Allen's memories with the many other tragedies of the Civil War. It was on
June 5, 1864, a Sunday morning, that Augusta County was first invaded by Union
soldiers. With a field force of 11,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, General David
Hunter, then commander of the Union's Department of Western Virginia, crossed
North River into Augusta County from Port Republic in Rockingham County.
(North River runs generally along the northern boundary of Augusta County.)
It was Hunter's goal to move toward Staunton, there to destroy manufacturing


106




facilities, along with military supplies, and to tear up railroad tracks, burn bridges,
and cut telegraph lines.
The Confederate defense consisted of about 4,500 troops, most of whom were
under the command of General W. E. Jones who had arrived in Staunton from
Lynchburg with 3,000 troops two days earlier. GeneralsJohn D. Imboden andJohn
Crawford Vaughn commanded cavalry units. Jones's army camped near Mt. Sidney,
not far from Belvidere, on June 4th. Before dawn on the 5th, the Confederates
forded Middle River and attempted to stop Hunter's advance near the village of
Piedmont, located only two miles from New Hope, the home of the Waddells and
of Ann Allen. The Battle of Piedmont ensued. Joseph A. Waddell recalled the
events of that day:
From eight or nine o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon, many citizens of Staunton were on the hills observing the
smoke arising from the battlefield....In the meantime, diligent
preparations for departure in case of disaster were going on at the
various government depots and offices. Railroad trains and wagons
were loaded up, and all hands connected with the quartermaster
and commissary departments were ready to start at a moment's
warning....Late in the afternoon [word came that] "General Jones
is killed and our army is routed!"...The army wagon trains and
many citizens immediately left town, going up the Greenville road
and crossing the Blue Ridge into Nelson county....5
According to Marshall Brice, whose Conquest of a Valley is devoted to the Battle
of Piedmont, "the wounded strewed the battlefield" when the conflict ended, with
over 800 Federal losses and 1,500 Confederates, although many of the latter were
prisoners. Brice added:
John Philip Strider, a 17-year old Washington College student...was
wounded severely; but he was removed to the home of Mrs.
Thomas McCue, west of Middle River, where he eluded Federal
parole officers and was nursed back to health.6
Brice also noted that after his "long recuperation" with the McCues, Strider
returned to his home in West Virginia, only to be captured and paroled. "After the
war he took degrees in theology and became pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church, Staunton, in 1884. He died on January 23, 1886."7
Belvidere was one of several homes near the Piedmont battlefield that became
temporary hospitals for the Confederate wounded. Ironically, Thomas McCue was,
himself, a patient there along with the wounded.
Where the Waddells, including Ann Allen, took refuge during the battle, we
do not know, but it is logical to assume that Ann, at least, was taken to Belvidere.
Following the battle, Confederate Cavalry Generals Vaughn and Imboden, the
latter being the same county official responsible for the financial affairs of John
McCue, attempted to organize a retreat for the 2,000 troops who had not been
taken prisoner. According to Brice:
Imboden posted [Captains] Sturgis Davis and Opie at a church in
New Hope to halt the refugees from battle and to group them for


107




the retreat to Fishersville. Though the two succeeded in directing
organized groups to the line of march, their efforts with individuals were disheartening. In spite of arguments, commands, and
oaths, many of the panic-stricken Confederates hurled away their
impedimenta and vanished from the army. As darkness
approached, Davis and Opie escorted a large band of the fugitives
to Fishersville. Colonel O'Ferrall was left at New Hope with two
squadrons to marshal additional retreating troops and to guard
against another onset from the rear. O'Ferrall remained at New
Hope until dark, then rode on to Fishersville.8
Although the upper Shenandoah valley was lost to the Confederacy at the
Battle of Piedmont, fighting continued for some months. After destroying
Staunton's factories, railroad tracks, and its telegraph and gas lines, Hunter's army
left for Lexington to meet C.S.A. General Early on another battle field. On June 10,
1864, Waddell wrote in his diary:
Most of the Yankees left this morning....Our servants [slaves] were
such a comfort to me. They could not have behaved better, and
I really feel thankful to them.9
By June 18th, Waddell could record that "the telegraph is in use again, and
working from Richmond to Staunton,"'0 and on the 28th he wrote that "Early's army
has been passing through town since daylight."" During late June and early July,
Augusta County's citizens had some reason to hope that the Yankees could actually
be forced out of the Valley as General Early scored some dramatic victories, but in
early August, Major General Philip H. Sheridan took command of the Federal
Army of the Shenandoah. Thereafter, in Brice's words, "reverses began to assail
Early's army....Winchester fell once more into enemy hands, and...Federal troops
were once again in Augusta County."12
Legend has it that General Sheridan slept at least one night in the house on
Middle River once owned by Col. James Allen.'3
Whereas Hunter's brief stay in June had resulted in devastation primarily in
Staunton, Sheridan now ordered that barns and mills, along with crops and forage,
be burned throughout the Valley to reduce Early's source of supplies.
An oft-told story in the McCue family is that of the squad of Union soldiers that
came in August 1864 to Belvidere to burn the barn there. The youthful captain in
charge was met by Elizabeth McCue, wife of Thomas, holding a gold coin in her
hand and begging that the McCue barn might be spared because of her invalid
husband. Thereafter, Elizabeth McCue frequently recalled for her children and
grandchildren how gallant the young captain had appeared as he granted her
wish (after accepting the gold coin). In response to his query regarding the location of the Cline Mill on Middle River, the Allen Mill four decades earlier, Elizabeth
professed ignorance, but shortly thereafter she saw smoke rising in its direction.
Although the McCue barn was spared, Yankee soldiers still entered Belvidere,
and, in doing so, unintentionally pushed four-year-old Edward McCue to the floor,
for which his older sister, Phoebe, "never forgave the North." The soldiers also
tossed lighted matches here and there as they searched the house, not intending to
burn Belvidere, but to tease the children, knowing that the small flames would be


108




easily extinguished. Nevertheless, two of those small flames left charred areas on
the floor. These have never been repaired, a reminder, in the words of Edward
McCue when he inherited Belvidere, "of what the Yankees did."
Had the Yankee soldiers found young Strider hiding somewhere at Belvidere
when they made their search, the McCue barn would surely have been burned,
regardless of Elizabeth McCue's gold coin.
It is believed that Ann Allen, now sixty-seven years of age, was living with her
son and daughter-in-law, and their eight surviving children, at Belvidere when this
incident took place.
There is a curious ending to this story. Thirty years later, Elizabeth McCue
believed that she recognized in a Staunton newspaper the photograph of the
"gallant young Yankee captain" who had heeded her plea to save the barn. His
name proved to be William McKinley, and he was a candidate for President of the
United States. While no confirmation of this incident can be found among official
records, it is true that, as a member of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment,
McKinley was serving under General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley at that
time. Then twenty-two years old, he had been promoted to the rank of captain on
July 23, 1864.
Throughout the remainder of 1864, fighting continued in the Shenandoah
Valley between the forces of Generals Sheridan and Early, with many more lives
sacrificed on both sides. By year's end, however, there seemed little doubt that
the Southern cause had been lost. A few extracts from Waddell's diary relate the
war's end as observed in Augusta County.'4
December 31, 1864. The last night of a dreary year, full of
wretchedness. Forage is very scarce, and many horses are dying.
January 12, 1865. The State sells salt to citizens at a less price
than the market affords, and I have secured all I am entitled to, as
the best investment of Confederate money....A lady's dress, which
formerly cost $10 to $15, now costs $400 to $500.
January 18, 1865. Pins sell in town at $19 a paper, and needles at
$10. Flour in Richmond at $1,000 a barrel. Confederate currency
is almost worthless.
April 8, 1865. All things indicate that the days of the Confederate
States are numbered.
April 14, 1865. We heard last night from an authentic source that
General Lee had certainly surrendered himself with his army.
April 17, 1865. Four years ago this day, the two military companies
started from Staunton, and the war began. Now the war is virtually
over, and we are-what shall I say?
April 20, 1865. The report of Lincoln's assassination was renewed
this evening. There is general regret in this community.
For citizens of Augusta County, Virginia, the year 1865 was memorable, as it
was for the entire nation, for it marked the end of the Civil War and the beginning


109




of the South's painful years of Reconstruction. For Ann Allen, however, it would be
remembered as the year in which she lost her son, Thomas W. McCue. According
to the McCue family Bible, he died on July 11, 1865, at the age of forty-seven. The
immediate cause of his death was pneumonia, a common ending to almost any
debilitating disease in those days.
Although he had been in poor health for some little time, Thomas did not
leave a will, a neglect on his part that caused his widow considerable hardship.
Entitled to only her "dower third," Elizabeth was required by Virginia law, after
choosing items from his personal property equal in value to her dower right, then
to have a public sale of the remainder, the proceeds of which had to be placed in
trust for her children; the interest therefrom she could use only for their support
until they came of age. Likewise, she could claim only a third of the income from
the farm, the rest to be used for feeding, clothing, and educating her children
and/or saved for their inheritance.15
As was customary, Elizabeth McCue was appointed by the county court to
administer her husband's estate, signing the required bond ($16,000 in her case)
for the faithful performance of that duty. Two of her uncles co-signed the bond,
they being Thomas P. Wilson, a brother of her father, and John Kenney, her
mother's brother. Elizabeth was appointed to be guardian of her eight children.
Before a public sale could be conducted, it was necessary that an inventory be
taken of the property of the deceased, this being done by five of Elizabeth's neighbors on September 20, 1865. Recalling General Sheridan's determination to
denude the Shenandoah Valley of its livestock and forage in order to deprive the
Confederate Army of sustenance, it is surprising to note in the McCue inventory the
following: eight horses, two colts, a mule, seventeen cattle (including several
calves), a yoke of oxen, twenty-four sheep, seventy hogs, twenty-two tons of hay,
800 bushels of corn "in the field," twenty-five bushels of potatoes, and fifteen
bushels of clover seed.
Before the sale, Elizabeth was permitted to choose items for her future use
worth up to $2,590.37, the estimated third of the McCue personal estate's total
value. When the sale took place on September 20, 1865, in addition to farm
machinery and many household items, all of the sheep were sold, along with half
of the hogs, five of the horses with the two colts, and nine of the cattle. (Elizabeth
purchased one item at the sale with her own money-for $77.00 she bought the
family "carriage and harness.") The total amount realized from the sale was
$3,590.37. A number of Thomas McCue's relatives and neighbors owed him money,
and, when those bonds were paid, his personal estate amounted to over $10,000.
Elizabeth's dower third was increased accordingly.
Had Thomas McCue died before the Civil War, his property would have
included nineteen slaves. According to family lore, only one of the "Negroes"
actually left the farm with war's end; the others remained to assist Elizabeth
in its operation, but, as the years passed, they gradually "drifted away."
One of the debts paid from Thomas McCue's estate was to Dr. J. Addison
Waddell for $86.00, suggesting that Sarah's husband had been Thomas' physician.
On November 25, 1865, and again on May 31, 1866, the estate paid "Mrs. Ann I.
Allen" the sum of $40.50. Perhaps it was this amount that Thomas had given to his
mother semiannually as "interest" on her dower right to the land of her first
husband, sold by Thomas and John McCue years earlier. Apparently Ann used a
110




portion of this, her sole income, to assist her daughter, Sarah, whose husband
seems never to have been able to provide quite adequately for his family.
Nevertheless, Ann Allen was still able to save a small portion of what Thomas, and
later, his estate, provided her.
Ann's grief in the loss of Thomas was doubtless mitigated by her deep religious
faith. Augusta County's local author of note, Joseph A. Waddell, Ann's friend of
many years, wrote of her:
Endowed by nature with a strong mind, improved by reading
and reflection, her conversation was edifying and instructive. Her
views on religious subjects were clear and evangelical, and often
on Sabbath evenings, propped in her easy chair, she would
indulge in a strain of religious remarks, amounting at times to a
regular sermon. 16
Barely seven months following Thomas' death, Ann suffered still another blow
when her eldest son, John McCue, died on February 22, 1866. He was fifty years of
age. No details are remembered in the McCue family regarding John's passing,
except that it marked the end of a troubled life. Gretchen Bell, a great-granddaughter of Ann Allen, in a 1961 telephone conversation, recalled her mother,
Phoebe (McCue) Bell, saying thatJohn McCue "was very dissipated and a ne'er-dowell." She added that his brother, Thomas W. McCue, had "taken him in" and that
it had been at Belvidere thatJohn had died."7
Although Ann had been separated from her sons during their childhood, she
had had twenty years of happiness with or near Thomas and his growing family, but
John had caused her only heartache during those two decades. His death brought
her added sorrow tinged with a feeling of guilt. Had Ann been able to provide a
mother's love during his formative years, could she have instilled in him the
strength of character that he appeared to lack?
The McCue brothers were buried near each other in the Old Stone Church
cemetery. There Thomas lies near his eldest child, Ann Barry McCue, his mother's
namesake, who had died in 1863. Elizabeth McCue, who possessed the strength and
intellect, along with the religious faith, to rear nine children as well as to manage
the family farm during Reconstruction, lived until July 6, 1908, dying at the age of
eighty-four. Margaret Irvine, wife of John McCue, whom Gretchen Bell remembered as "a lovely woman," had long been separated from John when he died.
Living out her days in Lexington, she died about 1900 at the age of eighty-one.'
The year 1867 brought still more sadness to Ann Allen and to her family. On
July 17th of that year, Sarah's only son, Willie Waddell, died at the age of six years.
Although Ann's ten surviving grandchildren all heard her recount her life's
adventures, only Phoebe, the daughter of her son Thomas, born in 1852, wrote
about her memories of her grandmother. Phoebe did so on the urging of Caroline
P. Campbell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, mentioned earlier.
My grandmother was small and rather frail looking, a very
interesting talker and a good reader. I remember the double
window in my mother's room [at Belvidere] where Ann sat and
sewed. She would read aloud. There were three steps by the
window that went upstairs; I would slip in when I heard her
reading and sit on these steps.
111




Grandmother was quite deaf in her later years and before her
death [she] lost her sight, also. She would tell me of her trip to
Michigan riding on horseback and carrying Sarah in her lap the
entire way...
My Grandmother's Scotch [Irish?] accent attracted me very much.
She always said "me own" and spoke of her dress as "me frock."19
Sarah W. McCue recalls the laughter with which a story was told involving her
father, Edward McKim McCue (1860-1943) into whose possession Belvidere eventually came. Edward was a small boy when his grandmother made one of her long
visits at Belvidere, during which she was visiting with her longtime friend, Miss Lucy
Stout. Like Ann, Miss Lucy was also quite deaf, and on this occasion when the two
old friends were visiting upstairs, a guest at the house asked, "Why are those two
women upstairs shouting at each other?" Little Ed McCue promptly replied: "Oh,
that is Miss Stout and Grandma telling secrets to each other."
Phoebe Bell told Sarah W. McCue and her sisters that when her grandmother
would come from New Hope for one of her long visits at Belvidere, she would
always arrive wearing several dresses, explaining that that was the easiest way to
transport them. Phoebe also remembered her grandmother telling about her early
years in Ann Arbor when Indians would come to her door begging salt. Each would
bring his own container and would always insist that it be filled level full-they
would accept neither more nor less.
We can imagine how many other fascinating events in Ann Allen's long life
that she recalled for her grandchildren, but only those that we have noted are
remembered today.
Ann Allen, for her time, lived to a remarkably old age, surviving for a decade
following the close of the Civil War. We know from her letter to her cousin, Thomas
Barry, son of her Uncle Andrew, written in 1867, that correspondence with her
Ohio relatives had been resumed after the Civil War's long silence between them,
but her letters were not preserved.
Ann Allen made her will on August 17, 1874.20 Her eyesight was still sufficient
for her to sign her name. To each of her two Waddell granddaughters, Lucy and
Isabella, she bequeathed $500, and to her grandson, Edward McKim McCue, she
left $200 "for favors received." She left all of her personal belongings to her daughter, Sarah, along with her remaining "bonds and money." The latter, however, were
to be invested, Sarah only to receive the annual interest, and, at Sarah's death, the
principal was to be divided between Sarah's two daughters.
Ann made only one other provision in her will:
I direct that my Executrix hereafter named shall take from the proceeds, to purchase two plain tomb stones, and to have the same,
with suitable inscriptions, erected over the remains of my late son,
John McCue, decd., and myself.
The witnesses to Ann's will were Mt. Sidney residents, James R. Stout and T. G.
Stout, suggesting that the will was drafted at Belvidere.
On May 10, 1875, six months before her death, Ann Allen made a change (a
codicil) in her will. She reduced her provision for her grandson from $200 to $100,
probably fearing that her estate would not be sufficient to cover her original
112




amount. On this occasion, no doubt because of her failing vision she signed her
name by making a mark.
It was in New Hope, in the Waddell home, that Ann died. Joseph A. Waddell
described her passing with the following words:
For the last two years, Mrs. Allen's health had been gradually
declining, and anticipating her end, she often spoke of death with
the utmost composure, and of her entire resignation, soul and
body, to the wish of her Heavenly Father. She died calmly and
peacefully, without a struggle or a groan; and her surviving friends
enjoy the pleasing consolation that their loss is her eternal gain.
The pains and sufferings she endured are ended; those deaf ears
are unstopped; sight has been restored to those eyes so long dim,
and she is now basking in the bliss and happiness which the
redeemed shall forever enjoy in Heaven.2"
Ann Allen's funeral was conducted at the Old Augusta Stone Presbyterian
Church by the then pastor, Dr. I. W. K. Handy, who, in recognition of Ann's many
sorrows and her physical infirmities, chose the text for her funeral sermon from the
Book ofJob (Chapter XIV, verse 14). "All the days of my appointed time will I wait
till my change comes." She was buried in what is called the "new cemetery" of
Augusta Stone Church, beside her grandson, Willie Waddell.


Tombstone of Ann I. Allen
Ann Allen was buried in the "New Cemetery" of Old Augusta Presbyterian Stone Church near the grave of
her grandson, Willie Waddell. In her will, she had directed her executrix "to purchase two plain tomb stones,
and to have the same, with suitable inscriptions, erected over the remains of my late son, John McCue, decd.,
and myself " John McCue had been buried in the "Old Cemetery" of the Old Stone Church.
113




Although Ann had designated her daughter to be the executrix of her estate,
Sarah declined to serve, and the county court appointed her daughter, Lucy G.
Waddell, in her place. When an inventory of Ann's possessions was taken, it was
determined that the "sundry articles of [her] room furniture" which she had
bequeathed to Sarah were worth only $30.00. Her other assets amounted to
$1,842.90, and consisted primarily of her savings from the payments through the
years made by her son, Thomas, and his estate. Also included was the sum of
$759.99 received fromJ. D. Imboden as former "trustee" for her son, John.22
When expenses were paid, including her funeral costs ($21.00), digging her
grave ($2.50), and the purchase fromJ. C. Marquiss of her and John's tombstones
($50.00), along with the legacies that she left for the Waddell granddaughters
($1,000) and to Edward McCue ($100), plus court fees, there remained $565.73 to
invest for Sarah.
Sarah died on March 10, 1883; her husband, Dr.J. Addison Waddell, had died
three years earlier, on May 2, 1880. Their graves are near that of Ann at Augusta
Stone Church.
As was noted at the beginning of this biography, Joseph A. Waddell, a first
cousin of Ann's son-in-law, wrote an obituary of Ann Allen from which we have
quoted. He also sent an account of her death to Ann Arbor that found its way into
an issue of a weekly newspaper called the Ann Arbor Register The Register's editor,
Henry S. Dean, introduced Mr. Waddell's contribution with the following words:
Few residents of Ann Arbor are aware that the one to whom our
beautiful city is indebted for its name, has but recently ended her
earthly pilgrimage.23
To close our story of Ann I. Allen, we quote Joseph A. Waddell again, this time
a paragraph of what he wrote for the Register:
The incidents connected with the long and eventful life of Mrs.
Allen would furnish material for quite an interesting volume. The
trials and difficulties which beset her father in early life, the perils
and dangers through which she passed, and the pains and sufferings she was called upon to endure in her declining years, to say
nothing of her deprivation of hearing and loss of sight, furnish in
her character a beautiful illustration of the words of the Psalmist,
"They that trust the Lord shall be at Mount Zion which cannot be
removed, but abideth forever."


114




END NOTES-CHAPTER X


1. Waddell, Annals, p. 284.
2. The obituary of Elizabeth (Tate) Allen appeared in the Michigan State News of July 23, 1861. She was
living with her grandson, James C. Allen, on his farm in Pittsfield Twp., Washtenaw Co., MI, when
she died on July 15, 1861, "in her 86th year."
3. William Lewis, son of Charles C. and Nancy (Allen) Lewis, and a grandson of Elizabeth (Tate) Allen,
was one of the Confederate soldiers killed during the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862, according to James Turner Allen in his "Family Record...." See Chapter IV, note 23.
4. In his Annals, Waddell devoted pp. 280-346 to the Civil War period in his history of Augusta Co., VA;
in this he used entries from his diary to help tell the story. He was a resident of Staunton at that time.
5. Waddell, Annals, p. 258.
6. Marshall Moore Brice, Conquest of a Valley (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1964),
p.77.
7. Ibid., p. 144.
8. Ibid., pp. 85-6.
9. Waddell, Annals, p. 319.
10. Ibid., p. 320.
11. Ibid., p. 322.
12. Brice, Conquest of a Valley, p. 131.
13. The story of Gen. Sheridan spending a night in the Allen house was related to this writer in 1978 by
the owner of the property at that time, William Breeding.
14. Waddell's diary entries from December 31, 1864, through April 20, 1865, are found in his Annals,
pp. 328-30 and 335.
15. The estate papers of Thomas W. McCue are preserved in File Drawers 73 and 75 and in Will Book
41, p. 485, in the Augusta County Probate Court in Staunton, VA. Photocopies of these papers were
obtained by this writer and, with other records so described here, will be placed in the Bentley
Historical Library at a later date.
16. From Waddell's obituary of Ann I. Allen published in the Ann Arbor Register, May 9, 1877.
17. This telephone call was made by Katherine C. Anderson of Staunton on September 20, 1961, and
was reported to this writer by letter on the following day. Ms. Anderson had been engaged to do
research and called Gretchen Bell on this writer's behest. Ms. Anderson stated: "She told me right
off what the problem was. John McCue was very dissipated, now we would say Alcoholic, and a neardo-well. He married a lovely woman named Margaret. Margaret's father took her home a number
of times and Margaret would go back. Finally she had to leave him. They had no children.John lived
with Thomas where he died."
18. An undated clipping from a newspaper at the time of Margaret McCue's death, mounted on a card
and preserved at Belvidere, has been given to this writer by Sarah W. McCue.
19. Phoebe (McCue) Bell's recorded memories of her grandmother, Ann I. Allen, were "copied by her
daughter, by request." Signed byJanie E. Bell, this copy is in the Ann I Allen Papers, BHL.
20. Ann Allen's will was recorded in Augusta Co., VA, Will Book W, p. 500.
21. Waddell's obituary of Ann I. Allen, the Ann Arbor Register, May 9, 1877.
22. The inventory of Ann Allen's estate was recorded in Augusta Co. Probate Records, Book 46, beginning on p. 659. Other records pertaining to the settlement of the estate are in Book 47, beginning
on p. 207.
23. See note 21, above.


115




A Note on Sources


Two individuals in the past have done preliminary research on the life of Ann
I. Allen, with the view toward writing her biography. The first was Catherine H.
Anderson, an active member of the D.A.R. in Ann Arbor in the early 1900s. In 1915,
Mrs. Anderson went to Augusta County, Virginia, and was a guest in the home of
Edward McKim McCue, grandson of Ann, who was then the owner of Belvidere and
the farm that had belonged to his father, Thomas W. McCue. She prevailed upon
her host to loan her a number of the letters written by Ann Allen from Ann Arbor
to her son, Thomas W. McCue, in Virginia. Mrs. Anderson agreed to return these
letters promptly after copying them back in Ann Arbor. The McCues never heard
from her again, despite letters requesting that the letters be returned. In truth,
Mrs. Anderson had died on September 4, 1916.
Eight years after Mrs. Anderson's death, six of Ann Allen's letters were sent by
Mrs. Anderson's daughters in Toledo, Ohio, to Lucy E. Chapin of Ann Arbor. Miss
Chapin was active in the D.A.R. and had been a friend of Mrs. Anderson. Because
of her interest in Ann Arbor history, Miss Chapin kept a scrapbook devoted to
incidents in the town's history, and the letters of Ann Allen were added to her
collection. Whether these were all of the letters that Mrs. Anderson had borrowed
is not known. Miss Chapin's scrapbook eventually became the property of the
Michigan Historical Collections, now the Bentley Historical Library of the
University of Michigan, where these six letters are preserved.
Ann Arbor celebrated its centennial in 1924, for which a professor of education at the University named O. W. Stephenson wrote his Ann Arbor, theFirst Hundred
Years. He had been able to learn little regarding eitherJohn Allen or his wife, and,
based largely on tradition, his account of the Aliens is garbled.
A woman with a keen interest in Michigan history, Caroline P. Campbell, a
widow of a prominent lawyer in Grand Rapids, was being treated in a private hospital in Ann Arbor at the time of the town's centennial. She was shocked at how
little was known about Ann Allen in the town that had been named for her; she
resolved to do research on Ann in Virginia and to write a biography of her. Mrs.
Campbell was able to read the six letters Miss Chapin had obtained from the
Anderson sisters and in the summer of 1925 went to Augusta County and called
upon Edward McCue to request access to other McCue family papers. Because of
his bad experience with Mrs. Anderson, Mr. McCue was not very sympathetic
toward Mrs. Campbell's project. His sister, Phoebe (McCue) Bell, however, was
more trusting after Mrs. Campbell shared with her the research that she had
already done among official records of Augusta County in the courthouse at
Staunton. She was permitted to borrow one of Ann Allen's letters, that of July 30,
1839, along with two letters that Sarah Ann Allen had written to her half-brother,
to take back to Ann Arbor to be photostated, using the new equipment recently
acquired by the University of Michigan General Library. Gretchen Bell, Phoebe's
daughter, also agreed to copy the remaining letters of Ann Allen for Mrs. Campbell.
The letters borrowed were returned, as promised. Mrs. Campbell also prevailed
upon Phoebe Bell to record her memories of her grandmother.


116




Mrs. Campbell's health continued to decline and, following surgery, she died
in Ann Arbor on January 7, 1926. Her papers were later placed in the Bentley
Historical Library. Although Mrs. Campbell's research on Ann Allen was far from
complete when she died, her notes regarding McCue records in the Augusta
County Courthouse have been helpful to the present writer, as well as her correspondence with Phoebe Bell.
The letters of Ann Allen remaining at Belvidere eventually came into the
possession of her great-granddaughter, Sarah W. McCue. Miss McCue has given
these to the Bentley Historical Library.
The fourteen surviving letters of Ann Allen to her son, Thomas W. McCue, one
of which is only a fragment of the original, form an important key to understanding her personality as well as events in her life during her years in Ann Arbor.
Two letters that Ann wrote to relatives in Ohio happen to survive, although
that written in 1867 to her cousin, Thomas Barry, replying to his queries regarding
her youth, is a copy of the original made in 1906 for Phoebe (McCue) Bell. That
written on December 8, 1842, following the death of her uncle, Andrew Barry, was
sent to Phoebe Bell in later years and is among the letters donated by Sarah W.
McCue to the Bentley Historical Library.
In quoting from Ann Allen's letters, the present writer has made the following
editorial changes for ease of reading, as a printer would doubtless have done had
these letters been published in Ann's own day. Typical of her time, Ann's use of
capitalization and punctuation was inconsistent; she often used a dash in lieu of
a comma or period. Commas and periods have been substituted or added where
appropriate in these transcriptions, and her capitalization has been standardized.
Her errors in spelling have been retained, however, except where she wrote "they"
for "the"; her use of an apostrophe to form plurals has been eliminated. Brackets
have been placed around words or letters only when needed for clarity. This same
editorial policy has been followed in quoting from other primary sources.
A major source of information in telling Ann's story is the collection of John
Allen's papers preserved in the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public
Library. This large collection has been microfilmed for the Bentley Library, and a
printout has been made, with the permission of the Detroit Public Library, for the
present writer. John Allen preserved a great many of the letters he received, along
with his business records, between 1823, when he arrived in Michigan Territory, and
his departure for California in 1850. He placed these in the hands of his son,James
C. Allen, who added some of his own correspondence.
The author acknowledges with appreciation the work of Ann Arbor historian
Maurice Sullivan in identifying the site of John Allen's brick house at Huron and
Ashley Streets.
The official records, such as deeds, probate records, etc., that have been
obtained from courthouses in both Augusta County, Virginia, and Washtenaw
County, Michigan, have provided important sources, as have newspapers of the
period in which Ann Allen lived.
The writings of Joseph A. Waddell, contemporary of Ann Allen, have been
most helpful, including his tribute to and obituary of Ann. A number of quotations


117




have been taken from his diary that he kept during the Civil War which he included
in his Annals of Augusta County, Virginia published in 1888. The History of Washtenaw
County, Michigan, published by Chas. C. Chapman & Co. in 1881, is a vital source
for any historical investigation into Ann Arbor's early history, particularly the
recorded memories of a number of the town's pioneers.
Members of the McCue and Allen families, particularly Sarah W. McCue, have
been most generous in sharing their family memories over the thirty-five years that
this writer has been collecting material to tell the story of Ann Arbor's first lady.


118








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4~
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