52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #39 Mary Jane Smith Pryor

The 1863 Civil War map of the vicinity of Jasper, Tennessee, is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing to see where various branches of my family lived in the 1860s. However, the existence of the map means the Union Army was active in the area. It's a curse to wonder what horrors the families endured during the war years.

Mary Jane Smith was just nine years old when the first skirmishes took place in the area in the summer of 1862. No doubt she was terrified. Did she hide? Was she or her mother assaulted? Did soldiers carry off the chickens and livestock from the tiny family farm? The Union and Confederate Armies battled heavily in Tennessee. By the end of the war, did the family have anything left?

Mary Jane was born on January 12, 1853, the eldest living child of George Fraker Smith and Nancy Alley. Her father may have been loyal to the Union and may have even fought for the Union. From being a tenant farmer in 1860, he advanced to being a land owner and court official in 1870.

One effect of the war was a shortage of young men. Did Mary Jane fall in love with the wealthy, older, tall, dark and handsome Benjamin Franklin Pryor? Or was she focused mainly on his wealth? The couple married  on December 1, 1870, when she was 17 and he was 35.

Frank's wealth didn't last. He lost a lawsuit and, in turn, all his property. In 1879, the couple moved to Palo Pinto County, Texas to start over.

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Mary Jane and Frank had five daughters before they were blessed with a son, who was named Green Hill Pryor after his grandfather. After Frank's death in 1889, Mary Jane carried on farming for a time, as best she could. Eventually she moved to Oklahoma to live with her children.

Mary Jane Smith Pryor died on March 28, 1934, in Oklahoma City. She was buried with her husband in Elmwood Cemetery, Mineral Wells, Palo Pinto County, Texas.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #31 Bettie Allen Allee, The Old-Maid Schoolteacher

Joe Allee hated his new stepmother. He'd rather drive cattle to market than live with a schoolmarm. The family legend says he ran off at age 12 to join a cattle drive from Texas to Kansas.

When I look at the face of my great-great-grandmother, I see a very forbidding woman. Anna Elizabeth "Bettie" Allen was a 31-year-old schoolteacher when she married Andrew Lafayette "Fate" Allee and became a stepmother to three children under the age of 10.

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Bettie Allen was the eldest child born to Thomas Allen and Majincy Davis of Beaufort County, North Carolina. The couple are believed to have lived near the community now known as Leechville. However, they were on the move away from the coast and toward the west. Bettie claimed to have been born near Fayetteville on May 19, 1844. The 1850 census finds the family in South Surry (Yadkin) County, not far from the town of Lewisville, North Carolina.

By 1860, the Allen family had moved to Barry County, Missouri, and into northwestern Arkansas by 1870. The couple valued education, raising two schoolteachers and a newspaper editor. Bettie was teaching school in the area north of Dallas, Texas, by 1876. Was that how she met the widowed Fate Allee?

Bettie Allen married Fate Allee in Collin County, Texas, on January 30, 1876. They soon moved to the area of Mineral Wells in Palo Pinto County, Texas, where they farmed and added four children to their family.

Bettie was widowed in 1895. She spent the rest of her life alternately living in Mineral Wells and spending time with her children and their families. She never remarried and was able to claim a pension for Fate's Civil War service to the Confederacy.

Bettie died on March 25, 1932, while visiting her oldest son, Thomas Allee, in Pueblo County, Colorado. She was buried in Brookside Cemetery in Rye, Pueblo County.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #28 The Records of Andrew Lafayette "Fate" Allee

The life of my great-great-grandfather Andrew Lafayette "Fate" Allee is detailed in government records. I wish all my ancestors were so well documented.

His story begins with the marriage of his parents.


State of Arkansas
County of Saline

I J. H. Williams an acting Justice of the peace in and for Saline County do hereby certify that I did on the 29th day of December, 1842 Solemnize the rites of matrimony between Josiah Alley of the County aforesaid and of the age of 21 years and Mary Jane Pelton of the Same place and of the age of fifteen years. Given under my hand this 30th Day of December 1842.

J.H. Williams J.P.

A child is born.

Fate was born on August 24, 1844, twenty months after his parents married. Within another two years both his parents were dead and his Uncle Abraham Allee became his legal guardian. His father's estate was billed for medical care for his young mother in 1846, setting her death date between March and October of 1846.

The guardianship was documented in 1847.

State of Arkansas
County of Saline

I Abraham Allee do solemnly swear that to the best of my knowledge and belief the estate of Josiah Allee deceased is worth the sum of three hundred dollars. Andrew Lafayette Allee is the only child of the deceased and resides in this County. he died without a will...

Sworn to and subscribed before me
this 26th day of July AD 1847
A R Hockersmith Clerk

Fight for an orphan's pension.

Josiah Allee died while serving in the Mexican-American War. The name Allee was often misspelled or misunderstood in handwritten records. His service record was interpreted as Isaiah Allen. Abraham Allee had to fight the military bureaucracy to set the record straight and to collect the military pension that Fate was due as an orphan.

Department of the Interior
Orphans Claim

I certify that Andrew Lafayette Allee, Child of Josiah Allee, deceased, who was a Bugler, Company I, Arkansas Mounted Volunteers, in the service of the United States and died on the seventeenth day of October 1846, is entitled to receive pay ...

The estate grew.

Abraham Allee not only collected the orphan's pension, but also obtained a military land warrant for Josiah's service. Fate also received money from two estates in his mother's family, Samuel Pelton and James Adams. At the last known guardianship accounting in 1860, Fate's worth was about $650, plus 80 acres of land.

The Confederacy called.

Fate volunteered very quickly when the Civil War began. Just prior to his 17th birthday, he enlisted in Company F, 11th Arkansas Infantry on July 19, 1861. He was one of 7000 Confederates who valiantly defended Island Number 10 near New Madrid, Missouri, until the commander was forced to surrender on April 8, 1862. Fate spent several months as a prisoner at Camp Douglas, Illinois. Later that year he was part of a prisoner exchange at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

He then served in the 11 & 17 Consolidated Arkansas Infantry; Co B, Anderson's Unattached Battalion, Arkansas Cavalry as a 2nd Lt; and as an independent scout in the McMurtry Brigade, under Captain Webb. A story told by a member of Webb's forces depicts Fate as an honorable man, although Webb's forces were generally considered to be less than honorable.

The military and prisoner records tell the basics of his service.

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On May 6, 1866, Fate married a cousin, Martha Elizabeth Grant. The area in Arkansas where they lived had been overrun during the Battle of Jenkins Ferry in 1864. Fields, streams and rivers were rife with spent ammunition. Although the family stories don't tell us, we can only surmise that the Allee family members who left Arkansas did so due to the devastation of the war.

Fate relocated his family about 1869 to Denton County, Texas, along with Abraham and some of his family. Fate and Martha had three children, all of whom married into the Lucas family. Sometime after Frank's birth in 1872, Martha died.

The widowed Fate married Anna Elizabeth "Bettie" Allen on January 30, 1876, in Collin County, Texas. Fate and Bettie farmed in Palo Pinto County, adding four more children to their family before his death on July 4, 1895. He was buried in Ballew Springs Cemetery in Parker County, Texas.

The final record is a widow's pension.

The widowed Bettie Allee filed in Texas for a Confederate widow's pension. The pension file tells us that A. Lafayette Allee died in Palo Pinto County, Texas. It also gives the marriage date and place for his second marriage. Bettie did a good job of detailing his military service. Many soldiers don't like to talk about their service, so this level of detail is surprising. Perhaps the couple documented the service so that the family would have the facts in case of his death.

Other records.

In addition to the mentioned records, there exist tax, land and marriage records, plus censuses.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #19 Laura Ann Pryor Allee

I still remember that early morning phone call that I received while in college. My last living great-grandmother, Laura Ann Pryor Allee, had died on February 9, 1975, at the age of 90 years, 6 months and 7 days. I barely remember her, as we didn't often visit her home in the city of Pueblo, Colorado. She was the loving mother of eight children, four of whom predeceased her.

Laura Ann Pryor was born in Mineral Wells, Palo Pinto County, Texas, on August 2, 1884, the fifth of six children. Her father, Benjamin Franklin Pryor, died when she was five years old. Her mother, Mary Jane Smith Pryor, did her best to run her small farm, looking to her extended family for help.

On August 31, 1902, the eighteen-year-old Laura married Thomas Merrill Allee in Mineral Wells. Their marriage record was issued in nearby Parker County, as the courthouse was easier to reach. Family legend tells that they married in the church, but the marriage index reports the marriage was performed by a Justice of the Peace. Perhaps they had two ceremonies.

The couple farmed in Oklahoma, where they buried two children. Their eldest son, Thomas Gilbert, died at age 16, and Ura Maggie, twin to Ima Nora, died in infancy. The couple moved on to Pueblo County, Colorado in 1928, farming in Rye. They moved to the city of Pueblo in 1942.

Laura was widowed in 1948. She lived on in Pueblo, nurturing her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren until her death. She was buried next to Thomas in Brookside Cemetery in Rye, Colorado.

Quick drop page from All That Jazz, ClubScrap, 2010