Catherine Elizabeth was their first child, born around 1819 and followed soon after by Mary Ann, born 29 July 1820. The girls were not yet five years old when their father disappeared from their lives, their mother having received evidence that he was a bigamist. Elrod fled from Markham Township sometime between 20 March 1823, when he witnessed a marriage between David Parsills and Mary Burns, and 16 December 1823 when his wife petitioned the Governor-General of Upper Canada to restore her previous married surname of Sanders and to declare her second marriage null and void on the grounds of her husband's bigamy. Elizabeth died on 9 February 1834 and within the next year her two youngest daughters married: Mary Ann, aged 14, to George Singleton Marsh on 1 January 1835, and Catherine Elizabeth, aged about 16, to William Lyon on 8 May 1835. The girls, abandoned by their father and having lost their mother, had been living with some of their elder half-siblings for the past year.
William Lyon was 20 to his bride's 16, so there was not any suggestion of Catherine being married off to a husband many years her senior. He was the son of James Lyon, Jr, of Loyalist stock, whose father had come to Upper Canada from New York with James Richardson and his wife Sarah (née Ashmore, previously Bryant) and settled at Kingston. James Lyon Jr and Sarah Ann Richardson, daughter of the couple who had accompanied James Lyon Sr to Upper Canada, married at Kingston on 8 September 1810. They moved frequently over the next twenty years, so details of all fifteen of their children are not yet known, but they finally managed to stay put in Wellsville, Ohio from 1830 until James' death sometime before 1860.
William was a druggist like his father and several of his brothers. His monumental inscription says "Wm Lyon M.D.", so he appears to have obtained a medical qualification at some point. One of his brothers, George Ashmore Lyon, attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1840 and perhaps William also studied there; George is the only child for whom any education details are known, but the occupations of the other sons -- including John, a Methodist Minister in the Erie Conference, Robert, Smith and Richard, all druggists and physicians, and James III and Walter, both hotel owners -- suggest that this was an educated family.
The Lyon family must also have maintained links to cousins back in Upper Canada, as a document in the Richardson family fonds at the Archives of Ontario, written by Sarah Ann Richardson Lyon's nephew James Henry Richardson, has some details of the Sanders family, and notes:
The widow of the Sanders who was killed at York married Dr Elrod
They hadseveraltwo daughters
One married William Lyons (My cousin JHR)
Links to the Canadian family would also explain how William came to marry Catherine Elrod in 1835. James Henry Richardson, who wrote the above note, was a boy of 12 when William and Catherine married, but James Henry's mother was the former Rebecca Dennis, half-sister of Elizabeth McLaney and therefore the bride's aunt; James Henry's father was James Richardson, brother of the Sarah Ann Richardson who married James Lyon and therefore the groom's uncle: James Henry Richardson was first cousin of both parties.
William's brother George Ashmore Lyon left his family in Ohio to make his fortune in California. His daughter Clara, in her diary, wrote:
"Brief" is an understatement: the only mention is that William and his entire family, other than two sons, died during the 1854 cholera epidemic. There are no details of the names of his wife and children, nor even the number of children he lost, nor what happened to the two sons afterwards.
I originally had few clues to the identity of William's wife, and she was recorded in my tree as an unknown who died of cholera in 1854. The marriage record helped somewhat, although her surname was wrong:
William's brother George Ashmore Lyon left his family in Ohio to make his fortune in California. His daughter Clara, in her diary, wrote:
My father was a "forty niner". He made money in the early days, but like many others, he did not realize that money would not always be so plenty and the last days of his life were spent in working hard to keep a home for his numerous family.His wife and children joined him in 1852, sailing via Panama, It is from this "numerous family" (well, there were twelve kids) that a Bible and family stories have been passed down, including a brief mention of William and his family in Ohio.
"Brief" is an understatement: the only mention is that William and his entire family, other than two sons, died during the 1854 cholera epidemic. There are no details of the names of his wife and children, nor even the number of children he lost, nor what happened to the two sons afterwards.
I originally had few clues to the identity of William's wife, and she was recorded in my tree as an unknown who died of cholera in 1854. The marriage record helped somewhat, although her surname was wrong:
William Lyons to Catherine E. Elliott, both of Murray 8 May 1835, in Murray, Rev. Shepherd, Wesleyan Methodist minister. Witnesses: Charles Biggar, and Patrick Bryant
[Patrick Bryant was the nephew of the half-brother of James Richardson, Richardson being the husband of Catherine's half-sister Rebecca: could this be more convoluted?]
Better proof came in a deed registered in Upper Canada in which Catherine described herself as:
...Catherine Elizabeth Lyon, wife of William Lyon of Cuyahoga Falls, county of Summit, and state of Ohio, Botanist, Doctor... and daughter of the late Elizabeth Saunders, of the township of Markham....
The deed was witnessed by George Ashmore Lyon, gentleman of Meadville, Pennsylvania, brother of William, and by Joseph Johnston, carpenter of Toronto, Catherine's cousin (son of Hannah Dennis, half-sister of Elizabeth McLaney). This deed, plus the note in the Richardson family papers, confirmed that William Lyon's wife, unnamed in the Lyon history, was indeed Catherine Elizabeth Elrod.
I've found various advertisements in the Cleveland Plain Dealer for Wm Lyon & Co., druggists, during the 1850s, but not any personal information like birth notices or obituaries. The Lyon family were living in Cleveland by 1850, but again Catherine's details are frustratingly obscure:
1850 US Census
Cleveland Ward 1, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, USA
National Archives of the United States Roll M432-672, Page 169B, Dwelling 1107, Family 1220
Enumeration Date: 7 August 1850
William LYONS, 35, Male, Engineer, Value of real estate owned $500, birthplace unknown
Mrs LYONS, 30, Female, birthplace unknown
Amelia LYONS, 9, Female, birthplace unknown, Attended school within the year
Amelia cannot be found in other records and her relationship to William and Mrs Lyons wasn't recorded on the census. I presume that she was a daughter, but I do not know what happened to her. If she were still alive in 1860, she would be around the age of 19 and might well be married. There were no other Lyon or Lyons living nearby, so no sign of the two sons who survived their parents.
There was a cholera outbreak in Cleveland in 1854, but it was nowhere near the scale of the 1832 epidemic (part of the Second Cholera Pandemic) which reached North America when an immigrant ship with Asiatic cholera aboard docked at Quebec and the disease spread up and down the St Lawrence River valley and Great Lakes region, claiming among its many victims John Dennis of York (Toronto), stepfather of Elizabeth McLaney. The 1832 Cleveland epidemic claimed fifty lives in the summer, and a further fourteen when it recurred unexpectedly that October, and led to the establishment of the Board of Health.
The 1854 outbreak may have been part of the Third Cholera Pandemic, which is probably best known for the Soho outbreak in London, which prompted the investigation into the causes and ultimately the identification of contaminated water as the carrier (and the development of the Victorian London sewerage system). Cholera also claimed 5.5% of the population of Chicago which, like Cleveland, was a port city on the Great Lakes, and almost certainly the disease was spread by ship between the two.
The Woodland Cemetery burial registers confirmed the details from the family history, showing the burials at Woodland Cemetery of:
- Sarah E. Lyon, aged 17, Prospect Avenue, of cholera, buried 28 July 1854
- Mrs S E Lyon, aged 40, Prospect Avenue, of cholera, buried 29 July 1854
- Martha Sanders, aged 19, Prospect Avenue, of cholera, buried 30 July 1854
- female Lyon, aged 4, Prospect Avenue, of whooping cough, buried 3 August 1854
- female Lyon, aged 2, Prospect Avenue, of whooping cough, buried 3 August 1854
- Mr Lyon, Prospect Avenue, of cholera, buried 6 August 1854
All were buried in the same plot. Martha Sanders was a further connection to the family back in Canada: she was Catherine's niece, daughter of Catherine's half-brother Joseph Mathias Sanders and his wife Charlotte Wilcox. She had been living with her parents in York County, Canada West, just two and a half years earlier when the 1851 census of Canada West was taken (in January 1852). Sarah E. Lyon was old enough to have appeared on the 1850 US census, but cannot be located: or was she the nine-year-old Amelia who was recorded and the age details (and her middle initial) incorrect? I would expect that, given the need to bury cholera victims quickly and the declining health of the rest of her family, the local coroner or the clerk recording the burial data would not engage in lengthy interviews to establish that all the details were completely accurate.
The Cleveland City Cemeteries Index (with scans of interment registers) also records an Edward Lyon of Prospect Street, a native of the USA who died of consumption aged 27 and was buried at Erie Cemetery on 21 June 1852. I don't know where, or if, he fits into the family tree.
Through the kindness of the Woodland Cemetery Foundation of Cleveland, Ohio, I have received photos of the Lyon grave, which confirms Catherine's name, and also gives the names of the two unnamed children from the burial registers: Anna and Fanny.
WM LYON, M.D.
CATHARINE LYON
Born in Upper Canada
---
SARAH
ANNA
FANNY
There is no monument to Martha Sanders, but I do wonder if the ground level has shifted since the stone was erected and her name is now just under the surface.
William died intestate and his executor was his brother Robert C. Lyon, also a druggist and dry goods merchant in Ohio (Waterford and later Claridon before retiring and moving to Colorado). Probate dragged on for years, with Robert repeatedly petitioning the State of Ohio for further time to finalise his brother's affairs and settle all outstanding debts, including the sale of a lot and two houses in Wellsville to repay the $700 William owed various parties. On 6 April 1860, a Joseph Pool, attorney for Mrs H. Lyon (whose identity I have not yet been able to establish), issued a citation against Robert to show cause why he had not filed a sales list of William's personal property, as was required by law. At this point the trail goes cold and I do not know what happened or how the estate was settled.
I'm left with a number of questions and hope that someone will find this and be able to connect it to their family, filling in these blanks as they do so:
- Who were the two sons who survived the summer of 1854 and what happened to them?
- What happened to Amelia? Was she the same person as Sarah E. Lyon?
- Who was the Mrs H. Lyon who took legal action against William's brother Robert?
- Is Martha Sanders' name further down on the monument?
- Was Edward Lyon a relative?
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