Effie Blue

Daughter of John and his second wife, Flora McKay Currie Gilchrist, wife of John Blue.

"Effie Gilchrist, the tenth child of John Gilchrist and the only child of John Gilchrist and Flora Currie, was born June 21, 1796, and died December 5, 1866....Effie Gilchrist married John Blue II, who was born in NC...Effie Gilchrist is said to have been a very striking looking woman, with black hair and blue-grey Irish eyes.

She inherited good property, not only from her husband but also from her father. She was a strict teetotalist, training up her children never to taste intoxicants and her three sons adhered to her admonitions. When Sherman's army passed by, she demanded and received from that General protection for her home, but everything movable was carried off by the 'bummers'.

The Sunday after the army passed through, the community gathered at Centre Church to take stock of what was left. Mrs. Gilchrist was present with her two daughters, Mary and Margaret, having been conveyed thither in the family 'rockaway' drawn by an old blind mule, the only animal the bummers left upon her estate. Her descendants believed that the sorrow and destruction resulting from Sherman's advance north hastened her death by several years. She was buried in the Old Blue Cemetery just across the road from the house where she went as a bride."

- Pages 700/701 Lumber River Scots and their descendants, the McLeans, the Torreys, the Purcells, the McIntyres, the Gilchrists