Eliza Ann Richey

Eliza Horton married William Welch Richey [Jr.], of Manilus Township, La Salle County, February 21, 1843. William was born in 1815 in Ohio. “The first settlers in Marseilles, Illinois were William and his son William Welch Richey. They came in October 1829 in a ‘prairie schooner’ with a span of horses and an ox and a cow yoked together.” He was the only child of his father’s first wife, Esther Smith Lightfoot, who relocated to Illinois. William and his father were in the Black Hawk war. The elder William Richey died August 23, 1840 at Marseilles, La Salle County, IL.

William W. Richey was first married to Anna M. Thompson in 1837; she died in 1842. They had one child, Henry C. Eliza (Horton) Richey died in 1854, leaving one child, Alfred, who died in 1845. William Richey then married for a third time in December 1854 to Mrs. Sarah L. (Thompson) Olmstead, widow of George Olmstead, son of Coleman Olmstead. George Olmstead had died of cholera in 1849 in LaSalle County. George and Sarah Olmstead had five children: Emma Clarissa, b. 1838, died as an infant; Marian C. Olmstead, b. 1840 died in 1859; Benson Coleman Olmstead, b. 1842, died in 1925; Charles Byron, b. 1844; Franklin Olmstead, b. 1846, died as an infant. William and Sarah had three children; Cora A.; Amy Estella (who died April 27th, 1864) and William Fremont Richey. Sarah was the sister of William’s first wife, Anna Thompson, both ladies were from Norway. William and Sarah are located in Brookfield, IL during the 1880 census. Photo to the right is Sarah L. Thompson. William and Sarah Richey located to Guthrie County, Iowa in 1882. In Guthrie County, Mr. Richey owned a large farm of 250 acres in section 26, and 80 acres in Section 21. Sarah divorced William Welch Richey in 1886.