Jeanette Manierre

John Manierre first married Jeanette’s younger sister Nancy Lee (born June 17, 1790), but after this young woman’s death on September 2, 1815, John married Jeanette. John’s second wedding, May 18, 1816, occurred eight months after his first wife’s death. John died in 1823, just six years following the birth of his first son, George Manierre I in 1817, and his second son Benjamin Franklin Manierre in 1822. Jeanette was only 23 at the time.

For several decades during the middle of the nineteenth century, New London was the second busiest whaling port after New Bedford, Massachusetts. The wealth that whaling brought into the city furnished the capital to fund much of the city's present architecture. Jeanette’s grandson, Charles E. Manierre remembered hearing that Jeanette “felt that there was no outlook for the boys unless they went into the whaling business as sea captains.” Consequently, in 1831, eight years after her husband’s death, Jeanette Lee Manierre moved with her two sons, George I and Benjamin Franklin Manierre from New London, CT, to New York City, where they lived on Division Street, near the Bowery.

Jeanette died December 9, 1846, at 56 years old, and was interred at Graceland Cemetery, Chicago. Her son George was by then a prominent citizen in that city.