Thomas and Eliza
Headlee
Mrs. Eliza Jane Headley, a venerable widow lady of Walker Township, was a native of New York, being the sixth child in a family of eleven born to Steven and Lea (Terwilliger) Carney. Our subject emigrated to Pennsylvania when she was eight years of age, and settled in the eastern part of the State on a farm, and continued to live there until she was joined in wedlock to Thomas Headley, December 19, 1824, and continued on a farm in Pennsylvania for a few years, then emigrated with her husband and three children to the west and settled in Shelby County, where they lived about two years upon a farm; then they came and entered eighty acres in Rush County, in Section 27, and built a house, in the dense forest, of logs, having only one room. Mr. Headley hewed the logs and did all the carpenter work on it; they continued to live there until this happy family was broken by the death of the husband, leaving a wife and four children to mourn his loss, after which our subject continued to live on the homestead about five years, when she quit house-keeping and went to live with J. M. Haehl, where she now resides. To Mrs. Headley were born twelve children, of whom nine are deceased and three still survive. Susan, Stephen, Leah, Joshua, Nancy, Benjamin, Josephus, Thomas C. , and Lucy A., are deceased; Sarah, Milton, and Alpheus, still survive. Sarah was married to J. M. Haehl, August 27, 1854; Milton was married to Lucy Boering September 6, 1868; Alpheus married Matilda Shaffer, October 3, 1867. Mrs. Headley is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church; she is an elderly lady, and is highly respected by all.
History of Rush County, Chicago: Brant and Fuller, 1888.
Copied by Phyllis Miller Fleming
Biography Index
Main Page