Surname List
Name Index
Sources
Email Us
William Arthur COLBY was born on 29 JUL 1943 in Los Angeles County, California. Parents: Don Ora COLBY and Jacque Delores THOMAS.
William Augustus COLBY was born on 29 JAN 1830 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine. (SOURCE: FHL Film 0012012; Records of births, v. 4-10, 1782-1892; index to births, 1712-1891 Portland (Maine). City Clerk.) He appeared in the census in 1850 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine. (living at home with father and mother) In 1870 he was a Steam Boat Captain in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine. He appeared in the census in 1870 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine.
Census Place: Portland, Cumberland, Maine
Source: FHL Film 1254479 National Archives Film T9-0479 Page 299C
Relation Sex Marr Race Age Birthplace
William H. COLBY Self M W W 49 ME
Occ: Steam Boat Captain Fa: SWE Mo: ME
George H. COLBY Son M S W 17 ME
Occ: Clerk In Grocery Fa: ME Mo: ME
Alvada E. COLBY Dau F S W 15 ME
Occ: At School Fa: ME Mo: ME
Sarah F. COLBY Dau F S W 10 ME
Occ: At School Fa: ME Mo: ME
Ellen REACH Other F W W 39 ME
Occ: Keeping House Fa: ME Mo: ME
============================================================
He filed marriage intentions on 23 DEC 1880 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine. (SOURCE: FHL Film: 9767; Index to vital records prior to 1892 for Maine.) He was living in 1885 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine. (SOURCE: Portland Maine City Directory, 1885. Street Directory.) Parents: Samuel COLBY and Elizabeth (COLBY).
Spouse: Sarah F. (COLBY). William Augustus COLBY and Sarah F. (COLBY) were married about 1859. Children were: Eliza Alvada COLBY, George Horace COLBY, Alonda Evadine COLBY, Hattie W. COLBY, Sarah F. COLBY.
Spouse: Eleanor M. ROACH. William Augustus COLBY and Eleanor M. ROACH were married on 1 JAN 1881 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine. (SOURCE: FHL Film: 9767; Index to vital records prior to 1892 for Maine.)
William Augustus
COLBY was born on 7 SEP 1851 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts.
He appeared in the census in 1860 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts.
(Living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census in 1870
in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. (living at home with father
and step-mother.) In 1880 he was a shoemaker in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts.
He appeared in the census in 1880 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts.
He appeared in the census in 1900 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts.
He died on 23 AUG 1942 at Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts.
He was buried in the Byfield Cemetery at Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts
Parents: William Thomas COLBY and
Salome HALE.Spouse: Lois Nellie TENNEY. William Augustus COLBY and Lois Nellie TENNEY were married on 30 NOV 1876 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910.) Children were: Ethel N. COLBY, William Edward COLBY.
William B. COLBY was born on 5 SEP 1823 in Weare, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. (calculate from age given on death record.) He appeared in the census on 24 AUG 1850 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census on 16 JUN 1860 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census on 6 JUN 1870 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census on 9 JUN 1880 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census on 6 JUN 1900 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He died on 22 MAR 1905 at Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910.) Parents: Levi COLBY and Sally ARCHILAS.
Spouse: Sarah Maria GOWEN. William B. COLBY and Sarah Maria GOWEN filed marriage intentions on 20 JAN 1844 in Saugus, Essex County, Massachusetts. They were married on 7 FEB 1844 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: Early Vital Records of Essex County, Massachusetts to 1850 for Lynn.) Children were: John E. COLBY, William B. COLBY Jr., Sarah Maria COLBY.
William B. COLBY Jr. was born on 6 FEB 1847 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census on 24 AUG 1850 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census on 16 JUN 1860 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census on 6 JUN 1870 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census on 9 JUN 1880 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He died on 30 DEC 1895 at Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910.) SOURCE: Early Vital Records of Essex County, Massachusetts to 1850. Lynn. Parents: William B. COLBY and Sarah Maria GOWEN.
Spouse: Lydia Maria
ALLEY. William B. COLBY Jr. and Lydia Maria ALLEY were married on 30 JUN
1868 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. Groom's Name: William,
Jr. Colby
Groom's Birth Date: 1847
Groom's Birthplace:
Groom's Age: 21
Bride's Name: Lydia M. Alley
Bride's Birth Date: 1851
Bride's Birthplace:
Bride's Age: 17
Marriage Date: 30 Jun 1868
Marriage Place: Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts
Groom's Father's Name: William
Groom's Mother's Name: Sarah M.
Bride's Father's Name: Edward A.
Bride's Mother's Name: Lydia M.
Groom's Race:
Groom's Marital Status:
Groom's Previous Wife's Name:
Bride's Race:
Bride's Marital Status:
Bride's Previous Husband's Name:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: I01013-2
System Origin: Massachusetts-EASy
Source Film Number: 1927902
Reference Number: pg 97 ln 108
Collection: Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910
Children were: Charles Y. COLBY,
Frank Lester COLBY, John Lyman COLBY.
William B. COLBY was born in 1863 in Gloucester, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census in JUN 1880 in Gloucester, Essex County, Massachusetts. (living at home with father and mother.) Parents: Samuel Veazy COLBY and Hannah Maria MARSTON.
William B. COLBY was born on 24 SEP 1906 in Chelsea, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. He died on 15 OCT 1906 at Chelsea, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910.) He was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery at Everett, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Parents: Horatio A. COLBY and Undivillia PHELPS.
William Bailey COLBY was born on 25 AUG 1913 in Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS; Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911 - 1915.) Parents: Ernest J. COLBY and Julia W. BASSETT.
William Barrett COLBY was born on 10 APR 1918 in Bronx, Bronx County, New York. He appeared in the census on 7 JAN 1920 in Bronx, Bronx County, New York. (living at home with father and mother.) He died on 18 NOV 1998 at Broward County, Florida.
Florida Death Index, 1877-1998 Record
Name: William Barrett Colby
Death Date: 18 Nov 1998
County of Death: Broward
State of Death: Florida
Age at Death: 80
Race: White
Birth Date: 10 Apr 1918
He had Social Security Number 070-14-3617.
Social Security Death Index Record
Name: William B. Colby
SSN: 070-14-3617
Last Residence: 34994 Stuart, Martin, Florida, United States of America
Born: 10 Apr 1918
Died: 20 Nov 1998
State (Year) SSN issued: New York (Before 1951 )
Parents: Barrett Coffin COLBY and Isabel ANDERSON.
William Bement COLBY was born on 23 SEP 1839 in Galien, Berrien County, Michigan. He appeared in the census on 3 JUN 1900 in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa. He died on 3 NOV 1906 at Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa. (SOURCE: Ancestry.com; Iowa Cemetery Records.) He was buried in the Woodland Cemetery at Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa Parents: Ebenezer D. COLBY and Percy BEMENT.
Spouse: Annie E. PORTER. William Bement COLBY and Annie E. PORTER were married on 17 NOV 1870 in Warren County, Iowa. (SOURCE: Ancestry.com; Iowa Marriages, 1851-1900.) Children were: Gilbert Farnum COLBY.
Spouse: Harriett (Harlow) NEWBURY. William Bement COLBY and Harriett (Harlow) NEWBURY were married on 28 JUN 1885 in Polk County, Iowa. (SOURCE: Ancestry.com; Iowa Marriages, 1851-1900.)
William Benton COLBY was born on 23 JAN 1833 in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada. He died on 24 FEB 1884. He was buried in the Crystal Lake Cemetery at Stanstead County, Quebec, Canada (BOOK SOURCE: "The Colby Family in Early America" by Frederick Lewis Weis, Caledonia, The Colonial Press, pub 1970.) Parents: Dr. Moses French COLBY and Lemira STRONG.
Spouse: Malvina A. WALLINGFORD. William Benton COLBY and Malvina A. WALLINGFORD were married about 1861 in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada. Children were: Mary French COLBY, Martha Stoddard COLBY.
William Byran
COLBY was born on 12 OCT 1854 in Pembroke, Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
He died on 21 APR 1855 at Pembroke, Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
He was buried in the Blossom Hill Cemetery at Concord, Merrimack County, New
Hampshire Parents: Timothy
COLBY and Sarah Towle KIMBALL.William C. COLBY was born on 8 OCT 1829 in Salisbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: Early Vital Records of Essex County, Massachusetts to 1850 for Salisbury.) He appeared in the census in 1850 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: 1850 Massachusetts Census. Newburyport, Essex County, page 259. Age 20.) In 1860 he was a carpenter in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census in 1860 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. He served in the military between 6 AUG 1862 and 3 OCT 1862 in Civil War.
Name: William C Colby ,
Residence: Newburyport, Massachusetts
Occupation: Carpenter
Enlistment Date: 06 August 1862
Distinguished Service: DISTINGUISHED SERVICE
Side Served: Union
State Served: Massachusetts
Unit Numbers: 939 939
Service Record: Enlisted as a Corporal on 06 August 1862 at the age of 34
Enlisted in Company B, 35th Infantry Regiment Massachusetts on 19 August 1862.
Wounded on 17 September 1862 at Antietam, MD
Died of wounds Company B, 35th Infantry Regiment Massachusetts on 03 October 1862
He died on 3 OCT 1862 at Civil War. He was a cordwainer. Parents: William COLBY and Sarah (COLBY).
Spouse: Olive EATON. William C. COLBY and Olive EATON were married on 30 JAN 1849 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: Early Vital Records of Essex County, Massachusetts to 1850 for Newburyport.) Children were: Infant Son COLBY, George Payne COLBY, William Edward COLBY, George A. COLBY, Lottie Knowles COLBY.
William C. COLBY was born in 1859 in New York. He appeared in the census on 18 JUL 1860 in Corning, Steuben County, New York. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census on 2 AUG 1870 in Haddonfield, Camden County, New Jersey. (living at home with father and step-mother.) He died in 1892 at Vineland, Cumberland County, New Jersey. Parents: Lt. Col. Newton T. COLBY and Mary CHASE.
William C. COLBY was born on 7 JUN 1868 in Warner, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. (SOURCES: (1) FHL Film 1003063, Congregational Parish Records for Warner, New Hampshire. (2) FHL Film 1000939; Index to births, early to 1900 New Hampshire. Registrar of Vital Statistics.) He appeared in the census in 1870 in Warner, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. (living at home with father and mother) He appeared in the census in 1880 in Warner, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. (living at home with father and mother) He appeared in the census in 1900 in Warner, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. In 1900 he was a farmer in Warner, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census in 1910 in Warner, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. Parents: Charles M. COLBY and Emmerline B. DAVIS.
Spouse: Clara Dell COLBY. William C. COLBY and Clara Dell COLBY were married on 16 SEP 1889 in Warner, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. (SOURCE: FHL Film 1003063, Congregational Parish Records for Warner, New Hampshire.) Children were: Winfred Alvah COLBY, Everett Curtis COLBY.
William Calvin COLBY was born on 1 MAY 1889 in Milan, De Kalb County, Illinois. He died on 21 DEC 1918 at France. Parents: Sherman Tecumseh COLBY and Lillie Mae HURST.
William Carey COLBY was born on 8 MAR 1816 in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts. He died on 23 JAN 1868 at Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910.) SOURCES: (1). "The Colby Family in Early America" by Frederick Lewis Weis, Caledonia, The Colonial Press, pub 1970; (2). Early Vital Records of Essex County, Massachusetts to 1850. Salem, birth & marriage. Parents: John B. COLBY and Sarah NICHOLS.
Spouse: Susan Sanderson ROBERTS. William Carey COLBY and Susan Sanderson ROBERTS were married on 18 MAY 1845 in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts. Children were: William Roberts COLBY, Jane Roberts COLBY.
William Carl
"Carl" COLBY was born on 9 AUG 1883 in Vermillion, Sevier County, Utah.
He appeared in the census in 1920 in Vermillion, Sevier County, Utah.
Census Place: Richfield, Sevier, Utah
Relation Sex Marr Race Age Birthplace
Carl COLBY Self M M W 36 UT
Occ: Farmer Fa: UT Mo: UT
Zelia COLBY Wife F M W 35 UT
Occ: Keeps House Fa: CA Mo: Den
Cleo COLBY Son M S W 4 UT
Fa: UT Mo: UT
Coy COLBY Son M S W 2 UT
Fa: UT Mo: UT
============================================================
He appeared in the census on 15 APR 1930 in Vermillion, Sevier County, Utah. He died on 25 NOV 1964 at Richfield, Sevier County, Utah. He was buried on 28 NOV 1964 in Richfield, Sevier County, Utah. Richfield City Cemetery. He has Ancestral File Number 3FK1-WJ. He had Social Security Number 529-03-7678.
Social Security Death Index Record
Name: Carl Colby
SSN: 529-03-7678
Last Residence: Utah
Born: 9 Aug 1883
Died: Nov 1964
State (Year) SSN issued: Utah (Before 1951 )
The cause of death was listed as Leukemia . Parents: Hyrum Alanson COLBY and Wilhelmina (Mina) COWLEY.
Spouse: Zelia JENNINGS. William Carl "Carl" COLBY and Zelia JENNINGS were married on 29 JUL 1903 in Richfield, Sevier County, Utah. Children were: Cleo W. COLBY, Coy Lebarth COLBY, Infant COLBY.
Spouse: Hannah GREEN. William Carl "Carl" COLBY and Hannah GREEN were married on 5 MAR 1947.
William Chelis COLBY was born on 5 FEB 1830 in Salisbury, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. In 1860 he was a Railroad contractor in Black Earth, Dane County, Wisconsin. He appeared in the census in 1860 in Black Earth, Dane County, Wisconsin. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin. He appeared in the census in 1900 in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin. He died on 17 FEB 1918 at Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin.
William Chelis Colby is now living retired in a beautiful home in South Madison after a career of more than ordinary usefulness, divided between the occupations of railroading and farming. He was born in the village of Salisbury, Merrimack county, N. H., on February 5, 1830, and is the only survivor of a family of three children born to William and Sophia (Mason) Colby, both of the parent being natives of Warner, N. H. Our subject attended the common schools of his native place and at the early age of sixteen years began life as a workman on railroads. He came to Wisconsin in 1854, and his first employment in the Badger state was in the construction work on the Milwaukee road from Prairie du Chien to Milwaukee, in which he continued for fifteen years, during last seven years of of which he had entire charge of the construction work. He was then employed as a conductor for about seven years, but because of failing health he quit the railroad business and purchased a farm in the town of Madison, the place known as the old VanBergen farm, and he resided thereon twenty-seven years, engaged in general farming and stock0growing. He then sold his farm and purchased other property from his wife's parents, also situated in the town of Madison, he resided there until 1902, when he sold out to the company that erected the Battle Creek Sanitarium on Lake Monona. Mr. Colby then purchased fifteen acres of land in Souther Madison, where he built a beautiful home in which he now resides. In his political views the subject of this review gives an unswerving allegiance to the time-honored principles of the Democratic party, and his personal worth and ability has been recognized by his fellow citizens in a substantial way. He has held the office of supervisor, representing the town of Madison on the county board of which hi is the present chairman, and has also filled the responsible position of assessor seven terms. Fraternally he holds membership in the Masonic lodge of the city of Madison. Mr. Colby was married on March 7, 1864, and the lady of his choice is Miss Hannah Lawrence, a native of London, England, where she was born, August 14, 1841. Her parents were Thomas Saffre and Charlotte (Scott) Lawrence, who migrated to America and were respected citizens of the town of Madison. They became the parents of twelve children, six of whom are living: John Thomas resided in the city of Madison; Hannah is the wife of the subject of this review; Thomas resides in Denver; Richard resides in New York; Charlotte married a Mr. Phillips and resides in San Francisco; and George resides in the city of Madison.
(BOOK SOURCE: "History of Dane County - Genealogical and Biographical." published in 1906 by the Western Historical Association, Madison, WI.)
Parents: William COLBY and Sophia FLANDERS.
Spouse: Hannah E. M. LAWRENCE. William Chelis COLBY and Hannah E. M. LAWRENCE were married on 7 MAR 1864 in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin. Children were: Jessie COLBY, George COLBY.
William Colgate COLBY was born on 28 JUN 1859 in New York City, New York County, New York. He died on 25 AUG 1936 at New London, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. (BOOK SOURCE: "The Colby Family in Early America" by Frederick Lewis Weis, Caledonia, The Colonial Press, pub 1970.) Parents: Robert Lane COLBY M.D. and Mary COLGATE.
William Currier COLBY was born on 27 JUN 1801 in Amesbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. SOURCES: (1) Early Vital Records of Essex County, Massachusetts to 1850. Amesbury; (2) "The Colby Family in Early America" by Frederick Lewis Weis, Caledonia, The Colonial Press, pub 1970. Parents: Capt. William COLBY and Mary CURRIER.
William D. COLBY was born on 29 MAY 1824 in Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census on 24 AUG 1850 in Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census on 19 JUL 1860 in Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census on 5 AUG 1870 in Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census on 10 JUN 1900 in Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. He died on 24 MAY 1901 at Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire.
Name: Willam D. Colby
Titles & Terms (Original):
Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Death Date (Original): 24 May 1901
Death Date (Standardized): 24 May 1901
Death Place: Springfield, , New Hampshire
Gender: Male
Race (Original):
Race (Standardized):
Age:
Estimated Birth Year:
Birthplace:
Marital Status:
Spouse: Mahala Sanborn
Spouse's Titles & Terms (Original):
Spouse's Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Father: Benjamin Colby
Father's Titles & Terms (Original):
Father's Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Father's Birthplace:
Mother: Polly Eastman
Mother's Titles & Terms (Original):
Mother's Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Mother's Birthplace:
Burial Place:
Burial Date:
Clerk's Locality:
Informant's Locality:
Film Number: 2078690
Digital Folder Number: 4242863
Image Number: 433
Reference Number:
Collection: New Hampshire Death Records, 1654-1947
He was buried on 26 MAY 1901 in the at East Grantham, Sullivan County, New Hampshire Parents: Benjamin COLBY and Polly EASTMAN.
Spouse: Mahala SANBORN. William D. COLBY and Mahala SANBORN were married on 6 MAR 1849 in New Hampshire. Children were: Adria M. COLBY, Harlen S. COLBY, Flora Nancy COLBY, Angie B. COLBY, George W. COLBY, Frank A. COLBY.
William D. COLBY was born on 15 FEB 1840 in Granby, Oswego County, New York. (SOURCE: Family Bible of Daniel Colby and Elizabeth Singer.) He appeared in the census in 1860 in Oswego, Oswego County, New York. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census in 1880 in Scriba, Oswego County, New York.
Census Place: Scriba, Oswego, New York
Source: FHL Film 1254915 National Archives Film T9-0915 Page 176B
Relation Sex Marr Race Age Birthplace
Wm. D. COLBY Self M M W 40 NY
Occ: Farmer Fa: NY Mo: NY
Victora L. COLBY Wife F M W 39 NY
Occ: Keeping House Fa: NY Mo: NY
Charels COLBY Son M S W 17 NY
Fa: NY Mo: NY
Eugenie COLBY Dau F S W 13 NY
Fa: NY Mo: NY
Willie D. COLBY Son M S W 1 NY
Fa: NY Mo: NY
========================================================
He died on 15 NOV 1895 at Oswego County, New York. (SOURCE: Family Bible of Daniel Colby and Elizabeth Singer.)
HANGED HIMSELF TO AN APPLE TREE
Brooklyn Eagle Nov. 15, 1905
Oswego, New York, November 15 -- William D. Colby, aged 55, hanged himself to an apple tree in North Scriba this morning. He had been a contractor to the state capitol many years and was well known in masonic circles of this state. He was despondent over the loss of his position and family afflictions.
Served in the Civil War from Oswego, New York, enlistment 27 August 1864, private, age 24. Parents: Daniel D. COLBY and Elizabeth SINGER.
Spouse: Vitoria L. MOTT. William D. COLBY and Vitoria L. MOTT were married on 1 JAN 1861 in Oswego County, New York. (SOURCE: Family Bible of Daniel Colby and Elizabeth Singer.) Children were: Charles COLBY, Eugenie COLBY, William D. COLBY.
William D. COLBY was born on 16 MAR 1855 in Oswego, Oswego County, New York. He appeared in the census in 1860 in Oswego, Oswego County, New York. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census in 1870 in Oswego, Oswego County, New York. (living at home with mother.) He appeared in the census on 11 JUN 1900 in Mt. Pleasant, Isabella County, Michigan. In 1900 he was a cabinet maker in Mt. Pleasant, Isabella County, Michigan. He died on 15 JUL 1936 at Mt. Pleasant, Isabella County, Michigan. He was buried in the Riverside Cemetery at Isabella County, Michigan Parents: John Valentine COLBY and Martha Jane STORRS.
Spouse: Irene BAKER. William D. COLBY and Irene BAKER were married on 28 DEC 1876 in Ivanhoe, Hastings, Ontario, Canada. Children were: William Allen COLBY, John Valentine Singer COLBY, Byard Calvin COLBY, Millie Adeline COLBY.
William D. COLBY was born on 19 JUN 1857 in Windham, Rockingham County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census on 21 JUN 1860 in Salem, Rockingham County, New Hampshire. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census on 5 AUG 1870 in Lawrence, Essex County, Massachusetts. (living at home with father and mother.) He died on 20 MAR 1914 at Haverhill, Essex County, Massachusetts.
Name: William D Colby
Death date: 20 Mar 1914
Death place: Haverhill,,Massachusetts
Gender: Male
Race or color (expanded): White
Age in years: 56
Estimated birth year:
Birthdate: 19 Jun 1857
Birthplace: Windham, New Hampshire
Marital status: Married
Spouse's name:
Father's name: William G Colby
Mother's name: Frances Dow
Film number: 2404248
Digital GS number: 4284195
Image number: 00524
Reference number: 506
Collection: Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841 - 1915
Parents: William Greenleaf COLBY and Frances Emeline DOW.
William D. COLBY was born on 4 AUG 1868 in Ontario, Canada. He appeared in the census in 1881 in Harwich, Kent County, Ontario, Canada. Parents: Jacob COLBY and Sarah Ann MCGLOUGHLON.
Spouse: Grace E. (COLBY). William D. COLBY and Grace E. (COLBY) were married about 1890. Children were: Beulah G. COLBY, William D. COLBY.
William D. COLBY was born in 1879 in Scriba, Oswego County, New York. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Scriba, Oswego County, New York. (living with father) Parents: William D. COLBY and Vitoria L. MOTT.
William D. COLBY was born on 18 MAY 1893. Parents: William D. COLBY and Grace E. (COLBY).
William D. COLBY was born in 1943 in Manchester, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. Parents: Charles W. Douglas "Doug" COLBY and Yvonne E. SHARKEY.
William Dale COLBY was born on 8 JAN 1927 in Beloit, Mitchell County, Kansas. Parents: Albert Warren COLBY and Nellie Dell LAWSON.
Spouse: Trudi (COLBY). William Dale COLBY and Trudi (COLBY) were married about 1950.
William Davis COLBY was born on 15 MAR 1741/42 in Haverhill, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: Early Vital Records of Essex County, Massachusetts to 1850 for Haverhill.) He was baptized on 21 MAR 1741/42 in Amesbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census in 1790 in Hopkinton, Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
males over 16: 2
males under 16: 5
females: 3
He died on 12 JAN 1812 at Hopkinton, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. Settled in Hopkinton, New Hampshire.
(BOOK SOURCES: (1) "The Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury Massachusetts" by David W. Hoyt; (2) "The Colby Family in Early America" by Frederick Lewis Weis, Caledonia, The Colonial Press, pub 1970; (3) "History of Sanbornton, New Hampshire" Vol II.-Genealogies, by Rev. M. T. Runnels, 1881.)
Parents: Isaac COLBY and Sarah DAVIS.
Spouse: Elizabeth STRAW. William Davis COLBY and Elizabeth STRAW were married before 1771 in Hopkinton, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. Children were: William COLBY, Mary COLBY, Benjamin COLBY, Jonathan COLBY, Isaac COLBY, Timothy COLBY, James COLBY, Betsey COLBY, Sally COLBY.
William Davis COLBY was born on 13 JUL 1803 in Springfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. (SOURCE: Index to births, early to 1900 New Hampshire. Registrar of Vital Statistics.) He appeared in the census in 1850 in Plainfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire.
Occupants listed at this residence:
Name Age/Sex Occupation Worth Birth School
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William D. Colby 47 M Farmer $1,500 NH
Sabrina 46 F NH
Ellen 12 F NH Y
Mary 9 F NH Y
Carlos 4 M NH
==================================================
He died on 21 DEC 1867 at Plainfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. Parents: Benjamin COLBY and Abigail EATON.
Spouse: Sabrina SMITH. William Davis COLBY and Sabrina SMITH were married about 1826. Children were: Ellen M. COLBY, Mary COLBY, Carlos Dyer COLBY.
William Davis COLBY was born on 23 APR 1820 in Hopkinton, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. (SOURCE: Index to births, early to 1900 New Hampshire. Registrar of Vital Statistics.) He appeared in the census in 1850 in Concord, Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
Occupants listed at this residence:
Name Age/Sex Occupation Worth Birth School
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William D. Colby 32 M Farmer $1000 NH
Abigail 28 F NH
Mary E. 3 F NH
Sarah A. 3/12 F NH
Margaretta Burbank 13 F NH
George H Bailey 22 M Shoemaker NH
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He appeared in the census on 15 JUN 1860 in Concord, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census on 6 JUL 1870 in Boscawen, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Boscawen, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. He died on 6 AUG 1887 at Boscawen, Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
Name: William D Colby
Titles & Terms (Original):
Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Death Date (Original): 06 Aug 1887
Death Date (Standardized): 06 Aug 1887
Death Place: Boscawen
Gender: Male
Race (Original): W
Race (Standardized): White
Age: 67
Estimated Birth Year: 1820
Birthplace: Hopkinton, , New Hampshire
Marital Status: Widowed
Spouse:
Spouse's Titles & Terms (Original):
Spouse's Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Father: Timothy Colby
Father's Titles & Terms (Original):
Father's Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Father's Birthplace:
Mother: Lydia Herrick
Mother's Titles & Terms (Original):
Mother's Titles & Terms (Standardized):
Mother's Birthplace:
Burial Place:
Burial Date:
Clerk's Locality: Boscawen, , New Hampshire
Informant's Locality:
Film Number: 1001068
Digital Folder Number: 4243491
Image Number: 00893
Reference Number:
Collection: New Hampshire Death Records, 1654-1947
He was buried in the Boscawen Plains Cemetery at Boscawen, Merrimack County, New Hampshire Parents: Timothy COLBY and Lydia HERRICK.
Spouse:
Abigail Palmer HOYT. William Davis
COLBY and Abigail Palmer HOYT were married on 2 SEP 1843 in New Hampshire.
SOURCE: FHL Number 1000976; COLBY, William D., Marriage: Abigail P. HOYT,
Date: 02 Sep 1843; Recorded in: Birth and Marriage Index for New
Hampshire. Children were: Mary E. COLBY,
Sarah Abigail COLBY, George D. COLBY, Arbella
COLBY.
William Davis
COLBY IV was born on 25 NOV 1838 in Geneseo, Henry County, Illinois.
He served in the military between 1862 and 1865 in Civil War.
Military service: bet. August 11, 1862 - May 25, 1865 U.S. Army, Civil War, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, 114th Regt. Captured by Confederate soldiers, June 12, 1864 near Memphis, Tenn. Imprisoned at Andersonville. Enlistment from Illinois 11 August 1862, private.
Andersonville Prisoner Profile
Code No: 64198
Grave No: NOT BURIED AT ANDERSONVILLE
Last Name: COLBY
First Name: WILLIAM D.
Rank: PRIVATE
Company: F
Regiment: 114
State: IL
Branch of Service: INFANTRY
Date of Death:
Cause of Death:
Remarks:
Reference*: ADG VOL VI 212
Place Captured: GUNTOWN, MISSISSIPPI
Date Captured: 6/10/1864
Alternate Names:
Status: SURVIVED ANDERSONVILLE
He appeared in the census in 1880 in Cornwall, Henry County, Illinois.
Census Place: Cornwall, Henry, Illinois
Source: FHL Film 1254213 National Archives Film T9-0213 Page 242D
Relation Sex Marr Race Age Birthplace
William COLBY Self M M W 41 IL
Occ: Farmer Fa: NH Mo: CT
Mary E. COLBY Wife F M W 39 IL
Occ: Keeping House Fa: SC Mo: KY
Alfred COLBY Son M S W 11 IL
Occ: Works On Farm Fa: IL Mo: IL
Lyddia COLBY Dau F S W 9 IL
Fa: IL Mo: IL
Alice COLBY Dau F S W 7 IL
Fa: IL Mo: IL
William COLBY Son M S W 2 IL
Fa: IL Mo: IL
Minerva DODDS SisterL F S W 62 KY
Fa: SC Mo: KY
====================================================
He appeared in the census in 1900 in Geneseo, Henry County, Illinois. He died on 27 FEB 1913 at Geneseo, Henry County, Illinois. He was a farmer. He has more notes. #1.
WILLIAM DAVIS COLBY IV
By Lydia Colby
William Davis Colby, the fourth generation of Colbys to bear the name William Davis, was born November 25, 1838, in the log house near Petersburg, Illinois, that his father, Jonathan, had built for his bride, Lydia Ingalls, and brought her to in April, 1837. On his father's side, he was descended from Anthony Colby of Roos Hall, Beccles, England, who came to Boston in 1630 and later became the founder of Amesbury, Massachusetts. Anthony's old house still stands in Amesbury and is occupied by one of his descendants. His great, great grandson, the first William Davis Colby, was a soldier in the last Indian War. For this service he received a land grant to Beech Hill, one mile from the village of Hopkinton, and five miles from Concord, New Hampshire. This old home, also, still stands, but has passed out of family hands and is now the summer home of a Professor of the University of Virginia.
On his mother's side the family " line of the subject of this sketch dates back to Edmund Ingalls, who came to Salem in 1628 with his brother, Francis. In 1629 the Ingalls brothers and their workmen started a tannery at what is now Lynn, Massachusetts, and so founded a town and the great shoe industry for which the place is still famous.
Like many another first born son, William received much of his mother's love and special attention. She early taught him to read and spell, and instilled into him principles of honor, integrity, diligence, and courtesy. He went to a country school for a time, then with his oldest sister, Mary, he attended Lee Center Academy, Lee County, Illinois, where the two children boarded with their uncle, Ephraim Ingalls. Later they were sent to nearer schools; first a Cumberland Presbyterian Academy at Virginia, Illinois, and then to North Sangamon Academy at Indian Point. These were all private schools that have disappeared with the coming of the tax supported high school.
While a little six year old boy; William went with his father one night to a nearby log school house, to hear Abraham Lincoln make a temperance speech. He was too small to remember what was said, but he never forgot seeing Mr. Lincoln unwind his tall figure from the low front bench where he sat. To the little boy it seemed as if that lengthy figure would never quit unwinding.
William united with the Clary's Grove Baptist Church with Eli Reep in 1860. Of this church, which was afterwards known as the Tallula Baptist Church, he remained a faithful member and supporter, as long as he lived, though he lived elsewhere and attended and supported other churches.
Helping on the home farm and teaching school two winters brings us up to the opening of the Civil War. William Colby enlisted first in the 106th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry. The 106th and the 114th Regiments had a joint picnic at Sweetwater, wanting to consolidate. While at this picnic, William secured a man named Duncan of Logan County to exchange regiments with him as he had many more friends in the 114th than in the 106th Regiment. So he was enrolled in Company F, 114th Regiment Volunteer Infantry, August 11, 1862. He was sent to Camp Butler near Springfield, Illinois, for training. He was there during the time of a mammoth picnic when friends and relatives fed the boys such quantities of rich food,. together with barrels of sweet cider that it was almost their undoing. A few more such picnics and there would have been few soldiers of the regiment left to fight the Rebels.
In a war diary kept by William Colby, we read:
"Nov. 6, 1863; Camp Cowan, Miss. Weather bright and clear, all well. Rob complains of diorreah. J. T. B. (Beekman) on picket. Had inspection of arms today with an eye to condemnation. No mail today. Received orders to move at six A. M. tomorrow., Destination Memphis. G. A. B. prepares rations. I find myself with a big knapsack, and two pair of pants. I hope never to be found again with extra pants to carry. Loaned G. A. B. $5.
Nov. 7, Sunday. On board boat Minnehaha. At Memphis at 3 :30 P. M. Struck: tents. Mixed my first bread. Arrived in V. B. 10 :45. On board at 12. Weather clear and pleasant. All well.
Nov. 8, Monday. On board the Westmoreland. Weather clear and cool. J. .T. B. has a chill. Left boat Minnehaha at 2 P. M. Shoved off from Vb. at dark; tied up and wooded opposite Milliken's Bend. Wind cool in the evening. Names of Co. F. (114) on board; Cap. A. Miller, Lieut's. J. I. Workman and O. M. Purviance. Sarg'ts. Smedley and Osborne. men; Beekman, Thrapp, Armstrong, T. Armstrong, Bergen, Burtran,.Bell, Geo. Bell, Bowhurt, John Campbell, Carreyers, Carmen, Clark, Carson, Combs, Candee, Fox, Gish, Gumm, Gumm., Hollings, Harrison, Huff, Huff, Irwin, Irwin, Kinner, Lang, Monroe, McDonald, Merrill, McNeal, Osborne, Perrin, Plunkett, Russel, Sanders, Scripter, Spears, Stevenson, S____(blurred), Wood, Watkins, Yokum, and (Colby of course). Geo. Bell is sick." (Here diary is blurred. It is written in pencil.)
"Nov. 11, Wednesday; On board Westmoreland. Weather clear and pleasant. Made a steady run. Took on wood eight miles below Holland. Passed Helena. At nine P. M. saw a deer swimming in the river. Many shots were fired at it, none more than slightly wounding it. Thomas Armstrong died in the night. He was on his way home on sick furlough. J. W. Bell died on the Pioneer.
Nov. 12, Thursday. In camp East of Memphis. Weather clear and pleasant. Went to see J. W. Kincaid. He went to the boat with me. Loaned Thomas Osborne $10."
(The record is blurred here and cannot be read but the writer knows that Co. F. 114th was stationed in Memphis all the winter of 1863 and 1864 on Prove duty. I visited Memphis with my father twice after 1902 and we hunted up the old slave warehouse where he had been quartered, and fed the squirrels in the park as he had fed them in war time. But the course of the Mississippi River had so changed that it was not at all natural to him.)
"Apr. 29, 1864. Memphis, Tenn. On duty patrolling. At dark recieved orders to be at Headquarters at five next morning.
Apr. 30. At Headquarters at 4 A. M. Raining hard, went to depot, took cars at 7 A. M. Camped at night at fort built by Companies A. and E. of the 14th Ill. Infantry.
Sun. May 1. Go to (blurred). Find bridge burned. Have preaching. A real good sermon by the Chaplin. Text Rev. 3 :2. Remained all night.
May 2, 1864. Up and crossed the pontoon bridge at 3 A. M. The bridge broke down. Lost five mules and a wagon loaded with ammunition and hard bread. Go on picket at 8 A. M. At 2 P. M. move across the North Fork of Wolf River. Again on picket. . Citizens here profess loyalty. North Fork Mills are running.
May 3. Started as rear guard at six. Marched 25 miles. Camped at eight P. M. eight miles from Bolivar. In the evening a 72nd thief shot a negro girl from whom he had stolen a ring, a watch and a silk dress. He was arrested by Col. King.
May 4. Up at 2 A. M. Start at 3. Boys complain of sore feet. There are many stragglers. Reach Bolivar at eight A. M. Found the bridge had been burned by the Rebels yesterday. Had breakfast at Bolivar.
May 5. Up at sunrise and start marching at 8:45. The day is warm. Hard marching. No halt for dinner. Camp at 9 P. M; Saw the first lightning bug.
May 6. Up at 3 A. M. Hard marching through poor, thinly settled country, covered with pines and chestnuts. Crossed the Mississippi line. Camp at sundown. The Colonels go to the General about the hard marching. This afternoon we marched 45 minutes and rested 15 minutes. Killed a beef.
May 7. Up at 3 A.M. Start at 5. One half in the rear of the Brigade. Hot water scarce. In one Regiment volunteer infantryman accidently wounds two comrades and a negro servant badly.
May 9. Up at 3 A. M.. Start to pass Harris' Brigade, composed of 11th Wis., 37th Ill, and 61st U. S. (colored). March rapidly and steadily. Good country. Saw a school. Halt at 11 A. M. for dinner. Rest an hour and a half, then march rapidly through good country to the R. R. Take cars at six P. M. I rode on the platform of the car to Memphis. Reached Memphis at 10:30 P. M. and camped on South Street. Rain came. I slept in the sutlers tent.
May 10. Rolled out at 6. Got eight letters. We recieved seven new recruits for Co. F. Ordered to move out on the Raghleigh Road at twelve." (The diary is blurred here, and not legible. If this article had been written during, Father's life time, as planned, he could have filled it in.)
Some bits from letters to his sister Mary who had been mother to her brothers and sisters since the death of their mother, September 3, 1858, give a fuller view into his soldier's life.
"Duck Port, La., April 5th, 1863; ---------------- We are some eight or ten miles above Vicksburg cutting a 'raging Canal' from the Mississippi River into a bayou on the West side of the river. After an interval of two hours, I am permitted to resume my writing. This is Sunday, but for all that, our Regiment is on fatigue digging canal. I dug day before yesterday and was sick all night and yesterday forenoon. I felt first rate this morning and fell in with the Co. to dig today but Cap. (Miller), came and told me I had better stay and get dinner for our mess as I was not very well. Every one is as kind to me as I could ask. When we left Memphis, Col. Judy took kind me into the state room with himself, told me if there was anything I could eat, he would get it for me. ---- I was passing his tent today. He was alone and invited me in and divided an orange with me that had been sent him while he was sick. (Nearly every one has had a sick spell.) He talked of home and his family which he is very much attached to -------- I expect we will take part in the Vicksburg fight when it comes off if the Rebels don't run and leave it.------"
From a letter written from Black River, Mississippi, August 8, 1863:
"Your kind letter of July 17th recd. --- I can assure you that your letters are read with great pleasure. There is no news of any great importance.. They are enlisting Regular Cavalry out of some regiments. They have not commenced with ours yet. Strong inducements are held out and many will enlist. $402 bounty is offered in enstallments. The time is three years or during the war. I think that the war is about played out. I shall not enlist. My health is not as good as it used to be. I have to be very careful what I eat. ---- I suppose they are conscripting or will be soon in Illinois. If Henry should be taken, I would rather he would come to us if he can. I am sure that we would be better contented than if in different regiments. By being together, we could care for each other if sick or wounded and avoid the suspense we would feel if either should be in battle. I am glad you prosper so well with your Aid Society. Our Hospital in February recieved a great deal of Sanitary goods and I hope. they are used judiciously.---- We live mighty poor at 'our house,' without one has a good appetite, then hard tack and 'sowbelly' eat pretty well and keep soul and body together if a ball does not come between. I think the danger of balls has about played out in the West. 'The report has just come that we are going to Helena in a few days."
"Sept. 19, 1863. Camp Sherman,' Oak Ridge, Miss.; ---- The prospect is that we will remain in or near Vicksburg this Winter. Co. A is and Co. E (114th) is to be mounted as soon as horses can be procured. This is to meet the Guerillas who are conscripting both white and black forty or fifty miles in our rear. I hope we will be permitted to come home before the hot weather of another year. The Rebs say that the war is near its end. – I sent $11 home by Bob Clarke. I need a watch and I wish Father would have mine cleaned, a good crystal put in and send it to me by Clarke."
There are no letters nor diary concerning the fall of Vicksburg nor the two battles of Jackson, Mississippi, in all three of which William Colby took part, but neither is there any record of the battle of Guntown where he was captured or of his eight and a half months prison experience.
A letter dated from Memphis, May 11th, 1864, reads in part:
‘We have been out on a ten days scout through Bolivar, south into Mississippi through Salem and back to Memphis. Saw no Rebs.. The Cavalry had a little fight with them at Bolivar. We are not on Provost duty now but on Picket line north of the city about two miles from our old quarters. Health is generally good. Charlie has the small pox and is in the hospital, doing well. Jimmie had the variloid on the Scout. He was not sick enough to ride but one day. He is able for duty and rations now, as well as ever. Henry Spears is able for duty again. I stood the march as well if not better than any of the other boys. John Beekman and George Bell both have the sore eyes, not very bad now. Bob Clarke did ' not go with us (on the Scout). He was not strong enough. He is well now and on duty in town at Gen. Bucklands residence.
We have a beautiful shady grove for our camp, but I fear we shall not get to stay here long. From all I can gather, we are going down the river soon to join the forces on Red River. If I was sure I would Keep well nothing would please me better than to take the field. In fact I could hardly be satisfied on post duty. I am not the light slim boy I to be.
Father has hit the nail on the head this time renting out his ground. Labor is so high and the Spring so backward. — Tom Cogdal is back. Saw him last night and bad a good talk with him. — I don't think soldiers are such lovely things – most of them I mean. Those who come into the army and resist its bad vices, and come home without doing a deed of which they need be ashamed, are men to be honored. There are many such, but after all only a small proportion. Poor John Chambers. I wish I could do something for him. It is harder to give one's life up by littles for one's Country than to lay it down at once. It is so dark I can see to write no more. I will write to Sarah and Bub (his brother Grosvenor) as soon as I can. Love to Father, Sisters, and Brothers, I am with Affn. Your 'Sojer' Brother W. D. Colby. Write."
These old letters have been found recently. On the envelope of this last one in his sister's handwriting is "Answered Hopkinton (N. H.) June 6, 1864." It is hardly probable that William got the answer for Sherman had ordered an expedition from Memphis to defeat Forrest's Cavalry, then in northern Mississippi. This was to protect his long line of communication and prevent Forrest's descent upon his line of advance. On June 1st a small but well organized force began its march from White's Station near Memphis. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis was placed in command. History says that Sturgis did not want to give battle and blamed him for great mismanagement. As a little girl I remember hearing my father tell of seeing Sturgis ride out from Confederate Headquarters and that Mrs. Sturgis was a Bureaugard. At any rate he was not in good repute among his men and was said to have been drunk the day of the battle, June 10, 1864. It was in the heart of more than one of his men to shoot him. (Does not this sound like the stories our soldiers brought back from the World War?) The shooting soldier would have lost his life but with another in command the outcome of the battle would have probably been different. But no one shot and his men felt that Sturgis had simply given them away in battle ---1,500 of them, many to a fate that was worse than death. The fighting began at five o'clock in the morning near some timber beyond Brice's Cross Road. Forrest's men were driven back but were not followed up, and by five in the afternoon they had reformed and were driving Sturgis' men toward Jackson. At Ripley a stand was made the 2nd morning but Forrest attacked on two sides and Sturgis' retreat resumed. Hard pressed, with no adequate leadership, the retreat became a disorganized rout. Soldiers threw away knapsacks and blankets and sought shelter-as-best-they could. It was every man for himself. Colby broke his gun in the hard ride and threw it away. Seeing a loose artillery horse at Ripley he captured and mounted it and started toward Memphis. He overtook a comrade, Bob Clarke, who had injured his knee and was having hard work getting along. Dismounting, Colby put Clarke on the horse and told him to ride as fast as he could toward Memphis. Clarke did and escaped but Colby had given away his chance. Going toward Memphis as fast as they could on foot, they were soon surrounded by Forrest's Mounted Infantry. With four others Colby sought shelter in a cave with some brush hiding it. Here the men disagreed as to the way to Memphis or they might have escaped under cover of darkness. But their morale was pretty much gone and they staid in their cave in the thicket until morning. Forrest's men discovered the place the morning of June 12 and ordered the men to surrender. The others went out and surrendered and all were about to move on when one of the Union Soldiers turned to look back to see why Colby was not coming. He was a small man and hoped to stay behind without being seen and later try to escape, but the Rebel saw the soldier turn for his comrade, rode back and called, "Come out of there you Yank." And so went Colby's second chance of escape.
Colby had purchased a very fine light rubber blanket, better than those issued to the soldiers by the Government. Being small he wrapped this around his body under his jacket. He had a good silver watch. The guard at Andersonville to which the prisoners were sent, ordered this watch
given up, but again his small stature served him well. He slipped around among the other prisoners and the guard could no longer pick him out. He also managed to hide the $1.30 change he had in his pockets. The Andersonville Stockade was built of 18 foot logs set six feet in the ground. There was a parapet over the wall where the guard walked. The place had been heavily timbered and if the timber had only been left it would have provided shelter from the burning sun and in winter fuel for the men. But Andersonville was meant to complete the slaughter not accomplished by Confederate bullets.
The rations at Andersonville at this time were one pint of raw cornmeal and a small piece of salt pork, about two inches square, per man per day. The citizens came with food to sell occasionally to any prisoners who had money to buy. One day a negro woman brought a dish of rice and beef boiled together. Colby and his mess bought it. Out of one of the beef ribs, Colby carved with his jack-knife, a two tined fork, that is today one of the valued possessions of his family. With the same knife and a piece of the stockade wood he made a darning needle, and ravelling out one of his extra gray wool socks, he kept the others in repair. This needle his Aunt Melissa Ingalls had the Libbey Glass Works seal in a small glass bottle blown around it. This is also in the possession of the family. Out of a piece of log, the men in his mess hollowed out a wooden bucket for themselves. Being in an open stockade and exposed to sun, rain, and cold, the five men in Colby's mess made themselves a shelter by stretching his rubber blanket as a tent awning over a place in the sand fixed for a bed by hollowing it out to fit their hip bones that day by day became sharper and more tender. A second blanket was their covering. These five men lay spoon fashion as close as they could lie; when one turned over, they all must turn. After a prisoner's hip got to aching past endurance, he gave the order to turn and all faced the other way. After it grew cold a fire was arranged with a piece of sheet iron that warmed the ground before the men turned in. This was the best bed that they could arrange, but it caused a paralysis of the nerves of one hip that Colby felt as long as he lived. Lewis Furgeson of the 106th Illinois, neighbor boy, was in Andersonville at the same time as William Colby. One day Colby went to him to patch up his, blanket from pieces that had been thrown away. When he came back to his own mess he found two of their men fighting and about to destroy all the shelter and comfort they had. "Get out if you want to fight," said Colby. Wilson of Tallula fought on, though the other man quit. Colby seized the. wooden bucket and struck Wilson over the head a blow he never forgot nor forgave. But their shelter was saved.
With all his brain power Colby planned to live, to keep as healthy and clean and whole as he could. Day by day he watched his hands grow thinner and thinner and the thought of food was always in their minds. Every day found many dead among them. The comrades gathered the dead near the gate of the stockade. Every morning the Confederates gathered up the dead into wagons, like cord wood and buried them in trenches.
His theory of the "Spring" in Andersonville is that when the stockade was enlarged and the old end taken out the sandy soil was loosened and the spring burst out. It was a miracle to the poor prisoners, who needed the clean water. American history records no page so brutally black as the story of Andersonville – Colby missed his chance of exchange at Andersonville when he was away from his mess helping a comrade.
After four and a half months at Andersonville, Colby was transferred to Savannah, Georgia; then to Millen, Georgia, where they had the worst provisions of all. Here the corn was ground cob and all, and it and a few cow peas occasionally constituted the ration. The cow peas were cooked in old tin cans. For fire wood to cook them they dug up timbers of the old stockade and shaved them up. Colby had the scurvey so bad here that his teeth all loosened. Back of the tent which the men had taken with them, they planted some of the peas, eating them as soon as they showed above the ground, to cure their scurvey. M. D. Goldsby, another neighbor boy, secured herbs to help and cared daily for his old friend. But for Goldby's help, Colby felt that he never would have lived to get out of prison. From Millen, the prisoners were sent back to Savannah, then to Florence, S. C., and to Goldsboro, N. C. All this later transferring was to escape Sherman's troops. Once all guards were removed, and had the men only known and stayed behind, Sherman would have overtaken. them. At Goldsboro they were exchanged and sent to Wilmington, N. C., by boat. Such a feeling as came over them when they joined their own troops and saw "Old Glory" above them, and their own Bluecoats doing their best to care for them, we cannot realize unless we, too have escaped from a Hades to a Heaven. The troopers tried to feed carefully stomachs unused to fit or enough food. Onions were among the first of the foods given. Any prisoner who failed to restrain himself and ate all he wanted, usually paid with his life for his selfgratification. Two things had made the Southern Prison Pens possible; first the great scarcity of food in the South where the Confederate troops were on short rations; second it was a land of overseers, and "Old Winder" was a Swiss who had his training on the plantations of the South.
He has more notes. #2.
Among the pitiful prison stories that I have heard my father tell in the last years of his life (He did not mention it for years, it was too bitter. But time mellowed that) is the following of a comrade in prison 'seized with despair' as the men called it. It was a complete state of physical and mental collapse that often came just before the end of life. It was the only case of the kind to get well. When all hope, all mentality and almost all manhood was gone, the men died. This poor boy, not out of his teens, was seized with ‘despair.' A terrible army dysentery had seized him, vomited as well. He could scarcely walk. The prisoners were being transferred, I think the last move before Wilmington and liberty. The men came to a little stream with a log across it for a footbridge. The poor boy cried like a baby and said he never could get across, "0 yes you can," said father, "I will help you." And putting the boy ahead of him on the log and holding him by the only part of his clothing that was fit to touch-the strap at the back of his trousers, he steadied and coaxed the boy across the stream. The support was purely mental but it was all that was needed. The boy got back to freedom and home and health and prosperity.
When the Grand Army of the Republic went to the Pacific coast for its National Encampment in 1912, Colby with three others of his Post attended. He had previously written the boy of the above story that he was coming and would like to meet him. They met and later, the boy, an old man now, entertained Colby in his palatial home on Mares Island opposite San Francisco. His son-in-law was a multi-millionaire and the parents were making their home in their latter days with him and their only daughter. When they were all sitting round visiting, Colby said: "Why didn't you answer my letters?" The one time boy's face quivered and he said, "I couldn't." The wife said that when the letter came he cried like a child. Every time he tried to answer it he cried, until he finally gave up trying to write. But he was on the spot to meet and welcome his old comrade who had helped him over the stream from death to life and there was nothing that he or his could do that was left undone in the entertainment of his old comrade.
From Wilmington, William Colby was paroled, Feb. 27, 1865, after eight and a half months in Southern prison pens, and sent to his home at Petersburg, Illinois. He was honorably discharged at Springfield May 25, 1865.
His term of enlistment was a little less than three years, but it added much to his actual age. He used to say that it shortened by ten years the life of any soldier who suffered any hardship at all. That no Government could pay its men for such service. The men would all volunteer again if their country needed them but just money could not pay for what those men gave. Because of this attitude he refused to apply for a pension until near the close of his life--just before old age granted it to them all.
After a year at home recuperating, Mr. Colby came to Henry County, Illinois to see some land with a view: to purchasing it. His father had helped George Rote buy some land in Cornwall Twp. of that County. A cousin, James Colby's widow and her family, were living at Wethersfield in the same county. Mrs. James Colby was always known to the Colby children as "Aunt Emily." In an old diary under date of Feb. 21, 1866, we read:
"Staid last night at Jo Polands. Geo. Rote came before breakfast and rode with us to Kewanee. At Mr. Scotts I saw Mr. Griswold, who informed us of the sale of the Widow Wilson's farm. Saw Mr. Norton at his picture gallery. He rents his farm, the Old Jack place to a Mr. Allard. He wishes to sell the 160 acres for $3,250. Cheap enough, I think. Sent a letter to Mr. Raynolds informing him of the condition of his land and forwarded the abstracts. ---- Walked out to Aunt Emily's. Met Laurette Colby and Miss Hortense Murry. (Two teachers in Wethersfield village school.)
"Feb. 22, 1866, Washington's Birthday. Came from Aunt Emily's to Kewanee at a quarter past seven, 15 minutes too late for the train. Went to a bookstore and bought Harper's Magazine and this diary in which I desire to keep a strict account of my daily life. Adding a thought for the conclusion which I may arrive. This, I think will be pleasant for retrospection and profitable as a record of experiences. May I always have God and the right for my motto.
"I spent a miserable day, having a chill at The Kewanee House. Could scarcely eat a thing. Drank a cup of poor, hot tea which made me feel much better. One year ago I was a Federal Prisoner of War at Wilmington. Thank God, if I am sick, I am better off than I was a year ago. He surely has shown me great mercy and delivered me from the Power of my Country's Enemy, may He at last deliver me from all the Powers of Darkness.---Stopped at The Adams House, Camp Point, for the night ----------."
The diary continues and he finally secures the land from Mr. Raynolds, paying $2,000 for it. It was unimproved and lay partly in Annawan and partly in Cornwall townships. Fall found him at work on his new land, with a team, 'Jim and Tom,' that he had broken in the spring at his father's, and driven overland to his new home. 'Wes' Nichols worked for him and they kept 'batch' together in a little one room house.
In May, 1867, William Colby went to Atkinson on business. There he met the Nowers men, John F. And Thomas, Sr., and Thomas, Jr. John F and Thomas, Jr had succeeded their father in the general mercantile business, which included lumber as well as dry goods and groceries. Mr. Colby brought with him $800, which he asked to deposit with the store. In part, it was to pay for the lumber and supplies he was needing for his new home; in part, it was to be a deposit to be drawn from as a checking account might, there being no banks nearer than Kewanee or Geneseo. If he needed more money than the Nowers Brothers were apt to have on hand, Colby to give notice beforehand. This was the beginning of a life long friendship between the three men. The Nowers Brothers established a private bank April 6, 1881, and did a banking business for the public. In all the 46 years that they did business together, until the death of Mr. Colby, their friendship increased as the years passed. ‘Sometimes they put over some large transactions,' said John F. Nowers, who told me this story, 'but if ever there was an unkind thought in the minds of anyone of the three, no one ever knew it.'
In this age (1927), we pay our taxes at our banks with a check. This is the diary record of May 14, 1867. "Went to Atkinson. Drew $40 from Nowers. Went to Cambridge. Pd. Father's taxes $11.26. My own, $27.14. Then went to Aunt Emily's at Wethersfield, a ride of 401/2 miles". (Taxes were less in those days. Also horses could cover ground as well as automobiles.)
In January, 1868, Mr. Colby returned to his home in Petersburg where on January 16, he was married to Mary Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Rev. Gilbert and Mary Clinton Dodds. He brought his bride to his tiny home in Henry County, and took up the task of making it a real home. Five children the other children all grew to maturity.
With economy the family prospered and in 1877 Mr. Colby purchased and moved his family to the Foster Benedict farm in Cornwall Township, where they had the advantage of having the school house on one comer of the farm and the Calvary Presbyterian church on the other, the house being eighty rods from each. Old dog "Smith", a big Newfoundland, daily took the children to and from school. In those days there was always a good maid in the family. She, too, was fond of "Old Smith" and felt very safe with him on guard.
In 1881 the Dakota land boom broke loose in Illinois. Having an offer of $11,000 for his first home, Mr. Colby sold it and with the Cash in his pocket went to Grand Forks County, N. Dak., on the Red River, to invest it. He bought land poor. A half section against the Village of Reynolds, an 800 acre tract at Manvel, and another large one in Minnesota, across the river, and some holdings in the town of Grand Forks ate up more than his ready cash. As in all booms the bottom dropped out soon, and holding on was not easy. But he held on and one by one sold his holdings without loss at last, and without souring his sunny disposition. But he saw much of human nature in the raw; an absentee landlord had to have eyes in the back of his head and be able to read between the lines of his agent's communications.
In 1885 he sold the Benedict farm and bought a larger tract from Dr. Nichols. This was also in Cornwall. Taking a fresh grip on life, he built up a second fortune and out of a rather poor farm built a good one. He put up new and modern buildings, meaning to make it a permanent home. The children's Academy teacher, Rev. Norbury Thornton, called it Colby Place, and the name stuck ever after. Colby Place has been a gathering place for good times in the community for thirty-five years for the spirit of hospitality has passed on to the next generation with the property. It was a far cry from its spacious rooms to the tiny twelve foot square home of their beginning where three visiting ladies had to be asked to sit on the bed that their hoops might collapse and the new homemaker get about the room to prepare supper. They rode in a lumber wagon in those days, but so did their neighbors, and they had good times and many friends. It was a friendly world and all were young. There was nearly always a maid in the home for the father thought that if the mother did not overwork when her children were small, she had a chance for a healthy, strong old age. And it proved even so. Some of those maids were a very real part of the family, whom the children obeyed and cared for always.
Mr. Colby kept abreast of the times. Hearing of a rural telephone system in the South part of the county, he began to consider it. His son Will, Jr., being sick one night, a hired man had to be routed out of bed to ride to Atkinson for Dr. W. W. Adams. When the patient was relieved the Doctor and Mr. Colby talked telephone systems in earnest. The result was that with much riding and much talking by these two men they sold the idea to their neighbors, and the Henry County Telephone Company was established with headquarters in Atkinson and wires reaching to Kewanee, Cambridge, and Geneseo. The originators were a bit out of pocket and Colby had some broken ribs from a runaway caused by a vicious dog's jumping at his team on one of his promotional trips. Mrs. Colby and Mrs. Arthur Dickey had to play switchmen until the line was really completed. It was not always easy to arise from scrubbing a floor or mixing a batch of bread to connect for a neighbor anxious to talk. But the women were glad to contribute this bit of unrequited labor for the sake of the ultimate good of the county. The mutual free toll service agreed upon with other telephone lines in the county was part of the Colby-Adams idea of a public utility as a public servant.
In 1901 when Rural Free Mail delivery was beginning to be talked of as a National measure, Mr. Colby got Congressman Prince to take the matter up in Washington and with the help of his neighbors had Route 1, Atkinson established as a trial route. The Government inspector rode over the route in the best carriage behind the best team in the neighborhood. They all brought up for a good dinner with Mrs. Colby, who always did her bit for a good cause. The route as they planned it was accepted and stands today as it was laid out by its local promoters in 1901.
Mud Creek, a tributary of Green river, and rising over near Kewanee in the south part of Henry County wound its slow tortuous way through the back of Mr. Colby's farm. He had been straightening and deepening its channel ever since the purchase of Colby Place but with the creek in bad condition below him, his own lone efforts did but little good. The creek overflowed and backed back on him yearly. He became convinced that while a drainage district has its drawbacks, it was the only way to handle the situation. In 1907 he called the land owners interested in straightening the creek, together to see what could be done. This is the record of that meeting found in his notebook of that year. "July 12, 1907. Preliminary Council of owners for Mud Creek Drainage District met at Ernest Henry's to organize. Present: Jerome Black, William Couve, and W. D. Colby. Jerome Black was chosen President and W. D. Colby, Secretary. Mr. Black was appointed to hire an engineer and helpers to survey the ditch. Went to view Lehman ditch. Adjourned."
There follows a description of the lands benefited by the proposed ditch. The Colby family had by this time moved to Geneseo for a home (they moved in 1902) and the youngest son lived in the old home. Geneseo is fifteen miles away from Mud Creek. It was before automobiles were common, so it was a long ride to be taken many times before the ditch was a completed thing. Mr. Colby stayed by until all legal formalities had been arranged for, with Henry Waterman as Attorney and Edson Reeves as Engineer. When the work was really underway, he resigned and left those on the field to finish the task. Of the three original promoters, only Mr. Black is alive. His time is largely spent outside of the County. Others have taken over the management of the Drainage District and done considerable work at the mouth of the creek, where the land owners refused to join the District in 1907. Much land has been reclaimed at considerable expense.
Coming down from his English ancestors, Mr. Colby inherited a good deal of sentiment for land holdings. He often said that no person had a right to a farm, who did not leave it better than he found it ---a theory supported by our Agricultural schools of today. A successful farm means much hard work for its owner but to the right living individual, it offers a living, a place in which to develop friendships and character, and a safe place in which to bring up children. Mr. Colby had a real fondness and aptitude for law. Had his mother lived, he would probably have followed that profession. He dignified the one he did follow. He never had any political aspirations for himself. He was too busy with his business afford the time. He did serve as Supervisor for his Township for a term or two, and as School Treasurer for the township for twenty or twenty-five years---until the family moved to Oeneseo in 1902.
While in Geneseo, he was one of a half dozen or more men who put up $100 apiece to enforce such temperance laws as we then had. He came hurrying home from Hammond, Louisiana, one April to vote on local option, but the high license party outvoted him. He prophesied then that those same leaders of high license would ride on the water wagon when it became popular and they have.
Mrs. Colby was born in Sangamon County, November 2, 1840. Her father, Rev. Gilbert Dodds, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, had been one of the early settlers of that county, coming from Caldwell County, Kentucky, to Sangamon in 1824. His brother Joseph Dodds was one of the first permanent settlers of Sangamon County, he having come with his father-in-law, William Drennan, and two other families in March, 1818. April 25, 1825, William Drennan and wife, Joseph Dodds and wife, Gilbert Dodds and wife, and James and Ann Wallace organized the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Sugar Creek, Sangamon County, with Rev. James M. Berry as their first pastor. The next year, 1826, Gilbert Dodds was formally ordained as a C. P. 'Minister of the Gospel'.
Mary Elizabeth Dodds grew up in an old-fashioned Christian home that always had family worship. Keeping pace with the times they sang at their worship the good old standard hymns of the church as well as the Psalms on which their elders had been brought up. The Kentucky uncles still clung to the old custom of singing of Psalms. One morning at family worship, a visiting uncle was asked to lead in prayer after the singing of a hymn. The good man, to whom the hymn singing had been a sacrilege, replied, "You may pray to your lilts yourself." The uncle did lead in prayer one morning later, and blew out the lights as he knelt facing the wall. Two visiting grandsons were highly entertained by the performance. One of them crawled clear across the room to kick his brother to make sure that he was taking in all that was going on.
The Reverend Gilbert Dodds family was a large one. There were seven boys and five girls, as full of irrepressible fun as ministers' children usually are. Those were the days of red flannel, homespun, and no overshoes. The days of fireplaces, and singing schools in the log school house, and horseback riding. Bettie Dodds' playmates were her brothers and some nephews who were almost as old as herself. She climbed trees with them and rode horses that they blindfolded for her to mount. As she grew older she had her own saddle horse.
The Dodds were a singing family. In the home in Rock Creek, Menard County, where the family moved in 1847, they took part in the neighborhood sings. Campbell led a singing school in the school house and taught his sisters to sing by note, "do, re, mi," etc., out of the old Carmina Sacra. In early war time the singing Dodds formed a quartette that sang the Civil War songs all over the country. Bettie had a beautiful lilting soprano voice, Campbell a fine baritone, Alfred sang a good tenor and Margaret sang the alto. Bettie was the first one in the neighborhood to sing "Just Before the Battle, Mother," one of the, then, new songs. The song had a very real grip on families where sons were daily leaving home, volunteering for service in the Union Army. In her own family three brothers volunteered, Campbell and Ira and Alfred. The latter had just graduated from medical school, entered as a private but was an acting surgeon all during the war. At Champion Hill he had a tent for a hospital. Amputated arms and legs were piled in a small stack outside the tent before the doctors were through. The doctors literally waded in blood. Bettie's nephews, who had been her playmates, Billie (James W.) Dodds and George Drennan, went from Sangamon County. Billie fell leading his company in battle at Tupelo, Mississippi. Out in Kansas her older brother, Francis Newton Dodds, a man forty years old and with a family, was in a Kansas regiment helping suppress a slave holders' rebellion. Bettie's neighbor boys were nearly all in the war. Her father, an old man now, tried to run the home farm. Bettie helped him to pick apples and milk and do such things as she could do to help win the war. Her Kentucky cousins were fighting on the "other side" for a "lost cause." One of them, Finis Ewing Dodds, in Forrest's Mounted Infantry, was wounded at the Battle of Guntown, where her future husband was captured. The brothers, Alfred and Campbell and Ira, all came home sick and were to be cared for. It was a very real war to Bettie Dodds.
She taught school for two terms after it was over and then married William Colby, who had seen so much of the hardships of war. When the Spanish War was on, he oldest son, Alfred, wanted to go with the Company he was drilling at Bolckow, Missouri. She and her husband said, "No, not until the need is greater. Your wife and children need you at home." Out of her past experience, Bettie Dodds Colby said, "The whole of the Spanish possessions are not worth one American soldier, if that soldier is your boy. I have lived through one war. I had hoped never to see another one."
From being a carefree; happy girl, who rode and sang and went places with her brothers, for there was always something doing where the Dodds boys were, to being a wife and mother on a new farm in Henry County was a great change. But she fitted into the new niche. She was a good wife and mother, a thoroughgoing housekeeper, and true to the traditions of her family, a hospitable hostess. She never grew old but played and kept young with her children to whom as babies she sung instead of telling stories. Their childish requests were "Sing about Old Uncle Ned or the Oak Tree, or the little child that was burned (a neighborhood incident)' instead of asking their parents "To tell about" the story they wanted.
One of the family sayings was "That a man's wife either makes or breaks him." In a very real sense Bettie Colby made her husband develop the finer side of his character. She died of angina pectoris at their home in Geneseo, May 19, 1907. She was but sixty-six years old, the age that her own mother had been when she was taken. After thirty-five years of happy married life her husband's life was broken. He was no longer content in his Geneseo home and asked his daughter housekeeper if she would go back to the farm with him. They returned in 1908 and Mr. Colby took up his old life with seeming contentment. Three years later, the death of his youngest brother, Grosvenor, came as the first break in the circle of brothers and sisters. Ties of blood were strong in him. Every year since his coming to Henry County, he had visited his old home in Menard County and kept those ties alive. He felt keenly the loss of his brother . It strengthened the tie between him and his brother Henry.
On a small farm that he owned near Atkinson, Mr. Colby had put a promising, ambitious young man, hoping to give him a start in life. The young man delivered mail most of the day, and with a hired man and his wife's help, he tried to carry on the farm. It proved too much of a load, so he offered his farm implements, stock, etc., for sale and quit farming. Mr. Colby went to the sale with his son, Will, Jr. Returning, the horse became frightened, overturned the light runabout, and ran away. Mr. Colby received injuries from which he died in the Hammond Hospital in Geneseo, February 27, 1913. His going was a great lose to his family and community. Upright, honest to a penny, generous to a fault, a great reader as well as a student of .human nature, stern to stand for the right as he saw it, he was one of the outstanding men of Henry County for forty-seven years.
Of his children, that he counted over as women count their jewels, Alfred Ingalls, married Eva Blanche Vail and was a farmer at Bolckow, Missouri. He died in 1899. He left two children, Mary Ruth Colby, who is now Secretary of The Children's Bureau of the State Board of Control of Minnesota, with an office in the state house and a corps of half a dozen helpers, and William Davis VI., an employee of the Washburn Crosby Co., Minneapolis. He is married and has a son, William Davis Colby VII.
Lydia, was a critic teacher in The Northern Illinois Normal School at DeKalb, Ill., until ill health stopped her career. She never married.
Alice Dodds, married William George Ramsay, D.D., a Congregational minister at Ottumwa, Iowa. He is the son of an Irish landlord and was born at Claggan House, Cookstown, Ireland. They have no children.
Mary, died in infancy.
William Davis V. married Fannie Jane Vail and lives at Colby Place. They have three children, Alfred Vail, William George, and Lydia Elizabeth. Mrs. Fannie J. Colby died July 17, 1925, after having kept the 'open house' traditions of Colby Place and being a vital part of her community for twenty-four years.
Much of the inforination in this sketch has come from my Father's diaries and old letters to his sister, Mary. His brother Henry gave me some facts and reviewed this article in July, 1926.
L. COLBY.
(BOOK SOURCE: "The Colby Family in Early America" by Frederick Lewis Weis, Caledonia, The Colonial Press, pub 1970.) Parents: Jonathan N. COLBY and Lydia INGALLS.
Spouse: Mary Elizabeth DODDS. William Davis COLBY IV and Mary Elizabeth DODDS were married on 16 JAN 1868 in Petersburg, Menard County, Illinois. (SOURCE: Illinois Statewide Marriage Index 1763 - 1900.) Children were: Alfred Ingalls COLBY, Lydia L. COLBY, Alice Dodds COLBY, Mary COLBY, William Davis COLBY V.
William Davis COLBY V was born on 28 MAR 1878 in Cornwall, Henry County, Illinois. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Cornwall, Henry County, Illinois. (living with father) He appeared in the census in 1900 in Geneseo, Henry County, Illinois. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census in 1910 in Cornwall, Henry County, Illinois. He appeared in the census on 6 JAN 1920 in Cornwall, Henry County, Illinois. He appeared in the census on 24 APR 1930 in Cornwall, Henry County, Illinois. He died on 6 APR 1955. SOURCE: FHL Number 1435939, Ricorded in Henry County, Illinois. Parents: William Davis COLBY IV and Mary Elizabeth DODDS.
Spouse: Fannie Jane VAIL. William Davis COLBY V and Fannie Jane VAIL were married on 25 DEC 1901. Children were: Alfred Vail COLBY, William George COLBY, Lydia Elizabeth COLBY.
William Davis COLBY VI was born on 28 JAN 1898 in Missouri. He died on 29 AUG 1966 at Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota. (SOURCE: Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002.) He had Social Security Number 349-20-5783 . Parents: Alfred Ingalls COLBY and Eva Blanche VAIL.
Spouse: Marion REEDER. William Davis COLBY VI and Marion REEDER were married about 1922. They were divorced about 1929 in Minnesota. Children were: William Davis COLBY VII, Richard Reeder COLBY.
William Davis COLBY VII was born on 21 JUL 1922 in Minnesota. He appeared in the census in 1930 in Pipestone, Pipestone County, Minnesota. (livng at home with mother.) Parents: William Davis COLBY VI and Marion REEDER.
William Dennis COLBY was born on 30 JUL 1861 in Illinois. He appeared in the census on 15 JUL 1870 in Morris, Carroll County, Missouri. (living at home with father and mother.) He appeared in the census on 7 JUN 1880 in Norborne, Carroll County, Missouri. (living at home with father and mother. Listed as Dennis.) He appeared in the census on 15 JUN 1900 in Chillicothe, Livingston County, Missouri. Parents: George S. COLBY and Chiney SHARP.
Spouse: Mary Ella TRAUGHBER. William Dennis COLBY and Mary Ella TRAUGHBER were married on 22 MAR 1885 in Carrollton, Carroll County, Missouri. Children were: Buford M. COLBY, Marcus G. COLBY.
William E. COLBY was born on 16 MAR 1859 in Topsham, Sagadahoc County, Maine. (SOURCE: FHL Film 0928294; Vital records of Topsham, Maine, to the year 1892 .) Parents: Ebenezer George COLBY and Mary Ann GAGE.
William E. COLBY was born on 13 JUN 1890. He died on 4 APR 1894 at Lowell, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910.) Parents: Horace G. COLBY and Elizabeth DEGNAN.
William E. COLBY was born on 18 MAY 1896 in Woodhull, Shiawassee County, Michigan.
Name: Wm E. Colby
Birthdate: 18 May 1896
Birthplace: Woodhull Twp., Shiawassee, Michigan
Gender: Male
Race or color (on document):
Father's name: Wm L. Colby
Father's birthplace: Michigan
Father's age:
Mother's name: Leila Colby
Mother's birthplace: Michigan
Mother's age:
Christening date:
Christening place:
Additional relatives:
Death date:
Age at death:
Film number: 2322710
Digital GS number: 4206436
Image number: 1273
Frame number:
Reference number: item 2 p 211 rn 5617
Collection: Michigan Births 1867-1902
Parents: William L. COLBY and Leila A. (Morrice) FOOTE.
William E. COLBY was born in 1918 in Manchester, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census in 1920 in Manchester, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. (living at home with father and mother.) Parents: Arthur Sherman COLBY and Eva May BENNETT.
William Edger COLBY was born on 17 JAN 1894 in Sigurd, Sevier County, Utah. He died on 17 NOV 1918. He has Ancestral File Number 508G-74. Parents: Abraham Thomas COLBY and Juliette MINCHEY.
William Edward COLBY was born on 22 JUN 1851 in Columbia, Coos County, New Hampshire. He appeared in the census on 13 JUN 1860 in Colebrook, Coos County, New Hampshire. (living with James H Young and Olive.) He appeared in the census in 1900 in Berlin, Washington County, Vermont. (BOOK SOURCE: "The Averell-Averill-Avery family : a record of the descendants of William and Abigail Averell of Ipswich, Mass." Clara Arlette Avery, United States: unknown, 190-?, 1135 pgs.) Parents: Hezekiah COLBY and Lydia PORTER.
Spouse: Alice Waterman AVERILL. William Edward COLBY and Alice Waterman AVERILL were married on 25 DEC 1872 in Elmore, Lamoille County, Vermont. Children were: Candace Parker COLBY, Averill Clayton COLBY, Norman Camp COLBY, Lodema Alice COLBY, Roy Angus COLBY.
William Edward COLBY was born on 5 SEP 1856 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census in 1860 in Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. (living at home with father and mother) He died on 25 APR 1862 at Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910. Parents: William C. COLBY and Olive EATON.
William Edward
COLBY was born on 28 MAY 1875 in Benicia, Solano County, California.
He appeared in the census in 1880 in Chico, Butte County, California.
(living with father) He appeared in the census in 1900 in Berkeley, Alameda
County, California. He appeared in the census on 16 APR 1910 in Berkeley,
Alameda County, California. In 1910 he was a lawyer in Berkeley,
Alameda County, California. He appeared in the census on 8 JAN 1920
in Berkeley, Alameda County, California. In 1920 he was a lawyer
in Berkeley, Alameda County, California. He died on 9 NOV 1964 at
Big Sur, Monterey County, California. He had Social Security Number
550-46-6008 .
Social Security Death Index Record
Name: William Colby
SSN: 550-46-6008
Last Residence:
Born: 28 May 1875
Died: Nov 1964
State (Year) SSN issued: California (1951 )
"Colby's devoted service to the Sierra Club was unique and extended over more than sixty years. His father, Gilbert Colby, arrived in San Francisco on September 1, 1849, and his mother, Caroline (Smith) came to California a few years later. They were married in December 1866, and William, one of five children, was born on May 28, 1875 in Benecia. The death of both his mother and father left him an orphan at the age of six. A legal-minded aunt saw to his education, and Colby, who had once expressed a wish to be a naturalist like Muir, took an early interest in the law. He eventually entered the University of California where, after two years of study, financial problems forced him to drop out of school to teach in an Oakland preparatory school. The ambitious Colby was not to be denied his goal, however; he made two round-trips daily across the Bay, one to attend an early-morning class at Hastings Law School, and then another Bay crossing in the afternoon to attend more classes at Hastings. Under this strict routine, Colby managed to graduate with the class of '98. Fatigued with the grueling efforts of acquiring his law degree, Colby was more than ready for a change of scenery when the Sierra Club offered him the post of Club representative in Yosemite Valley the summer following his graduation.
"Undoubtedly Colby's enthusiasm for the mountains and the many Club friends he had made on this first trip into the Sierra won this appointment for him. Four years previously, between his freshman and sophomore years at the University of California, Colby has been introduced to Muir's 'Range of Light' accompanied by two fellow students whom he had met while working on the staff of the Occident, then a weekly student literary publication.
Will Colby joined the Sierra Club 1898, and served as its secretary from 1900 to 1946 (except for two years). In 1901, Colby initiated the annual High Trips that began the Club's popular outing program and led the trips until 1929. Colby became a key Club leader after John Muir's death in 1914, serving as a director for 49 years. He contributed substantially to the saving of redwoods, to enlarging Sequoia National Park, establishing Kings Canyon and Olympic national parks. Colby was also the first chairman of the California State Park Commission in 1927.
In 1961, Will Colby became the first recipient of the Sierra Club's John Muir Award, its highest recognition for achievement in conservation.
Colby achieved notable eminence as an attorney who specialized in mining and water law, which served him well in his conservation work. He was also interested in gardening and Chinese art.
William Colby died at his home in Big Sur, California 9 November 1964.
Ansel Adams wrote of him: "You knew who he was without inquiry--he comes with him a deep humanity, and the mood of rivers and forests and clean white stone."
Parents: Gilbert Winslow COLBY and Caroline Amelia SMITH.
Spouse: Rachel J. D. VROOMAN. William Edward COLBY and Rachel J. D. VROOMAN were married about 1904. Children were: Henry Vrooman COLBY, Gilbert Winslow COLBY.
William Edward COLBY was born on 19 FEB 1879 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. He appeared in the census in 1900 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. He died on 14 APR 1951 at Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts. Parents: William Augustus COLBY and Lois Nellie TENNEY.
Spouse: Hannah Jackman ROGERS. William Edward COLBY and Hannah Jackman ROGERS were married on 23 MAR 1899 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: NEHGS, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910.) Children were: Grace Tenney COLBY, Herman Edward COLBY.
William Edward COLBY was born on 8 JAN 1885 in Mount Holly, Rutland County, Vermont. He appeared in the census on 20 JAN 1920 in Newport, Orleans County, Vermont. He was living in 1942 in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. (SOURCE: WW II Draft registrations 1942.) Parents: George A. COLBY and Effie CLARK.
Spouse: Lula Clara MOULTON. William Edward COLBY and Lula Clara MOULTON were married about 1907. Children were: Alice COLBY, Raymond Winthrope COLBY, Ruth Helen COLBY, Pauline COLBY, Phyllis Madeline COLBY, Elizabeth Joyce COLBY.
Spouse: Anna (COLBY). William Edward COLBY and Anna (COLBY) were married about 1928.
William Egan
COLBY was born on 4 JAN 1920 in St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota.
He died on 27 APR 1996 at Rock Point, Charles County, Maryland.
He had Social Security Number 577-28-7679.
Social Security Death Index Record
Name: William E. Colby
SSN: 577-28-7679
Last Residence: 20007 Washington, District Of Columbia, District of Columbia, United States of America
Born: 4 Jan 1920
Died: 6 May 1996
State (Year) SSN issued: District of Columbia (Before 1951 )
Colby, William Egan
1920 1996, American public official, b. St. Paul, Minn., grad. Princeton, 1940. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and was dropped by parachute behind enemy lines in France. After obtaining a law degree (Columbia Univ., 1947), he reentered government, serving in U.S. embassies in Sweden, Italy, and South Vietnam. In 1962 he was recalled to Washington as chief (1962 67) of the Far East division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he helped direct the controversial Phoenix Intelligence Program, part of the U.S. pacification efforts in South Vietnam. He became director of the CIA in 1973. In 1975 Colby cooperated with congressional investigations into CIA activities that revealed numerous instances of questionable activities, including involvement in domestic espionage and assassination attempts on foreign leaders. He was criticized for his cooperation by many conservatives and in Nov., 1975, was relieved of his position by President Ford, who replaced him with George Bush. Upon leaving the CIA, Colby became an active advocate of arms reductions.
=====================================
>From the "Colby Clan Communications", June 1997:
"COLBY, THE C.I.A. MAN"
"After the mention in the last newsletter, page 2, of William E. Colby, the former Director of the C.I.A., your editor had a letter from his son, Paul L. Colby. He gave their Colby line: Anthony (1), Samuel (2,3), Obadian (4,5), Gee(6), John (7), Charles A. (8), Charles E. (9), Elbridge A. (10), William E. (12), (William b. 1920- - d. 1996). It's interesting that the first 8 generations lived in or near Amesbury, MA. the next ones moved on to New York and Washington, D.C. areas. Col. Elbridge a. Colby (10), a former University of VT professor, spent almost 30 years in military service. His writings include works on both military and English literature. His only child, William (12) of the C.I.A. seems to have followed in his father's footsteps. A graduate of Princeton, 1936, he studied law at Columbia a year and then joined the 462 Parachute Artillary Battalion. One of his writings is a book of memorirs, "Honorable Men."
=================================
Headline: CONTRADICTIONS IN EX-CIA DIRECTOR'S LIFE FOLLOWED HIM UNTIL HIS DEATH AT 76
Publication Date: May 07, 1996
Source: Buffalo News
Page: A5
Subjects:
Region: New York
Obituary: Colby's body was found washed up Monday on a sandbar of the Wicomico River not far from his southern Maryland vacation home, eight days after his empty canoe was found nearby. A state official said there was no sign of foul play.
Colby was dismissed as CIA director 20 years ago, after 31/2 years, by President Gerald R. Ford. Since then, he had promoted a nuclear freeze and big cuts in the military budget.
"The Cold War is over, and the military threat is now far less," he said in a 1992 ad. "It's time to cut our military budget by 50 percent and to invest that money in our schools, our health care and our economy." For the past week, while searchers looked for him in the Wicomico, near where it empties into the Potomac, his widow, Sally Shelton-Colby, had refused to accept the assumption that he had drowned.
After she identified the body on Monday, she thanked the searchers and said her husband had left the world a better place. "There wasn't much that was left undone for him," she said. "He fought fascism and communism and lived to see democracy take hold in the world."
President Clinton said in a statement, "Through a quarter of a century at the CIA, William Colby played a pivotal role in shaping our nation's intelligence community. . . . He made tough decisions when necessary -- and he was always guided by the core values of the country he loved." Colby was perfectly cast as a spy: colorless, soft-spoken, precise and thin. He fit this published description: "Mr. Colby never seems to have a hair or an emotion out of place."
Even Colby said, in his 1978 memoir, that he was "the traditional gray man, so inconspicuous that he can never catch the waiter's eye in a restaurant."
But Colby was fired on Nov. 2, 1975, as head of the CIA after being accused of talking too much. He was said to have been too candid in testimony to congressional investigators; he had long ago aroused the ire of the agency's old guard for trying to channel more effort into the gathering, evaluation and analysis of information and less into covert operation.
Two months after the firing, Ford honored Colby with the National Security Medal, citing his "outstanding contribution in the field of intelligence."
Colby was born Jan. 4, 1920, in St. Paul, Minn., the son of a career Army officer. He moved from post to post, eventually graduating from Princeton University with a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1940.
He enrolled in Columbia University Law School but left after a year to become an army paratrooper. He answered a call for French-speaking volunteers and joined the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II American father of the CIA.
In August 1944, Colby parachuted into France to join a resistance group fighting to link up with advancing U.S. forces.
That assignment led to one in which he parachuted behind enemy lines in Norway to blow up a Nazi rail line. Discharged in 1945 with the rank of major, Colby got his law degree from Columbia, then practiced two years with a New York law firm headed by his former OSS commander, William J. Donovan.
Colby then worked briefly for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington and signed on with the Central Intelligence Agency. Under diplomatic cover, he served at the U.S. embassies in Stockholm and Rome and became the CIA station chief in Saigon in 1959.
He left Saigon in 1962 and returned in 1966, eventually taking charge of the Vietnamese pacification program and its Phoenix project, aimed at rooting out the Viet Cong, the communist guerrilla organization.
Summoned to Washington by a Senate committee in 1970, Colby defended the project but conceded there may have been "some illegal killing."
He was nominated to be CIA director on May 10, 1973, by President Richard M. Nixon, then struggling to extricate himself from the Watergate scandal.
Colby was divorced in 1984 from the former Barbara Heinzen and married Sally Shelton. One of the five children from his first marriage, Catherine, died in 1974. The others are Jonathan, Carl, Paul and Christine.
Parents: Colonel Elbridge Atherton COLBY and Margaret Mary EGAN.
Spouse: Barbara HEINZEN. William Egan COLBY and Barbara HEINZEN were married on 15 SEP 1945. They were divorced in 1984. Children were: Jonathan COLBY, Catherine COLBY, Carl COLBY, Paul L. COLBY, Christine M. COLBY.
Spouse: Sally SHELTON. William Egan COLBY and Sally SHELTON were married about 1985.
