Bio: Allen, Emily G. (1825 - 1902)

Contact: crystal@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Allen, Pond, Scott, Buceleuch

----Source: History of Eau Claire County Wisconsin (1914) pages 633-634

Emily G. Allen. Emily Gertrude Pond, who became the wife of James Allen in 1842, was born at Calais, Maine, July 21, 1825, and was the eldest of the four children of Charles Pond, who was drowned in the St. Croix river at Calais, Maine, in 1831, and Cynthia Scott Pond; Cynthia Scott was a daughter of the eldest brother of General Winfield Scott, whose grandfather, James Scott, a Scotchman of Clan Buceleuch, escaping after the disastrous battle of Culloden, where he fought for the pretender of the English throne, fled to Virginia, where he settled.

Sir Walter Scott's ancestors were of the same Clan Buceleuch and family. The Duke of Buceleuch, now living in Scotland, still represents the clan and the blood of this Scott family.

Mrs. Allen used to tell her children of sitting on the knee of General Winfield Scott when she was a little girl and that the general was a relative of her mother's.

A history of the life of General Scott shows that in 1839 he was sent by the President of the United States to settle some trouble between the State of Maine and the English in New Brunswick over some disputed land lying along the border, and it was probably at that time he visited his relatives at Calais, Maine.

Cynthia Scott Pond went to Sheboygan, Wis., with her daughter, Mrs. Allen, when the family moved in 1850 and died there in August, 1851, at the age of fifty-five years.

After the drowning of her husband in Maine she made a brave struggle to care for her four small children and to educate them as best she could. Emily was the oldest and at the time of the death of her father was only six years old. She was of bright and retentive mind, a natural grammarian and speller, and obtained a fair common school education for those days. After her marriage she lived in Baring till 1850 and gave her life to the duties of her home and motherhood. Her life in Maine, in Sheboygan, Two Rivers and the early years of Eau Claire was that common to the early pioneers of new countries, rigorous, primitive, filled with hard work, little relaxation and few luxuries, but through it all her sweet nature, her loving kindness to her children, loyalty to her wifely duties and faith in her Maker sustained her and gave her courage and strength to perform her daily tasks. The old Allen homestead where her children grew up, married and moved to homes of their own was always open to friends, children, grandchildren and her kindred generally. It was the Mecca for those who had gone away. She was a faithful and consistent member and worker of the Baptist Church, one of the first members after its organization in the early days of Eau Claire. After her husband was compelled to live South, owing to his injuries, she and her son Charles lived in the old home as she could not stand the summer heat of Florida. She was never very strong and at the age of seventy-seven she died in Eau Claire, September 2, 1902, beloved and mourned by all who knew her.