Updated December 27, 2006
In spite of the war, life went on. In 1779, son David married Ivea Fox, his first cousin on his mother's side. (Ivea was the daughter of his mother's sister, Ann Warford, who had married Gabriel Fox and lived near the Allens in both New Jersey and Virginia.) They had three children: Margaret (Peggy), William, and John. By 1781 they were all living in Hampshire County, up in the Appalachian foothills (since the Civil war, part of West Virginia), along with her parents and David's sisters' families. They all appear in the "Heads of Families" lists of 1781, 1782, and 1784 for that county:
Exactly how William's children and their spouses came to be in this frontier
setting by the end of the war is undocumented, but this thin evidence suggests
that the Allens and Foxes living in Loudoun County knew of the Formans and
Berrys living up in the hills. There are several possible explanations for
the moves, but the following seems most plausible to me:
Since William's older sons, William Jr., John, and Thomas were adults well before the war, it is entirely possible that they had married and started families before they were killed. Unfortunately, we have no suggestions in family records that they did, and to date have found no other documentary clues to say one way or the other. William Jr's will is the one piece of evidence we have and it clearly rules out any wife, children, or real estate for him--at least as of 1776.
Joseph, the youngest of Jane Warford's children, married Francis Wright on August 10, 1787. 'Fanny' was of either Scottish or English descent--different sources give different accounts. Robert Wright and Margaret Braden lived in Loudoun County from 1772 through (probably) 1789. They were quite well-to-do, her father Robert leaving substantial property to the family in his will. As noted above, upon Joseph's marriage, William gave him 100 acres from Red Hill Plantation to live on, and the young couple did not join the other siblings in Hampshire County.
Joseph and Fanny Allen had ten children, six of whom were born while Grandfather William was still alive. All but one survived and had families of their own. John, the third child (b. 1792), was killed by a falling tree at age twenty. We have an interesting description of Joseph and Fanny, albeit a much later one, from one of their grandchildren. John F. Lander said of them in an 1895 letter: "Grandfather Joseph was a tall and slender man, florid complexion, and hair white as cotton from the first I knew of him. A staunch and devoted Presbyterian; never missed having family prayers, and I have knelt on such occasions asleep on foot! I believe Grandmother Allen (Frances) was one of the best women I ever knew. How I enjoyed, as a little boy, standing and looking into her precious face as she sat and smoked her pipe."
Elder brother David married a second time in 1789, this time to Elizabeth Wright, Fanny Wright's sister. We don't know what happened to Ivea Fox, though a safe assumption is that she died from disease or complications in childbirth. One source gives her year of death as 1787. David had eight more children by Elizabeth: Elizabeth (b. abt. 1790), Joseph (abt 1792), Asa Everett (1794), Francis, David Jr. (1805), Alfred (abt 1806), Harrison (abt 1808), and Ivea (abt 1810). (Some of these birth years are recorded in genealogies; some are conjecture based on marriage dates.)
Robert Wright and his wife Margaret moved to Hampshire County to be with David and Elizabeth probably around the time of their marriage. Robert died there in 1803.
The last of William's children, James Allen (b. 1769), married twice. His first wife was Elizabeth Lee, whom he married January 24, 1793. He had six children by her that we know of. His second wife was Martha Hughes. She had two children with James: John Franklin (b. 1823) and Mary Ann (b. 1825).
The last decade of William's life had its moments. Besides the suit with brother David's executors, he had a run-in with the Smalley family, who lived just west of him. In 1787 or so, William Smalley, one of the brothers in the family, had sold him a mare. William expected the horse to provide him with colts as well as decent field work. When she didn't, he refused to pay Smalley for her, claiming that Smalley had misrepresented her true age. Smalley sued in County Court and won. In 1792, William counter sued, asking for injunctive relief on the original judgment. The case dragged on until September 1794. After wading through many depositions and a couple of court sessions, the court dimissed the whole thing.
In a separate situation, Henry Peterson, who bought a section of Red Hill in 1790 (see diagram in the section on Virginia) ended up owing William a substantial amount of money. William's will of October 1796 gave son David £50 out of the hoped for settlement, which was being pursued by son James in the Loudoun Court at that time. Peterson sold his 150 acres to David Lee a couple of months after the will was written. In all probability, William was paid off at that time. (David Lee, by the way, was the father of Elizabeth Lee, who had married son James in 1793).