STANDARD ATLAS
OF
SCOTT COUNTY, ILLINOIS
1903
Geo. A. Ogle & Co.Publishers & Engravers
134 Van Buren St.
Chicago
Transcribed by Larry Fearneyhough
Page 93
Elizabeth Rowland was born in Lincolnshire, England, April 7, 1818. About her early life there was nothing more passing strange than the events connected with the early lives of young ladies of that day. At the age of twenty she was married to James Metheringham, of Lincolnshire. To them were given ten children, five blessing their home in England and five coming after they had removed to the United States. Sarah, who died in Oregon; John, who lives in the state of Washington; William, who lives in Adams county, Illinois; Mary Caroline, wife of John T. Green of Lincoln, Illinois, and Susan who married Henry Arnold and lives at Ottumwa, Iowa, are those who were born in England. After the family emigrated to the States and settled in New Jersey, there came to them, Elizabeth, who married Anson Castle and resides in that state. Janet Adkinson, who married James Green (died in 1872), Rebecca Jane, who died in infancy, and Fannie Rebecca, who died in Jew Jersey when quite small. These four were born in New Jersey and after the family removed to Comfort, Adams county, Illinois. James Thomas was born, and, at present, resides with his mother on the farm three miles south of Bluffs. Mrs. Almey came to this country in 1849 and the family settled in Monmouth county, New Jersey, remaining there until 1857, when they removed to Adams county, Illinois, locating at Comfort, then a town of three houses.
In 1864 death claimed her husband and in 1867 she purchased eighty acres of land two miles west of Exeter and removed to that place. In 1874, she was married to Thomas Almey and resided upon her own home farm. In 1884 she was again widowed and in 1902 she rented out the farm and moved to Bluffs. While her career may have been uneventful and filled only with the common-place things of life, yet to her has been given a distinction enjoyed by but few people in this country. In her early years she knew the late Queen Victoria, when she was the Duchess of Kent, lived under George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria, as well as fourteen presidents of the United States. When her first child was born there were no railroads or steamships, and electricity was an unheard of thing. She was born three years after Nepoleon's great battle at Waterloo and Jackson's battle at New Orleans, and has watched the evolution of this country from a third-class to a first-class nation, and its population increase from 15,000,000 to 80,000,000. Her life in two countries has been subject to more rulers and presidents than is the lot of the ordinary mortal. Grandma Almey, as she is lovingly called, has been a familiar figure in that part of Scott county in which she resides. Her first thought has been of her home and her children, yet she has been a kind neighbor and a faithful friend. She has benefitted the community by reason of her presence and now in the fullness of ripe, old age, her neighbors and friends regard her as part of the salt of the earth.