I've written about Nancy (Boyd) Eckles who was named in the
will of her father as Egnis (Agnes) but was otherwise known as Nancy, a
potential nickname for Agnes. She was the first wife of Charles Eckles (ca. 1788-1867), the wagon maker of
Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky.
Evidence of his second wife is a funeral invitation
transcribed as “Mrs. Ann Eckles; Dec. 16, 1843; Georgetown, Ky. From the
residence of husband on Main-Cross street” and annotated that she was the
second wife of Charles Eckles.[i]
As his first wife appears to have died by January of 1830, it is likely he
remarried prior to 1838. The Scott County marriage records prior to that time
were destroyed in a courthouse fire.
Confusing is a death notice in the Kentucky Presbyterian
newspaper The Protestant and Herald of 22 February 1844. It reads:
“DIED, In Georgetown, on the – ult., Mrs. Nancy Eccles, wife of Mr. Charles
Eccles…”[ii]
With only one Charles Eckles/Eccles resident in Georgetown, this must refer to
the wife whose funeral was two months earlier. That time lag in such a regional
paper is understandable. The confusion is her given name. Can it have been a
confusion with the name of his first wife (or even his mother)? Or could this
be another case of nicknames? Nancy and Ann are well-recognized variants on the
same name, so it is entirely possible.
[i] Marie
Dickore, compiler, Copies of Names on Invitations
to Funerals and Burials In Scott County and Fayette County, Kentucky, 1821 -
1898 (Cincinnati, Ohio: n.pub., 1942), 8.
[ii] DIED (Mrs.
Nancy Eccles), The Protestant and Herald,
Kentucky, 22 February 1844; TheOldenTimes.com
- Historic Newspapers Online, digital images
(http://theoldentimes.com/nancyeccles44ky.html : accessed 28 March 2011)
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