WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLENDER

1837 - 1910

William Francis ALLENDER was the son of Joseph ALLENDER and Frances Elizabeth HALL.¹ He was born June 18, 1837² in Daviess County, Indiana on his father's homestead. He seems to have lead a normal early life, although the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee where they continued farming.

When Will was seven his mother came down with "sun sickness" or "sun neuralgia". She was taken to Memphis where a doctor tended to her. The doctor treated her with blood letting and by the use of leeches. Eliza went to sleep and never wakened. A lock of Eliza's light red hair was cut from her head and given to Will to keep. It was to be that Will's favorite color was red. He was disappointed when none of his children had red hair.³

"... Mother died, and I was an orphan practically ever after, Father failing to provide for me."² The next three years were spent with his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Wells RENSHAW, and numerous uncles and cousins living in New Harmony, Indiana and Grayville or Albion, Illinois. In 1847 his father married Elizabeth Ann YOUNG. At this time he took his son to live with the both of them at Mt. Vernon, Indiana. Soon his thirteen brothers and sisters arrived.³

Will was an apprentice blacksmith.³ "[I] learned my trade at Mt. Vernon Posey Co., Ind. in part and part Memphis Tennessee alternately working at Blacksmithing and Flat Boating untill [sic] commencement of Civil War."⁴ Will was strong and his apprenticeship went well until the master smith took another boy as an apprentice. The two boys quarreled and finally fought. The boy was struck down with a smithy tool and Will left. By the time Will was eighteen he owned a flat boat and plied the Mississippi River with freight.³

He loved to sing the popular ballads of the day while being accompanied by an accordion, and to dance to the "schottische". Will learned to fence with the sword and to write "Spencerian". He would draw beautiful birds and flowers about the margins of his letters. He was a strong swimmer and claimed he had to swim across the Mississippi one time to save his life.³

^{[To come: The outbreak of the Civil War and Will volunteering first for Illinois, the taking a comission for the Tennessee 7th Cavalry USA. The battle of Union City, his surrender and subsequent imprisonment. After the war, his relocation to points west. The national archives have 300 pages in records on William Allender and his pension records spanning 70 years.]}

1. Robinson, Marie B., Pedigree chart of the children of William F. Allender & Mina M. Watson.

2. Allender, William F., Sworn statement to Pension Office dated May 12, 1908. Contains information on lack of birth record and early life.

3. Robinson, Marie B., Biography notes on her father, William F. Allender.

4. Allender, William F., Sworn Affidavit of Claimant, Pension Claim of William F. Allender dated March 17, 1884. Contains brief description of early life, Civil War record, and resulting disability.

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