Biographies and Obituaries
In loving memory
Margaret Allen Vannoy McCord Harris
Margaret, the daughter of Joseph and Dorothy Walker Allen, went across the Ohio River to marry John Vannoy in Adams County, Ohio in 1810. Their daughter, Sarah, was born on a trading trip to from Kentucky to Cincinnati in the spring of 1811. The river froze over and they had to stay much longer than they had intended. They had another child Henry and then John Vannoy died sometime before 1820.Margaret brought these two children to her marriage with William McCord in 1822. She bore him three more sons prior to his death in 1834.
Margaret and three sons--Benjamin (then 17), Joseph Allen (15) and Nathaniel (13) moved west to Indiana by covered wagon in 1839. Perhaps they were moving to be with other Allen relatives already established in Daviess Co. Within their wagon party was David McCord and Sarah Vannoy McCord, a daughter from Margaret's first marriage who married William's son David. The family settled two miles south of Alfordsville, Indiana. Margaret Allen McCord first bought 40 acres of land in Martin County, Indiana, on January 14, 1840. After she had re-established her home in Indiana, Margaret Allen McCord met and married Isaac Harris, her neighbor, from Martin County Indiana in May 1840. She was 50 and he was 65. It was Margaret's third marriage. Margaret Allen must have been a shrewd bride, because he marriage to the established land owner, Harris helped her family rapidly set up their own estate in Daviess County. Margaret Allen was buried in Old Union Cemetery just a few feet away from Isaac Harris. In 1981, a visitor found a shallow impression a few feet from Harris' grave which was lying down. He began to dig with a rock and found her stone. It said "Margaret, Wife of Isaac Harris...Gone to Rest."
Contributed by: Michele