| Notes |
- That his name was William comes from Patrick Foley's research notes, attributed to an inscription in a copy of a book (The Great Rosy Diamond by Ann Augusta Carter; Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, 1856) owned by his daughter Eliza Boggs. The inscription, presumably written by William himself, reads:
Eliza Bogg
pecented by her
father William Bogg
Decm. 25th 1859
According to the 1850 census, taken in Cincinnati, ward 2, he was a paperhanger. The 1860 census, taken just across the Ohio in Covington, Kentucky calls him a "tinner." The 1850 census calls him "Wm. L."; the 1860, "Lee." That these are the same man, despite the variance in age, is indicated by the correlation in the ages and the birth states of several of the listed children.
In the 1870 census, he appears to be back in his birth state of Pennsylvania, in Allegheny, still a tinner, still with multiple household members whose ages roughly correlate with earlier censuses. He also appears as a tinner in the 1864, 1865, 1867, 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1875 Pittsburgh city directories. We doubt that he is the William Lee Boggs who appears in the 1868 and 1869 Pittsburgh city directories as a grocer. This other William Lee Boggs is possibly the William L Boggs who appears in the 1850 census as a merchant, and the 1860 census as a grocer, both times in Philadelphia with a household entirely dissimilar to that of our William Lee Boggs. Possibly this grocer is also the William Boggs whose will was probated in Beaver County, just northwest of Pittsburgh, on 10 Jul 1877.
The 1850 census says that our William Lee Boggs was born around 1795; the 1860 and 1870 censuses, around 1815. Given his marriage in 1835 and the fact that his oldest child in the 1850 census is 14, a birthdate around 1815 seems more plausible, unless this was his second family and he had no children from the first one who were still minors by 1850.
We're reasonably confident that the "William Lee Boggs, Sr." described on the Find a Grave page cited here is indeed the same man as the father of Eliza Ellen Boggs. First, our William Lee Boggs did indeed have a son William Lee Boggs Jr. Second, the one child linked from this Find a Grave page is a daughter Hannah Maria (Boggs) Jones, born 11 Dec 1837 in Cincinnati, who is well-documented elsewhere as a daughter of our William Lee and Catharine Boggs.
It's notable that in addition to daughter Eliza Ellen Boggs, two other daughters of William Lee and Catharine Boggs wound up in San Jose: the aforementioned Hannah Maria (Boggs) Jones, and Sarah Jane Boggs.
He consistently appears in census records of his children as having been born in Pennsylvania, save for the 1920 record of his daughter Hannah which places his birthplace in Ohio.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Abt 1815 - 1877 (~ 62 years)
[2, 3, 4, 5, 6]