Elijah Backus's Family

House On Blennerhassett Island

The Woodbridge-Gallaher Collection by Harlow Lindley:

"Dudley Woodbridge, Sr., after being graduated at Yale, opened a law office and import shop in Norwich, where he met and married Lucy Backus.

Her father, Elijah Backus, Sr., furnished many supplies to the Continental army from his iron foundry in Norwich, Connecticut, and was a man of considerable local importance.  Of her brothers, James came west with his cousin, Eben Holden Parsons, as surveyor, and his 1788 Journal is very interesting for the beginnings of the Marietta district.

Marietta, Ohio, Mural

Elijah, Jr., came a bit later and bought quite a lot of land, the Backus or Blennerhassett Island being one of his holdings.  He later moved to Kaskaskia, his daughter Lucy marrying a Pope of Kentucky, becoming the mother of General John Pope.  Matthew, the youngest brother, attended Princeton, prepared for law, came west, drifted back east, and eventually committed suicide because he failed to find his niche in the world.  Clarina Backus came west with Lucy when the family moved to Marietta in the autumn of 1789 and seems to have spent considerable time in Ohio.