Wavetops: Eleanor Waters Bollman (1810–1891)
A woman who saw the changing rights of women in Ohio
A story can seem straightforward once the facts are lined up and neatly documented. The life story of one of my 4th great-grandmothers, for example, could be summed up like this:
Eleanor Waters was born on 3 August 1810 in Pennsylvania. Her family moved west to Ohio, where she married Solomon Bollman (1807-1842) in Wayne County on 13 November 1836. They lived in Hancock County, Ohio, where they had three children. When Solomon died in 1842, Eleanor was left with two small daughters and was pregnant with their son. The three children were:
Sarah Catharine Bollman Greenlee (1838–1875)
Elisabeth Ann Bollman McComb (1840–1933)
Solomon W Bollman (1843–1864)
Eleanor raised these children on her own in Cass Township, Hancock County. After her eldest daughter, Sarah, separated from her husband, Robert Greenlee, Sarah and her son, Allen, went to live with Eleanor, who continued to raise Allen after Sarah died in 1875.
Eleanor died on 17 November 1891, survived by her daughter Elisabeth McComb, her grandson, Lewis Henry McComb, and her great-granddaughter, Bertha Greenlee. In her will, she specified that some of her lands should be sold to pay off her mortgage (1st) and then to provide burial markers for Allen, Eleanor herself, her husband Solomon, and Sarah Watters - presumably her mother.
Eleanor’s grandson was Allen M. Greenlee (1861-1887), one of My Sixteen. He was the first husband of Alice Hale Greenlee Cramer. You can re-visit the Greenlee family origin story here:
Laid out like that, her story seems straightforward. But the journey to get there was rough. I started with Allen Greenlee’s name, and not much else - I didn’t have dates or places associated with him. Every record I found gave me unexpected clues that led me further from his biography and down more rabbit holes. And while I’m happy with what I’ve learned about Eleanor, her biography and that of her daughter Sarah (my 3rd great-grandmother) point to a bigger story about the growing independence of women in the late 1800s.
When Solomon Bollman died unexpectedly in 1842, it isn’t clear whether his wife, Eleanor, would have been allowed to inherit his property. Ohio’s earliest laws were based on English common law, under which women could not “own” anything. Their personal property - clothes, bedding, etc. - belonged to their husband. If the husband died without a will, a wife would automatically receive one-third of her personal property, with the other two-thirds being distributed to the husband’s other descendants. The first Married Women’s Property Act in Ohio was not passed until 1845. But laws passed in 1809 did allow “a woman, as well as a man, the right to devise his or her estate by will.”1
I have looked for Solomon’s will without success - I assume he did not leave one. Since Eleanor remained unmarried, but in control of her household, I suspect that she probably remained in control of her property through the inheritance of her then-unborn son, Solomon. There are newspaper notices showing transfers of real estate from Eleanor to her daughters in 1869 and 1883, and of course, Eleanor’s will from 1891 - all of which show that she took advantage of the new laws. I can only imagine that Eleanor was one of the many women who wrote to legislators to press them to change those laws.
There is another story that I haven’t been able to tease out of the available facts. Sarah Catherine Bollman married Robert Greenlee in 1857. Their son, Allen, was born in 1861 - and by 1870, Sarah and Allen were living with Eleanor. Sarah appears in the 1870 Census under her maiden name, Sarah Bollman, but her grave marker gives her name as Sarah Greenlee.
It seems pretty clear that Sarah and Robert divorced, but I have not found any information that could tell me why, or what happened to Robert between his enlistment as a private in the 21st Ohio Infantry Regiment in 1861 and his death in 1879. What I do know is that Eleanor raised her grandson after Sarah died in 1875 and that her will provided a burial marker for him, as well.
Her will - a testament to the drastic changes in women’s rights that took place during her lifetime.
Little, Sarah Miller, “A Woman of Property: From Being It to Controlling It - A Bicentennial Perspective on Women and Ohio Property Law, 1803 to 2003,” Hastings Women’s Law Journal, Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 2005, Article 2.