Francis, Cecilia B.

Born: 1808-12-26 Scotland, United Kingdom

Died: 1894-02-05 Canada

Alternate name: Duncan

Born in Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland, Duncan lived in Glasgow before moving to Springfield, Illinois sometime before 1838. Her brother, David Duncan, drowned in the Sangamon River in 1837, while attempting to cross it on horseback. On December 25, 1838, she married Allen Francis. They had six children together while still living in Springfield: Cecilia Jane, Marietta, Allen Bunn, Edwin Henry, Huldah Grace, and Eliza Emma. After President Abraham Lincoln appointed her husband consul to Victoria, Cecilia moved to Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia with her family. She lived there from at least February 1862 until her death.

Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950 (Salt Lake City, UT: FamilySearch, 2013); British Columbia, Canada, Death Index, 1872-1990, British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency, British Columbia, Canada; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 316; Charles E. Francis, Francis: Descendants of Robert Francis of Wethersfield, Conn. (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse, and Taylor, 1906), 21-22; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Springfield, Sangamon, IL, 81; Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1863 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1864), 3; Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1865 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1866), 4.