Miss Olive Colburn and her daughter, Anna

Miss Olive Colburn (1764-1840)

Anna M. Gay (c.1800-1877)

Olive Colburn was born on November 2, 1764. She was the daughter of Samuel and Mercy Dean Colburn, and the sister of Mary Colburn (1745-1826) who married Oliver Ellis in December of 1779.

Olive Colburn birth record 1764

Records indicate that around 1800, Olive Colburn married Timothy Gay, Jr., who was the son of Timothy and Abigail Shuttleworth Gay of Dedham. They had one daughter, Anna M. Gay, born sometime in 1800.

If there had been a marriage, however, it seems to have been short-lived. It appears that Olive and her daughter, Anna, made their home with the extended Ellis family of her sister.

When Olive Colburn died on April 10, 1840 of consumption (tuberculosis), she was interred in the Isaac Ellis family lot. Isaac Ellis was the son of Oliver Ellis and Mary Colburn Ellis. Her name was inscribed on the gravestone as “Miss Olive Colburn.”  When Timothy Gay Jr. passed away in 1846, the record indicates he was “single;” his gravesite has not been found.

Grave marker for Miss Olive Colburn & Anna M. Gay, her daughter

Anna M. Gay, the daughter of Olive and Timothy, died on October 5, 1877 of old age. She was single and residing in the home of Paul and Sally Ellis, son and daughter-in-law of Oliver and Mary Colburn Ellis. She too was interred in the Isaac Ellis family lot 112 in Old Parish Cemetery.