Wife of Dr. William MacLean.

Suggested edit: "Polly" and her husband, Dr. William Maclean were pioneers of the Catawba River area then Lincoln County, now Gaston County, N. C. The following is an excerpt taken from Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. The link for total biography is: https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/maclean-william

"On 19 June 1792, at age thirty-five, Maclean married Mary (Polly) Davidson, the third daughter of Major John Davidson, a wealthy ironmaster. The wedding took place in the new brick mansion on Major Davidson's plantation, Rural Hill, on the Catawba River, considered the finest in Mecklenburg County. The Reverend James McRee, the county's most fashionable Presbyterian minister (too fashionable for many of his plainer session members at Steele Creek), performed the service. It was a long-remembered social event and the bride, ten years younger than her husband, wore a "green silk and silver Paris gown," pieces of which were preserved by her descendants for several generations.

The record further notes that the bride had been religiously reared at Hopewell Church, liked to read and read well, and was of a happy disposition. William and Polly Maclean were the parents of ten children who reached maturity. Polly Davidson Maclean outlived her husband by nearly thirty-four years, dying at age ninety-five; her father, John Davidson, lived to be ninety-six. Of her later days, her great-nephew Dr. John Brevard Alexander wrote: She was known far and near as 'Aunt Polly McLean.' She was a woman of great talent, read much and digested what she read, was a close student of the Bible and a good influence in her neighborhood."
Their ten children in order of birth were: Richard Dobbs Speight, Alexander Augustus, John Davidson (M.D.), Elizabeth Jackson (Campbell), Violet Wilson (Lindsay) (Hart), William Bain (M.D.), Thomas Brevard, Rebecca Isabella (Wilson), Mary Margaret (Erwin), and Robert Hamilton Graham.

Contributor: Helen (46831582)