Isabella was born in 1812 to
Rev William B Lacey, DD and his wife Hannah Stafford in Albany, NY; she was the
oldest of 6. In 1831 she married Rufus Wheeler Peckham, the youngest son of RI
natives Peleg Peckham and Desire Wheeler who had moved to Albany County, NY by
the time of his birth in 1809. Rufus, like many in his family, was a lawyer,
District Attorney, Judge and Congressional Representative for New York.
Isabella died at the young age of 36, leaving her husband with 3 boys. She
would not live to see the youngest, named for his father, be appointed a
Justice of the Supreme Court by President Grover Cleveland in 1895.
Isabella’s mother was born in
Albany where she died in 1831, the year Isabella married. Her father remarried
the following year, adding 4 more children to the family and by 1840 they had
relocated to Louisiana. It seems that the family shifted back and forth between
Louisiana and Mississippi over the years.
All of Isabella’s siblings
moved south with their father and stepmother. Her brother George had begun his
law studies with her husband Rufus Wheeler Peckham in New York. He continued in
Louisiana and was admitted to the bar in Baton Rouge.
