Ann Crooker St. Clair Chapter NSDAR

Our Namesake

Ann Crooker St. Clair was born July 27, 1810, to Jacob and Matilda Lane Crooker. She was the oldest of their four children; Alanson was born in September 1812, Amanda in November 1814 and Edmund Z. in August 1818. They were raised on the banks of the Susquehanna River near Unadilla, New York.

When Ann was sixteen years of age, she visited her uncle, the Honorable Amos Lane who lived in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. While there, she met John St. Clair, the grandson of Major General Arthur St. Clair, Governor of the NW Territory, and a Revolutionary War hero. One year later, on August 26, 1827, Ann and John were married.

The young couple moved westward to Cincinnati, Ohio, where the St. Clair family lived. In 1834, John and Ann, along with their two small children, son William born in 1828, and daughter Mary born in 1830, moved to Peoria, Illinois, where John had purchased a large parcel of property.

Six months after arriving in Illinois, John fell ill and died on October 6, 1834. Ann returned to her parents in New York, and Delaware County New York records show that on September 5, 1838, she married Sherman P. Johnson and shortly afterwards moved to Ewington, Illinois.

In 1841, Ann was faced with the death of S.P. Johnson and three short years later the death of 14-year-old daughter Mary. Her parents both died within a few years of moving to this area.

Ann then married Effingham county clerk, Wilkinson Leith, entertaining the dignitaries who came and went through Ewington. It is stated in a letter written by one of her granddaughters that one of these men was a young lawyer by the name of Abraham Lincoln.

Wilkinson Leith died on December 20, 1849. In 1852, Ann married businessman Martin K. Robinson only to be widowed again in 1868.

Ann Crooker St. Clair Johnson Leith Robinson died October 2, 1877, at 67 and is buried at Ewington Cemetery west of Effingham under the big Crooker stone.