Esther Hakes Record Button Reed and Her Three Husbands

Meet Esther B. Hakes Record Button Reed, my paternal maternal third great grandmother. She is the imposing looking woman at the very top of this posting. About two years ago I purchased a book about the genealogy of the Hakes family. Harry Hakes penned it as 1899 turned into 1900. I found Esther and her birth family in it and I was able to put a lot of information from that book into the family tree software. Mr. Hakes apparently traveled to England to investigate the family tree. When I saw Esther's name, though, I noticed that he had her married three times - once to a Record, once to a Button, and once to a Reed. He also knew that she was living in Kansas so through someone, he was keeping in touch. I thought Mr. Hakes had made a mistake about her marriage to Mr. Button. This was new information for me. Esther had an older sister named Permelia Hakes who had married Ellis Button. (I thought Harry Hakes had confused the two sisters.)

Together Ellis Button and Permelia Hakes Button had 6 children. They were married around 1828. Permelia was 17 at the time. They both lived in Rensselaer County, NY. Their first child was born in 1829. Time passed. Sometime between 1850 and 1860, Ellis and Permelia made the move out west to Illinois. The 1850 census shows them living and farming in Berlin, Rensselaer County, NY. The 1860 census shows them in Medina, Peoria County, IL. Sometime between 1850 and 1860, John A. W. Record and Esther Hakes Record made the same decision to move to Illlinois. The 1850 census shows John A. W. Record and Esther Hakes Record living and farming in Berlin, Rensselaer County, NY. The 1860 census shows them living and farming in Hallock, Peoria County, IL. In 1861 Esther's husband, John A. W. Record died. In 1861 Permelia Hakes Button died.

On February 9, 1865, Ellis Button and Esther Record applied for a marriage license in Peoria County, IL. (See the scanned image of their marriage license just below Esther's picture.) By the time the 1870 US census rolls around, though, Ellis Button is living by himself with two of his children from his first marriage. The 1880 census shows Ellis Button as "divorced" and living with his youngest son Sanford and Sanford's wife in Hallock, Peoria County, IL.

In 2008 I obtained copies of the probate file of my paternal maternal 4th great grandfather, Thomas B. Reed from the Illinois State Archives. (Illinois is a great state for genealogy researching.) Thomas was the maternal grandfather of Thomas Riley Carson, my paternal maternal great great grandfather and Lovina Jane Record Carson's husband. (Lovina was Esther's youngest child.) Thomas B. Reed also was the last husband of Esther B. Hakes Record Button Reed. (Family trees can be so confusing!)

In the probate file was a prenuptial agreement (see scanned image pictured just below the marriage license image) that Esther Hakes Record signed before she and Thomas B. Reed married on 30 Jan 1870. (Esther signed it as "Esther Record." There is no mention of "Button.)The agreement stated that should Thomas B. Reed die before Esther, then the estate of Thomas B. Reed would pay Esther $2,000 and she would have no further claim to the estate. There is also a copy of the receipt in the file showing that she did receive $2,000 and relinquished any further claim to his estate. All of his property and belongings went to the children who survived him, also his grandson Thomas Riley Carson. The executors of his estate were Eliza Reed Preston, his daughter, and her husband James Preston.
(Eliza Reed Preston, a daughter of Thomas B. Reed and a third great grand aunt of mine, and her husband James Sylvester Preston are pictured in the final image above.)

Thomas B. Reed's wife and my paternal maternal 4th great grandmother, Frances Wilkinson Reed, died 5 Jul 1869 in Peoria County, IL. Thomas then married Esther B. Hakes Record Button, who is my third great grandmother on another limb of my paternal maternal tree, on 30 Jan 1870. So between 9 Feb 1865 when Esther and Ellis Button, the husband of her deceased sister, got married and 30 Jan 1870 when Esther and Thomas B. Reed, the grandfather of her daughter's (Lovina Jane Record Carson) husband, got married, Esther and Ellis Button divorced.
I'm still trying to find out how to find divorce records although I don't believe I will have any luck. I will write more about Esther at a later date. She lived for 90 years, almost spanning a century. She was an interesting woman.