Martha Ann Fairleigh was a daughter of John Pryor Farleigh and his wife Amelia ("Millie") Ramsey who were both very early settlers of Effingham Co, IL. Martha was married there in 1849 to William Tarrant, son of Newton Tarrant and Mary Sharp. Martha and William had 5 children (4 daughters Mary Jane, Artimeas, Sarah Ann, Amelia Ellen and a son Francis Tarrant who died as a toddler). William was a Union soldier and died in Murphreesboro in 1863 of disease contracted during the Civil War. After his death, Martha remarried in September 1864 to his cousin Joshua Doyle, who had served as a Confederate soldier. (Joshua's mother Mary Ann Tarrant Doyle was a sister of William's father Newton). Martha and Joshua settled in Effingham County, Illinois after the war where Joshua became guardian of her children and made a living as a teacher.
In May of 1866, shortly after Martha gave birth to their first son Albert, Joshua killed a man (a barber Nicholas Dausch) in an altercation at a saloon in Effingham and became a fugitive from the law. He first fled to Arkansas and later back to Tennessee where he became a respected doctor (see bio for Joshua for further details). Martha had 3 children with her husband Joshua: Albert, Hybernia, and Caledonia Doyle.
After Martha's husband fled, all of her children by her first husband all stayed in Illinois with their grandfather Newton Tarrant named by the courts as their guardian. When Newton died in 1869, Levi Rentfrow was named guardian. The oldest of Martha's daughters, Mary Jane Tarrant, was married in October 1866 at the age of 14 to Lorenzo Dow Harder. Artimeas married in 1870 at the age of 16 to Allen Decatur Webb. Sarah married in 1870 at 13 to William E. Rentfrow. Amelia "Millie" married in 1881 to George Webb.
Martha and her Doyle children continued living in Tennessee (since her husband was a fugitive from the state of Illinois) where she died in 1910 in Hickman County, and was buried in the Centerville Cemetery. Joshua died in 1915 and was buried beside her.