Jane Isabella Biggs McClary was born on July 16, 1823 in Polk County, Tennessee. She was the daughter of William McClure Biggs and Margaret Marella Temple. In October of 1843 she married Charles M. McClary. They were the parents of the following children:

~Margaret E. McClary b. 1844, married Joseph T. Huffman.
~Julia Ann McClary b. 1847, married Frank Armstrong.
~Sarah Jane McClary b. 1850, married William Henry Lafayette Wells
~Joseph McClary b. 1852
~Adeline P. McClary b. 1854, married James W. Wells.
~Josephine A. McClary b. 1855, never married.
~Robert Biggs McClary b. 1856, married Bettie Ann Martin.
~James Pryor McClary b. 1858, married Sara Isabella Hutchison.
~Charles Clay McClary b.1863.
~Caroline "Callie" McClary b.1866


All the children were born in Benton, Polk County, Tennessee. After the Civil War the family and all 9 children moved by wagon from McMinville, Tennessee to Texas. They settled on the Throckmorton Farm in Collin County, Texas and had been there less than a year when Charles was caught in a flash flood as he was crossing a deep creek. He lost his footing and was swept into Rowlett Creek where he drowned on May 13, 1870. He is buried in Stiff Chapel Cemetery, Collin County, TX near the scene of his death.

For $500.00 and two wagons, Jane bought a small farm near Hebron, Texas. She raised her children there and never remarried. She died on March 28, 1884 at the age of 61 years and is buried in Frankford Cemetery, Collin County, TX. Several of her children are buried there, also.

Obituary for Jane Isabella McClary

Jane I. McClary was born in Greene County, Tennessee, in 1823; joined the Presbyterian Church at the age of eighteen years; died in Denton County, Texas, March 28, 1884. She was not very demonstrative in her Christian character, but she possessed strong and an abiding faith. She was left a widow many years ago with the heavy responsibility of raising and training a large family of children, which duty she seems to have performed with much credit to herself and to her children. She had the pleasure of seeing four of her daughters happily married to honorable Christian gentlemen who will ever love her memory. Just before she died she called her children and friends around her bed and told them goodbye and requested them to meet her in heaven. The nearer she approached the end of life the brighter grew the way, until she became so enraptured with delight at the new and astonishing revelations of the glorious inheritance at the right hand of God that her dying lips could no longer refrain from shouting praises to him who had such rich provisions made for dying mortals.
"Farewell conflicting hopes and fears,
Where light and shade alternately dwell.
How bright the unchanging morn appears,
Farewell, innocent world, farewell"
T.J. Milam