William J. Dallam

Dallam Tombstone, Oak Hill Cemetery, Evansville, Indiana.

William J. Dallam was surely a product of western Kentucky, having lived in several different counties before moving to Indiana. He was born in 1821 and was the seventh child of Nathan Dallam and Sarah Hicks, who left Clark County, Kentucky and migrated to Christian County, Kentucky. About 1825, the Dallam family settled in Caldwell County, where William J. spent his childhood and youth. Nathan and Sarah Dallam are buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Princeton, Caldwell County. Of the ten children of Nathan and Sarah, only William J. Dallam went to Indiana. His siblings lived primarily in Paducah, Smithland, Princeton and Henderson, Kentucky.

In 1840, William J. Dallam moved to Old Salem, Livingston County, where he served as Postmaster and Deputy County and Circuit Clerk. Later he was a merchant in Marion, Crittenden County, being one of the first to engage in business there after the county was created in 1842.

William J. entered the dry good business, first in Paducah and then in Livingston County. Later he moved to Caldwell County were he went into business with his brother, Lucian Dallam. Still later he moved to Henderson, where his brothers, Frances Henry and Lucian Clay Dallam, and his sister, Virginia Josephine Dallam Atkinson, also lived.

In July 1862, William J. Dallam advertised his “two-story brick Dwelling-House situated on the corner of Main and Elm” for sale or rent. It was during that year that Dallam moved his family across the Ohio River to Evansville, Indiana, where he lived at 600 Upper 1st Street. Dallam and his son, William Jr., became wholesale and retail dealers in boots and shoes at a shop on Main Street.

Dallam married Kate Miles in 1843 at Old Salem and they had the following children: Sarah Isabelle “Belle,” James L., Charles Francis, William J. Jr., and Douglas Dallam. Kate Miles Dallam died of malarial fever 22 January 1882 at the age of 60 years and is buried in the family plot at Oak Hill Cemetery, Evansville.

On the 25th of May 1893, the Evansville Courier announced “the sad intelligence of the entrance into eternal rest of the spirit of W.J. Dallam” the previous day. He had been ill for several weeks and, while it was known that he could not recover, he remained cheerful to the end. His funeral services were held at the residence of his daughter, Belle, and his remains were laid to rest at Oak Hill Cemetery in a private ceremony.

Copyright on text and photographs
Brenda Joyce Jerome, CG
Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog