Alley, Abraham (1803–1862)

Abraham (sometimes Abram) Alley, early settler, son of Thomas and Catherine (Baker) Alley, was born on October 22, 1803, in Missouri. He traveled to Texas in thespring of 1822, accompanied by two of his brothers, John C. and Thomas V. Alley. He landed on Galveston Island and journeyed on foot to the Fort Bend settlement on the Brazos River but later settled on the Colorado River, where another brother, Rawson Alley, had located in 1821. The Alley family, of French Huguenot descent, had been friends of the family of Stephen F. Austin in Missouri. A fourth brother to Abraham, William Alley, immigrated to Texas in 1824. That year Abraham Alley took part in a campaign against the Waco and Tawakoni Indians. In 1825 he was reported as a farmer in Stephen F. Austin's colony. He was a member of an 1829 expedition against the American Indians in the San Saba area. On April 26, 1835, Abraham Alley married Nancy Millar, daughter of Texas pioneers John and Elizabeth (Payne) Millar. The Alleys had five children. On June 17, 1835, Alley and his wife applied for land on the Atascosito Road north of the Colorado River. During the Texas Revolution he enlisted as a volunteer guard under Capt. William Walker. He was assigned to escort women and children to the Trinity River and did not participate in any battles. For his service, February 20 to May 20, 1836, he was awarded several hundred acres of land in Leon County. In December 1837 he was appointed president of the Colorado County committee on the state land bill. In 1840, he declared for tax purposes that he had title to 3,800 acres of land, with 4,444 acres under survey, and that he also had four slaves, seventy-five cattle, and one horse. In 1850 he owned seven slaves and in 1860, fourteen. Alley died May 16, 1862, and was buried in the family cemetery. His wife died on October 28, 1893.