Carson Boren was born in
Nashville, Tennessee. He married Mary Ann Kays) on February 18, 1849, at
Abingdon,
Knox County,
Illinois. Their first daughter Sarah E. was born December 17, 1849, but died 17 days later and is buried in the Cherry Grove Cemetery in Knox County. A second daughter, Gertrude Livonia (December 12, 1850 – June 3, 1912 After erecting the first home in what would become downtown Seattle (the previous structures had been at Alki), They were divorced by
territorial legislative act December 17, 1861. Their children were raised by the Dennys. Mary Ann went south to
The Dalles, Oregon, and established a dressmaking business. There she had another daughter, Lydia Dell Blakeney (January 18, 1869 – October 6, 1921) with John William Blakeney, a divorced man; they married in November 1872, but separated about 1880 and divorced in 1884. Mary Ann and Lydia moved back to Seattle. Mary Ann Boren apparently kept in touch with her children by Carson Boren and lived with her youngest daughter and son-in-law in what is now the
International District of Seattle. When she died in 1905, she was buried in an unmarked grave in
Lake View Cemetery, down the hill from where Carson Boren and their unmarried daughter (called Livonia as an adult) are buried in style with the Denny Clan. ==Notes==