... William Henry the first, married, on January 27, 1788, Margaret Gassaway Watkins, daughter of Colonel Gassaway Watkins, of Revolutionary fame, by Dinah his wife. We do not know what Dinah’s last name was.
Margaret Gassaway Watkins was born November 15, 1760, so she was two years older than her husband. She died in 1829. We do not know much about her. My father told me that she was a great sufferer from neuralgia, and that for sixteen years before she died she was confined to her room, and could not have a breath of air in it. Even the doors and windows had to be stuffed with cotton, to keep the air out. I have often heard my father say that he never understood how his grandfather, who was such a vigorous open-air person, could have slept in that room without any air for sixteen years.
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