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ALEXANDER ROBERT FORTUNE 1814-1866

Alexander Fortune was the youngest of nine sons of John and Kate Fortune who came from Northern Scotland to America in 1788. The origin of the name Fortune is Irish so the family at one time crossed over from Ireland to Scotland. Alexander was born in 1814 in New York State.

Alexander fell in love with Abigail Emry Royce, who was born June 24, 1817 in New York. The Royce family Abigail had moved with her parents to Illinois. He left New York and followed her and they were married Jan 1, 1838. They soon bought a farm in the township of Ely, a half mile from Lake Zurich, Illinois, northwest of Chicago, where all ten of their children were born. According to the 1860 census Alexander owned $7,000 in real estate and $1,000 in personal property. There children were: William, Marion, John, Robert, Abigail, Lenore, Franklin and Fanny (twins), George, and Cornelia.

Alexander made one trip to California in the 1850's with two friends to search for gold near Placerville, California and were gone a year. They took a boat from San Francisco to the western shore of the Isthmus of Panama where they crossed the narrow isthmus on foot. They took a boat from there to the mouth of the Mississippi river and home by river boat. It has been said that they gambled and lost all their money and arrived home broke.

Alexander's oldest brother Will, was a soldier in the Civil war and was taken prisoner. On his return to Illinois he was a sick man and never seemed to get well after that. Alexander was also in the Civil war but he and Will were not in the same Colorado company. Alexander Robert Fortune died at 52 years of age from some intestinal trouble (perhaps appendicitis) on March 28, 1866 in Ely, Illinois. The deed to the farm was dated October 16, 1867. Later Alexander's body was reburied in Grundy county Iowa cemetery.

One year later after Alexander's death, Abigail Fortune bought the farm in Grundy County, Iowa, to be near her brother Orlin Royce. Abigail died on August 13, 1894 in Bauers, Grundy County, Iowa.