The Walter Glenn, Dorrington and Robb Families

Compiled by Ann Simmons Eldredge

Walter Glenn (1777-1843), son of James and Janet (Buchanan) Glenn, was born in 1777 in Lancaster County and baptized by the Rev. John Cuthbertson. In 1799, the Glenn family moved to Allegheny County where Walter married Jane Dorrington (died 1843), daughter of Irish emigrants Jane (Young) and Thomas Dorrington. Thomas was a grocer; his grandson Thomas (son of Thomas and Nancy Dorrington) died in 1837 at age 3 and is buried beside his grandfather. When the elder Thomas died, he left his daughter Jane Glenn $100; his daughter-in-law Nancy Dorrington received one mare, three cows and five sheep.

Walter was a farmer on the land he inherited from his father along Chartiers Creek. In 1826, Walter and Jane had triplets-Louisa, Lavinia and Lucinda. Lavinia died at age 2; Lucinda at age 6; and Louisa, who survived to age 43, married Samuel Collins, a grandson of Hannah Plummer Fetterman Sylvester. Louisa and Samuel had a daughter, Lizzie A., who was born in February, 1860. After Louisa died Samuel remarried. Buried near the triplets are their siblings: Joseph, who died as a child in 1834; Colonel James E. Glenn; Elizabeth, who married a Foster; and Jane (1823-1902), who married Chesterfield Robb (1825-1886). Chesterfield worked for the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. Jane and Chesterfield had three children including Walter Glenn Robb, a machinist who died at age 40, and James F. Robb (1858-1899), who married Agnes R. (1862-1908). James F. and Agnes, both died at a relatively young age (40 and 46 respectively), but they had at least one child-Richard D. Robb, who died at age 3 in 1895.

The graves of Jane Dorrington, Samuel Collins and Chesterfield Robb have not been located, but family papers from 1936 place them in St. Clair Cemetery.