Mary and William Henry Lyman's only child was born in Pleasant Valley, Dutchess County New York on July 25th 1854, and named Melvena Benedict, after their Baptist minister's wife, then call Mellie for short.
Mary Lyman's maiden name was Armstrong. Her mother was English. But her Orange Irish father was a native of North Ireland. Her first husband was Peter Ostrom, who died from choke damp, being overcome by this lethal gas while cleaning out a well. The well-to-do Widow Ostrom, who at one time owned the site of Vassar College, had two children, Peter and Mary, when she married William H. Lyman, the year following the death of her thirteen year old daughter, Sarah, at a Kingston boarding school in 1852.
William H. Lyman was a descendant of the Lymans who came from England and settled in Rhode Island in 1641. He was the youngest of a family of eight children and following his mother's death his oldest sister, Clarissa, who married William Kay, brought him up.
Mellie was nearing two, when her ten-year-old half-sister, Mary died. And she was seven, when the kerosene lamp she was reading by, exploded and set her clothing afire. But, her life was saved by her father, whose hands were burned. This accident left Mellie with a mass of deep scars from her left hip to her knee.
In 1864, the Lyman family moved to a sightly place along the Ridge road above Porter Corners in Saratoga County, N.Y. But how were they to know this snow covered mountain property was such a rocky place, as showed up in the spring. Then following some dickering with Baker, the land shark, who'd sold them the place, they moved down to the Coy District, where they lived in the first house that burned on the right, beyond the bend in the road turning right from the Lake Desolation road below Chatfield Corners.
Mr. Lyman, being a carpenter, did not depend on this small farm to make a living for his family. And Lucretia, who lived with her mother Lucinda Harris and Grandparents Mitchel directly across the road became Mellie's playmate. But, Mrs. Harris, who was a bit off at times, used to sometimes play with them and when Mrs. Harris, carrying a feather fan and dressed up as a queen, paraded three abreast up and down the road they all had fan. Mrs. Harris was clad only in a hoop skirt and was washing on the stoop when she told a neighbor, "I'm, dressed for a hot day."