Here is a picture of Sabillah's tombstone in Union Cemetery. This was sent to me by Brian Bodine.
The book Some of the Descendants of Peter Cleaver by William Jessup Cleaver says that Rebecca Cleaver married Peter Bodine. No children are listed for them in the small tree. Later it says she died before 1837 and "left three small children at her early death." The book says the name of her mother is not certain.
Peter Bodine seemed to follow Dutch-like naming customs. This Sabillah might have been named after the maternal grandmother. We are not sure who that was. It might have been Bridget or Elizabeth Bridget Collins. Sabillah could be considered another form of Elizabeth. Or Sabillah was named after her paternal grandmother Sabillah Ent. That would make even more sense since Sabillah's sister was named Elizabeth. I highly doubt the Sabillah Bodine buried in Union Cemetery was actually Elizabeth, but that is something to think about.
James Dallas Bodine's biography says that he was the youngest of ten children. Taking that into account, here is some census info:
From Pennsylvania Federal Census Records:
1830 Catawissa Twp., Columbia Co.: Peter BODINE males 2(0-4), 1(5-9), 1(30-39); females 2(5-9), 2(20-29).
Looking at the census info above, it looks like there is one male we don't know about (the one who was 5-9 years old) and one female we don't know about (one of the 2 who was 5-9). The two males 0-4 were David and Charles. The other female 5-9 was Elizabeth.
My guess is that one of these two unknown children died soon after 1830 and the other was over 13 years of age by 1833 when Peter said he only had four minor children: Elizabeth, David, Charles, and Brittain (minors were under 14). At this point, we don't know if the female or the male survived. This scenario would give us ten children in this family.
My best educated guess at this time is that the female child survived and the male child died young. I believe that the Sabillah Bodine buried in Union Cemetery in Catawissa, PA must be this missing female child. Sabillah might not have been named in the court papers of January 7, 1833 (see Peter's Notes) as one of Peter's minor children because she was no longer a minor. Different transcriptions of her stone say she died in 1855, but both Ronny Bodine and I think the stone says she died on November 2? in 1833 or 1835. And 1835 seems more likely than 1833. She does seem to have died at age 15 or 17 years and something. One transcription says 17 yrs, 8 mo, 14 dys. Just looking at the picture of the stone I have, it looks more like 15 yrs. I can't see the rest. For me, 15 years is possible. Sabillah could have been as old as 9 in the 1830 Census, so she could have been born about 1820. If she died in 1835, then she would have been about 15 years old at that time. As mentioned before, James Dallas Bodine's biography says that he was the youngest of ten children. We know of nine children, so this Sabillah would be the missing number 10.
From: Ronny Bodine
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013
Subject: Re: Sabillah Bodine in Union Cemetery, Columbia Co., PA
Hey Dave,
I enlarged the picture of her gravestone and it seems the date of her death was 1833 or 1835. That third digit for the year seems pretty clear to be a 3 and the one after that could also be a three. I can make out daughter of...but not the initials afterwards. Something along the way was miscopied as Peter and Anna could not have had a 17 year old who died then.
Ronny