The curious case of Rebecca Lehman

It’s hard to tell if this is a case of a mistaken name that has been copied over and over, or if there is more to the story. However…

Rebecca Lehman (c1801-1849) always shows up in on-line genealogies (at Ancestry and Familysearch etc.) as the wife of William Allis and mother of Caroline who married Joseph Leesley and emigrated to Nebraska, USA.
Their children were baptised in the Bratoft, Toynton and Leake area of Lincolnshire, England with the first born in 1825 at Bratoft.
No marriage for a William Allis to a Rebecca Lehman has been found.

The parish register for Bratoft, Lincolnshire on 3 June 1824 shows the marriage between William Allis and Rebecca Louth. Both sign the register and the entry is very clear. Both were also single when they married. Assuming Rebecca was born around 1801 (based on her age given at her burial in 1849), there is a Rebecca Louth baptised at Addlethorpe, Lincolnshire (about 5 miles from Bratoft) in 1802 but there is no equivalent event for a Rebecca Lehman. I am therefore convinced that this should be Rebecca Louth but I don't know the original source for Lehman.

Does anyone know how William’s wife came to be a Lehman and not Louth?

From Lincolnshire to Colorado

One branch of the Lincolnshire Allis family moved to Colorado in America in the 1880s. It is not known what prompted the move but they were from a family of nine children (of which one died in infancy). After their father's death in 1880 the family appears to have split and in 1881 the eldest son George Allis had moved to Hogsthorpe about 6 miles south of Beesby with his sister Mary and brother Charles where they are farming 72 acres at "Marsh Retreat". Meanwhile William is living with his sister Rachel in Alford and their mother is farming with Emma and Alfred at Beesby and John is working in London.

Two of the brothers, Charles and John Allis sailed to America around 1883.It seems that they didn’t head straight for Colorado but they did settle there by 1887 in Douglas county some 30-odd miles south of Denver.
Charles leased some land in the Greenland area, later buying it. In 1908 he built a reservoir still known as the Allis reservoir which may be seen on Google Earth [at about 39° 7'57.63"N, 104°51'9.89"W]
They operated a meat market as well as the ranch which was said to be of about 1700 acres by 1899 (5000 acres reported in an English newspaper).
More details of their enterprise and photographs of their ranch may be seen here
http://larkspurhistoricalsociety.org/?page_id=824
Their ranch is still known as the Historic Allis Ranch and their are further details here
https://www.douglas.co.us/museum/vex13/index.htm

Their brother George moved out from England to join them in 1896 with his wife Annie and two children, but died suddenly in February 1899 of pneumonia.
Annie was from London and George met her possibly via John who was working in the area. By 1891 they had moved to Leicester where he was a butcher before finally emigrating on board the Majestic from Liverpool, arriving in New York on the 29th April 1896.

After George’s death Annie remained in the Monument area of Colorado.
John Allis fell ill at the start of 1901 and Annie married him in the January. It was said that the care she gave him prolonged his life but he died in the March of 1901. Annie remarried a year later and moved to California.

Charles continued to thrive and lived until 1927. He married Wilhelmina Steimle in August 1901 in what was said to be a major social event for the area, and they had seven children becoming prominent citizens in the local area.

Once the railways had opened up the interior of America there were various schemes to attract settlers, some operated by the railways themselves along with emigration groups in England.
In Colorado the climate was said to be dry, sunny, and bracing and the soil suitable for a variety of fruits and vegetables as well as raising sheep and cattle.
The journey from New York was almost entirely by railway. In 1890 the fare from London to New York (from Reynolds Newspaper 13 Jul 1890)was £3-16s in steerage, and the train fare from New York to Denver was £8-12s-6d or a total of £12-8s-6d. The journey could also be taken via Liverpool and Halifax, Nova Scotia with onward train via Montreal, Ottawa, Detroit and Chicago to Denver for a total of £12-4s