Oops! Need to straighten out some confusion here - and add more confusion in the process. Among Alexander McKeithan's children was a daughter - name unknown - who married William Mitchell about 1820/21. The existance of this daughter is proven by a later deed in which Alexander's heirs sold his land. William Mitchell was one of those heirs. Miss McKeithan must have died shortly before 1827 when William Mitchell remarried. The only child of William Mitchell and Miss McKeithan was Clara Clarissa Mitchell b 1821 who m Andrew Jackson Woodward. One of their children was named James McKethan Woodward. Years later, Clara took two of her granddaughters (my gr-aunts) to St Philips Church in Old Brunswick. She wanted to show them the grave of her mother's mother. This would have been the mother of Miss McKeithan and the wife of Alexander McKeithan. Clara said her mother (Miss McKeithan) had shown her the grave when she was a little girl. Clara knew exactly where it was - near the door of the church. But the grave had been destroyed and Clara broke down in tears. This surprised and dismayed her granddaughters so much that they never forgot it. Both of them wrote of it later. Clara was able to show her granddaughters the graves of other ancestors there, but the granddaughters couldn't remember the names. We don't know if they were McKeithan graves or the ancestors of Mrs McKeithan. One of the granddaughters went back years later to try to find these graves, but they had been destroyed by then too. You will find this documented in "A Goodly Heritage" by Emma Woodward MacMillan, one of the granddaughters. Her sister Cornelia Woodward Rose also wrote of this, but her notes were never published. They are currently in my possession.

From this we know that Alexander McKeithan must have had a wife before Isabella since Isabella was still living in 1830. Since Clara's mother had shown her the grave when Clara was a little girl, this must have been before 1827 when we know Miss McKeithan was dead, but probably not long before or Clara would have been too young to remember it. Clara would have been 6 years old in 1827. So we know that the first Mrs Alexander McKeithan had died before 1827, perhaps quite a few years earlier, but after 1805-1810 when Miss McKeithan was probably born. Any children up to and including Miss McKeithan could not have been Isabella's. After that, it's anyone's guess since we don't know exactly when the first wife died or when Alexander remarried Isabella.

The deed that proved Alexander's children did include a son named Whitman. I believe he's the same Ritman on the 1830 census and Walen mentioned in the Carlisle record. It wasn't unusual for clerks to make copying errors, and this might very well be an example.