First husband of Emily Sibley Watson, father of Elizabeth Louise Averell and James G. Averell. Isaac (Ike) Averell grew up in Ogdensburg, New York, where his father, James G. Averell was a banker and investor. When Isaac Averell arrived in Rochester in the 1870s, he met Emily and the two fell in love, although it would take some convincing for her father to give his approval.The couple married on April 27, 1876, in St. Paul’s Church in Rochester, and left for an extended stay in Europe. Their first child, Elizabeth Louise, was born in Nice in January, 1877; their second child, J.G., was born in Rochester in December, 1877. Hiram Sibley secured a position for Isaac as president of the Bank of Monroe, but by the early 1880s, he was in financial difficulties and the couple separated. He soon left town and moved to California.
The children remained with their mother. She went on to have a very happy and fulfilling second marriage with the son of her father’s partner, James Sibley Watson, and to have a third child with him, James Sibley Watson, Jr. Her connection with Isaac Averell was permanently severed with the deaths of their two children, Louise in 1886 and J.G. in 1904.
In San Francisco, Averell married Margaret Teresa Piffer. In a 1923 History of Sacramento County, he was said to have worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He died in San Francisco, California, in 1909.