It is purely speculative that Richard Rison had been married previously and was a widower with several children at the time of his marriage to Polly Cobb. His son Peter Rison pre-deceased him, and Peter's heirs were referred to in Richard's Will. It is known that Richard and Polly married in 1819. If Peter were a child by this marriage, it would have been necessary for him to have married and fathered more than one child by the time his father Richard died in1838 (possible but not probable). Further, along this same vein, in his Will, Richard referred to at least nine children. He was married barely twenty years at the time he died. Again, it is possible but not probable that he and Polly Cobb produced nine children that survived (considering the infant mortality rate) in that period of time. Elsewhere in this database will be found another Peter Rison who was born in 1786, and married to Sallie Bibb Booker in 1814. This Peter died in 1834. Could this have been the son of Richard Rison by an unknown first wife?