Lucy Haggard Longbotham was one of nine children of the Rev. Henry Haggard, a Baptist minister, and his wife Dorothy (Randolph), both natives of Virginia. Born in U.S. Territory south of the Ohio River, now Tennessee, she moved to Alabama Territory about 1814. There, in 1820, she married Robert Brough Longbotham. In her lifetime, she lived under nine territorial, national, and state flags. She was the mother of nine children.