OLinI F 157 G23^ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES ITHACA, N. Y. 14583 JOHN M. CLIN LIBRARY {0\D All books are subject to recall after two weeks Olln/Kroch Library DATE DUE 4nfei^EM3&^ 3f) 1 ■■—/ — 1 ^^ BP- • > an ■J -,-—.. ^ n 1 GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. *»»* /vyV-y/. >6 Cornell University Library F 157.C4G23 Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of 3 1924 008 642 252 .»»,.... Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008642252 /- ■■ 'A O H O SB to < a o l-H f^ \ BIOORAPHIGAL AND PORTRAIT CYCIvOPEDIA Ol' CHBSTBR COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, COMPRISING A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE COUNTY, By SAMUEL T. WILEY^ Author of Histories of Niagara County, New York; Preston and Monongalia Counties, West Virginia: Fayette, Westmoreland, Blair, Indiana and Armstrong Counties, Pennsylvania, etc. TOGETHER WITH MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OE THE PROMINENT VLEN AND LEADING CITIZENS OE THE COUNTY. CAREFULLY REVISED AND EDITED By WIl^FIELD SOOTT GARS'ER. ^lln&tvaUii. GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY : \ V- - * ' ' ' /- 'o PHILADELPHIA, PA, RICHMOND, IND. CHICAGO, ILL.,,^ . 1893, /v '//, rJ %.., PfiESSBS OF M. CULLATON & CO., Richmond, Ind. PREFACK. TTISTORY, the highest form of prose literature, is fast becoming- one of the most iT"^ popular and important branches of human knowledge. It has rapidly risen from an empirical state to the rank of a science, and the great minds of this century which have found a field for their activity in its broad domain, have done much to sweep away the early crudities and errors that clung about it, and have transformed it from the Pactolus of the learned into the guiding star of modern civilization. In it may be found the principles that govern the character and destiny of nations, and that, properly applied, furnish a chart for statesmen and reformers. That department of history most valuable for the intelligent study of national life is biography, for it affords one great means of historical generalization. History and biography — the life of the nation and the story of the individual — are inseparably connected, for history is the synthesis of biography and biography is the analysis of history. Biographical history has rapidly risen into prominence and importance since the Centennial year of the American Republic, when the Congress of the United States recommended to every city, town and county, the duty of securing for preservation their local history and the biographies of their worthy citizens. Biography will have prominent place in the histories of the future, while the important and useful lessons that it teaches will never fail to excite interest or give pleasure. Biography teaches the highest good, by presenting examples worthy of emulation, as well as perpetuating the memories of those who are worthy of remembrance. It also preserves the names of thousands of men remarkable for wisdom, virtue, intelligence, energy and ability, and who only lacked opportunity to have won fame and distinction. Chester county occupies an important and commanding position in the grand old Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and demands the best work on the part of historian, biographer, and publishers. Neither time, labor, nor expense has been spared in the preparation of this volume, and it is placed in the hands of itg patrons and the public with a belief that it will be found equal to any work of similar character ever published in this country. The! development and progress of the county is not due to the efforts of any particular race, but is the combined result of the brawn and brain of all the PSEFACE. nationalities whose home has been within her borders, since the days of Quaker settlement and English colonization on the banks of the Delaware. The geology given is mainly taken from the Chester county volume of the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, and presents the leading theories and views of Professors Lesley, Eogers, Frazer and Hall ; while the military roster of the county is one of which she may be justly proud, for her sons have served with honor and distinction in all the wars of the Republic, from the early days of the mighty revolutionary struggle for independence to the closing hours of the late great civil war. Census statistics have been specially introduced to supply a feature that is wanting in so many county histories, and the series of Historical and Biographical Cyclopedias published by this Company, of which this volume is one, are the only works of the kind in the world that have ever gathered and given condensed and classified statistics of population, manufactures and agriculture. These statistics forcibly tell their own story, without need of illustration or explanation. The excellent Historical Sketch of Chester County which appears herein was prepared by Samuel T. "Wiley, a native Pennsylvanian, who' has written a number of county histories, and has for several years occupied the position of historian with this Company. The entire work has been edited, and several hundred of the sketches written, by Winfield Scott Garner, who has devoted nearly twenty years to literary and journalistic labors, and who has won considerable reputation as a writer. The press work is all that could be desired, and its excellence is due to the good taste of Martin CuUaton, who had the printing in charge. Chester county needs no eulogium, for the county that has given heroes to war, princes to song, and masters to art and literature, and that sustains a virtuous, intelligent, and thrifty population, has an enduring record of greatness, whose glory could not be made brighter by eulogy. We hope that the young and rising generation of Chester county may be incited to lead lives of virtue, worth, and usefulness, from the example of its many energetic and worthy citizens, whose life records are given in this volume, and the influence and inspiration of whose lives, like the far distant stars in the heavens, will "shine on and on, for countless ages after they shall have ceased to exist." THE PUBLISHERS. GOMXENXS. HISTORICAL, PAGE. Acadian Exiles 39 Agriculture 92 Altitude 23-37 Banks 98 and 179 Bibliography 177 Boroughs 141 Atglen 141 Coatesville 141 Downingtown 143 Honeybrook Ji43 Hopewell 143 Kennett Square 143 Malvern 144 Oxford '. 144 Parkesburg 144 Phcenixville 145 Spring City 146 West Chester 146 Botany 29 Bridges 180 Census statistics 163-171 Agriculture 167-170 Manufacture 167 Population 163-166 Taxation and indebtedness 171 Unclassified 171 Valuation 170 Chester County, Historical Sketch of 17-188 Chester County Marbles 176 Chester Springs Soldiers' Orphan School 174 Chester Valley 175 Churches 95-97 Baptist 96 PAGE. Churches, continued. Catholic 97 Christian 97 Disciple 97 German Reformed 96 Lutheran 96 Mennonite 97 Methodist Episcopal : 96 Presbyterian 96 Protestant Episcopal 96 Society of Friends 95 Civil Roster — Associate Judges 105 Clerks of Courts 106 Commissioners 108 Coroners ■ 109 District Attorneys 105 President Judges 105 Prothonotaries 106 Recorders 106 Registers of Wills '. 106 Sheriffs 107 Treasurers 107 Civil War, The 56-93 Second Pennsylvania Infantry 56 Company G : 57 Ninth Pennsylvania Infantry 57 Company A 57 Company E 58 Company F 58 Thirteenth Pennsylvania Infantry 59 Company A 59 Company C 60 Company G 61 CONTENTS. Civil War, The, continued. page Thirty-third Pennsylvania Infantry 62 Company K 63 Forty-second Pennsylvania Infantry 63 Company H < 64 Forty-ninth Pennsylvania Infantry 65 Company B 65 Company F 66 Fifty-third Pennsylvania Infantry 68 Company A 68 Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania Infantry 69 Company A 70 Company B 71 Company C 72 Company D 73 Company E 73 Company F 74 Company H 75 Company K 77 One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Pennsylvania Infantry 78 Company A 78 Company C 79 Company E 80 Company F 80 Company G 81 Company I 83 Company K 82 One Hundred and Seventy-fifth Pennsylvania Infantry 83 Company B 83 Company C 84 Company D ... 85 Company E 85 Company F 86 Company G 86 Company I 87 Company K 87 Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry 88 Company B 88 Twentieth Pennsylvania Cavalry 89 Company M 89 Chester men in other regiments 9l~92 Pennsylvania Militia ; Emergency men) 93 Congress, Members of 187 Conclusion 188 PAGE. County Formation 36 County Home 180 County Seat Removal 44 County Societies 110 Dutch Trading Posts 32 Early Indian Traders 180 Early Lawyers 1 86 Early Railroads 55 .Early Roads 180 Early Taverns 180 Ercildoun Tornado 187 Extinct Vertibrates f 185 First Cotton Factory 179 Formation of Chester County 36 Geology 18 Historical Sketch of Chester County 17-188 Historical (works published) 179 Indian Occupation 30 Trails 32 Villages 32 Indian Purchases 186 Indian Traders, Early 180 Intercolonial Wars 38 Iron Industries 46 LaFayette's Visit 55 Lawyers, Early 186 Mason and Dixon's Line 39 Members of Congress 187 Mesozoic Fossils 185 Mexican War 56 Minerals 27 Newspapers of the County 94 North Primal Rocks 179 Paoli Monument 179 Penn's Purchase 35 Political Roster 98 Members of Assembly 98 Members of Congress 187 State Senators 98 Postoffices 92-94 Prehistoric Races 39 Press, The 94 Progress and Development 93 Railroads, Early 55 Removal of County Seat 44 CONTENTS. PAGE. Dewees, Jacob H 644 Dewees, Thomas B 334 Dickey, Rev. John Miller, D.D. 199 Diehl, Henry J 673 Dobson, Gen. John Richesson. . 731 Dotterer, Nathaniel F 290 Downing, Samuel Rhoads 618 Downing, Thomas 836 Dunn, Thomas D., M.D 254 Dutton, Isaac L 522 Dyer, William C 794 Eaches, John T 484 Eachus, Homer 509 Eachus, William H 520 Eastwood, James B 725 Egolf, Samuil H . . .' 878 Eicholtz, Capt. George CM... 783 Eldridge, David 463 EUicott, Richard T 245 Ellis, Col. Nathaniel M 247 Ellis, Jarvis 851 Emack, Frank D , M.D 299 Emery, Anthony Wayne 631 Emery, E. Clifford 767 Emery, William W 825 Entriken, John C 723 Eppehimer, Henry 255 Evans, Henry L 574 Evans, John King, M.D 750 Evans, Rev. Joseph S 285 Evans,. Capt. Lewis H 686 Evans, Newton 526 Evans, Hon. William 719 Evans, Willianr 551 Everhart, Hon. James Bowen . . 637 Everhart, William 318 Farley, Robert, M.D 330 , Fetters, Capt. Abraham 567 Fetters, Isaiah Jr 584 Finkbiner, David 730 Finkbiner, John 313 Finkbiner, Samuel S., M.D 454 PAGE. Fisher, Daniel W 793 Fisher, Elwood W 675 F itzpatrick, James 586 Flint, Rev. John 853 Floyd, George W 761 Francis, Casper S 376 Francis, John 803 Frederick, Charles N., M.D. .. 753 Frick, Edwin 768 Frick, Montgomery 246 Friday, Washington 661 Fritz, William H 582 Fronefield, Joseph M 743 Fulton, Hon. William T 416 Funk, Harry D." 558 Funk, Jacob L 239 Funk, Thomas D 855 Futhey, Hon. J. Smith 767 Futhey, James L 456 Futhey, R. .Agnew 313 Futhey, Robert 054 Gallagher, Edward -191 Gallagher, Col. William 329 Garrett, Harvey S 52 1 Garrett, Jesse H 094 Garrett, Joshua L 541 Cause, Jonathan 744 Geiger, Jacob H 828 Gheen, L. W 545 Gheen, R. C. 849 Gilbert, Jacob 515 GilfiUan, John 300 Gilkyson, Col. Hamilton H 436 Gilligan, Capt Edward L 403 Good, Abraham 561 Green, Prof. Francis H 884 Green, Jesse Cope 575 Green, Joseph C 279 Green, William S 777 Griffen, George S 866 Griffith, Wilraar 809 Grover, Thomas D 605 Gunkle, George Washington. . . 414 PAGE. Guss, J. Acker 804 Gyger, John 730 Haddaiway, Rev. Charles M 434 Haines, Hon. Townsend 560 Halderman, Isaac R 315 Hallman, Henry S 345 Halteman, Benjamin H 799 Hamill, Millard F 740 Hannum, Curtis H 593 Harlan, Hon. Abram Douglas. . 652 Harlan, Dr. Justin E., D.D.S.. 610 Harley, Edwin 813 Harris, Malachi 607 Harris, William Smith 630 Harry, Joshua P 688 Hart, Harry C 824 Hartman, William Dell, M D.. 876 Hartman, Rev. William W 356 Hartshorne, Hon. Joshua 674 Hastings, Rev. John M , D.D, . 440 Hauise, J. Frank E 315 Hause, Jesse 544 Hawley Jesse 698 Heckel, FrederickWilliam.M.D. 726 Heistand, David H 633 Hemphill, Hon Joseph 754 Henderson, Joseph S 759 Henderson, Robert J 871 Henniss, John A 853 Heron, Fred 656 Hibberd, Joshua E 737 Hibberd, Walter R 553 Hickman, Hon. John 200 High, Jacob 373 High, Samuel 635 Highley, Charles C 689 Hills, Rev. Geo. Heathcote, M . A 304 Himes, George 794 Hodgson, William H 680 Hogue, Thomas C 308 Holman, Isaac 814 'Hoopes, Caleb 379 Hoopes, Josiah 264 Hoopes, Thomas 355 CONIENIS. PAGE. Hooton, Col. Francis C 287 Horning, Charles S., M.D 226 Hoskins, Percy C, M D 259 Howell, Charles H 494 Hoy, John L 543 Hurford, Eber H 442 Ingram, Capt. Alexander H . . . . 741 Ivison, Samuel, Jr 225 Jacobs, Joseph 547 Jacobs, Samuel 479 Janeway, John L , C.E. ._, 815 Johnson, George B 789 Johnson, Joseph H 386 Jones, Addison L 227 Jones, Franklin 659 Jones, Prof. Jacob K 422 Jones, T. Franklin 582 Kaler, Hon. Levi B 711 KaufEman, John F 606 Kauffman, William J 807 Keech, Frank W 562 Keeley, Davis 517 Keeley, Oliver B 796 Keeley, William P 811 Keim, George 273 Keim, Jonathan H 530 Kelton, Robert C 304 Kephart, Jacob F 233 Kepner, Solomon 384 Kerr, Edward, M.D 383 Knauer, Davis 784 KoUer, Mahlon S 443 Kulp, Jonathan H 296 Kurtz, Henry K 336 LaFayette, Marquis de 337 Lamborn, Wendell P., D.D.S.. 826 Lancaster, Thomas 839 Landis, George W 308 Latshaw, Enos P 683 Latta, John Y 632 PAGE. Leary, Jonathan 519 Leopold, Jeremiah S 378 Lewis, Eli J 423 Lewis, Walter H 598 Lippert, Moritz George, C.E. . . 471 Little, Roger M 833 Lobb, Preston W 498 Long, Francis Donleavy, A.M. 579 Ludwick, Frank B 781 MacElree, Wilmer W 270 MacFarland, David McConkey. 765 MacFeat, Walter 766 MacDonald, Waltei^ A 199 Mackelduff, Samuel C 634 Manger, William R 841 March, S. Robison 396 Marshall, Humphry 559 Marshall, Thomas 854 Marshall, Thomas W 538 Marshall, William P 690 Margerum, Cyrus S 478 Massey, Charles D 698 Massey, Isaac, M D 341 Masters, James W 202 Matlack, Hon. Jesse 685 Matlack, Joaquin B 736 Matson, William G 435 Maxwell, James Rea, M D 235 May, Addison \ . . . . 533 McCauley, Maj. L. G.. 313 McCuUough, Sanders 212 McCIure, James 667 McClurg, James 293 McDowell, Rev. Thomas R 433 McKean, Hon. Thomas, LL.D. 208 Menkins, Henry J 493 Menkins, Joseph 470 Mercer, Henry 628 Meredith, R. T 499 Mewhinney.Jas.Campbell, M D. 816 Michener, Amos 324 Michener Family 547 Miller, Addison 810 PAGE. Miller, Enos D 703 Miller, Henry R 840 Miller, Joseph K 733 Mintzer, J. Bechtel, M D 697 Mock, William 831 Monaghan, Robert Emmet 194 Monaghan, Robert Jones 636 Montgomery, Thomas H 669 Moore, Col. Daniel Foulke. . . . 426 Moore, Hon. William 564 Morris, Jonathan 842 Moses, O. E 713 Mosteller, William H., M D. . . . 869 Mowrey, Joseph 1 850 Mowry, B. Franklin 819 Moyer, Jacob W 243 Mullen, Alfred 488 MuUin, Jolin S 662 Myer, George G 258 Needham, Rev Benjamin C. . . 624 Newlin, Ellis P 769 Oberholtzer, Levi, M.D 369 Opperman, David 548 Owen, Rev. William 360 Painter, Henry 791 Parke, Samuel D 817 Parke, Samuel R 504 ' Parker, James G 868 Patrick, Ellwood, M.D 836 Patterson, Rev. Robert Mayne, D.D., LL.D 718 Paschal, Isaac 523 Paxson, William L 395 Pearson, Isaac M 664 Pechin, Robert W 599 Peters, George D 231 Pennock, Samuel 665 Pennypacker, James M 454 Pennypacker, Matthias J., M.D. 640 Pennypacker, Wilmer E 412 Philips, E. Vinton 333 CONTENTS. PAGE. Philips, George Morris, PhD. . 474 Phipps, James S 234 Piersol, Lewis 704 Potter, W. Atlee 503 Pratt, John Marshall 457 Price, Joseph T 598 Prizer, John 780 Prizer, Harman 310 Prizer, Henry 806 Pugh, Harold B 341 Ralston, William 518 Rainsey, Samuel D 201 Randall, Rev. Frederick William 578 Rapp, George W 613 Rayner, Dr. James B 324 Read, Thomas Buchanan 702 Reavey, John W 490 Reel, Ida Virginia, M.D 585 Rees, John 786 Reese, John 846 Reid, Alfred P 211 Reiif, William E 374 Reinhart, Nathan E., V S 648 Rennard, Henry 542 Rennard, William M 715 Rhoads, George 512 Richard, J. Howard 260 Rickabaugh, Jacob, M D 700 Rinehart, Joshua 368 Ringwalt, H. E 683 Robb, George S 651 Roberts, Charles J., M.D 678 Roberts, Hiram 370 Roberts, Jacob 529 Rothrock, Joseph T., M.D 446 Rupert, Coi: Alfred 864 Rupert, Maj. George M 277 Russell, Slater B 400 Ruth, Gideon T 481 Ruth, H. Morgan 789 Savage, Frank N 280 Saylor, John C 392 PAGE. Saylor, William H 432 Schofield, Harry Benner 569 Sellers, James C 305 Shaffer, Vosburg Newton 535 Sharpless, William 713 Shoemaker, Kersey 554 Sigman, Isaac K 489 Sleichter, John 361 Sloyer, Henry 844 Smale, John E. 480 Smedley, John G 410 Smedley, Oliver H 430 Smith, George, Jr 390 Smith, Hon. David Lr 699 Smith, Hon. Persifor Frazer. . . 323 Smith, Prof. A. Thomas 233 Smith, Prof. John H 789 Smith, William Brinton 663 Snyder, Prof. William H 216 Snyder, Hon. William Preston. 326 Soule, Rev. Jacob B 263 Spackman, Isaac 229 Spratt, George R., M D 401 Stauffer, Frank H 572 Stauffer, Henry M 483 Stem, Thomas W 595 Steen, Hugh J 492 Sterrett, Thomas K 398 Stiteler, A. M. F 679 Stiteler, George R 516 Stiteler, I Newton 524 Stiteler, William H 425 Stockton, Rev. William R.,D.D. 343 Stout, D. B 707 Stubbs, Hon. Theodore K. ... 351 Supplee, Millard F 511 Sweney, Capt. Benjamin H . . . . 317 Talbot, Hon. D. Smith 747 Taylor, David M 649 Taylor, William Carroll 463 Taylor, William S., M.D 803 Templeton, John 668 Tencate, Fred A 315 PAGE. Thomas, Charles T 497 Thomas, Francis A 256 Thomas, Frank P 473 Thomas, George 527 Thomas, John P 508 Thomas, J. Preston 500 Thomas, Mordecai 394 Thomas, R. Newton 287 Thompson, Nathan G , M.D. . . 374 Torbert, Benjamin J 207 Townsend, Mark 244 Townsend, Hon. Washington.. 770 Townsend, William P 590 Tripp, Isaac 562 Tustin, Isaac J 270 Tutton, Alexander P 581 Urner, Eli 306 Urner Family, The 467 Waddel, Rev. James, D.D 490 Waddell, Hon. William Bell. . . 191 Wagoner, Christian W 846 Wagoner, William J 337 Waitneight, Henry P 250 Walker, Joseph R 588 Walker, Thomas U 587 Walker, Prof William H 695 Walters, Capt. Louis R 875 _ Walters, George 406 Walters, Horace W 863 Walton, George R 800 Walton, George W 404 Warner, Levi E 380 Warrington, Thomas. ■. 549 Watson, James J 633 Way, Marshall S 778 Wayne, Anthony 192 Webb, Rev. Edward 340 Webster, Elwood 482 Webster, Samuel L 488 Weeks, Albert, M.D 258 Weidal, Lincoln Washington. . . 542 Weigel, William A 776 CONTENTS. PAGE. Weldin, John L 861 Wells, David G 381 Wells, Oliver 269 Wells, Peter 841 Wersler, George 646 West, Benjamin 336 West, Wilmar W 271 Whann, William E 870 Wheeler, Rev. Henry, D,D 319 Wheeler, Mary Sparkes 319 White, Rev. Robert 360 Whitson, Samuel 383 Wickersham, James PyIe,LL.D. 193 PAGE. Williams, Andrew J 383 Williams, B Franklin 453 Williams, Granville 444 Williams, Harry E, , M D 460 •\yilliams, William, Jr 705 Wilson, Rev. A L 657 Wilson, Addison 553 Wilson, Amos G 832 Wilson, Harry R 528 Wilson, James 803 Wilson, Nathan 716 Wilson, Winfield Scott 7-18 Wilds, John 443 PAGE Windle, David C 338 Wintzer, Antoine 753 Woodward, Charles E 238 Woodward, William Marshall. . 830 Worthington,Hon.Wilmer,M D 556 Worrall, Prof. John Hunter.. . . 351 Wynne, Samuel 503 Yarnall, Nathan W 463 Yeager, Allison E 843 Yeager, Joseph 776 Yerkes, Jonathan P 533 Young, John 589 CONTENTS. ILLUSTRATIONS. The Capitol at Washington, Frontispiece. Beale, Capt. Horace A facing 857 Bean, Henry " 346 Bean, Mary J " 351 Brower, William, M. D " 320 Brownback, Garrett Elwood " 603 Corn well, Robert Thompson facing 614 .... " 248 .... " 366 .... " 673 .... " 618 .... " 484 .... " 567 .... " 376 .... " 416 .... •' 313 .... " 300' .... " 436 .... " 575 .... " 593 ... " 726 .... " 680 .... " 494 .... " 386 .... " 711 Darlington, Stephen Denithorne, Capt. John , Diehl, Henry J , Downing, Samuel Rhoads Eaches, John T , Fetters, Capt. Abraham Francis, Casper S Fulton, Hon. William T .Futhey, Robert Agnew GilfiUan, John Gilkyson, Col. Hamilton H Green, Jesse Cope Hannum, Curtis H Heckel, Frederick William, M. D. Hodgson, William H Howell, Charles H Johnson, Joseph H Kaler, Hon. Levi B Keeley, Oliver B facing 796 March, S. Robison " 396 Marshall, Thomas W " 538 Marshall, William P " 690 MacFarland, David McConkey " 765 McCauley, Major L. G " 213 McClurg, John Russell, M. D " 293 Miller, Joseph K on 733 Monaghan, Robert Emmet facing 194 Monaghan, Robert Jones Moore, Col. Daniel Foulke Parke, Samuel R Philips, George Morris, Ph. D Rothrock, Joseph Trimble, M. D Smith, Hon. Percifor Frazer State Capitol at Harrisburg State Normal School at West Chester. Talbot, Hon. D. Smith Urner, John R AVaddell, Hon. William Bell Walters, George Walters, Louis R Way, Marshall S Williams, Andrew J 636 426 504 474 446 222 98 149 ,747 467 191 406 875 778 282 HISTORICAL SKETCH Chester County, PEKKSYLYimA. -»••«*— Boundaries and Area — Territorial Changes — Geol- ogy — Topography — Mineralogy — Zoology — Bot- any — Prehistoric Races — Indian Occupation — Dutch Trading Posts — New Sweden — Upland County — Penn's Purchase— County Formation — Early Settlers — Intercolonial Wars — Mason and Dixon's lAne — Sevolutionary War — Removal of County Seat — Whisky Insurrection — Turnpikes — Iron Industries — War of 1812 — La Fayette^ s Visit. — SchwylWl Canal — Early Railroads — Mexican M^ar — Underground Railroad — The Civil War — Progress and Development — Agri- culture — Postofflees — The Press — Churches — Schools — Banks — Political and Civil Roster — County Societies — Secret Orders — Townships — Boroughs — Census Statistics — Miscellaneous. TX7HILE it is not within the scope of a ** '* work of this character to treat exten- sively of history, yet the publishers have deemed it most essential to present briefly the important events of the history a7id development of this grand old county be- fore proceeding to record the biographical sketches of its representative citizens. Chester County, Pennsylvania, first-born of the sixty-seven counties of the Keystone State, is in the southeastern, or garden part, of the Commonwealth, and lies between 39 ° 42' and 40° 30' north latitude, and 75° 15' and 76° 15' west longitude from Green- wich, England, or 55" and 1° 40' east lon- 2 ( gitude from Washington city. As a politi- cal division of the State, it is bounded on the north by Berks and Montgomery coun- ties, on the east by Montgomei-y and Dela- ware counties, on the south by Newcastle county, Delaware and Cecil county, Mary- land, and on the west by Lancaster and Berks counties. The width of Chester county, measured along the Pennsylvania railroad, is thirty miles ; its extreme length, north and south, thirty-six miles; and its area by the census of 1880, 760 square miles, or 486,400 acres. Its northern border line is fifteen miles; northeastern, twenty-one miles; southeastern, eighteen miles; south- ern, thirty miles; and western border line, twenty-eight miles; making its perimeter one hundred and twelve miles. Territorial Changes. — The territory of Chester county was organized as Upland county by the Swedes, and Penn changed the name to Chester, which was the name that he had allowed his friend Pearson to bestow upon the town of Upland in remem- brance of the city of Chester, the county seat of Cheshire county, in the west of England. The many English towns having this name, Chester, in their composition were 17) 18 mOQRAPHY AND mSTORY originally Roman camps, and the Latin word castra and the Saxon ceaster in time changed to the English chester- The territory of Chester county was a part of the following colonies for the re- spective times specified : New Netherlands, from 1609 to 1638. New Sweden, from 1638 to 1665. New Netherlands, from 1655 to 1656. New Amstel, from 1656 to 1664. New York, from 1664 to 1673. New Netherlands, from 1673 to 1674. New York, (under the name of Upland county), from 1674 to 1682. Upland county, New York, became Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, in 1682, but his- tory does not record the month and day, which tradition, however, affirms to have been November 25th. From 1729 to 1850 the following twenty-five counties were taken — the first two directly and the other twenty -three indirectly — from the territory of Chester county : Lancaster, May 10, 1729 ; Delaware, September 26, 1789 ; York, from Lancaster, August 19, 1749 ; Cumber- land, from Lancaster, January 27, 1750 ; Bedford, from Cumberland, March 9, 1771 ; Westmoreland, from Bedford, February 26, 1773; "Washington, from Bedford, March 28, 1781; Fayette, from Westmoreland, September 26, 1783 ;' Franklin, from Cum- berland, September 9, 1784; Dauphin, from Lancaster, March 4, 1785 ; Huntingdon, from Bedford, September 20, 1787; Allegheny, September 24, 1788 ; Somerset, from Bed- ford, April 17,1795; Greene, from Wash- ington, February 9, 1796; Beaver, March 12, 1800 ; Butler, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800; Erie, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800 ; Mercer, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800 ; Crawford, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800; Cambria, from Allegheny, March 26, 1804; Lebanon, February 16, 1813; Perry, fi'om Cumberland, March 22, 1820 ; Blair, February 26, 1846 ; Lawrence, March 20, 1849 ; and Fulton, from Bedford, April 19, 1850. In addition to the above counties, there were several others that were partly taken from Chester. Of the sixty-seven counties of the State, in order of age, Chester is the first ; in order of alphabetical designation, the fifteenth; and in population ranks fourteenth. In geographical position Chester county is one of the southeastern counties of Pennsyl- vania, while its geographical center and center of population are not a great dis- tance apart, and both are said to be in the neighborhood of Cain postoffice, on the Pennsylvania railroad. The county is in the Sixth Congressional district, composed of the counties of Ches- ter and Delaware; constitutes the Nine- teenth Senatorial and Fifteenth Judicial dis- tricts, and is entitled to four members in the house of representatives of Pennsylvania. Geology. — Prof. J. P. Lesley, in his Geo- logical Hand Atlas of 1885, describes Ches- ter county as follows : "A perfectly straight valley, two miles wide on the Montgomery county line at the Schuylkill river, and less than one mile wide near the Lancaster county line, separates the northern from the southern townships. The Siluro-Cambrian limestones of No. II., which occupy this 'Chester county' or ' Downingtown ' valley, dip generally 30° to 50° southward, although small anticlinal rolls run diagonally across their general strike, and the white marble strata, con- fined to its southern edge, stand quite ver- tical. The North valley hill is made by the CONTENTS. Revolutionary War 40-44 Roads, Early 180 Schuylkill Canal 55 Schools 97 Secret Societies 110 Free Masonry 110 Knights of the Golden Eagle 110 Odd Fellowship 110 Patrons of Husbandry Ill Other Orders Ill Serpentine Beds 174 Silk Culture 180 Taverns, Early 180 Taxables in 1693 37 Territorial Changes 17 Topography 32 Turnpikes 46 Townships 111-141 Birmingham Ill Cain 112 Charlestown 112 East Bradford 113 East Brandywine 113 East Cain 114 East Coventry 114 East Fallowfield 115 East Goshen 116 East Marlborough 116 East Nantmeal 117 East Nottingham 117 East Pikeland 118 Easttown 118 East Vincent 119 East Whiteland 130 Elk 134 Franklin 130 Highland 120 Honeybrook 120 Kennett 121 London Britain 121 Londonderry 122 London Grove 132 Lower Oxford 133 New Garden 138 Newlin 124 Townships, continued. page. New London 125 North Coventry 125 Penn 135 Pennsbury 126 Pocopson 136 Sadsbury 126 Schuylkill 127 South Coventry 129 Thornbury 130 Tredyffrin 180 Upper Oxford 131 Upper Uwchlan 131 Uwchlan 131 Valley 133 Wallace 182 Warwick 183 West Bradford 183 West Brandywine 184 West Cain 135 West Fallowfield 135 West Goshen 186 West Marlborough 136 West 'Nantmeal 137 West Nottingham 137 West Pikeland 138 West Sadsbury 138 Westtown 138 West Vincent 139 West Whiteland 189 Willistown 139 Underground Railroad 56 Upland County 34 Villages 151 Avondale 151 Barnestown 151 Berwytf 151 Birchrunville 151 Black Horse 151 Blue Rock 151 Brandywine Manor 151 Cain 151 Cambria Station 153 Cedar Knoll 153 Cedarville ; ... 152 Chatham 152 GONTENTS. Villages, continued. page. Chester Springs 152 Chester Valley 153 Chesterville 152 Chrome 152 Cloud 153 Cochranville 153 Collamer 153 Cupola 158 Devault : 153 Devon 153 Dilworthtown _ 153 Dorian's Mills 153 Doe Run 153 Duffryn Mawr 153 Dugdale 153 East Coventry 1 54 East Nantmeal 154 Elk Mills 154 Elk View 154 Embreeville ; . . 154 Ercildoun 154 Exton 154 Fairville 154 Font 154 Frazer 154 Fremont 155 Glen Hall 155 Glen Loch 155 Glen Moore 155 Glen Roy 165 Goshenville 155 Gum Tree 155 Guthriesville 155 Hamorton 155 Hickory Hill 155 Isabella 155 Jennersville 156 Kaolin 156 Kelton 156 Kemblesville 156 Kenilworth 156 Kimberton 156 Laudenburg 156 Lenape 156 Lenover 156 Villages, continued. page. Leonard • 156 Leopard 1"° Lewisville 1"" Lincoln University 157 and 171 Lionville 157 Loag 157 Lyndell • • • 157 Marsh 157 Marshallton 157 Martin's Corner 157 Matthews 157 Mendenhall 157 Milford Mills 158 Milltown 158 Modena 158 Mortonville 158 Mount Vernon 158 Nantmeal 158 New London 158 North Brook 158 Norway ] 58 Nottingham 159 Paoli 159 Parker Ford 159 Parkersville 159 Pawling 159 Pickering 159 Pocopson 159 Pomeroy 159 Pughtown 1 59 Rockville 159 Romansville 160 Rosenvick 160 Russellville 160 Sadsburyville 160 Saint Peter's 160 Schuylkill 160 Shenkel 160 Steelville 160 Stricklersville 160 - Sugartown . 160 Thornbury 161 Thorudale Iron Works 161 Toughkenamon 161 Townsend 161 CONTENTS. Villages, continued. page. Unionville 161 Valley Forge 161 Wallace 161 Warwick 161 West Grove 161 West Pikeland 162 Westtown 163 West Vincent 163 Whitfod 163 White Horse 163 Windsor 162 Willistown Inn 162 Willowdale 162 Other postofiices 162 War of 1812 47-54 Captain Beerbrower's Company 54 War of 1812, continued. page. Captain Campbell's Company 49 Captain Harris' Company 51 Captain Hartraan's Company 48 Captain Holmes' Company 54 Captain Lackey's Company 50 Captain Steele's Company 52 Captain Stuart's CompEtny 52 Captain Taylor's Company 47 Captain Weatherby's Company 50 Captain Wersler's Company 48 Captain Wigton's Company 53 Captain Wilson's Company 51 Welsh Tract 188 Whiskey Insurrection 45 Witchcraft 184 Zoology 38 CONTENTS. BIOGRAPHICAL. PAGE. Abraham, David 383 Ackenbach, William 774 Acker, Peter 431 Aiken, James, M.D 430 Allen, Edgar, M.D 206 Allison, Francis, D.D B17 Anderson, Hon. Isaac 623 Armor, Judson 825 Armstrong, G. D., M.D 221 Ashbridge, George D 590 Baldwin, Caleb 819 Baldwin, Joseph H 838 Baldwin, William, M D 584 Baltz, John Daniel 771 Barker, Capt. Matthew 480 Barnard, Hon. Isaac D 204 Bartholomew, Dr. John Cleaver 450 Bartram, John 337 Beale, Capt. Horace A 857 Bean, Capt. Benjamin Franklin 430 Bean, Henry 346 Beaumont, Theodore 571 Beaver, Frank 795 Beaver, George H 381 Beck, Lorenzo 808 Beitler, John, Jr 853 Benjamin, Joseph H 366 Bell, Hon. Thomas S 577 Benner, Daniel 801 Bennett, George S 838 Bingham, Edward Donaldson . . 626 Bizallion, Pierre 516 PAGE. Bliss, Rev. E. W., A.M 829 Bolmar, Antoine 563 Bonzano, Adolphus 343 Boyer, Aaron J 513 Branson, William R 653 Bremerman, L. T., A.M., M D. 363 Brinton, Henry L 459 Brooks, Capt. James C 613 Brower, Rev Isaac Urner 252 Brower, John L 714 Brower, William, M D 320 Brown, A, Stanley 818 Brownback, Garrett Elwood .... 603 Brownback, Harry 1 860 Brownback, Jacob C 833 Brownback, Lewis C 555 Buckwalter, John 243 Buckwalter, John Henry 862 Bull, Col. Thomas 588 Burling, William 418 Burns, W. H 787 Buzzerd, Simeon 546 Cardwell, George G 600 Carpenter, Capt. J. T 364 Catanach, Adam A 608 Chandler, W. D 848 Christraan, Capt. Henry Evans. 389 Christman, Jacob. 359 Cleaver, Isaac A 757 Clemson, Rev. John Baker, D D. 734 Clower, Maxwell 588 Cochran, Prof. Carlos B 265 PAGE. Cochran, Isaac S 236 Cochran, Dr. John 580 Cohen, John B 331 Colgan, David 358 Colket, William W 609 Cook, Charles L 616 Cornog, John 872 Cornwell, Robert Thompson. . . 614 Coryell, William Price 373 Cowan, Robert 230 Cox, Thomas S 676 Croskey, Knowles 858 Cummiskey, Eugene 706 Cutler, Levi 558 Darlington, Dr. William, LL.D. 207 Darlington, Frank P 197 Darlington, Isaac G 560 Darlington, John H 654 Darlington, Stephen 348 Davies, John J 812 Davis, H. W 827 Davis, Jesse B 643 Davis, John H 405 Davis, Mordecai 411 Davis, Thompson 760 Davis, W. Latta 439 Davis, William W 722 Deery, Henry 845 DeHaven, Hugh 493 Denithorne, Capt. John 366 Derr, Rev. Calvin 821 Detwiler, David 782 OF CHESIER COUNTY. 19 Pottsdam sandstone, No. I., rising northward from beneath the lowest limestones, and spreading in sheets and patches over a con- siderable gneiss region, embracing Honey- brook, East and West Nantmeal, West Vincent, East and West Pikeland, Charles- town, Upper ITwchlan, East and West Brandywine, and parts of West Cain and Sadsbury townships; and it is plain that the fundamental gneiss area now exposed was formerly entirely covered by both the Potsdam quartzite and the overlying limestone. The South valley hill, on the contrary, is the edge of a low tableland (500' to 600' A. T.) composed (1) of a belt of magnesian-mica slate ; also vertical, or dipping at the highest angles southward, apparently in contact and conformity with and over the marble beds of the south edge of the valley, but possibly overturned and beneath the marble, in which latter case the valley is a synclinal trough, and the slates south of it are equivalent to the quartzite north of it; or else a fault runs along the south edge of the valley. The belt of South valley hill slate is only two miles wide at the Schuylkill end; widens west- ward to three miles at West Chester ; four and one-half at the West Branch Brandy- wine ; and then spreads over East and West Fallowfield, Highland, Londonderry, Up- per and Lower Oxford, and East and West Nottingham townships into Lancaster county; (2) a belt of older and newer gneisses and mica-schists occupying all the townships to the south and east. Isolated areas of limestone, however, occur in this belt near West Chester, Doe Run, Kennett's Square, Avondale, Landenburg, etc. ; and Potsdam quartzite seems to be preserved around London Grove and at points on the Delaware State line. A long range of ser- pentine separates the two belts in East Goshen and Willistown townships, and an- other still more extensive serpentine belt ranges along the Maryland line into Lan- caster county, and carries deposits of chrome' iron sand. A trap dyke enters from Dela- ware county at the south edge of the slate belt, and extensive outspreads of trap bowl- ders occur along the Berks county bound- ary in the north ; other local exhibitions of trap being numerous in various parts of the county. ' Between -the Schuylkill river and French creek the country is wholly of mes- ozoic brown sandstone and shale ; and in the tunnel at Phcenixville through these rocks a large collection of fossil plants and rep- tiles was made by Dr. C. M. Wheatley. Copper, lead, and zinc veins have long been mined to a small extent along the contact line of the mesozoic and gneissic rocks. The large magnetic iron mines of Warwick, connected with both trap and New Eed rocks, but really belonging to the underly- ing azoic floor, are still worked. Small quantities of brown hematite ore have also been obtained from the valley limestone. The white marble quarries are numerous, but none of them large." Professor Lesley further says that the limestone formation. No. II., was originally deposited over all southeastern Pennsyl- vania. There can be no doubt that the Lancaster county limestone formerly cov- ered the whole of northern Chester, and that it was removed by gradual erosion before the deposit of mesozoic sediments ; for there is no appearance of the limestone at the present edge of the mesozoic area along French creek, and there is ample evidence that the mesozoic itself originally covered the district beyond its present limits. That the limestone formation, No. 20 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY II., once overspread southern Lancaster, southern Chester, and Delaware counties, and the northern part of the State of Dela- ware also, is shown by the relics of it left at various places ; and in all such places it is accompanied by its underlying Potsdam sandstone, l^o. I. The lowest palseozoic formation in Pennsylvania, ISo. I., logically identified with the Potsdam sandstone of northern New York, makes its appear- ance in the Welsh mountain in northern Chester. Professor Lesley further says : " The geology of southern Adams, York, Lan- caster, and Chester is still obscure — a region of metamorphic rocks — mica-schists, chlorite schists, and gneiss of various kinds, inter- terrupted by belts of serpentine and marble, and carrying deposits of kaolin and chrome iron sand. Where the Susquehanna river crosses Mason and Dixon's line a belt of roofing slate is extensively quarried, and a multitude of plant-like fossils have been found, pronounced by competent authority to be a buthrotrephis of Hudson river age, which looks as if the roofing slate forma- tion of Northampton and Lehigh counties once extended over southern Pennsylvania ; and this idea has been carried so far as to suppose that the talcose and micaceous and garnetiferous serpentine - bearing schists which form a wide boi'der to the Chester county limestone valley from York east- ward along the South valley hill, and across the Schulykill to Chestnut hill in Philadel- phia, instead of being sub-calciferous, Pots- dam, sub-Potsdam, or Cambrian strata, are really metamorphosed Hudson river strata, overlying the limestones of the valley, the top layers of which would then be Trenton beds, turned to white marble." In "The Geology of Chester County," edited by J. P. Lesley, after the surveys of Eogers, Frazer, and Hall, and published in 1883, it is said that the great regularity of Mr. Rogers' belts, and the utter irregularity of Mr. Hall's areas, strikingly exemplify the dift'erence between the conclusions arrived at in a difficult region like this, by the earlier geologist, who made everything bend to his theory of parallel, overturned anti-clinals and synclinals, and the observations of the l^ter geologist, who is fettered by no such theory, but is perhaps quite as strongly influenced by a diflerent sentiment — that the azoic forma- tions spread out over one another with moderate inclinations unconformably, and that "the genuineness of the Potsdam sand- stone outliers in. southern Chester seems to be proven by Doctor Frazer's discovery of numerous casts of the Scolithus linearis in its outcrops in London Grove township. Whatever may be thought of the structure of southern Chester county, all the indica- tions point towards a probability that the lowest or primal members of the Palaeozoic system of foi-mations (Siluro-Cambrian,Nos. 1 and 2) once spread over the whole region, and have since been in great part eroded. But if the quartzite (Potsdam proper) of the North Valley hill varies so much as to be absent in the South Valley hill, and yet be present in townships to the south, while conformably enclosed between upper and lower primal slates (the latter of great thickness), then we can no longer look upon this semi-metamoi'phosed sand and gravel bed as the universal shore deposit of the early Palseozoic sea, uncomformably resting on the schists and gneisses of preceding Huronian and Laurentian ages. In fact, it renders doubtful the existence of such a sea, and rather suggests a number of more or less isolated water basins, which were OF CIIESTEB COUNTY. 21 not combined into an ocean until the opening of the magnesian limestone age." The superficial covering of Chester county has been derived from the immediately under- lying rocks, but, however, gravel deposits exist which are not referable to the mother rocks of the locality. Professor Lesley says: ''It has been my duty to exhibit the obstacles which lie in the way of a true understanding of the structural geology of the Philadelphia-Bal- timore belt. Little more can be said than that the first geological survey did some- thing to reveal the structural geology of the Philadelphia-Baltimore belt; and that the second geological survey has added its mite to the revelation ; but that a great deal more light must be thrown upon it before we can congratulate ourselves upon a proper and satisfactory knowledge of it." Two geological maps of Chester county have been printed : Prof. Persifor Frazer's, in 1880, and Prof. C. E. Hall's, in 1882. They differ radically from each other, as well as fi'om Prof. H. D. Rogers' State map of 1858. These three able geologists — Rogers, Frazer, and Hall — difterfrom each other in their views of the order and super- position of the formations, and leave several points of geology in almost as great obscur- ity as they found them. Proceeding from the south to the north boundary line, Chester county is divided into five distinctly marked geological re- gions: 1, southern gneiss; 2, mica-slate or South Valley hill ; 3, Downingtown valley limestone ; 4, northern gneiss ; 5, Schuylkill or mesozoic. L. The first region embraces the larger part of the county south of "West Chester, and consists of syenite, f'eldspathic, and porphyry rocks, gneiss, schists, and qiiartzitc beds, with patches of serpentine and crys- talline limestone, beds of impure limonite, pure kaolin and corundum. 2. The mica-slate region is from two to four miles wide, and lies between the south- ern and middle regions of the county, but its geological relationship to both is still in dispute. 3. Downingtown valley limestone, or central division, averages from one to two miles in width, and extends westward across the county from Willow Grove, Montgomery county, to Quarry vi lie, Lancaster county. It is fifty-five miles in length, and has been generally classed by geologists as a lime- stone basin or valley. Its geological features are in part simple and clearly defined, and in part so obscure as to lead to discussion and diversity of opinion. This limestone is of formation STo. II., and is the same as the Calciferous, Chazy, and Trenton limestone formations of the ISevf York survey, and the Anroral limestone of Professor Rogers. It is the Knoxville limestone of the south and the Magnesian limestone of the west. It over- lies the Potsdam sandstone. Rogers claims a synclinal structure for the valley, while Hall insists upon its monoclinal character. There are numerous marble quari-ies and iron-ore mines in this valley. Along its noi'thern border extends the celebrated Potsdam sandstone. C. E. Hall found well developed areas of Laurentian syenite, sandstone, quartzite, limestone, hydro-mica- schist, and serpentine. There are several serpentine quarries iind chrome mines in this region, and the Brinton serjjentine quarry, opened in 1730, which produces yearly from six to twenty thousand cubic feet of stone. From Brinton's and other serpentine quan-ies of south Chester, stone is sent to Philadelphia, Ifew "S'ork, Wash- 33 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ington, Baltimore, and Chicago, where it has been used in the construction of some of the most prominent structures of those cities. 4. The northern gneiss region embraces nearly all of northern Chester, and its north- eastern azoic border line passes fron> near Valley Forge, in a winding manner, through Schuylkill and East Pikeland to French creek, which it follows to the Berks county line. Pipe clay, gi-aphite, and valuable veins of hematite iron ore exist in this region. Magnetic iron ore of good quality has been found in Honeybrook township. 5. The Schuylkill or niesozoic region occupies the northeastern part and is the red sandstone region of Chester county. An arm of the ocean once stretched across ]Srew Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania into Maryland and Virginia, in which one of the last sedimentary formations was the mesozoic red sandstone. The dip of these sandstones and their accompanying shales is one of the most difficult questions of American geology. The mesozoic sand- stone rests on a floor of gneiss which has faults, in which trap dykes play an im- portant part. From the largest of these faults have been great outbursts of trap, which form high ridges, while the trap that issued from the smaller ones was unable to reach the surface. 'These hills of trap in the open rolling country of red sandstone are "the eroded outcrops of outbursts of igneous rock along cracks which go down to great depths beneath the floor of older rocks to some profounder reservoir of lava, now extinct, but similar to that which at the present time underspreads the western part of the United States, feeding active volcanoes and geysers, and producing earth- quakes and fractures of the crust of the earth. Ancient volcanoes and geysers do not seem to have existed on the Atlantic border, but outbursts of lava took place through and between the layers of the niesozoic strata, and these now constitute the trap hills of the mesozoic region." The old name of trap was basalt, and Professor Rogers says it is " a union of augite, feld- spar, and titaniferous iron," the augite predominating. The fossils of this region include most of those generally found in the mesozoic for- mation. Many fossil bones, teeth and plants have been collected at Phcsnixville, and at other places in the region, and Dr. W. D. Hartman says : "Immense fish, prob- ably ichthyosaurus, or plesio saurus, visited this (Chester county sea) vast estuary." The mineral veins along the edge of the mesozoic, west of Valley Forge, are partly in the gneiss and partly in the mesozoic. These veins are of copper, lead, iron, and plumbago, and will be noticed in the history of the dift'erent townships. Professor Frazer makes nine distinct groups of rocks in Chester county, which, he states, cannot be arranged into an exact chronological scale at the present, owing to certain vexed questions of structure. Com- mencing with the lowest, he gives them as follows : Syenites and feldspar porphyries, imitation syenites, mica-schists, thin mica- schists, argillitic or hydro-mica-schists, lime- stones, serpentine, new red or mesozoic sandstone, trap-dykes, and gravels. Dr. (Irofl^, in his classification, gives them as: gneiss, mica slate, talc slate, serpentine, limestone, sandstone, red sandstone, horn- blende rock, trap, and C[uartz. Tojxigraphji. — The surface of the countv is undulating and hilly, the soil of every variety and highly pi-odnctive, and it is well OP CHESTER COUNTY. 33 wooded and well waitered. The topography of the county will be given in the same order as its geology. The southern gneiss region, a beautiful and populous section of the county, is a rolling country of hill and dale, with rich farms, good roads, and com- fortable dwelling houses, the latter mostly built of stone. This region embi-aces all of Londonderry, Peun, ITew London, Elk, West Marlboi-ough, London Glrove, Frank- lin, Newlin, East Marlborough, New Gar- den, London Britain, Pocopson, Kennett, PennBbury,West Groshen,We8ttown, Thorn- bury, and Birmingham ; and parts of Upper Oxford, Lower Oxford, East Nottingham, West Fallowfield, Highland, East Fallow- field, West Bradford, East Bradford, East Grosheu,Willistown and Easttown townships. Its general elevation above ocean level is about four hundred feet, while its streams have cut down to a depth of between one or two hundred feet. They flow between steep and sometimes rocky banks, and are crossed by high railway bridges and em- bankments. One railroad, the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central, crosses it from west to east in the southern part, while three roads cross it from north to south — the Pennsylvania &. Delaware, in the west ; the Wilmington & Northern, in the centre; and the West Chester & Philadelphia, in the east. The following carefully compiled table shows the altitude of a number of points in the southern gneiss region, all located on the diflferentlines of railroad passing through that section of the county : ON PHILADELPHIA & BALTIMORE CENTRAL RAILROAD. Miles from Feet Fhila. above tide. Chadd's Ford ( Brandywine creek) 16 129 Fairville station 19 255. Miles from Feet Phila. above tide. Rosedale station 20 Kennett Square station 22 Toughkenamon station 25 Avondale station ( X P. & D.), 26 West Grove station 29 Penn station 32 Elkview station 33 Lincoln University station 35 Oxford (junction of P. B.R.R.) 38 Columbia and Pennsylvania D. junction Susquehanna river, 57 312 260 283 227 444 506 ON WEST CHESTER k PHILADELPHIA RAILROAD. Westchester 27 406 Hemphill 318 Street road 25 252 Cheney 23 240 Glen Mill 22 199 Darlington 20 143 Baltimore Central R.R. June... 19 133 Lenni 18 136 Glen Riddle 17 160 Greenwood 16 218 Media 14 210 Manchester 211.5 Wallingford 13 168 Swarthmore 11 125 Morton 10 121.5 Springhill 9 ' 128 Clifton 7 109 Kellyville 6 102 Darbyroad 103 Fernwood 90 Angora 3 74.5 Woodland street 57 Philadelphia Depot, Thirty- first and Chestnut streets.... 14 ON WILMIN&TON & NORTHERN RAILROAD. Miles from Feet B. June, above tide. Coatesville ( X Penn . R. R.) . . . . 30.7 31 5 Modena 33.3 278 24 BIOQBAPSY AND HISTORY Miles from Feet B June, above tide. Mortouville 36.1 260 Laurel 241 Embreeville 38.3 231 Grlenhall 41.4*218 Iforthbrook 209 Seeds 43.3 195 Lenape 45.2 183 Pocopsou 46 180 Chadd's Ford 48 175 Smith's bridge 53 209 Centre 54.6 263 Dupont's 60 282 Wilmington 63 12 ON PENNSYLVANIA i DELAWARE RAILROAD. Miles. Above tide. Pomeroy (junction P. R.R.)... 483 Doe run 6 374 Pusey's summit 10 470 Pennock's summit 463 Avondale (X Phil. & Bait. Cent. R-R.) 15 282 l^ewark, in Delaware 26 118 Delaware City 38 16 The drainage of the district is good. All of its rivers flow southeastward, and most of them furnish excellent water power for the numerous mills and factories situated on their banks. In the east, Darby, Crum, Ridley, and Chester creeks flow into the Delaware river; in the central part the east branch of the Brandywine river re- ceives the waters of Valley creek and Broad, Taylor's, Plum, and Radley's runs, while the west branch has as tributaries Ring's run and Red Clay and White Clay creeks; and in the west, Elk, Little Elk, and North East creeks flow south into Maryland. The mica-slate region borders th^ south- ern gneiss country on the north and west, and is a narrow belt of land which is often called the South valley hill, or hydro-mica schist belt. It traverses the county from east to west, with a width of from two to four miles, to the Wilmington & Northern railroad, and then suddenly widens out and sweeps down along the east side of Octo- raro creek with a breadth of ten to thirteen miles. It embraces parts. of West Notting- ham, East Nottingham, Lower Oxford, Up- per Oxford, West Fallowfield, Highland. East Fallowfield, West Bradford, East Brad- ford, West Whiteland, East Whiteland, East Goshen, Willistown, and Easttown. The surface of this region rises to the north- ward into the South valley hill or ridge, overlooking the Downingtown valley. The soil is well cultivated and produces good crops. The elevation of its highest hills is about six hundred feet above tide level. The railroads passing over its surface are the Pennsylvania and the old and new West Chester branches. The Pennsylvania railroad runs along the ridge from Radnor to Frazer, about thirteen miles, and then grades down the hill slope into the valley at Downingtown, as shown by the following table : PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD. Miles from Feet PhUa. above tide. Radnor station in Delaware Co. 12 409 Edgewood 401 Wayne 14 405 Reeseville I61 495 Paoli 19 534 Greentree 543 Summit 550 Malvern 21 546 Frazer (junction of W. 0. R. R.) . . . 490 Glenlock 25 453 Ship bridge 411 Walkertown 388 OF CHESTER COUNTY. 35 Miles from Feet Phila. above tide. Intersection of Waynesburg branch 256 Downingtown 32 266 Gallagherville 33 298 Thorndale 34 313 Cain 36 359 Coatesville (X of Wilm. & Northern E. R.) 38 380 Midway 396 Pomeroy (E. junction of Peun. &Del. R. R.) 42 483 Parkesburg 44 537 Summit west of Parkesburg 562 Penningtonville 47 oOO The streams of this region flow, contrary to the general direction of drainage in the county, by "heading west along the west border of the gneiss region, and thence into and through the hydro-mica-schist belt. It is drained by the Brandywine river and its tributaries. Bock and Doe runs, and Muddy and several smaller runs flowing westward into Octoraro creek. The Downingtown valley region is known as the " Great valley," and also as the "Chester valley." It is a narrow valley from five hundred to two thousand yards wide and from two hundred to four hun- dred feet deep,which extends from southwest to northeast, clear across Chester county. It extends through parts of West Sadsbury, West Fallowfield, Sadsbury, Highland, Val- ley, East Fallowfield, Cain, West Bradford, East Bradford, West Whiteland, East Whiteland, Willistown, Tredyfl'rin, and Easttown townships. Limestone and mar- ble form the floor of this valley, and extend to some distance up both slopes. Marble quarries and mines of brown hematite iron ore are worked at many places within the valley. Its soil possessesthat great fertility which distinguishes all limestone areas. Its tide level does not exceed four hundred feet at any place within its rock-walled boundaries. The Pennsylvania railroad runs through it west from Downingtown, and from that place the Chester Valley railroad extends east to the Montgomery county line. In the following table we give the altitude of the most important places along these lines in the county : PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD. Miles from Feet BadnoT. above tide. Gallagherville 22J 298 Thorndale 23i 313 Cain 251 359 Coatesville 27^ 380 Midway 394 Pomeroy (eastern junction)... 31| 483 Parkesburg 33| 537 Summit 562 Penningtonville 36^ 500 CHESTER VALLEY RAILROAD. Miles. Above tide. Bridgeport, opp. Norristown... 76 Henderson's station 2 165 King of Prussia station 3 J 190 Centreville station 6 202 Garden's station 7 225 Howellville station ^ 221 Papli road station 9^ 238 Cedar Hollow station 10 246 Lee's station 10^ 279 Valley Store station llj 295 Mill Lane station 13 315 White Horse station (Summit) 14 339 Extou station ,16 324 Oakland station 18 301 Baldwin's station 19i 299 Downingtown station 21i 267 The valley has good drainage. Two rivers — the Schuylkill and Brandywine — 36 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY beside Buck run aud Octoraro creek, flow south through eight gaps in its north and south walls. The northern gneiss region, the fourth topographical division of the county, is a rolling country of decomposing gneissoid rock, traversed by ridges of sandstone. It occupies the larger part of the county north of the Downingtown valley, from which it stretches northward to French creek,which is its northern boundary line for twelve miles. The remaining part of its north boundary line, nine miles in length to Val- ley Forge, is marked only by change of soil. It embraces the townships of "West Cain, Honeybrook, West ISTantmeal, East N"ant- meal, Wallace, West Brandywine, East Brandywine, Upper Uwchlan, Lower XJwch- lan, and West Pikeland ; and parts of West Sadsbury, Sadsbury, Valley, Cain, East Cain, West Whiteland, East Whiteland, Tredyffrin, Charlestown, Schuylkill, East Pikeland, South Coventry, and Warwick. The southern boundary ridge is pai'tly Pots- dam sandstone. Copper Mine ridge and Welsh mountain are of Potsdam sandstone, and there are areas of this stone in Lower Uwchlan. A large area of limestone is in Schuylkill and Charlestown town8hips,whiIe copper, lead, iron ore, and kaolin exist in considerable quantities. The soil is njost productive and yields fair crops. This region varies in height from four hundred to nine hundred feet above tide level. Four railways pass through it, and below we give the altitude of various points on the lines of three of these difterent roads. WILMINUTON A NOllTHERN RAILROAD. Miles from Feet Junction, above tide. Bird8borojunction,inBerksCo. 173 Hampton station, " '1.1 223 White Bear station, " 4,6 349 Miles from Feet Junction above tide. Geigertown station, Berks Co., 6.2 432 Cold Run station, " 7.7 525 Joanna station, " 10.2 627 Springfield station, in Chester county 12.4 645 Conestoga station, in Chester county 13.7 647 Isabella station, in Chester Co. 15.7 639 East Brandywine and Waynes- burg railroad crossing 19 647 Beaver Dam station, in Chester county 21.3 603 Honeybrook station, in Chester county 23.1 596 Manor station, in Chester Co... 25.9 572 Hibernia station, " ... 27 530 Brandywine station, " ... 27.6 556 Coatesville, in the valley 30.7 315 EAST BRANDYWINE & WAYNESBURG RAILROAD. Miles from Feet Downingtown. above tide. ISTew Holland, in Lancaster Co. 28.1 482 East Earl, " 25.2 510 Cedar Lane, " 24.6 552 Beartown, " 22.0 763 Churchtown road, " 20.7 867 Honeybrook, in Chester county. 18.1 728 End of track in 1877, " 18 741 Waynesburg station, " ... 728 Lancaster pike, " ... 696 Buchanan's station, " 16.5 672 Wilm.& Read, railroad crossing 16 645 Dampman's station 15 628 Forrest station 14.5 576 Cupola station 14 565 Lewis Mills station 13.5 542 Barnestown station 12 486 Moorestown station 9.5 443 Springton station 405 Cornog's station 7.5 361 Brooklyn station 6 331 01 CHESTER COUNTY. 27 Miles from Feet Downingtown. above tide. Reed's road station 4.5 309 Dorian's station 4 280 Dowlin's Forge station 274 Shelmire's 1 246 Downingtown junction Penn- sylvania railroad 256 PICKERING VALLEY RAILROAD. Miles from Feet Phoenixville. above tide. Byer's Eagle Summit llj 426 Cambria station 9i 322 Chester Springs station 7 J 278 Pikeland station 7 272 Kimberton station 4 211 French Creek station 2 128 Phcenixville station ' 110 The general tendency of the drainage of this region is eastward. The three principal streams, which rise close to each other, are the east and west branches of the Brandy- wine and French creek. The main tribu- taries of the Brandywine are Birch, Rock, Marsh, Perkins', and Culbertson's runs, and Marsh and Beaver creeks. French and Pickering creeks enter the Schuylkill river. The Schuylkill or mesozoic region is a long triangle, one-half mile wide at Valley Forge, and increasing to five miles in width on the Berks county line. Its eastern border is the Schuylkill river, and its south- ern boundary line French creek and the edge of the gneiss district. It comprises all the townships of Forth Coventry and East Coventry, and parts of Warwick, South Coventry, East Vincent, East Pikeland, Charlestown, and Schuylkill. It is every- where hilly, but at no place is over five hundred feet above tide level. The altitude of several points in this region is given in the following table, together with their distance from Philadelphia: ■Miles from Feet Phila. above tide. Douglassville 44J 161 Pottstown 40 150 Limerick 34 138 Royer'sFord 32 127 Mingo 301 116 Phoenixville- 27j 110 Perkiomen Junction 25 109 Valley Forge 23J 98 Port Kennedy 21i 87 Merion 19 81 Bridgeport, opp. Norristown... 17 76 Philadelphia, Delaware front 28 The surface of the mesozoic region is drained by the Schuylkill and'the following of its tributaries: Stony run and French, Pigeon, and Pickering creeks. Mineralogy. — The best and most accurate description of the minerals, rocks and ores of the county that we find, is contained in a table arranged by Ceorge C Groff, M.D., natural science professor in West Chester State ISTormal school, and published in 1881, in Futhey & Cope's "History of Chester County." From this table we take the following lists of the minerals, rocks, and iron, lead, copper and zinc oresy of the county : MINERALS. Quartz, chalcedony, jasper, calcite, dolo- mite, serpentine, talc, horn-blende, tourma- line, mica, feldspars, asbestos, garnet, cyan- ite, tremolite, actinolite, niagnesite, apatite, graphite, corundum, epidote, aragonite, scapolite, jefterisite, dewylite, fluorite, beryl, staurolite, zoisite, ziricon, kaolin, margarite and chesterlite — the latter found first in poor-house quarry, and at Bailey's, in East Marlborough, and named from Chester county. 38 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ROCKS. Gneiss, composed of quartz, mica, feld- spar; mica slate — quartz, mica, feldspar; talc 'slate — quartz, talc, feldspar; serpen- tine — same as mineral serpentine; lime- stone — impure calcite; sandstone — small grains of quartz; red sandstone — small grains of quartz ; horn-blende rock — quartz, horn-blende, feldspar; trap (volcanic) — horn-blende, feldspar; and quartz — same as mineral quartz. IRON ORES. Pyrites, composed of iron, sulphur ; limo- nite — iron, oxygen, water; hematite — iron, oxygen; magnetite — iron, oxygen; chromite — iron, chromium; and titanic iron — iron, titanium. LEAD ORES. Galena, composed of lead, sulphur; py- romorphite — lead, phosphorus ; cerussite — carbonate of lead; andanglesite — sulphate of lead. COPPER ORBS. Calcopyrite, composed of copper, iron, sulphur; malachite — carbonate of copper; azurite — carbonate of copper; chrysoeolla — copper, silica. ZINC ORBS. Calamine, composed of silica, zinc,water ; sphalterite — zinc, sulphur; rutile (money- stone) — ^titanium, oxygen ; and pyrolusite — manganese, oxygen. Zoology. — The zoology of the county is an interesting field of study, in which Dr. Ezra Michener and others have labored with good success. Doctor Michiner, in his zoological catalogues, published in Futhey & Cope's "History of Chester County," has done very thorough work. In his futulogue of mammals he gives sixty-five species of the following eight orders : Insectivora, carni- vora, marsupiala, rodentia, ruminatia, sol- idungula, pacydermata, and proboscidia. In explanation of recording his species of ele- phants and mastodons, Doctor Michener says : " Perhaps many who will read this history may jiot know that the alluvial deposits of our county have for untold centuries been the custodians of the fossil remains here noticed. The elephant and the mastodon have each dropped us a molar tooth as a memorial of their prior claim upon our soil. The former was obtained on the farm of John G. Jackson, in the Hockesson valley, and the latter was thrown out by a flood in "White Clay creek, in the meadow of Howard L. Hoopes, near Avon- dale." The extinct animals of the county are : American panther, Canada wild cat, American wolf, black cat weasel, beaver, American porcupine, white rabbit, elk, red deer, American buffalo, elephant, and mas- todon ; while among rare animals are men- tioned the American wild oat, gray fox, and American otter. The ornithological catalogue of Doctor Michener gives two hundred and thirty-two species of birds for Chester county, of which two hundred and twenty have been found. Among the birds given are : Iceland falcon, golden eagle, white headed eagle, snowy owl, Michener's warbler, Townsend's warb- ler, great Carolina wren, English sparrow, Townsend's sparrow, sand hill crane, night herron, summer duck, and greater shear- water. But one specimen of Townsend's sparrow is known, and it was presented by Doctor Michener to the Smithsonian insti- tution. Of reptiles Doctor Michener catalogued fifty-four species, belonging to four orders: OP CHESIER CO VNTY. Batrachia, ophidia, lacertilia, and testudiii- ata. Of venomous snakes he mentions the handed rattlesnake and the copperhead. Prof. E. D. Cope says that about sixty species of so-called fishes are native to the waters of Chester county, and that the live following species have been introduced: Black bass, gold fish, carp, salmon, and California salmon. In his catalogue of na- tive fishes he divides them into eighteen families and sixty species, of which eight families, comprising nineteen species, are the best for food. The best resident food fishes are the pike, perch and trout, while the shad ranks best of the anadromus species. In the field of conchology Dr. W. D. Hartman has labored zealously, and his illustrated catalogue of the terrestrial and fluviatile testaceous niollusks of Chester county is a valuable contribution to the zoology of southeastern Penrfsylvania. He gives one hundred and twenty-seven species of the three orders : Pulmonifera, pectini- branchiata, and branchifera. Of these one hundred and twenty-seven species, one hun- dred and twenty-three are illustrated. Botany. — Dr. William Darlington's well known work, " Flora Cestrica," describes the flowering and filicoid plants of the county, while its cryptogamus plants are described by Dr. Ezra Michener in his cata- logue of the " Cryptogamia of Chester County." He gives two hundred and^fifty- three species of the four genera of acrogens or ferns, anophyta or mosses, hepatica or' liverworts, and thallophyta or linchens. Dr. Michener said that twelve hundred species of the genera of hysterophyta or fungi had been collected in the county, which he had not the time to properly arrange in a cata- logue. Frehistoric Races. — Within the last. quar- ter of a century some light has been thrown on the aboriginal and the earlier part of the savage period of America, as well as of the old world, by the researches in the field of archajology. Dr. Brinton, in his Icono- graphic Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, says that prehistoric archaeology is an inde- pendent branch of the general history of man, and is an indispensable introduction to the general history of culture, for the rude objects of ancient art are mute wit- nesses of a period of human existence back of the scope of written records, and that they supply the long-sought means of trac- ing man from almost his first appearance in the world down through his conquests over nature to the time when history takes up the thread of his career. De Mortillet divides prehistoric archseol- ogy into the ages of stone, bronze and iron, and divides the first age into three periods : 1. Etholithic, or fired stone. 2. Palseolithic, or chipped stone. 3. Neolithic, or polished stone. The nomenclature of the archajology of the western hemisphere is closely similar to that of the eastern, and the prehistoric is separated from the historic by the discovery of America by Columbus ; so that whatever in the United States is ante-Columbian is also prehistoric. The prehistoric archaeology of the United States lies wholly within the age of stone as confined to the palseolithic and neolithic period^. In the first of these two periods was the glacial age, whose disappearance most of the geologists agree in placing at thirty thousand years ago. Among the extinct animals of the palseolithic period were the true mammoth (^Elephas primi- genms), the mastodon, the great musk ox 30 BIOQMAPHY AND HISTOBY [Ovihos bombifroms), the reindeer, a huge lion, (Felis atrox), whose bones have been found near Natchez, and a large tiger which frequented the area of Texas, beside two species of the horse. It is generally accepted now that man existed in North America during the glacial epoch of the palseolithic period ; and stone implements made by him have been found in the Trenton gravels, the Nebraska Loes beds, and the auriferous gravels of Califor- nia, which strengthen this view ; as well as the finding of the celebrated Calaveras human skull, at the depth of one hundred and fifty feet, in a mining shaft in Cala- veras county, California. The art products of the aboriginal Amer- ican are represented by articles in stone, clay, bone, and shell. Those of stone are arrow and spear heads, grooved hammers, and axes, gouges, semi -lunar knives, awls, scrapers, mortars and pestles, food vessels, spades, plummets, ornaments, pipes, images, and inscribed petroglyphs or tablets. The pottery of the Middle Atlantic States was rude in character and imperfectly burned. Bone was used for fish hooks, spoons, awls, and ornaments. Shells were used for cups, spoons, chisels, and knives. At what time the aboriginal period com- menced in America none with certainty can tell, while the fate of the aborigines and all of the prehistoric races of this country ex- cept the Indian remains a mystery upon which history sheds no light. Of the races who passed away and left no record of their existence in any form of written language, archaeology alone has been successful in se- curing any knowledge of their life, charac- ter, and seats of empire. This it has ac- complished by researches among the ruins of their mounds, fortified heights, and town sites, and the careful examination of the- tools and implements which they left. One theory makes the aborigines to include the Indians, while another holds them to be a dift'erent people from the Indians, credits them with being semi-civilized, and names them Mound -builders, on account of the earth mounds which they erected all over the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. Their mounds were of four classes : temple, altar, effigy, and tomb mounds. Numerous theories have been advanced to account for the unknown fate of the mound builders. But whether they per- ished by war or famine, or went south to found the empires of Mexico and Peru, no one knows. The mound builders were never perma- nent residents in Chester county, but arch- aeology has discovered in the Trenton gravels the evidence of one or more pre- historic races having inhabited the banks of the Delaware long before the advent of the Indian into southeastern Pennsylvania. Who these races were, and how long they remained on the territory of Chester county and along the Delav\'are, none can tell. The Indian, with his unreliable traditions, is the only one of the . prehistoric races of the county of whom we have any knowledge. Indian Occupation. — The savages of Brit- ish America and the United States consti- tute a single great race, from the Eskimo to the Comanches, while some authorities make the race to embrace the Mexic and South American semi-civilized Indians, and the stupid Patagonians; but this subject, like many others of ethnography, must be considered as belonging to the yet undeter- mined and debatable domain of that science. The unity of the various Indian nations of OF CHESTER COUNTY. 31 the United States, as descendants of a single stock, is proved philological ly by theii- lan- guages. This unity is not manifest in the similarity of the words but in the structure of the different languages. Two of the eight Indian families of the United States were the Algonquins, who stretched from Vir- ginia to New England, and the Huron- Iroquois, whose home was in Canada and fn central and western l^ew York. The most powerful confederation of the latter family was the Iriquois, or famous Six I^ations, who were the terror of the Algon- quins, and conquered the Delaware tribes of the latter family in eastern Pennsylvania. The Six Nations were the most intelli- gent and advanced, and also the most terri- ble and ferocious, of all the Indian nations of this country. Such was their great elo- quence and wonderful energy of character, and the extent of their conquests, that Volney called them the " Romans of the West." Parkham, the American historian, says : " The Iroquois were the Indians of Indians — a thorough savage, yet a finished and developed savage." He is, perhaps, an example of the highest elevation which man can reach without emerging from his prim- itive condition of the hunter. The Iriquois were often called the Five Nations, until they were joined by the Tuscaroras, in 1712, after which they were designated the Six Nations. They called themselves Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or People of the Long House. "The Iroquois were bound together by a remarkable league, which was the secret of their power and success. They constituted a confederacy, in some respects like our federal union, in which the nations repre- sented States, to which were reserved gen- eral powers of control, that the several nations exercised with great independence of each other, while certain other powers were yielded to the confederacy as a whole. " In each nation there were eight tribes, which were arranged in two divisions, and named as follows : Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. The division of the people of each nation into eight tribes, whether pre-existing, or perfected at the establishment of the con- federacy, did not terminate in its object with the nation itself. It became the means of effecting the most perfect union of separate nations ' ever devised by the wit of man.' In this manner was constructed the Tribal League of the Plodenosaunee ; in itself an extraordinary specimen of Indian legisla- tion, and it forms an enduring monument to that proud and progressive race, who reai'ed, under its protection, a widespread Indian sovereignty." The present territory of Chester county was occupied at the time of its first settle- ment by several small tribes of the Lenni Lenape, or Delaware nation, whose names have not been preserved — with the solitary exception of the Nanticoke tribe, that dwelt along the Brandywine river. These tribes were frequently known to the early settlers by the names of the streams where they resided. They were most numerous in the Downingtown or " Great Valley," but were evenly scattered over the rest of the county, except west of White Clay creek, where they were few in numbers. In 1697 a Shawanese tribe came from the Carolinas and by permission of the Conesto- goe Indians, and Governor Markham, be- came resident on the waters of Pequa creek, Lancaster county, from which they soon extended into southern Chester. They had 32 BlOGliAfltY ANDimSTORY villages at Steelville and Doe Ruu, the latter of which seems to have been their seat of power, as within its boundaries was the council house of the nation. Trails. — The Delawares had sevei'al trails or paths in the county, some of which after- ward were used as public roads by the white settlers. One of their leading trails was the Pequa and Chesapeake path, now known the Limestone road, which entered West Sadsbury township from Pequa valley, and ran through tVie southwestern part of the county to Cecil county, Maryland. This path ran on the dividing ridge between the waters of the Brandywine and Susquehanna rivers, crossed no stream, and passed through the townships of West Sadsbury, Highland, West Fallowfield, Upper Oxford, Lower Oxford, and East ISTottingham. Villages. — But little account has been pre- served of the many Indian villages, or clus- ters of bark wigwams, that were scattered through the county and genex-ally located on the south hillsides, near springs of water. Of the Delaware villages or towns we have record of only three : one on the John B. Kinsey farm, in Upper Oxford township; another near the site of the present Baptist church, in Little Britain township ; and the third (called Indiantown by the whites) on the old Henderson tract, in Wallace town- ship. Indiantown was a cluster of about thirty wigwams, situated near two fine springs ; and the Delaware Indians remained there until 1733, when they sold it, with a large tract of surrounding land, to Daniel and Alexander Henderson. The Hender- sons promised the Indians that their burial ground should never be disturbed, and the promise was kept by them and their chil- dren ; but now the Indian graveyard, although but a quarter of an acre, is part of a cultivated field. After Penn's treaty with the Indians in 1682, a number of those in Chester county abandoned nomadic habits to a considerable extent, and raised some corn and tobacco, and planted fruit trees, although they ob- tained their main subsistence by hunting, basket-making and fishing. The Delawares and Shawanese remained as tenants-at-wiH under the Six STations of New York until 1756, when they revolted under the lead of Teedyuskung, and obtained the recognition of their independence from the great "Iro- quois Confederacy." The Indians sold their lands to the whites, and as the latter occupied them the red men removed from the county. At the opening of the French and Indian war, public feeling in eastern Pennsylvania be- came so bitter against all Indians that the remaining Delawares and Shawanese of Chester county became dissatisfied with the treatment which they received at the hands of the whites, and about 1755 removed westward to what is now Mercer county. The last of the Delawares in the county was " Indian Hannah," as she was usually called. She was a member of a family that called themselves Freeman, and had their wigwam near Anvil tavern, in Kennett township, and died in the Chester county poor house, March 20, 1802, aged seventy- one years. Dutch Trading Posts. — The Delaware bay was discovered by Henry Hudson, August 28, 1609, and in the following year was entered by Lord Delaware, after whom it is named. It has also borne the names of New Port bay and Godyn's bay. In 1614 Capt. Cornelius Hendrickson, in the OF CHESTER COUNTY. 33 yacht Restless (the first vessel built in America by Europeans), ascended the Dela- ware bay until he came to the Delaware river, which he explored for some distance. This river has been known by various names. By the Indians it was called Pau- taxat, Mariskitton, Makerish-Kisken, and Lenape Whituck ; by the Dutch, Zuyt, or South river, ITassau river. Prince Hendrick river, and Charles river; by the Swedes, New Swedenland stream ; and by the En- glish, Delaware river. The Dutch claimed the country along the Delaware river, by right of Hudson's discovery and Hendrick's exploration, as a part of New Netherlands ; and this Dutch West India Company, in 1624, sent Capt. Cornelius Mey to take possession of their southland country. He ascended the Delaware, or South river, to the mouth of Little Timber, in Grioucester county, New Jersey, where he erected Fort Nassau as a trading post. Four women and their husbands accompanied Mey, but the fort was vacated for a time the next year, and the garrison recalled to strengthen the Manhattan colony. The Dutch West India Company, whose great object was reprisals on Spanish commerce, had no de- sire for planting colonies, and only estab- lished posts to secure the fur trade of the Indians; yet they became alarmed in 1633 at the efforts of Custavus Adolphus, of Sweden, to found a colony on the Delaware, or South river, which they endeavored to counteract by re-occupying Fort Nassau and establishing a colony in their southland possessions. Two of the directors of the company — Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blo- maert — had, in 1630, planted a colony of nearly thirty souls near Lewistown, Dela- ware, but they could not avoid contests with the Indians, and in less than two vears were destroyed by the savages. In 1634 Fort Nassau was re-occupied and strength- ened, and other trading posts established by the Dutch; and during the next year they captured and sent to Manhattan a few English colonists who attempted to settle on the Delaware river. From 1635 to 1638 the Dutch held undisputed sway on the Delaware, where their possessions were often called the South county; but in the latter year a formidable foe appeared in a Swedish colony, led by Peter Minuet. Neiv Sweden. — The English challenged the claims of the Dutch on pretense of earlier discovery, and the Swedes on account of non-settlement. Gustavus Adolphus, in 1626, in the interests of the commerce of his kingdom, and in view of the advantages to be derived from populous and prosperous colonies, sought to organize a company to found a colony on the Delaware, where religious liberty should exist and slavery should never be allowed. His death pre- vented the enterprise, and twelve years later Queen Christina and her great minis- ter, Oxenstiern, took up the matter, which had been presented to the Swedish govern- ment by Usselinx, the originator of the Dutch West India Company, with which he had become dissatisfied. Peter Minuet, the dismissed director of New Netherlands, was placed in charge of the colony of Swedes and Fins, which embarked on the Key of Calmar and the Grifiin. He landed in Delaware, and erected Fort Christina, near the mouth of Christiana creek. He pur- chased a large body of land along the Dela- wai'e river from the Indians, and laid the foundations of New Sweden, which, how- ever, enjoyed but a few years of existence. The Dutch protested, but wisely forbore active hostilities on account of the prowess 34 BIOQBAPHY AND HISTORY of Swedish arms, for Banner and Torsten- son were then humbling Austria and Den- mark. In 1642 the Swedish governor, Printz, built a fort on Tinicum island, just below Philadelphia. Three years later a Swedish settlement was made at Upland (Chester), in Delaware county, and thus was founded the first settlement in Chester county and the State of Pennsylvania. The Dutch held their several forts, or trading posts, on the east bank of the Delaware, and built Fort Casamir close to the bay, while the Swedes and Fins increased their settlements on the west side of the river and bay. In 1654 the Swedish Governor Rysingh took possession of Fort Casamir by pretended orders from the Dutch West India Company, and the next year, when Peter Stuyvesant, the great Dutch war governor of IsTew Netherlands, ascertained the truth of the matter, he organized an expedition of seven hundred men for the recovery of Fort Casamir and the conquest of !N'ew Sweden. The Swedish forts sur- rendered to him without resistance, and the province of New Sweden passed under the rule of the Dutch. Sweden had become too weak to recover the province, and the Dutch authorities of New Netherlands exer- cised control over the conquered territory, which then had about seven hundred pop- ulation, for one year; after which the West India Company sold its interests on the South river to the city of Amsterdam, which reorganized its acquired territory as the colony of New Amstel, whose existence was terminated in 1664, 'when it was wrested from the Dutch by the English under the Duke of York. In 1673 a Dutch squadron recaptured the country, but one year later Holland gave up her possessions south of the Delaware to England. Chris- tiana, the seat of Swedish power, whose name was New Amstel under the rule of Amstersdam, was named New Castle by the English ; and New Sweden, together with New Netherlands, was blotted from the map of the new world's colonies. Upland County. — This county, or juris- diction, seems to have derived its name from Upland, its seat of justice, and the first settled town in the State. The word Upland is said by one writer to be derived from the Swedish word Upsala. It is said that many of the Swedes who came in 1638 were from the Swedish province of Upsala, whose capital city of Upsala, in the midst of a vast and fertile plain, is the seat of the oldest university of Sweden, and during the middle ages was an ecclesiasti- cal capital of Scandinavia and northern Europe. Christiana, now New Castle, Delaware, was the capital of New Sweden, and the place of holding all courts until 1676, when courts of justice were established on the Delaware at New Amstel, Hoern Kill, and Upland. The jurisdiction of the Upland court " extended provisionally from the east and west banks of the Kristina kill upwards unto the head of the river," and included nearly all of the present territory of Chester county. The first court for Upland county or jurisdiction was opened on November 14, 1676, and two years later it ordered a levy of twenty-six gilders to be made on every male inhabitant in the county between the ages of sixteen and sixty years. This levy was payable in money, grain, tobacco, pork, or wampum. The '-tythables" re- turned, 136 in number, were as follows: Tacony district, 65; Carkoens Hoek, 11; Calkoens Hoek, 14; Upland, 17; Marcus Hook, 19; and Eastern Shoure, 10. The OF CHESTER COUNTY. 35 tithables at Upland were : Claes Schram, Robberd Waede, Jan Hendricx, Rich Bob- binghton, James Sanderling & Slaue, John Test and servant, Jurian Kien, Rich Noble, Neels Laerson & Son, Henry Hastings, Will Woodman and servant, John Hayles, and Mich. Vzard. We have been unable to find which districts of the above named six embraced the present territory of Chester county. In 1680 the seat of justice was removed from Upland to Kingsesse, in the upper part of the county, where it remained but one year. On the banks of the calm-flowing Dela- ware, in 1633, Gustavus Adolphus, the great- est of Swedish kings, sought to establish a mighty empire, free from slavery and reli- gious persecution,who8e power for the benefit of the human race should be felt throughout the civilized world. But to other hands, a half century later, was left the founding of this grand ideal State, and upon the weak and feeble New Sweden of the warrior monarch was planted the strong, prosper- ous, and peaceful Quaker province of Wil- liam J?jeB«, which is now the powerful and populous Keystone State of the American republic. William Penn, the " Quaker King," in founding his province, provided an asylum for the good and oppressed of his day, laid broad and deep the foundations of popular power and a lofty civilization, and contrib- uted in a large degree to the birth of a nation whose magnificent progress has been the wonder of the world, and whose future career will largely control the destinies of humanity. Bancroft speaks eloquently of the faith of the people called Quakers, and says of William Penn : " His fame is now wide as the world; he is one of the few who have gained abiding glory." Penn's Purchase. — On March 4, 1681, the province of Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn, in liquidation of a debt of sixteen thousand pounds which the English government owed to his distinguished father, Admiral Sir William Penn, in honor of whom Pennsylvania was so named by King Charles II. Penn appointed William Markham as his deputy governor, and on November 30, 1681, the latter was presid- ing over the courts of Upland. At another court at the same place, over which he presided on September 12, 1682, was called the first grand jury that ever sat in Penn- sylvania. Their names were: William Clayton, Thomas Brassey, John Symcock, Thomas Sary, Pobert Wade, Lawrence Cock, John Hart, Nathaniel Allen, William Woodmanson, Thomas Coebourne, John Otter, and Joshua Hastings. On August 30, 1682, William Penn sailed from Deal, England, for Pennsylvania, on board the ship Welcome, in company with over one hundred passengers, most of whom were Quakers from Sussex. While the Mayflower bore the Pilgrims to a rock- bound coast and the rigors of a winter which many never survived, yet the Wel- come, although bearing the Quakers to fertile fields in a warmer climate, was scourged by small pox, from whose ravages thirty of their number died. Of her pas- sengers Edward Armstrong has collected a partial list, of whom the following were males: John Barber, died on the way; William Bradford, earliest printer of the province; William Buckman, John Carver, Benjamin Chambers, Thomas Croasdale, John Fisher, Thomas Fitzwater and sons Thomas, George, and Josiah, of whom the latter died on the voyage; Thomas Gillett, Bartholomew Green, Nathaniel Harrison, 36 BIOOMAPHY AND HISIOBY Cuthbert Hayhurst, Thomas Heriott, died on the voyage ; John Key, Richard Ingels, Isaac Ingram, died on the way; Thomas Jones, Giles Knight and son Joseph; "Wil- liam Lushington, Joshua Davis, David Og- den, Evan Oliver and sons David, John, Evan, and Seaborn; Pearson, whose Christian name is supposed to have been Robert, and at whose suggestion Penn changed the name of Upland to that of Chester ; Dennis Rochford, of county Wex- ford Ireland ; John Rowland, Thomas Row- land, William Smith, John Songhurst, an eminent minister; John Stackhouse, George Thompson, Richard Townsend and son James ; William Wade, died on the voyage ; Thomas Walmesly and sons Thomas and Henry; I^icholas Wain, Joseph Woodroofe, ThomasWrightsworth, and Thomas Wyime, of Wales. Penn landed at Ifew Castle, Delaware, on the 27th of October, 1682, and either on the 28th or 29th of that month arrived at Upland. Upon his arrival there he turned to his friend Pearson and said : " Providence has brought us here safe. Thou hast been the companion of my perils. What wilt thou that I should call this place ? " Pear- son said " Chester," in remembrance of the city in England from which he came. Penn answered that Chester it should be called, and that when he came to divide the land into counties, one of them should be called by the same name. While Penn deprived the Swedish county of a name recalling the pride and glory of an old city and a great seat of learning, he gave it one associated with the memories of the early history of west England, where the ancient city of Chester was known in remote times by the Welsh name of Caerlleon Vawr, which meant the great camp of the legion on the Dee, and indicated a Roman origin as old if not older than that of Upsal in Sweden. Chester on the Dee, twenty miles from the open sea, Stands where three Roman roads converged, and where the renowned XXth legion of Rome was encamped as early as the second century. It was fought over by Britons, Danes, and Saxons; was swept by the great plague of 1647, is memorable for its terrible siege lasting from 1643 to 1646, and has often been honored by the presence of its monarchs. But not to the glory of its military record or to the proud distinc- tion that it is the only city in England which still retains its walls perfect in their circuit, was the city of Chester indebted to the honor of having the first town of Penn- sylvania named after it. It was the mem- ories of many scenes of peace and hours of sweet communion with absent Friends passed within its walls that caused Pear- son to wish to give its name to the forest- surrounded town of Upland in the new world. County Formation. — Chester county was created by Penn in 1682, and tradition says on N"ovember 25th. The county seat was established at Chester, and the first court was held in the same year by the following justices: John Simcock, Thomas Brassey, William Clayton, Robert Wade, John Be- zer. Otto Ernest Cock and Ralph Withers. A clerk of the court was appointed, and English courts were held regularly thereaf- ter at Chester, until the removal of the county seat to West Chester in 1786. Early Settlers. — Of those who first settled on the territory of the present county we have obtained but little information. It is possible that some of the Swedes or Fins may have settled in the present southeast- ern townships of Chester county, but all the OF GHSsrUB COUNTS. m accounts of early settlers that we have re- late to the English, Germans, Welsh and Scotch-Irish who settled in the county be- tween 1682 and 1715. The names of these early settlers, so far as we have been able to obtain them, will be given in the history of the respective townships in which they lived. The English settlers were chiefly Qua- kers, and settled in the eastern and central parts of the county. They were a peacea- ble, thrifty and law-abiding people. The Germans were mostly Lutherans, German Reformed, Mennonites, Dunkers and Moravians ; and they made homes for themselves principally in what is now East and West Vincent townships, where they supplanted the few pioneer inhabitants of that section. They were honest, frugal and industrious, and soon became prosperous. The Welsh were principally Baptist in religion, and settled on the famous "Welsh Tract," which embraces several of the town- ships in the eastern and northern parts of the county. They were an intelligent, en- ergetic, and enterprising people, who made the best of citizens. The Scotch-Irish were of Presbyterian faith, and as early as 1790 commenced to come from the north of Ireland to the western part of Chester county. After 1718 they gradually spread over from the Mary- land line to the Welsh mountain. The Scotch-Irish are of pure Scotch blood, and derive their name from settling in Ireland, where they largely occupied the province of Ulster, which was confiscated by James I. in 1610, on account of the treason of its Irish proprietors. During the early part of the eighteenth century the English govern- ment persecuted the Scotch-Irish, and they commenced to emigrate from the north of Ireland to the American colonies, where they became earnest patriots, and active in the cause of American independence at the very commencement of the revolutionary war. In 1693 Chester county, then including the present territory of Delaware and Lan- caster counties, had two hundred and seventy-six taxables in its fourteen town- ships, which were ; " Ashtoune, Burning- ham, Chichester, Concord, Darbye, Edge- nient, Haverford, Marpoole, Middletowne, Neither Providence, Upper Providence, Ridley, Springfield, and Thornbury." Of these townships five — Birmingham, Thorn- bury, Edgemont, ISTewtown, and Radnor — are now the western townships of Delaware county, but as part of their territory was what is now the eastern part of Chester county, we give their lists of taxables for the year 1693 : BURNINGHAM. Peter Dix, William Branton, sr., Rich. Thatcher, John Davis, Jon. Thatcher, Samuel Scott, John Bennett, Jon. Compton, William Branton, jr., John Joans. THORNBURY. George Pearce, Richard Woolworth, Edward Bennett, Joseph Selsbee. John Willis, BDGBMBNT. Thomas Worolaw, John Golden, John Worolaw, Roger Jackson, Joseph Baker. Joseph Baker, Philip Yarnell, for John Fox. John Holston, NEWTOWN. Jenkin Grifeth. S8 MO&HAPHy AifD mstOBY RADNOR. John Evans, David Meredith, John Evans, John Jarman, John Morgan, William David, Richard Armes, Matthew Joans, Howell Jaimes, Philip Evans, David Evans, William Davis, Samuel Miles, Richard Miles, Evan Prothero, John Richard, Stephen Be van, Thomas Johns. In the period of time from 1693 to 1729, the population of the western part of the county had increased to such numbers that in the last named year it was erected into a separate county by the name of Lancas- ter. In 1736, when Thomas Cresap, in the interests of Maryland, invaded that part of Lancaster county which was claimed as Maryland territory, there were several per- sons in Chester county who sided with Cre- sap, and asserted that a portion of their own as well as Lancaster county belonged to Maryland. Intercolonial Wars. — The iii-st two of these four wars did not aft'ect Chester county, but when the third or King George's war commenced, in 1744, it caused some uneasiness in Southeastern Pennsyl- vania. While this war was in progress some apprehension was felt in Chester county that the Indians, who had joined the French to a considerable extent, might invade the territory of the county. This danger led to the voluntary organization of two regiments known as "Associators." Col. William Moore raised one of these regiments, principally in the townships of East and West Nantmeal, Uwchlan, West Cain and Charlestown. The officers of the two regiments were: Colonels — William Moore and Andrew McDowell; lieutenant colonels— Samuel Flower and John Frew; majors— John Mather, John Miller; cap- tains—David Parry, Roger Hunt, George Aston, William McKnight, Moses Dickey, Richard Richison, Andrew McDowell, John McCall, George Taylor, James Graham, Robert Grace, Hugh Kilpatrick, John Wil- liamson, John Mather, James Hunter, John Miller, William Clinton, Thomas Hubbert, jr., George Leggitt, Job Ruston, William Bell, Joseph Wilson, Henry Glassford, Wil- liam Boyd, William Reed and William Por- ter ; lieutenants — Isaac Davis,Guyon Moore, Robert Morrell, Robert Anderson, John Boyd, John Cuthbert, John Cunningham, John Culbertson, John Vaughan, William Darlington, John Kent, William Buchanan, James McMahin, James Mather, Charles Moore, George Bentley, Morris Thomas, John Rees, Thomas Leggitt, Joseph Smith, Robert McMuUin, James Coc hran, Robe rt Allison, John Culbertson,^ ^Thomas H oge) and Robert Mackey; ensigtis — Nathaniel Davis, William Litt>le, Edward Pearce, Samuel Love, James Montgomery, John Hambright, George McCullough, James Scott, Robert Awl, Francis Gardner, Jacob Free, William Curaming, John Johnson, Joseph Talbott, Benjamin Weatherby, Thomas Brown, William Carr, Anthony Pritchard, Archibald Young, James Dysart, Rowland Parry, Joseph Parke, John Em- mitt, John Donald, Thomas Clarke and John Smith. These regiments were never called into service, as the Indians made no raids into the county. The French and Indian war, the last of the four intercolonial wars, opened in 1754, by the contest of the French and English over the territory of western Pennsylvania ; and while the Quakers in Chester county took no part in the war, yet they threw no Of Ghesteb County. 39 obstacles in the way of those who wished to serve, although they disowned all mem- bers of their society who took up arms. There is no definite account of those who enlisted from Chester county, and of the militia raised in 1756 to defend the county from Indians, one company was formed as the St. Vincent and Pikeland association. Its roll was: Captain — Adam Heylman ; lieutenant — John Hart; ensign — Adam Roontour; privates — John Lewis Ache, John Beker, John Bowud, Jacob Braun, Ritchard Brischert, Esaias Charles, Michael Conrad, Jacob Corner, Charles Cramp, John Crassert, Jacob Danefels, Jacob De Fran, Peter Demler, John Valentin Ernst, Yost Everhard, " Ernst Fanstiel, Jacob Gel^ J j^rd. George Good, Jacob Good, John Hartman, George Hartz, Valentine Henry, William Henry, Balth. Heylman, John Heylman, John Adam Heylman, Frederick Hasserus, Philip Lewis, Jacob Losch, Adam McNally, John McNally, ^Frederick Mack, Jacob Mann^,(^dam MosesP'Philip Muntz,(^eorge v ^ieler, jDietrich Koam, Michael Roth, Peter Selle, Conrad Sellner, Peter Sleider, Simon Sleider, Valentine Smidt, John Stein, Peter Steiger, Adam Stone, Frederick Swab, Adam Swerner, Jacob Thomas, Jacob Vine,Valen* tine Vittler, and George Weruy. This company saw no active service, as the In- dians never made any raid on the western border of the county. Acadian Exiles. — In 1755 eight hundred Acadian exiles, or French neutrals, from JSTova Scotia, were sent by the Brisish au- thorities to Philadelphia. Their ancestors had, in 1713, when Nova Scotia was taken from France, agreed to become British sub- jects on condition of never being called upon to take up arms in case of future war between France and England. After war broke out in 1754, the English cruelly exiled these people on the ground of their being secret enemies of the British government. From Philadelphia a number of them were sent, in 1756, to Chester county, where they suffered terribly, and where many of them died with small pox. They were Catholics, and desired to be sent to France. Their support cost the State over seven thousand pounds, and the three Chester county com- missioners for seeing after their, welfare were Nathaniel Pennock, Nathaniel Grubb and John Hannum. In 1759 General Stanwix demanded sixty-five four-horse wagons from Chester county to haul provisions and army supplies from various points in the State to Fort Pitt, and the most of these wagons were finally obtained without resort to impress- ment. In the same year Wolfe took Que- bec, and the great struggle-between France and England for supremacy in the new world was closed with the English as victors. Mason and Dixon's Line. — We come now to make record of the south boundary line of the county. It is a part of a geographi- cal line which attained political significance in a State contest over its establishment, and came to be known by the name of its surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two eminent English astronomers and surveyors, who came to Ameripa espe- cially to make that survey. Later this line came into national prominence, during the slavery agitation, as the dividing line be- tween the free and the slave States. To trace the history of this line of national fame and world-wide reputation, we must go back to the year 1609, when King Janies I. of England, by right of discovery, granted to the Virginia company all of the territory of Maryland. This grant was revoked in 40 mOOltAPltY AND HlSTOHy 1624, and ou June 20, 1632, Charles I. granted to Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, all the territory north of the Potomac river " to that part of the estuary of the Delaware on the north which lieth under the fortieth degree." Lord Balti- more's charter restricted him to uncultivated and unsettled lands; and on the ground that the Dutch had settled in Delaware prior to 1632, and^ that Baltimore planted no settlement on the Delaware, leaving the Swedes to found New Castle, the Duke of York claimed Delaware and all of the Maryland peninsula, which controversy was settled by the King's council, deciding in 1685 that the disputed territory should be divided by a line running north from a central point on a west line from Cape Henlopen to Chesapeake bay, and that the eastern part, or the present State of Dela- ware, should belong to the Duke of York. Penn, when he purchased his provmce, supposed that the 40° of north latitude was at some little distance below the site of his proposed city of Philadelphia ; 'but the Duke of York wanted to reserve a strip of coun- try for twenty or thirty miles north of New Castle on the Delaware, and Penn objected because this reservation would have includ- ed a part of the site of Philadelphia, and left Penn with no gOod harbor ground on the river. Penn proposed the present north boundary, line of Delaware, extending westward and northward to the Delaware river, as a part of a circle drawn with a radius of twelve miles from Few Castle as the center, which the Duke of York ac- cepted and placed in his charter. The half century from 1682 to 1732 was distinguished by a continuous struggle to establish the boundary line between Penn- sylvania and Maryland. On May lOtli of the last named year, the sons of William Penn and the great-grandson of the origin- al patentee of Maryland came to an agrees ment that the peninsula line should be run northward so as to form a tangent with the periphery of the semi-circle around New Castle, and then run further northward until it reached the latitude of a line due westward from a point fifteen miles due south from the then most southern part of Philadelphia ; and from the point where the north met the west line, the great "due west line" between the provinces was to commence. The peculiar north line ac- counts for the narrow wedge-shaped strip of Chester county lying between Maryland and Delaware. The west line became pro- longed afterward as the south boundary of Pennsylvania against Virginia. Although this boundary was agreed upon yet the survey was a subject of dispute until July 4, 1760, when it was finally set- tled, and the line was ordered to be run as directed in 1732. The progress of the sur- veyors was slow, and the proprietors be- coming impatient, in 1763 employed Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, as be- fore stated, to complete the work. They 'landed in Philadelphia in 1763, and in 1767 completed the line which bears their names and is so famous in the political history of this country. Bevolutionary War. — In 1774, when the port of Boston was closed, the citizens of Chester county contributed largely for the relief of the suflSering people of that city, and the Friends were prominent in the movement, Chester monthly meeting alone contributing seventy pounds. The county sent ten delegates to the Provincial con- vention of 1775. A powder mill was erected in 1776 by Cowperthwaite & Biddle. OF CHESTER OOVNIY. 41 The " Associators " of the county were fully organized, but we can obtain no reliable lists of the men connected with those organizations. In 1776 Anthony Wayne was commissioned as colonel and Francis Johnson as lieutenant-colonel of the 4th Pennsylvania battalion, many of whose men were raised in the county. Col. Samuel Atlee's Musket battalion of four hundred and forty-four men was largely re- cruited in Chester county, and suffered great loss in the battle of Long Island. The militia of the county, in 1776, was di- vided into four battalions, and the next year the number of men returned as capa- ble of bearing arms was five thousand, of whom several hundred were loyalists, and Friends who were opposed to all wars. On July 1, 1776, the Chester county Fly- ing Camp battalion was organized, with the following officers: Colonel — William Montgomery; lieutenaht-colonel — Thomas - ^-Bull; major — John Bartholomew; cap- •^ 'tains — -Tnpftpl) (iflird';ie''i SuT^ nel Wallace, 5amuel Uulbinson, James Boyline, John McDowell, John Shaw, Matthew Boyd and John Beaton; first lieutenants — William Henry, Andrew Dijnwoody, Thomas Henry, Benjamin Culbinson, Samuel Lindsay, Allen Cunningham, Joseph Strawbridge and Joseph Bartholojnevy : second lieutenants — Eobert Filson, William Lockard, Thomas Davis, Samuel Hamill, Jere. Cloud, Joseph Wherry, David Curry and Alexander lyTc- /t^ftrraghan; ensigns — William Cunning- ham, John Grardtrencher, John Filling, Andrew Curry, Thomas James, Lazarus Finney, Archibald Desart and John Llew- jiijOl*. ~~ — — • In addition to the above organization, the militia of the county was organized into eight battalions. The officers and number of men enrolled in these battalions were as follows : First batt alion: L ieutenant-colonel -<,j Thomas Bul lf; major — Peter Hartman ; num-^^ ber of men, six hundred and seventy-two. Second battalion: Lieutenant-colonel — John Bartholomew; major — Crornwell JPearcej number of men, eight hundred and seventy-thi'ee. Third battalion : Lieuten- , ant-colonel — f&eorge Pparcei maior^ Edr ^ Vernon ; number of men, five hun- dred and ten. Fourth battalion : Lieuten- ant-colonel — Richard Willing; major — William Brooke ; number of men, six hun- dred and seventy. Fifth battalion : Lieuten- ant-colonel — John Gardner; major — John Culbertson; number of men, six hundred and twenty -three. Sixth battalion : Lieu- tenant-colonel — David McKey; major — Samuel Evans ; number of men, four hundred and eighty-four. Seventh battalion : Lieu- tenant-colonel — Isaac Taylor; major — John Craig. Eighth battalion: Lieutenant- colonel — Joseph Speer; major — .Tnhnj i ^ Boydj number of men, five hundred and seventy. The captains in the above battalions, serving at different periods, were : Thomas Carpenter, Joseph Mendenhall, William Whiteside, Joseph Luckey, Hugh Reed, John Boyd, John Bryan, David Curry, Robert Corry, Thomas Taylor, Joseph John- ston, Sampson Tho mas, JiMiat han- RQgdaD.d .!»J gvan AndersQn .^!^-William__ Har ri s. J[gaa^ Thomas, Alexander Lockart, John Craig, Thomas Levis, John Flower, Jonathan Ver- non, John Lindsey, Edward V ernon, John Pitts, Mordecai Morgan, Joseph Bogg, John Fleming, and captains Cypher, Willson. Hister, Boylan, Morrell, Moore, Smith, Cochran, Henry, Marsh, McCloskey, Quin, Kirk, Price, Kemp, Pierce, Huston, Dun- BIOOHAPHY AND SlSTOHY ning, Allen, Grraham, Denny, Barker, El- ton, Scott, Beatty, Griffith, Carroll, Holl- man, Brumback, ^gy h pr, Snyder, Eyry, Cumminga, Jenkins, Kincaid, Corbie, Hays, Williamson, Blackburne, Colby, Eamsay, McKee, Fulton, Evans, Black, Ramage and Strode. The year 1777, although witnessing the surrender of Burgoyne, was nevertheless the darkest period of the revolutionary struggle, and the fate of the thirteen col- onies trembled in the balance upon the events that occurred in Chester county, from the fateful field of Brandywine, where disaster fell upon the Continental arms, to the winter horrors of Valley Forge, the midnight of the revolution. General Howe, in September, 1777, took his army around by sea and landed at the head of Chesapeake bay, in order to cap- ture Philadelphia. He purposed marching through the eastern part of Chester county, on account of its being a rich and populous section, inhabited largely by the Quakers, a peace-loving people, and by tories and luke- warm supporters of the American cause. As the British advanced into Chester, Washington fell back before them, and on September 8, 1777, Howe sent a column in front of Washington, while his main force halted at Milltown, with the intention of turning Washington's right the next day ; but the American Fabius divined the Brit- ish general's purpose, and by a masterly movement took position on the high grounds above Chad's ford, on the north side of the Brandywine. A battery and a parapet guarded the ford. The American left, under General Wayne, rested on a forest along the Brandywine, whose banks were abrupt and high immediately below Chad's ford. On the right, the river was hidden by woods and the unevenness of the country, and Sullivan and his six brigades were stationed in echelons along that part of the river. On September 10th the British divisions of Knyphausen and Cortiwallis formed a junc- tion at Kennett Square, and at five o'clock the next morning Howe and Cornwallis, with more than half of the British army, marched through a heavy fog up the Great Valley road, to cross the Brandywine at its forks, with the object of turning Washing- ton's right wing and driving it back upon the Brandywine, thus crushing the Ameri- can army between Cornwallis and Knyp- hausen's divisions. At ten o'clock Knyp- hausen marched to Chad's ford, drove Max- well's corps across the river, and opened with his cannon, but made no effort to cross. Washington received information of Howe's move, and Bancroft says that Washington then prepared to cross and attack Knyp- hausen, and sent Sullivan word to cross at a ford below the forks, and, while inter- cepting Howe's return, at the same time threaten the left fiank of Knyphausen. But Sullivan thought the information was wrong, failed to obey orders, and checked Wash- ington's attack until Howe had crossed at the forks and threatened the American right. He then made such a bad disposition of his forces that in an hour the British had carried the field, and were only pre- vented from gaining the rear of the Amer- ican army by Washington, who withdrew Greene's division from the left and checked the British advance. From other arood authorities we condense the following ac- count of Washington's movements after receiving word of Howe's flank movement : Washington purposed detaching Stirling and Sullivan to watch Cornwallis, and then crossing the Brandywine himself and de- Ot CHESTER GOVNIY. 48 stroying Knyphausen ; but while making his disposition for these movements, received counter intelligence which caused him to hesitate until Howe and Cornwallis had crossed to attack Sullivan. He then changed his dispositions, ordered Sullivan forward up the Brandywine to meet Cornwallis, and made Greene's division a reserve. Sullivan formed his own division above Birmingham meeting house, but had to give way, and the whole right was driven back in con- fusion. Washington then pushed forward with Greene's division to check the British. Colonel Stephens' Virginia troops and Col- onel Stewart's Pennsylvania regiment did good service in checking Cornwallis, while a short distance back of them General Greene, with Muhlenberg's brigade, held a narrow defile against the English long enough to permit the escape of the flying right. Knyphausen crossed at Chad's ford during the heat of the engagement and attacked Wayne, who, to save his command, retreated in the direction of the present site of West Chester, where he joined Washington. Washington retreated rapidly to German- town, and after receiving ammunition, re- crossed the Schuylkill and confronted Howe. Both were eager for a battle, which actually commenced near Goshen meeting house, but a heavy rain storm interrupted it, and so drenched the ammunition of the American army that Washington withdrew. On the 19th Washington left Chester county and crossed the Schuylkill at Park- er's ford. He left Wayne with about fifteen "hundred troops to unite with General Small- wood, who with a force of Maryland militia was in the rear of the British army, and then cut off the enemy's baggage train, thus delaying him until Washington could pass down the SchulkilU on the east side to con- test the passage of the river by Howe. On the 18th Wayne encamped near the site of the present Paoli monument, and on the 19th made his arrangements to attack the British rear on the next morning at 2 o'clock, by which time he expected General Smallwood to join him. Tories in the neighborhood, who knew the precise loca- tion of Wayne's camp, informed Howe of the same; and he sent Gen. Charles Grey with about three thousand men to surprise and destroy Wayne's force. Grey failed in surprising Wayne, but his sudden attack was so successful, on account of the blunders of one of Wayne's colonels, that the American retreat became a rout. The British attack was made with bayonets and light horse- men's swords, and with such ferocity that even the sick and wounded were not spared ; and many Americans were butchered after having thrown down their arms and called for quarters. This cold blooded cruelty of Grey has given the afl'air the name of the Paoli massacre. Wayne's loss was about one hundred and fifty killed and wounded, while the British only reported a loss of eight killed. A court-martial which Wayne demanded, examined carefully into the charges of negligence brought against that general at Paoli ; and acquitted him as hav- ing done, on that sad occasion, all that an active, brave and vigilant oflicer could have done. After the massacre of Paoli, Howe made a feint of turning Washington's right and seizing the military stores at E-eading. This caused Washington to march up the Schuyl- kill ,-to Pottsgrove, and Howe, suddenly wheeling his army, crossed the river at Phcenixville and Fatland ford, and marched into Philadelphia. Washington followed Howe and made an unsuccessful attack 44 BIOORAPIIY AND HISTORY upon him at Germantown, after which he withdrew to Whiteuvarsh plains. In December Washington prepared to go into winter quarters, but was troubled to find a suitable place. He was without tents and there was no town near where he could lay so as to confine the British army to Philadelphia. He finally selected Valley Forge. It was only twenty-one miles from Philadelphia, was sheltered by two ridges of hills and well adapted to defense against artillery, while several routes were open from it for retreat. On December 19th, Washington marched his army there and the forest was cut down for timber with which to build cabins for winter quarters. Valley Forge was the midnight of the rev- olution. The story of the unparalleled suf- ferings and the matchless patriotism of that army need not be related here, for the orator, the historian, the poet and the novelist have told it with eloquence and power until it is known at every fireside throughout the American Union. It is impossible to compile a satisfactory roster of the Chester county soldiers who served in the revolutionary war from the "Archives of the Commonwealth." The following officers and men from the county were wounded, taken prisoner or otherwise disabled: George Wilson, Samuel Leslie, Samuel Smith, James Caruthers, Robert Turk, John Smith, Christian Cowpland, Thomas Swedy, Robert Cherry, Christopher Still, Capt. Jacob Hetherling, David Jack- son, James Corney, John Miller, Thomas Owen, Sprg. Joshua Beeling, Samuel Ewing, Thomas Wallace and Michael Righter. The tories or loyalists were most numer- ous in the eastern and southern part of the county, and many of them suffered consider- able persecution at the hands of the whigs ; while the Quakers, on account of theirprin- ciples of non-resistance and opposition to war in every form, also suffered at the hands of their whig neighbors and the sol- diers of both armies. The Quakers before the revolutionary war were prominent in public aff'airs, and advocated the American side of all questions between the colonies and the crown. During the. revolutionary war they maintained a position of passive neutrality, and none of them would accept any public office until peace was declared. One of their number, John Roberts, w^as executed. Judge Futhey says, upon un- founded charges, and seven others were banished to Virginia. The Society of Friends promptly disowned all of their members who enlisted in either the Con- tinental or the British army. They were plundered alike by both sides, and lost most heavily in property, clothing and pro- visions during the march of Howe's army through the county, in September, 1777. From the 11th to the 16th of September the British army took and destroyed one hundred and ten thousand dollar's worth of property that was reported, but the amount is supposed to have been much larger, as the Quakers were the heaviest losers and generally refused to furnish any estimate of their losses. County Seat Removal. — For nearly a cent- ury the citizens of the western part of the county made no serious objection to the county seat being situated on the eastern edge of the county. But on January 28, 1766, a petition was presented to the as- sembly asking for the removal of the seat of justice to, and the erection of a court house at, some point near the center of the county. Petitions and counter petitions were presented upon the subject, but no OF CHESTER COUNTY. 45 action was taken; and British invasions during the. revolutionary war caused the matter to rest until 1780, when the assem- bly, on the 20th of March, passed an act empowering "William Clingan, Thomas Bull, John Kinkead, Roger Kirk, John Sellers, John Wilson, and Joseph Davis, or any four of them, to "buy land at some convenient place in the county and erect a new court house and prison. They purchased a lot of land in East Cain township from Rosanna Sheward, but never proceeded to erect build- ings. On March 22, 1784, a supplement to theoriginalactwaspassed, substituting John Hannum, Isaac Taylor, and John Jacobs in place of the first named commissioners; and it contained a clause restricting them from erecting the court house and prison '' at a greater distance than one mile and a half from the Turk's Head tavern, in the township of Goshen, and to the west or southwest of said Turk's Head tavern, and on or near the straight line from the ferry called the 'Corporation Ferry' on the Schuylkill, to the village of Strasburg." On May 1,1784, Benjamin Trego, of Ooshen, made a deed to the commissioners for a lot to erect county buildings on, for the sura of five shillings. Work was immediately com- menced, and by winter the walls of the court house- were nearly completed. The anti-removalists procured a suspension act to be passed on March 30, 1785, which the removalists so far disregarded as to resume work on the new court house. This course of action angered the people of Chester to such an extent that they organized an ex- pedition to go and tear down the new court house. Major John Harper led this force, which was equipped with a field piece, a barrel of whisky, and plenty of small arms. He halted his force, and planted his cannon near the court house, which was garrisoned by a considerable body of armed men under command of John Hannum ; but a truce was called, and Major Harper's force was allowed to enter and inspect the building, after which it retired peacefully, as tradition says, upon the promise by Colonel Hannum that work should cease — a promise kept only until the anti-removalists were out of sight. The suspending act was repealed March 18, 1786, and on September 25th an act was passed directing the sheriiF to re- move the prisoners from the old to the new jail. The new county buildings were com- pleted by fall, and the first court was held on JSTovember 28, 1786, when West Chester began her existence as the county seat. As Chester county is indebted to Pearson for its name, so is West Chester to Colonel Hannum for its existence, and for being the county seat. A description of the different county buildings will be found in the history of West Chester, and it only remains to say here that in 1788 the Sheward site for the county capital was sold, and that as a result of the trouble over the removal, the non- removalist secured the erection of the east- ern part of the county into Delaware county, with Chester for its capital. Whisky Insurrection. — In 1794 President Washington called upon Pennsylvania for five thousand two hundred men to aid in putting down the " whisky insurrection," which was then at its height in southwestern Pennsylvania, where the insurgents had been in armed opposition for nearly three years to a law of Congress laying an excise upon all distilled spirits. Of Pennsylvania's quota, three hundred and twenty infantry and fifty-eight cavalry were to be drawn from Chester county, and form a part of the first brigade of General Irvine's 46 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY division. The troops never saw any fight- ing, as the insurgents dispersed before the army arrived in the disaffected district. The most of the Chester county companies seem to have never got farther westward than Carlisle and Shippensburg, where they were in camp for some time. Jhirnpikes. — The first roads in the county were the old Indian trails, and succeeding highways were laid out from time to time by the county court, being the only internal improvements attempted until the revolu- tion. After the treaty of peace in 1783, the subject of roads received considerable attention in the county, and on April 9, 1792, the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turn- pike Company was chartered. It completed the Philadelphia and Lancaster turnpike in 1794, at a cost of $7,516 per mile. This famous old road, the first turnpike ever built in America, was opened to public travel in 1795. It soon became a leading thoroughfare, and enjoyed a wonderful career of prosperity until the Pennsylvania railroad took its travel and transportation of merchandise. There were three other early turnpikes built in the county: the Downingtown, Ephrata and Harrisburg turnpike, commenced in 1803 ; the Gap and 1^'ewport, in 1807; and the Little Conesto- ga, in 1809. Iron Industries.— The first forge in Penn- sylvania was erected by Thomas Rutter about 1716, upon Manatawny creek, some three miles north from Pottstown. The second iron enterprise in the State was Coventry forge, which was erected about 1717, on French creek, by Hamuel Nutt, an English Quaker. It would seem, from all accounts, that Samuel Nutt built a furnace on French creek, called Heading, about 1720; and in 1736, with William Branson, erected a second Reading furnace on the same creek. Nutt died in 1737, and in his will made provisions for the erection of Warwick furnace, which was built in 1738 by his widow, Anna Nutt, on the south branch of French creek. In the United States census reports of 1880, William Branson is credited with having built Vin- cent forge, and also having erected, before 1760, on French creek, the first steel works ever built in Pennsylvania. These steel works are the plant probably referred to in 1750 by the sheriff of Chester county as having been built by John Taylor in 1746. In 1751 Mount Joy forge was erected by Daniel Walker, Stephen Evans, and Joseph Williams. It afterwards became Potts, and then the famous Valley forge, which was burned by the British in 1777. In 1786 a forge and slitting mill was built below the old Valley forge, on the Chester county side of the Schuylkill river, by Isaac and David Potts, wjiose successors operated until about" 1816£ln 1790 Benjamin Longstroth erected , a rolling and slitting mill at Phoenixville, and it was the beginning of the present i\extensive works of the Phoenix Iron Com- pany. _^ „_„ _-_^- Htt'was nearly fifty years after the opening of the French creek region before a forge fire was lighted in the Brandywine and Octoraro creek regions. Springton and Mary Ann forges were built on the Brandy- wine, north of Downingtown, respectively in 1766 and 1785. Federal slitting miU,^or Rokeby rolling mill, four miles south of Coatesville, was erected in 1795 by Isaac Pennock; and it is claimed to have been the first rolling mill in America. In 1810 Brandywine rolling mill was erected at Coatesville, and the Brandywine . region became recognized as an iron center. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 47 The Octoraro creek region was not opened until the beginning of the present century. The Sadsbury forges, near Christiana, were built in 1800 and 1802 ; Pine Grove forge, sixteen miles south of Penningtonville, about 1802 ; and Ringwood forge, near Christiana, in 1810. In the last named year the manufacture of charcoal iron was in successful progress in all of the iron regions of the county. War of 1812. — Various offers of military services were made to Governor Snyder during the year 1812, among which was one from Capt. James Rolston's cavalry company of Chester county. The 97th regiment of emergency men were sent, on May 5, 1813, to Elkton, Maryland, where it was discharged on the 2l8t. The State rolls give no account of this regiment, and in papers in the possession of Hon. Eobert E. Monaghan, Judge Futhey found the names of the following Chester county men who served in Capt. Thomas Stewart's company of the 97th : ( ^eaziiiTe rr^ Samuel Black, Robert Futhey, Archibald Thomas, George W. Parke, Peter Rambo, John "Wallace, James Stewart, Israel Hamill, Levi Mc- Cormick, Silas Wilson, James Ramsey, and Enos Hughes. After the destruction of the capitol at Washington, it was feared that the British would attack Philadelphia, and Governor Snyder, on August 27, 1814, directed the militia of Chester and several other counties to be in readiness to march at a moment's notice. On September 13th General Bloom- field ordered the Chester county militia to march to Camp Marcus Hook, where they remained until some time in December. All fear of invasion having then passed away, they broke camp and returned hgme. The following general oflicers were from Chester county : Major-generals — Cromwell Pearce, James Steel; brigadier-generals — William Harris, John W. Cunningham ; brigade in- spectors — James Steel, James Park. In the State archives the muster rolls of following Chester county companies are given : SECOND PENNSYLVANIA LIGHT INFANTRY. This volunteer regiment, under command of Colonel Louis Bache, served at Camp Marcus Hook from September to December, 1814. Two companies were from Chester county. CAPT. Taylor's company (American Greys). Titus Taylor, captain. W. H. Taylor, sergeant. Ziba Darlington, sergeant. John Painter, sergeant. John Hall, sergeant. John Logan, corporal. Russel Vibber, corporal. Eber Worthington, corporal. Henry Myers, corporal. Jacob Burkers, musician. George Davis (colored), musician. PRIVATES. Bailey, Hiram. Frederick, William. Brinton, Joseph H. Gamble, Robert. Brinton, Ethan. Greer, James. Brinton, William. Gardiner, Archibald. Brinton, James. Hall, Lewis. Brinton, Thomas H. Iddings, Joseph. Brinton, Joseph. Kechmle, Jacob. Brinton, John. Lindsay, John. Black, Robert. Mai'shall, Stephen. Cox, William. Matlack, Jonathan. Darlington, Amos. Matlack, Nathan. Dailey, William. Morrow., Hiram. DeWolf, Thomas. Myers, Henry. Ehrenzeller, Jacob. Nelson, Joseph. Evenson, Eli. Nichols, Isaac. 48 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Shields, William. Townsend, William. Townsend, G. 8. Taylor, Vernon. Yearsly, N'athan. Pierce, Myers. Parry, Caleb. Pearson, Harper. Pearson, George. Rice, Thomas. Sweeney, Thomas. CAPTAIN WERSLBR's COMPANY John G. Wersler, captain. James Watson, lieutenant. Richard Kelley, sergeant. John Griffith, sergeant. Robert Mc Williams, sergeant. William Kelley, sergeant. Henry Laur, corporal. George Dunlap, musician. Samuel Williams, musician. PRIVATES. Brewer, John. Bispham, Benj. Burns, Eleazer. Bane, Samuel. Bowen, William. Clarkson, Samuel. Caldwell, Thomas. Dhile, Joseph. Davis, Nicholas S. (Davis, Jonathan^,^ Ford, Caleb. Fritz, Christian. Griffith, Elijah. Heck, Jacob. Hippie, John. Hall, Jarvis. Ivester, Jesse. Kelley, James. /King, Geovge.) McCoy ,~Deuni8. McGraw, Lewis. McMinn, Alben. Markley, l*fathaniel. Peck, Charles. Parker, Henry. Potter, Joseph. Pearce, Edward. Quarll, John. Reese, John. Rinker, Jacob. Rickman, John. Ryder, John. Richardson, Wni. Rowland, John. Richardson, Ezek. Smiley, Stephen. Stout, Charles. Watson, Elijah. Watson, John. Watson, Joseph. Williams, Martin. Whisler, John. SIXTY-FIFTH PENNSYLVANIA MILITIA. This regiment, under command of Lieut.- Col. John Pearson, served at Camp Marcus Xy Hook. Five companies came from Chester county and were commanded respectively by Captains Wethersby, Lackey, Hartman, Harris and Campbell. CAPTAIN hartman's COMPANY (2d Company). George Hartman, captain. Jacob Moyer, lieutenant. John Emery, lieutenant. John Deery, lieutenant. Julius Anderson, ensign. Peter Rentgen, sergeant. Thomas Harris, sergeant. Simpson Davis, sergeant. Thomas Neal, sergeant. John Miller, sergeant. James Huston, corporal. John Hippie, corporal. Lewis Orner, corporal. Jacob Roads, corporal. PRIVATES. Baughdekirk, H. Bignal, George. Bush, John. Betz, Philip. Beaver, William. Beekley, John. * Clower, Daniel. Campbell, George C. Custer, William. Creps, John. Creps, Thomas. Christman, Henry. Davidheiser, Jacob. Deemer, Michael. Deery, George.> DeedSj Frederick. Defrain, John. Evans, Owen. Essick, George. Emery, William. Everhart, Samuel. Fitzsimmons, C. Griffith, Ebenezer. Gun, David. Griffith, Samuel. Gregory, John. Guest, William. Howell, Thomas. Heck, Jacob. Hoffman, George. Hippie, Peter. Hippie, Caspar. Hammer, Jacob. Helbert, Jacob. Hersh, Samuel. Harple, John. Hippie, George. Hippie, Henry. Houck, Henry. Himes, James. Irey, Peter. Kepler, Israel. ^' OF CHESTER COUNTY. 49 Keeley, George. Keiser, Nicholas. Kitner, Henry. Leighton, Thomas. Lineingar, Jacob. Lear, Jacob. Link, Daniel. Lacey, William. Leighton, Samuel. Lloyd, Samuel. Liggett, Samuel. rMoses, John. J (Inarch, Nicholas.^ Miller, George. Moses, Henry. Martin, Samuel. Meeser, John. Miller, Isaac. Morrow, David. Mock, Jacob. March, Henry. Matson, Ja mes. _^ J[Towe ll, Ezeki el. Prizer, George. Roberts, Lewis. Root, Jacob. Root, Joseph. Roberts, Benjamin. Root, David. Roads, William. Smith, Henry. Smith, Henry. (2) Strough, Samuel. Snyder, Peter. Snyder, Peter. (2) Scott, John. Sheeleigh, Val. / Snyder, Thomas?) \.Saj:derj^Heux^ Slichter, Abraham. Sheeder, Fred. Starrett, William. Staufter, Jacob. fSnyder. Geor^ eJ Townsend, Caleb. Thomas, Jesse. Turner, Henry. Watson, Gabriel. Wynu, John. Wynn, Jonathan. Williams, William. Walter, John. Walter, Leonard. v (Walkinghood,Davidy Watkin, Jesse. Widener, Samuel Wiant, John. Yeager, Peter. PRIVATES. ("Anderson, Isaac: Adams, Davis. Atkins, James. Baits, Jonathan. Buckwalter, Jacob. Bankus, Adam. Crozier, Morris. Courtney, James. Clemmons, Joseph. Carr, William. Chaffin, Philip. Clair, Philip. Clair, John. Davis, (G.) John. Davis, John. Davis, Isaac M. Evans, Daniel. Ewing, John. Fox, Joseph. Grifteth, John. Golder, John. Grub, Emanuel. Goodin, William. Grub, John. Himes, Charles. Hampton, David. /Hartma n, Peter.} CAPTAIN Campbell's company (3d company). Jacob Campbell, captain. John Buzzard, sergeant. Samuel Davis, sergeant. Sannon Davis, sergeant. John Staler, sergeant. John Hager, sergeant. Jacob Kurtz, corporal. James Williams, corporal. Jacob Hawk, corporal. John Christopher, corporal. 4 , Hardy, John. Huston, James. Hampton, Thomas. Harner, Adam. Hawk, Benjamin. Hawk, John. Heck, Peter. Huzzard, Anthony. Harvey, Job. Hoffacker, Philip. Hemiger, Joseph. Jenkins, Enoch. .Tones, Isaiah. Jones, John. John, Oliver. Jones, John. Jaquette, Nathaniel. Knowles, Samuel. Keiter, George. Kelly, John. (^King, George.) Lupoid, Joseph. Lawre, Joseph. Miller, John. Morgan, Lewis. McCowan, Samuel. *McCarraher, Alexy) McEutire, Daniel. Matthias, James. March, Jesse. Murry, Daniel. Murphy, Edward. Neily, John. O'Neil, Francis. Phillips, Abraham. Parker, Ralph. Pennypacker, Saml. Price, George. Price, Patrick. Reynolds, Henry. Remley, Jacob. Rembey, Valentine. Rembey, Christian. Rossiter, Thomas./"''^ Shriver, John. Sowersworth, Isaac. Smith, John E. Salyards, Armstr.ong Snyder, George." Shingle, Jacob. Steward, William. Stahl, Daniel. Thomas, David. Turner, Samuel. Vanderslice, Ed. R. 50 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY "Weaver, Christian. Wertz, John. Williams, Daniel. Wiles, John. Williams, Charles. Walter, James. Walker, George. Young, John. Youngblood, John. CAPT. weatherby's COMPANY (4th company). Benjamin Weatherby, captain. James McGuigan, sergeant. John Taylor, sergeant. John Peters, sergeant, Thomas Ash, sergeant. Patrick McGuigan, sergeant. Samuel Roberts, corporal. Barney McGuigan, corporal. Benjamin Yarnall, corporal. PRIVATES. Allison, Benjamin. Alcott, John. Bittle, Samuel. Brown, Thomas. Burit, John. Barlow, Curtis. Bail, Aaron. Burns, Giliad. Bernard, Levan. Burnet, Samuel. Black, Andrew. Bean, Henry. Bromell, Daniel. Barlow, John. Baker, Richard. Baker, Nehemiah. Clayton, Richard. Cornog, David. Close, Frederick. Collins, Henry. Craig, John H. Davis, John. Davis, William. Davis, John S. Dick, Valentine. Daugherty, Arch. Dutton, Jeremiah. Esworth, Joseph. Fields, Felix. Griffith, Jehu. Gorby, John. Graff", William. Green, Jesse. Griffith, Joseph. Gibson, Jonathan. Green, Abel. Hine, George. Hodge, James. Huff", James. Hoops, John. Hopkins, Matthew. Hampton, Woodw'd. Harper, Peter. Hunter, Andrew. Hook, John. Harbinson, Francis. Hannum, John 8. Henthorne, John. Jay, David. Jester, Vincent. Jones, Thomas. Kelly, John. King, John. Lawrence, Aaron. Likens, Daniel. Mitchel, James. Murphy, Joseph. McCrackin, Wra. McCoy, James. McGarraty, Charles. McBride, George. McGlaughlin, Wm. McKinster, Jesse. McGlaughlin,W., sr. Mase, William. Mercer, Thomas. Marrow, Nicholas. Miles, Reuben. Ottenhamer, Wm. Price, John R. Parks, Alex. Pyle, John. Rauzel, William. Rattew, Eli. Russel, George. Russell, Samuel. Steel, Robert. Smith, Peter. Smith, John. Smith, William. Smith, Charles. Smith, Aaron. Smedley, Abel. Stewart, Jacob. Sill, Anthony N. Scott, Joel. Stimel, Frederick. Thomas, Marshall. Tompkins, Isaac. Torton, David. Torbet, Alex. Taylor, James. Varley, John. Valentine, Robert. Wright, Cornelius. Weaver, Baldwin. Wheeling, John. Weare, James. Weare, James, jr. Weare, William. Warnick, Richard. Young, Jacob. Rizer, Jacob. CAPTAIN lackey's COMPANY (5th Company). James Lackey, captain. PRIVATES. Archer, John. Bankus, George. Bowers, William. Burke, John. Bucknell, William. Bryan, Martin. Bane, John. Brothers, James. Brook, ITathaniel. Channel, Powell. Clare, Benjamin. Chaffin, Thomas. Conway, Joseph. Cummins, James. Carter, Aaron. Cross, 'John. Cochran, Thomas. Crozier, Jonathan. Carr, Henry. Cozens, Samuel. OF CHmtBB GOVNTY. 5i Dempsey, William. Davis, Mordecai. Davis, Emmor. Davis, George L. Day, James. Degraut, James. Egee, David. Eaches, Isaac. Essex, Jacob. Everson, Thomas. Epright, Samuel. Frame, John. Forwood, Jacob. Farrow, John. Farrow, Joseph. Farrow, George. Ford, Richard. Funterwise, John. Goodwin, Jacob. Griffith, Charles. Griffith, Evan. Griffith, Samuel. Gallino, John. Garman, Henry. Gil more, John. Hodge, William. Hersh, George. Hunter, Joseph. Hoskins, William. Hunter, Thompson. Howell, Jacob. jHimes, Francis."^ Hutcheson, Thomas. Heck, John. Hannums, George. Haycock, John. Jackson, Hezekiah. Keiter, Jacob. Kelly, Thomas. Kitts^John. (King, Joh^ Kimsey, David. Lawrence, Joseph H. Love, Hugh. Lewellyn, Thomas. McKinzy, Kenneth. McCray, William. McDonald, John. McKeown, Thomas. May, Edward. Murry, Jeremiah. Morgan, Davis. Martin, William. I^ickles, John. Pennell, Samuel. Patterson, John. Pierce, Timothy. Peck, Abraham. Pearson, Henry. Peterson, Peter. Potter, Atlee. Robeson, Edward W. Roberts, George. Rider, David. Rogers, Joseph. Rowland, Charles. Shearer, John. Snider, Casper. Smith, John. Salyards, Edward. Sharp, William. Sinquet, Samuel. Sinquet, Daniel. Sharpless, Jesse. Sill, Oswald. Shimer, Barthol'w. Sullivan, Samuel. Stanley, Jacob. Sill, William. Scott, Matthew. Torton, Benjamin. Thomas, Davis. Thompson, Benj. Thompson, William. Trimble, Thomas. Taylor, Reuben. Wells, Edward. Wells, George. Williams, David. Wilson, Lawrence. Walker, John. White, William. Williamson, David. Waldravin, Levi. White, Isaac. Wizer, John. Work, Bejamin. Waldner, Lazarus. Youm, William. Young, Peter. CAPTAIN HARRIS S COMPANY. John Harris, captain. David Rees, lieutenant. PRIVATES. Bryant, Martin. Carter, Aaron. Davis, John L. Essick, Jacob. Faux, William. Griffith, Evan. Huszard, Anthony. Hoskins, William. Hampton, Marshall. Himes, Francis. Harris, John, jr. Lunsford, Thomps'n. McKenzie, Kenneth. Nicholas, John. Patterson, John. Robeson, Edward. Roland, Charles. Schofield, William. Sinket, Samuel. Tompkins, Isaac. Torbet, Alexander. Thomas, John. Young, Peter, jr. FIFTH BATTALION PENNSYLVANIA MILITIA. This battalion was commanded by Major William McFarland; was a part of the First brigade, and served at York, this State, and near Baltimore, Maryland. In it were the companies of Captains Wilson, Stuart and Steele. CAPTAIN Wilson's company. Robert Wilson, captain. David Williamson, lieutenant. Joseph Miller, ensign. Jesse Lockhart, sergeant. James Simpson, sergeant. George Entriken, sergeant. James Moore, sergeant. 53 moghaphy and histoby John Oglesby, corporal. John Baum, corporal. Andrew Redheifer, corporal. John Carr, corporal. PRIVATES. Allen, Isaac. Allison, William. Allison, Thomas. Atchless, Charles. Batter, John. Beagle, Heury. Balentine,Hamilton. Bellows, Thomas. Benner, David. Bathhurst, John. Bellows, Hiram. Brown, Benjamin. Bumbaugh, James. BuUer, Cyrus. Carson, William. Criley, Daniel. Clevenstine, Henry. Coff'rode, Jacob. Christy, Samuel. Cogle, Arnold. Criley, Peter. Col well, Andrew. Darling, Samuel. Donelson, Griffith. Essick, Bolser. Fleck, David. Graham, James, jr. Guy, John. Guy, George. Griffith, Amos. Grubb, Abraham. Gibben, James. Griffey, David. Hause, Daniel. Hendrickson, Jacob. Harley, Benjamin. Irwin, Jonathan. Irvin, John. Johnson, Barnard. Keeley, Matthias. Krider, Daniel. Lockhart, William. Lewis, James. Lamey, Edward. McDermont, Peter. McKinley, Samuel. McKinley, Thomas. McGinn, Peter. Miller, Joseph. Mo wry, Joseph. Milligan, James. Miller, John. Miller, William. Miller, Daniel. Milligan, John. Manely, Hugh. Owen, Morris. Packingham, Sanil. Phillips, Josiah. Pierce, Richard. Parker, William. Powell, Daniel. Riely, William. Reid, Joseph. Richards, Samuel. Sims, Joseph. Stepleton, Samuel. Stanford, James B. Smith, Henry. Sims, William. Sherer, William. Snyder, John. Talbot, Caleb. Uble, Frederick. Widener, Jacob. Waddle, Henry. Wilson, William. Williams, William. White, John. Worts, Peter. Wever, John. Widener, Peter. Whitaker, Peter. CAPTAIN STUART S COMPANY. William Stuart, captain. - James W. Potts, lieutenant. John D. Perry, lieutenant. Israel Bailey, ensign. John Rodgers, sergeant. Jacob G. Morton, sergeant. James Morton, sergeant. David Powel, sergeant. PRIVATES. Bradley, Richard. Benner, Jacob H. Brackenridge, Saml. Cooper, David. Chalfant, William. Dunn, James. Davis, George. Hamil, John C. Harlan, Lewis. Murphy, John. McKee, William. Miller, Samuel. Melaney, William. Powell, John G. Powell, Abel. Powell, Aaron. Powell, John. Rolinson, Thomas. Reed, William. Sweeney, James. Scatlin, James. Strand, Peter. Stone, William. Tinney, ISTeal. Thomas, Charles M. Windle, Moses. Watts, Joseph. CAPTAIN STEELE S COMPANY. William Steele, captain. David Wiley, lieutenant. Samuel Lefever, ensign. Robert Rambo, sergeant. Robert Gibson, sergeant. Jesse Jones, sergeant. John Maxwell, sergeant. John R. Gibson, corporal. Isaac Russell, corporal. OF GHESTBB COUNTY. 58 John Ford, corporal. Samuel Patterson, corporal. PRIVATES. Armstrong, John W. Bear, Henry. Boyd, James. Brown, John. Brown, Joseph. Bunting, James. Brukalwice, A. Carswell, James. Chamberlain, Obed. Cloud, George. Cloud, Jacob. Cochran, John. Cooper, John. Correy, William K. Cummins, Jesse. Curtz, Jacob W. Dance, Isaac. Darling, John. Davns, John. Dean, Matthias. Dremiing, John. Dugan, Philip. Dunlap, Enoch. Fitzgerald, John. Fiemming, William. Gibson, John R. Gibson, William. Gilmore, John. Harris, Reuben. Henderson, Arch. Hinton, Moses. Hollis, George. Hollo well, John. Irwin, Alex. Irwin, Benjamin. Irwin, William. Kennedy, John. Lawrence, Henry. Leming, Thomas. Lewis, Absalom. Lewis, Collin. Lowry, James. Mack, James. Money, Charles. Mullin, Charles. Murdock, John. McClellan, John. McCracken, James. McGinnis, Joseph. !N"olen, Robert. Porter, John. Powel, Thomas. Quigley, Thomas. Russell, James. Sentman, Lawrence. Shute, James. Simcox, William. Smith, Joseph. Smith, William. Sorence, John. Steward, James B. Stinson, William. Stone, Garrett. Mc Williams, James. Wilson, Robert. Wood, William. Wright, William. EIGHTEENTH SECTION RIFLES. This section was commanded by Coi. Thomas Humphrey, served at Camp Snyder, and included Captain Wigton's company. CAPTAIN WIGTON S COMPANY. Theodore Wigton, captain. David Trueman, sergeant. William Clingan, sergeant. Thomas Hollis, sergeant. David Stott, sergeant. John Piersol, corporal. John Rankin, corporal. Ezekiel Mann, corporal. Joshua Humphrey, corporal. ( Robert Hope, musician7\ PRIVATES. Bryan, John. Cochran, David. Cochran, Robert. Cunningham, Robt. Cowan, Jacob. Davis, Thomas. Davis, l^athaniel. Date, George. Eifort, Charles. Fleming, Joseph. Fleming, John S. Grier, John E. Gibson, Samuel C. Gibson, Andrew. Glasgow, Samuel. Haslett, James. HarryJBenajah . Hope, Heslr^ HooverTTohn. Hanley, James. Hayburn, William. Jones, Richard. Little, Patrick. Lesley, John. Mann, Samuel. Mann, Eli. Moore, David. Moore, Eli. McGinnis, Wm. McKinn, David. Mc Williams, Robt. Oglesby, Jonah. Parker, John. Parke, William. Parker, David. Richmond, Joseph. Smith, Joseph. Scott, Thomas. Stott, Jesse. Thompson, Jacob. Wilson, John. Wilson, Boyd. Witherow, William. Welch, William. Whitelock, James. Wallace, Arthur. Way, Jacob. Two other companies served from Ches- ter county — Captain Beerbrower's at Mar- cus Hook, and Captain Holmes' volunteer company at York and Baltimore. 54 BIOGRAPHY AND BI STORY CAPTAIN BEBKBROWBR S COMPANY. John Beerbrower, captain. Peter Smith, lieutenant. PRIVATES. Angrehen, James. Baker, Conrad. Baity, Miles. Brook, Nathan. Boyer, Jesse. Clemmens, Alex. Defrain, Jacob. Defrain, Peter. Donahower, Jacob. Dunbar, Matthew. Everhart, James. Evans, Joseph. Hause, Michael. Hoover, Jacob. Himes, Jesse. Kulp, Jacob. King, Peter. King, Jacob. King, Michael. Lynch, Samuel. Longaker, Henry. Lundy, James. Loid, George. Miller, Samuel. Miller, Jacob. Miller, Samuel. Miller, Philip. Miller, Abraham. McKerscher, John. Possy, John. Poly, Adam. Eossiter, Abijah. Rossiter, Malen. Royer, David. Root, Jacob. Saylor, John. Shofner, John. Smith, Jacob. Shut, Henry. Stoneback, Jacob. Stophelbine, Henry. Scott, Thomas. Shingle, John. Thomas, Mordecai. Williams, Abel. Walker, Samuel. Walker, John. White, John. Young, Daniel. Zeaber, Isaac. CAPTAIN HOLMES COMPANY. John Holmes, captain. John Downing, lieutenant. James Andrews, lieutenant. James Wilson, ensign. Arthur Andrews, jr., sergeant. Joseph Ramsey, sergeant. John Robb, sergeant. Robert Mashbank, sergeant. James Ross, corporal. William Robeson, corporal Francis Wallace, corporal. Robert Simpson, corporal. PRIVATES. Andrews, James. Ankrim, Archibald. Alison, Oliver. Abbitt, Dennis. Alexander, Thomas. Boon, John. Brogan, Benjamin. Byers, Henry. Best, John. Caruth, Henry. Cooper, John. Carlisle, John. Cowen, David. Crosby, iTathaniel. Chinece, John. Corry, John. Dickey, Joseph. Davis, James. David, WilUiam. Ewing, Alex. Fleshhalher, Martin. Fox, William. Farren, James. Ford, Charles. Guy, Samuel. Laaghlen, John. Lefeber, Samuel. Lemmon, William. Lemon, Hector. Muse, Thomas. Mcl^eal, William. Moore, John. McGee, Patrick. McLeny, William. Murdaugh, Robert. Nilson, John. Poisel, Henry. Pinkerton, Joseph. Pinkerton, William. Phillips, John. Quigg, James M. Robinson, John. Riece, Jacob. Ross, William. Ross, Isaac. Rogers, William. Russell, John. Rogers, Ebenezer. Robison, Robert. Simpson, William. Smith, Stewart. Slack, John. Steel, Samuel. Slegar, ^Nicholas. Turner, Joseph. Watt, David. Wilson, William. Worthington, John. Among the Chester county men who served during the war of 1812, in addition to those above named, were : Major Isaac D. Barnard, David Williams, Andrew Arm- strong, Christopher Shaner, John Purel, Thomas Maintland, William Wilson, James W. Brown, Enoch Jenkin, James Parke (brigade-major), John Leslie, Joseph Dun- woody, George Brannan, Amos Griffith, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 55 and Samuel Lindsay ; while John Hamil- ton and William Totten served in the navy. La Fayette's Visit. — In 1824 the Marquis de La Fayette was invited by President Monroe to visit this country, whose inde- pendence his sword had helped to win, and the American frigate Brandywine, so named in honor of the Chester county battlefield where he was wounded, was sent to bear him across the Atlantic ocean. His journey through the then twenty-four States of the , Union was a continual ovation; and the man who refused" the crown of France received more than kingly honor in the " Great Republic " of the new world. He was invited by the citizens of Chester county (August 28, 1824) to visit the Brandywine battlefield where he was wounded, and ac- cepted the invitation. On July 26, 1825, he visited the battlefield, pointed out every position of the contending armies, and was escorted by troops of cavalry to West Chester, where he was received by fifteen companies of infantry. Nearly ten thousand people were assembled to greet the nation's guest. Early the next day General La Fayette left for Lancaster, and " from his entrance into Chester county to his depart- ure therefrom his reception and progress were one continued scene of welcome, triumph, and joy." Schuylkill Canal. — The construction of the Philadelphia and Lancaster pike gave the people along the Brandywine river an idea that canal-and-lock navigation from tide water, by the Brandywine, to the above named turnpike, would give an easier and cheaper route for sending their products to market than any that then existed. A company was incorporated in 1793 to con- struct this canal, but it never commenced work, even if it ever made any surveys. The Schuylkill Navigation Company was incorporated in 1815, and their canal was opened in 1825, amid great rejoicings in the county that flat-boat navigation on the river and tiresome teaming on bad roads were gone. Three years later the company constructed the Chester county canal, from the Black Rock dam to Phoenixville, and in 1847 the steamboat General Taylor made daily trips on the Schuylkill canal from Phoenixville to Morristown, but the rail- ways, whose trains had commenced to run in 1832, soon took its passenger travel, leaving boats and canals to go down to- gether. Early Railroads. — The desire of the State to connect the western and eastern parts of the Pennsylvania canal led to the survey and construction of the first railroad in Lancaster and Chester counties. The Col- umbia railroad, now a part of the Pennsyl- vania, was put under contract from Colum- bia to Philadelphia in 1830, and the first train of cars ran through on February 28, 1834. The citizens of West Chester, in 1830, became interested in having their borough connected with the Columbia road, and took such measures as resulted in the building of the West Chester railroad, which was incorporated March 28, 1831. It was formally opened September 13, 1832, al- though the first car ran through from West Chester to the "Intersection" on the 5th of August. The Philadelphia & Reading railroad was agitated about the same time as the Penn- sylvania, and was constructed through Schuylkill township between 1833 and 1837. A tunnel one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two feet long, nineteen feet wide and seventeen feet in height, was cut through solid rock, and the road was opened to the 56 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY public on January 10, 1842. The Perkio- men branch was built some time afterward. Mexican War. — No company or organi- zation was recruited in Chester county for the Mexican war, but quite a number of her sons enlisted in companies recruited in other parts of the State, and served in the armies of Scott and Taylor. Among these men were : Corporal Levi P. Knerr, of the 1st United States Voltiguers, who was in nearly all the battles from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico ; William S. Menden- hall, who was captain of Co. D, 97th Penn- sylvania infantry, during the late war; Thomas King, John Yokum, Capt. Colum- bus Penn Evans, 11th United States in- fantry; Robert Taylor, of West Chester; and Irvin Parke, 6th Louisiana infantry. After the close of the Mexican war, Chester county improved gradually until the late war, and was only agitated during that period by the discussion of slavery. Underground Railroad. — Dr. Eobert Smed- ley says that but little antagonism to slavery was manifested in Chester county until 1804, when some kidnapping occurred at Columbia, this State. Some years after this several routes, with numerous stations, were established from York through Chester county, by which runaway slaves could make their way toward Canada. When these routes were arranged, the owners of escaping slaves found that they could trace their blacks only to York, and said in astonishment, " There must be an under- ground railroad somewhere." This gave rise to the term " by which this secret pass- age from bondage to freedom was known ever afterwards." Among those who were active in operating this road were James Fulton, Gideon Peirce, Thomas Bonsall, Thomas and John Vickers, and Esther Lewis. No fugitive slave was ever captured while passing over the underground rail- road, which was in active operation from about 1830 to 1861, when the late war commenced, and slavery, by the arbitrament of the sword, passed away as an American institution. The Civil War. — In this great and mo- mentous struggle, from the fall of Fort Sumter to the surrender of Lee's veteran legions at Appomattox court house, thous- ands of Chester county soldiers fought nobly in the Union cause, but hundreds of them fell in defense of their country's liberties. These fallen heroes are fitly described in the poet's lines, when he says : " By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor conies, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; And Freedom shall a while repair To dwell, a weeping hermit, there." We give the following roster of the companies raised in Chester county, and also the names of many soldiers who were residents of the county, but enlisted in companies raised elsewhere : SECOND PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY. This three months' volunteer regiment, in which Company G was from West Ches- ter, was organized April 21, 1861, with James Givin, who had been commissioned captain of Company G, as major of the regiment. It was stationed at York' and Chambersburg, this State, and at Funks- town, Maryland, until July 2, when it crossed the Potomac and served under General Patterson in his advance to Mar- tinsburg, and thence to Bunker Hill, where it was mustered out of the service July 26 1861. OF CHESTER COVNTY. 57 ROIiL OF COMPANY G. Benjamin H. Sweney, captain. Christian Wyck, first lieutenant. John H. Babb, second lieutenant. Charles H. Arison, first sergeant. Charles T. Sweeney, second sergeant. Charles Kelley, third sergeant. George Marshall, fourth sergeant. John J. Hoopes, first corporal. Franklin Eachus, second corporal. John Schlegel, third corporal. Joseph Sweeney, fourth corporal. Austin Fithean, musician. George Brown, musician. PRIVATES. Burns, George. Bennett, Jesse J. Birdsell, Edwin. Baker, Harry. Bucher, Jacob. Cosgrift", Thomas. Commite, Joseph. Clark, Townsend. Carter, Patrick. Carr, William. Coughlin, James. Cummi ns,Dominick. Crawford, "William. Davidson,Edward D. Dolly, Thomas. Dawney, Nathan. Dritton, Smith. Entriken, Henry. Ferrill, Daniel. Fisk, Russel P. Flynn, John. Graul, Jacob. Gillespie, John. Holmes, Samuel. Hennessey, "Wrn. H. Harry, Amos. ^ Hanlou, James. Hoopes, Franklin. Harp, Wm. E. Hendrickson, Jos. Hibbard, Walter. Hillingsworth, Walt. James, William W. Kirk, William. . Lucas, Joseph M. Marshall, John G. Marshal], Abraham. McWilliams, James. Mulligan, James. McCartney, Abner. McWilliams, Ed. Miles, William. Mariarity, William. McCartney, Patrick. Preston, Thomas. Rodeback, John. Smith, Mahlon. Snyder, William B. Smith, William F. Smith, George, F. Serverd, Samuel. Steel, Joseph. Sullivan, John. Springer, John. Steddem, Joseph. Taylor, Milton. Taylor, Joseph H. Williams, Robert. Windle, Joseph M. Wickersham,Casp'r. Warniouth, John. Whiting, Charles. Watts, James. West, James. Walton, Joseph H. Watters, William. Yough, Jacob. Young, Alfred. NINTH INFANTRY. Companies A, E and F, of the 9th Penn- sylvania volunteer infantry, were recruited at West Chester. The regiment was or- ganized April 22, 1861, served mostly be- tween Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Winchester, Virginia, and was mustei^ed out July 24th. ROLL OF COMPANY A. Henry R. Guss, captain. Francis M. Guss, first lieutenant. Richard D. Townsend, second lieutenant. Lewis Y. Evans, first sergeant. John C. McKay, second sergeant. James Powell, third sergeant. Thomas J. Townsend, fourth sergeant. Ephraim E. Black, first corporal. Thomas E. Webber, second corporal. Thomas McKay, third corporal. Abel Grifteth, fourth corporal. James St. John, musician. William S. St. John, musician. PRIVATES. Abel, Wm. S. Baldwin, Johnson C. Birney, David. Bickings, Albanus. Caruther8,Henry W. Dock, William H. Daubman, Jacob. Donley, John. Davis, George. Dailey, Bayard. Davis, Rees. Dutton, Alfred L. Dutton, Reese R. Douley, James P. Davis, John E. Fithian, R. Powell. Ferrell, Wm. C. Finch, Isaac. 58 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Ferrell, Morgan. Frame, Franklin. Floyd, William. Fawkes, Isaac. Gardner, Wm. Greorge, "William. Gill, Taylor. Hickman, F. Sharp. Hawkins, George. Hutchinson, David. Hall, Robert J. Hamill, Robert A. Hopkins, Matt. M. Jenkins, Mahlon P. Johnson, T. Rhoads. Jenkins, George. Keech, Wm. K. Kennedy, John. Keech, James G. Linton, James. Lovell, William. Lupoid, John. Lewis, Phineas. McKay, William. Marris, John. Morgan, Elwood. Massey, Jefferson. Middleton,ElishaW. Martin, Wm. H. McDermott, Bern. Meteer, William. McNamel, John. Pearce, William H. Perry, Aaron B. Peace, Alfred. Peace, Samuel S. Pearson, William. Richardson, Taylor. Rudolph, Jervis J. Rogers, John. Strickland, 0. E. Stone, Charles. Stackhouse, Beuj. Stott, Sylvester. Taylor, Isaac B. Wright, Andrew K. ROLL or COMPANY E. James F. Andress, captain. DeWitt C. Lewis, first lieutenant. W. Montgomery Hickson, second lieut. William McConnell, first sergeant. Davis E. Townsend, second sergeant. Samuel Burns, jr., third sergeant. Thomas L. Lewis, fourth sergeant. Samuel J. Thompson, first corporal. Cyrus D. Hoopes, second corporal. Hampton S. Thomas, third corporal. William W. Stott, fourth corporal. Casper Fahnestock, musician. John W. Way, musician. PRIVATES. Burns, William li. Baker, William. Buckley, Edmund. Boyles, John M. Baker, Henry C. Bennett, Edward C. Brubaker, John. McBride, Robert. Chandler, David A. Connell, Patrick. Chandler, James L. Dunn, Martin H. Fimple, William. Ferguson, Robert. Futhey, Samuel D. Friel, James. Ferry, William. Gould, P. Atwood. Gammel, James. Glending, William. Hoopes, Jacob. Hale, Hugh. Hadley, James. Haines, Joseph. Huntsman, John E. Kirk, Levi. Kennedy, William. Kirk, Chandler. Lapp, Isaac. Maxton, James L. Maxton, M. V. B. McCormick, Wm. Moulder, Wilmer. Milbourn, Mark. McCollough, James. McCue, John. Meredith, Lewis. McDowell, Clarkson. McCorkle, John D. Miles, George. Moore, James. Otiey, William. O'Brien, William. Phipps, Aaron J. ' Rockey, Benj. R. Kiley, James. Strickland, Wm. B. Springer, Charles D. Smith, Samuel D. Smith, George L. Smith, William. Smedley, Abiah T. Smedley, Isaac. Taggart, Jesse. Taylor, Charles E. Valentine, Henry C. Vernon, Isaac A. Vandever, Elwood. Wilson, George D. Wilson,, Lewis. West, William W. Walton, James B. Wright, William H. ROLL OF COMPANY F. Samuel Hufftey, jr., captain. David Jones, first lieutenant. Joseph T. Burnett, second lieutenant. Josiah Burnett, jr., first sergeant. Don Juan Wallings, second sergeant. Elijah B. Thomas, third sergeant. Elwood B. Baldwin, fourth sergeant. George D. Townsend, first corporal. .Joseph F. Townsend, second corporal. George F. Bailey, third corporal. Benjamin H. Downing, fonrtli corponil Ot CItM&tEIt COUNTY. 59 Henry G. Yocum, musician. Arthur B. Yeager, musician. PRIVATES. Ahn, Edwin T. Ahn, Benjamin F. Bailey, Thomas V. Bear, "William "W. Bittler, "William L. Baldwin, Robert. Brown, Francis A. Brown, Elliott. Bonfield, George. Bailey, Joshua. Black, Robert L. Clark, Jeptha. Clark, William H. Carberry, John L. Caruthers, David R. Downing, Dennis W. Drummond, Ker. H. Darlington, Hilbern. Ford, Lewis J. Ford, John. Ford, John P. Frease, Daniel H. Guest, Thomas B. Greiner, Frederick. Harvey, William. Hickman, John. Hickman, Daniel. Henry, Jacob C. Hayes, Job, jr. Howard, Wm. H. H. Irwin, George W. Jeft'ries-, William D. Kern, Patrick. Kickham, Theodore. Lewis, Joel. Mills, John. Matthews, Geo. P. Miles, William C. Minster, John H. McCafferty, Enos. McClure, John. Miles, Christian. McAfee, William D. O'Neill, Edward. Potts, David. Pinkerton, Lewis J. Pattzgrober, Henry. Robinson, David. Riley, Benjamin. Russell, Joseph. Rhodwalt, John H. Skeen, Benjamin F. Short, Thomas H. Skeen, Robert, jr. Smith, Cooper. Smith, Columbus. Wesley, George W. Wynn, Coleman. Wilson, Henry C. Worrall, Lewis. Webster, Wm. D. Willard, Philip, jr. ( First THIRTIETH PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY Reserves). This was the first regiment of the Penn- sylvania Reserve corps ; was organized June 9, 1861, and left Maryland in 1862 to join the army of the Potomac. It was in the battles of Gaines' Mill and Charles City Cross Roads, did good work at South Mountain, made a daring charge at Fred- ericksburg, fought bravely at Gettysburg, covered itself with honor at Spottsylvania court house, and was mustered out on June 13, 1864. Of its one thousand and eighty- four men one hundred and thirty-nine were killed and died in the field: two hundred and thirty-three were wounded ; two hun- dred and fifty-eight discharged for disability contracted in the service, and one hundred and forty-eight re-enlisted as veterans. Two of its companies, A and G, were from Chester county; and one, C, was from Chester and Delaware counties. ROLL OF COMPANY A. Henry M. Mclntyre, captain, promoted to lieutenant-colonel. John W. Nields, captain, promoted to lieutenant-colonel. Mott Hooton, captain, breveted major. Chas. B. Lamborn, first lieutenant, pro- moted to lieutenant-colonel. Cheney W. Melds, first lieutenant. Brinton J. Parke, first lieutenant, brev- eted captain. Philip Price, first sergeant, promoted to second lieutenant. William B. Hammond, sergeant. Joseph James, sergeant. Wilmer W. Miller, sergeant. Thomas J. Maloney, sergeant. Emmor B. Cope, sei'geant, promoted to captain. James E. Mooney, sergeant. L. M. Woodward, sergeant. Benjamin II. Jenkins, sergeant, killed at Bethesda church. Luther Mendenhall, corporal. Frank Shellady, corporal. George Palmer, corporal. 60 MOORAPltY AND HISTORY Isaac R. Smith, coi'poral. Joseph Darlington, corporal. Wilson M. Mattack, corporal. Robert Futhey, corporal, promoted to lirst lieutenant. Henry Walters, corporal. William H. Darlington, corporal. Rolph Marsh, corporal. J. Wallace Scott, corporal. Albert S. Evans, corporal. Charles S. Sheaff, corporal. Creorge A. Mercer, corporal. John E. Gillespie, corporal. John N. Bennett, corporal. Hanford H. Rigg, corporal. Thomas S. Melds, corporal, killed at Second Bull Run. J.W.Oswald, corporal, killed at Antietam. Thomas C. Spackman, corporal, killed at Gettysburg. C. P. Cunningham, musician. PKIVATBS. Blains, Edward. Brinton, David R. P. Brinton, Lewis. Bugless, John K. Bugless, Thomas H. Brogan, William C. Bugless, John. Barker, Mat. Buchanan, J. W., killed July 3, '63. Carpenter, Albert. Chalfant, Myers S. Cochran, William C. Caldwell, Charles. Creigh, James J. Catron, Eli R., died in prison. Deneane, Joseph W. Darlinffton, Chand'r. Davis, Edward. Eulton, John L. Fisher, John. Ferry, Thomas R. Gregg, liar man. Harvey, Perley W. Hickman, Charles H. Hoopes, Pierce, jr. Hannum, Davis E. Hoopes, James G. Hennessey, W. H. Harlan, G. W. Hoopes, P. W. Herrington, J. W. Harkins, Thomas. Hood, Andrew. Hoopes, Abner. Ingram," Chas. H. Irwin, Wilson. Jeft'eries, Edward E. Johnson, William C. Lamborn, Hadley. Law, John H. Large, George A\^. Mell, William G. Mercei', Pierson. Madden, Andrew. McAllister, Jas. T. Mclntyre, Jos. R. McCann, Thos. McLaughlin, J. McLaughlin, Jas. Otley, Albion P. Parker, Dilwyn. Proudfit, Jos. M. Prall, Lewis M. Paul, William R. Pratt, Jos. L., died of wounds. Robinson, Lewis R. Russel, Enos M. Rupert, Alfred, pro- moted to adjutant. Ruhven, H. Smith, Henry T. Smith, Samuel H. Smith, Levi. Stott, Joseph H. Stern, Charles S. Shell ady, Jas. B. Snare, William S. Speakman, Charles. Steward, Joseph L. Scott, Joseph M. Turner, William H. Taylor, George P. Tinsley, Edward W. Tinsley, Abraham, died of wounds. Way, Joseph. Walters, William H. Welsh, Rees. Young, D. ROLL OF COMPANY C. Samuel A. Dyer, captain, promoted to lieutentant-colonel. Joseph R. T. Coates, captain, breveted major. • Edward Larkin, first lieutenant, breveted captain. John H. Taylor, second lieutenant, killed at South Mountain. John M. Thompson, second lieutenant. J. Keen Vaughan, first sergeant, promoted to adjutant. Bernard W. Gause, first sergeant. A. Hamilton, sergeant. William 0. Ridgway, sergeant. C. Bo,nney, sergeant. Robert H. Welsh, sergeant. T. Mcl^famee, sergeant. J. Ashbridge, corporal. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 61 John Jones, corporal. Riley, James. Townsend, Charles, David Lasconi, coi •poral. Rice, Thomas. killed in 1863. George McAfiee, corporal. Summers, David. Turner, Joseph. Edward E. Flavill corporal. Stowe, William. Van Zant, Thomas. J. H. Williams, corporal. Suplee, Jesse. Williams, Samuel. Lane Schofield, corporal. Stevenson, David. Worsley, George. John McDonald, corporal. Stillwell, William. Walker, Collins. Abram E,. Van Zant, musician. Stewart, James. Wilkinson, Thomas. Smith, William. Wray, Thomas. PRIVATES. Shaw, A. Waters, Patrick. Alrich, William J. Hurst, John. Schofield, J.T., killed Wray, Robert. Ardis, Samuel. Jones, Ralph. in 1864. Webb, A. G., killed Butler, Edward. Johnson, John. Sanders, James. 1862. Booth, John. Koeth, Henry. Saulsbury, Robert. Wesler, Solomon, Brophy, John. Lusby, J. Smith, John. killed in 1864. Bamford, William. Lemmon, George. Stetsing, Anton. Welch, George. Clineff, William. Lammy, William. Taylor, William H Wood, William. Coates, Aquilla, died Lord, Samuel. in 1861. Murry, John H. ROLL OF COMPANY G. Curry, William. Mills, R., died of John R. Dobson, captain, breveted major. Dougherty James. wounds. J. F. McCord, first lieutenant. Dougherty, Charles. Mills, Thomas. Joseph Taggart, first lieutenant, breveted Donelson, David. Martin, Joseph. captain. Dutton, W. McFate, Frank. Josiah White, second lieutenant, died in Devlin, John. McCoy, William. 1864. Edwards, George. McCabe, Edward. William E. Chandler, first sergeant. Elliott, George. McGarvey, Thomas, Charles Armitage, first sergeant. Elliott, E. died of wounds. James Phillips, s ergeant. Eversham, Thos. McCluskey, Henry. William H. Powers, sergeant. Fields, George. Mller, Peter. William L. Keeley, sergeant. Farrend, George. Paist, William C. William H. Yerger, sergeant. Grady, Michael. Porter, John, killed Charles Frey, se: -geant. Helms, Isaac. in 1862. Ham. Vanderslice, sergeant. Hickman, Edward. Pollock, James, died Geo. H. Powers, sergeant, died in 1862. Howard, William. of wounds. Bertless Slott, corporal. Hinds, Samuel. Rider, William. George H. Findley, corporal. Hill, Horace. Ross, William R. Franklin Harley , corporal. Huft", John. Roebuck, John. John T. Eaches, corporal. Holsten, Luke. Royal, David. William J. Kennedy, corporal. Hobaugh, Harry, Ruddock, Robert, David Dettra, co rporal. died in 1861. killed in 1862, Emanuel Ewing, corporal. Hudson, Robert. Roach, Matthew. John Hartou, corporal. 60 BlOGBAPltY AND ItlSTORY Isaac R. Smith, corporal. Joseph Darliugton, corporal. Wilson M. Mattack, coi-poral. Robert Futhey, corporal, promoted to lirst lieutenant. Henry Walters, corporal. William H. Darlington, corporal. Rolph Marsh, corporal. J. Wallace Scott, corporal. Albert S. Evans, corporal. Charles S. Sheaff, corporal. G-eorge A. Mercer, corporal. John E. Grillespie, corporal. John N. Bennett, corporal. Hanford H. Rigg, corporal. Thomas S. Melds, corporal, killed at Second Bull Run. J.W. Oswald, corporal, killed at Antietam. Thomas C. Spackman, corporal, killed at Gettysburg. C. P. Cunningham, musician. PRIVATES. Blains, Edward. Brinton, David R. P. Brinton, Lewis. Bugless, John K. Bugless, Thomas H. Brogan, William C. Bugless, John. Barker, Mat. Buchanan, J. W., killed July 3, '63. Carpenter, Albert. Chalfant, Myers S. Cochran, William C. ('aldwell, Charles. Creigh, James J. Catron, Eli R., died in prison. Deneane, Joseph W. Darlington, Chand'r. Davis, Edward. Fulton, John L. Fisher, John. Ferry, Thomas R. Gregg, Harman. Harvey, Perley W. Hickman, Charles H. Hoopes, Pierce, jr. Hannum, Davis E. Hoopes, James G. Hennessey, W. H. Harlan, G. W. Hoopes, P. W. Herrington, J. W. Harkins, Thomas. Hood, Andrew. Hoopes, Abner. Ingram," Chas. H. Irwin, Wilson. Jetferies, Edward E. Johnson, William C. Lamborn, Hadley. Law, John H. Large, George W. Mell, William G. Mercer, Pierson. Madden, Andrew. McAllister, Jas. T. Mclntyre, Jos. R. McCann, Thos. McLaughlin, J. McLaughlin, Jas. Otley, Albion P. Parker, Dilwyn. Proudfit, Jos. M. Prall, Lewis M. Paul, William R. Pratt, Jos. L., died of wounds. Robinson, Lewis R. Russel, Enos M. Rupert, Alfred, pro- moted to adjutant. Ruhven, H. Smith, Henry T. Smith, Samuel H. Smith, Levi. Stott, Joseph H. Stern, Charles S. Shell ady, Jas. B. Snare, William S. Speakman, Charles. Steward, Joseph L. Scott, Joseph M. Turner, William H. Taylor, George P. Tinsley, Edward W. Tinsley, Abraham, died of wounds. Way, Joseph. Walters, William H. Welsh, Rees. Young, D. KOLL OP COMPANY 0. Samuel A. Dyer, captain, promoted to lieutentant-colonel. Joseph R. T. Coates, captain, breveted major. • Edward Larkin, first lieutenant, breveted captain. John H. Taylor, second lieutenant, killed at South Mountain. John M. Thompson, second lieutenant. J. Keen Vaughan, first sergeant, promoted to adjutant. Bernard W. Gause, first sergeant. A. Hamilton, sergeant. William 0. Ridgway, sergeant. C. Bo.nney, sergeant. Robert H. Welsh, sergeant. T. McKamee, sergeant. J. Ashbridge, corporal. OF GHESTEIt COUNTY. 61 John Jones, corporal. Riley, James. Townsend, Charles, David Lascom, corporal. Rice, Thomas. killed in 1863. George McAftee, corporal. Summers, David. Turner, Joseph. Edward E. Flavill corporal. Stowe, William. Van Zant, Thomas. J. H. Williams, corporal. Suplee, Jesse. Williams, Samuel. Lane Schofield, corporal. Stevenson, David. Worsley, George. John McDonald, corporal. Stillwell, William. Walker, Collins. Abram R. Van Zant, musician. Stewart, James. Wilkinson, Thomas. Smith, William. Wray, Thomas. PRIVATlSiS. Shaw, A. Waters, Patrick. Alrich, William J. Hurst, John. Schofield, J.T.,killed Wray, Robert. Ardis, Samuel. Jones, Ralph. in 1864. Webb, A. G., killed Butler, Edward. Johnson, John. Sanders, James. 1862. Booth, John. Koeth, Henry. Saulsbury, Robert. Wesler, Solomon, Brophy, John. Lusby, J. Smith, John. killed in 1864. Bamford, William. Lemmon, George. Stetsing, Anton. Welch, George. Clinefl; William. Lammy, William. Taylor, William H Wood, William. Coates, Aquilla, died Lord, Samuel. in 1861. Murry, John H. ROLL OF COMPANY 6. Curry, William. Mills, R., died of John R. Dobsou, captain, breveted major. Dougherty James. wounds. J. P. McCord, first lieutenant. Dougherty, Charles. Mills, Thomas. Joseph Taggart, first lieutenant, breveted Donelson, David. Martin, Joseph. captain. Dutton, W. McFate, Frank. Josiah White, second lieutenant, died in Devlin, John. McCoy, William. 1864. Edwards, George. McCabe, Edward. William E. Chandler, first sergeant. Elliott, George. McGarvey, Thomas, Charles Armitage, first sergeant. Elliott, E. died of wounds. James Phillips, sergeant. Eversham, Thos. McCluskey, Henry. William H. Powers, sergeant. Fields, George. Niller, Peter. William L. Keeley, sergeant. Farrend, George. Paist, William C. William H. Yerger, sergeant. Grady, Michael. Porter, John, killed Charles Frey, sergeant. Helms, Isaac. in 1862. Ham. Vanderslice, sergeant. Hickman, Edward. Pollock, James, died Geo. H. Powers, sergeant, died in 1862. Howard, William. of wounds. Bertless Slott, corporal. Hinds, Samuel. Rider, William. George H. Findley, corporal. Hill, Horace. Ross, William R. Franklin Harley corporal. Huff, John. Roebuck, John. John T. Eaches, corporal. Holsten, Luke. Royal, David. William J. Kennedy, corporal. Hobaugh, Harry, Ruddock, Robert, David Dettra, co rporal. died in 1861. killed in 1862. Emanuel Ewing, corpoi-al. Hudson, Robert. Roach, Matthew. John Harton, corporal. 62 BlOOttAPHY AND HISTOHY Will. Denithorne, corporal, died in 1861. James T. Nichols, musician. Charles Madden, musician. PRIVATES. Baugh, Joseph. Bell, Amos. Bowers, John. Bannon, Charles. Bennet, Stephen. Buck, George. Bradley, William H. Batt, Henry, killed at Antietam. Buck, Bobert. Bradley, J. E., killed at Second Bull Run Conklin, Joseph. Coffman, Joseph. Cook, William G. Chantrey, William. Clegg, William H. Clay, Isaac. Dunbar, Maurice. Dorman, Francis. Davis, Samuel E. Dennis, I. Eisenbrej^, Edward. Friday, Washington. Fritz, Edward. Force, George W. Fritz, Levi, died in 1862. Force, Abel S., killed at Gettysburg. Hunter, William. Hunter, James T. HauJthausen, Wm. Jones, John P. Jefters, Henry. Kurtz, Isaac W., pro- moted to sergeant- major. Keeley, Edward M. Livingston, Hugh. Lilley, Samuel C. Leslie, George. Longacker, Jerome. Millington, William. March, Jacob M. Munshower, Thos. Mills, John. Miller, William. Miller, Milton N., died in 1862. Miller, Nelson T., killed at Antietam McAdams, Thomas. McCoy, William M. McCoy, Washington McLaughlin, Coch. McAftee, William. McCoy, Michael. McCracken, Edward Neilor, John P. Oberholtzer, Isaac. Phillips, David M. Powers, John M., killed at South Mountain. Raysor, Frederick. Renshaw, GeorgeW. Stackhouse, N. E. Spotten, Robert. Spare, Gordon A. Spear, Andrew. Sloan, James. Schwenck, James. Smith, Mathias. Showalter, Wm. B. Woodland, Benj. Widdicombe, W. P. Woodland, William. Watson, Joseph L. Williams, C. R. Weeks, John M. Wahel, J., killed at Bethesda church. Whiteman, Joseph. Yeager, John W. Smith, Joseph, killed at Charles City. Shaw, Benjamin. Tencate, Fred. A. Vannaman, Joseph. Vanderslice, J no. A. Vanderslice, N. Vanderslice, Wm. T. Virtue, T., killed at Charles City. Watters, Morgan. THIRTY-THIRD PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY (Fourth Reserves). Company K of this regiment was re- cruited in Chester county. The regiment was gallantly engaged at Charles City Cross- roads, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Fredericksburg; and served in the Shenandoah and Kanawha valleys, in the latter of which it encountered great hard- ships, privations, and severe fighting. It was mustered out on June 17, 1864. ROLL OE COMPANY K. William Babe, captain. Enos L. Christman, captain, promoted to major. N. A. Pennypacker, captain. Lewis H. Evans, first lieutenant. Charles Nice, first sergeant. Isai_ah_Throop4^jr., se^rggant^. — ^ "J. W. Snyder, sergeant, promoted to> lieutenant. — ___— -""^'^^ Jo^seph M. Conner, sergeant. N. Davis, sergeant, promoted to lieuten- ant. J. Louderback, sergeant. John Little, sergeant, died of wounds. Thomas W. Rowland, sergeant, killed at Charles City. William D. Mooney, sergeant, died of wounds. OF CHESTEB COUNTY. .63 Joseph Stadden, corporal. S. Smedley, corporal. J. K. Burnite, corporal. George_W^JR,app, corporal. iGTPenny packer, "co i'|tofaT ^ P. AViley Keagan, corporal. John W. Schoiield, corporal. Charles Huflhagle, corporal. H. S. Willauer, corporal. B. F. Williams, musician. B. F. Houck, musician. PRIVATES. Anderson, E. N. Baker, James. J eaver, Jacob. ^ roran, Lycurgus. Bixler, Benjamin F. Brannan, Wm. H. Buller, Charles. Bush, Uriah, killed at Cloyd mountain . Col lier. Jam es. ( Crager, Homei\ ^ Collier, D. Cachus, W. Cochings, Jas., killed at Cloyd mountain. Dunahower, George. Davis, John W., died of wounds. Dailey, Jeremiah, killed at Antietam. Farnwalt, Isaac. Fritz, John. Fredericks, Joshua. Fauks, E. Foreman, Wm., died of wounds. ^ Fratt, David li., died of wounds. Gruest, Thomas L. Henry, William H. Haddiman, Samuel. Plampton, Saml. H. Hill, Isaac B. Hermacy, Wm. H. Hines, IST. F. Irvin, David. Johnson, Eniile. Johnson, Samuel. Jester, George W. James, Jose ph M. ^Kugler , John. j Kugler, Joshph. Kungle, John B. Kelly, James S. Kirkner, S., killed at Charles City. Lockardj William. Lacey, Joseph;_ ^ewis^ Jonathan M. EiWdsayTToHrT Lewis, Enos R. Lock, William. Manning, Williarii. Monday, John C. Morgan, Joseph AV. Morgan, John. Mood, Wm., killed at Charles City. Murray, Charles. Morrison, Isaac. McClure, Patrick. McCabe, Barney. McLaughlin, Jos. McLaughlin, J. A. McChesney, E. W., died in 1861. O'Brian, Matthew. . Peck, Abraham. Peck, Thomas T. Pennypacker, Jos. Rhoades, Preston S. Register, David. Ritner, George W. Reese, John. Rossiter, Striker C. Rossiter, B. I'. . Rossiter, B. F. (2) Ruthren, Henry ,died in 1863. Roberts, Benj. H., died in 1862. Rossiter, P. K. Snyder, J. Speakman, Thomas. Springer, I. Smith, Elijah J., killed at Charles City. Smith, William F., died in 1861. Thomas, Isaac P. Townsend, M. H. Vanskite, Lewis H. Weller, B. F. Williams, David B. Williams, Edmund. Wall, Philip. Walters, Reuben II. Wise, William. Wollerton, Nelson T., died of wounds. Wilson, William. Young, Joseph G. FORTY-SECOND PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY (Bucktails). This famous regiment, in which Co. H was from Chester county, was recruited by Col. Thomas L. Kane, brother of Dr. Kane, the Arctic explorer. The regiment was known by various names, among which were the "Thirteenth reserves" and the "Bucktails." By the latter it was known throughout the country, on account of each soldier in it wearing a bucktail in his hat. It fought gallantly at Drainesville, Gaines' Mill, Charles City Cross-roads, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the terrible Wilderness battles. At Gettysburg its colonel, Charles F. Taylor, a brother of Bayard Taylor, was killed while repulsing a Confederate charge. 64 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY ROLL OF COMPANY H. Charles F. Taylor, captain, promoted to colonel, and killed at Gettysburg. John D. Yerkes, captain, breveted major. Chandler Hall, lientenant, promoted to captain. T. J. Roney, first lieutenant. Evan P. Dixon, second lieutenant. Joel J. Swayne, second lieutenant, killed at Harrisonburg. Robert Maxwell, second lieutenant, died of wounds. William Baker, sergeant-major. S. Guthrie, first sergeant. A. S. Goodwin, first sergeant. R. Beebe, first sergeant. J. W. Pierce, first sergeant. Alfred Best, corporal. Albert Bahel, corporal. H. Willliams, corporal. Edwin A. Howell, corporal. J. J. Donahue, corporal. Phineas Malin, corporal. J. P. Young, corporal. E. Baker, corporal. Aaron Baker, corporal, killed at ISpott- sylvania Court house. PRIVATES. Alcott, David. Archer, L. T. Bahel, William. Brechit, Jona. Brockieus, Charles. Baker, William, pro- moted to sergeant- major. Brink, John B. Burrell, Wesley. Bahel, Thomas. Boozer, C. Birtsell, E. Billis, J. C. Best, A. A. Best, Thos. F. Barber, Joel M. Baker, Evan H. Briggs, William. Butler, James, killed at Antietam. Brink, Taylor, died in 1864. Brown, George W. Cook, Adolphus. Creamer, Jacob. Chandler, T. Chambers, Pusey E. Chadwiek, Joseph P. Chadwick, J. Cessna, M. Coyle, James. Creamer, Hiram, died in 1863. Coover, Andrew, killed at Fred'b'g. Carter, M. H. killed at Fredrickburg. Durgan, Thomas. Douglas, Benjamin. Davis, G. W. Davidson, E. S. Drummond, J. Davis, Marshall, died of wounds. Freel, Lorenzo D. Fogg, E. B. Foreman, M. H. Freel, James, died in . 1864. Gause, William T. Gause, L. T. Grace, James. Greenfield, E. Gross, T. P. Gross, E. P. Glisson, A. Grier, R. W. Goodwin, D. Gilmore, Richard T., killed at Gettsb'g. Hai'dy, Ross. Huss, Samuel. Hunter, William C. Hanson, Thomas, died in 1862. Harrigan, Wm.,died of wounds. Lewis, John S. Jacquette, Isaac G. Jackson, John A. Jackson, W. W. Jackson, Edward P. King, W. T. Lynch, James H. Land, T. Leedam, I. Maines, Thos. B. Montgomery, J. H. Mann, Persifor F. Milner, Robert. McCuUough, G. W. Milner, G. D. McClurg, A. A., kill- ed at Fred'ks'bg. Muddy, W. B. Oskins, Robert. Oekins, J. E. Perry, Thomas. Peirce, William. Penhollow, Henry. Pusey, Joshua. Penhollow, Charles, killed at Getty'b'g. Pennington, T. L., died of wounds. Page, Geo. W., killed at Bethesda C'ch. Pratt, Edward. Pettingill, Robert B. Rigdon, William. Roman Joseph A. Romig, George W. Rigdon, John, killed at Fredericksburg. Rentz, Frederick. Steigleman, H. C. Smith, George. Of CHESIER COUNTY. «5 Starr, Jeremiah J. Steigleman, J. W. Stroble, H. Sherman,Roger, pro- moted to serg-maj. Stevens, H. C. Taylor, Alfred. Taylor, Elwood. Taggart, Robert. Taylor, Isaac. Taylor, William. Taylor, James, died in 1862. Temple, Benj. F. Taylor, John, died in 1865; Urban, Charles. Watson, Richard. White, Henry C. West, Joseph D. Wilson, Samuel G. Woodward, Milton. West, J. D. Way, L. E. Williamson, F. Watts, William. Widdoes, Heli. Younkins, Edward. FORTY-NINTH PENNSYLVANIA INPANTKY. This regiment was organized September 14, 1861, and served until July 15, 1865, when it was mustered out at Washington city. It received the thanks of Generals Hancock and McClellan, at Williamsburg, for magnificent conduct, and fought bravely at Chancellorsville, Spottsylvania Court- house, and Winchester. Companies B and F were from Chester county. ROLL OF COMPANY B. George F. Smith, captain. Wm. B. Freeman, captain, died of wounds. B. J. Hickman, captain, promoted to maj. Robert G. Barr, captain, died of wounds. John S. Bratton, captain. Isaac B. Barker, first lieutenant. Edward T. Swain, lieutenant, promoted to captain. Samuel H. Irvin, first lieutenant. B. H. Downing, second lieutenant. John J. Hight, second lieutenant. Joseph Ewing, first sergeant. J. B. Downing, first sergeant. William McAlevy, sergeant. Charles Fultz, sergeant. 5 T. H. McFarland, sergeant. J. D. Cunningham, sergeant, killed at Cold Harbor. James H. Gross, sergeant, died in 1863. R. S. Westbrook, sergeant. J. R. Hackenberg, sergeant. L. S. Crownover, corporal. G. T. McCormick, corporal. Samuel G. Steftey, corporal. Lemuel Robertson, corporal. John C. Ross, corporal. George W. Hamere, corporal. Joseph L. Shugart, corporal. N. Harshbarger, corporal, killed at Spott- sylvania Courthouse. T. Reider, corporal, killed at Spottsyl- vania Courthouse. Lewis M. Price, corporal, killed at Spott- sylvania Courthouse. J. W. Campbell, corporal, died of wounds. Geo.W. Echard, corporal, died of wounds. Wm. C. Taylor, corporal, died in 1864. William H. Erwin, corporal. Thos. L. Taylor, corporal, died in 1862. Batton Marshall, corporal, killed in action. Charles Smith, musician. PRIVATES. Aston, Robert M. Anspack,W. E. Bebarger, Joseph. Bolan, Lewis W. Bruce, Jacob. Bennetts, Jacob. Brooks, William. Burlew, John W. Blatt, William B., died of wounds. Bennetts, William. Boticher, Joseph. Baker, Samuel. Barto, Jacob. Bumbaugh, Jacob. Cupp, Samuel. Curwin, Joseph M. Chaney, Benjamin F. died in 1863. Chilcote, Abram V. Crawford, Joseph. Coulter, Francis M. Caughling, William. Carter, Lewis. Devore, George W. Dougherty, H. S. Dunnigan, James. Davis, Benjamin F. 66 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY Decker, Adolphus P. Davis, Q-eorge W., died in 1862. Ewing, Samuel. Esteriine, David A. Everts, Nicholas, died of wounds. Estep, Henry 0. Emerick, Levi. Fiffs, William. Fitzgerald, Wm. M. Futz, David. Farra, Nathan, died in 1862. Ford, Nehemiah. Gray, William Y. Gruither, John A., died of wounds. Gearhart, John S., died of wounds. Gray, Henry, died of wounds. Giant, Andrew J. Greenland, Hiram. Gray, Isaac L. Hunter, Simon H. Hill, Jacob L. Hunt, S. Houston, T. Holliday, John V. Hunt, Solomon. Heffner, Samuel D. Humphrey, John P. Hells, Aug. Harris, James E. Holliday, John \ . Jenkins, George E. Kougle, John. Xine, James L. Kenyon, Mat. H. Kitson, Thos. J., died in 1862. Kelley, G. W. Longnecker, Samuel Lykens, Samuel. ' Lego, Samuel W. Matthews, S. li. Morgan, John B. Megahen, George W. Miller, Edmund. Miller, William. Moore, John C. Morningstar, J. H. Myerly, John. Martin, John D. Machamer, David J. McCall, G. W. B. McGonigle, Peter. McQuillen, Richard, killed at Rappa- hannock. McCord,W. H.,died in 1865. McMurtrie, Jas. E. McCurdy, James. McDonald, Wm. H. McGrady, Daniel. Nervingham, Chas. JSTale, Jacob E. Patterson, John N. Port, Levi W. Roseborough, J. R. Rutherford, R. D. Roach, W. L. Ross, James. Raymond, F. G. Roseborough, Wm., killed at Winc'st'r. Robinson, H. C. Ray, John. Rahn, William R. Rogers, Arthur. Ross, Samuel W. Rumbarger, 0. S. Shields, J. W. Smith, Jacob G. Snyder, Stephen. Snyder, JohnW. Sherer, John G. Smiley, Israel W. Sturtsman, William. Stonebraker, S. M. Stephens, J. C. Smith, Samuel. Temple, William M. Temple, Oliver S. Vandivere, Enos, died in 1862. Wyble, James. Wiland, John. Ward, Rhudolphus. Wellers, Samuel. Williams, Thos. R. Wilson, William H. Wolfkill, Thomas. Wilson, William. Wilson, Jacob K. Wesley-, Michael. White, Anthony. White, William H. Whitehead, Thomas. ROLL OF COMPANY F. Benjamin H. Sweeney, captain. William Sherwood, captain. Joseph B. Downing, captain. John H. Gray, first lieutenant. F. W. Wombacker, first lieutenant. Abraham T. Hilands, first lieutenant. Josiah L. Barton, first lieutenant. John D. Howell, first lieutenant. Don Juan Wallings, second lieutenant. Robert Davison, second lieutenant. William H. Glass, second lieutenant. Isaac F. Beaver, first sergeant. James Wharton, first sergeant, killed at Spottsylvania Courthouse. William M. Irvin, sergeant, promoted to lieutenant. J. J. Cromer, first sergeant. Francis H. Taggart, first sergeant. Moses Starkey, sergeant. Atchasson, McClellan, sergeant. Samuel C. Steiner, sergeant. Jacob F. Walk, sergeant. Alexander Hight, sergeant. Joseph McQuillen, corporal. Joel B. Roberts, corporal. W. H. Washaliska, corporal. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 67 Samuel Vanseyoc, corporal. Michael Walk, corporal. Winfield 8. Pugh, corporal. Isajic Getz, corporal. •J. R. ('. Montgomery, corporal. Rpbert A. Roach, corporal, killed at Spottsylvania Courthouse. Gehara, Lebar, corporal, killed at Spott- sylvania Courthouse. George Stanford, corporal, died of wounds. I). M. Reynolds, corporal. W. H. Snyder, corporal. J). C. Chisholm, corporal. PKIVATBS. Aikey, Jacob. Angwine, Bennett. Alter, William A. Appleman, L. B., died ill 1862. Bartley, W. R. Brown, E. i^rown, John 11. Bridge, Jer. Bartells, F. Bouline, L. Batzell, George. Bressler, William. Boyer, Joseph. Brown, Charles H. Brooks, John. Burdick, Joel 1)., killed at Spottsyl- vania. Beck, Joseph. Brand, Henry. Burthamer, (lieorge, died in 1864. Barger, Edward. Brown, W. F. Bickel, Samuel. Bowser, M. Brown, William C, died in 1861. Butler, Charles 'W, died in 1862. Christ, J. B. Chappell, Wash. Cell, H. Crook, H. Chilson, L. Cummings, Alex. M. (■ollins, Peter. Caldwell, Saml. R. Crose, George. ('Orneljson, C. Dye, Richard. Diamond, Daniel. Dougherty, J. C. Diehl, M. H. Everhart, Joel. Emore, Peter. Ewing, James M. Franklin, E. Fickes, H. Fisher, II. Frazer, W. !'. Ford, Darius, died in 1864. Flickinger, B. R. Fimple, Wilmer W., died in 1862. Gill, John. Gregor, William. Giant, J. Holland, H. Hall, Stephen M. llenningway, 0. Helfrick, J., killed at Petersburg. Heston, Smith. Igo, James. Irvine, Peter R., died at Andersonville. •Tarrett, J. Keifer, John. Kline, Matthias L. Kellerman, Elijah. Kaylor, John, died of wounds. Kugler, Samuel D., died in 1864. Kennedy, William. Knode, John. Koser, Samuel. Kuhn, George. Kitzelman, Maris. Ludwig, J. Lounsberry, John. Larrish, G. W. Linn, C. Leib, Lewis L. Miller, J. B. Minnim, David C. Moyer, Richard, killed at Spottsyl- vania. Mensch,.lohii, killed iit Spottsylvania. Mease, Daniel, died in 1864. Mitchell, Henry. Magee, J. Moulder, Alfred. McCord, J. G. McCauley, Geo. W. Nesbit, J. A. O'Reilly, John. Passmore, Lee W., died in 1862. Purcell, James. Rhoads, Isaac. Renner, William. Rabors, J., killed at Spottsylvania. Rovel, H. L., killed at Spottsylvania. Rosenbrock, Henry. Smith, John. Smith, G. Sook, J. W. Sensor, T. B. Summers, S. Summers, .T. Singley, Samuel. Sanner, D. Shaffer, David R., killed at Spottsyl- vania. Shepherd, Nelson, died in 1864. Skillington, John, died in 1864. Stover, Samuel B., died at Anderson- ville. Smith, William. Seaman, li. (>. Sanderling, A. Struble, G. Shunway, Winslow. 68 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Suttlemore, Wni. Stevenson, Jiimes. Smith, Freeman, died in 1861. Toman, Jolin. Trumphonr, Thos. Vanscyoc, B. Waughen, S., killed at Spottsylvania. Wirth, Jacob H., killed at Spottsyl- yania. Wolf, D., killed at Petersburg. Waltman, D., killed at Spottsylvania. Whitus, Charles. Wakefield, Geo. M. Yocum, Joseph, Yeager, Amo8,killed at Spottsylvania. Young, Wm., killed at Spottsylvania. FIFTY-THIRD PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY. This regiment, in which Company A was from Chester, and Company B from Chester and Montgomery counties, was organized in the fall of 1861, and served with dis- tinction until it was mustered out June 30, 1865. It fought bravely on the Peninsula, in the battle of Fredericksburg and through the Wildetness battles. ROLL OF COMPANY A. S. Octavius Bull, captain, promoted to major. Wm. M. Mintver, captain, promoted to lieutenant-colonel. Charles L. Geiger, captain. John T. Potts, first lieutenant. John H. Koot, first lieutenant. Levi J. Fritz, first lieutenant. T. B. Schraearer, second lieutenant. Eli K. Nagle, first sergeant. Evan Fryer, sergeant. George W. Rahn, sergeant. Joseph Spang, sergeant. Jonas Brickart, sergeant. William P. Yergey, sergeant. George W. Shingle, sergeant, killed in action. William H. Graham, sergeant, killed at Cold Harbor. Edward K. Weand, sergeant, died in 1865. Joseph Davis, sergeant. Christian G. Lessig, corporal. David Houck, corporal. Benpeville Harp, corporal. John H. Fryer, corporal, killed at Cold Harbor. James McFarland, corporal, killed in action. Josiah Godshall, corporal, died while prisoner. Cornelius Uxley, corporal. George Sheets, corporal. Frederick Boyer, corporal. Charles W. Gansline, corporal. Jonas W. Burns, musician. Franklin Detwiler, musician. Thomas Donohue, musician. PRIVATES. Ayers, John. Ashdale, Joseph. Arnold, Peter. Bradford, Wallace. Brown, Philip. Beam, William. Brenneman, J. A. Burkensbrock, L. Backus, Justice. Boyle, James. Batchelder,Meredith Bradbury, Abner. Burdice, Jno. C. Burdice, Monroe. Butts, Henry F. Beddoe, William. Boston, James C. Benner, Henry. Bechtell,G.W., died in 1865. Beard, George W., died of wounds. Beeker, Lenaias S. Bell, Franklin, killed in action. Boyer, Jno. H. Boyer, James F. Boyer, Michael. Boyer, Jacob K. Boyer, Owen. Boyer, Collins. Brant, Milton, died in 1861. Brady, James. Collins, Patrick. Counterman, J. B. Clark, Thomas A. Cowen, McClure. Crane, William. Crane, James. Carpenter, Geo. W. Clark, Thomas E. Campbell, Saml. H., killed in 1864. or GHJilSTER COUNTY. 69 Comfort, George, Hoftman, David G. McCallaher, . Sanbourn, Edward. died in 1862. Heft, John S. Fayler, George. Swartzlander, Elias. Cook, Elhannan. Heninger, John. Nagle, Jacob. Smith, Henry. Carr, William. Herman, Ferdinand. Ott, John J. Seasholtz, Peter. Day, Benjamin. Hobart, Wm. L. Ogeard, Charles. Snyder, Morgan. Dye, James R. Hendricks, Geo. 0., Ox, John. Straub, Augustus G. DonoUed, James. died of wounds. Peyton, Benjamin. Smith, William. Dugan, Charles. Holt, Geo. W., died Parsons, William. Smith, Mahlon V. Detwiler, Jno. L. in 1864. Price, Thomas. Sebold, Samuel. Dowd, James P. Jones, Israel W. Potts, Francis T. Skeam, Harvey. Dunwoodie, James. Johnson, Edward. Potts, Holman. Summers, Robert. Dailey, Myers, died Johnson, Wm. P. Quinn, James. Schick, Francis. in 1862. Keyser, Chas. W. I. Robinson, David. Sassaman, Andrew. Detwiler, Abel. Keim, Jonah. Ruth, Jerome W. Schaneley, Jacob. Deagle,Gottlieb,died Kirkendal, Thos. Rhoads, Rheinhold. Seward, Henry. in 1862. Kleim, Henry. Rhoads, William. Thompson, Wm. J. Davis, Solomon. Linderman, Henry. Riley, William. Trine, Ifathan. Day, Thomas. Loutrenheiser, John. Rutter, Jacob G. Trine, Levi. Engle, Mahlon H. Linn, Sylvester J. Retver, Richard D. Taney, Jacob. Eivel, Philip. Logan, David J. Rutter, John H. Wismer, Elias. Eastwood, Wm. H. Leightin, Wayne. Reynolds, R. R. Wandler, Andrew. Engle, Ephraim. Longaker, Enos D., Roberts, And. J. T. Weltz, Frederick. Edwards, George. died of wounds. Ryan, Michael. Williams, Geo. W. Fryer, Henry F. Lessig, Englebert. Richardson, George. Weakley, J. Foulk, James. Lessig, William. Russel, James. Weakley, Wm. Forest, Thomas. Long, Geo. W. D. Roates, Henry G. WiUard, Chas. W. Fielding, Samuel. Moore, John. Rutter, Samuel H. Warley, Edward. Fansey, Joseph. Miller, W. C. Royer, Augustus S. Walleigh, Levi. Foreman, Daniel B. Miles, Thomas. Reifsnyder, S. B. Wahl, John. Fryer, John H., Maier, Thomas. Spotts, Isaac. Ward, John. killed in action. Miller, Henry. Smith, Presley. Weand, John S. Gabel, Richard. Maillon, Edward. Sands, John D. Weand, Abraham. Garber, Francis S. Minker, Brooks, Seiple, Thomas. Williams, David E. Gfiiger, Jacob S. Martin, John. Spangler, Edward. Young, Henry D. Gue, Owen R. A. Missimer, Warren. Sherman, Frederick. Yocum, William F. Gailager, James. Missimer, Sylvest. E. Smith, Jacob.- You ng„ Lewis. Guthrie, Frederick. Maurice,Price, killed Saulentine, George. Goldsmith, John. in action. Gabriel, Richard. Missimer, Hauser. NINETY-SEVENTH PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY. Graham, Eli, killed Missimer, Ambrose. This favorite regiment of Chester county at Fair Oaks. McCain, Cornelius. was recruited in 186] , and contained seven Holt, Henry A. McDonald, Patrick. companies from the county: A, B, C, E, F, 70 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY H and K. The regiment made a fine record. It served in South Carolina and Florida, was engaged in the assault on Fort Wagner, and was then sent to the Army of the James, where it did some hard fighting in front of Petersburg. It fought with great bravery at the capture of Fort Fisher, helped take Wilmington, North Carolina, and on August 26, 1865, was mustered out of the service. Of its officers, from Chester county, were: Colonels — Henry E. Guss and Galusha Pennypacker; lieutenant-col- onels — A. P. Duehr and W. H. Martin; major — Isaiah Price; adjutant — H. W. Caruthers; surgeon — Dr. J. R. Everhart; chaplain — Rev. Wm. M. Whitehead. ROLL OF COMPANY A (Guss Fencibles). Galusha Pennypacker, captain, promoted to major. Francis M. Guss, captain. William Martin, captain, promoted to major. Lewis E. Hump ton, captain. L. Y. Evans, first lieutenant. William Pearce, first lieutenant. Abel Griffith, first lieutenant. Robert L. Black, lieutenant, promoted to captain. Thoma§ E. Weber, second lieutenant. Isaac J. Burton, second lieutenant. Frank C. Henry, second lieutenant. Joseph Phillips, first sergeant. Henry T. Gray, sergeant, promoted to lieutenant. James P. .Smedley, sergeant. A. Gibson, sergeant. Jeptha Clark, sergeant. John Harman, sergeant. Jervis J. Rudolph, sergeant. William L. Morris, sergeant. Thomas McKay, sergeant. B. F. Stackhouse, sergeant, died of wounds. John T. Carpenter, corporal. Richardson Taylor, corporal. R. E. Welsh, corporal. Jacob Daubman, corporal. A. B. Pearce, corporal. H. L. Pyott, corporal. ITathaniel R. Cowan, corporal. Madison Lovett, corporal. John T. Taylor, corporal, killed near Petersburg. George Ellaija, corporal. E. K. Eisenbeis, musician. W. S. St. John, musician. John McKay, musician. PRIVATES. Anderson, William. Albright,Henry,died in 1864. Brady, James. Brubaker, John. Brower, Joseph G. Bavington, J. H., died in 1864. Burton, John. Chandler, Isaac W Cass, George W. Clark, James Y. Chandler, A. M. Cochran, Lewis. Callin, Julius C. Clark, William H., died of wounds. Carpenter, James. Dowlin, John W. Dampman, John, died in 1865. Day* William, died at Andersonville. Kvans, James. Eisenbeis, Robert, died of wounds. Ford, John W. Groff, John A. Given, Joseph D. Given, William. Gray, Issac W. Griffith, Juo M. Goodwin, Ejsra G. Guest, John, killed in action, Hawkins, Geo. W. Hollahand, J. H. Hannuni, George E. Ilumptou, R. H. Button, Samuel. Haines, J. M. Handwork, Henry, died of wounds. Hardcastle, Joseph, died of wounds. James, Jacob B. King, Jeremiah. Kirk, Charles. OF GHESIEB COUNTY. 1\ King, Benjamin F., Smedley, T. D. Taylor Archer, sergeant. died of wounds. 8tart8,Wm. H. H. N. P. Boyer, sergeant. Lawrence, J. Stott, Sylvester. H. M. Hutton, sergeant. Lane, Alfred. Stott, Joseph E. W. A. Nichols, sergeant. Matthews, G. P. Strode, Jacob D. Henry Kendig, jr., sergeant. Minster, Gr. M. Stoops, Jesse C. D., W. A. Deisem, sergeant. Minster, Abner. killed in action. M. Happersett, sergeant. Maris, Joseph P. Steele, J., killed at J. M. Jackson, sergeant. Mercer, William. Deep Bottom. D. H. Birney, sergeant. Mercer, John. Talbot, Jacob B. Elisha Middleton, sergeant, died at Hilton Miller, T. J. Talley, H. P. Head. McDonald, John. Taylor, David M. Samuel McCluskey, sergeant. O'Neil, Edward. Thomas, Joseph L. J. W. Lilley, corporal. Pharaoh, Richard E. Thompson, G. W. George McN^elly, corporal. Pawling, I. M. Thompson, L. William T. Cooling, corporal. PhilKps, Johathan. Townsend, Caleb. Robert B. Wallace, corporal. Pomeroy, George. Taggart, George L. John C. Taggart, corporal. Parsons, Thos. C. Valentine, Jos. E. Edward F. Johnson, corporal. Passmore, Horace, Whiting, Benj. F. Andrew J. Graham, corporal. died in 1863. Wilkinson, Jos. IST. John DeLaugh, corporal. Ringler, Thomas. Winkler, Joseph. John T. Boughter, corporal. Ross, Ephraim L. Wright, Andrew K. Miles S. Strickland, corporal, killed near Rennard, Harry C. Young, John S. Petersburg. Robinson, J. P. Yarnall, Vernon, R. Ferguson, corporal, died at Hilton Ruhl, Augustus. killed at Petersb'g Head. Stone, Charles A. Yocum, J. L. Joseph Stott, corporal, died at Fortress Shoemaker, Edw. Monroe. ROLL OF COMPANY B (Chester County Grays). John P. Rock, corporal. William Assay, musician. William B. McCoy, captain. Benjamin K. Hutton, musician. Jonas M. C. Savage , captain. William J. Irwin, musician. Dallas Crow, captain. PRIVATES James T. Skiles, first lieutenant. X J.IIX V .£X -L Xltf kj ■ David S. Harry, first lieutenant. Ammon, Wm., died Drummonds, K. H. James Hughes, second lieutenant. in 1863. Doubts, George. John Armstrong, second lieutenant. Bentley, Joshua. Detterline, Hiram. J. Lowry, second lieutenant. Best, Wm. M., died Day, Samuel J. John B. Griffith, second lieutenant. in 1862. Dunn, Henry, killed Andrew M. Strickland, first sergeant. Cosgrove, B. in action. J. Haines, sergeant Clark, John. Borland, R. M., died Gerhard Reeder, se rgeant. Chalfant, Amos N. in 1864. H. Highet, sergeani t. Coates, Charles S. English, James. 72 BtOOHAPHY AND aiSTORY Emmerson, Jos. H. Musgrove, Chas. B. Isaac Smedley, second lieutenant. Edwards, Jesse. Moore, Henry W. H. Kauffman, jr., second lieutenant. English, Benjamin. Mews, Hugh D., died Charles Warren, second lieutenant. Esrey, Edmund. in 1863. Cyrus B. Showalter, first sergeant. Ferris, "William. Mendenhall, Jon., '■ John D. Beaver, first sergeantj Galloway, Samuel F. died of wounds. Cyrus M. Davis, sergeant. Garrees, Samuel J., Merton, Robert. Stephen H. Eachus, sergeant. killed atPetersb'g. Melius, Henry. Isaac A. Cleaver, sergeant. Gracy, Daniel, died McGinness, Jos. D. B. Lundy Kent, sergeant. in 1864. McClure, David. Richard B. Moore, sergeant. Harkins, Albert. McFarland, George. G. S. Hambleton, sergeant, died at Hilton Hapton, Wm. H. McNulty,James,died Head. Humphrey, R. W. in 1862. Joseph R. Acker, sergeant, killed at Ber- Howe, !N"athan. McGraw, John. muda Hundred. Hardy, George G., Pindell, Robert R. Robert B. Wilson, sergeant, died of died in 1863. Russell, Benjamin F. wounds. Johnston, Joseph. Riley, John 0. M. Davis Thomas, sergeant, died of Kerr, Henry. Richardson, Samuel. wounds. Keenan, James, died Renshaw, Wm. S., John Latch, corporal. in 1863, died in 1863. Henry H. Stiteler, corporal. Kendig, Abraham, Rees, Albert J. Davis 0. Taylor, corporal. died of wounds. Ray, James, died of Jesse D. Farra, corporal. Linton, Benjamin. wounds. Levis T.^Beitler, corporal. Lamping, F. D. Sloyer, Thomas. Maris Pierce, corporal. Lamping, Henry A. Sweney, Joseph. Robert Holmes, corporal. Leaman, Alfred E". Supplee, George G. S. W. Hawley, corporal, promoted to Large, William. Sullivan, David. sergeant-major. Lemley, Jacob D. Vance, Wesley. Joseph M. Lewis, corporal, died on trans- Moore, J. H. Wonderly, Geo. W. port Marion. Miles, S. Worrall, Theo. A. Hibbard Aitkin, corporal, died in 1862. Martin, Henry W. Wilson, William H. C. B. Hambleton, corporal. ROLL OF COMPANY c (Paoli Guards). James J. Wilson, musician. William Pound, musician. Leonard R. Thomas, captain, promoted to major. PRIVATES. H. W. Caruthers, captain. Abel, Joseph. Catren, David B. Emmor G. Griffith , first lieutenant. Agg, William. Channel, 0. Francis I. Eachus, first lieutenant. Bence, Joseph. Coburn, A. George W. Abel, lieutenant, promoted to Beck, Alexander. Clark, William. captain. Coulter, Lewis B. Cole, Clinton. William Gardner, second lieutenant, died Creswell, Wm. J. Durnin, Mcholas, on transport Boston. Clark, William. killed atPetersb'g. OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 73 Dean, John. Epright, Franklin. Griffith, E. Grimes, A. Griffith, Elias 0. Kugler, Joseph. Gunkle, D. H., killed at Fort Wagner. Hickman, Emmor B. Hopkins, E. (^ Hoffman , Franci g;^ Jeffries, Thomas. Keys, Alexander. Keys, John. Kirkpatriek, Wm. Keeley, Levi. Kitselman, N. Davis. Kitts, J. L. Kinnard, A. M. Kinsey, C. J., died in 1863. Morris, M. E. March, Samuel A. Morgan, W. Montgomery, M. W. Myers, Norris P. Mendenhall, E. McGiniey, H. McClellan, Benj. McLane, Wesley. Mcintosh, Jacob, died at Beaufort. McLane, William G., died at Beaufort. McKinley, J. R., died in 1862. Press, James, died in 1863. Paschall, Isaac. Pierce, Lewis C.,died in 1862. Quay, Ambrose. Ruth, David N"., died in 1862. Shingle, William. Still, J. J. Speakman, Wm. H. Showalter, Edw. R., died in 1863. Shaw, Jos. A., killed in action. Thomas, Wm. D. Thornbury, T., died in 1862. Thornbury, L., died of wounds. Tolliver, Philip. Vickers, E. Vanmeter, Joel W. Worth, Charies C. Wilson, Henry. Wagner, Charles. Whistler, W. Weidner, H. B. Wellman, H. Williams, J. G. Wilson, R. A. Wood, Mahlon. Walton, George W. Woodward, Samuel. Walker, Ezekiel, died in 1863. Wentz, C. K., died in 1863. Wetherell, Joseph, killed in action. ROLL OF COMPANY D (Concord Rifles). Isaac B. Taylor, captain. John E. Davis, sergeant. 5* James A. Allen, sergeant. Philip Gleane, corporal. PRIVATES. Brown, William H., died in 1862. Butler, E. Cloud, S. J. Crosson, J. Harry, John B. Eavenson, G. W. Frame, Francis M. Hannum, Enoch. Higgins, H. Huey, John E. Hughes, B. Miles, George W. Moore, G. B. Pass, John. Riley, Patterson, died of wounds. Pyle, Ezra B. Russel, J., killed in action. Sharp, J. Smith, Jacob B. Smith, T. M. Smith, W. Stuckey, Jno. H. Tenney, Hugh. ROLL OF COMPANY E (MuUigau Guards). William McConnell, captain. Samuel D. Smith, captain. John H. Babb, first lieutenant. John McGrath, first lieutenant. John C. Mcholson, first lieutenant. John McNamee, second lieutenant. James McWilllams, second lieutenant. Jiohn Sullivan, second lieutenant. Daniel Sullivan, first sergeant. Michael Rush, sergeant. James A. Riley, sergeant. John O'Brian, sergeant. David Signett, sergeant. Patrick Carter, sergeant. George L. Smith, sergeant. William H. Spicer, sergeant. James Coughlin, sergeant. Peter Stewart, corporal. J. Butler, corporal. G. Jenkins, corporal. William Gillen, corporal. Jer. Hennessey, corporal. William Eagan, corporal. 74 BIOGRAPHY AND WTSTOSY Thomas Forsythe, corporal. Johnson, John. McDonald, Peter, William Glanding, corporal, died at An- Kickham, Thomas. died in 1862. dersonville. Keelam, James. McNulty, Francis. Thomas Cumniingf 3, corpora], died at St. Kaver, James; McDermott, James. Helena island. Keefe, Patrick, died IlTugent, Dennis, died Edward Corcoran corpora], killed at in 1863. in 1863. James island. ^ Light, William J. O'Connor, Michael. Francis Carter, corporal. Lynch, Edward, died O'Neil, Peter, died B. McDermott, corporal, killed at Peters- in 1864. in 1862. burg. Logan, William, died O'Donnell, Hugh, Joseph Little, corporal. at Andersonville. died in 1862.' James O'Day, corporal. Miles, Isaac. O'Neil, James. Charles Sharp, corporal. Murphy, Patrick, O'Brian, Patrick. C. Riley, jr., musician. died in 1863. Quigley, Charles. Hugh O'Donnell, jr., corporal, died at Morgan, David, died Rodgers, John. Hilton Head. in 1864. Riley, James. Jonathan Pine, corporal. McCue, Bernard. Rush, John M. PEIVATBS. McGinley, Charles. McCall, Michael. Riley, Charles, died in 1862. Arters, Reese. Dallas, Thomas. McCabe, Patrick. Still, John W. Allen, Alexander. Davis, Peter, died i n McCartney, Michael. Skiffington, Patrick. Brown, Matthew. 1862. McCormie, Michael. Sherman', Robert. Burns, William. Duffee, Francis. McCabe, Jno., killed. Walsh, Michael. Bell, Thomas. Ford, John. McHale, T. P., died Wauls, James. Bennett, John. Flannery, John, died in 1862. Walsh, Walter. Crawford, William. at Andersonville. Cummins, Dominick Finnessey, Richard, ROLL OF COMPANY E (National Guards). Collins, Patrick. died of wounds. DeWitt C. Lewis, captain, breveted lieu- Carberry, Carmac. Grant, Patrick. tenant-colonel. Conner, Martin. Grant, Dennis. Lewis P. Malin, ca jtain. Correll, Thomas. Gibbons, William, Joseph T. Burnett, first lieutenant. Cosner, John. killed on picket. John Wainwright, lieutenant, breveted Conway, Greo., died Grace, George, died colonel. in 1862. of wounds. Isaac J. Nichols, first lieutenant. Conway, Jno.F., died Haney, Thomas. Oliver E. Strickland, second lieutenant. at Andersonville. Hall, Thomas. Thomas Cosgriff^, second lieutenant. Chappie, Ovel, died Hill, Charles. John E. Huntsman second lieutenant. in 1863. Huggins, Josiah G., Thomas E. Brown, first sergeant. Dunlavy, Michael. died of fever. John Kennedy, first sergeant. Dougherty, James. Holt, Thomas. Thomas B. Guest, first sergeant, killed Duftee, Colom. Joyce, Patrick. at Bermuda Hundred Dougherty, Peter. Johnson, Robert. Jackson Meharry, sergeant. OF CHESTER GOVNTY. 75 David Mock, sergeant. Hale, Hugh. Eeedy, J., "killed in James P. Griffith sergeant. Ingram, Alban D. action. Herman P. Brower, sergeant. Jack8on,William C, Sassaman, Thomas. Lee A. Stroud, sergeant. died of wounds. Scott, William L. Samuel Wynn, sergeant. Keeley, John "W. Short, Thomas H. Caleb Mercer, sergeant. Kerr, Jacob. Scott, Samuel G. Josiah G. G^irrett, corporal. Meeteer, Wm. T. Schuyler, Alonzo. H. C. Eegan, corporal. Massey, Joseph. Stevenson, Abraham Thomas Ray, corporal. Maxton, James H. Shewey, Edward. Amos Divine, corporal. Mock, Jesse. Springer, Wilson G. Edward Townsend, corporal. Mimm, "William. Stiteler, William E. J. E,. Eichardson, corporal. Milborne, Mark. Starr, James S. Jesse M. Boyles, corporal. Maxton, H., died in Smith, E. H., died George W". Ordaway, corporal. 1862. in 1862. John H. Brower, corporal. McAfee, Davis. Shannon,W. C, died John "Webber, corporal. McCluen, James, in 1863. James A. Fries, cc )rporal, died of wounds. died of wounds. Stephens, H., died in James T. Terry, corporal, killed at Deep McCartney, Abner, 1862. Bottom. died in 1862. Thomas, Abraham. John C. Smith, corporal, killed at Deep Navin, John, killed Wilson, J. W. Bottom. in action. Williamson, F. Jesse White, musician. ^ Opperman, John. Winterbottom, J. P. Isaac F. Faro, musician. Pharaoh, Evans. Wolf, George W. Thomas St. John, musician. Perry, David C. Walker, John H. J. D. Roberts, teamster. Pierce, E. W., killed Woodsides, John. PRIVATES. in action. Woodward, Jesse, Abel, Theodore. Fisher, W. S., killed Peoples, James, died in 1863. Barne,s, Robert P. at Cold Harbor. killed in action. Wright, G. E., killed Booth, I^athaniel. Graham, James. Quigg, J., killed in in action. Brpwn, Joseph. Garvis, John. action. Wingate,Henry,kill- Collins, Fben^zer D., Greenfield, M., died Reynolds, Eli. ed at Fort Fisher. killed in action. in 1863. Roatch, Lewis A. Willi ams, Robert M. , Cook, George W., Guest, George "W., Roberts, William M. died of wounds. killed in action. died in 1865. Eogan, Michael., White, M. H., killed Cary, Joshua, killed Gatchell, David K. killed in action. in action. at Petersburg. Diflendarfer, Lewis. Hagley, John. Haas, Frederick. ROLL OF COMPANY H (Greble Guards). Dix,on, William T. Hall, John. Charles Mcllvaine, captain . Edwards, John W. Haines, Franklin, Theodore M. Smedley, captain. Estworthy, Thos. T. died in 1864. David Jones, first lieutenant. Ferrell, Daniel "W., Huntsman, Thos. C, Thomas S. Taylor, first lieutenant. killed in action. died of wounds. . Elwood P. Baklwir , first lieutenant. 76 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY / Phares P. Brown, first lieuteoant. M. B. England, teamster. George H. Durnall, first lieutenant, killed Levi F. Snyder, teamster. at Bermuda Hundred. George A. Lemaister, second lieutenant. PRIVATJfiB. Isaac L. Button, second lieutenant. Allison, Alfred C. Gafi'any, Terrence. Lewis H. Watkins, second lieutenant, Ainsworth, Robt. L. Gould, Payne A. killed at Bermuda Hundred. Billings, Wm. Griffith, Hanford T., Benjamin F. Smith, first sergeant. Bills, Abraham L. drowned, 1863. J. T. Massey, first sergeant. Boyd, Wm. H. Haley, Martin. Robert "Walker, first sergeant. Busser, Jacob H. Hannessey, John. T. E. Button, sergeant. Biehler, Joseph Harrison, Charles. George H. Cook, sergeant. Burns, Charles. Heeley, Hugh. Edward A. Weidner, sergeant. Bellwoar, John Hoxendofel, F. John Thomas, sergeant. Bookmatn, Samuel. Harvey, Marshall. Joseph H. Walters, sergeant. Brubaker, F. T. Headley, Amos B. R. Skeen, jr., sergeant. Brown, Wm. Harbours, Alfred If. Robert J. Baldwin, sergeant. Curtis, John. Hart, Thomas. John A. Russell, sergeant, killed at Peters- Cross James. Hardin, William W. burg. Cross, J. Hesson, John. William Garver, sergeant, killed at Ber- Clark, Wm., killed Humphrey, Samuel. muda Hundred. in action. Hemphill," Wm. C. George H. Bennett, sergeant, died of Dasey, Joseph. Hosmer, John L. wounds. Dean, Christopher. Heed, Harmon. William Mills, corporal. Davis, Isaac B. Hunter, Samuel,died J. McGuigan, corporal. Davis, James K.,died in 1863. William Shields, corporal. in 1862. Hughes, John G., John B. Allen, corporal. Button, Alfred L. died in 1863. George W. BehoflE', corporal. Davis W. P. Hanson, John. C. C. Courtney, corporal. Dunn, Thomas. Jones, John. William F. Smith, corporal. Donahue, Michael. Jackson, Milton. T. J. Henderson, corporal. Dalling, William. Jones, Peter T. T. W. Burnell, corpoi-al. Davidson, Ezekiel. Jones, Thomas. I. T. Massey, corporal. Drumm, Edward. Kimes, James H. W. H. George, corporal. Evans, Abner. Kurl, Alfred. J. Wood, corporal. Everhart, James S. Lamory, Henry. Geo. W. Burns, corporal, died of wounds. Force, William H. Loud, Henry. James McConnell, corporal, died at Hil- Fields, David F. Loud, James. ton Head. Fithian, Austin M. Lovell, Richard M. Edward J. Hadley, musician. Ford, James G. Lovell, Wm. T., died Philip Richard, musician. Griffith, Oliver A. of wounds. Charles C. Taylor, musician. Gallagher, James S. Moore, Charles. Milton S. Taylor, musician. Garrett, George F. Miller, Abia C. E. OF CSESTEB COUNTY. 77 Mulholland, David. Mulholland, H. Myers, Greorge W. Moore, Samuel, died in 1862. Maloney, Dan'l, died in 1864. Marshal, Samuel. Marks, Thomas. McHenry, Harrison. McKeever, J. A. D. Mcllvaine, John J. McFalls, Amos. McGrinder, Joseph, killed in action. McDonald, George. O'Donald, Peter. Pyle, Levi B. Preston, Joseph. Patterson, Benj. Pointer, Thomas. Price, Joseph. Painter, Albert P. Poulson, Isaac W., died in 1864. Richards, William. Riley, Edward. Roecker, Christian. Roecker, Bernard. Reed, Bernard. Shutraire, Joseph. Spencer, Thomas. Shay, William H. Steele, William M. Simpson, Milton. Sullivan, Ezra H. Shenk, Hiram. Steube, John. Smith, Samuel R., killed in action. Tarleton, Robert. Taylor, Edvrard H. Taylor, John H. Tinsley, Alex., killed in action. Tobin, Martin H., died in 186-. Tackaberry, James, died in 1865. Wilson,W. Granv'le. ROLL OF COMPANY K (Wayne Guards). William Wayne, captain. Samuel V. Black, captain. William S. Underwood, captain. John J. Barber, first lieutenant. Levi L. Marsh, first lieutenant, died of wounds. William L. Sullivan, first lieutenant. John W. Thompson, second lieutenant. Marriott Brosius, second lieutenant. Charles A. Meyers, first sergeant. J. R. Montgomery, first sergeant. Lewis D. Hayes, sergeant. John W. Farra, sergeant. P. McLaughlin, sergeant. Reuben P. Fithian, sergeant. David P. Thomas, sergeant. James M. Griflith, sergeant, died of wounds. William E. Davis, corporal. Charles Miles, corporal. Isaac Miller, corporal. James W. Phillips, corporal. William Taylor, corporal. Barnett R. Rapp, corporal. E. Lane Schofield, corporal. Henry R. Coates, corporal. David S. Christman, corporal, died at Hilton Head. Brinton Channing, corporal, killed at Bermuda Hundred. Alfred J. Hartman, corporal, died of wounds. George H. Harrison, corporal. John H. Kauffman, musician. George W. Smith, musician. T. P. Williams, teamster. PRIVATES. Beidler, Henry A. Bullock, Isaac. BeerbroweTj^Th^W Brown, Charles W. Bevan, Thos. R. Barber, G., killed in action. Cook, Jonathan. Criswell, T. B. died in 1863. Duey, Morris E. Davis, James E. Harman, Francis. Famous, John S. Fennings, Lawrence. Frock, Lucien. Freely, James. Foley, James W. Griffith, Wm. Guthrie, J. C, killed in action. Harbour, Thos. Harner, Michael. Harper, Isaac. Harrison, Isaac. Harry, A. Y. Hoskins, James. Hannuni, Jas., died of wounds. Harkins, T., killed in action. Jermyn, Burrows. Keeley, S. Gunkle, Chas. L. Law, Samuel J. Lewis, Wm. C. Lukens, Chas. A. Lemp, Jacob G. 78 BIOQItAPHY AND HISTOBY Manamee, James. Miller, L. Miles. Wm. Moore, Wm. P., died of wounds. McCann, John. McCarter, W. J. McHenry, Samuel. Mclutyre, T. W. ISToble, Samuel T. Norton, Joseph Y., killed in action. Phipps, Aaron, died in 1863. Plumley, G. W. Raby, Charles E. Rapp, Silas S., died in 1862. Sellers, John. Smith, Wm.H. Shimp, Erancis. Smith, Wm. A. Thompson, H. W. Thomas, Henry B. Thompson, James. Urmey, D. White, Greorge. Wilson, James K. Wilson, Jos. C. Wilson, W. Wonderle, P. J.,died in 1863. Wallace, Johnson, died of wounds. Walker, Levi B.,died in 1864. Williams, Abner D., died a prisoner. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH PENNSYL- VANIA INFANTRY. Of this regiment companies A, C, E, F, Gr, H, I and K were from Chester county. Of its officers. Col. Joseph Hawley, Lieut.- Col. W. B. Waddell, Adjutant J. C. Worth, Quartermaster W. T. Haines, Quartermaster George Malin, jr., Chaplain J. S. Evans, Serg.-Maj. J. H. Long, and Quartermaster- Sergeant Jesse Taggart, were residents of the county. The regiment was recruited for nine months, and no other volunteer organization for that length of time did better service. It fought with distinguished bravery in the two great battles of Antietam and Chan- cellors ville. ROLL OF COMPANY A. Joseph W. Hawley, captain, promoted to colonel. Allan M. Davis, captain. Charles W. Roberts, captain. Samuel G. Smith, first lieutenant. John A. Groff", second lieutenant. Isaac Finch, second lieutenant, died of wounds. John M. Windle, first sergeant. Edward White, sergeant. John J. Glisson, sergeant. Joseph N. Woodward, sergeant. David H. Steiler, sergeant. Joseph Davis, corporal. Henry B. Wynn, corporal. William S. Wetherell, corporal. Albanos H. Bicking, corporal. Jacob H. Way, corporal. Powell Bailey, corporal. Richard F. Hill, corporal. Samuel B. Smiley, corporal. William R. Thomas, corporal. Davied S. Wilkinson, corporal. George Malin, jr., corporal, promoted to quartermaster. Ringold Carman, musician. PRIVATES. Artes,. James. Daily, Wm. H. Bentley, Wm. H. Baldwin, Eli H. Byers, Samuel. Bond, Harmon G. Brown, Townsend. Chambers, John F. Carman, John L. Collier', Wm. H. Collier, Hosea A., died of wounds. Davis, Edward G. Darnell, Wesley. Epright, William. Emory, Samuel B. Ford, Rufus D. Fari'a, Lewis. Faust, Daniel H. Farren, George. Griffith, Evan. Gill, Andrew J. Glisson, Wilmer W. Hawley, Bernard. Henderson, Alex. Hawley, Edward B. Heck, Edwin. Harp,W. H. Hoober, John. Hall, Lewis R. Hill, Charles C. Hartman, Morgan. Hughes, Joseph. Jester, John F. John, Edwin B. Jones, John. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 79 ^Johnsou, Wm. H., died' in 1862. Kamerer, Henry M. Lamborn, F. H. Law, Robert C. Lloyd, John L. Morris, Joseph E. Morgan, John. Mallen, Alfred. Mercer, Joseph W. I^ichbls, Lewis E.. Patterson, Ohas. D. Pratt, John E,. Peart, Roland M. Pearce, Joseph T. Pearce,Win. H. H. Pickhaver,Wni. B. Pinkerton, M. H., died in 1863. Rambo, Thomas. Reynolds, Samuel B. Rushton, Ghas. P. Rodenbaugh,Wm.L. Riekford, LeonardV. Stott, Jacob S. 8tamp,"W"m. Speakman, James. Steele, Canby S. Steitler, Geo. J. Steitler,Wni. D. Sullivan, John. Strong, Edward. Smith, Acker. Thorn, Samuel R. Tyson, George W. Thompson, Henry B. Treen, Char les W. (Terry, Edwi uTT^ V alehtiiFejiJ onathan, died of wounds. Walker, Plumer E. Wilson, Wm. G. Walker, John W. Wagner, Wm. H. Yoder, John. ROLL OF COMPANY C. James B. Whitcraft, captain. J. C. Worth, lieut., promoted to adjutant. William C. Dickey, first lieutenant. Levi Crowl, second lieutenant. Francis P. Andrews, sergeant. Jacob Z. Webb, sergeant. George G. Taylor, sergeant. John M. Rhoads, sergeant. Samuel B. Walton, corporal. James H. Broomell, corporal. Charles H. Wilson, corporal. Thomas' Dilworth, corporal. John A. Smith, corporal. John M. Irvin, corporal. William A. Fleming, corporal. John T. Broadway, corporal. Thomas W. Riday, corporal. Eli Gatchell, corporal, killed at Antietam. H. W'. Livingstone, musician. Beverly J. Gause, musician. PRIVATES. Aiken, James C. Bowers, Thomas. Booth, Joshua M. Benderman, T. J. Bayard, Geo. F. Brown, Thomas. Broomell, Wm. C. Baker, Geo. L. Bates, Wm. Brown, John M. Coates, Samuel. Cowan, Richard F. Cole, Amos. Cooper, Thos. L. Corkadale, Geo. F. Crossley, Henry. Cooper, Lewis R. Campbell, Robt. H. Campbell, Jonn C. Cummins, Thos. W. Craig, William B. Cresswell, Sam' el W. Coleman, Joseph. Deever, Lewis G. Dickey, Samuel H. Dilworth, Richard B. Fadien, Thos. M. Fuller, James R. Ford, James. Garrety, Daniel. Garver, Samuel H. Greenfield, Joel S. Greenfield, John H. Gyles, Ebenezer T. Hays, Gibbons. Hughes, Joshua. Hardee, Caleb P. Iford, Wm., died in 1862. Jones, William. Kirk, David E. Kennedy, Amos. Lynch, James, jr. Luke, John A. Law, Henry H. Missimer, John B. Mershon, John H. McDonald, David. McCarter, Sam'l H. McCullough,W. R. McDonald, Richard. McClurg, James H. McClurg, Daniel H. McLaughlin, Corn. Mclntire, John T. M' Clean, Allen. Mclntire, John P. Newell, John K. Pugh, Townsend, Pearson, William. Pearson, David T. Price, Wm. H. Powell, Allen. Rupert, John A. Rigdon, Chas. H. Robinson, Alex. Reyburn, Geo. W. Rigg, Peter C, died in 1863. Spear, Chas. J. Showalter, Jos. M. Taylor, John L. Worth, W. H. Woodside, Robt. G. 80 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Wiuger, Bernard. Webster, Alfred. Williamson, James. Walker, Samuel. ROLL OF COMPANY B. Edwin Otley, captain. Richard D. Townsend, captain. William Lynch, first lieutenant. Josiah Burnett, first lieutenant. Thomas J. Townsend, second lieutenant. William H. Burns, first sergeant. Samuel J. Thompson, sergeant. William Otley, sergeant. William Keech, sergeant. David K. Pierce, corporal. Franklin Frame, corporal. John G. Hoopes, corporal. William Moulder, corporal. William Auld, corporal. George F. Bailey, corporal. Thomas W. Taylor, corporal. Andrew Johnson, corporal. Thomas S. Foster, musician. PRIVATES. Barton, Joseph. Benner, James. Brown, Moses M. Chamberland, P. Copeland, Elias W. Cox, David. Conway, Thomas. Cooper, Clement. Cunningham,Wm. Davis, Henry M. Dilworth, Chas. H. Dugau, Michael. Epright, John J. Entriken, James. Ferrell, John W. Ford, Peter. Foreman, Geo. B. Frame, Isaac T. Farra, Geo. D. Frame, Gibbons. Griffith, Ezekiel R. Gertley, Joseph. Greenfield, Jesse, died in 1863. Harvey, Isaac L. Hall, Joseph. Hampton, Joseph. Hanna, W m. H. tSoffimau^_TWr5r7 "llarlan, Edward T. Howarth, Nathaniel Henthorne, Isaac, died in 1863. Ingram, Frederick. Jester, "Vincent. Jefterson, Wm. Johnson, S. S. Kearns, Chas. S. Kitzelman, Chas. H. King, Temple, died in 1862. Mealey, James. Mercer Thos. B. Mercer, Wm. Mendenhall, Clark. Miles, Emmor. Moulder, David. Marion, Peter. Mullen, John. McFall, Franklin. McCullough, Chas. McFadden, Jacob E. McNelly, Jesse K. McFadden, Joseph. McConaughy, Dan'l. J^ethery, Bayard B. O'IS'eil, James. Patterson, Frazier. Patterson, Oliver R. Passmore, Jones R. Pierce, Jonathan. Rox, Joseph. Rumer, Wm. H. Roberts, Jehu. Robb, James. Sourmilk, Valentine. Starr, Samuel. Talley, Emmor L. Thorn, Henry. Thompson, Geo. M. Townsend, Wm. Tucker, Francis. Taylor, Joseph B. Taylor, Chalkley, died in 1863. Vincent, Levi. Whitcraft, John G. Williams, Henry. Windle, Taylor. Wilson, James. Williamson, Morris. Woodward, Pyle. Worth, Joseph. Williamson, C. C. Young, Isaac. ROLL OP COMPANY P. Frank Crosby, captain. James A. Eicholtz, captain. William D. Christman, first lieutenant. W. H. Whitehead, second lieutenant. Stephen Blatchford, first sergeant. George R. Maxton, sergeant. James Keech, sergeant. John Brooke, sergeant. William W. Potts, sergeant. J. Haines Long, sergeant, promoted to sergeant-major. Patrick Berigen, corporal. Wm. P. Stephenson, corporal. Thomas T. Smith, corporal. William Williams, corporal. OF CHESTEB COVNTr. 81 Richard Mercer, corporal. Reuben M. Mercer, c(/rporal. Joseph P. Way, corporal. J. Albert Millner, corporal. Joseph Maitland, corporal. Joseph W. Martin, musician. PRIVATES. Allison, Joseph F. Bedlow, John. Bailey, Mifflin W. Bailey, Reese ~W. Baldwin, John S. Baltrin,Wni. H. Beatty, Andrew H. Bernboo, Mahlon. Bride, Robert. Brubaker, Abraham Burnett, Cyrus J. Bush,Wm. H. Bloom, Ingram P. Bennett, James. Chalfant, John J. Daller, Charles. Dowlin, Thomas P. Evans, Allen. Eavenson, R. E. Fritz, Christian. Guest, Wm. H. Gamble, Peter. Hall, Joseph H. Hoflecker, Henry. Houston, David F. Hood, Joseph. Hopkins, John. Hutton, Benj. R. Ingram, Albau. James, Caleb S. Keech, Chas. P. Kemble, John W. Leech, Michael. Love, James. 6 Lakay, Michael. Longhram, Michael. Laird, David. Milligan, Lewis T. Moore, David. Marshall, John W. Mercer, Evan A. Mercer,TownsendA. Mercer, Wills F. Martin, J. Walton. Meyers, John. Monaghan, Hamlt'n died of wounds. McClintockjPatrick. Pagan, Hugh. Penniger, Samuel. Pennypacker, A. F. Parker, Robert H. Potter, Henry. Price, Issacher. Potter, Wm. H. Quinter, George. Reed, William. Root, Peter. Ramstine, Thomas. Rambo, Abram. Rutherford, John. Rennard, Wm. H. Roxborough, Chas., died in 1862. Siverd, William. Smith, Frank C. Simmons, Geo. B. Springer, Wm. G. Thomas, John. Vandever, Wm. Wack, James. Wack, Benjamin B. Weigles, Charles. Warner,N"apoleonB. Warner, Henry C. White, John W. Windle, David C. Yocum, William. KOLL OF COMPANY G. Edward F. James, captain. Philip D. Haines, first lieutenant. William S. Able, second lieutenant. John H. Naylor, first sergeant. Joseph N. Marshall, sergeant. Henry J. Stager, sergeant. Charles J. Murray, sergeant. Markly Davis, sergeant. Jesse Taggart, sergeant, promoted to quar- termaste r-sergeant. John W. Crothers, corporal. Alfred Brinton, corporal. Samuel Naylor, corporal. Jacob E. James, corporal. G. B. Underwood, corporal. Evan E. Underwood, corporal. Lorenzo D. Farra, corporal. Isaac N. Evans, corporal. Ellis W. Ford, musician. Wm. H. H. Smith, musician, died at Aquia Creek. PRIVATES. Addleman,W. H. H. Boyer, Collins. Baldwin, Bird L. Baldwin, Wm. P. Bi8hop,Wayne M. Brenckinri'ge,G.W., died in 1863. Brinton, Thomas. Brosius, Robert H., died in 1863. Buelley, Jesse. Collins, Thomas. Carver, Nelson. Coole, Mordecai J. Case, Henry. Connor, George M. Dillinger, Samuel L. Daily, Thomas. Daily, John. Forbes, Raymond. Frailey, Charles W. Guinney, Jefferson. Grier, William. Guinney, Franklin. Gordon, Morgan. Holmes, Philip. 82 BIOOMAPHY AND HISTORY Houck,Wm.H. Holmes, Daniel. Harrington, Corn. Hughes, Jacob. Ingram, John B. Ingram, James H. Irwin, Sanford. Jardine, Bethel. Jester, Edward B. Jardine, Amos C, died of wounds. Kaiser, George. Kent, Samuel R. Keeley, Enos. Kerr, Joseph. Lawrence, George. Lammey, Jos. E. Long, Robert W. Mills, Thos. R. Mills, John. Mercer, Jos. Martin, Edward N., died in 1863. Mendeuhall,Wm. McElhaney, James. McCue, Amos W. McCafterty,Howard. Ifewbrough, Enos. Nields, Harvey C. ISTields, Webb. O'Fiel, Henry. O'Niel, Wm. C. Pierce, Edwin. Pawling, Levi B. Peace, Samuel 8. Powers, John. Root, Robert. Reese, Samuel B. Roke, James. Russell, Hugh P. Stanley, Wm. M. Scott, Wm. M. Sullivan, John H. Smith, Norris. Starkweather, C. G. Sinn, Benjamin G. Stern, John. Sassaman, Thomas. Thornburg, R. Townsend, E. W. Underwood, J., jr. Worth, Henry M. Webster, Wm. D. Wilson, John. Wright, John. Woodward, D. P. Wright, David S. Woods, Wilmer. ROLL OF COMPANY I. William M. Hinkson, captain. William V. Strickland, first lieutenant. William S. Snare, second lieutenant. W. J. Ilingworth, first sergeant. Henry C. Wilson, sergeant. Henry C. Valentine, sergeant. Alfred Fairlamb, sergeant. Coleman Wynn, sergeant. Joseph R. Strickland, corporal. Jonah B. Guthrie, corporal. Arnold M. N'ichols, coi-poral. William R. T. Boggs corporal. Thomas M. Jefferis, corporal. Joseph B. Hinkson, corporal. John G. Reed, corporal, killed at Chan- cellorsville. David P. Caruthers, corporal. Edward D. Watkins, musician. PRIVATES. Alexander, Thomp. Arnold, John, died of wounds. Bailey, Benjamin H. Baldwin, George W. Baldwin, Joseph B. Cochrane, Robert. Cramer,Christopher. Cook, James. Connor, George M. Dowell, George W. Donley, Lewis. Duffy, Bernard. Doyle, William. Fidler, Christian. Garrigan, Nicholas. Hoopes, Coleman. Hoopes, Moses T. Hampton, William. Hughes, James. Hinkson, Wm. A. Holton, Alfred. Holton, Jesse. Keating, John G., died in 1863. Kennedy, John. Johnson, Lewis T. Jenkins, Benjamin. Murphy,Daniel, died in 1863. Moore, James W. McCluen, Edward L. McLane, James. McCabe, Owen. McBride, Sainuel. McMulliu, Patrick. Naylor, George. Pennell, Franklin. Pyle, Henry W. Reed, Matthew C. Ross, Enos W. Rigg, Isaac W. Rupp, Lewis. Reynolds, Wilmer. Simcox, William. Stineback, Jacob H. Smith, Samuel C. Sweeny, Michael. Taylor, Humphr'yY. Taylor, l*I"athan Y. Thomas, Joseph W. Underwood, Joseph, killed at Antietam. White, George W. Woodward, Jacob H. Wilson, Charles L. Watkins, C. J. Wickersham, Wm. Worrall, Charles T., died in 1862. ROLL OF COMPANY K. William W. Stott, captain. George E. Newlin, first lieutenant. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 83 Henry C. Wells, second lieutenant. David H. Fleming, first sergeant. William S. Walker, sergeant. Lewis Wilson, sergeant. Edward C. Bennett, sergeant. William A. Bair, sergeant. William W.Bair, sergeant. Augustine Birdsell, corporal. Adam J. Reese, corporal. John H. Baily, corporal. Henry C. Eby, corporal. Samuel F. Kennedy, corporal. Henry S. Barnes, corporal. Harrison Rennard, corporal. John C. Boice, corporal. John B. Taggert, corporal, died in 1862. PRIVATES. Ahn, David F. Adams, John Q.' Baker, Enos C. Bair, John H. Brogan, Solomon. Bulack, John Gr. Burkhizer, Jacob. Bentley, Joshua M. Bird, Jesse. Cunningham, J. F. Connor, Samuel P. Channell, George W. Cornog, Henry E. Entriken, W. H. H. Foster, James. Finney, John W. Fish, Samuel E.. Fox, Thomas V. Freel, Joseph C. Freed, W. H. H., died in 1862. Garrett, John T. Gilmore, Thomas J. Gordon, David E. Garrett, David. Greenleaf, Bruner. Hilton, Albert. Harkins, William. Holstein, John W. Hacket, William. Harkins, George. Haydon, John. Ingram, James. Judge, John. Kimble, Joseph M. Kennedy, John W. Kane, William. Lukens, Clarkson. Lukens, Charles. Lawrence, Christ. Little, Samuel. Lamping, John. Lucas, Charles. Lamborn, Marshall. Lancaster, W. W. Ludwick, Isaiah, died in 1862. Milligan, Smith A. Miller, William S. McFadden Milton. Northamer, Andr'w. Nicholson, John A. Newlin, Elisha H. Osborn, George L. Pyle, Joshua. Peters, Isaac. Paiste, Wm. H., died of wounds. Ray, James. Register, Henry H. Ricker, George W. Reese, Judson. Stroud, Joseph J. Shaw, William P. Sharp, B. Frank. Shoemaker, Geo. W. Smith, William H, Shaw, William, died in 1862. Stroud, John W. Woodward, Ellis P.. Wilkinson, Wm. D. Walters, Jesse. Walton, James B. Yoder, Andrew. ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIFTH PENNSYL- VANIA INFANTRY. This regiment of nine months' drafted militia contained eight companies — B, C, D, E,F,G,IandK — from Chester county. The following of its officers were from Chester county: Lieut.-Col. F. C. Hooton, Major Isaac McClure, Adj. J. T. Temple, Asst.- Surg. John F. Evans, Chaplain A. J. Row- land, Sergt.-Maj. J. F. Roberts, Quarter- master-Sergeant David Potts, Commissary- Sergeant J. S. Worrall, and Hospital -steward L. R. Brown. It served first in North Caro- lina, where it took part in two attempts to relieve the siege of Washington ; was then ordered to Washington, and afterward was sent to the upper Potomac, where at Har- per's Ferry it had a sharp skirmish with the 12th Virginia cavalry. ROLL OF COMPANY B. Peter Colehower,jr., captain. Jeremiah H. Bender, first lieutenant. Anthony Irey, second lieutenant. Wm. D. McAfee, first sergeant. Wm. R. Epright, sergeant. Davis Mock, sergeant. David W. Jones, sergeant. 84 BIOQMAPHY AND HISTORY Mahlon Sowers, sergeant. Thomas Hilborn, corporal. James Maharty, corporal. Edward F. Bickel, corporal. Charles C. Keebler, corporal. Jesse ISturges, corporal. Christian Emery, corporal. Wm. J. Wagoner, corporal. Alexander Hawk, musician. Gr. "W."Wainwright, musician. PRIVATES. Adams, Henry. Benjamin, John A. Beeler, Daniel T. Corle, Gabriel. Cramp, George. Davidson, Wm. H. Davidson, John H. Everly, Henry. Groff,J. C.N". Hippie, William. Hughes, Samuel. Hartman, Jesse. Hartenstine, Ebel. Hughes, Joseph. Jones, Thomas E. Jones, Henry L. Knapp, Henry. Knerr, George W. liudwick, William. Lukins, Chas. Link, Simon, Monshower, Enos L. Miller, William. March, Isaiah. Mintzler, David. N'yman, Bernard, layman, Sylvester. Nichols, Elias. ITichols, Samuel. Oberboltzer, H. S. Painter, Isaac. Quay, Theodore. Raysor, William. Rice, Jacob. Snell, Wm. D. Shaw, Henson L. Sowers, Theodore. Small, Charles. Stine, John K. Speakman, Henry. \ Wise, Alexander^ Wadsworth, John E. CagOECTi-Jacob B. Weedon, James, ear, HenryT ROLL OJ' COMPANY C. Levi Fetters, captain. John Lewis, first lieutenant. John -P. Ford, second lieutenant. George King, jr., first sergeant. Milton Williams, first sergeant. Brown, Aaron. Broomall, Robert. Blondon, Ermount. Burns, Wm. H. ^ Barrett, Isaac P. Barnett, Joseph. Broomall, John. Buckwalter, John C. Bartholomew, Ed. iBowen, John S./ PRIVATES. Courtney, James. Carter, Daniel. Coulter, Lewis. Detweiler, Abram. Davis, John H. Darbarrow, Isaac. Dresser, Isaac. Donald, John. Dougherty, Edward. Desmarest, Alfred. Evans, Levi P. Essick, Samuel. Earshaw, Joshua. Fu mwalt. Samue l 0. runkle , Willi am. Sues, Benjamin. Johnson, Thomas. Jardine, William C. King, Thomas S. Krauser, Lewis E. King, William, died in 1863. Lockhart, Samuel. Lynch, Henry. Law, Matthias P. Lowry, George. Landis, Peter. Lilly, Robert B. Myers, James. MooEJ files, ''illiam. Evan. Mulholland, Israel . McCord, Augustus. McMinn, Alfred. McQuerns, Alex. McAlear, James. McCloskey, John. McCorkle, Thomas. McCartin, Michael. Oner, Augustus. .O^german, Davie ''PennypackerTjL'evi^ jPeterman, Bohl§i' ^pvell, Evan." 'owell, AlBraha; Pixley, Howell. Pennypacker, A. Pechin^John *earce, John. Rusk, Palmer. Rambo, Wm. V. Reeves, William. Regester, Jacob T. Robinson, James. Roberts, John F. Ryan, Charles. Snyder, George. Smedley, Taylor. Stej>lgtonj_William . ^^tle^W^^ .rego, Lewis. Townsend, Eber. Thomas, Alfred. Townsend, Oliver. Trego, Harris. Wagner, Robert. Walker, Jones P. York, James. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 85 ROLL OF COMPANY D. Joseph M. Thompson, captain. ]!^athaniel Simmers, first lieutenant. Evan Sheeler, second lieutenant, died at Washington City. Richard G. Cook, second lieutenant. William Templin, sergeant. Samuel Handwork, sergeant. Lewis W. Millard, sergeant. Joseph Frainor, sergeant. John J. Willinar, corporal. John R. Wynn, corporal. George W. Reagan, corporal. Mordecai Boyer, corporal. Samuel Swinehart, corporal. Lewis Beiteman, corporal. Jonathan Knauer, musician. Lot Brown, musician. PRIVATES. Barr, Marris L. Campbell, Coleman. Crosby, Lot E. Chram, Daniel. Collins, John. Cosgrave, James. Dolby, Abraham. Deece, Henry. Eaches, Wm. C. Ewing, William. Freed, Lafayette. Fafinger, Henry. Garvin, William. Gresh, Enoch. Hofficker, Jesse. Hughes, Thomas. Hughes, James. Handwork, Aaron. High, Jacob. Hofficker, Cyrus. Harple, David. Heyle, Philip. Hughes, Ezekiel. Hartenstein, Rich. James, James H. Johnson, John. Jones, Francis M. Krauner, Jonah. Kephart, John. Lentz, Samuel. Lowry, William. Moyer, Samuel. Moser, John B. Munholland, Oliver. Moore, Henry. McAlicher, Levi. M'Farland, Wm. Pierson, David. Potts, i^athaniel. Phipps, Lewis. Reynolds, Isaac. Schlepf, Daniel. Shanner, George. Sheaver, John. Simmers, John. Wright, John W. Wynn, James. Weidner, John. Whiteman, Andrew. ROLL OF COMPANY E. Theodore T. Woolens, captain. Joseph S. Wilson, first lieutenant. David Mercer, second lieutenant. iN'athan P. Walton, first sergeant. Joel T. Terry, sergeant. E. Featherman, sergeant. Alban Otley, sergeant. William A. Wiley, sergeant. Joseph Wilson, corporal. Wilson Smith, corporal. Samuel Bye, corporal. J. M. D. Thomson, corporal. Hiram D. Jenness, corporal. Frederick Clark, corporal. William Marris, corporal. Benjamin McDonald, corporal. Howard Buckalew, inusician. PRIVATES. Ay res, William P. Bicking, E. Kelson, died in 1863. Burnett, Jonathan. Bye, Enoch. Booth, John P. Boyd, James A. Brady Jackson W. Brown, Benjamin. Conn, George. Crowl, John A. Dunlap. John C. Davis, William H. Ely, Charles. Farra, William H. Gregg, Joseph H. Grason, David. Galloway, Wm. R. Gove, Nathan C. Groves, Abram. Hiitton, Samuel, died in 1863. Hall, John. Johnson, Isaac. Jester, Wm. Kennedy, Robert. Kay, Thomas.' Lahy, Michael. Miller, Jacob. Marris, Phineas. Mundali, David. Montgomery, Wm. Nethery, Lee. O'Neil, John. Osborn, Joseph. Pickering, AVm. J. 86 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Pass, Thomas. Rambo, Robert. Sentman, Josepb. Strickland, Josepb. Spencer, David. Springer, George. Taylor, Cbandler. Wingate, Jenner. "Wort, Tboraas J. Wilson, Mattbew J. Wingate, Tbomson. ROLL OF COMPANY F. W. I^. Worthington, captain. Owen R. Horn, first lieutenant. Jobn E. Miller, second lieutenant, died in 1863. Samuel J. Wood, second lieutenant. Tbomas H. P. West, sergeant. Jobn Loupole, sergeant. Lewis Turner, sergeant. William McCormick, sergeant. Cbarles Paist, corporal. David Patterson, corporal. Patcball Evans, corporal. Stepben L. Smedley, corporal. Thomas Richards, corporal. W. M. Richards, corporal. William C. Wood, corporal. George Evison, musician. PRIVATES. Anderson, Matth. J. Allison, Isaac. Beck, Joseph R. Bailey, George. Baldwin, Frank. Chattin, Martin. Coates, James. Conner, Samuel. Dodge, Francis L. Evans, William M. Farra, Richard. Farr, Charles. Farrel, Jesse J. Gill, Charles. Hall, Samuel. Hannum, Amor. Kelly, Henry. Kennedy, Hayes. Lawrence, Smith. Leamy, Zacharias. Mercer, Geo. W. McCuUough, James. McKinley, John. Milson, James E. Mollyneaux, Thos. Myers, John. Rigley, Samuel. Robinson, Jobn. Rezer, Charles W. Reese, Ezekiel. Sample, Isaac W. Savage, William. Shimer, William. Syphard, Samuel 0. Shap, Jobn. Valentine, Wesley. Wack, John W. Winsey, James A., died in 1863. Wells, William. White, Aaron S. Worrell, J. Seydon. ROLL OF COMPANY G. Josiah Jackson, captain. H. R. M. Whitman, first lieutenant. John Cox, second lieutenant. John B. Taylor, second lieutenant. William H. Shaner, first sergeant. Nathan N". Booth, sergeant. Elkannon Savage, sergeant. Mark Reinhart, sergeant. John Bachman, corporal, died in 1863. George F. Pickel, corporal. Wm. Carl, corporal. Samuel Missimer, corporal. Jobn Rothrock, corporal. Adam Grander, corporal. William Hummell, musician. William Way, musician. PRIVATES. Bell, Jonathan. Bachmann, Reuben. Brook, Firman C. Cauller, James. Cloud, Jobn T. Cox, Miller. Cox, Jonathan. Curry, George. Cooper, Bayard T. Cbandler, T. J. Conner, Anthony. Dickinson, Davis. Drumhiller, George. Evans, James. Fregh, Frederick. Fisher, Jacob. Frowbeiser, Samuel. Faiese, George. J^'rock, Jacob. Fitzsimmons, Dan'l. Graves, Harvey. Heck, William. Hatfield, Jacob. Hobelaim, Jobn. Harlan, Jones. Harlan, Henry. Harlan, Stepben W. Hamer, James. Irwin, William. Kendall, Samuel. Keller, Enos. Lessig, David. OF GHE8TEB COUNTY. 87 Mellon, James S. Maxwell, Franklin C Montgomery, G.F.C. Mutter, Samuel M. Mohiner, John. Murry, Levi. Nyman, Jacob. Noblet, Chas. H. Orr, William. Ottinger, Jacob. Potts, William. Pennypaeker, H. S. Riese, Jefferson. Rhodes, Daniel. Ritmorer, Reuben. Rau, Henry. Sharpless, Nath. W. Steel, Alexander. Smith, John. Smearer, William. Swinehart, John Y. Shaffer, Hiram, Shaner, Enos H. Strump, Cyrus. Taylor, William. Turner, John. Vernon, William G. Weaver, Samuel Y. Woodward, Milton. Yocum, Albert. BOLL OF COMPANY I. Thomas A. Hicks, captain. Robert Futhey, first lieutenant. Jesse G. Hicks, second lieutenant. John Hosmer, second lieutenant. Samuel Hershberger, first sergeant. John A. Morrow, sergeant. Barclay Hoopes, sergeant. Robert F. Wright, sergeant. Thaddeus Richardson, sergeant. Thomas Pierson, corporal. Stacey M. Eldridge, corporal. Thomas Martin, corporal. Lewis Evans, corporal. John Hershberger, corporal. Aaron Miller, corporal. Enoch Gray, corporal. PRIVATES. Anderson, Saml. C. Boyer, John J. Bracken, John D. Bah el, Samuel W. Brown, Joseph. Cochran, James. Commons, James. Commons, John. Cunningham, W. Davis, John. Gladding, Levi. Gray, John. Hanley, Florence. Holt, Thomas. Hindman, Thos. B. Hilton, Isaac. Hension, Julius. Irwin, John. Lacklan, John. Macherett, Jonathan McClenachan, R. G. Pyle, William M. Pyle, Edward. Plumley, William. Reven, John. Snyder, Samuel. Stoner, David. Underwood, J. H. Weaver, Sylvester. Wear, William. Wagoner, Charles. Worrest, George. Webster, Asa. ROLL OF COMPANY K. George W. Werntz, captain. Isaac Cook, first lieutenant. Edward Helms, second lieutenant. Charles W. Steward, first sergeant. Henry H. Fleming, sergeant. Jacob Aceret, sergeant. Maurice !N". Hannum, sergeant. John S. Shoemaker, corporal. James H. Long, corporal. Benjamin F. Priley, corporal. Charles Whittaker, corporal. Matthew S. Cain, corporal. W. C. McLaughlin, corporal. PRIVATES. Barns, Jacob L. Businger, Godfried. Bosser, Martin. Buckwalter, D. R. Brown, Louis R. Cairns, William. Christy, William P. Chrystal, John. McF. Clower, James. Durham, George T. Docherty, John. Dunlap, James E. Eberhart,Wm. R. Higgins, Thomas F. Holloway, Francis. Hough, Edwin. Howard, Henry. Keeley, Joseph. Kerper, John. Kiemer, John V. Kirk, Jesse R. Klotz, Christian. Lawrence, Benj. Lemon, James. Lewis, Samuel. Ligget, John. Mattis, Moses. Mendenhall, Sam'l. Middleton, Samuel. Murry, John. 88 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY Munshower, Daniel. Murry, George. McOlees, John. Mcllheney, John. McKenzie, Alex. McWillmms, S. R. Potts, David. Read, Isaac D. Reid, Morgan L. Reedy, John. Root, John. Robinson, John. Snyder, Jacob. Staufter, Ephraira. Stone, Lewis. Strong, James "W. Whiteman, Thomas. ELEVENTH CAVALRY (108th Regiment). This regiment, originally known as " Har- lan's Light Cavalry," was raised in 1861, under special authority. Its companies were from Iowa, Ohio, E'ew York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania ; and Company B was from Chester county. The Eleventh cavalry did good service in the army of the James, par- ticipated in several dangerous expeditions, and fought bravely in many pitched battles and minor engagements. ROLL OF COMPANY B. George T. Cornog, captain, promoted to major. W. Dewees Roberts, captain, died of wounds. James E. McParlan, captain, promoted to major. John W. Ford, captain. Hilborn Darlington, first lieutenant. Henry C. Brooks, second lieutenant. Samuel L. Monday, second lieutenant, died of wounds. "William D. Irwin, second lieutenant. James M. Riggs, second lieutenant. George D. Gross, first sergeant. Stephen G. Slike, first sergeant. Richard McParlan, first sergeant, killed at Sonth Anna river. RobertWaru8her,quartermaster-sergeant. George Robinson, commissary sergeant. Arthur B. Yeager, sergeant. John Allen, sergeant. Edward Furlong, sergeant. James G. Keech, sergeant. Mark R. Lloyd, sergeant. James E. McConnell, sergeant. Harlan D. Rigg, sergeant. Edward Vanosten, sergeant. Levi B. Yoder, sergeant. Benjamin Broomal, sergeant. Thomas V. Bailey, sergeant. I Jonathan W orrellj_c.orpgraL^- George W."~Sinn, corporal. Thomas D. Kerns, corporal. John W. Dumall, corporal. Edward Rushforth, corporal. John Henry, corporal. Bernard Yost, corporal. Thomas J. Handley, corporal. Robert Townsend, corporal. John D. Guthrie, corporal. George W. Mowday, corporal. Charles Painter, corporal. William C. Carpenter, corporal. Edward P. Rice, bugler. Jacob H. Storm, bugler. PRIVATES. Amber, Ezra. Amber, Edwin. Ayers, James C. Bronson, Eli. Baker, Theodore. Binkley, Peter. Burns, John T. Bowman, David. Butler, Owen. Buller, Elliott. Bruce, Robert. Bishop, George H. Bride, Robert. Bewley, Jesse L. Burt, Hiram. Blake, James. Compton, John. Cross, Samuel. Comstock, Giles. Care, Henry. Clemens, Jonathan. Chrisman, Jona. H. Care, John. Carson, Harrison. Care, Clement B. Cowan, John. Clarke, Geo. E. A. Coyle, Edward.' OF CHESTEB CO UNTY. 89 Click, "Wm., died in 1864. Dugan, Daniel. Dugan, Thomas. Day, Daniel. Dague, Wm. S. Dedier, Alban, killed in action. Dunn, Nathan, killed in action. Everett, Reuben. Effrig, Matthew. Edwards, Daniel. Englerth, George. Eppehimer, Jacob. Fagan, Chris. Frank, Joseph. Foreman, Henry B. Ford, Isaac W. Good, John W. Gruber, Belthaser. Guiney, Franklin A. Guie, William H. Hammer, Joseph. Hughes, Jacob. Henlen, Henry. Hesler, Joseph. Hesler, John. Heckman, John. Heckman, William. Helgert, John. Harlan, Geo. W. Houck, John. Howe, Ifathan. Helfrick, Edward. Hock, Matthias. Hamilton, Owen. Hechler, Jacob. Hall, Lewis E. Hawk, JST., killed in action. High, Torbett. Hughes, Joseph, died a prisoner. Irwin, Andrew. Ingram, James. Irwin, Adam C. Jymison, John, killed in action. Jones, William B., died of wounds. Johnson, John, died in 1864. Jones, Patrick. Kenning, Chas. H. Kingle, Howard. Kennedy, Israel. Kelly, John. Lowe, James W. Long, Robert. Lawrence, Thomp. Leslie, Jacob P. Linderman, John B. Morgan, James P. Myers, John P. Mitchel, James E. Mowday, John C. Mimm, Samuel. Morris, John. Mimm, Isaac. MeCurdy, J. H. Morrison, William. Mahlon, Elijah H. Murry, Henry. Mitchell, Wm. H. Morgan, Amos T. Morgan, Charles H., died of wounds. Miller, John H., died in 1864. Milligan, I. M., died in 1864.' Mimm, Washington, died in 1864. McCachran, Elias. McBride, William. Brannan, McChal'r., died in 1862. Neely, Samuel H. Oxner, Luke. Palmer, Samuel. Painter, Cyrus. Parlaman, Edward. Rice, George W. Rowe, Chas. W. Reed, John. Reifsnyder, David. Rishnell, George D. Rishnell, Samuel. Rishnell, Henry H. Robinson, Richard. Ritner, Samuel D. Seiverd, W. Seiverd, Samuel. Steele, Joseph. Simpson, B. Scott, Hiram. Smith, Theodore. Shock, Philip. Shaw, Wm. W. Spotts, John. Spotts, George M. Sides, Samuel R. Slike, David. Serfass, Reubeji. Shuffenberger, John. Sweeten, Jackson. Thomas, George. Wilkinson, Isaac, killed in action. Yost, C. M. Ziegenfuss, T. J. TWENTIETH CAA^ALEY (181st Regiment). This regiment was raised in 1864, and served until the close of the war. It was engaged in numerous skirmishes and fights, and bore itself gallantly at Dinwiddie Courthouse and Five Forks. Company M was from Chester county. ROLL OF COMPANY M. Evans, captain. Sweney, lieutenant, promoted Lewis Y Benj. H: to captain. Alfred Brinton, first lieutenant. John H. Babb, second lieutenant; Payne A. Gould, second lieutenant. Isaac W. Sweney, first sergeant. Charles H. Areson, quartermaster ser- geant. Henry C. Wilson, quartermaster sergeant. Robert R. Skeen, commissary sergeant. Cheyney J. Watkins, sergeant. 90 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY H. Curry, sergeant. Hibbard Stapleton, sergeant. Morgan L. Reed, sergeant. , George W". Derrick, corporal. David S. Will, corporal. Adam Gabell, corporal. S. Walton Willams, corporal, died at An- dersonville. George W. Young, corporal. Alexander Mehaffle, corporal. Wm. F. Vandusen, corporal. G. M. D. Connor, corporal. Thomas E.. Mills, corporal. Daniel levelling, corporal. J. Roland Smith, corporal. Fred. Shimp, corporal. William Hacker, bugler. Charles Moll, bugler. PRIVATES. Annent, Wm. II. Ackley, Benj. L. Adams, George W. Broodabelt, William. Bittler, Elwood. Boice, John C. Bailey, George W. Chidister, David. Congleton, Joseph. Cassey, Martin. Curry, James. CI em son, Milton. Conner, Samuel P. Clark, Milton M. Congleton, William. Clark, Addison M. Cain, William. Cox, William W. Cornell, Henry S. Cavanaugh, Philip. Caley, Bernard. Codon, Gideon. Donley, Lewis. Davis, Charles. Eckard, Edward E., died a prisoner. Evans, David. Faley, George W. Greenwood, Joseph, died a prisoner. Gill, Samuel H. Gegenheimer, Wm. Hughes, Andrew F. Huleistein, R. B. Hutton, Benj. K. Hutton, Hugh M. Hoopes, John G. Ireland, John P. Johnson, John H. Jenks, Wm. H., died in 1865. James, Jacob B. King, Silas. Lafferty, Edward. Mclntire, Edward P. McFarlan,EdwardF. McClain, David. McDermott, John. Mercer, Joseph R., died a prisoner. Martin, John. Meldone, Hugh. Mace, Alban. Mehaffle, Amor. Missimer, Geo. B. Martin, Charles. Nichols, Jesse J. ITewman, George. Patterson, Elwood. Pyle, Charles H. Quinlin, John. Rhoades, Amos L. Royal, Wm. A. Richards, Henry. Southwood, Thomas. Smith, James. 8euberger,W.W. Skeen, Benj. F. Scott, Joshua, killed in action. Smith, George. Springer, Wm. G. Stanert, Frank C. Shamberger, 0. F. Smith, Columbus. Salkeld, Henry. Stout, Edmund. Smith, John. Snyder, Jacob. Tennis, Israel. Torbert, John K. Townsend, Philip P. Townsley, Robert. Vanzant, Nehemiah. Valentine, Henry C. Wilt, Wm. H. Williams, Morgan B. Williams, HoratioA. Watson, Charles. Wagner, George W. Simons, Henry. In addition to the soldiers of the com- panies given, Chester county men served in the following Pennsylvania regiments: 26th, 27th, 29th, 39th, 46th, 49th, 50th, 51st, 54th, 55th, 58th, 6l8t, 63d, 67th, 68th, 71st, 72d, 73d, 76th, 88th, 93d, 97th, 99th, 102d, 103d, 104th, 105th, 109th, 111th, 115th, 116th, 130th, 181st, 133d, 139th, 141st, 143d, 147th, 150th, 157th, 165th, 179th, 183d, 184th, 187th, 188th, 189th, 190th, 198th, 199th, 203d, and 213th in- fantry; l8t, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 18th, and 2l8t cavalry; and 1st and 2d artillery. We have account of the following offi- cers who served in the regiments named OF CHESTER COUNTY. 91 above: Colonels — H. S. Thomas, W. M. McClure, and G. F. Smith; lieutenant-col- onels— C. B. Lamborn, T. S. Bell, and J. F. Andress; majors — Nathan Davis, James Given, W. B. Darlington, P. Huey, and George E. Gourand; captains — J. J. Fen- lin, P. F. Whitehead, Mitchell Smith, E. E. Lewis, P. J. Phillips, "W. C. Garrett, W. M. Hinkson, D. W. Ney, J. W. Eussell, Charles Whiting, W. Slifer, J. E. Johnson, W. H. Forrest, J. B. Taylor, G. C. Mar- shall, W. M. Clark, John L. Rees, J. M. Barclay, G. W. Ashenfelter, B. F. Beau, C. S. Carmack, Henry G. Dodge, S". A. Pennypacker, E. K. Ramsey and Joseph Taggart. The following privates served in Co. D of the 97th infantry : William H. Brown, E. Butler, S. J. Cloud, J. Crosson, John B. Harry, G.W. Evenson, F. M. Frame, Enoch Hannum, H. Higgins, John E. Huey, B. Hughes, G. W. Miles, G. B. Moore, John Park, Patterson Riley, E. B. Pyle, J. Rus- sell, J. Sharp, Jacob R. Smith, T. M.Smith, W. Smith, J.H. Stuckey and Hugh Tenney. In Co. G of the same regiment were the following privates : G. W. Ross, Enoch Dun- lap, E. B. Frame, James Grindrod, John G. Herkins, Charles Jones, Hugh McKenna, Thomas J. Otty, Frederick Thomas, and William Divine. The 192d Pennsylvania infantry, which served for one hundred days, contained two companies from Chester county: Co. N, commanded by Capt. B. N. Brooke; and Co. P, under Capt. J. N. Woodward. The Pennsylvania militia organizations of 1862 did good service, and several hun- dred of these men were in line of battle at Antietara, ready to advance if their services had been needed. The following militia compapies were from Chester county : Company. Captain. Regiment. c G. W. Gordon. l8t mfantry. B James Hughes. 2d nfantry. D G. B. Thomas. 2d infantry. A Thomas Reed. 10th infantry. B J. B. Everhart. 10th infantry. C J. L. Carter. 10th infantry. F W. A. Moore. 10th infantry. G William Hanna. 10th infantry. B W. R. Ash. 12th infantry. F T. R. Thomas. 12th infantry. CT Abraham Fetter, ir. I2th infentry. K Joseph McMullin. 16th infantry. D A. J. Rowland. 2lBt ■ infantry. E Peter Colehower. 21st infantry. H Horace A. Beale. 2l8t infantry. I Matthew Barker. 21st nfantry. K T. A. Hicks. 21st infantry. There were also three independent com- panies from the county, commanded by cap- tains W. A. Andrews, Joseph Umstead and Jacob Beamont. The Pennsylvania malitia organizations of 1863 that responded to Governor Cur- tin's call to resist Lee's second northern in- vasion, were known as " emergency" troops or men. The following "emergency" com- panies were from Chester county : Company. Captain. Rei yiment. K W. R. Ash. 27th infantry. A W.C.Dickey. 29th infantry. B J. A. Eicholtz. 29th infantry. D W. M. Hinkson. 29th infantry. E Jos. McMullen. 29th infantry. K T. W. Parker. 29th infantry. A James Hughes. 30th infantry. A C. W. Roberts. 43d infantry. B J. W. Davis. 43d infantry. C D. H. Cochran. 43d infantry. E W. V. Strickland. 43d infantry. H G. W. Brannon. 43d nfantry. B G. K. Crozer. 45th infantry. BIOGEAPHY AND HISTORY There were also three independent com- panies — two cavalry and one infantry — from the county, commanded by captains Wayne McVeagh, Alban H. Myers, and Horace A. Beale. A large number of col- ored men from Chester county enlisted in Pennsylvania colored regiments and served for terms of one, two and three years. Progress and Development. — Chester coun- ty has passed through several consecutive periods of development, and while its progress has not been phenomenal yet it has been solid and substantial. The county ranks to-day with the older and progressive counties of the Union, is noted for the gen- eral intelligence and culture of its people, and is very rich in mineral and agricultural resources. Its iron and marble industries are important, while its mines of chrome, lead, glase sand and plumbago have been worked with profit. In manufactures, par- ticularly of iron, wood and brick, the county has made rapid advance within the last two decades, and several of its towns and boroughs have, in consequence, taken a new life and increased largely in population and wealth. Eighteen railroads passing through the county place every community within reach of good markets. Great im- provement has been made within the last few years in the schools and colleges of the county, while the farmers of the county have developed new lines of agriculture in hor- ticulture and dairy farming. Chester county has shown a progress worthy of this great land of development, and of which her highly intelligent citizens may be justly proud. Agriculture. — Chester county contains every variety of soil and surface, and the Downingtown or Great Valley is the one of the most beautiful and finest farming dis- tricts to be found in the United States. The county is essentially an agricultural one, although considerable attention has been given to the raising of fine stock. Spanish merino sheep were introduced in 1810, Dur- ham cattle in 1824, and the celebrated Chester white hog is a native of the county. Tobacco culture was introduced prior to 1860, and twenty years later nearly five hundred acres were set out in plants. Dairy farming has developed into a promi- nent interest, and creameries have been established in many parts of the county. The nursery business has grown to large proportions, and among the early nurseries were : Jason M. Mahan's, established in 1836 ; the Morris, about 1850 ; and the large Maple Avenue nurseries, of Hoopes, Bro. & Thomas, which were started in 1853, by the name of Cherry Hill. Of the other nurseries in the county was one owned by the Dingee & Conard Company, who are now the most extensive growers of roses in the United States. Irrigation was used to some extent in the early history of the county, and agricultural progress was naturally slow for many years. The farmers of Chester county to-day are so well acquainted with the secrets of pro- gressive agriculture that they not only keep their farms in a high state of productive- ness, but at the same time use the best methods known for retaining and preserv- ing the fertility of their lands. Post Offices. — The first office in the county was Downingtown, which was established April 1, 1798, with Hunt Downing as post- master. In 1810 there were thirteen offices in the county; in 1820, twenty-four; 1830, fifty-six ; 1840, sixty-three ; 1850, seventy- nine; 1860, ninety-two; 1870, ninty-nine; 1880, one hundred and thirty-four, and OF CHESTER COVNTY. 98 1890, one hundred and sixty-five. There Leonard. Roberts. are now one hundred and seventy offices in Leopard. Rockville. the county, whose names are as follows : Lewisville. Romansville. Aldham. Duffryn Mawr. Lincoln University. Rosenvick. Anselma. East Coventry. Lionville. Russellville. Ash. East Downingtown. Loag. Sadsbury ville. Atglen. East I^Tantmeal. Londonderry. Saint Peter's. Avondale. Elk Mills. London Grove. Schuylkill. Bacton. Elkview. Longwood. Seal. Barneston. Embreeville. Lyndell. Sheeder. Barnsley. Ercildoun. Malvern. Shenkel. Berwyn. Everhart. Marlborough. Smedley. Birchrunville. Exton. Marsh. Spring City. Birdell. Fagg's Manor. Marshallton. Steelville. Black Horse. Fairville. Martin's Corner. Strafford. Blue Rock. Font. Matthews. Strickersville. Brandamore. Frazer. Mendenhall. Sugartown. Brandywine Manor. Fremont. Merlin. Suplee. Buck Run. Glen Hall. Milford Mills. Tablet. Cain. Glenloch. Milltown. Tanquy. Cedar Knoll. Glen Moore. Modena. Thornbury. Cedarville. Glen Roy. Mortonville. Thorndale IronWks Chadd's Ford June. Goshenville. Mount Verhon. Timicula. Chatham. Green Hill. Nantmeal Village. Toughkenamon. Chester Springs. Gum Tree. New Centreville. Townsend. Chester Valley. Guthriesville. New Garden. Tweedale. Chesterville. Hamorton. New London. Unionville. Chrome. Hickory Hill. Northbrook. Uwchlan. Cloud. Honey Brook. Norway. Valley Forge. Coatesville. Hopewell Cotton Nottingham. Vincent. Cochran ville. W orks. Oakbourne. Wagontown. CoUamer. Isabella. Oxford. Wallace. Compassville. Jennersville. Paoli. Warren Tavern. Corinne. Kaolin. Parker Ford. Warwick. Cossart. Kelton. Parkersville. Warwick Furnace. Coventry ville. Kemblesville. Parkesburg. Wawaset. Cupola. Kenilworth. Pawling. West Chester (C.H.) Devault. Kennett Square. Phcenixville. West Grove. Devon. Kimberton. Pickering. West Pikeland. Dilworthtown. Landenburg. Pocopson. Westtown. Doe Run. Lenape. Pomeroy. West Vincent. Downingtown. Lenover. Pughtown. West Whiteland. 94 BIOOBAPHY AND HISIOBY White Horse. Whitford. Wildbrier. Williams Corner. Willistown Inn. Willowdale. Wyebrook. Zermatt. The Press. — In January, 1797, Philip Der- rick and Nathan H. Sharpless established a monthly magazine called the Literary Mus- eum, or Monthly Magazine, but it only lived six months. Shortly after this, Derrick and two other printers — Jones and Hoff — started the West Chester Gazette, which was soon suspended. The second paper in the county was the Temperate Zone, of Dowing- town, which made its appearance in 1808, and in 1822 was removed, under the name of the American Republican, to West Chester, where in 1833 it was consolidated with the Chester County Democrat that had been started in 1830, and has continued up to the present time. The paper started out as neutral in politics, afterwards became demo- cratic, and since the war has been repub- lican. The next paper in the^ county was the Chester and Delaware Federalist, that was started at West Chester, in 1809, by Dennis Whelen. In 1817 it became the Village Record, which has continued up to the present time, and is republican in poli- tics. In 1814 N"athan Jackman started the Eden (Star, that was short-lived. From 1814 to 1835 the following papers were estab- lished and run their courses : Independent Journal of Downingtown, in 1827; Anti- Masonic Examiner, and Anti-Masonic Regis- ter; Literary Casket, of Yellow Springs, in 1829; Waynesburg Press, in 1834; and the Whig, on April 15, 1834, at West Chester, by Rev. Simeon Siegfried, who figured prominently as an editor in the county, and afterward in western Pennsylvania, western Virginia and eastern Ohio. In May, 1835, Rev. Siegfried started the Republican Stand- ard and Democratic Journal, and it was suc- ceeded by the Temperance Advocate, Qeneral Advertiser of Coatesville (1836), American Star, Silk Grower's Instructor, Colonization Herald, and Bee and, Independent Journal. In 1843 the present Jeffersonian of West Chester was established, and has been dem- ocratic ever since. In 1846 came thePh^nix Gazette, and the next year the Crystal Foun- tain, both of which died before 1850. In 1853, appeared the Day Spring, and the Independent Herald, which latter was consolidated in 1863 with the American Republican. From 1853 to 1880 we have record of the following papers, and the years in which they were established : Ken- iiett Square Free Press, 1855 ; Weekly Phoe- nix, 1857; Pennsylvania Guardian, 1860; Rural Economist, 1862 ; Chester Valley Union, 1863; American Stock Journal, 1S64; Children's Friend, 1866 ; Oxford Press, 1866 ; Chester County Journal, 1866; Commercial Advertiser, 1867; Legal Tender, 1869 ; Phoe- nixville Republican, 1870 ; Phoenixville Mes- senger, 1871 ; Farmers' Club, 1871 ; Weekly Leader, 1871 ; Oxford Leader, 1872 ; Spring City Sun, 1872 ; Local News, 1872 ; Downing- town Independent, 1873 ; Oxford Republican, 1874; Parkesburg Herald, 1874; Chester County Archive, 1875; Item, 1876; Kennett iVeM;s,1877 ;Kennett ^.c^vance, 1877 ; TheRay, 1877 ; Christian Sunbeam, 1878 ; Green Tree and Malvern Item, 1878 ; Chester County Farmer, 1879 ; Weekly Times, 1879 ; Honey- brook Graphic, 1879 ; Chester County Demo- crat, 1879; Our Monthly, 1879; Farmers' Magazine, 1880 ; Parkesburg Trade Journal, 1880; Student, 1880 ; Chester County i?e- porter, 1880, and Scattered Seeds, in 1880. The present twenty-three newspapers published in the county, are: Times and Herald, atBerwyn; Chester Valley Union, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 96 and the Times, both of Coatesville ; Archive, Downingtown ; (xropto, Honeybrook ; Keii- nett Advance and Kenuett News and Adver- tiser, Kennett Square ; Item, Malvern ; Press, Oxford; Chester County Times, Parkes- burg; Messenger, Republican (daily), and Slovak V Amerike (Hungarian), Phoenix- ville ; Sun, Spring City ; American Republi- can, Chester County Democrat, Chester County Post (German), Chester County Village Record, Jeffersonian, Local News (daily), Republican, Village "Record, "West Cheater; and Independent, and Chester County Mirror, "West Grove. Churches. — "We compile the following table of the number of churches in the county from 1850 to 1870, from the United States census reports : NUMBER OF CHURCHES IN CHESTER COUNTY FROM 1850 TO 1870. Denomination. 1850. 1860. 1870. Friends 37 39 Baptist 21 23 22 Presbyterian 19 28 22 Lutheran 6 6 4 German Reformed 5 6 9 Episcopalian 9 11 11 Methodist 45 51 43 Catholic 2 5 6 Mennonite 4 4 Free 1 Christian 1 Congregational 1 United Presbyterian 1 Union 4 Totals 150 179 117 In the census of 1870 no statistics were returned in Pennsylvania of the Friends, nor of the six last denominations mentioned in the table. Society of Friends. — This sect was founded in England by George Pox about the middle of the last century. The most important division in this society occurred in 1827, when Elias Hicks became the leader of that part of the body which is known to-day as the "Hicksite" Friends or Quakers. The organization of the Society embrace wor- ship, preparative, monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings. All of the meetings in this county, except one, belong to the Phil- adelphia Yearly meeting, which was estab- lished in 1681. Robert Wade settled at Upland in 1675, and "William Edmunson held a meeting there in that year, which afterwards became Chester meeting. Ches- ter also became the place for the Chester Monthly and the Chester Quarterly meeting. In 1690 Birmingham meeting was estab- lished, and a few years later Birmingham meeting house was built. From that time on meetings increased, and we have record- of the following meetings in the county and the time of their organization : Goshen, 1701; Kennett, 1707; ]!l"ew Garden, 1712; Uwchlan, 1712; Valley, 1714; London Grove, 1714; Cain, 1715; Bradford, 1719; Sadsbury, 1724; Nantmeal, 1739; West Cain, 1756; Willistown, 1769; West Grove, 1788 ; Fallowfield, 1795 ; Marlborough,1801 ; Dowingtown, 1806; Doe Run, 1808; West Chester, 1810; East Sadsbury, 1810; Ken- nett Square, 1812 ; Whiteland, 1818 ; Schuyl- kill, 1818;NPennsgrove, 1828; Cambridge, 1825; Little Elk, 1825; London Britain, 1884; Homeville, 1839; Unionville, 1845; Romansville, 1846; Kimberton, 1857; Ox- ford, 1879 ; and Malvern meeting in 1879. The Progressive Friends came into existence to do battle with slavery, intemperance and other evils, and established Longwood meet- ing prior to 1850. 96 BIOQBAPHY AND SI STORY Baptist. — Great Valley is the oldest and was the first Baptist church that was organ- ized in the present county of Chester. It was established April 22, 1711, with Hugh Davis as minister, and Alexander Owen and "William Rees as elders. Since then the following churches of that denomina- tion have been established : Vincent, 1771; London Tract, 1780; Hep- zibah, 1810 ; Beulah, 1823 ; Bethesda, 1827 ; Goshen, 1827; Phcenixville, 1830; Glen Run, 1832; Windsor, 1833; Willistown, 1833 ; West Chester, 1834 ; East E"antmeal, 1841; West Cain, 1842; East Brandy- wine, 1843; Pughtown, 1856; Lawrence- ville,1858; Coatesville,1867; Berean,1878; Oxford, 1881; and Green Valley in 1881. Presbyterian. — Great Valley is the oldest Presbyterian church in the county, and its congregation formed in 1710, was not regu- larly organized until 1714. Since its or- ■ganization we have record of the following churches : Upper Octoraro, 1720 ; Oxford, 1725; New London, 1728; Fagg's Manor, 1730; Brandywine Manor, 1735; Doe Run, 1740; Charlestown, 1742; West Chester, 1834; Coatesville, 1834; Iioneybrook,1835; Fairview, 1839; East Whiteland, 1839; Phcenixville, 1846; Atglen, 1852; Downing- town, 1859 ; Berwyn, 1862 ; Keunett Square, 1862; Ashmun, 1867; Avondale, 1870; Second Oxford, 1874; Toughkenamon, 1877; Dilworthtown, 1877; and London- grove, in 1878. Lutheran. — Zion church was organized prior to 1770, but its early records are lost, and the date of its establishment cannot be given. Of the other Lutheran churches in the county we have obtained the date of es- tablishment for the following: St. Peter's, 1770; St. Matthew's, 1833; St. Paul's, 1839; St. Peter's, of Pikeland township. 1840 ;- Centennial, 1876; Central, 1876; and Spring City in 1880. German Reformed. — Brownback's, or the Fii'st Reformed church of Coventry, was organized prior to 1743, and of the churches since then in the county we have obtained the following information of their establish- ment : East Vincent, 1758 ; St. Peter's, 1811 ; St. Matthew's, 1833 ; Shenkle's, or Second Reformed of Coventry, 1837 ; St. Paul's, 1838 ; and St. Vincent's in 1848. Protestant Episcopal. — Radnor, or St. David's church, was established about 1685, by a Welsh colony that came from Radnor- shire Wales. Of the establishment of other Episcopal churches, we have the following : St. John's, 1729; St. Peters, 1744; St. John's, of Penn township, 1744; St. Paul's, 1828 ; St. Mark's, 1835 ; Holy Trinity, 1835 ; St. Peters, of Phcenixville, 1838 ; St. James', 1838 ; and Trinity in 1868^ Methodist Episcopal. — Isaac Rollins was the first Methodist minister to preach in the county. He came about 1772. Of the establishment of Methodist churches we give the following: Benson Chapel, 1774; Grove, 1774; Andersons, 1780; Laurel, 1797 ; Romansville, between 1773 and 1811 ; Springfield, 1798 ; Hopewell, before. 1805 ; Coatesville, 1817; Waynesburg, 1824; Elk Ridge, 1825; Marshallton, 1828; Oxford, about 1828; Flint Hill, 1829 ; Charlestown, 1830 ; Valley Forge, 1831 ; Good Will, 1832 ; Salem, 1833; Downingtown, 1833; Sads- buryville, 1834; Unionville, about 1834; Hibernia, 1840 ; Temple, 1840 ; Washington, about 1841; Bethel, before 1844; Spring City, 1844; Glen, Moore, before 1844; Lan- denburg, before 1848 ; New London, before 1850 ; Penniugtonville, before 1853 ; Ken- nett Square, 1853; Avondale, 1869; Saint James', 1871; Hamorton, before 1872; OF CHESTER COVNTY. 97 Parkersburg, before 1874; and Thorndale about 1875. Catholic. — The first mission of this church in Chester county was established between 1730 and 1757. A Catholic chapel was erected at West Chester about 1794, and some years afterward St. Agnes' church was organized, with the parishes of Parkesburg, Downingtown and Doe Run attached to it. St. Mary's church of PhcEnixville was built in 1841; St. Agnes', 1852; Our Lady of the Seven Dolors, 1854; Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1873; and Sacred Heart in 1880. Besides these there are several smaller churches. Mennonite. — There was a Mennonite church in East Coventry township in 1725, and auother one stood near Phoenixville. In 1794.thePhoenixville congregation erected a church which is still standing, but the society is weak and feeble. Christian. — This denomination was or- ganized in the county about 1848. Their only church is Mt. Olivet, two miles from Kemblesville. Disciple. — The Disciples or Campbellite society came into existence in the county in 1839, through the preaching of Rev. George Austin. They have one church — Chestnut Grove — which is about a mile and a half from New London. Between 1840 and 1844 the strange sect of the "Battle Axes" had a few followers in the county. The Friends early churches were princi- pally founded by the English and Welsh ; the Presbyterian, by that wonderful self- willed Scotch-Irish race; the Baptist, by the Welsh ; the Episcopal, by the English ; the Catholic, by the Germans and the Irish ; and the Lutheran Reformed and Mennonite, by the Germans. 7 Schools. — Chester is not surpassed by any county in the Union for the general intelli- gence and culture of its people. The Friends were the pioneers in educational matters, atid imparted a solid education to all the youth of their respective neighbor- hoods. The Scotch-Irish, in the northern and western parts of the country, were re- markable for their love of learning and the establishment of classical schools, while the Welsh and Germans took interest in the education of their children. The Friends, in 1790, commenced their excellent system of boarding schools by the establishment of Westtown Boarding- school, which went into full opei-ation in May, 1799, and from whose portals have gone forth over twelve thousand pupils. Of the other early boarding-schools estab- lished were : the New Garden, 1808 ; Bran- dywine, 1816; Downingtown, 1817; Kim- berton, 1817 ; West Chester, 1829 ; Hoopes', 1834; and Mrs. Phelps' Young Ladies'. The early classical schools were Fagg's Manor, established in 1739, and Upper Oc- toraro, in 1779 ; while the prominent acad- emies from 1743 to 1848 were : New Lon- don, founded in 1743; Nottingham, 1744; Brandywine, 1793 ; Chester County, 1811 ; Moscow, 1826: Unionville, 1834; and Jor- dan Bank in 1847. The old subscription schools were the best of their kind, and the succeeding com- mon school system, now known as the public school system, was rejected by a majority of the school districts in 1835, but in a short time thereafter was accepted by every district. In 1891 there were 406 public schools in the county, in which 414 teachers were employed. Of the later educational institutions of the county three have attained State and 98 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ll^ational reputation — the Chester Springs Soldiers' Orphan school ; the West Chester State Normal school, now under the able administration of Dr. George M. Phillips; and Lincoln university, an institution for the education of young men of color, whose secretary, Rev. Edward Webb, has done much for its prosperity and progress. Banks. — The "Bank of Chester" was one of the forty-one new banks that, were authorized by an act of legislature, in 1813, to be established in the State. Before the expiration of its last charter, in 1867, it was surrendered, and on October 25, 1864, it was organized under its present title, " The National Bank of Chester County." Since its incorporation, up to 1880, the following banks were organized: National bank of Chester county, at Coatesville, as Bank of Chester Valley, in 1857, National bank of Oxford, as Octoraro bank, 1858; National bank of Phoenixville, as Bank of Phoenix- ville, 1859 ; Downingtown National bank,, of Pennsylvania, 1861 ; First National bank of West Chester, 1864 ; First National bank of Downingtown, 1864; First National bank of Honeybrook, 1868 ; Parkesburg National bank, 1869 ; Bank of Brandywine, 1871 ; Oxford Banking Company, 1872 ; National bank of Spring City, 1872 ; and the Far- mers' & Mechanics' National bank of Phoe-. nixville, in 1872. The names of the banks organized since 1880 will be compiled and given under the head of miscellaneous. Political and Civil Roster. — The history of Chester county commenced at the same time as the history of the State, and spans a period of three hundred years. We give the following lists of State senators and members of the assembly and the civil officers of the county, from 1682 to 1892 : STATE SENATORS. 1790, Richard Thomas; 1794, Dennis Whelen; 1797, Joseph McClellau; 1798, Dennis Whelen; 1802, John Heister; 1806, Isaac Wayne; 1810, Isaac Wayne; 1811, John Gremmill; 1814, Abraham Baily; 1818, Samuel Cochran; 1820, Isaac D. Bar- nard; 1822, James Kelton; 1826, Joshua Hunt; 1830, William Jackson; 1834, Fran- cis James; 1838, Nathaniel Brooke; 1842, Joseph Baily; 1845, William Williamson; 1851, Henry S. Evans; 1857, Thomas S. Bell; 1863,Dr.WilmerWorthington; 1866, Dr. Wilmer Worthington ; 1870, Henry S. Evans; 1872, William B. Waddell; 1874, Robert L. McClellan ; 1876, James B. Ever- hart; 1880, James B. Everhart; 1884, A. D. Harlan ; 1888, A. D. Harlan. MEMBERS OF ASSEMBLY 1682-1892. 1682. — John Simcock, Thomas Brassey, Ralph Withers, Thomas Usher. 1683. — John Hastings, Robert Wade, George Wood, John Blunston, Dennis Roch- ford, Thomas Brassey, John Bezer, John Harding, Joseph Phipps. 1684. — Joshua Hastings, Robert Wade, John Blunston, George Maris, Thomas Usher, Henry Maddock. 1685. — John Blunston, George Maris, John Harding, Thomas Usher, Francis Stanfield, Josiah Fearn. 1686. — Robert Wade, John Blunston, George Maris, Bartholomew Coppock, Sam- uel Lewis, Caleb Pusey. 1687. — John Blunston, Geoi'ge Maris, Bartholomew Coppock, Caleb Pusey, Ed- ward Bezer, Randall Vernon. 1688. — J ohn Blunston, James Sandelands, George Maris, Robert Pyle/ Edward Carter, Thomas Coeburn. 1689. — James Sandelands, Samuel Levis, H K a n > H o r > s to c: OF CHESTER COUNTY. 99 John Bartram, Robert Pyle, Michael Blun- ston, Jonathan Hayes. 1690. — John Bristow, William Jenkin, RobertJPyle, Joshua Fearne, George Maris, Caleb Pusey. 1692. — Philip Roman, George Maris, Bar- tholomew Coppock, Robert P.yle, Caleb Pusey, Thomas "Withers. 1693. — John Simcock, George Maris, David Lloyd. 1694. — David Lloyd, Caleb Pusey, Sam- uel Levis. 1695. — John Blunston, BartholomewCop- pock, William Jenkin, Rober t Pyle, Walter Forest (Faucet?), Philip Roman. 1696. — John Simcock (Speaker), John Blunston, Caleb Pusey. 1697. — John Blunston (Speaker), Bar- tholomew Coppock, Thomas Worth, Jona- than Hayes. 1698. — Caleb Pusey, Samuel Levis, Na- thaniel Newlin, Robert Carter. 1699. — John Blunston ( Speaker) . Robert P^le, John Worrilow, Robert Carter. 1700. — John Blunston ( Speaker). Robert Pylgj^ Richard Ormes, John Hood, Samuel Levis, Henry Lewis. 1700. — Joseph Baker, Samuel Levis, Na- thaniel Newlin, Nicholas Pyle. 1701. — John Blunston. Robert Pyle, Na- thaniel Newlin, Andrew Job. 1703. — Nicholas Pyle, John Bennett, An- drew Job, David Lewis, Nathaniel Newlin, Joseph Baker, Robert Carter, Joseph Wood. 1704. — Nicholas Pyle, John Bennett, Nicholas Fairlamb, Joseph Cobourn, John Hood, Richard Hayes, Joseph Wood, Isaac Taylor. 1705 — Robert Pvle . Richard Webb, Caleb Pusey, Nicholas Fairlamb, John Bennett, Isaac Taylor, Nathaniel Newlin, Joseph Ooeburn. 1706. — Samuel Levis, Richard Hayes, Francis Chadds, Joseph Baker, Evan Lewis, John Hood, George Pearce, William Gar- rett. 1707.— Francis Chadds, William Smith, Samuel Levis, Richard Hayes, John Hood, William Garrett, John Bethell, Evan Lewis. 1708. — Daniel Williamson, Samuel Levis, Henry Lewis, Richard Hayes, John Hood, Thomas Pearson, William Bartram, Daniel Hoopes. 1709. — Samuel Levis, John Maris, John Hood, Henry Lewis, Daniel Williamson, Daniel Hoopes, Richard Hayes, William Smith. 1710. — Nicholas Pyle, Joseph Baker, William Lewis, John Wood, Nathaniel Newlin, Ephraim Jackson, Caleb Pusey, Isaac Taylor. 1711. — FrancisYarnall, John Bezer,Caleb Pusey, Nicholas Pyle, Nathaniel Newlin, Joseph Baker, Nicholas Fairlamb, David Llewelin. 1712.— Caleb Pusey, David Lloyd, Wil- liam Davis, Nicholas Fairlamb, John Wood, George Harlan, Isaac Taylor, John Maris. 1713. — David Lloyd, William Davis, Jo- seph Baker, Nathaniel Newlin, Nicholas Fairlamb, Richard Hayes, William Brinton, John Blunston, jr. 1714. — David Lloyd (Speaker), Na- thaniel Newlin, Nicholas Pyle, Evan Lewis, John Miller, Benjamin Mendenhall, Samuel Garrett, Richard Maris. 1715. — David Lloyd, Samuel Garrett, Henry Lewis, Henry Hayes, William Pyle, Edward Bezer, Philip Taylor, David Lewis. 1716. — David Lloyd, John Blunston, jr., Henry Hayes, Joseph Pennock, David Harry, John Maris, John Worrall, Henry Oborn. 1717. — David Lloyd, Nathaniel Newlin, 100 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Richard Hayes, Samuel Garrett, James Gibbons, John Wood, George Maris, Henry Miller. 1718. — David Lloyd, Kichard Hayes, Nathaniel Newlin, John Wright, James Gibbons, Henry Lewis, William Lewis, Henry Oborn. 1719. — Isaac Taylor, Joseph Pennock, Moses Key, John Bezer, Nathaniel Newlin, John Maris, James Gibbons, Evan Lewis. 1720. — Joseph Pennock, Samuel Levis, jr., Isaac Taylor, Israel Taylor, John Maris, Ralph Pyle, Daniel__Wi]Jiamson, David Lewis. 1721. — Samuel Levis, jr., William Pyle, J)anie l Williamson,! Isaac Taylor, David Lewis, Henry^Oborn, Nathaniel Newlin, Israel Taylor. 1722. — Samuel Levis, jr., Joseph Pen- nock, David Lewis, William Pyle, _Daniel_ Williamson, Israel Taylor, Nathaniel New- lin, Isaac Taylor. 1723. — Thomas Chandler, Samuel Levis, jr., Samuel Nutt, John Crosby, Moses Key, William Webb, Joseph Pennock, David Lloyd (Speaker). 1724. — Moses Key, Joseph Pennock, William Webb, William Pyle, Thomas Chandler, Elisha Gatchell, John Parry, John Crosby. 1725. — Thomas Chandler, David Lloyd (Speaker), William Webb, John Wright, Samuel Hollingsworth, William Pusey, George Ashton, William Paschall. 1726. — David Lloyd (Speaker), Samuel Nutt, Samuel Hollingsworth, John Wright, Richard Hayes, Joseph Pennock, Thomas Chandler, William Pusey. 1727. — John Parry, Samuel Hollings- worth, David Lloyd (Speaker), Thomas Chandler, John Carter,,^anie]_ Williamsoii/ Simon Meredith, William Webb. 1728. — Thomas Chandler, David Lloyd (Speaker), Samuel Hollingsworth, John Parry, William Webb, Philip Taylor, John Carter, Henry Hayes. 1729. — Caleb Cowpland, Richard Hayes, Joseph Brinton, Thomas Chandler, William Webb, Samuel Gilpin, James James, Joseph Pennock. 1730. — Henry Pierce, John Taylor, Samuel Lewis, John Parry, Thomas Chandler, Samuel Gilpin, William Webb, Henry Hayes. 1731. — Joseph Harvey, John Parry, Samuel Lewis, Caleb Cowpland, John Taylor, Joseph Brinton, Henry Pierce, Evan Lewis. 1732. — Caleb Cowpland, Joseph Harvey, Joseph Brinton, Thomas Thomas, William Webb, Joseph Pennock, John Davis, William Hewes. 1733. — Caleb Cowpland, Joseph Harvey, Joseph Brinton, John Davis, Thomas Thomas, Joseph Pennock, John Owen, William Moore. 1734. — Joseph Harvey, Joseph Brinton, Caleb Cowpland, John Evans, William Webb, William Moore, John Owen, Joseph Pennock. 1735. — Joseph Harvey, William Moore, Joseph Pennock, Caleb Cowpland, John Evans, John Parry, Joseph Brinton, Thomas Cummings. 1736. — Joseph Harvey, Thomas Cum- mings, John Evans, Caleb Cowpland, William Webb, William Moore, Thomas Chandler, John Parry. 1737. — Thomas Chandler, Joseph Har- vey, John Evans, Thomas Cummings, William Moore, James Gibbons, William Hughes, Richard Hayes. 1738. — William Moore, James Gibbons, Thomas Chandler, Joseph Harvey, John OF CHESTER COVNTY. 101 Owen, Thomas Tatnall, William Hughes, Jeremiah Starr. 1739. — James Gibbons, Thomas Chand- ler, Joseph Harvey, William Hughes, Jeremiah Starr, William Moore, Samuel Levis, John Owen. 1740. — Thomas Chandler, Joseph Har- vey, James Gibbons, William Hughes, Samuel Levis, John Owen, Jeremiah Starr, Thomas Tatnall. 1741. — Joseph Harvey,Thomas Chandler, James Gibbons, John Owen, Thomas Tat- nall, Samuel Levis, William Hughes, Jere- miah Starr. 1742. — James Gibbons, John Owen, Sam- uel Levis, Jeremiah Starr, Thomas Chandler, Joseph Harvey, William Hughes,' Thomas Tatnall. 1743. — Jeremiah Starr, James Gibbons, Thomas Chandler, Joseph Harvey, Samuel Levis, Joseph Pennock, George Ashbridge, jr., Francis Yarnall. 1744. — George Ashbridge, Francis Yar- nall, Joseph Pennock, Samuel Levis, James Gibbons, Joseph Harvey,ThomasCummings, Thomas Chandler. 1745. — Joseph Pennock, Thomas Cum- mings, George Ashbridge, Francis Yarnall, Joseph Harvey, Samuel Levis, Robert Lewis, Thomas Chandler. 1746. — Francis Yarnall, George Ash- bridge, Robert Lewis, Thomas Worth, Sam- uel Levis, Peter Dicks, Thomas Chandler, John Owen. 1747. — Samuel Levis, Francis Yarnall, George Ashbridge, Thomas Worth, Peter Dicks, John Owen, John Davis, Thomas Chandler. 1748. — Thomas Worth, George Ash- bridge, Francis Yarnall, John Davis, John Owen, Joseph James, Thomas Chandler, Joseph Gibbons. 1749. — Joseph Gibbons, George Ash- bridge, Henry Hockley, Thomas Chandler, Nathaniel Grubb, Nathaniel Pennock, Roger Hunt, Thomas Cummings. 1750. — Joseph Gibbons, George Ash- bridge, Thomas Cummings, Henry Hockley, Thomas Chandler, Nathaniel Grubb, Na- thaniel Pennock, Peter Dicks. 1751. — Joseph Gibbons, Thomas Cum- mings, George Ashbridge, Nathaniel Grubb, Peter Dicks, Nathaniel Pennock, Henry Hockley, Thomas Chandler. 1752. — Joseph Gibbons, Thomas Cum- mings, Nathaniel Pennock, Peter Dicks, George Ashbridge, Nathaniel Grubb, Wil- liam Peters, Jacob Howell. 1753. — Thomas Cummings, Nathaniel Pennock, George Ashbridge, Joseph Gib- bons, Nathaniel Grubb, Peter Dicks, William Peters, Joseph James. 1754. — George Ashbridge, Joseph Gib- bons, Peter Dicks, Thomas Cummings, Nathaniel Pennock,Nathaniel Grubb, Joseph James, William Peters. 1755. — Thomas Cummings, Georgs Ash- bridge, Nathaniel Pennock, Joseph James, Joseph Gibbons, Nathaniel Grubb, William Peters, Peter Dicks. 1 756. — Joseph Gibbons, Peter Dicks, John Morton, Roger Hunt, George Ashbridge, Hugh Trimble, Nathaniel Pennock, Na- thaniel Grubb. 1757. — Joseph Gibbons, George Ash- bridge, John Morton, Roger Hunt, Isaac Wayne, Nathaniel Grubb, Hugh Trimble, Joshua Ash. 1758. — Jos. Gibbons, Jno. Morton, Geo. Ashbridge, Roger Hunt, Hugh Trimble, Joshua Ash, Nathaniel Grubb, Isaac Wayne. 1759. — John Morton, George Ashbridge, Joshua Ash, Joseph Gibbons, Hugh Trim- ble, Roger Hunt,Peter Dicks, Isaac Wayne. 103 BIOaSAPHY AND HISTOBY 1760. — George Ashbridge, John Morton, Eoger Hunt, Joshua Ash, Joseph Gibbons, Nathaniel Penuock, Isaac Wayne, William Boyd. 1761. — Joseph Gibbons, George Ash- bridge, Nathaniel Pennock, Joshua Ash, John Morton, Isaac Wayne, Isaac Pearson, Roger Hunt. 1762. — Nathaniel Pennock, George Ash- bridge, Joshua Ash, Isaac Pearson, John Morton, Isaac Wayne, Joseph Gibbons, John Jacobs. 1763. — George Ashbridge, Joshua Ash, Isaac Pearson, John Morton, Nathaniel Pen- nock, John Jacobs, Isaac Wayne, Charles Humphreys. 1764. — George Ashbridge, John Morton, Nathaniel Pennock, Joshua Ash, Isaac Pear- son, Charles Humphreys, John Jacobs, John Fairlamb. 1765. — John Morton, George Ashbridge, John Jacobs, Nathaniel Pennock, John Fair- lamb, Charles Humphreys, Isaac Pearson, Joshua Ash. 1766. — John Morton, George Ashbridge, Nathaniel Pennock, John Jacobs, Charles Humphreys, Isaac Pearson, Joshua Ash, John Minshall. 1767. — Isaac Pearson, Charles Hum- phreys, George Ashbridge, John Minshall, Jonas Preston, John Jacobs, John Sellers, Nathaniel Pennock. 1768. — John Jacobs, Nathaniel Pennock, George Ashbridge, Charles Humphreys, John Sellers, John Minshall, Isaac Pearson, John Crosby. 1769. — George Ashbridge, Charles Hum- phreys, Isaac Pearson, John Sellers, John Jacobs, John Minshall, John Crosby, John Morton. 1770. — Charles Humphreys, Isaac Pier- son, John Minshall, John Morton, John Jacobs, John Crosby, George Ashbridge, John Sellers. 1771. — John Morton, Charles Hum- phreys, Isaac Pearson, John Jacobs, John Sellers, John Minshall, George Ashbridge, John Crosby. 1772. — Charles Humphreys, Isaac Pear- son, John Morton, John Jacobs, John Min- shall, James Hockley, George Ashbridge, Benjamin Bartholomew. 1773. — Isaac Pierson, Benjamin Bar- tholomew, John Jacobs, Charles Hum- phreys, John Morton, James Gibbs, John Minshall, Joseph Pennock. 1774. — Benjamin Bartholomew, John Jacobs, Joseph Pennock, James Gibbons, Isaac Pearson, Charles Humphreys, John Morton, Anthony Wayne. 1775. — John Morton (Speaker), Benja- min Bartholomew, James Gibbons, Isaac Pearson, John Jacobs, Charles Humphreys, Joseph Pennock, Joseph Pyle. 1776. — John Jacobs, Caleb Davis, Joseph Gardner, John Fulton, Samuel Cunning- ham, John Sellers. 1777. — Joseph Gardner, John Fulton, Samuel Cunningham, John Culbertson, Lewis Gronow, Stephen Cochran. 1778. — Joseph Gardner, John Fulton, John Culbei-tson, Stephen Cochran, John Fleming, Patrick Anderson. 1779.— John Fulton, David Thomas, Henry Hayes, James Boyd, Patrick Ander- son, Joseph Park, William Harris, Sketch- ley Morton. 1780. — David Thomas, Henry Hayes, Joseph Park, William Harris, James Boyd, Patrick Anderson, John Culbertson, Evan Evans. 1781. — Jno. Culbertson, Evan Evans, Jas. Moore, Persifor Frazer, Thos. Maffat, Pat- rick Anderson, Jno. Hannum, Jno. Lindsay. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 103 1782. — Persifor Frazer, James Boyd, Evau Evans, Thomas Strawbridge, Benja- min Braunan, David Thomas, John Lind- say, Thomas Maffat. 1783. — David Thomas, Evan Evans, John Hannum, Joseph Park, Richaixi Willing, Thomas Potts, Thomas Bull, Edward Jones. 1784. — Eichard Willing, Edward Jones, Anthony Wayne, Robert Ralston, James Moore, Thomas Potts, Persifor Frazer, Jos- eph Strawbridge, Charles Humphreys. 1785. — Anthony Wayne, Robert Ralston, James Moore, Thomas Bull, John Hannum, Robert Smith (Oxford), Samuel Evans, Jonathan Morris. 1786-1787.— Robert -Ralston, Richard Willing, James Moore, Samuel Evans, Richard Thomas, Townsend Whelen. 1788. — Richard Thomas, James Moore, Mark Wilcox, John McDowell, Caleb James, Richard Downing, jr. 1789.— Richard Thomas (2927 votes), John McDowell (2306), Caleb James (2778), Richard Downing, jr. (2682). 1790. — Richard Downing, Caleb James, John McDowell, James Boyd. 1791. — Richard Downing, Caleb James, James Boyd, Samuel Evans. 1792.— Dennis Whelen, Charles Dil- worth, John Hannum, Samuel Sharp. 1793.— Dennis Whelen, Thomas Bull, John Ross, Joseph Pierce. 1794. — Thomas Bull, John Ross, Robert Frazer, Roger Kirk. 1795.— Thomas Bull, Robert Frazer, Roger Kirk, Joseph Pierce, Abiah Taylor. 1796.— Thonias Bull, Robert Frazer, Roger Kirk, Abiah Taylor, James Han- num. 1797-98-99.— Thomas Bull, Roger Kirk, Abiah Taylor, James Hannum, Joseph Hemphill. 1800.— Thomas Bull, Roger Kirk, Abiah Taylor, Isaac Wayne. 1801.— Thos. Bull, Juo. McDowell, Abiah Taylor, Isaac Wayne, William Gibbons. ( 1802.— Joseph Park, James Fulton, Ed- ward Darlington, Thomas Taylor, Methuse- lah Davis. 1803-04.— James Fulton, Edward Dar- lington, Methuselah Davis, John Boyd, Hezekiah Davis. 1805-06. — John Boyd, Methuselah Davis, James Kelton, Francis Gardner, John G. Bull. 1807. — Joseph Park, James Kelton, Wil- liam Worthington, Isaac Darlington, George Evans. 1808. — James Kelton, John G.Bull, Isaac Darlington, George Evans, Abraham Baily. 1809. James Steele, John W. Cunning- ham, John Ramsay, Jacob Clemmons, Roger Davis. 1810. — James Steele, John W. Cunning- ham, John Ramsay, Jacob Clemmons, Wil- liam Harris. 1811. — Edward Darlington, Jacob Clem- mons, William Harris, John Reed, James Brooke. 1812.— John G. Bull, Abraham Baily, John Menough, Nathan Pennypacker, Lea Pusey. 1813. — Edward Darlington, John Harris, John Reed, James Brooke, James Hindman. 1814. — Nathan Pennypacker, John Me- nough, Lea Pusey, Jacob Humphrey, James Roberts. 1815. — John Menough, Jacob Humphrey, James Roberts, Joseph Sharp, John Jones. 1816-17. — John Menough, Thomas Ash- bridge, Evan Evans, Joseph Sharp, Samuel Cochran. 1818. — Thomas Ashbridge, Wallace Boyd, John G. Parke, Joseph Sharp, Joshua Hunt. 104 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOMY — James Keltou,Thomas Ashbridge, Hunt, Abraham Baily, Thomas ames Baird, JKelton, Stephen Boyd, Elijah Joshua Hunt, Webb, Joshua Timothy Kirk, Lewis, Stephen 1819. Joshua. Baird. 1820. Thomas Evans. 1821.— Wallace Jonathan Jones, Webb. 1822.— Wallace Boyd, Timothy Kirk, Elijah Lewis, Jonathan Jones. 1823. — Elijah Lewis, Joshua Hunt, David Potts, jr., John Chandler. 1824-25.— Joshua Hunt, David Potts, jr., John Chandler, William Thompson. 1826-27.— William Thompson, Towns6nd Haines, Robert Miller, Matthias Penny- packer. 1828. — Robert Miller, John Morgan, Isaac Trimble, Dr. Samuel McCleane. 1829. — Joshua McMinn, Jesse James, Jesse Pugh, Gen. Matthew Stanley. 1830. — Thomas Ashbridge, Matthias Pen- nypacker, Arthur Andrews, Dr. Benjamin Griffith. 1831-32.— Thomas Ashbridge, Arthur Andrews, Dr. Benjamin Griffith, Elijah E. Pennypacker. 1833.— Oliver Alison, Dr. Samuel Mc- Cleane, Dr. Wilmer Worthington, Dr. Thomas L. Smith. 1834-35.— Elijah F.Pennypacker,Charles Brooke, John Hutchinson, John Parker. 1836.— John Parker, Abraham R. Mcll- vaine, Maurice Richardson, Isaac Downing. 1837. — Abraham R. Mcllvaine, Maurice Richardson, William H. Dillingham, Benja- min J. Passmore. 1838. — Maurice Richardson, Richard M. Barnard, William K. Correy, Beynard Way. 1839. — Joseph Baily, Joshua Hartshorne, John Morgan, Joel Swayne. 1840.— John D. Steele, Robert Puthey, William K. Correy, Dr. John B. Chrisman. 1841.— William K. Correy, Robert Futhey, Emmor Elton, Robert Laverty. 1842.— Emmor Elton, Robert Parke, Jesse C. Dickey, John Beidler. 1843. — Robert Parke, Jesse C. Dickey, Joseph Whitaker. 1844. — Robert Parke, Jesse C. Dickey, William Price. 1845.— William Price, Philip D. Thomas, George Ladley. 1846-47. — George Ladley, Henry S. Evans, Thomas K. Bull. 1848.— Henry S. Evans, Thomas K. Bull, David J. Bent. 1849.— David J. Bent, John S. Bowen, John Acker. 1850.— David J. Bent, John S. Bowen, James M. Dorian. 1851. — John Acker, William Chandler, Jesse James. 1852. — William Chandler, Jesse James, Dr. Joseph Hickman. 1853.— Robert E. Monaghan, Henry T. Evans, William Wheeler. 1854. — Dr. Matthias J. Pennypacker, Mark A. Hodgson, William R. Downing. 1855. — Andrew Buchanan, Joseph Dow- dall, Robert Irvin. 1856. — Dr. Ebenezer V. Dickey, James Penrose, Paxon Vickers. 1857.— John Hodgson, Eber W. Sharp, Morton Garrett. 1858-59-60.— Isaac Acker, William T. Shafer, Caleb Pierce. 1861-62-63.— P. Frazer^mith, William Windle, Robert L. McClellan. 1864-65-66.— Wm. B. Waddell, Nathan J. Sharpless, Dr. Ijfathan A. Pennypacker. 1867. — John Hickman, James M.Phillips, Dr. Stephen M. Meredith. OF CHESIEB COUNTY. 105 1868.— James M. Phillips, Dr. Stephen M. Meredith, Archimedes E,obb. 1869. — James C. Roberts, Joseph C. Keech, Abel Darlington. 1870. — Joseph C. Keech, Levi Prizer, Samuel H. Hoopes. 1871. — Joseph C. Keech, Levi Prizer. 1872-73.— Levi Prizer, Dr. E.W. Bailey. 1874.— E. W. Bailey, Peter G. Carey, John P. Edge, George F. Smith. 1876.— Samuel Butler, 'William T. Ful- ton, Jesse Matlack, John P. Edge. 1878.— Samuel Butler, William T. Ful- ton, Jesse Matlack, John A. Reynolds. 1880.— John A. Reynolds, Theodore K. Stubbs, John T. Potts, William Wayne. 1882. — Levi Fetters, Theodore K. Stubbs, John T. Potts, William Wayne. 1884.— Levi Fetters, Theodore K. Stubbs, William Wayne, Levi B. Kaled. 1886.— William Evans, Lewis H. Evans, John W. Hickman. 1888.— William Evans, Lewis H. Evans, John W. Hickman, W. W. McConnell. 1890.— W. P. Snyder, D. Smith Talbot, Joseph G. West, David H. Branson. PRESIDENT JUDGES. 1791, William Augustus Atlee; 1793, John Joseph Henry; 1800, John D. Cox; 1806, William Tilghman; .1806, Bird Wil- son; 1818, John Ross; 1821, Isaac Dar- lington; 1839, Thomas S. Bell; 1846, John M.Forster; 1847, James JSTill ; 1848, Henry Chapman; 1851, Townsend Haines; 1861, William Butler; 1879, J. Smith Futhey; 1889, William B. Waddell; 1890, Joseph Hemphill, judge of the courts of common pleas. ASSOCIATE JUDGES. 1791, Joseph Shippen, Walter Finney, James Moore; 1792, Benjamin Jacobs; 71 •2 1793, Samuel Evans, James Boyd; 1802, John Ralston; 1803, John Davis; 1825, Cromwell Pearce ; 1827, Jesse Sharp ; 1839, Thomas Jones; 1848, Mmrod Strickland; 1849, Samuel Shafer; 1851, Samuel Shafer and Joseph Hodgson ; 1856, Robert Parke, appointed to fill vacancy occasioned by the death of Judge Hodgson ; 1856, Nimrod Strickland and William WoUerton; 1858, January — John P. Bailey, appointed to fill vacancy occasioned by Judge Strickland's resignation; 1858, October — Robert Parke elected to fill vacancy; 1861, Robert Parke and John P. Bailey; 1863, Benjamin Pass- more, to succeed Judge Parke; 1866, John P. Bailey ; 1871, Joel Hawley. DISTRICT ATTORNEYS. 1793, Robert Frazer; 1800, John Ser- geant ; 1803, Thomas Sergeant ; 1803, Wil- liam Hemphill; 1809, John Duer,jr.; 1816, Robert Frazer; 1817, Isaac D. Barnard; 1821, Isaac Darlington; 1821, William H. Dillingham; 1824, Thomas S. Bell; 1828, Henry H. Van Amringe ; 1829, Philip S. Markley; 1830, Henry H. Van Amringe ; 1835, Joseph J.Lewis; 1836, William Dar- lington; 1839, Joseph Hemphill; 1845, John Hickman; 1846, Joseph J. Lewis; 1847, John Hickman ; 1847, John H. Brin- ton ; 1848, Washington Townsend; 1849, J. Smith Futhey; 1860, Paschall Wood- ward; 1853, J. Smith Futhey; 1866, Wil- liam Butler; 1859, Wayne McVeagh; 1862, Henry M. Mclntyre ; 1863, James J. Creigh, appointed to fill a vacancy occasioned by Mclntyre's death; 1863, James J. Creigh ; 1866, Francis T. Hooton; 1869, George F. Smith; 1872, Abraham Wanger; 1875, James H. Bull; 1879, Thomas W. Pierce; 1883, ; 1887, ; 1890, Edward D. Bingham. 106 BIOQ&APHY AND HISTOBY PROTHONOTARIES. 1712, Robert Assheton; 1733, Joseph Parker; 1770, Henry Hale Graham; 1777, Beiijauiiu Jacobs (declined to accept); 1777, Caleb Davis; 1791, William Gibbons; 1800, Daniel Hiester; 1809, Jesse John; 1818, John G. Wersler; 1821, Thomas Davis; 1824, William Williamson; 1827, David Townsend; 1827, Dr. William Darlington; 1830, John W. Cunningham; 1836, Ben- jamin I. Miller ; 1838-9, Samuel Pinkerton ; 1842, Abner M. Chamberlain; 1845, James Davis; 1848, Samuel B. Thomas; 1851, William WoUerton; 1854, James Bayard Jefleris; 1857, Jacob Gilbough; 1860, Em- uior B. Lamborn; 1863, Franklin Haines; 1866, Alfred Rupert; 1869, Seneca G. Wil- lauer; 1872, John A. Rupert; 1875, Han- num Baldwin; 1878, James Lynch; 1881, Davis K. Loomis; 1884, J. T. Carpenter; 1887, Wm. P. Snyder; 1891, D. C. Windle. RECORDERS 1688-1892. 1688, John Bristovp; 1691, JoshuaFearne; 1693, Robert Eyre; 1695, John Childe; 1700, Henry HoUingsworth ; 1706, Peter Evans ; 1707, broken record ; 1777, Thomas Taylor; 1782, John Beaton; 1786, Persifor Frazer; 1792, Stephen Moylan; 1793, John Hannum; 1798, Richard M. Hannum; 1800, John Christie; 1804, James Bones; 1806, John Smith; 1809, Charles Kenny; 1818, Jesse Sharp; 1821, Daniel Hiester; 1824, Stephen Marshall; 1830, ISTimrod Strick- land; 1833, Robert Ralston; 1836, Edward Bartholomevt' ; 1839, George Hartuian; 1842, Abner Williams; 1845, William Mc- Cullough; 1848, Edward H. Hibbard; 1861, Thomas Walter; 1854, Robert F. Hoopes; 1857, Thomas S. Taylor; 1860, Jonas G. Bossert; 1863, David Andrews; 1866, Dilwyn Parker; 1869, John A. Groff; 1872, C.Burleigh Hambleton; 1875, Edwin Bateman, died, and S. M. Paxson acted; 1877, Franklin P. Ash ; 1880, Harry Sloyer ; 1883, Richard H. Plank; 1886, Sharpless M. Paxton ; 1889, Hugh Kenworthy, jr. REGISTERS OF WILLS. 1714, John Simcoek; 1716, Joseph Parker; 1759, Henry Hale Graham; 1777, Thomas Taylor; 1782, John Beaton ; 1786, Persifor Frazer; 1792, Stephen Moylan; 1793, John Hannum; 1798, Richard M. Hannum; 1800, John Christie; 1804, James Bones; 1806, John Smith; 1809, Charles Kenny; 1818, Jesse Sharp; 1821, Daniel Hiester; 1824, Joseph Pearce; 1828, Eber Worthington; 1830, Robert Ralston ; 1833, Ninirod Strickland; 1836, James Walker: 1839, Jesse Coulson; 1842, George W. Park ; 1845, Henry Buckwalter ; 1848, Wil- liam Baker; 1851, Alexander Leslie; 1854, Hickman James; 1857, Amariah Strick- land; 1860, Dr. Charles L. Seal; 1863, George C. M. Eicholtz; 1866, Hampton 8. Thomas; 1869, Levi G. McCauley; 1872, Lewis H. Evans ; 1875, George H. Paxton ; 1878, William S. Underwood; 1881, B. F. Widdicombe; 1884, B. Levis Hoopes; 1887, N. J. Waitneight; 1890, F. A. Thomas. CLERKS OF COURTS. 1681, Thomas Revell ; 1 683, Robert Eyre ; 1690, Joshua Fearne; 1693, John Childe; 1700, Henry HoUingsworth; 1709, John Simcoek; 1713, Richard Marsden ; 1717, George Teates ; 1719, Richard Marsden ; 1724, Joseph Parker; 1766, Henry Hale Graham; 1777, Caleb Davis; 1791, William Gibbons; 1800, Daniel Hiester; 1809, Jesse John; 1818, John G. Wersler; 1821, Thomas Davis; 1821, Henry Fleming; 1824, William Williamsou ; 1824, Joseph Pearce ; OF CHESTER COVNTY. 107 1826, Joseph Pearce ; 1827, David Town- send; 1827, Dr. William Darlington ; 1828, Simeon Siegfried; 1830, John W. Cunning- ham ; 1830, George Fisher; 1833, John W. Cunningham; 1833, George Fisher; 1835, P. Fraser Smith ; 1836, Horatio G. Worrall ; 1839, James M. Kinnard; 1842, Cheyuey Fields; 1845, Alexander Marshall; 1848, Thomas P. Williams ; 1851, James Sweney ; 1854, Thomas W. Parker; 1857, Addis M. Ayars; 1860, Thomas P. Evans; 1863, Thomas H. Windle; 1866, James E. Mc- Farlan; 1869, William H. Guie; 1872, James H. Wynn; 1875, William W. Scott; 1878, Pierce Hoopes, jr.; 1881, Edward Paist; 1884, Davis 0. Taylor, killed in ex- plosion in 1887; 1887, Thomas W. Taylor; 1890, H. Morgan Ruth. SHERIFFS. 1676, Capt. Edmund Cantwell ; 1681, John Test; 1682, Thomas Usher; 1683, Thomas Withers; 1684, Jeremy CoUett; 1686, Thomas Usher; 1687, Joshua Fearne ; 1689, George Foreman ; 1692, Caleb Pusey ; 1693, Joseph Wood; 1697, Andrew Job; 1701, JohnHoskins; 1708, John Simcock; 1709, John Hoskius; 1715, Henry Worley; 1717, Mcholas Fairlamb; 1720, John Crosby; 1721, John Taylor; 1729, John Owen; 1732, John Parry; 1735, John Owen; 1738, John Parry; 1740, Benjamin Davis; 1743, John Owen; 1746, Benjamin Davis; 1749, John Owen; 1752, Isaac Pearson; 1756, John Fairlamb; 1759, Benjamin Davis; 1762, John Fairlamb; 1764, Philip Ford; 1766, John Morton; 1769, Jesse Maris; 1772, Henry Hayes; 1774, l^athaniel Vernou ; 1777,RobertSmith; 1778, Charles Dilworth; 1778, Robert Smith; 1779, David Mackey ; 1780, John Gardner; 1783, William Gib- bons; 1786, Ezekiel Leonard; 1789, Charles Dilworth; 1792, Col. Joseph McClellan; 1795, Ezekiel Leonard; 1798, William Worthington; 1801, James Bones; 1801, James Kelton ; 1804, Jesse John; 1807, Titus Taylor; 1810, George Hartman; 1813, Jesse Good; 1816, Cromwell Pearce; 1819, Samson Babb; 1822, Jesse Sharp; 1825, Jonathan Jones ; 1828, Oliver Alison ; 1831, Peter Osborne; 1834, Robert L'win; 1837, Joseph Taylor ; 1840,William Rogers ; 1843, Nathan Frame ; 1844, Clinton Frame ; 1844, James Bayard Wood; 1847, Brinton Dar- lington; 1850, Davis Bishop; 1853, Lewis Heffelfinger; 1856, David MclSTutt; 1859, Jacob Heffelfinger; 1862, Rees Welsh; 1865, Pusey J. Nichols; 1868, DeWitt Clinton Lewis; 1871, Davis Gill ; 1875, William B. Morrison; 1877, James E.McFarlan ; 1880, George R. Hoopes; 1883, William Baker; 1886, Benjamin Irey, died in office thirty- four hours after his induction ; his successor, George R. Hoopes, was appointed until 1888; 1888, William Gallagher; 1891, James G. Parker. TKBASURBRS — 1695-1892. 1695, Jeremiah CoJlett; 1697, Walter Marten ; 1704, Caleb Pusey ; 1706, Walter Marten; 1720, Henry Pierce; 1724, Philip Taylor; 1740, Joseph Brinton ; 1756, Rob- ert Miller; 1761, Humphry Marshall; 1765, Jesse Maris, jr. ; 1766, Lewis Davis; 1770, James Gibbons; 1770 (?) Richard Thomas; 1775, Philip Taylor; 1775, John Brinton; 1778, Thomas Levis ; 1779, William Evans ; 1780, Persifor Frazer; 1781, David Cloyd; 1782, no record; 1785, Andrew Boyd and David Cloyd; 1786, William Evans; 1788, Andrew Boyd; 1790, William Haslett; 1791, John Hannuni; 1793, Elijah Mc- Clenachan; 1794, John Mechem ; 1795, William Trimble ; 1796, Samuel Cochran; 108 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 1797, George Davis; 1798, Robert Miller; 1799, James Kelton; 1801, Evan Evans; 1802, John Menough; 1803, Titus Taylor; 1804, William Worthington ; 1806, John Rinehart; 1807, James Lockart; 1808, John C. Parke ; 1809, Joshua Gibbons ; 1810, David Denny; 1811, Jesse Good; 1812, William Evans ; 1813, David Wilson ; 1814, James Ramsey; 1815, Eber Worthington ; 1816, David Townsend; 1817, Alexander Chand- ler; 1818, Jesse Mercer; 1819, Samuel Baldwin ; 1820, Maris Taylor; 1821, Joshua Weaver; 1822, Benjamin Thomas; 1823, Jesse Pugh; 1824, Robert Miller; 1826, James Davis; 1827, Abisha Clark; 1828, Ezra Cope; 1829, Joseph Hughes; 1830, Benjamin Parker; 1831, Isaac Thomas; 1832, Melchi Happersett; 1833, James Alexander ; 1834, Abraham Darlington, jf . ; 1835, Joseph B. Jacobs; 1837, William Embree; 1840, Samuel M. Painter; 1842, S. C. Jefferis; 1843, Samuel M. Painter; 1844, Morgan Reese; 1846, James M. Hughes ; 1848, Samuel Davis; 1850, George W. Pearce; 1852, Henry Beidler; 1854, Samuel Wickersham ; 1856, Townsend Walter; 1858, Charles Fairlamb; 1860, Joseph I. Tustin ; 1862, Reuben Bernard 1864, C. H. Kinnard ; 1866, John T. Potts 1868, Philip Price; 1870, Edwin Baker 1872, Frank Shellady; 1874, Jesse E. Phillips; 1875, John G. Moses; 1878, John H. Buckwalter; 1881, Emmor Griffith; 1884, David Cope; 1887, R. L. Hayes; 1890, W. E. Pennypacker. COMMISSIONERS 1721-1892. 1721, David Lloyd, John Wood, Nathan- iel JSTewlin, Henry Miller (in office); 1722, Robert Pyle; 1723, Nathaniel Newlin; 1724, Samuel HoUingsworth ; 1725, Robert Pyle; 1726, Isaac Taylor; 1727, William Webb; 1728, Henry Miller, Evan Lewis; 1729, Samuel Nutt; 1730, Evan Lewis; 1731, Jacob Howell; 1732, Samuel Lewis; 1733, George Aston; 1734, John Davis; 1735, Richard Jones ; 1736, Samuel Light- foot; 1737, John Parry, jr.; 1738, William Jefferis; 1739, John Davis; 1740, John Parry, jr. ; 1741, John Yarnall ; 1742, John Davis; 1743, Jacob Howell; 1744, Joseph Meudenhall; 1745, John Davis; 1746, Thomas Pennell ; 1747, Joshua Thompson ; 1748, Isaac Davis; 1749, Thomas Pennell; 1750, Edward Brinton, Samuel Bunting; 1751, William Lewis; 1752, John Fair- lamb; 1753, Robert Miller; 1754, Thomas Pearson; 1755, Joseph Ashbridge; 1756, Joseph Davis; 1757, Joseph James; 175'8, John Hannum ; 1759, Jonas Preston ; 1760, Joseph Pennock; 1761, John Griffith; 1762, Lewis Davis; 1763, John Price; 1764, Benjamin Bartholomew; 1765, Richard Baker; 1766, John Davis; 1767, Robert Pennell; 1768, John Webster; 1769, John Evans; 1770, Jesse Bonsall ; 1771, Robert Mendenhall ; 1772, John Fleming; 1773, Thomas Levis; 1774, Thomas Taylor; 1775, William Evans; 1776, Sketchley Morton; 1777, David Cloyd; 1778, Andrew Boyd ; 1779, Benja- min Brannan; 1780, John Bartholomew; 1781, Joseph Strawbridge; 1782, Caleb James; 1783, John Davis; 1784, Joseph McClellan; 1785, Caleb James; 1786, Caleb North; 1787, John Worth; 1788, Joseph Gibbons; 1789, James Moore ; 1790, Elijah McClenachan; 1791, John Mecham ; 1792, William Trimble, jr.; 1793, Sam- uel Cochran; 1794, George Davis; 1796. George Miller; 1796, James Kelton ; 1797, William Rogers; 1798, Evan Evans; 1799, John Menough ; 1800, Titus Taylor; 1801, John Rinehart; 1802, OF CHESTEE COUNTY. 109 John Ramsey; 1803, Thomas Taylor; 1804, James Lockhart; 1805, John G. Parke; 1806, Joshua Gibbons; 1807, David Denny; 1808, Jesse Good; 1809,. William Evans ; 1810, David Wilson ; 1811, James Ramsey; 1812, Eber Worthington; 1813, David Townsend; 1814, Alexander Chan- dler; 1815, Jesse Mercer; 1816, Samuel Baldwin ; 1817, Maris Taylor; 1818, Joshua Weaver; 1819, Benjamin Thomas; 1820, Jesse Pugh; 1821, Isaac Trimble; 1822, James Davis; 1823, Abisha Clark; 1824, Ezra Cope; 1825, Joseph Hughes; 1826, Benjamin Parker; 1827, Isaac Thomas; 1828, Melchi Happersett; 1829, James Al- exander; 1830, George Gregg; 1831, Evan Evans; 1832, Joseph Wood ; 1833, Walker Yarnall ; 1834, John Malin ; 1835, Alexan- der Correy ; 1836, Elijah Lewis-; 1837, John Beidler; 1838, Johh W. Paesmore; 1839, Hibbard Evans; 1840, John Templeton; 1841, Hatton Mercer; 1842, John Worth; 1843, Mordecai Lee ; 1844, Enos Pennock ; 1845, Smith Sharpless ; 1846, David Byerly, 1847, Daniel Thompson ; 1848, John Han- num; 1 849, Rees Welsh; 1850, Joel Thomp- son; 1851, Thomas Vandever ; 1852, Jacob Kulp; 1853, N'ewton L ISTichols; 1854, Al- bert Way; 1856, William G. Marti an d ; 1856, Joseph Russell; 1857, Titus W. Gheen ; 1858, Benjamin Hartmau ; 1859, Caleb Windle ; 1860, Thomas Bateman ; 1861, Joseph G. King; 1862, Andrew Mitchell ; 1863, Lorenzo Beck ; 1864, Levi H. Crouse ; 1865, Thomas M. Charlton ; 1866, Joseph F. Hill ; 1867, Joseph Doan ; 1868, Washington Haggerty; 1869, C. Mar- shall Ingram; 1870, ISTathan G. Grimm; 1871, Alfred Wood ; 1872, Matthew Barker ; 1873, John Irey; 1874, David Ramsey; 1875, David Ramsey, John Irey, John Mc- Williams; 1878, Jacob M. Zook, William M. Elliott, Edwin Otley; 1881, ; 1884, ; 1887, J. C. Henderson, M. S. Fiedler, John D. Decker; 1890, S. D. White, Harrison Renard, David M. Cox. COEONERS— 1684-1892. 1684, James Kennerly ; 1696, Jacob Sim- cock; 1707, Henry Hollingsworth; 1710, Henry Worley; 1717, Jonas Sandelands; 1721, Robert Barber; 1726, John Menden- hall; 1728, Robert Parke; 1729, Abraham Darlington; 1730, John Wharton; 1732, Anthony Shaw; 1734, John Wharton; 1737, Stephen Hoskins; 1738, Aubrey Bevan ; 1743, Thomas Morgan; 1746, Isaac Lea; 1751, Joshua Thomson ; 1752, John Kerlin ; 1753, Joshua Thomson; 1761, Philip Ford; 1763, Davis Bevan; 1765, Abel Janney; 1766, John Trapnall; 1768, Joseph Gibbons; 1771, John Crosby, jr.; 1773, John Bryan; 1778, David Denny; 1780, Allen Cuniugham; 1782, Benjamin Rue; 1783, John Harper; 1785, Isaac Thomas; 1786, John Harper; 1787, John Underwood; 1789, ISTathan Scholfield; 1794, James Bones ; 1798, Joshua Weaver; 1800, Jacob Righter ; 1803, Robert Miller; 1805, Ephraim Buffington ; 1808, Jacob Righter ; 1811, Joseph Pearce; 1814, Jesse McCall; 1817, Joel C. Bailey; 1820, Emmor Brad- ley ; 1826, Anthony W. Olwine ; 1829, Davis Brooke ; 1832, Benjamin J. Passmore ; 1835, Thomas Ervin ; 1838, William Taggart; 1841, Hezekiah Jackson; 1844, Daniel melds; 1847, Thomas Walker; 1850,David Williams; 1853, Hashabiah demons; 1866, Robert Mcl!feely ; 1859, Benjamin Franklin Smith; 1862, Joseph W. Barnard; 1869, William H. Turner ; 1872, Joseph B. Smith ; 1875, William V. Rambo; 1878, Barclay Lear; 1881-1886, ; 1887, Ernest White; 1890, J. Jones McFadgen. 110 BIOGRAPHY AND BISIORY County Societies. — The first county agri- cultural society is supposed to have been the one that was organized in 1820, and the present agricultural society held its first ex- hibition in 1853. The Chester County Cabinet of Natural Sciences was organized in 1826. The Chester and Delaware County Agricultural society was formed in 1838. The Chester County Horticultural society came into existence about 1845, and three years later built a hall which was afterwards used for teachers' institutes. The Chester County Mutual Live Stock Insurance Com- pany was incorporated May 1, 1866, and continued in existence until 1874. The Chester County Medical society was organ- ized February 5, 1828, and continued to hold meetings until 1831. It reorganized in 1847, and during the war its members patriotically attended, without charge, the families of all Union soldiers who were in the field. Secret Societies. — The leading secret and beneficial orders are well represented in Chester county. Free Masonry. — We give the numbers, names, locations and years of institution of the following Masonic Lodges of the county : No. Name. Place. Year. 75. Phoenix. Phcenixville. 1798 309. Williamson. Downingtown. 1857 322. Westchester. West Chester. 1858 340. Thomson. G-reen Tree. 1860 343. Skerrett. Cochranville. 1862 353. Oxford. Oxford. 1864 383. Goddard. Coatesville. 1867 405. Howell. Brookville. 1867 446. Mt.Pi eke ring 1869 475. Kenuet. Kennett Square 1875 545. New London. New London. 1876 553. Spring City. Spring City. 1877 In addition to these lodges in the county are Centennial Commandery, No. 55, and Phoenix (No. 198), Coatesville (No. 207), and Oxford (No. 223) chapters. Odd Fellowship. — We compile the follow- ing statistics of the lodges of this order in the county for 1891 : Belief No. Name. Members. Afforded. 42. Westchester 145 | 349 199. Star of Hope 122 725 212. PhoenixviUe 128 1,206 290. Paoli 65 303 316. Pocahontas 89 29 324. Fairview 105 383 359. Banner 116 836 363. Pughtown 52 341 370. Octoraro 100 1,194 385. Chatham 38 379 388. Brandywine 100 715 394. Patterson 50 297 402. Eastern Star 106 369 404. Social Friends 66 233 432. Ivanhoe 72 663 437. Hebron 98 760 455. Pilgrims 73 396 459. Valley Forge 34 34 502. Academy 51 190 762. Vincent 102 329 764. Parkesburg 118 233 940. U. Birmingham 35 194 998. Berwyn , 57 82 Totals 1,922 |10,130 Besides these lodges in the county are: General Marion Encampment (No. 91) and other Encampments; and several degree lodges of the Daughters of Rebekah. Knights of the Golden Eagle. — We com- pile the following statistics of the castles of this order in the county for 1891 : OF CHESTER COUNTY. Ill Relief No. Name. Members. Afforded. 45 Washington 211 $ 82 67 Stratford 85 180 78 Goshen 36 60 92 Windsor 102 130 94 Coatesville Ill 71 142 Ansonia 53 69 213 Grove 58 8 226 West Chester 66 104 232 Oxford... 95 205 233 Russellville 108 106 237 Highland 36 6 243 Kennet 49 80 273 Landenburg 85 75 290 Evergreen 48 89 Totals 1,143 $1,265 Washington Castle was instituted Febru- ary 24, 1885, and Evergreen on November 6, 1888. Patrons of Husbandry. — Of the granges organized in the county we have the fol- lowing statistics : Year No. Name. Organized. 9. Pioneer 1873. 19. Kennet 1873. 23. Schuylkill 1873. 53. Upper Uwchlan 1873. 60. Brandywine.. 1873. 63. LondonGrove 1874. 67. Oxford 1874. 77. Chester Valley 1874. 91. Russellville ." 1874. 114. Willistown 1874. 121. Goshen 1874. 123. JSTew London 1874. 130. Lincoln 1874. 141. Franklin 1874. 180. Lewisville 1874. 271. East Lynn 1874. Pioneer Grange was organized at West Grove, July 30, 1873, and Pomona, JSTo. 3, district grange, was instituted June 3, 1875. Of the organizations of the various other secret orders in the county we have account of the following : General McCall Post, No. 31, G. A. R; Brandywine Post, No. 54, G. A. R; W. S. Thompson Post, No. 132, G. A. R; Estella Lodge, No. 131, K. of P ; Onondago Tribe, No. 83, I. 0. of R. M ; Tamenend Tribe, No. 192, I. 0. of R. M ; Yankton Tribe, No. 218, L 0. of R. M. In 1891 the following fraternal and secret organizations in the United States and their membership were : Free Masons, 673,643 ; Odd Fellows, 647,641 ; Grand Army of the Republic, 398,270 ; Ancient Order of United Workmen, 267,611; Knights of Pythias, 263,847 ; Knights of Honor, 138,256 ; Ira- proved Order of Red Men, 111,644 ; Royal Arcanum, 118,454 ; Sons of Veterans, 100,- 000 ; Patriotic Order Sons of America, 100,- 000 ; Ancient Order of Foresters, 90,000 ; Order of Chosen Friends, 38,821; and Catholic Mutual Benefit Association, 35,- 000. Townships. — The fifty-six townships of the county are situated as follows: seven range along the Downingtown valley, while eighteen are north of it, and thirty lie to the south. Birmingham Township. — It lies in the southeastern part of the county, and is bounded on the north by East Bradford, Westtown and Thornbury townships; on the east by Delaware county ; on the south by Pennsbury township and Delaware county ; and on the west by Pennsbury and Pocopson townships. Geologically consid- ered it is in the southern gneiss region of the county, and rests on gneiss and serpen- tine rock formations, while a small outcrop 113 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY of limestone occurs on a stream between Thomas Brinton's and Abraham Huey's. The township was in all probability named by William Brinton, an early settler, after his native town of Birmingham in England. It was surveyed in 1684, organized as a municipal district in 1686, and in 1689, upon the division of the county, the larger part of the original township fell into Delaware county. In 1856 a portion of EastBradford township was added to it. The land owners in Birmingham town- ship in 1774 were : Edward, Caleb, George and David Brinton, John Bennett, Obadiah Bonsell, Thomas Bullock, "William Bold, Thomas, James and Robert Chandler, Abra- ham Darlington, jr., Joseph Davis, sr., Joseph Davis, jr., Lydia, Charles, James and Joseph Dilworth, Robert Frame, Harry and John Gordon, Gideon Gilpin, Robert Green, William Harvey, Amos House, Thomas Hannum, John Henderson, William Jones, Benjamin Miller, Robert McElhoe, William Mason, Robert Messer, John JSTicklin, Sam- uel Painter, James Russell, Robert Rankin, Benjamin and ITathaniel Ring, James and William Smith, Rachel Sail, James and Thomas Stroud, John Thatcher, John Wood- art, Rachel Warson, ^Nathaniel Yarnall, Thomas Jones, Elias ISTeals, John Perry, David Johnson, David May, Thomas and Benjamin McDaniel, James Lattimore, John McGloughlin, Robert Logan, James N"ew- man, and Eras. Herberson. The battle of Brandywine was fought in this township, Chad's Ford being in Dela- ware, and Birmingham Meeting house in Chester county. Cain Township. — This township is bounded on the north by East and West Brandywine townships; on the east by East Cain township ; on the south by West Brad- ford and East Fallowfield townships; and on the west by Valley township. It was named after the town of Calne in Wiltshire, England, and originally included the terri- tory of the Cain and Brandywine townships, and a part of Valley township. It was divided into East and West Cain, and in 1868 the present township was taken from their territory. It lies in the Downingtown Valley, and contains limestone and mica schist rocks, clay deposits, and sand of superior quality which is found in pits. Surveys were made in 1702, and in 1715 we have account of the following settlers : Joseph and William Cloud, John and Aaron Mendenhall, Peter and William Taylor, Thomas Moore, William Flemin, James Swafler, Daniel Smith, Anthony Morris, Philip Roman, John Richards, Thomas Eflbrd, and Richard Webb. Gharlestowri Township. — It is bounded on the northwest by East and West Pikeland townships ; on the east by Schuylkill town- ship ; on the south by Tredyffrin, and East and West Whiteland townships ; and on the west by Lower Uwchlan township. The three principal geological formations in the township are the mesozoic sandstone, the azoic measures and the Potsdam sandstone. The township and Pickering creek, which flows through it, were named for Charles Pickering, of Asmore, Chester county, Eng- land, who discovered what he supposed to be silver ore on the creek that bears his name, and in consequence thereof obtained from Penn a grant of a large tract of land along the stream. He was afterwards drowned while crossing the ocean, and his land was divided among sixteen of his friends, in accordance to a will which he had made previous to setting sail. The landowners in 1774 were: Patrick OF CHESTER COUNTY. 113 Anderson, Joseph Alexander, John and Daniel Buckwalter, Frederick Bussard,Wil- liam Bodley, Benjamin Beyers, Elias Brown, Anne Boyers, James Cloyd, Moses, Jona- than and Benjamin Coates, Joseph Conrad, Alex. Campbell, John and Christopher Coon, Israel, Llewellyn, Jenkin and David Davis, William Deweese, Abner Evans, John Francis, Nich. Foose, Val. Foose, William Fussel, Fred. Geerhart, William Graham, John Griffith, John Griffith (schoolmaster), Nich. and Christian Halderman, Samuel Harvey, John Humphrey, Jacob Hooinel, Nich. Halderman, jr., David John, Griffith Jones, David James, John Keiter, Benj. Longstreth, George Late, Edwin Lane, William Moore, esq., Alex. McAuley , George McKenny, James and Joel Martin, Henry and Jacob Miller, Isaac Morgan, Christian Mary, Ant. Pritchard, Jacob Pennypacker, Thos. Robinson, Daniel Rossiter, Thomas Roberts, John Richardson, Philip Rapp, Joseph Starr, Joseph Starr, jr., Joseph Smith, Joseph Showalter, Martin Shenbolk, Jacob Sturk, Andrew Turk, Amos, James and Benjamin Thomas, Richard Tompkins, John Varley, John Vergloth, Sebastian Wagoner, David and Thomas Williams, James White, Christian Whittaker, Jon. Wells, John Youngblood, Robert Kennedy, James McConnell, Michael King, Jane Martin, Matthias Pennypacker, and Michael Holman. The early settlers were mostly Welsh, fol- lowed by some Germans, and in 1826 the eastern part of Charlestown was erected into Schuylkill township. East Bradford Township. — It is bounded on the north by East Cain township ; on the east by West Whiteland and West Goshen ; on the south by Westtown and Birming- ham; and on the west by Pocopson and 8 West Bradford townships. It was formed, on ITovember 31, 1731, from the eastern part of Bradford township ; and Richard Buffington is supposed to have been the first permanent English settler within its limits. A portion of its southern territory in 1856 was attached to Birmingham town- ship. The northern part of the township is entirely occupied by mica- schists, while the southern part lies in the azoic slates. Lime- stone is found in the northeastern part, and a small and narrow area of serpentine ex- ists in the 'southern part. It is well watered and lies between two railways. East Bradford's landowners in 1774 were as follows: Abiah, Deborah, John and Abram Taylor ; Abel Boake, Amos Davis, Abigail Fling, Benj. Hawley, Chas. Ryan, Daiiiel Davis, Emmor Jefferis, Enoch Gray, Geo. Carter, Geo. Dunavan, Geo. Entriken, Henry Woodward, Hannah Carter, Joseph Rhoades, Jas. Jeiieris, Joseph, Samuel and Nathan Cope, Jos. Buffington, Jos. Parke, John Hannum, Jos. Temple, John Jones, James Wolerton, Joseph Wolerton, Joshua Hoops, Jas. Starr, John Towusend, Isaac Chapman, John Darlington, Joseph Under- wood, James Painter, Joseph Downing, Jacob Talbot, Mary Grubb, Jas. Robinson, John Underwood, ITathan Hoops, ITathan- iel Jefferis, Richard Jones, Richard Strode, Richard Jefferis, Samuel Painter, Susannah Davis, Samuel Entriken, Thos. Speakman, Thos. Worth, Thos. Hall, Thos. Carter, Wm. Messer, Samuel Osborn, Joseph Haw- ley, and Joseph Strode. East Brandywine Township. — This town- ship is bounded on the north by Wallace ; on the east by Upper and Lower Uwchlan and East Cain townships ; on the south by Cain ; and on the west by West Brandywine 114 BIOaSAPSY ANDl SISTOMY township. It lies in the northern gneiss region and is entirely composed of the hornblendic gneisses, feldspathic rocks and pseudo-conglomerates; except three small areas of Potsdam quartzite, which are found respectively around Guthriesville, in the northeastern part, and at the southeastern extremity of the township. East Brandywiue is the eastern part of Brandywine township which was formed from East Cain in 1790, and divided into East and "West Brandywine townships in 1844. Its landholders in 1774 are included in the list given for East Cain. The West Brandywine river runs from north to south through the western part, and along its banks the Wilmington & Reading railroad passes. East Cain Township. — It is bounded on the north by Lower Uwchlan ; on the east by "West "Whiteland; on the south by East and West Bradford; and on the west by Cain and East Brandywine townships. It lies principally in the Downingtown valley. The limestone formations toward the north are bounded by the hydro-mica-schists of the northern gneiss region. Paint clays occur near Baldwin, and several marble quarries have been opened. East Cain is drained by the waters of the East Brandy- wine river, and three railways pass through its territory. The landholders in 1774 were : Joshua, John and William Baldwin, John, Joseph and Richard Downing, Jason Cloud, William Barry, George Buchanan, Abiah Parke, Rich. Cheyne, Henry Barker, Robert Val- entine, Jon. Parke, David Jenkins, Jona. Hoops,Williara Roberts, Isaac Webb, James Sheward, Samuel Hunt, James Hood, John Valentine, Anne Park, Obed Lewis, John Hoops, Griffith Mendenhall, Robert Valen- tine, jr., Curtis Lewis, Rachel Roman, Han- nah Pym, Thomas Stalker, Warwick Mil- ler, esq., Thomas, Isaac and Moses Coats, Mary Hart, James Thompson, Alex., Joseph and Peter Fleming, Robert Elton, Andrew Cox, Thomas and Samuel White, Joseph Arbuckle, James McKelby, Andrew, Samuel and John Culbertson, James Clark, John Carmichael, William and Robert Wilson, George Kennedy, John Walker, John Proudfoot, Mary Cox, Francis Zook, Samuel Thompson, Joshua Mendenhall, Adam Guthry, William Iddings, Ludwick Liggett, Thomas Windle, Richard Buffington, James Guthry, Andrew Elliott, Joseph McKinley, Thomas Fisher, Robert Darlington, Samuel Rolliday, William and Joseph Long, John Gileylen, James Stanley, John Smith, Henry Lewis, Isaac Green, Isabel, Arch. andTheop. Irwin, Robert and James Lockhart, James Hanson, William Todd, James McGlauglin, William Johnston, James and Charles Jack, and James and Michael Miller. East Coventry Township. — It is bounded on the northwest by IS^orth Coventry town- ship ; on the northeast by Montgomery county ; on the southeast by East Vincent township ; and on the southwest by East Vincent and South Coventry townships. It lies within the Schuylkill or mesozoic region of the county, and no other rocks occur in its territory than those that are characteris- tic of the mesozoic formation. East Coventry township was formed in 1844 by a division of North Coventry town- ship, which had been created in 1841 by the division of Coventry township into North and South Coventry townships. The original township of Coventry was named by Samuel Nutt, an early settler, in honor of Coventry, in Warwickshire, England. East Coventry is drained by tributary OF CBESTMR COUNTY. 115 streams of the Schuylkill river. The original Coventry township in 1774 comprised the territory of North, South and East Coventry townships, and its landholders in that year were : James Arbuckle, Jacob and John Acker, Peter Amole, Abraham, Jacob, Henry, and Henry Brower, jr., Daniel and Eve Brower, Henry Banner, John Bowe, Henry Beer, Joseph Brooks, Daniel Beery, Peter Crumbaker, Adam Deam, Godfrey Dowenhauer, George Ditlow, John Davis, James English, Owen Evans, Conrad Grim, George Grouse, Anna, Abraham, Henry and David Grubb, John Highter, Rennard Gun- senhauser, Thomas Hockley, John High,, Michael Halderman, Ificholas Herwick, Stopher Halderman, John Imhotf, Allan Jack, Jacob Kittingher, Jacob Keringer, Jacob Light, Jacob Longacre, Justus Lin- dernian, Mary Keiser, Nicholas Keller, Nicholas, Villdy and Tobias Miller, Peter Mower, Martin Ornen, James Hockley & Potts, William Plaine, Christian Reiff, Rob- ert Milhouse, Simon Meredy (Meredith), Abraham Moore, Jonathan and John Pugh, John Rinnard, Frederick Rinhard, Bastian Ruff, John Smith, Michael Swick, Abraham Sliver, Conrad Swither, Frederick SchoU, John Sowder, Ulrich Swither, John Switzer, Jacob Steger, John Varley, Martin Wofe, Susannah Wells, Jacob Fetterling, Jonas Rodrough, Richard Custard, Jacob Thomas, Henry Schenkel, Jacob Row, Jacob Live- good, Daniel Engle, Michael Smith, Fred- erick Huck, Rees John, Rudolph Shenenian, John Holsenberger, Ludwick Stophel, and Nicholas Munshower. East Fallowfield Township. — This township is bounded on the north by Sadsbury, Val- ley and Cain; on the east by West Bradford andNewlin townships ; on the south by West Marlborough ; and on the west by Highland township. The rocks of this township are all mica-schists, and lie in the mica-slate or South Valley hill region. East Fallowfield was formed in 1743 by the division of Fal- lowfield township into East and West Fal- lowfield townships. The original Fallowfield township is said to have been named in honor of Lancelot Fallowfield of Great Strickland, England, who was one of the first purchasers of land from William Penn. It has two railways, one passing along its western border and the other through its eastern part. In 1774 the landowners of East Fallow- field township were : Joseph and William Adams, Robert Burns, John Bell, William Banting, Robert Bell, Widow Bold, William Boggs, Patterson Bell, David Brooks, George Cowpland, Nathan, James, Robert, Stephen and George Cochran, John Caruthers, Rob- ert Cowden, John Danold, James Dunn, Samuel Futhey, Hugh Fearon, Archibald Guy, James and Adam Glendening, George, Alexander and Andrew Gibson, James Hannnm, William Haslett, Nathan Hayes, Ebenezer Harper, Robert Hamill, Richard, John and Thomas Irwin, John, Andrew and Joseph Kirkpatrick, William Kees, Thomas Love, James Laughead, James Logan, David and James Ligget, George MeGuire, James McCausland, Thomas McClure, Patrick Mc- Laughlin, James McCormick, William Mc- Illhaney, Andrew Moore, Robert Noble, Thomas Ofiicer, Ellis Pusey, Israel Peraber- ton, Arthur and John Park, Andrew Reed, Francis Ruth, James Rankin,William Reed, James and John and James, jr., Smith, James Scott, John Taylor, George Sloan, William, Joseph and William, jr.. Stringer, William Townsend, John Truman, William Vogan, Samuel and Joseph Wilson, Thomas Wallace, and Sarah Weldon. 116 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY East Goshen Township. — It is bounded on the north by East and West Whiteland townships ; on the east by Willistown ; on the south by Willistown and Westtown townships; and on the west by West Goshen township. The northern part of the township lies in the mica-slate or South Valley hill region, and is separated by a narrow belt of ser- pentine from the azoic slate formation that spreads out over the central and southern parts of its territory. Its drainage is by several creeks which flow south to the Del- aware river. We find that the original G-oshen township in 1774 included the ter- ritory of both East and West Goshen, and its landholders in that year were : George, Aaron and Joshua Ashbridge ; William Bane, Joseph Beaumont, Alexander Boggs, John Bowen, John Chapman, Jesse Can by, Stephen Cimes, Amos Davis, Thomas and John Darlington, Lawrence Cox, Lydia Davis, Jonathan Eldridge, Enoch Eacus (Eachus), William Eacus, jr., James, Jona- than, Joseph and William Garrett, Thomas Goodwin, Christopher Good, William Gal- breath, Thomas, John, Samuel, Benjamin, George, Thomas, jr., and Aaron Hoops, Isaac Haines, John Harley, James Hemp- hill, Edwai'd Hicks, Jarvis Hall, Joseph Hunt, James Hickey, Jacob James, William Jones, Joseph and William Johnson, Thomas Lewis, Thomas Malin, jr., Nathaniel Moore, Isaiah, Jonathan and Amos Matlack, Jona- than Milleson, Isaac Macy, John Mechem, Samuel Oliver, Thomas Cakes, William Peters, George Pierce, William Patterson, Samuel Phipps, Abraham Pratt, Charles Ryan, William Rettew, Joseph Randies, Joseph Ray, Thomas Rees, William Shar- pies, Thomas Scofield, Thomas Speakman, George and John Smith, Benjamin Frego, Joshua Thompson, Thomas Williamson, Samuel Wain, and Isaac Williams. East Marlborough Township. — This town- ship is bounded on the northeast by N"ewlin and Pocopson; on the south- east by Pennsbury and Kennett; on the south by Kennett and New Garden ; and on the west by West Marlborough and London Grove townships. East Marlbor- ough lies in the southern gneiss region. Two narrow strips of limestone are in the northwestern part of the township, while another narrow strip extends, together with a small belt of Potsdam sandstone, across the township south of Taggart's Cross Roads. Fine specimens of garnets are found in a white conglomorate near Wash- ington Alexander's. East Marlborough is drained principally by streams flowing into the West Brandywine river. Its landown- ers in 1774 were : William Allen, Edward Bennett, Joel, Caleb, William and Isaac Bailey, Thomas Butler, Abner, Joshua, Mordecai and William Cloud, Stephen An- derson, John, jr., Caleb, Jesse, George, Thomas and Jonathan Jackson, Thomas and Samuel Hayes, Isaac and Caleb John- ston, William and Silas Harvey, Samuel Beverly, Thomas Campton, Peter Egnew (Agnew), Alexander Foreman, Enoch, James and Abel Wickersham, Jacob Wright, Richard, Henry and Thomas Woodward, John Taylor, James Mash, Jacob and Jos- eph Pyle, Joshua Pierce, Isaac Woodrow, Caleb, Edward, Samuel and William Sway ne, Mordecai Vernon, William Windle, Daniel and Solomon Mercer, Moses, William and Joseph Pennock, John Russell, John Parker, Jacob Tagart, Henry Neale, Benjamin Way, John Webster, David and Thomas Pusey, Thomas Shugers, Jonathan Morris, Ezekiel Webb, Caleb and Isaac Pierce, John Wil- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 117 son, James Jefferis, Thomas Preston, Abram Heald, Isaac Mendenhall, James Nethery, and Charles Rudiback. East Nantmeal Township. — It is bounded on the north by Warwick; on the north- east by South Coventry ; on the southeast by West Vincent ; on the south by Upper Uwchlan ; on the southwest by Wallace ; and on the west by West I^antmeal town- ships. It is nearly covered by azoic rocks. Feldspathic granite extends from both South Coventry and West Vincent a short distance into the township, but is soon re- placed by sand rocks, while a few loose fragments are found near Marsh creek. East IsTantmeal is drained by the waters of East Brandywine river and French creek. It was formed into a township in 1740, be- ing the eastern part of llTantmeal township, whose name was originally written Nant- mel, from l^Tantmel in Radnorshire, Wales, after which it was named. Surveys were made as early as 1715. The first settlers were Welsh, and in 1730 the Scotch -Irish commenced to settle in the western part. The landholders in 1774 were : James Old, Rutter & Potts, William Sterret, James Henderson, Hugh William, James Guest, Thomas Meredith, John Horn, Abner and Elihu Evans, William James, William Kirk, John Ligat (Liggett), Jonathan Wynn, Wm. Brown, John and Thos. Lloyd, Evan, Daniel, John, William and Abel Griffith, Branson Vanleer, Robert Stuard, James Pugh, William Thomas, Abram Bealy, Jacob, Daniel and David High, Benjamin Abram, John Niel, Finchance Beerbower, Borrick Peholt, Michael, Philip and John Boyer, Andrew Kern, Philip Cos- mer, Windle Donfelter, Stephen Doughton, William Denison, Theodore Ellis, Christo- pher Fulker, John Getz, Isaac Jones, Thomas John, John Knauer, Philip Lewis, Jacob Murrey, Henry Moses, Adam Miller, John McKnight, George Price, John Robison, Martin Rhoades, Thomas Rutter, Jacob Shuster, Henry Sheff"er, David Steel, David, John and Joseph Stephen, John Festick, James Tod, William Temple, Frederick Walleigh, Jacob Wiseberger, Alexander McKee, John Woodrow, Mark Bird, esq., Peter Kimes, Thomas Bull, Jacob Vance, Peter Moses, Jacob Vinance, and Thomas Leighton. East Nottingham Township. — This town- ship is bounded on the north by Lower Oxford township ; on the east by 'Sew London and Elk townships ; on the south by .the State of Maryland ; and on the west by West Nottingham township. The north- ern and central portions of East Nottingham lie in the hydro-mica-schist formation of the South Valley hill region, while in the south- ern part two small areas of serpentine are, separated by a tongue of gneiss extending up from the Maryland State line. It is drained by several small streams and has two railways in the western part. It is the eastern and larger part of the original Nottingham township, is mentioned as early as 1718, and has lost territory successively by the formation of Oxford and Hopewell boroughs and Elk township. Its landown- ers in 1774 were: Robert Alexander, Henry Erskine, James Anderson, Jeremiah, David, William and Mercer Brown, Abraham Bunt- ing, William Bean, Thos. Barrett, Andrew Boyd, Andrew Brians, Thos. Baldwin, Rob- ert and James Calvin, George, Thomas, William and John Churchman, John Cleu- dening, John Crawford, Elijah Cole, Benj. Chandlee, Samuel and Samuel, jr., Dickey, John Day, Robert Dorrough, Joseph Drenin, Samuel England, John and Robert Erwin, 118 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY Henry, Robert and Thoniae Ewing, John Fulton, Joseph Gardner, Thomas Gilliland, Robert Graham, Elisha Gatchell, William Gibson, Joseph and David Gatchel, Archi- bald Glover, John and James Hudders, James Harkness, Samuel Hutchinson, Sam- uel Hill, John Hathorn, Robert Harvey, Patrick Hamilton, William Hilles, Mary Hughs, Matthew Henderson, John Johnson, Mordecai James, David Junkins, Archibald Job, Timothy, Abner and Mary Kirk, Hugh Logan, John Lawson, George Ligate, James McCorkle, John McClavery, James and Henry McCormick, Henry McCauley, James Morrow, Sampson Moore, Jean McKee, Robert Maxwell, James Mealey, George Mitchell, John McConkey, James and Wil- liam Mackey, James Montgomery, John Mills, Finley McGrew, John McBeath, Geo. Monroe, James McLaughlin, John Ogleby, Robert Oldham, Margaret Patterson, George Passmore, John Pew, Joshua Pngh,William Pennell, Edward Parker, Josiah Portertield, William and Rowland Rogers, William Rutherford, William Ramsey, Hezekiah Rolls, Isaac Rodgers, James Steel, Thomas Scott, Richard and Hugh Sidwell, James and Joseph Smith, Robert and William Shepherd, Thomas Sharp, Hugh Thompson, Joseph and Philip Tanner, Joseph Trimble, Francis, Jonathan, John and John, jr.. White, Samuel, RobertJ Benjamin, Thomas and James Wilson, David Watt, Thomas Youl, and Charles Williams. East Pikeland Township. — It extends northeast and southwest, and is bounded on the northeast by MontgOTncry county'; on the southeast by Schuylkill and Charles- town townships ; on the southwest by West Pikeland township ; and on the north- west by East and West Vincent townships. The upper (northeastern) and longer por- tion of East Pikeland is composed of the mesozoic sandstones.and shales; while the lower (south westei-n) part lies entirely in the azoic series. Brown hematite iron ore is found in the southern part and has been opened southwest of Kimberton station, where the Raby mine has an output of six tons per day. East Pikeland is well drained by French and Pickering creeks, and the Pickering Val- ley railroad runs through the western and central parts of the township. In 1747 the following persons were land- holders: Thomas Milhouse, John Wells, Robert, Daniel and Richard, jr., Prichard; Edward Williams, John Bowen, John MaKee, Daniel Griffith, Thomas Taylor, William and Jeremiah Tomson, William Hail, Evan David, Adam Ramsower, Adam Halman, George Dery, John William, Hans Adam, Dugell Mc An tire, Robert Hambil- towu, William Hambiltown, Humphrey Bell, George Walker, John David, David Cadwaleder, John Thomas, John Gumry, Timothy Kirk, Philip Packer, Francis O'l^eal, Joshua John, John Tribbey, Samuel Holday, Samuel Lightfoot, Robert Riche- son, John Clower, Adam Stone, Thomas and Samuel Daves, David David, Jeremiah Lewis, Michael Mel, Andrew Cummens, Richard Prichard, sr., John Jones, and Philip Edwards. Easttown Township. — This township is bounded on the north by Tredyft'rin town- ship; on the east by Tredyft'rin township and Delaware county; on the south by Delaware county ; and on the west by Delaware county and Willistown township. "Taking a general view of the geology of this township, it is noticeable that it consists mainly of two formations : mica-schists partially chloritic on the north, and dark OF CHESTER COUNTY. 119 green or black syenites and hornblendic rocks interspersed with feldspar porphyry on the south. Between these two, as if to form a natural barrier between them, is a wall of dolerite, and on the north side of which a belt of serpentine is visible, and but a short distance from it." Easttown is drained by the headwaters of Darby creek, and a railroad passes through the northern part of the township. It was erected about the year 1704, and is most noted for being the home of Anthony Wayne, the county's most illustrious soldier. In 1774 the following landholders were returned on the assessment list of that year: Andrew Steel, Anthony Wayne, Lewis, John, Morris and James Morris, Whitehead Weatherby, Samuel Vanleer, Thomas McKean, Robert Stephen, Rob- ert McGoogin, David Rees, John Steel, Frederick Landes, Benjamin Junkin, Thos. Tucker, Evan Evans, William Griffith, Phi lip Sheatf, Mai'tha Davis, Thomas and Jona- than Moore, William Melchior, Henry Fox, Jonathan Llewellyn, Michael Binger, Cas- per White, Abel Hammer, Thomas and Griffith Williams, Peter Hble, John Butler, David Morgan, Margaret Bell, ITathan Lewis, Thomas Welch, Joseph and Thomas Massey, Ann Ellis, and Abraham Davis. East Vincent Township. — It is bounded on the north by East Coventry township ; on the east by Montgomery county; on the southeast by East Pikeland ; on the south- west by West Vincent ; and on the north- west by South Coventry township. East Vin- cent lies wholly within the mesozoic series, and in its western part much loose sand is to be found. It is drained by the waters of the Schuylkill river and French creek. It is the northern part of what was origin- ally Vincent townsliip, which derived its name from Sir Matthias Vincent. It was erected as a township in 1832, and its early permanent settlers were Germans. Its territory was diminished in 1872 by the erection of Springville, now Spring City borough. The landowners in the township in 1774 were: Philip Arndorf, Anthony and Henry Acre, Paul and Henry Benard, John Bound, James and William Barber, Henry and Benjamin Brumback, Joseph Bosler, Henry Carl, Jacob Cover, Henry and Felix Chrisman, Michael Cypher, William Cowan, Conrad Carl, Peter De- frain, John Dodson, David Davis, John David, George Deery, Henry Dasher, William, David and James Evans, Rudolph Essex (Essig?), Christian Everhart, William Eddy, George Fitzsimmons, Jacob Ginther, William Gordon, ITicholas Ground, Michael Holman, Casper Himes, Henry Hethery, John Hause, Lawrence Hippie, Joseph Hoskins, Jonas Hicks, Joseph Hancock, Jacob Hoffman, James John, David and John Jenkin, Sebastian Keeley, Henry Knerr, "John Lloyd, Philip, Henry and Peter Miller, John McFarlan, Samuel Morris, Alexander McAlister, John Adam, John and Enoch Meredith, Jacob Mawre (Mowry?), John McCracken, John Mel- choir, John dinger, John Philips, John Paul, Edward Parker, Henry Rhoades, Robert Ralston, James Rogers, John Rhodes, Joseph Rodgers, George Row, John Shinholds, Conrad Shimer, Simeon and Conrad Shunk, Peter Steger, Hugh Strickland, Conrad Sharer, Casper Snider, Frederick Slider, Henry Sharadan, Owen David, John and Hazael Thomas, Abraham Turner, Jacob Voges, Enoch and Ann Watkin, Thomas Wilson, John Young, and George Yeager. 120 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTOBY East Whiteland Township. — This township is bounded on the north by Charlestown ; on the east by Tredyffrin ; on the south by Willistown and East Goshen townships; and on the west by West "Whiteland town- ship. East Whiteland extends from south to north across the widest part of the Down- ingtown valley limestone region. In its northern part are two small areas of Pots- dam sandstone, and the southern edge lies in the hydro-mica-schist formation. There are numerous limestone and marble quar- ries and brown hematite iron ore mines in the township. It is drained by several tributary streams of the Delaware river, and traversed from west to east by two railroads. East Whiteland was erected February 26, 1765, and is the eastern part of the original Whiteland township which was organized in 1704, and derived its, name from Whit- ford Garden, in Flintshire,Wale8. Its early settlers were Welsh. In 1774 its landowners were: John Adams, Benjamin, John and Benjamin, jr., Bartholomew; John Blatchford, Ben- jamin and Joseph Bond, Widow Bowen, David Cloyd, John Coffman,- Conrad Coleman, John Cinneka (Miller), Wid- ow Dil worth, Daniel Durborrow, John Fike, Josiah Hibbard, Thomas and Thomas, jr., Harris, Widow Ives, John Kerlin, Samuel Kennedy, Joseph Lewis, Michael Lapp, George Mei-edith, Randall Malin, Robert Powell, Widow Philips, Richard Richardson, James Robinson, Rob- ert Rook, Henry Sowers, John Smith, John Templeton, Andrew Todd, and Christian and John Zook. Franklin Township. — It is bounded on the north by London Grove township ; on the east by JS'ew Garden and London Britain townships ; on the south by Maryland ; and on the west by Elk and New London townships. It lies entirely within the azoic slates of the southern gneiss region, and the soil is dark rich red and fertile. It was formed in 1852 from the southeast part of ITew London township. Surveys were made as early as 1720. The names of its landholders in 1774 are included in those of New London township for the same year. Highland Township. — This township is bounded as follows : on the north by West Sadsbury and Sadsbury townships ; on the east by East Fallowfield township ; on the south by West Marlborough and London- derry townships ; and on the west by West Fallowfield township. Highland lies en- tirely within the South Valley hill region, and is composed of the mica-schist series. It is drained by the waters of Doe's run, and has a railroad running along its eastern border. It was formed from the eastern part of West Fallowfield township in 1853. The names of its landholders in 1774 are included in the list of that year given for West Fallowfield. Honeybrook Township. — It is bounded on the north by Lancaster county; on the east by West ISTantmeal and West Brandywine townships; on the south by West Cain township ; and on the west by Lancaster county. It lies in the azoic slates of the northern gneiss region, and its extreme northern and southern parts are overspread with Potsdam sandstone. A small area of trap rock occurs in the northeastern part, and a short and narrow sti-ip lies south of the center of the township. Limestone and iron ore have been found in small quantities. Honeybrook is drained by the headwaters of East and West Brandywine rivers, and has two railroads running through it. The OF CHESTER COUNTY. 131 township was formed in 1789 from the western part of West Nantmea], and sur- veys were made within its present boun- daries as early as 1718. Its landowners of 1774 are included in the list of landholders given in that year for West I^antmeal township. Kennett Township. — It is bounded on the north by East Marlborough and Pennsbury townships ; on the east by Pennsbury town- ship ; on the south by the State of Delaware, and on the west by New Garden township. It lies in the southern gneiss region with a northern and a southern area of Potsdam sandstone, and a middle one of Siluro-Cam- brian limestone. It is thus described : "A short synclinal and anticlinal of Potsdam in the northern part, bringing to view the limestone south of Kennett Square ; a dyke of syenite cutting ofl' the eastern end of this limestone; and a synclinal of hornblendic gneiss in the southern part bringing to view in its axis again the Potsdam series." Its surface is drained by Red Clay creek, and the Philadelphia & Baltimore railroad passes through the township from west to east. The first mention of Kennett as a township is made in the court records of 1805, and its name seems to have been derived from the village of Kennet in Wiltshire, England. In 1700 the greater part of this township was laid out for William and Letitia Penn, and the laud was slowly dis- posed of to purchasers. The landholders in 1774 were: Rob- ert, Jacob and James Brown ; William Baldwin, Robert Barr, Peter Bell, Thos. Carlenton, Gabriel Clark, Calvin and Rob- ert Cooper, Jesse and Daniel Cloud, Isaac Chandler, Walter Craig, Enoch and Henry Dixon, Michael, Isaac, Solomon and Sarah Gregg, Jesse Harvey, John Harper, Joshua and Joseph Harlan, Zacheus Kay, William and Robert Lambory, William Lewis, Samuel Levis, Allen Langley, John Lamborn, John McEarlan, Charles Mc- Cauley, John Marshall, Thomas Milhous, George Meason, Jesse Miller, Jesse Men- denhall, John McElroy, Joseph Musgrave, Enoch and George Passmore, William and John Pyle, John Richison, Oliver andHugh Russell, Abraham and Caleb Taylor, Wil- liam Tate ; Joshua, Jacob and Joseph Sharp- less ; Francis Swain ; James, Joseph and Benjamin Walter ; Robert Way, Ezekiel and Sarah Webb, William Wiley, George and Joseph, jr., Walters, Andrew Teatman, and Jacob Zempher. London Britain Township. — This town- ship is bounded on the north by Franklin and New Garden townships ; on the east by Delaware ; on the south by Maryland ; and on the west by Franklin township. It lies in the southern gneiss region, with a considerable area of Potsdam sandstone in the eastern part, which encloses a medium sized belt of Siluro-Cambrian limestone. It is drained by White Clay and other creeks; and the Pennsylvania & Delaware railroad passes along its eastern boundarj^ line. A large portion of its territory once belonged to the London company, and it was erected as a township in 1725. Its early settlers were Welsh Baptists. The landowners of London Britain in 1774 were : Evan Evans, esq., Hannah Mc- Echram, Charles Black, John and Benja- min Whitting, John Williams, Charles Hughes, Catharine Crawford, Henry Smith, John Ross, James Reed, John Drumore, William Hopes, Thomas Lunn, William Mecklen, John Beard, Margaret Crow, Morris Thomas, Murtough Menaugh, James Kennedy, Andrew McClelland, 133 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Robert Allen, John Chambers, James Taylor, John and William Alexander, John Reed, Elijah McCray, Moses and "William Scott, John Rankin, John Whan, Rees Price, Isaac Johnston, Thomas Jordan, John Sutton, Andrew Bingham, John Murphy, and John McCoy. Londonderry Township. — This township is bounded on the north by West Fallowfield and Highland ; on the east by West Marl- borough and London Grove townships ; on the south by Peuu township ; and on the west by Upper Oxford and West Fallow- field townships. It lies in the mica-schist" formations of the South Valley hill region. The land is high in the center near London- derry postoffice ( Daleville), and slopes in dift'erent directions toward' its boundaries. Londonderry was separated from JSTotting- ham in 1734, and its territory extended westward to Octoraro creek. In 1754 Ox- .ford was taken from it on the west, and in 1819 Penn was carved out of the southern part of its territory. In 1866 it received a small addition from London Grove and West Marlborough. Its early settlers were from Ireland. Londonderry's landowners in 1774 were : Moses Correy, Martha Shields, William Mc- Cracken, Alexander Fulton, William Mont- gomery, Richard Bailey, William, Ann and Thomas Thompson, John Wiekersham, Richard Tronton, Jacob Wilson, Robert Gardner, James Poage, John Picken, Rachel Crosby, Robert Graham, David Bracken- ridge, William Chalfant, James Gibson, Elizabeth Hall, John and Thomas McGuire, John Flatcher, Mary Baily, Nathan Hays, James Craig, David Kinkaid, Elizabeth McAdams, Robert Sloan, William Kerr, John Widows, William Cleeland, James Law, John Watson, Joseph Hutchinson, Matthew Young, Agnes Rowan, Joseph Caldwell, Mary Moss, Josiah Allen, Benj. Hanway, James Gilliland, Francis and William Blair, William Love, John, Samuel and James Criswell, Robert Patterson, Montgomery Kennedy, John Matthews, l^athaniel Walker, David, Samuel and John Ramsay, John Swan, Daniel Jones, Elijah McClenahan, Joseph and Thomas Straw- bridge, Samuel Cross, John Alexander, Archibald Fleming, Robert Graham, Sam- uel and James Mackey, Henry and Eliza- beth Charlton. London Grove Township. — It is bounded on the north by West Marlborough town- ship ; on the east by West Marlborough and New Garden townships ; on the south by Franklin township ; and on the west by New London, Penn and Londonderry townships. The southern part of London Grove is in the southern gneiss region, while the central and northern parts lie in the South Valley hill region, and have two considerable areas of Potsdam sandstone and Silurp-Cambrian limestone, and a small strip of serpentine n«ar Avondale. It is drained by several small streams, while its facilities for market are excellent, it being crossed from north to south by the Penn- sylvania & Delaware, and from west to east by the Philadelphia & Baltimore railroads. The township was erected in 1723, and was then principally owned by the London company. The early settlers were princi- pally Friends. The landholders of London Grove in 1774 were : William and Joseph Allen, William Anderson, Aaron Baker, Charles Booth, John Baldwin, William Chandler, Robert Cain, Rebekah and Stephen Cook, Edward Crooks, William Derrickson, William Elliott, Richard Flower, Moses Frazer, OF CHESIEB COUNTY. 123 James Greenfield, Henry, David and Solomon Harlan, David Hunter, Jacob Halliday, Edward Henderson, Samuel, Ephraim and William Jackson, Thomas Johnson, Joshua and Joseph Johnston, James Kelton, Alexander Lewis; Francis, Thomas, Robert and Josiab Lamborn ; Joua. Lindley, Thomas McKeau, Thomas Morton, Robert Montgomery, Joseph and David Moore, David McCay, John JS'ewborough, John and Joshua Pusey, George Passniore, Nathaniel Pennock's executors, Jesse Pen- nock, James Robinson, Joseph Richardson, John Reed, Samuel Sharp, Moses Starr, Hugh Speakman, William Travilla, Jere- miah Underwood, Thomas Ward, Francis Wilkinson, Samuel and Thomas Woodward, William and Thomas Wood, E"athaniel Wallace, John Waugh, David Wiley, and John Williamson. Lower Oxford Township. — It is bounded on the north by Upper Oxford ; on the east by Penn township ; on the south by East and West itfottingham townships ; and on the west by Lancaster county. It is situa- ted in the South Yalley hill region, and its rocks are all mica-schist. A bed of chrome lies near the northern boundary line. The western part is drained by the waters of Octoraro creek, and the eastern by tributa- ries of Big Elk creek. In 1797 Lower Ox- ford was erected out of the southern territory of Oxford township, which had been formed in 1754 from Londonderry. The names of the landholders of 1774 are included with those of Oxford township for that year, which were as follows : Alex- ander and William Pinkerton, Archibald Tagart, Allen and James Simpson, Archibald Fowles, Archibald Shields, Andrew Walker, Arthur and Arthur, jr., Andrews ; Arthur and John McKissag (McKissick?), David Fleming, David Hays, David Watt, David Sympson, Francis Modral, Florence Scanlan, George Ritchey, George Criswell, George McCullough,Hugh Luckey, George Church- man, Hugh Russell, Hugh Miller; James, Henry and Thomas Ewin ; James and John Cooper, James Stockman, John Gray, John Wilson, James Pembertou, Thomas and John Wallace, James Kennedy, James Moore, John Smith, John Richey, James Dysart, James Turner, James Henry, James McDowell, John Gibson, John Guthrey, John McClenaghan, John Black, James McCleland, John Ross, John White, John Wallace, John Huston, James Gilleland, James Boyd, James Fleming, Robert and James Criswell, John Kinkead, Job Ruston, Moses Edmistoh, Robert McCraken, Robert Hogg, Robert Barnes, Robert Bunting, Robert Henderson, Robert Boston, Robert Law, Robert and Samuel Smith, Samuel Jackson, Samuel and William Robb, Samuel McMurrey, Samuel McE"eil, Thomas Mays, Thoma8Armstrong,ThomasBarrett,Thomas Whiteside, Thomas Cooper, William Ram- sey, Walter Hood, William Woods, William Richey, William Mlson, William Maxwell, William Lowrey, William Merrett, William Ross, William Porter, William Luckey, WilliamCarlisle,WilliamMcMullin, William Holmes, William Dickey, William Hewit, William Glen, William McCleary, William Donahy, William Bunting, Rachel Jordan, Thomas Cloyd, and Widow Hopkins. New Garden Township. — This township is bounded on the north by London Grove, West Marlborough and East Marlborough townships ; on the east by Kennett town- ship ; on the south by the State of Dela- ware ; and on the west by London Britain, Franklin and London Grove townships. It is situated in the southern gneiss region. 134 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY The Kennett Square limestone extends from east to west through the northern part of the township, and limestone and Potsdam sandstone areas are in the southern part. The structure of this township has given the geologists quite an amount of trouble. Kaolin is found in the northern part, and also near Kaolin postoffice in the south, where the American Kaolin Company's pits were opened by Hamilton Graham in 1839. The township is drained by the waters of White and Red Clay creeks. The Balti- more & Philadelphia railroad runs from west to east across its territory, and the Pennsylvania & Delaware railway passes through from north to south. New Garden . township derives its name from l^ew Gar- den, in County Carlow, Ireland. It is an old township, and was named by Rev. John Lowden, of New Garden meeting, Ireland. In 1774 the following landholders were on the assessment list of New Garden town- ship : Isaac and Benjamin Allen, Stephen Anderson, Thomas Barrett, George Chan- dler, George Elliott, William and Henry Dixon, Enoch Gregg ; Hannah, Samuel and Joseph Hurford, Thomas, Benjamin and Joseph Huttou, James and Charles Hall, David Hoopes, Joseph Hobson, Thomas Hanaway, John Hacket, Jonathan Johnston, William Knight, Isaac and Isaac, jr., Jack- son, Jacob Lindley, William, James, Sam- uel, John, Jesse and Joseph Miller, Samuel Moore, Matthew McConnell, Andrew Mc- Intire, John and James Milhous, Matthew Ogletree, Thomas Parker, James Pile, Joshua Proctor, Samuel Rid^^dle, William Rowe, James and Moses Rowen, Isaac and Nathaniel Richards, John and Nathaniel Scarlet, George, Samuel and Benjamin Sharp, and John and Ambrose Taylor. Newlin Township. — It is bounded on the north by West Bradford ; on the east by Pocopson township ; on the south by East and West Marlborough townships ; and on the west by East Fallowfield township. The smaller western part lies in the South Valley hill, and the larger eastern part in the southern gneiss region. Small strips of limestone are partly along the division line of the two regions, and in the eastern part are several short, narrow strips of serpentine, along one of which coi'undum has been found. A whetstone quarry has been opened by a Mr. Hayes, and chromic iron ore has been found. The township is drained by the East Brandywine river and several of its tributaries, while the Wil- mington & Reading railroad passes through its territory from north to south. On June 10, 1724, Nathaniel Newlin purchased for £800, of the Free Society of Traders, 7,100 acres of land, out of which this township that bears his name was erected. An Indian village was once in the township, and Newlin had some trouble with the Indians about a part of the land which he had bought, and that was also claimed by the Red men. The following were the landowners in 1774: Thomas BufBngton, James, John and Joseph Smith, William, William, jr., and Peter Wickersham, Charles Wilson, Jesse Taylor, John Buller, Thomas Bald- win, George and Joseph Pierce, Thomas Wilson, James Shields, William Nichols, Isaac Trimble, Mordecai, Joseph, Caleb and Henry Hayes, Richard Bernard, Job Pyle, Joel Harlan, John, Samuel and William Baily, Thomas Shoot, David and William Eckhoff, John McGuire, William Adkins, Jesse Bentley, Robert Chalfant, William Hannah, Robert Cowan, David Drennon, James Porter, Thomas Baldwin OF CHESTER COUNTY. 125 (tailor), Ebenezer Spikeman, and Mary Shield. New London Township. — This towship is bounded on tKe north by Perm township; on the east by London Grove and Franklin townships; on the south by Elk; and on the west by East Nottingham township. It lies in the southern gneiss region. "Frag- ments of gneissoid rock and quartz with deep red and brown clays cover the entire northern section." The mica increases in size and importance toward the southern boundary line. The township is drained by Big Elk creek and several of its tributaries. l^ew London was formed prior to 1715 out of the territory of the London Company, and in 1725 London Britain was taken from its territory. The landowners in 1774 were : George Alexander, Francis Alison, "Wm. Beatty, David Buchanan, David and Robert Correy, George and Thomas Campbell, "Wm. Cum- mings, Allen Cunningham, Patrick Culbert- son, John Dickey, Thomas Done]son,Walter Davis ; Robert, Robert, jr., and Walter Fin- ney ; Thomas Fulton, Samuel Floyd, Joseph Furrey, James Falls, John Gibson, Thomas Gil more, Peter Gobby, Robert Giffin, Rob- ert Gilmore, Robert Graham, James and David Hutchinson, James, Alexander and Thomas Hughs, Eliza Henderson, Alexan- der Johnston, esq.^ Samuel Kennedy, John Lemon, George Lesley, William, John, Rob- ert and Michael Montgomery, John, William and William, jr., McDowell, Ephriam and Alexander Morrison, James Moss, Arthur McClure, Thos. McConnel, Joseph and Rob- ert Moore, Jos. Morrison, Jno.Menough, Geo. Mitchell, Charles Newcome, John Pennock, James and William Reed, John Robinson, John and Andrew Scott, William Steel, Jere. Starr, John Small, John Smith, John Todd, Joseph Thompson, Robert and Matthew Wilkins, Thomas Wiley, James Whitcraft, Arch. Woodside, and Agnes Young. North Coventry Township. — It is bounded on the north by Montgomery county; on the east by East Coventry township ; on the south by South Coventry and War- wick townships; and on the west by Berks county. It lies in the Schuylkill or mesozoic region, and there is no part of this township in which other rocks than those characteristic of the mesozoic forma- tion occur, although it is necessary to in- clude under these, the dbleritic traps of which a narrow tongue from the large mass in the adjoining township of Warwick penetrates to the extreme western and southern border on the place of David Smith. It is drained by Pigeon creek and several runs that empty into the Schuylkill river. ITorth Coventry was formed in 1841, and in 1844 East Coventry township was taken from its territory. The names of the landholders in 1774 are included in the list given in East Coventry for that year. PennTownship. — This township is bounded on the north by Londonderry ; on the east by London Grove ; on the south by l^ew London township ; and on the west by Lower and Upper Oxford townships. " The northern portion lies in the mica-schists," and "south of Jennerville the formation seems to change to that of the gneissoid and feldspathic rocks." Iron ore is found in the northeastern part of the township. The drainage of Penn is by Big Elk and White Clay creeks, and the Philadelphia & Balti- more railroad crosses the southern part of its territory. Penn township was formed by a division of Londonderry in 1817. Sur- 126 BIOGRAPBY AND MlSTOMY veys were made in 1703, and its early set- tlers came from the north of Ireland. The names of those who owned laud in 1774 are in the list of Londonderry's land- holders for that year. Pennsbury Township. — It is bounded on the north by Pocopson township ; on the east by Birmingham township and Dela- ware county ; on the south by Delaware ; and on the west by Kennett and East Marl- borough townships. It lies in the southern gneiss region ; the rocks which it contains being the older horublendic gneisses and limestone. The limestone is found in the. central and northeastern parts. It is drained by the Brandywine river and several of its tributaries. The Philadelphia & Baltimore railroad passes through the central part of the township. Pennsbury was formed from the eastern part of Kennett township in 1770. The landowners in 1775 were: John and James Brinton, James Bennett, George Brown, Jcre. Cloud, Joseph Chamberlain, Henry Collins, Joseph Chandler, Amos Davis, Martha Fisher, John Fred, Samuel Grub, Thomas Gibson, Evan, James, Amos and William Harvey, John Heald, Michael Lightbody, Isaac Miller, Isaac, Moses, Caleb and Joseph Mendeuhall, Benjamin McCall, Joseph and Joshua Pierce, David Reynolds, Adam Seeds, Thomas Temple's heirs, Ben- jamin Temple, Benjamin, Benjamin, jr., Isaac, Mary and Joseph Taylor, William White, jr., Jacob Way, jr., Jacob Way, Stephen Webb, William West, Conrad Sulsor, and Spolser Sulsor. Focopson Township. — It is bounded on the north by West and East Bradford ; on the east by East Bradford and Birmingham ; on the south by Pennsbury and East Marl- borough; and on the west by East Marl- borough and Newlin townships. It lies in the southern gneiss region, and the main mass of the rocks is composed of gneisses of the lower series, among which several detached masses of serpentine are found. It is drained by West Brandywine river and Pocopson creek, and has the Wilming- ton & Reading railroad along its eastern border. Pocopson was formed in 1849 from Pennsbury, Newlin, East Marlborough and West Bradford, and was named after the creek flowing through it. Its landowners of 1774 are included in the landholders of East Marlborough, Pennsbury, Newlin and West Bradford townships for that year. Sadshury Township. — This township is bounded on the north by West Cain; on the east by Valley township ; on the south by East Fallowfield and Highland townships ; and on the west by West Sadshury township. Its northern and central parts lie in the northern gneiss region, and are mainly covered with Potsdam sandstone, while the southern part is in the Downingtown valley limestone region, excepting a small strip along the Highland township line which lies in the South Yalley hill region. Sads- hury is drained by Buck run, and the Penn- sylvania railroad passes through its southern part. Sadshury was organized in 1717, and in old records is mentioned as Sudbury, which name likely was given in remem- brance of Sudbury in England. In 1852 Valley was taken from Sadshury, and in 1878 the western part was erected into West Sadsbury. Its early settlers were English Friends, followed by Scotch-Irish. In 1718 there were only nine taxables: William Grimson, James Hamer, Thomas Hayward, John and Moses Musgrave, William Smith, William Marsh, John Whitesides, and John Moor. OF CHESIER COUNTY. 127 The landowners of 1774 were : William Armstrong, James Blelock, James, Thomas, Andrew, Matthew and George Boyd, Thomas Bulla, Jonah Chamberlin, Robert, Hugh and Joseph Cowan, Samuel and James McClellan, David McClure, John Elton, Grideon and Josiah Erwin, Thomas Davis, Rev. William Foster, William Ful- ton, John Henry, Joseph Henderson, Robert Hope, Thomas Heslip, Charles Kin- kaid, George Kenny, John and Andrew Moore, William and Henry Marsh, James Miller, Thomas Maxiield, William Moore, Samuel Martin, Gravner Marsh, Robert and Alexander McPherson, Joseph Parke, esq., William Powell, William Pini, John Lee, John Lee jr., George Richmond, James and John Sharp, Andrew Stewart, John Scott, Thomas and John Truman, Joel Willis, James and Joseph Williams, William and John Wilkins, Anthony Robertson, George Robison, John Taylor, and Andrew Wilson. Schuylkill Township. — It is bounded on the northwest by East Pikeland township ; on the northeast by Montgomery county, from which it is separated by the Schuylkill river ; on the south by Tredyftrin township ; and on the southwest by Charlestowu town- ship. The northern and central parts of the township lie in the Schuylkill or meso- zoic region, while the southern part is in the northern gneiss region, and has an area of Potsdam sandstone along the Tredyftrin township line. The geological formation of Schuylkill is described by Professor Frazer as follows : " The upper part of the township is covered by the mesozoic series and includes a locality in the vicinity of PhceLixville, celebrated for the discovery by Mr. Charles M. Wheat- ley of many mineral species and fossil forms, most of the latter having been studied and classified by the labors of Prof. E. D. Cope. The Reading railroad cuts through a long hill by means of a tunnel about half a mile long, and between certain beds in the tunnel were found the fossils just mentioned. The southern margin of the mesozoic is a waved line which divides it from the azoic to the south, and meets the river at a point a short distance south of Valley Forge. This line passes near the house of John Kane in Charlestowu, and runs a little north of east, again descending near the residence of John Christman, and nearly through the ' Chester County mine,' skirting the mine of the 'New York and Boston Silver Lead Company,' crossing a branch of Pickering creek in a direction a little north of east, and close by the school-house; it follows very closely the Valley Forge road to its last deflection northward, and maintains its course straight across the long Valley Forge dam. The southern boundary line between the azoic rocks and those of evident Potsdam age is much more irregular and waved. It en- ters the township near its extremest southern corner, and runs northeast for over a mile, at an acute angle with the State road, which it crosses, and bends southward slightly till it passes a fork from the State road leading to Valley JB'orge. After following this road to a point a short distance west of William Rossiter's house, the boundary line again turns south, passing near the residence of James McGivene, when it bends again north- ward, and after a few similar waves joins the boundary of the new red, west of the Baptist church. These waves are formed by the interlocking noses of hills of Pots- dam and hornblendic gneiss or quartzose conglomerate. From the New York and 128 BIOORAPBY AND RISTORY Boston Silver Lead Company's mine on the west, to John G. Crawford's house, and thence east to the Forge dam, the azoic measures are composed of successive alter- nations of hornblendic gneiss and quartz conglomerate or feldspar porphyry. There is nothing of importance to remark about three-fourths of the township occupied by mesozoic rocks. But the border of this mesozoic area is made extremely interesting by the range of lead and copper mines east of Pickering creek, of which the old Wheatley, now (1880) New York and Bos- ton Silver Lead Company's mine is the principal." Schuylkill township was formed iu 1826 from Charlestown, and was named after the river which forms its eastern boundary. The borough of Phcenixville was taken from its territory in 1849. Its landholders of 1774 are included in the list of those owning land in Charles- town township for that year. The following description of the Picker- ing creek minerals we condense from a re- port made of them by Prof. H. D. Eodgers in 1853 : "It will be seen, upon consulting the map of the mining district of Mont- gomery and Chester counties, that the metalliferous lodes or veins extending from the Perkiomen mines in Montgomery county to the Charlestown mines in Chester county occur not far from the boundary which separates the gneissic rocks of this region from the middle secondary forma- tion of red shale and sandstone. Some of them would seem to lie entirely in the one set of strata, and some of them in the other; while others again, especially the interesting group of Pickering creek veins — on the economical prospects of which I propose to venture some opinions — are partly within the gneiss and partly within the red shale, penetrating the latter, however, to apparently a trivial extent. It would seem to be a pretty general fact, that such of these veins as are confined en- tirely or chiefly to the gneiss, bear lead as their principal metal, whereas those which are included solely within the red shale are characterized by , containing the ores of copper. But the zinc ores, zinc-blende and calamine prevail in greater or less proportions in both sets of veins, existing, perhaps, in a rather larger relative amount in the copper-bearing lodes of the red shale. Thus the Perkiomen and Ecton lode, the United Mine lode, the Shannon- ville south lode, a small lode on French creek, a lode at Port Kennedy, and the Morris lode near Phooenixville, are genuine copper veins, and they are all, without ex- ception, in the red-shale formation. "A soft, white, and partially-decomposed granite is a very frequent associate of the stronger lead-bearing veins, particularly in their more productive portions; but this material belongs, in all probability, not to the ancient granitic injections of the gneiss, but to those much later metalliferous intru- sions which tilled long parallel rents in that formation with the lead ores and their associated minerals. "The gneissic strata and their granitic injections throughout this district, display a softened, partially decomposed condition, extending in many places to a depth of several fathoms. This rotted state does not, however, pervade these materials to as great a depth as it does in the belt of gneiss lying south of the Chester county valley and nearer the level of the tide. To its influence we must impute the fertility of the soils resting on the formation, and OB CHESTER COUNIY. 139 the soft lines of the landscape. Its origin is due, in part, at least, I think, to the action of the sea water, which once evi- dently rested over all this south edge of the low Atlantic slope of the country, dis- solving by chemical forces the more soluble ingredients of the feldspar, hornblende, and mica. "Of the one dozen or more lead and copper lodes of greater or less size brought to light in this quite limited region of five or six miles in length, and two or three miles breadth, the greater number are remarkably similar in their course, ranging N. 32°-35° E. and S. 32°-35° W. ; and what is equally worthy of note, they dip, with scarcely an exception, towards the same quarter, (8.E.), though in some instances so steeply as to approach the perpendicular. Those which do not observe this direction seem, as far as traced, to range N. 52°-54° E., and 8. 52°-54° W., and by their mutual parallel- ism to each other to constitute, as it were, a second subordinate group or system of veins. There are one or two other lodes, such as the counter-lode of the United mine, which range at even a less angle to the meridian than the first or principal set, namely about 'S. 26° E. "The metalliferous and other minerals found in these veins form quite a numerous list. " Selecting the Wheatley lode as present- ing, perhaps, the greatest diversity of species, and as that which has received altogether the closest study, we find the mineralogy of these veins represented by the following large and interesting cata- logue: Sulphate of lead, carbonate of lead, phosphate of lead, arseniate of lead, molyb- date of lead, chromate of lead, chromo- molybdate of lead, arsenio-phosphate of 9 lead, sulphuret of lead, antimonial sul- phuret of lead and silver, sulphuret of zinc, carbonate of zinc, silicate of zinc, sulphuret of copper, green malachite, blue malachite, black oxide of copper, native copper, oxide of manganese, native sulphur, native silver, quartz, cellular quartz, oxide of iron containing silver, hematite iron, brown spar, sulphate of barytes, iron pyrites, and two or three other species." South Coventry Townshi]). — It is bounded on the north by North Coventry township ; on the east by East Coventry and East Vin- cent townships ; on the south by West Vin- cent and Nantmeal ; and on the west by Warwick township. " The mesozoic rocks continue south over the greater part of the township down to French creek, which forms the boundary between them and the azoic series alluded to already on a previous page. In 'the northern part of the town- ship these rocks are yellow and red sand- stones and shales, showing wherever ex- posed in place the dip usual to this part of the mesozoic sandstones ; but towards the southwest margin of the formation there occurs at many places large numbers of fragments and debris of the older and ad- jacent rocks, including the quartzites, and the rock of doubtful signification called alternately conglomerate, feldspar porphyry, &c. Besides this there are small detached collections of dolorite fragments, suggesting the presence of a dyke, of which the course and features are hidden beneath the soil." Southwest of Pughtown a plumbago vein runs through gneiss. After being mined and washed this plumbago makes an ex- cellent fireproof mineral paint. South Cov- entry is drained by the waters of French creek. It was formed in 1844, by a division of North Coventry township. 130 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY The names of those holding land within the present boundaries of this township in 1774, are included in the list of East Cov- entry landowners for that year. Thornbury Township.— Th.\% small town- ship is extremely irregular in shape, and is bounded on the northwest by Westtown township ; on the southeast by Delaware county ; and on the southwest by Birming- ham township. It .lies in the southern gneiss region. The rocks are hornblendic gneisses and their concomitants. The eastern part is covered with fragments of syenite granite and hornblendic gneiss, while in the west there is much loose debris of quartzite fragments. Thornbury is principally drained by Chester creek. It was organized in 1687, and received the name of Thornbury in compliment to the wife of George Peirce, in honor of her birthplace, Thornbury, Gloucestershire, England. When Delaware county was erected in 1689, nearly three-fourths of the township became territory of that county, and Thornbury is to-day one of the smallest townships in Chester county. In 1774 the land owners of Thornbury were: John, Joseph and Thomas Cheyney, Joshua Hoops, William Dunwoody, Joseph Hemphill, George Hunter, Daniel Broomal, John Kimbler, Persifor Frazer, William Elliott, Daniel Calvert, William Johnston, Dennis McCay, James Ramage, Jeremiah Pennell, Xehemiah and David Baker, Wil- liam Williamson, Benjamin Johnson, Ben- jamin Jones, Jacob Vernon, Thomas Hick- man, Richard Goodwin, Thomas Howell, William and Israel Pyle, William Beau- mont, Daniel Thompson, Henry Guest, Isaac, Thomas and Stephen Taylor, Samuel Mendenhall, Richard Parks, David Lewis, John Pierce, William Thatcher, John and Caleb Pierce, John, George and Caleb Brin- ton, William Reed, Jacob Sharpless, Ben- jamin Cox, sr., Benjamin Cox, jr., William Armen, Richard and George Evanson, Isaac Davis, Thomas Gibbons, Joseph Dilworth, George Fryer, William Hawley, Thomas Mercer, and John Woodward. Tredyffrin Township. — It is bounded on the north by Schuylkill and Charlestown townships; on the east by Montgomery county ; on the south by Easttown town- ship and Delaware county ; andon the west by Willistown and West Whiteland town- ships. " This is the easternmost township of the valley tier. The outcrop line of the mesozoic descends to it from the north. The belt of serpentine and crystalline rocks crosses its southeastern part. The junction of the limestone and the Potsdam sandstone is at the northwest corner of Tredyft'rin, as well as the small band of the latter which separates the limestone from the crystalline gneisses to the north. The valley attains a width here almost as great as that spoken of in East Whiteland, and at the northwest corner just mentioned is located one of the largest limestone quarries in the county." Potsdam sandstone is quarried on the north line of the township by the Phoenix Iron Company. The principal stream of the township is Valley creek in the northern part. The Pennsylvania and the Chester Valley railroads cross it from west to east. Tredyft'rin township was organized prior to 1707. Tredyft'rin is compounded from the Welsh words tre and dyft'rin, meaning re- spectively "town" or "township," and "a wide cultivated valley." As a name the word is appropriate, for Tredyft'rin is a township in a wide cultivated valley. The township is a part of a large tract which was surveyed for the Welsh, and OJF CSESTER COUNIY. 131 was principally taken up and settled by them. The landholders in 1774 were : Henry Bear, John Brown, William Barnes, John Beaver, John Baker, Jacob Baugh, Richard Carrie, Sarah Christie, William Clayton, John Cloyd, Henry Castlebury ; Isaac, Ben- jamin, Dr. John, Rev. John, James, David and Samuel Davis ; Joel, Jonathan and Josiah Evans; Jacob Frick, Adam Gider, John and Lewis Gronow, John, Samuel and David Havard, Adam Hate, David Howel, Jacob Huzzard, Richard Horton, David, Samueland Levi John; Esler James, Stophel Kittleman, John Keck, William Potts, Abel Thomas, Alexander Logan, Peter Mather, Anthony Moore, Joseph Mitchell, James, Richard and Enos Miles, Dewees & Potts, John Peck, Thomas Pennington, Judith Rees, Samuel Richard, Abel Reese, John and Jonathan Rowland, Michael Reed, Adam Rickabaugh, Rev. John Simonton, Jacob Sypher, Paul Sharaddin, Abijah Stephen, Peter Stikeler ; Daniel, Felty and John Showalder; Conrad Snider, Benjamin Thomas, Philip Upright, Thomas Walter, Joseph and Jacob Walker, Joel Watts, John Wilson, Christian Workizer, Hannah Wetherby, Thomas Hampton, Mary Pugh, John Maxfield, Caleb Smedley, Charles Ramsay, Charles Pennington, John JSTailer and James Aspin. Upper Oxford Township. — This township is bounded on the north by West Fallow- field township ; on the east by Londonderry andPenn townships ; on the south by Lower Oxford; and on the west by Lancaster county. It lies within the South Valley hill region, and all of its rocks are mica- schists, being chloritic in character. Its drainage is to the west by the waters of East Octoraro creek. Upper Oxford was formed by the division of Oxford township in 1797. The names of those who held land in the township in 1774 are included in the land- holders given in Lower Oxford, for that year. Upper Uwchlan Township. — It is bounded on the north by East ISTantmeal township ; on the east by West Vincent and West Pikeland townships ; on the south by Lower Uwchlan ; and on the west by East Brandy- wine and Wallace townships. It lies in the northern gneiss region, and near the town of Windsor are some very fine graphite mines, while good beds of iron ore are in the same locality. It is drained by the waters of East Brandywine river. Upper Uwchlan was formed in 1868 from the northern part of Uwchlan township. Uwchlan means upland, and the term Up- per Uwchlan is a pleonasm. The early set- tlers were Welsh. The names of its landowners at the com- mencement of the revolutionary war are given in the list of the landholders of Uwchlan for 1774. Uwchlan Township. — This township is bounded on the north by Upper Uwchlan township ; on the east by West Pikeland and Charlestown townships; on the south by West Whiteland and East Cain ; and on the west by East Brandywine township. It lies in the northern gneiss region, and large areas of Potsdam sandstone exist in the southern part. Uwchlan is drained by several small streams, and the Waynesburg railroad runs through the western part of its territory. The word Uwchlan means upland, and the early settlers of the town- ship were Welsh, who came about 1712. In 1858 the northern part of Uwchlan was erected into the township of Upper Uwchlan. 132 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIOBY The landowners of Uwchlan in 1774 were : William Denney, Joseph and John Mc- Clure, Richard and John Evans, Robert Carson, John Lewis, Matthias Keely, Wil- liam Milhouse, Miles Davis, Robert Alison, Charles Reede,William Byers ; Daniel,David Eliazer, Evan and David, jr., Evans; Peter Wills, Thomas Guest, David Pugh, William Owen, Joseph Philips, William Dillins, John and Robert Smith, Ruth Roberts, David and Robert Beaty, Robert Beaty, jr., Jacob Moses, Israel and John Wheelan, William, JS^oble, Benjamin and Enoch Butler; John Buler, David Lloyd, James Packer, John Benson, jr., James and James Benson, jr., John Miles, William and Samuel Griffith, Stephen Philips, Joseph Bentley, Thomas Evans, William Biddings, Christian Treat, Jacob Neeler, Dennis Whelan, John Young, David and John Philips, James Adams, Elizabeth Davis, Thomas Thomas, Jacob Haines, Christian King, Evan and Cadwal- ader Jones, Samuel Bond ; Reuben, Griffith and Daniel John ; George, Aaron, John and Jonathan Phipps ; Peter Ashifeler, Jonathan McVeagh, Dugal Cameron, Rief Gatlive, Jacob Tianey, Thomas Martin, John Hos- kins, Richard Thomas, Edward and David Owen, David Davis, Robert McMinn, Rich- ard Downing, Isaac Lewis, and Esther Crosby. Valley Township. — It is bounded on the north by West Cain and West Brandywine townships ; on the east by Cain ; on the south by East Fallowfield township ; and on the west by Sadsbury and West Cain town- ships. It lies in the South Valley hill, the Downingtown limestone, and the northern gneiss regions. The northern and central parts are covered with Potsdam rock8,while the limestone lies south of the Pennsyl- vania railroad, and has on its southern boundary line a narrow strip of mica-schist rocks. Valley is drained by the West Brandywine river, and the Pennsylvania and Wilmington & Reading railroads pass through its territory, affording easy ingress and egress to the inhabitants of every sec- tion of the township. Valley township was formed in 1852 from parts of East and West Cain, West Brandywine and Sadsbury town- ships. The territory of the borough of Coatesville was taken from it in 1867, and in the succeeding year its eastern part, with a portion of East Cain, was erected into the township of Cain. The names of the persons holding land within the territory of Valley township in 1774 are included in the lists of landhold- ers for that year in East Cain, West Brandy- wine and Sadsbury townships. Wallace Tow7iship. — This township is bounded on the north by East B'antmeal township ; on the east by East I^antmeal and Upper Uwchlan ; on the south by Up- per Uwchlan, East Brandywine and West Brandywine; and on the west by West Brandywine and WestNantmeal townships. Wallace township "is without a semblance of other rocks in place except the horn- blendic gneisses and the quartz conglom- erate (Potsdam sandstone in the southeast- ern part), and the series that has been mentioned as concomitant with these." Wallace township is drained by the East Brandywine river, along whose banks the Waynesburg railroad passes. It is six hun- dred feet above tide-water, has no marshes, and is remarkably healthy. Wallace was formed in 1852 by a division of West Nant- meal, under the name of Springton, as it included nearly the same territory as the old manor of Springton. The next year the name was changed, by act of legislature. OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 138 from Springton to that of Wallace, after Robert Wallace, a Scotchman, who owned "Mormon Hollow." The early settlers of the township were Scotch-Irish, and the names of those who owned land within its present limits in 1774 are included in the list of that year given for West Nantmeal. Warwick Township — Is bounded on the northeast by North and South Coventry townships ; on the southeast by East Nant- meal township ; on the south by East and West Nantmeal townships ; and on the northwest by Berks county. Warwick lies in the Schuylkill or mesozoic region, and is drained by the headwaters of French creek. The French Creek Branch railroad runs nearly through the township in a northeast direction from Berks county. Warwick township was formed in 1842 from the di- vision of East Nantmeal, and received its name from Warwick iron works, within its boundaries. The old Warwick furnace cast the celebrated "Franklin Stoves," an in- vention of Benjamin Franklin, and during the I'evolutionary war cast cannon and can- non balls for the American army. The names of the landowners of this township for 1774 are included in the list of landholders of East IsTantmeal for the same year. "Warwick is one of the most interesting townships in the county on account of the great variety of rocks exposed within its area, and also becauseof the important iron ore mines which it contains. Two areas of mesozoic rocks cross it from the main body of that formation westward. One is a very narrow strip bounded on the south from Knauertown eastward, by the north branch of French creek, and on the north by the great outburst of trap which covers about a third of the whole township. This thin strip penetrates with a width of barely a hundred meters (or yards) almost to the extreme western limit of the township, but is cut off and obscured by the Potsdam a short distance west of St. Mary's (Warwick postoffice ). The other belt of mesozoic measures fills the entire area of the township north of the north branch of French creek. This great area of trap is of irregular lenticular shape, and is not itself perfectly uniform as to character. The southern half appears to be doleritic — typically so ; the fragments often being of great size ; but whether large or small they exhibit the rough striation on a conchoidal surface so characteristic of dolerite and are in general very little weathered. The northern half of the area, however, is more syenitic in character and shows in places very well- defined syenite. The feldspathic granite or conglomerate , rock is found in the neighborhood of the Hopewell iron mines, in the extreme west. Half a mile south of Knauertown the rocks are composed of crystals of a green mineral, not determined, and Pegmatite." Of the iron mines of Warwick township are the Hopewell mines, the Hopewell ore pits, the Warwick large mine, St. Mary's mines, the Warwick mine proper, and the French creek magnetic ore mines. Copper ore also exists in the township, and the Elizabeth copper mine near Knauertown was opened prior to 1854. WestBradford. — This township is bounded on the north by Valley, Cain and East Cain townships ; on the east by East Bradford ; on the south by Newlin ; and on the west by East Fallowtield township. It lies in the South Valley hill region except the 134 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY southeastern part, which is in the southern gneiss region. Along the line dividing these two regions in the township are sev- eral detached strips of limestone extending in a straight line northeast by southwest. The township is drained by the East and West Brandywine rivers. West Bradford was formed on ISTovember 30, 1731, by the division of Bradford into the townships of E^st and West Bradford. The landowners in 1774 of West Brad- ford township were : Sarah Arnold, Ralph Ackison, Richard Baker, John Batton, John Buffington, James Brown, Joel Baily, Rob- ert Buffington, William Buffington, James Bane, John Batton, jr., James Bruce, Jona.' Buffington, Richard Buffington, John Chal- fant, Joshua Clayton, William Clayton, John Clark, William Coope^r, James Chal- fant, John Clayton, George Currey, John Dowdle, Robert Eastburn, Valentine Em- erick, William England, Thomas Ellis, Latham Engram, Abram Ford, James Galbraith, Thomas Green, Joseph Green, George Grosse, Joseph Hawley, Stephen Harlan, John Jordan, George Jacobs, Dan- iel Leonard, "Walter Lilley, Mary Lewis, George Martin, Humphry Marshal, James Marshal, Martin Miller, Isaac Marshall, James McElhaney, Joseph Martin, John Marshal, James Millesou, Samuel Marshal, Abraham Pile, James Ramsey, Samuel Sel- lers, jr., Samuel Sellers, Thomas Shuart, James Trimble, Richard Townsend, Joseph Thornbury, Caleb Martin, Samuel Worth, John Woodward, Joseph Woodward, Sarah Woodward, William Woodward, William Woodward (carpenter), Robert Woodward, Robert Wilson, James Woodward, John Young, Archibald Young, John Young, jr. Elk Township. — This township is bounded on tlie north by East Nottingham and ifew London ; on the east by Franklin township ; on the south by the State of Maryland ; and on the west by East Nottingham town- ship. Elk lies in the southern gneiss region, with a small area of mica-schist rocks and a large area of serpentine in the western part. " The serpentine southern boundary line crosses Barren Branch run a short dis- tance from the township line. Just west of the store at Rogers' mill-dam the rock frag- ments become more and more those of coarse mica-schist, the characteristic mineral being of a silvery white color. Southeast of the store by the mill the rocks are clay slates, with much mica, and at the mill a broad crystallized mica-schist dips uni- formly. On the south bank of the Big Elk, about half a mile from Bullock's fording, large bowlders of granitic gneiss with pink feldspar abound. The dip of the strata from which these came, is probably south very gentle, but this is not certain. This granitic character is observable in the north- ern part of the township as well. Thus on the road from Randolph & Arthur's paper- mill, through Peacedale (Hickory Hill post- office), both the mica and feldspar are of brownish color, and the rock is very com- pact." Elk is drained by the waters of Little and Big Elk creeks, and has some very fertile farming lands along the Maryland State line. This township was formed in 1857, from East Nottingham, and received the name of Elk at the suggestion of Charles Ramsey. The names of its landholders in 1774 are included in the list of that year given for East Nottingham. West Brandywine Township. — It is bounded on the north by Honeybrook, West Nant- meal and Wallace townships; on the east by Wallace and East Brandywine ; on the OF CHESIER COVNIY. 135 south by Cain and Valley ; and on the west by West Cain and Honeybrook townships. It lies in the northern gneiss region, and contains but a single area of Potsdam sand- stone, which is in the northern part and seems to be isolated from the other Pots- dam rocks of that region. West Brandy- wine is drained by the river of that name, along whose banks passes the "Wilmington & Reading railroad. West Brandywine was erected in 1844, out of the western part of Brandywine township, which had been taken in 1790 from the northern part of East Cain. In 1853 a small portion of the southern part of West Brandywine was taken in the formation of Valley township, and in 1860 West Brandywine was enlarged by an addition to it on the north from Honeybrook and Wallace townships. It derives its name from the Brandywine river, and the names of its landowners in 1774 are included with those of that year given for East Cain township. West Cain Township. — This township is bounded on the north by Honeybrook ; on the east by West Cain township; on the south by Valley, Sadsbury and West Sads- bury townships ; and on the west by Lan- caster county. West. Cain lies in the north- ern gneiss region. The Potsdam sandstone extends over the entire territory of West Cain, excepting an area of gneiss in the east and a narrow tongue of Lancaster lime- stone in the west. West Cain was formed in 1728, from Cain township, and the first names suggested for the new township were those of Spefitbrd and Cain Grove. The landowners of West Cain in 1774 were: John Miller, esq., Thomas Clark, William Mathers, Hugh Gib, jr., Robert Stanford, James Cooper, Evan Wilkinson, John Williams, John Davidson, James Wilson, William Martin, Oliver Crawford, William Thompson, Samuel and Robert Withrow, Caleb and Joshua Swain, James Way, George, John and William Sinkler, Nathaniel White, Evan Lewis, Joseph Bishop, sr., William Brown, Thomas Sharp, Hugh Shearer, Hamilton Gamble, William McCown, Peter Bab, John Jack, Mary Doak, Henry Hunter, William Gregory, George and John Cambell, Samuel Love, Thomas and Alexander Rogers, John Robinson, Wil- liam Dunn, jr., Thomas and Robert Kelly, William Dunn, sr., Elizabeth, William and Thomas Davidson, John Porter, Josias Cam- bell, James Cumens, Abraham and James Gibs, sr., Josias Wallis, Thomas Dawson, Richard Hope, Samuel Henry, Samuel Mo- Keece, Matthew Rogers, William Finley, John Forgus, Samuel Clyde, John Boyd, Joseph Clark, James Gaby, William Ham- ilton, Francis Jonson, William Clingan, Thomas Brown, Joseph Bishop, Hugh Gibs, sr., William Richardson, John Hai'per, Edward Magnor, James Guthrie, John Love, James Jemison, Finley McCown, and James Keys. West Fallowfield Township. — It is bounded on the north by West Sadsbury township ; on the east by Highland aifd Londonderry townships; on the south by Upper Oxford township ; and on the west by Lancaster county. The township lies within the South Valley hill region, and its rocks are mica-schists with more or less chloritic. The township is drained by the waters of East Octoraro creek. WestFallowfield was formed in 1743 by a division of Fallowfield township, which was erected as early as 1718. In 1774 the landholders of the township were : Joseph and William Adams, Robert Burns, John, Robert and Patterson Bell ; 136 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIORY "William Banting, Widow Bold, William Boggs, David Brooks, George Cowplaud ; ITathan, James, Robert, Stephen and George Cochran ; John Caruthers, Robert Cowden, John Danold, James Dunn, Samuel Futhey, Hugh Fearon, Archibald Guy, James and Adam Glendening, George, Alexander and Andrew Gibson; James Hannum, William Haslett, Nathan Hayes, Ebenezer Harper, Robert Hamill, Richard, John and Thomas Irwin ; John, Andrew and Joseph Kirkpat- rick; William Kees, Thomas Love, James Langhead, James Logan, David and James Ligget, George McGuire, James McCaus- land, Thomas McClure, Patrick McLaugh- lin, James McCormick, William Mcllhaney, Andrew Moore, Robert ISToble, Thomas Of- iicer, Ellis Pusey, Israel Peraberton, John and Arthur Park, Andrew Reed, Francis Ruth, James Rankin, William Reed, James, John and James, jr.. Smith; James Scott, William, Joseph and William, jr., Stringer; George Sloan, John Taylor, William Town- send, John Truman, William Vogan, Samuel and Joseph Wilson, Thomas Wallace, and Sarah Weldon. Wtst Goshen Township. — This township is bounded on the north by West White- land ; on the east by East Goshen ; on the south by Westtowu; and on the west by East Bradford township. West Goshen lies principally in the southern gneiss region. The northern part is composed of mica- schists that are partly separated from the azoic slates by a narrow strip of serpentine. The borough of West Chester is underlaid by syenites and sandy slates, while frag- ments of dolerites are frequent in the south- western part of the township. West Goshen is principally drained by the waters of Ches- ter creek, and two railways from West Chester, in the western part, connect with railroads running to Philadelphia. West Goshen was formed in 1817, by the division of Goshen township. The names of the landholders of 1774 are included in the list of landowners of East Goshen township for that year. West Marlborough Township. — It is bounded on the north by Highland, East Fallowfield andNewlin townships; on theeast by!N'ew- lin and East Marlborough ; on the south by JSTew Garden and London Grove ; and on the west by Londonderry and Highland townships. It lies in the southern gneiss and South Valley hill regions, with a large body of limestone in the northern part, and a wide area of Potsdam sandstone in the central and southern portions of the town- ship. It is drained by Doe run and White Clay creek, and the Penn & Delaware rail- road passes along the Highland township line. West Marlborough was formed May 27, 1729, by the division of Marlborough township, which was organized about 1704. The landowners of the township in 1774 were: Aaron Baker, Arch McN"eal, Caleb Pyle, Christopher Rix, Daniel Avery, Ed- ward Swayne, Elizabeth King, George Har- lan, George Taylor, Henry Chalfant, Hector McNeil, Hannah Baker, Hannah Baldwin, Joseph Williams, Joshua and Isaac Bailey, Joseph Penuock, Isaac Pyle, John Kell, John Bailey, Joshua Edwards, Jere. Barn- ard, Joseph Pyle, Jacob Starr, John Pass- more, John Montgomery, James Harlan, Isaac Powell, Joel and Josiah Baily, Jacob Wood, Lewis Pennock, Michael Harlan, Moses Edwards, Mary Pusey, Nathan Hayes, Richard Bernard, Samuel Baker, Thomas Bernard, Tristam Moore, Thomas Trevilla, William Davis, William Harlan, William Hays, William Bailey, and William Chal- fant. OI' CHESIER COUNTY. 137 West Nantmeal Township. — This township is bounded on the north by Berks county and Warwick township ; on the east by Warwick and East JSTautmeal townships; on the south by Wallace ; and on the west by Honeybrook township. West l^Tantnieal is in the northern gneiss region, and a broad belt of trap, composed of dolerite, syenite and quartz, separates the azoic rocks from the Potsdam sandstone area that occupies the northern part of the township. Iron ore exists at several places within its terri- tory. It is drained by East Brandywine river and French creek, and is crossed by two railroads. West Nantmeal was formed in 1739, by a division of Nantmeal town- ship, which was erected about 1722. In 1789 Honeybrook was taken from West Nantmeal township,which sufiered a further loss of territory when Wallace was formed in 1852. West Nautmeal's landowners in 1774 were : John Hanibleton, Samuel, James, Matthew and Andrew Buchanan ; John, George and Jared Irwin ; James Hare, John Gait, Michael Graham, sr., John Vanlossie, John Carson, William Meredith, James, sr., and James, jr., Graham ; James Kean, Jere- miah Piersoll, Michael Graham, Matthew Curry, Nathaniel Porter, William Gibbons, James Hambleton, James Nesbit, Andrew Spence, John and James Starrett, Robert McConnaughey, Gain Wallace, Alexander Craig, Samuel and William Henderson, William and Thomas Kennedy, Thomas Alford, Samuel Thomas, Joseph Trego, James and William Smith, John Aston, Richard Piersoll, William Gilky, John Jones, Francis Gardner, Edward Spice, James and Joseph Kee're, Hans Henox, Christian Coffman, Robert Matthews, Sam- uel Christy, Joseph Martin, John Graham (cooper), John Graham, Jacob Coffman, Samuel Cunningham, Robert Lusk, James Hanna, William Trego, William Beale, William Scott, Francis Alexander, James Beatty, Samuel Milduff, Isaac Gibson, Joseph Darlington, John Strong, Peter and George Hunter, Joseph Long, Daniel Moore, George Pheale, William Irwin, Leonard Freseoln, Mark Peter, John Id dings, John Moore, Isaac Philips, Christian Tedwaler, James Anderson, William Logan, William Dunwoody, Matthew, Ephraim and John Robeson; John Dunwoodie, Archibald Thomson, Robert Liggett, Samuel Caruth- ers, William Ralston, John Piersall, James Wilson, John Byers, James Moore, esq., James McClure, James Templeton, Thomas Miller, Paul McKnight, William Ferguson, William Rogers, James Waddell, John Brown, Robert Carson, Robert Wallace, James McCachren, John Henderson, Ben- jamin Jones, Isaac Phipps, John Millison, Joseph Caldwell, Mordecai Piersall, John Gardner, Jeremiah and James Evans, and Nathaniel Holmes. West Nottingham Township. — It is trian- gular in shape, and is bounded on the north- east by East Nottingham township ; on the south by the State of Maryland ; and on the northwest by Lancaster county. The north- ern and central parts of the township lie in the South Valley hill region, while the southern part is in a great belt of serpentine that passes into Lancaster county and the State of Maryland. The township is drained by the waters of Octoraro creek, and the Philadelphia & Baltimore railroad passes through the eastern part of its territory. West Nottingham township was formed about 1818, by the division of Nottingham township. West Nottingham's landholders in 1774 138 BIOOBAPHY AND H1S20BY were : Alexan der Boyd, Adam Mill er, Abner Kirk, Caleb Pears, Archibald and Daniel Job, David Moore, David Peak, Charles, Hugh, Henry, Joseph and Jacob Sydwell ; David Edmison, Ephraira Blackburn; Elijah, John, George, Joseph, Isaac, Jos- eph ( ?) and Samuel Brown ; George Briggs, George Duglas, Henry, Jacob, Samuel and Jesse Renolds; Henry Anderson, John Cosgrey, James Maxwell, James Barns, John and James Crawford, John McMullen, John Dixon, John Blackburn, James Dougherty, Jonathan Edwards, James Bar- clay, John Johnson, Joseph "Wood, John Butteriield, Jacob Haynes, Joseph Sidwell, Job, William, Isaac and Joseph Haines; John Dickey, John Welsh, William Allen, William Peak, William Maxwell, William Coulson, William Harris, William Knight, William Coale, William and Roger Kirk, William Givins, Robert Corthwait, John Knight, William Rogers, Samuel Reed, James Cummings, John Carmichael, Joseph Porter, John England, James McClane, Joseph E"esbit, John Borland, James Scott, Joseph Coulson, James Ekin, Jeremiah Sergeant, John Glasgo, Johanes Huss, James Evans, Joakim Breakley, James Akin, James Patin, John McCuUough, John Mc- Kelhene, Lucy Givens, Patrick Meloy, Rob- ert and Samuel Ilyneman, Robert Moore, Samuel Ewings, Samuel Glasgo, Samuel Scott, Thomas McCartney, Timothy Kirk, Thomas Scott, Thomas Coulson, Thomas Phillips, James Armstrong, Joseph Porter, Samuel Love, William Givin, and Henry Woodrow. West Pikeland Township. — It is bounded on the northeast by West Vincent and East Pikeland townships; on the southeast by Charlestown township; on the southwest by Lower and Upper Uwchlan townships; and on the northwest by West Vincent township. Its territory lies in the northern gneiss region, contains anumber of valuable kaolin and iron ore mines, and is drained principally by Pickering creek, along whose banks the Pickering Creek railroad runs. Chester Springs Soldiers' Orphan school is in this township. West Pikeland was formed in 1738, by a division of Pikeland township, whose territory was granted by Penn, in 1705, to Joseph Pike, merchant, of Cork, Ireland. The landowners of this township in 1747 are included in the landholders of Pikeland township of that year, given under the head of East Pikeland. West Sadsbury Township. — This township is bounded on the north by West Cain ; on the east by Sadsbury ; on the south by Highland and West Sadsbury townships; and on the west by Lancaster county. The northern part of the township is occupied by Potsdam sandstone, the central part by azoic rocks, and the southern part by a nar- row belt of limestone and a strip of mica- schist slates. Its surface is drained by several small streams, and the Pennsylvania railroad passes through the southern part. West Sadsbury was erected in 1878, by a division of Sadsbury township. The landowners of West Sadsbury in 1774 are included in the list of landholders in Sadsbury township for that year. Westtown Township. — This township is bounded on the northeast by Willistown ; on the southeast by Thornbury; on the southwest by Birmingham; and on the northwest by East Bradford and West and East Goshen townships. Westtown is in the southern gneiss region, and is covered by hornbleudic gneisses and syenites, except its eastern and western extremities, where OF CHESTER CO UNI Y. 139 deposits of serpentine appear. In the south- western part are the most important ser- pentine quarries in the State. The town- ship is principally drained by Chester creek, and has a railroad passing through it. West- town was likely so named from its location relative to Easttown township, and was formed about 1715, if not earlier. In 1774 the landholders of Westtown were : James and Joseph Gibbons, Thomas and Phebe Taylor, Thomas Mercer, Samuel and Peter Osborne, John and William Hunt, Joseph James, John Polus, Joseph, Isaiah and Isaac Hoops; Benjamin and Francis Hickman, Moses Cock, Johu and Amos Davis, William Hawley, Jacob Sharpless, Samuel Entriken, James Huey, Williafti and William, jr., J-ones ; James Black, Rich- ard Strowd, Thomas Darlington, Thomas Williamson, Edward and Richard Thorn- bury, Joseph Curtain, Hannah Carter, ITa- than Jefteris, Joshua Smith,Corneliu8Wood, Joseph White, William Chamberlin, Rich- ard Few, Jesse Camby, John Woolley, and Robert Yearsley. West Vincent Township. — This township is bounded on the north by South Coventry ; on the northeast by East Vincent ; on the south by West Pikeland ; on the southwest by Upper Uwehlan; and on the northwest by East Nantmeal township. West Vincent is in the northern gneiss region, except the northeast, where a narrow band of mesozoic rocks exists. There are several iron ore miues in the township. West Vincent township was formed in 1832, by the divis- ion of Vincent, which derived its name from Sir Matthias Vincent. The landholders of this township in 1774 are included in the landowners of that year of Vincent township, which is given under .the head of East Vincent township. West Whiteland Township. — It is bounded on the north by Lower Uwchan and Charlestown townships ; on the east by East Whiteland ; on the south by East and West Goshen ; and on the west by East Bradford and East Cain townships. The southern part of the township is occupied by hydro-mica schist rocks, while north of the center lies the Downingtown limestone, and in the northern part is a wide belt of Pocono sandstone. There are numerous iron ore mines along the northern edge of the limestone. The township is drained by several small streams, and three railroads pass through its territory. West Whiteland was formed, February 26, 1765, by the di- vision of Whiteland township, which was originally organized about 1704. The landholders of West Whiteland in 1774 were : Joseph and James Gibbons, Thomas Taylor, Thomas Mercer, Samuel and Peter Osborne, John and William Hunt, Joseph James, Joseph, Isaac and Isaiah Hoops; Benjamin Hickman, John Polus, Moses Cock, John Davis, William Hawley, Jacob Sharpless, Samuel Entrikin, James Huey, William Jones, William Jones, jr., James Black, Richard Strowd (Strode?), Phebe Taylor, Amos Davis, Thomas Dar- lington, Edward and Richard Thornbury, Thomas Williamson, Joseph Curtain, Han- nah Carter, jSTathan Jefteris, Joshua Smith, Cornelius Wood, Joseph White, William Chamberlin, Richard Few, Jesse Camby, John Woolley, Francis Hickman, and Rob- ert Yearsley. Willistown Township. — This township is bounded on the north by East Whiteland and Tredyfirin ; on the east by Tredyft'rin and Easttown ; on the south by Delaware county ; and on the west by Westtown and East Goehen townships. "At the extreme 140 BIOOBAPHY AND HIST OB Y northern angle runs the limestone belt; below (south of) this are the mica-schists, bounded in their turn by a belt of serpen- tine ; south of the serpentine is a band of irregular width of quartz and feldspar por- phyry ; and southermost of all lies a broad band of syenitic granite and hornblendic gneiss, in which latter are dykes of dolerite." The township is drained by Crum creek. Willistown was organized as a township about 1704, and its early settlers were Welsh. The landowners in 1774 were: Joshua and David Ashbridge, John Brown, John Briggs, John Boggs, Levi and Ezekiel Bowen, Owen Brooks, Daniel Cornock, Joseph Cox, John Douglas, Moses David, Joshua and Jonathan Evans ; William Foree William, William, jr., Isaac, Thomas, Jo- siah, Jesse, Samuel aLd Aaron Garrett; John and Benjamin Griffith, Jfathaniel Grubb, Benjamin, Benjamin, jr., Phineas, Samuel and Caleb Hibberd ; Thomas Harris,- Benjamin Hampton, Griffith and Thomas Jones, George King, John Longstretch, William and Arasmus Lloyd, Isaac, Abra- ham and Jacob Lewis ; Thomas, Isaac and Phineas Massey ; Samuel McCue, Isaac and Thomas Mellin, Caleb Maris, Benjamin Marple, Cromwell and Edward Pearce, Thomas Russell, Isaac Eichard, William Recce, Joseph Rowland, Howel Roberts, John, George, Thomas, Anne, Caleb and Hannah Smedley; John Scott, Joseph and Isaac Thomas, John Taylor, Thomas White, Anthony Wayne, Lewis and John Williams, Amos, Amos, jr., Francis, Enoch, Daniel, Ifathan, Joshua, George, Isaac, Isaac, jr., Caleb and Joseph Yarnall. After speaking somewhat in detail of the lifty-six townships of Chester county, it has been deemed advisable to present them chronologically, with the names of the town- ships from which they were taken, and the years in which they were organized : Township. From. Year. Westtown about 1685 Birmingham 1686 Thornbury 1687 Willistown about 1704 Easttown 1704 Kennett before 1705 Tredyffrin before 1707 N^ew Garden before 1716 Charlestown before 1715 'New London before 1715 Sadsbury before 1717 E. Nottingham.... N'ottingham 1718 W. Nottingham. . .Nottingham 1718 London Grove 1723 LondonBritain ...New London 1725 East Cain Cain 1728 West Cain Cain 1728 E. Marlborough . . .Marlborough 1729 W. Marlborough. .Marlborough 1729 E. Bradford Bradford 1731 W.Bradford Bradford 1731 Londondery Nottingham 1734 Uwchlan before 1738 E. Nantmeal Nantmeal 1740 W. Nantmeal Nantmeal 1740 Newlin 1740 E. Fallowfield Fallowfield 1743 W. Fallowfield Fallowfield 1743 E. Whiteland Whiteland 1765 W.Whiteland Whiteland 1765 Pennsbury Kennett 1770 Honeybrook W. Nantmeal 1789 Upper Oxford Oxford 1797 Lower Oxford Oxford 1797 East Goshen Goshen 1817 West Goshen Goshen 1817 Peun Londonderry 1817 Schuylkill Charlestown 1826 01 CHESTER COUNTY. 141 Township. From. E. Vincent Vincent.., W.Vincent Vincent.. E. Pikeland Pikeland. W. Pikeland Pikeland. , Year. 1832 1832 1838 1838 N. Coventry Coventry 1841 S. Coventry Coventry 1841 Warwick E. Nantnieal 1842 E. Coventry ST. Coventry 1844 E. Brandywine....Brandywine 1844 W. Brandywine. . .Brandywine 1844 Pocopson l^J^ewlin and others... 1849 Wallace W. JSTantineal 1852 Franklin N. Londonderry 1862 Valley Sadsbury 1852 Highland W. Fallowfield 1853 Elk E. Nottingham 1857 Upper Uwchlan...Uwchlan 1858 Cain E. and W. Cain 1868 W. Sadsbury ,Sadsbury 1878 The townships of the county that have passed out of existence by being divided into other townships, together with the dates at which they existed, are shown in the following compilation : Township. Time. Marlborough 1704-1729 Goshen 1704-1817 Bradford 1705-1731 lifottingham 1715-1718 Coventry 1718-1841 Fallowfield 1718-1843 ]S"antmeal 1722-1740 Pikeland 1745-1888 Oxford 1754-1797 Brandywine 1790-1844 BOEOUUHS. The United States census of 1890 only enumerates ten boroughs in Chester county, while it classes Honeybrook as a village, and makes no mention of Berwyn or Mal- vern. Atglen Borough. — Twenty miles west of the county seat, on the Pennsylvania rail- road in West Sadsbury township, near the headwaters of Octoraro creek, is situated the borough of Atglen, which includes within its present limits the former village of Pennington. It was organized by a de- cree of court on December 20, 1875, and has four hundred population. It has one large manufacturing establishment, several churches and a good graded school. Atglen is the first of several thrifty and enterpris- ing railroad towns in the great Chester county valley, extending from the Lancaster to the Montgomery county line. Coatesville Borough. — Pleasantly situated in Valley township, a few miles west of the center of the county, on the West Brandy- wine river, where the main line of the Penn- sylvania railroad forms a junction with the Wilmington & Northern, lies the borough of Coatesville, one of the centers of the iron industry of Chester county. It is fourteen miles from West Chester, thirty-three from Wilmington,thirty-eight from Philadelphia, thirty-nine from Reading, and sixty-five from Harrisburg. Coatesville was incor- porated as a borough in 1867, and includes the old village of Midway, now known as West Coates, and which derived its old name from the fact of being exactly half way between Philadelphia and Columbia, the original termini of the Pennsylvania railroad. Coatesville was named for the Coates family, founded by Moses Coates, who came from Ireland about 1717. The postoffice was established April 1, 1812, with Moses Coates as postmaster, and since that day the place has slowly grown from a post hamlet to a large and prosperous town. The borough is handsome in appearance, has good hotels and schools, and possesses 142 BIOGRAPHY AND HIS20RY several fine churches. It is lighted by gas, possesses good waterworks and an efficient fire department, and has large iron manu- factories, besides tanneries, and flouring, planing, and woolen mills. It lies in a beautiful and rich valley, and the assessed valuation of its real and personal property is nearly three millions of dollars. A hand- some railroad bridge, nine hundred and sixty feet long and sixty feet high, spans the West Brandywine river at this place. The population of Coatesville, by each United States census since 1870, has been as follows : U. S. Census. Population. White. Colored. 1870. 2025 1897 128 1880. 2766 1890. 3680 The population of the borough by wards in 1890 was : East Ward 1426 Middle Ward 1630 Westward 624 Downingtown Borough. — This well known town of southeastern Pennsylvania, whose name is so familiar to the almost countless thousands of people who are borne over the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad, lies on the waters of the historic Brandywine river, in the heart of the great Chester val- ley. Downingtown, which went by the name of Milltown as early as 1784, was in- corporated as a borough May 12, 1859, and is in East Cain township. It is seven miles from West Chester, thirty-three from Phil- adelphia, and seventy-three from Harris- burg, and lies at the junction of the Waynesburg with the Pennsylvania rail- road. Through the long years of its exist- ence as a village it increased slowly in wealth and population, but since municipal honors were awarded it, nearly half a cen- tury ago, its progress has been more rapid. The portion of the town on the east side of the Brandywine, known as East ward, has a postoffice separate froin the town, the office being known as East Downingtown. The Downingtown postoffice was established April 1, 1798, with Hunt Downing as post- master, and is the oldest as well as the first* established postoffice in the county. The site of the town was largely owned at one time (1739) by Thomas Downing, from whom it derives its name. Downingtown has good banking, fine railroad and excel- lent school facilities. It is lighted by gas, well supplied with water, and has two flour- ing mills and various factories. The population of Downingtown since 1860 has been as follows: U. S. Census. Population. White. Colored, 1860. 761 705 . 56 1870. 1077 1040 37 1880. 1480 1890. 1920 The population of the borough by wards in 1890 was returned as follows : East ward 872 West ward 1048 Honeyhrook Borough. — This thrifty and favorably located town is on the Waynes- burg branch of the Pennsylvania railroad, in Honeyhrook township, eighteen miles northwest of West Chester. It has good schools and churches, and its population has increased from four hundred and seventy in 1880 to five hundred and fourteen in 1890. It was formerly known as Waynesburg, and the following account of the place is given by Alexander Marshall : "About the year 1815 the ground on which the village of Waynesburg, in Honey- brook township, now stands was an old field or common that had not been fenced in OF CHESTER COVNIY. 143 since the making of the Horseshoe turn- pike, on the north side of that road. On the south side of the turnpike was a tavern, called the ' General Wayne,' with a square, old-fashioned sign hung to the breeze, on which was painted what purported to be a likeness of the general on horseback, dressed in revolutionary equipments, boots and spurs, mounted on a chestnut sorrel pranc- ing steed. The tavern-house stood on the left corner of a road that intersected with the turnpike leading to the Mariner's Com- pass, now called Compassville. On the right side of this road stood a stone store- house, kept by David Hackett, a single man, who boarded at the tavern. The tav- ern was kept by Jonathan Jones, who while living there represented, in part, Chester county in the lower house of the State legis- lature, and afterward was sheriff of Chester county. Beside these two buildings, there was a small two-story stone house on the north side of the turnpike, about one hun- dred yards farther west. There was a school-house that stood lower down the turnpike, on the south side, near where the railroad now crosses said pike, and was called the 'Greneral Wayne School-house.' This was about the position of things at the date above named. There was an Irish school master by the name of Stinson, who had saved some money by teaching in the neighborhood for some years. He bought this old field by way of speculation, got it surveyed into town-lots, and made a lottery — lotteries were then fashionable and not unlawful. He sold the tickets mostly on credit, as almost everybody could buy on credit at that date. The lottery was drawn, and those who drew the lots fronting on the turnpike promptly paid for their tickets and received titles. Those who drew back lots were not so prompt, and many of them re- mained on Mr. Stinson's hands. In a short time some of the owners of front lots be- gan to build. This encouraged others, and then the back lots became more valuable." Hopewell Borough. — On May 2, 1853, Hopewell borough was incorporated. It was taken from Lower Oxford and East ISTottiugham townships. Hopewell is thirty miles southwest of West Chester, and lies on the Oxford & Peach Bottom railroad. It has a flouring mill, factory, two churches and a school. The postoflace is known as Hopewell Cotton Works. The population of Hopewell at each United States census since 1860 has been as follows : U. S. Census. Population. White. Colored. 1860. 278 262 16 1870. 268 260 8 1880. 216 1890. 213 Kennett Square Borough. — At the head of Toughkenamon valley on the line of the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central railroad, thirty-six miles southwest of Philadelphia, eleven miles northwest of Wilmington, Delaware, and twelve miles southwest of West Chester, is Kennett Square, one of the most prosperous boroughs and leading edu- cational centers of the county. The bor- ough was incorporated in 1855, from Ken- nett township. The first mention of the name to be found is in a deed made by William Dixon to Joseph Musgrave, in 1769. Kennett Square had grown in size to a fair village when the British camped about it on the night preceding the battle of Brandywine in 1777. It has slowly in- creased in size and population from a small village to a thrifty borough. During the days of chattel slavery it was a very "hot- 144 BIOGBAPHY AND HISIORY bed of abolitionism." The iuhabitante of the place are largely the descendants of the first settlers, and are widely known for their intelligence and culture. Kennett Square has a number of churches, a good graded school, and water works. It is well pro- vided with hotels, banks and newspapers, while its academy and seminary have a large attendance of pupils from a distance. It has several manufacturing establishments, of which the principal ones manufacture fertilizers, road machines and agricultural implements. The borough has an assessed valuation of over half a million dollars, with but little bonded indebtedness. The population of Kennett Square since 1860, at each United States census, has been : U.S. Census. Population. White. Colored. 1860. 606 474 132 1870. 884 726 158 1880. 1021 1890. 1326 Malvern Borough. — On elevated ground six hundred feet above tide water, nine miles northeast of West Chester, and situa- ted on the line of the Pennsylvania railroad, is the beautiful and thoroughly progressive borough of Malvern. It was founded in 1866 by David Evans, who in connection with his nephew, W. P. Evans, built the present Malvern flouring mill, and inaugu- rated other business enterprises in the new village, that received the name of Malvern when it was made a station on the Pennsyl- vania railroad, February 21, 1873. Excel- lent water works were constructed in 1871, by D. & W. P. Evans, and pure soft water is furnished to the inhabitants from a large spring on the old Ruth farm. Malvern was organized as a borough between 1880 and 1890, and in the latter year had a population of six hundred and forty-one. From its elevation it has a commanding view of the surrounding country and a part of the Chester and Schuylkill valleys, be- sides a portion of the southwestern part of the State of New Jersey. Malvern has several churches, good schools, and gives promise of growing into a place of prom- inence in the future. Oxford Borough. — In the western part of Chester county, twenty-eight miles south- west of West Chester, and fifty-two miles west of Philadelphia, on the central divis- ion of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore railroad, is situated the hand- some and flourishing borough of Oxford. It was taken from Lower Oxford and East I^ottingham townships, and was incorpora- ted as a borough by act of assembly on April 8, 1833. Oxford has fine graded schools, numerous churches, several hotels, banks and newspapers, while it possesses a good system of water works, and has sev- eral steam fire engines. It lies in the heart of one of the richest agricultural sections of the county, and possesses excellent ship- ping facilities. It is a manufacturing and mercantile town, and has many fine resi- dences and substantial business blocks. Oxford's population, by each United States census since 1850, has been as follows: TJ. S. Census. Population. White. Colored. 1850. 186 162 24 1860. 482 446 36 1870. 1151 1060 91 1880. 1502 1890. 1711 Parkesburg Borough. — It is one of the fiourishing trade centers of the county, and increased in population from eight hundred and seventeen in 1880 to one thousand five hundred and fourteen in 1890. Parkes- burg is situated on the Pennsylvania rail- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 145 road, in Sadsbury township, eighteen miles west of West Chester, and forty-four miles from Philadelphia. It was incorporated as a borough March 1, 1872. The place re- ceived its name from the old and influential Parke family, that settled near its site in an early day. Parkesburg came into prom- inence when the State constructed the Columbia railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia and located its shops — known as the State shops — at the village. These shops remained at Parkesburg until 1861, when they were removed to Harrisburg. The old shop buildings were remodeled and enlarged by Horace A. Beale, who then turned them into a rolling mill, which he has successfully operated ever since. The borough has several manufacturing estab- lishments, a graded school, and numerous churches and hotels, besides a bank and a newspaper. Phcenirville Borough. — In the northeast- ern part of Schuylkill township, on the west bank of the Schuylkill river, at its confluence with French creek, lies Phcenix- ville, the most important manufacturing town of Chester county, and one of the great industrial centers of Pennsylvania. It is on the main line of the Philadelphia & Reading railroad, at the terminus of the Pickering Valley branch of the same road, while along the opposite side of the river the Pennsylvania railroad passes. The site of Phoenixville was settled at an early day, and the small hamlet of the seventeenth century had so grown in size and importance as to become incorporated as a borough on March 16, 1849. The growth and prosperity of the town are due to early iron works and later iron en-- terprises. The first iron works was estab- lished in 1790, and there are now a number 10 of large furnaces and rolling m,ills, which employ many hundred hands, and have ad- ded in no small degree to the wealth of the prosperous borough. The largest bridge works in Pennsylvania is located here, while numerous other industries have been estab- lished and are in a flourishing condition. Phoenixville is little short of a modern city in advantages and facilities. It has good streets, a fine system of graded schools, and is well lighted by both gas and electricity, while it possesses a thoroughly equipped fire department. It is a trade center, as well as a manufacturing one, and a large number of wholesale, jobbing, and retail establishments enjoy a satisfactory annual patronage. It resounds with the hum of industry and the rush and roar of trains, while the lights of furnace, forge and mill illumine the darkness of night. Such is busy, bustling Phoenixville — a center of unceasing activities and untiring energies, whose progress and prosperity has been largely accomplished and secured by home energy and home capital. Phoenixville has two banks, the National bank of Phoenix- ville and the Farmers' and Mechanics' Na.- tional bank; while its churches, eight in number, are : Central Luthei'an, First Meth- odist, Phoenixville Baptist, Poenixville Pres- byterian, St. John's Evangelical Lutheran, St. John's Reformed, St. Mary's Catholic, and St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal. The bor- ough has the following incorporated com- panies within its borough limits : Phcenix Bridge, Phoenix Iron, Thoenix Mutual Fire Insurance, Phoenixville Co-operative (asso- ciation), Phoenixville Electric Light and Power, Morris Cemetery, and Phcenix Hose, Hook and Ladder, ISo. 1. It has three newspapers : The Messenger, an independent weekly ; Republican, an evening daily ; and 146 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTOBY the Slovak v Amerike, a Hungarian weekly, recently established. The postoffice was established July 22, 1828, with Lewis W. Richards as postmaster. The secret societies of Phoenixville in 1889 were: Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, F. and A. M. ; Phoenix Chapter, ISTo. 198, R. A. M. ; Palestine Council,E'o.8, R. and S. M. ; Jeru- salem Commandery, No. 15, K. T. ; Masonic Hall Association; Phoenix Lodge, No. 212, I. 0. of 0. F. ; Lieut. Josiah "White Post, No. 45, G. A. R. ; Wayne Council, No. 46, Jr. 0. TJ. A.M. ; Declaration Lodge, No. 76, A. P. A. ; Sankanac Lodge, No. 58, K. of P.; Phoenix Division, No. 100, S. of T. ; Camp No. 123, P. 0. S. of A. ; Division No. 1, A. 0. H. ; Stratford Castle, No. 67, K. of G. E.; Ivanhoe Keep, No. 1, K of B. ; Young Men's Literary Union ; Emerald Beneficial Association ; St. Joseph's Bene- ficial Association; and St. Mary's Temper- ance Cadets. The population of Phoenixville, by each United States census since 1850, has been as follows : U. S. Census. Population. White. Colored. 1850. 2,670 2,641 29 1860. 4,886 4,851 35 1870. 5,292 5,268 24 1880. 6,682 1890. 8,514 The population of the borough by wards in 1880 and 1890 were: Wards. 1880. Ward.s. 1890. North ward... 2,515 First ward 1,801 South ward... 4,167 Second ward.. 1,686 Third ward... 2,127 Total 6,682 Fourth ward... 1,724 Fifth ward 1,176 Spring City Borough. — On the right hand bank of the Schuylkill river, in East Vin- cent township, twenty miles north of West Chester, is the progressive town of Spring City, whose growth has been rapid and sub- stantial for the last two decades. It was in- corporated as the borough of Springville in 1867, and in 1872 the name was changed to Spring City, to correspond with the name of the postoffice, which was established on Sep- tember 29, 1864, with David S. Taylor as postmaster. Manufacturing was commenced here us early as 1850, but slow progress was made for upwards of twenty years, and then the importance of the place and its favor- able facilities drew the attention of several manufacturers, who located their establish- ments and inaugurated its present prosper- ous career. Situated in the heart of a rich agricultural and mineral valley, with excel- lent railroad facilities and splendid induce- ments to ofler to new enterprises, and safe investments for the capitalist, the borough promises by the dawn of the next century to become one of the most important towns of the county. Its leading manufactures to- day are those of stoves, paper, glass, terra cotta, foundry facings, charcoal blooms, brick and flour. It enjoys modern conveniences, has good schools, and is well supplied with churches. It has an able newspaper and a substantial bank. Spring City has increased as rapidly in population since 1880 as it has in wealth. From 1,112 inhabitants in 1880, it has increased" to 1,797, as reported by the census of 1890. West Chester Borough. — One of the finest inland residence towns of the State, and the most important suburb of Philadelphia, is West Chester, the beautiful and pleasant county seat of Chester county, the first of the three original counties organized by William Penn. The territory comprising the present site of West Chester was erected into the county town for Chester countv on OF CHESTER COUNTY. 147 March 3, 1788, and eleven years later the rapidly growing village was incorporated on March 28, 1799, as a borough. West Chester is situated on high ground, between Brandywine and Chester creeks, and has an altitude of four hundred and fifty-six feet above tide. Its latitude is 39° 57' 31.3", north, and longitude 75° 36' 32.7" west from Greenwich, England, or 1° 24' 57" east from Washington city. The original plan of the town was four contiguous squares and two principal streets, but in 1829 several additional streets were laid out, and the council commenced to make those improvements that have so much beautified the place. The first mar- ket house was built in 1802, and the first macadamizing of streets was done in 1829. The first court house, erected in 1786, was a very indifl:erent building, and was torn down in 1847. The old jail was no better in construction than its companion, the old court house, and was torn down in 1838. The first court house and jail stood in the rear of the present public buildings. The present jail, a handsome and durable struc- ture, was completed in 1838, and has an- swered the purpose of its construction. The borough is sixteen and one-half miles from Philadelphia, and rests on geological forma- tions of gneiss and syenite. The earliest account which we have of the country cross- roads around which has grown up the town of West Chester is that of Joseph Town- send, of Baltimore, who says: "The first knowledge that I had of the ground on which West Chester stands was about the year 1760. There was at that time a cross- roads (now the intersection of Gay and High streets) ; the one in an easterly direc- tion led to Philadelphia, southerly to Wil- mington, westerly to Jefterjs' ford or the Brandywine, and northerly to the 'Great Valley.' The northeasterly field was owned by Phineas Eachus; northwesterly one by Daniel Hoopes. The ground southwesterly had an orchard on, and belonged to the estate of David Haines; the ground south- easterly was a lot, on which was a small one-story wooden house, in which a tavern was kept by the aforesaid Phineas Eachus. There was a small log building connected with the south end of the shed and tavern- yard, in which was a store." Mr. Town- send further states that in the Hoopes field was erected a log school house, in which Ralph Forester, an Irishman, taught for several years ; and that in 1770 John Hoopes built a brick tavern southeast of the old log one, while a retail store was opened by Henry Glass and Ebenezer Matthews in a two-story log building in the old orchard. Mr. Townsend also recollected Charles Py- ant, William Sharpless, George Bostock and his wife, a reputed enchantress; Peter Gowen, a weaver; and Samuel Hoopes, a blacksmith, all of whom were residents near the Eachus tavern before 1782. Phineas Eachus obtained license in 1762, and in 1768 his tavern was referred to for the first time as the "Turk's Head," which name was soon applied to the little hamlet. Capt. John Clark succeeded Eachus in the log tavern, and John Harper opened the brick tavern in 1770, calling it the "Turk's Head." Clark's successors were Jacob James, Francis Trumble, John Underwood, JSTathan Schofield and Isaac Webb. In 1786 the county seat was established at the vil- lage of Turk's Head, whose name was then changed to that of West Chester. In 1787 Isaac Matlack built the Green Tree tavern, and Col. John Hannum erected the Wash- ington, The Bear was opened in 1788, and 148 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY in 1796 Isaac Webb removed to the Gen- eral Wayne, which became the celebrated Whitehall tavern that was torn down in 1874. General LaFayette was splendidly enter- tained bere in the court house, Tuesday, July 26, 1825, on which occasion he said in his speech in reply to the address of wel- come : "The thought of its having been ni}' first action under the American stand- ard, and under our great and good com- mander-in-chief, in company with your gallant Chester countian, my friend General Wayne, and my other comrades — the honor to have mingled my blood with that' of many American soldiers on the heigbts of Brandywine — had been to me a source of pride and delight, near half a century before it has lately become an occasion of the most honorable, kind, and gratifying remem- brance; as it is now an object of your friendly congratulations. Happy I am, also, in your testimonies of affection and esteem, for my conduct in the vicissitudes of my life, on both hemispheres." The present fine and handsome court house, on the corner of Pligh and Market streets, was erected in 1846-47, under the direction of Mordecai Lee, Enos Pennock and Smith Sharpless, who were then the county commissioners. Thomas U. Walter was the architect, and William Ingram, Chalkley Jeff'eris, James Powell and David H. Taylor were the contractors. The cor- nerstone was laid July 4, 1846, and the structure was finished in 1847, at a total cost of 155,345.98, although the original contract was for only |45,000. In 1859 it was faced with Pictou stone at a cost of $21,000, and to-day is recognized as an ele- gant specimen of Corinthian architecture. The country surrounding West Chester is said to be the most beautiful in America, and to closely resemble the best portions of rural England. The classic Brandywine flows within two miles of the town, and the historic grounds of the Brandywine battle, Birmingham church, Osborne's Hill, Chad's Ford, Paoli and Valley Forge, are within easy driving distance. In addition to the charms of so many beautiful historic asso- ciations which invest this whole region, the natural scenery and pleasant drives along the Brandywine and Valley creeks equal in beauty those of the famous Wissahickon and elsewhere about Philadelpbia and Ger- mantowu. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica says of Chester county : " The district which they (Quakers) inhabit is a veritable fairy- land, and its principal town. West Chester, has been for a long time one of the notable centers of scientific life in the State of Pennsylvania."' The Ionic, the Tuscan and the JSTorman orders of architecture -are to be seen in the elegant and tasteful homes of many of the families of West Chester. ]S^early all the houses are of brick and stone, with metal or slate roofs. The lawns and gardens, with terraces, flowers and trees, add curve and grace, color and. beauty. The streets, the public clock, and many of the stores, botels and residences, are illuminated by electricity, while gas supplies light to the remainder of the town and people. The streets are well macadamized, and the stone curbing and brick sidewalks, with flagged crossings, are good. The average mean temperature in West Chester, during the last ten years, has been 50j-JV degrees Fabrenheit, and the rain- fall, during the same period, has averaged 44 r^T inches per year, as reported by Dr. Jesse C. Green, the oflacial observer for the United States signal service. The town has an excellent system of « M H in W X u H t/> O O u ►J < o 2 W H rear it are located several kaolin mines, from which the office takes its name. Kelton. — The village of Kelton is situated in Penn township, twenty-two miles south- west of the county seat. It has a store and a creamery, and the postoffice dates back to April 10, 1871. The first postmaster was Robert C. Kelton. KemblesvilU. — This village of two hun- dred inhabitants, lying twenty-four miles southwest of West Chester, in Franklin township, has three flouring mills, a store, hotel and pottery. The postoffice was es- tablished August 16, 1823, with George Kemble as postmaster. Kenilworth. — The Nortii Coventry town- ship village of Kenilworth, whose popula- tion is three hundred and twenty-five, lies twenty-five miles north of the county seat, and one and a fourth miles from Pottstown, Montgomery county, which is its nearest shipping station. It has a store and gro- cery, and a postoffice of the same name. Kimberton. — This is an East Pikeland township village of one hundred and forty inhabitants, situated on the Pickering Val- ley railroad, sixteen njiles north of West Chester, and four miles west of Phcenixville. It has several flouring mills, a planing mill and a general store. Kimberto'n postoflBce was established as early as January 15, 1820, and Emmor Kimber served as the first post- master. Landenburg. — This prosperous village of I^ew Garden township is twenty miles south- west of the county-seat, and is located at the junction of the D. & W. with the Penn & Delaware brancTi of the Pennsylvania rail- road. According to the census of 1880, it had a population in that year of three hun- dred and fifty-three. It enjoys considerable trade, and has a good school, a hotel, two flouring mills, and a general store. Landen- burg postoffice was established November 17, 1848, with Jacob Hobson as postmaster.. The office was first called Chandlerville, but the name was changed to Landenburg on September 20, 1869. Lenajpe. — The village of Lenape lies four miles southwest of West Chester, in Bir- mingham township. It has two flouring mills and two general stores, with a post- office of the same name, which dates back to January 21, 1870, with John P. Sager as postmaster. Lniorcr. — This little village is situated twenty miles west of the county seat, in WestSadsbury township, and has two stores and flouring mills. Leonard. — A lately established postoflBce of Jfew Garden township is Leonard, M'hieh is one mile north of Toughkenamon, its nearest shipping point. It has a hotel and store. Leopard. — Northeast of West Chester ten miles, and in Easttown township, is located the village of Leopard, which has three general stores and a postoffice of the same name, established April 2, 1866. John W. Hayman served us the first postmaster. Leioisrdle. — In Elk township, thirty miles OF CHE&TEB COUNTY. 157 southwest of the county seat, is Lewisville, a village of over two hundred inhabitants, whose banking town is Oxford, and whose shipping point is Elkton, Maryland. It has a store, two newspapers and two flour- ing mills. Lewisville postoffice was estab- lished February 7, 1848, and J.B. McDowell was conmnssioned as the first postmaster. Lincoln Uvlrersity. — This railroad village of over two hundred population, is situated in Lower Oxford township, twenty-five miles southwest of West Chester. It derives its name from Lincoln university, a school for colored people, which is within the limits of the town. It has three general stores, three flouring mills, and a fruit tree nursery. The postoffice dates back to July (), 1869, and George Rigdon was the first postmaster. (See Miscellaneous.) IJonriUe. — The village of Lionville con- tained a population of one hundred and fourteen, according to the census of 1880, and is situated in Uwchlan township, nine miles north of the county seat, and two and one-half miles from Oakland railroad station. There is a hotel and two general stores at this place. The postoffice was established May 26, 1826, and William Rogers served as the first postmaster. Loag. — Eighteen miles northwest of the county seat, and in West N'antmeal town- ship, is Loag, a village of nearly one hun- dred inhabitants. It has a store, a hotel, and a postoffice by the same name, which came into existence on November 25, 1828, with Samuel E. Williams as postmaster. Lyndell. — This railroad village is in East Brandywine township, twelve miles north- west of West Chester, and has a flouring mill, woolen mill, and general store. The post-office was established August 30, 1880, with James Rea as postmaster. Marsh. — In East Nantmeal township, eighteen miles north of the county seat, and three miles from Springfield railroad station, is Marsh, a village of over 100 inhabitants. It has a general store and two flouring mills. The postoffice dates back to March 25, 1828, when Watters Dewees was appointed as its first postmaster. The postoffice was discon- tinued on i^ovember 12, 1851, and re-estab- lished April 22, 1864. Marshallton. — This place, containingthree hundred inhabitants, is in West Bradford township, and lies very near the center of the county. It is four miles west of West Chester, and two miles from North- brook, its nearest railroad station. It is in the midst of a rich agricultural district, and has good school and church facilities. It has a mill, hotel and several business houses. Marshallton postoffice was established July 1, 1805, and the first postmaster was Abra- ham Baily. Martin's Corner. — Tlie growing village of Martin's Corner is situated in West Cain township, seventeen miles northwest of West Chester, and one and three-fourth miles from Cedar Knoll, its nearest railroad ship- ping point. It is a place of over one hun- dred people, and has two general stores, and a postoffice by the same name, that came into existence February 24, 1871, with Ziba C. Wollarton as postmaster. Matthews. — This village is situated in West Vincent township, thirteen miles north of the county seat and two miles from Cambria railroad station. It has a saw mill, a general store, and an agricultural implement house. The postoffice was es- tablished March 25, 1881, and James Lumis served as the first postmaster. Mendenhall. — At the little railroad ham- let of Fairville, on the Philadelphia & Bal- 158 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY timore Central, in Kennett township, a post- office was established March 14, 1881, and named Mendenhall. George M. Thomson was appointed postmaster. The village lies ten miles south of West Chester, and con- tains a store and creamery. Milford Mills. — This Upper Uwchlan township village, containing over one hun- dred inhabitants, is situated on Marsh creek and the Waynesburg railroad, twelve miles northwest of West Chester and five miles north of Downingtown. It has a general store and two stocking manufacturing es- tablishments. The postofficewas established October 22, 1869, and Evan B. Evans served as the first postmaster. Milltown. — In East Goshen township, three miles east of West Chester, is the village of Milltown, whose population now exceeds one hundred. It has a general store, flouring mill and woolen mill. The postoffice dates back to September 2-3, 1849, and Jesse Matlack served as the first post- master. Modena. — This village, which had a pop- ulation of one hundred and twenty-six in 1880, according to the census of that year, is located in East Fallowfield township, ten miles west of the county seat, and two and a half miles south of Coatesville. It has a general store and paper mill. Modena post- office was established March 24, 1873, and Robert B. Daniels was appointed as the first postmaster. Mortonville. — The village of Mortonville is situated in l^ewlin township, ten miles west of the county seat, and four miles south of Coatesville. The place has a general store, flouring mill and hotel. The post- office dates back to February 6, 1852, with Crosby P. Morton as postmaster. Mount Vervon. — Three miles north of Ox- ford and twenty -five miles southwest of West Chester, lies the little village of Mount Vernon, whose postoffice of the same name was established March 1, 1823, with Joseph Dickey as postmaster. This place has a store and paper board manufacturing establishment. Nayitmeal Village. — This railroad station, located in East Nantmeal township, seven- teen miles north of West Chester, has a gen- eral store and a saw mill. The population of the place is estimated at two hundred. The postoffice was established February 15,1876, and Davis K. Loomis served as the first postmaster. New London. — This is one of the older villages of the county, and lies in New Lon- don township, twenty-two miles southwest of West Chester, and six miles west of Ox- ford, while its nearest railroad station is Elk View, two and a half miles distant. It has a hotel, drug store, and two general stores. It has an estimated population of nearly three hundred. The postoffice dates back to January 2, 1803, when it was estab- lished by the name of iffew London Cross Roads. The name was changed to New London on October 27, 1847. North Brook. — This is a railroad villaffe in Pocopson township, seven miles southwest of West Chester, with about seventy-five in- habitants. It has a general store, and the postoffice was established January 27, 1871, with R. H. Marshall as postmaster. Norway. — This village, containing about fifty population, is on the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central railroad, in Kennett town- ship, ten miles southwest of West Chester, and two and a half miles east of Kennett Square. The postoffice dates back to Jan- uary 31, 1871, and E. B. Darlington served as the first postmaster, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 159 Nottingham. — Situated on a branch of the Octoraro creek, where the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central railroad crosses it, on the northern boiindary line of WestNottingham township, is the village of Nottingham, whose inhabitants number about fifty. It is twenty-eight miles southwest of West Chester, and has a general store and a cream- ery. The postoffice was established August 7, 1851, and Daniel Stubbs was commis- sioned as the first postmaster. Paoli. — This flourishing little village is situated in Tredyft'rin township, about eleven miles northeast of West Chester, aud has a drug store, a ge.neral store, and three flour- ing mills. The postoffice dates back to De- cember 9, 1826, with Joshua Evans as post- master. Parker Ford. — This important village, of nearly five hundred inhabitants, is in East Coventry township, twenty-two miles north of the county seE^t. It is near the Schuj'l- kill Valley railroad, and has two flouring mills, several general stores, and a lately es- tablished postoffice by the same name. Parkersville. — On the Wilmington & Read- ing railroad, in Pennsbury township, and seven miles southwest of West Chester, is Parkersville, a place of over one hundred inhabitants. It has a general store, saw mill and flouring mill. The postoffice dates back to January 1, 1828, with John Parker, jr., as postmaster. Pawling. — Fifteen miles northeast of West Chester, and three miles south of Phoenix- ville, is Pawling, a village of Schuylkill township, and a place of about two hundred inhabitants. It has a flouring mill, general store, and a postoffice by the same name, which was established May 21, 1869, with M. J. Ramsey as postmaster. Plekering. — This is a village of about one hundred inhabitants, situated in Charles- town township, thirteen miles northeast of the county seat, and four miles southwest of Phoenixville, its shipping point. It has a cotton mill, a flouring mill, and three general stores. The postoffice dates back to December 28, 1833. Robert Hughes served as its first postmaster. Pocopson. — This place is a station on the Wilmington & Reading railroad, in Pocop- son township, and five miles south of West Chester. Two general stores and a saw mill are its main business enterprises. The postoffice was established as Painter's Bridge on December 19, 1870, and the name was changed to Pocopson on September 2, 1880. Pomeroy. — This village is in Sadsbury township, fifteen miles northwest of the county seat, and has a woolen mill, flouring mill, grocery, and two general stores. The postoffice was established October 18,1864, as Buck Run, but the name was changed to that of Pomeroy on January 17, 1866. Pughtoivn. — Pughtowu is one of the older villages of the county and has a population of over one hundred. It is in South Cov- entry township, eighteen miles north of West Chester, and six miles south of Potts- town, Montgomery county, which is its banking town and shipping station. It has four flouring mills, two general stores, and a creamery. The postoffice has existed since January 1, 1806, and David Townsend served as the first postmaster. Rockville. — This village is located in the southeastern part of Honey Brook township, on the Waynesburg railroad, sixteen miles from West Chester. It contains two gen- eral stores, and a postoffice by the same name, which dates back to January 18, 1832, at which time Jacob Happersett was ap- pointed as its first postmaster, ](iO BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY Momansville. — This place was formerly known as Kildeer, and is situated in West Bradford township, seven miles west of the county seat, and one and one-half miles from Embreevilie, its railway shipping point. It has a flouring mill, a general store, and a postoffice of the same name, which was es- tablished October 25, 1880, and T. W. Bald- win served as the first postmaster. Mosenrick. — In highland township, fifteen miles southwest of the county seat, and two miles from Doe Run railway station, iiestles the little village of Rosenvick. It has a general store, and a postofiice by the same name, which was established July 26, 1872, with John C. Ferron as postmaster. jRiissellnlle. — In Upper Oxford township, twenty-four miles southwest of "West Ches- ter, and four miles north of Elkview railway station, is Eussellville, a village of over one hundred population. It has a saw mill, ho- tel, two general stores, and a grocery. The postofiice was established March 15, 1823. Jacob Hopple was the first postmaster. Sadshuryville. — This village of two hun- dred inhabitants is situated in the township of Sadsbury, eighteen miles west of the county seat. It has a flouring mill, a plaster mill and two general stores. The postoflBce has been in existence since April 22, 1825, and John Kendig served as the first post- master. Saint Peter s. — This village, often called Knauertown, is a station on the French Creek Branch railroad, in Warwick town- ship, twenty-two miles northwest from the county seat. It contains about one hundred inhabitants, and has two saw mills, two hotels, and two general stores. Several granite quarries are near the place, and the postofiice dates back to February 19, 1851, with Joseph Millard as postmaster. Schuylkill. — This is a place of one hun- dred population, in the township of the same name, sixteen miles northeast of West Ches- ter, and one mile from Phoenixville. It has two fiouring mills, two creameries, and two general stores. Schuylkill postoffice was established December 31, 1826, and Thomas Matlack served as the first postmaster. Shenkel. — This village is located in North Coventry township, twenty miles north of West Chester and four miles west of Potts- town, Montgomery county, and has over one hundred inhabitants. It has a general store, and a postoffice by the same name, established June 28, 1880, with Lewis L. Bachman as postmaster. Steelville. — This place of seventy inhab- itants is in West Fallowfield township, twenty-two miles southwest of West Ches- ter, and five miles south of Atglen, its rail- road point of shipment. It has two general stores and a cigar factory. Steelville post- office was established February 1, 1841, and Thomas Woods served as the first post- master. Stricldersville. — This village is situated in London Britain township, twenty-six miles southwest of the county seat, and has a pop- ulation of one hundred. It lies four miles north of Newark, Delaware, which is its nearest shipping point. There is a flouring mill here, a general store, and a lately es- tablished postoffice by the same name. Sugarf own. — The village known as Sugar- town is in Willistown township, northeast from West Chester, and three miles south of Malvern, its railroad shipping point. It has a flouring mill, a general store, and platinum works. The postoffice dates back to October 5, 1831, when it was established as Willistown. On July 7, 1835, the name was changed to Sugartown, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 16t Thornbary. — This promising village is in the township of the same name, three miles south of West Chester and two miles west of Westtown. It has a general store and a creamery. The postoffice was established March 12, 1831, and Thomas W. Stephens served as the first postmaster. Thorndah Iron Works. — This village de- rives its name from the celebrated iron works of that name, located near it, and is in Cain township, northwest of West Ches- ter, on the Pennsylvania railroad. The postoffice was established June 21, 1854, with David R. Baugh as postmaster. Toughkenamon. — In New Garden town- ship, fifteen miles southwest of West Ches- ter, is the thrifty village of Toughkenauion, which has a population of nearly four hun- dred. It has a hotel, two general stores, a grocery, creamery and wheel factory. The Toughkenamon seminary located here is well kown as a first class educational insti- tution. Toughkenamon postoffice was es- tablished December 8, 1868. Townsend. — Twenty-four miles northeast of West Chester, in Lower Oxford town- ship, is the small village of Townsend. It is two and a half miles distant froni Oxford, its shipping point, and has a flouring mill and one general store. The postoffice dates back to February 18, 1881, with Henry Powley as postmaster. Union cille. — This village of about four hundred inhabitants is located in East Marl- borough township, in the southern part of Chester county, nine miles south west of West Chester, and two and a half miles from Glen- hall, the nearest shipping pofnt, on the Wil- mington &Northernrailroad. Therearegood school and church facilities, and it is a point of considerable trade. Unionville postoffice 11 was established December 5, 1820, and Wil- liam Sharpe served as the first postmaster. Valley Fari/c. — In the township of Schuyl- kill, on the Philadelphia & Reading railroad, sixteen miles northeast of West Chester, is situated the village of Valley Forge. The population of this place is nearly four hun- dred, and it has a cotton mill and various other business establishments. Valley Forge postoffice is one of the older postoffices of the county, and was established January 15, 1820. Emmor Kimber was the first post- master. Wallacr. — This village is situated in the' township of the same name. It is fourteen miles northwest of the county seat, and two miles from Glen Moore, its place of ship- ment, on the Waynsbui'g railroad. The postoffice was established January 16, 1820, with John Workizer as postmaster. Wanulc/:. — This enterprising village is situated in the township of the s^ame name, eighteen miles northwest of West Chester, on the French Creek branch of the Wil- mington & Northern railroad. Its popula- tion is estimated at three hundred. Warwick has several thriving industries and gives promise of becoming an important place in the great French Creek iron region of Ches- ter county. The postoffice was establshed, by the name of St. Mary's, February 7, 1824, with Lewis Evans as postmaster. The name was changed July 23, 1868, from St. Mary's to Warwick. Westdfrocc. — In London Grove township, twenty-one miles south of West Chester and forty-one miles west of Philadelphia, on the central division of the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central railroad, is the pros- perous village of West Grove. It is a place of about three hundred inhabitants, has a 163 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY good school and several churches, and pos- sesses excellent hotel and banking facilities. Wed Pikehiinl. — This place is in the town- ship of the same name, ten miles north of West Chester, on the Pickering A'alley rail- road. It has an estimated population of one hundred. The postofficewas established July 26, 1872, with John S. Hines as post- master. Wcsttowii. — This small and flourishing village is in Thornbury township, five miles southeast of West Chester, on the P. W. & B. railroad. Westtown postoffice was es- tablished March 4, 1859, and Marshall A. Taylor served as the first postmaster. West Vincent. — This place of one hundred population is situated in West Vincent town- ship, fourteen miles southwest of West Chester and two and a half miles from Byer's station on the Pickering Valley rail- road. The postoffice at this place has an interesting history. It was established May 26, 1826, as East IS^antmeal, with Samuel Kirk as postmaster. Seventeen years later, on March 25, 1843, the name was changed to that of West Vincent, and David West was appointed postmaster, but ere a month had passed the spirit of change prevailed again, and on April 22, the name of East Nantmeal was restored, and David West was succeeded as postmaster by James Leighton. At the end of nearly three years, on April 7, 1846, the last change was made, and the name of West Vincent once more replaced that of East iVantmeal. Wluf/iird. — This village is on the Penn- sylvania railroad, in West Wliiteland town- ship, four and a half miles north of West Chester. Its population is estinuxted at one hundred and fifty. The postoffice is West Whiteland, and was established April 4, 1826, with Levi Evans as postmaster. White Horse. — In Willistown township, seven miles east of West Chester and four miles north of Malvern, is the village of White Horse. It has three flouring mills, two general stores, and a creamery. White Horse postoffice was established October 1, 1804, with Edward Porter as postmaster. Windsor. — This village is at the terminus of the Pickering Valley railroad, in Upper Uwchlan township, ten miles north of West Chester. Windsor is also known as Byer's station. It has a population of one hundred and sixty. The postoffice is Uwchland, and was established March 11, 1826, with Isaac Evans as postmaster. Willistown Inn. — This place is situated in Willistown township, five and a half miles east of West Chester and three miles north of Cheyney, its railroad shipping point. The postoffice has been in existence since eTune 7, 1854, and Samuel Sinquet served as the first postmaster. Willoivdale. — This small village of East Marlborough township is ten miles south- west of West Chester, and two miles from Kennett Square, its banking town and ship- ping point. Willowdale postoffice was es- tablished May 21, 1869. The first post- master was Joseph S. Pyle. Among the postoffices not mentioned above are the following: Avondale, which is in New Garden township, was established December 29, 1828, with Jacob Lindley as postmaster. Londonderry, in the township of the same mime, was established January 5, 1848, with William Fox as postmaster. ISTew Centreville is in Tredytfrin township, and dates back to April 2, 1857, with Evans Kendall as postmaster. ISTew Garden, in the township of the same name, was established January 1, 1803. Gilbert Pritchard was the first postmaster. Supjilee is in Honey OF CHESTER COUA'TV. 163 Brook township, and was established Jan- uary 27, 1871, with Horatio J. Supplee as postmaster, ^'incent, in East Vincent town- ship, dates backto February 13, 1821. Peter Miller was the first postmaster. Wagon- town is in West Cain township, and was established January 30, 1828, with Joseph Hughs as postmaster. Wild Brier postoffice, in West Brandywine township, was estab- lished May 21, 1869, with Levi Allison as postmaster. Census Statistics. — We have carefully com- piled, with considerable . labor, from the United States census reports, the following statistics regarding the population, manu- factures, and agriculture of Chester county : I. STATISTICS OF POPULATION. TOTAL POPULATION. Census. White. Colored. Total. 1790 27,249 688 27,937 1800 30,902 1,191 32,093. 1810 37,775 1,821 39,596 1820 41,710 2,741 44,451 1830 47,911 2,999 50,910 1840 53,372 4,143 57,515 1850 61,215 5,223 66,438 1860 68,671 5,907 74,578 1870 71,569 6,233 77,805 1880 7,642 7,073 83,481 1890 89,377 SEX ANB NATIVITY. Census. Males. Females. Native. Foreign. 1850 33,414 33,024 1860 37,337 37,241 67,832 6,746 1870 38,594 39,211 71,649 6,156 1880 41,249 42,232 77,591 5,890 1890 NATIVITY BY STATE OR COUNTRY. Place. Ceu9usl870. Census 18S0. Born in the State 67,321 72,266 Maryland 1,529 1,767 if ew Jersey r.... 451 579 Place. New York Virginia Ohio British America. Census 1870. 264 2(;i 93 64 Census ISWI. 310 266 163 8.3 4,147 784 (10!) 101 2H 12 Ireland 4,497 England and Wales.... 77!) Germany 583 Scotland 114 France 2-) Sweden and Norway... 5 Switzerland 33 Holland 6 Poland 7 MINOR CIVIL DIVISIONS 1850 AND 1860. Township or Borough. 1850. 1860. Birmingham 328 550 Charlestown 979 964 Downingtownboro 761 East Bradford 1,330 1,175 East Brandywine 1,115 1,039 East Cain 2,292 1,018 East Coventry 1,288 1,401 East Fallowtield 1,289 1,440 East Goshen 768 844 East Marlborough 1,425 l,47(i East Nantmeal 921 968 East Nottingham 2,412 1,361 East Pikeland 722 793 Easttown 710 728 East Vincent 1,505 1,681 East Whiteland 1,194 1,187 Elk 1,027 Franklin 974 Highland 1,094 Hopewell boro 278 Kennett 1,706 1,905 London Britain 680 659 Londonderry r 643 711 Loudon Grove 1,425 1,642 Lower Oxford 1,341 1,421 New Garden 1,391 1,540 164 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY Township or Borough. 1850. Newliii 738 ISTew London 2,042 North Coventry 985 Oxfordboro 186 Penusbury 761 Penn 738 Phoenixville boro 2,670 Pocopson 592 Sadsbury 2,767 Schuylkill 1,403 South Coventry 711 Thornbury 233 Tredyffrin 1,727 Upper Oxford 1,021 Upper Uwchlan Uwchlan 1,528 Valley Wallace Warv?ick 1,391 West Bradford 1,585 West Brandy wine 771 West Cain 1,508 West Goshen 940 West Chester 3,172 West Marlboro :.... 1,130 West Nantmeal 1,803 West JSTottinghani 721 West Pikeland 881 Westtown 789 West Vincent 1,350 West Whiteland 1,141 Willistown 1,463 I860. 791 943 1,058 482 847 725 4,886 617 2,589 1,439 650 253 1,938 1,105 836 810 2,125 758 1,410 1,734 828 1,290 1,067 3,172 1,175 1,032 829 905 659 1,407 1,214 1,521 Totals 66,438 74,578 MINOR UIVIL DIN'ISIONS. 1870, 1880 ANIJ 1890. Towusbi].! or Borough. 1870. Allien boro Birmingham 450 Cain 996 Oharlestown 907 1880. I sou 347 397 5 03 458 863 1,053 902 790 Township or Borough. 1870. 1880. 1890 Coatesville boro 2,025 2,766 3,680 Eastward 1,426 Middleward 1,680 West ward 624 Downingtown boro... 1,077 1,480 1,920 Eastward 872 Westward 1,048 EastBradford 1,033 1,054 1,043 EastBrandywine 1,011 1,011 995 East Cain 233 539 256 East Coventry 1,320 1,259 1,219 East FallowlieJd 1,290 1,461 1,505 EastGoshen 696 724 684 East Marlborough 1,401 1,337 1,327 East ISTantmeal 920 936 837 East ISTottingham 1,400 1,351 1,305 East Pikeland 826 804 823 Easttown 737 845 1,682 East Vincent 1,961 1,252 1,285 East Whiteland 1,223 1,273 1,157 Elk 839 830 789 Franklin 922 966 791 Highland 957 896 910 Honeybrook 1,958 1,849 1,876 Hopewell boro 268 216^ 213 Kennett Square boro.. 897 1,021 1,326 Kennett 1,308 1,287 1,185 London Britain 660 621 607 Londonderry 714 727 661 London Grove 1,804 2,148 2,613 Lower Oxford 1,500 1,429 1,384 Malvern boro 641 JSTew Garden 1,750 1,942 2,126 Newlin 778 779 680 JSTew London 912 891 789 North Coventry 1,:251 1,441 1,605 Oxford boro 1,152 1,502 1,711 Parkesburg boro 817 1,514 Pennsbury 774 79;-, 773 Pei"i 692 739 632 OF OHESTEJR COUNTY. 165 Towuship or Borough. 1870. Phcenixville boro 5,292 I^rst ward Secondward Thirdward Fourth ward Fifth ward Pocopsou 573 Sadsbury 2,403 Schuylkill 1,596 South Coventry 651 Spring City boro Thoi-nbury 235 Tredyffrin 1,897 Upper Oxford 1,086 Upper Uwchlan 783 Uwchlan. 794 Valley 1,165 Wallace 748 Warwick 1,266 West Bradford 1,538 West Brandywine 933 West Cain 1,308 West Chester boro.... 5,630 East ward iN^orth ward Southward West ward West Fallowfield 1,159 West Goshen 953 West Marlborough.... 1,185 West ISTantraeal 1,082 West Nottingham 880 WestPikeland 1,202 West Sadsbury Westtown 819 West Vincent 1,298 West Whiteland 1,177 Willistown 1,552 ifwo. 1890. 6,682 8,514 1,801 1,686 2,127 1,724 1,176 564 513 749 843 1,416 1,254 569 493 1,112 1,797 262 251 1,975 2,549 1,096 1,096 848 824 698 689 1,187 1,072 711 662 1,267 1,487 1,620 1,281 874 723 1,275 1,146 7,046 8,028 1,732 2,157 1,343 1,324 1,849 2,314 2,122 2,233 1,048 1,039 1,183 1,111 1,146 1,041 1,027 995 864 817 1,005 664 693 774 848 895 1,238 1,081 1,345 1,096 1,620 1,390 Totals 77,805 83,841 89,377 BY NATIVITY AND COLOR IN 1870. Towuship or Borough. Native. Foreign. White. Colorwl. Birmingham 379 71 400 50 Coatesville boro 1,885 140 1,897 128 Cain 912 72 900 84 Charlestown 877 30 846 61 Dowingtown boro.. 963 114 1,040 37 E.Bradford 897 136 945 87 E. Brandywine 894 117 983 28 E. Cain 209 23 210 22 E.Coventry 1,280 38 1,298 20 E. Fallowlield 1,262 29 1,188 103 E. Goshen 653 43 649 47 E.Marlborough 1,370 31 1,141 259 E. JSTantmeal 908 12 896 24 E. ]S"ottingham 1,337 63 1,319 81 E. Pikeland 772 54 817 9 Easttown 680 56 694 42 E. Vincent .'1,873 88 1,946 15 E. Whiteland ..1,014 208 1,124 98 Elk 794 45 829 10 Franklin 886 36 840 82 Highland 936 22 843 115 Honeybrook 1,907 50 1,887 70 Hopewell boro 262 6 260 8 Kennett 1,208 100 1,138 170 Kennett boro 841 43 726 158 London Britain 617 46 615 48 Londonderry 683 31 677 37 London Grove 1,668 136 1,515 289 Lower Oxford 1,396 53 1,141 307 JSTew Garden 1,609 181 1,462 328 ISTewlin 732 43 709 66 New London 878 33 805 106 North Coventry 1,218 33 1,248 3 Oxford boro 1,084 67 1,060 91 Penn 656 36 612 80 Pennsbury 710 57 670 97 Phcenixville boro... 3,810 1,482 5,268 24 Pocopson 526 47 441 132 Sadsbury 2,260 140 2,221 179 166 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Township or Borougli. Native. Foreign. White. Colored. Schuylkill 1,430 163 1,506 87 South Coventry 637 12 599 50 Thornhury 205 30 211 24 Tredyffrin 1,675 222 1,778 119 Upper Oxford 1,053 26 956 123 Upper Uwchlan 795 22 772 9 Uwchlan 775 19 698 96 Valley ..1,043 122 1,040 125 Wallace 725 21 738 8 Warwick 1,250 16 1,250 16 W.Bradford 1,454 82 1,361 175 W. Brandywine 900 33 921 12 W. Cain 1,321 77 1,307 91 W. Fallowfield 1,077 82 1,115 44 West Chester boro.. 5,15.0 480 4,702 928 W. Goshen 838 106 753 191 W. Marlborough. ..1,073 116 1,021 168 W. ISTantnieal 1,054 16 1,069 1 W. Isrottingham...,. 845 34 840 39 W. Pikeland 1,095 106 1,178 23 Westtown 728 90 747 71 W. Vincent 1,237 19 1,231 25 W. Whiteland 1,039 138 1,021 156 Willistown 1,440 112 1,495 57 The following unincorporated places were returned separately by the enumerators of Chester county in 1880. The figures can be considered as only approximate, as the limits of such places are not sharply defined. Village. Township. Population. AvondaJe London Grove 329 Berwyn Easttown 158 C!edarville North Coventry.... 184 Charlestown Charlestown 50 Chatham London Grove 123 Cochransville WestFallowfield... 122 Coventryvillc South Coventry 110 Ereildoun East Fallowfield.. . . 1 26 Fremont "WestlS'ottingham.. 59 Gallagherville East Cain 107 Hamorton Kennett 159 Village. Township. Population. Harveyvilie Schuylkill 78 Howellville Tredyffriu 114 Jennersville Penn 87 Kiniberton East Pikeland 82 Landeuburg New Garden 353 Lawrenceville East Coventry 152 Lionville Uwchlan 114 Madison North Coventry.... 164 Marshallton West Bradford 278 Modena East Fallowfield.... 126 Mortonville East Fallowfield.... 130 Nottingham West Nottingham.. 62 Pomeroy Sadsbury 77 Pottstown North Coventry 214 Pughtown South Coventry 80 Rock Run Valley 755 Rockville Honeybrook.^ 26 Rornanville West Bradford 64 Russellville Upper Oxford 98 Sadsbury villa Sadsbury 212 Springfield West Nantmeal 21 1 Steel ville WestFallowfield, . . 79 Toughkenamon...New Garden 241 Valley Forge Schuylkill 184 Whiteland West Whiteland... 112 SCHOOL, MILITARY AND VOTING AGES. The following table gives the number of pupils, persons subject to military duty, and the voters in the county from 1850 to 1880 : U.S. Census. School. Military. Voters. 1850 20,432 12,626 16,653 I860 21,518 13,476 1870 22,633 14,276 19,768 1880 23,307 15,811 21,912 The statistics of 1850 and 1860, in Jhe above table, are approximated. The school age of 1870 and 1880 is given in the United States reports from five to seventeen years <^ of age, instead of six to twenty-one years, the true school age of the State. No sta- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 167 tistics of 1890 are given, as the part of the census I'eports of that year relating to these subjects has not been issued yet by the United States government. In 1870 there were 19,951 males above twenty-one years of age, of whom 183 were unnaturalized; and in 1880 the number had increased to 22,212, of whom 300 were unnaturalized. II. STATISTICS OF MANUFACTURE. ESTABLISHMENTS AND EMPLOYEES. Census. Eitablishments. Employees. 1860 664 4,154 1870 996 6,548 1880 737 4,861 CAPITAL, MATERIAL AND PRODUCTS. Censijs. Capital. Material. Products. 1860... $4,397,782 $3,977,316 $6,386,277 1870... 5,277,561 7,650,940 11,494,543 1880... 6,411,853 6,674,978 10,404,331 These tables include every mechanical or manufacturing establishment in Chester county, returned at the Tenth census as having had during 1880 a product of five hundred dollars. In comparisons of values of 1870 and 1880, it must be recollected that the values of 1870 were expressed in a currency which was at a great discount in gold, and for purposes of comparison the values of 1870 should be reduced one-«fifth. Also, while capital, products and the num- ber of employees increased largely from 1870 to 1880, that there was not an appre- ciable increase of the number of establish- ments, on account of the concentration of labor and capital in large shops and factories. No United States census has ever embraced in its statistics of manufactures the full pro- ductions of the hand trades of mason, ear- penter,blacksmith, cooper, painter, plumber, and several others of less importance. SELECTED STATISTICS OF MANUEACTUKK. 18611. 1K7(). 18KII. Agricultural implements 10 11 6 Boots and shoes .A Brass foundings 1 1 Bread 2 4 14 Brick 6 14 ... Carriages and wagons 45 32 10 Cars 1 Cotton goods 10 5 Flour and meal 144 99 167 Foundry and machine shops 14 Furniture 19 19 13 Iron blooms 6 1 Iron castings 3 7 Leather 13 6 4 Lumber 36 23 62 Pottery ware 4 Stoves 1 1 Ship and boat building 2 2 Spokes and wheels 4 Tin, copper, sheet iron ware. 18 29 23 Woolen goods 15 10 12 Wagons 1 10 The results of the last census, taken nearly three years ago, are not yet published. The methods used in taking the difterent census reports lack uniformity, some items being dropped and others taken up under the management of each succeeding super- intendent. The result is apparent in the preceding table, and elsewhere in these statistics, by the numerous gaps which oc- cur. No statistics have ever been gathered by the census oificials regarding the number of dairies and creameries in the county. III. STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. In these tables, as in many other compil- ations in this work, no statistics for 1890 can be given, because the government has not yet (1893) issued those parts of the 168 BIOOEAPHY AND HISTORY census containing the required information. Strange as it may appear, it seems impossi- ble for the United States government to get one census completely issued until it is time to undertake its successor. FARM AREAS. Census. No. Farms. Acres Tmproverl. Acres rnimp'd. 1850 >].33,572 89,713 1860 5,14.") 353,434 89,609 1870 4,831 374,759 62,161 1880 6,116 401,714 66,288 In 1880 of the 6,116 fai'ms in the county, 4,662 were cultivated by their owners, while 869 were rented, and 585 were tilled for a share of their products. In the same year, of improved land, 41,649 acres were in per- manent meadows, pastures, orchards and vineyards. By a comparison of the aggre- gate of 423,285 acres of improved and unim- proved land reported in 1850, and the ag- gregate of 468,002 acres of the same lands returned by the census enumerators of 1880, it will be seen that there is a reported in- crease of 44,713 acres, or nearly sixty-nine square miles of land, for which we find no reason assigned. This would certainly in- dicate some error in one or the other of the two censuses referred to in the above com- parison. By the census of 1880 there were 360,065 acres tilled, 58,897 acres in wood- land and forest, and 7,371 acres in old fields not growing wood. FARMS AND IMPROVEMENTS. Census. Cash Value Farms. Value Improvements. 1850 $25,425,957 $ 809,363 I860 37,243,640 1,133,424 1870 46,737,688 1,806,211 1880 39,217,513 1,620,567 Farms, as referred to in the last table, in- clude all considerable nurseries, orchards, and market gardens; and no tract of land less than three acres in extent is considered as a farm, unless the value of its yearly pro- duct is five hundred dollars or more. The cost of building and repairing fences for 1879 was $214,134, and the cost of fer- tilizers used during that j'ear was $319,948, while the value of all farm products con- sumed, sold, or- on hands, was placed at $5,970,229. The forest products of the county for 1879 were 33,440 cords of wood, the total value of which, either consumed or sold, was estimated at $120,659. TRUCK FARMING. f.„,,„,,. Value - Value ^'•'""^- Orchard Products. Market Garden,?. 185.0 $ 39,689 $ 3,457 1860 59,055 12,229 1870 232,279 35,163 1880 92,882 20,303 The census sched.ules prior to 1860 did not embrace orchard or market garden val- ues, and a thorough report of the subject was never made until 1880. An improve- ment might be made to the present report of value by adding the acreage. CEREALS. Census. Bush. Wheat. Bush. Corn. Bush. Oats. 1850 547,498 1,339,466 1,145,712 I860 800,663 1,589,844 1,226,658 1870 753,803 1,540,125 1,034,430 1880., 775,312 1,964,532 1,137,089 In 1880 there were 43,235 acres of land in wheat, 47,097 acres in corn, and 83,283 acres in oats. Census. Bush. Eye. Barley. Buckwheat. 1850 52,417 1,913 12,558 I860 32,084 4,971 17,405 1870 12,481 1,581 2,446 1880 19,694 871 5,067 In 1880 there were 1,466 acres of land in rye, 33 acres in barley, and 385 acres in buckwheat. OF CHESTER COVNTY. 169 MEADOW PRODUCTS. «„„„,_ Tons Bushels Bushels *'™^"^- Hay. Clover Seed. Grass Seed. 1850 96,315 9,775 8,122 1860 94,103 8,770 6,867 1870 114,898 4,832 5,523 1880 126,179 2,067 2,716 The grass crop is the greatest of all the crops of the county, and in addition to the pasturage the value of the hay crop exceed's that of the greatest of the cereals. TOBACCO AND BKOOMCOKN. Census. Lbs. Tobacco. Lbs. Broomcorn. 1860 1,227 1870 1,217 1880 633,632 6,167 PULSE AND ROOT CROP. Census. Bus Peas and Beans. Irish Potatoes. Sweet Potatoes. 1850 372 170,620 5,290 I860....;. 1,302 271,328 13,453 1870 1,412 404,363 7,076 1880 1,055 408,176 7,791 In 1880 there were 4,354 acres of land in Irish potatoes, and 233 acres in sweet pota- toes, while of the 1,055 bushels of the pulse crop, 802 bushels were peas, and 253 bushels were beans. DAIRY PRODUCTS. Census. Lbs. Butter. Gals. oJ Milk Sold Lbs. Cheese. 1850 2,092,019 33,012 1860 2,730,391 .; 30,527 1870 2,848,243 1,597,892 8,526 1880 4,246,655 5,758,814 11,296 SUGAR AND MOLASSES. Not a pound of maple sugar, and not a gallon of maple molasses, is given in any census from 1850 to 1880. Of sorghum molasses there were reported in 1860, 12,- 837 gallons; in 1870, 12,741 gallons, and in 1880, 1,169 gallons. APIARY AND VINEYARD PRODUCTS. Census. Lbs. Honey. Lbs. Beeswax. Gals. Wine. 1850 389 1860 16,296 , 826 1,744 1870 4,835 295 1,598 1880 14,503 569 In 1850 there was no separate enumera- tion of honey and beeswax, and the aggre- gate given in that year of both was 10,815 pounds. POULTRY AND EGGS. In 1879 there were 267,808 fpwls in the county, of which 229,093 were barn-yard or common stock. The product of eggs for that year was 1,174,630 dozen. The statis- tics of poultry and eggs were gathered, for the first time in the United States, by the census of 1880, which showed that there were over 125,000,000 fowls in the country in that year. WOOL, HOPS AND FLAX. Census. Lbs. Wool. Lbs. Hops. Lbs. Flax. Bus. Flaxseed 1850 22,738 2,364 2,974 131 1860 '33,574 1,037 231 11 1870 31,776 497 4 1880 81,853 11 In 1880 there was reported 15,149 fleeces of wool as the spring clip of that year. LIVE STOCK. Census. Horses. Mules. Milch Cows. Other Cattle. 1850 11,830 76 19,604 30,244 1860 13,779 420 25,900 24,962 1870 14,086 708 32,670 18,545 1880 16,573 867 42,370 17,365 In the table given above, oxen are not in- cluded with other cattle. Of oxen there were' in 1850, 5,228; in 1860, 4,952; in 1870, 3,371, and in 1880, 1,020. Census. Sheep. Swine. Val. Live Stock. Slaught. Stock. 1850.. .13,364 36,591 $2,543,694 | 495,190 1860...11,666 31,515 3,534,983 783,811 1870...13,069 28,165 5,192,517 2,181,799 1880. ..15,149, 33,959 Not given. Not given. no BIOGMAPJIY AND HISTOJRY The mimber of sheep reported in 1880 does not include the spring lambs of that year. The animals reported in the agricultural census are those which are found on farms only. The number of sheep and cattle thus omitted is so small as not to be worth con- sideration, while the numberof milch cows is not inconsiderable, and the numberof horses employed in trade and owned by profes- sional men, livery stable keepers and others not farmers, is large. The number of swine not kept by farmers exceed all other ani- mals kept elsewhere than on the farm. VALUATION AGflREOATE. Census. Real Estate. Personal Property. Total Valuation. 1860..$46,789,659 $20,174,639 $66,964,298 1870.. 46,800,000 23,200,000 70,000,000 1880.. 45,040,725 7,275,684 52,316,409 The census of 1870 gave an assessed, val- uation of $27,075,534, as well as the true one of $70,000,000. VALIATION MINOR CIVIL IIIVISIONS. Township. Ileal Estate. Personal Property. Total. Birmingham.. $420,381 $124,260 $544,641 Cain 539,900 66,207 606,107 Charlestown... 568,091 72,525 640,616 Easttown 559,580 45,870 605,450 EastBradford 1,000,801 60,125 1,060,926 E.Br'ndywine 471,333 76,495 547,828 East Cain 211,145 15,404 226,549 East Coventry 552,866 81,352 634,218 E. Fallowlield 720,940 66,837 787,777 East Goshen .. 608,285 248,070 856,355 E. Marlbor'gh 836,710 384,919 1,221,629 E. J!fantmeal.. 616,624 63,676 680,300 E.ISTottingh'm 620,300 52,627 li72,927 E. Pikeland... 587,652 86,530 674,182 East Vincent. 747,477 111,145 858,622 E. Whiteland. 727,831 94,333 822,164 Elk. 350,443 19,766 370,209 Township Real Estate. Personal Property. Total. Franklin $476,081 $69,095 $545,176 Highland 597,950 35,135 633,085 Houeybrook.. .1,043,079 155,851 1,198,930 Kennett 936,369 136,250 1,072,619 London Brit'n 366,739 78,521 445,260 Londonderry.. 415,629 34,181 449,810 London Grovel,233,515 191,334 1,424,849 Lower Oxford 583,677 44,403 628,080 IS^ew Garden.. 935,087 228,236 1,168,323 ISTewlin 547,687 49,520 597,207 New London.. 493,185 56,245 545,430 E". Coventry... 582,845 101,530 684,375 Penu 387,610 30,865 418,475 Pennsbury 640,894 196,796 837,690 Pocopson 415,796 46,700 462,496 Sadsbury 273,410 26,228 299,638 Schuylkill 604,867 41,655 646,522 S. Coventry... 220,120 33,438 253,558 Thornbnry.... 264,374 20,194 284,568 Tredyffrin 1,172,117 108,777 1,280,894 Uwchlan 435,265 76,002 511,267 Upper Oxford 552,031 24,586 576,617 U. Uwchlan... 616,854 125,551 742,405 Valley 378,103 16,205 394,308 Wallace 505,069 30,380 535,449 Warwick 682,278 47,191 679,469 Westtown 577,876 70,544 648,420 W. Bradford.. 733,836 139,213 878,055 W.Br'ndywine 512,532 58,786 571,268 West Cain 605,308 47,268 652,571 W. Fallowlield 535,295 29,392 564,687 W. Goshen.... 809,268 84,698 893^956 W. Marlbor'gh 815,750 105,561 921,311 W.lSTantmeal.. 569,594 90,002 650,556 W.Nott'ghain 250,830 23,270 274,100 W. Pikeland.. 468,958 57,076 526^034 W. Sadsbury.. 407,186 38,451 445,637 W.Vincent... 803,876 96,435 900,311 "W. Whitel'nd 645,463 105,713 75l'l76 Willistown.... 1,152,602 142,567 l,295!l69 Borough. ' Coatesville... .1,171,041 182,819 1,353,860 OF CHESTER COUNTY. 171 Boroughs. Downingtown Kennett Sq're. Oxford Phoenixville ... Spring City West Chester. Towns under 1,000 Real Estate. Personal Property. Total. % 534,005 $105,890 $ 639,895 433,960 129,020 562,980 668,500 113,603 782,103 2,089,430 49,185 2,138,615 369,900 33,070 402,970 4,932,3001,856,605 6,788,905 502,270 41,560 543,830 Totals, 45,040,725 7,275,684 52,316,409 TAXATION. Census. State. County. Town. 1870 $24,046 $130,161 $286,288 1880 23,737 148,259 278,571 The aggregate tax for 1870 was $440,490 ; and for 1880 it was $450,567. INDEBTEDNESS. Census. County. Town. All Other. 1870 $641,972 $186,092 $12,265 1880 418,020 482,563 53,307 Tiie total indehtedness for 1870 was $839,- 339; and in 1880 it was $953,890. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Since 1850 no 'county statistics of public .schools have been given in census. reports, but the growth of the public school system in Chester county for the last forty years may be seen by a comparison of the follow- ing statistics, the first taken from the census of 1860, and the latter from the State su- perintendent's report for 1891 : Year. Number. Teachers. Pupils. 1850 251 265 11,360 1891 406 414 17,803 UNCLASSIFIED STATISTICS. In 1850 there were 11,580 dwellings in Chester county, occupied by 11,869 families. In that year there were 1,463 white per- sons, and 1,011 colored, who could not read ; and 633 of the total number of 2,464 were foreign born. From June 1, 1849, to June 1, 1850, there were 1,701 births, 511 mar- riages, and 866 deaths in the county. In 1860 there were 12,603 families in Chester county, but the number of dwellings was not repotted. In 1870 there wex-e 3,708 persons who could not write, of whom 1,534 were of for- eign birth. Miscellaneous. — Under this heading will be given some additional information that may be of interest to the citizens of the county. Tobacco. — In 1881 J. B.Killebrew, special agent of the tenth census on the culture and curing of tobacco in the United States, reported as follows of tobacco in Chester county: "Tobacco is principally grown in those townsliips adjoining Lancaster county, and sandy loams are preferred, though lime- stone and slaty soils are employed in its production. Tobacco culture has increased very rapidly. In 1878 but little more than 100 acres were planted; in 1879 the returns show 487 acres, yielding 633,682 pounds. The crop of 1879 far exceeded any other in quantity as well as quality, the varieties planted being the same as those (Pennsyl- vania seed-leaf, Glessner and Connecticut seed-leaf) grown in Lancaster county. To- bacco barns are of a poor character, mere temporary make-shifts. The market for tobacco is Lancaster. The cost of producing an acre is variously estimatad at from $50 to $67, and the yield per acre is 1,301 pounds." Lincoln Unirersity. — The following inter- esting description of this splendid educa- tional institution was written for this work by Rev. Edward Webb, of Oxford, who, for a number of years, has been officially con- nected with the university, and has done much for its advancement and success. 173 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Lincoln University, in Chester county, Pennsylvania, had its origin in the heart and conscience of the christian church. The resolution to undertake it was passed by the New Castle Presbytery October 5, 1853. This resolution was introduqed and warmly advocated by Rev. John M. Dickey, D. D., pastor of the Presbyterian church at Ox- ford, Pennsylvania. He was the living, moving spirit of the enterprise, and for twenty-five years, until hie death, in 1878, continued with zeal and self-sacrifice to fos- ter it. The university was planned and created to give a superior academic and professional training to Negro young men, carefully se- lected as to character and ability. It was the issue of an organized eftbrt — the first in this or in any country — to provide for Negroes, here and in Africa, educated lead- ers and teachers from among their own kindred. In 1854 it was incorporated by the Pennsylvania legislature, with the name of " Ashmun Institute." Twelve years later, in 1866, when emancipation had opened a way for Christian love and philanthropy to four millions of freedmen, the charter of 1854 was amended. New and larger powers were given to the trustees, and the name was changed to Lincoln University. For four years more it remained under the con- trol of the New Castle Presbytery, but in 1870 its board of trustees became indepen- dent and self-perpetuating, and the control of its Theological department was trans- ferred to the General assembly of the Pres- byterian Church of the United States of America. Its relation to the assembly re- mains to the present time' unchanged. Its board, of twenty-one trustees, has now on its roll fourteen clergymen and seven laymen. There are three courses of instruction: preparatory, academic, and theological. De- partments for both law and medicine were organized, and for several years maintained, and would be resuscitated if sufficient sup- port were assui-ed. The preparatory de- partment is a feeder of the academic. Its graded course, which includes Latin and Greek grammar, with the English studies usually taught in our high schools, formerly extended over three years, but is now com- pleted in one. Good academics in the South, conducted by our graduates, enable us to raise the standard of admission to this department. The Academic course, of four classes — freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior years — includes the classics, mathematics, science and philosophy, taught in other col- leges. It is the fixed purpose of the faculty to advance the standard of this course of study. But caution is demanded lest, in view of the facilities of preparation accessible to the Negroes of the south, the grade become too high, and ability that should have its opportunity be thus excluded. In the Theological department there is a course embracing all the studies of other schools of theology. This is regarded as theveryheartofthewhole work, the nucleus and scope of all the instruction. Including that of the president, Rev. I. N. Rendall, D. D., there are nine chairs of instruction. They are Greek, Latin, Math- ematics, History and Hebrew, Rhetoric and Homiletics, Theology, English Version of the Bible, and Natural Science. The Fac- ulty consists of nine professors, assisted oc- casionally by non-resident lecturers, and by a number of colored instructors. In this year (1892) there are two hundred and forty-one students. In 1888 the number was one hundred and sixty-six. Every dor- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 173 niitory is now occupied. Hereafter approved candidates waiting, and eagerly seeking ad- mission, must be refused, unless an additional dormitory is provided. Who will give the $20,000 needed for this building? These young men come from twenty-nine of our states and territories — sixteen southern states and thirteen in the north and west. They have come from Canada, from Liberia, and the Gaboon, in Africa; from Korea, South America, and several of the West In- dia Islands. In 1891 one hundred and sev- enty-two were southern !N^egroes, forty were from the north and west, and ten from for- eign countries. Three hundred and eighty- eight have been graduated from the full col- lege course. Two hundred and three of the theological students have received ordina- tion — one hundred and four of these in the Presbyterian church, ninety-nine as Metho- dists, Baptists, Episcopalians or Congrega- tionalists, and thirteen have gone as mission- aries to Africa. Besides these academic and theological graduates, a large nuniber of undergradu- ates and preparatory students are turning to good account in the southern States, and elsewhere, the partial instruction they have obtained. Including these, more than one thousand young men have received instruc- tion in this university — a culture of body as well as of soul, of heart and character, as well as of ijitellect. It may very properly be asked what the life and service of these men has been. Where are they, what are they doing, and how are they doing it? Are they well re- ceived ? Do their own people love and prize their services? Are they respected and honored by others? If space were allowed here, replies could be given which would fully justify the time and labor and money bestowed on their training. The university is not ashamed of them. It looks upon theii- work with satisfaction and assured hope. From many prominent citizens in the south the testimony borne to the j)urity of their lives, to the wisdom and prudence of their deportment, and to the value of the service they are rendering, is clear and strong. Besides their direct evangelical work in the churches of the various denom- inations, they are leaders in all educational enterprises, presiding over academies, high schools, and State normal schools. In Columbia, South Carolina, and in Salisbury', S'orth Carolina, they have organized and are successfully conducting well-equipped colleges. The value of the real estate and invested funds, now held by the trustees, is about |660,000. The real estate, including cam- pus and buildings, is estimated at $212,000. The fund for support of professors is $184,- 000; and for permanent scholarships, $94,- 000. There are seven public buildings and nine well constructed residences for the faculty. Four of the public buildings are chiefly occupied by students as dormitories. There is one temporary frame structure to accommodate the large assemblies on commencement days. A beautiful chapel, dedicated in 1890, is the magnificent gift of Mrs. Mary Dod Brown, of Princeton, New Jersey. A new hall, of ample dimensions, completed and occupied in 1892, provides accomodation for all the classes and for the entire educational work of the university. It contains fifteen class rooms, an office for the president and a trustees' room. This enterprise, now in its thirty-sixth year, is no longer tentative'or experimental. It appeals confidently to the thoughtful in- telligence of all our citizens, and challenges m BIOaEAPIIY AND JIISTOBY the hearty sympathy and cooperation of every friend of the Negro. Chester Springs Soldiers' Orphan School. — Of tiie once large number of these schools but four remain, and one of the most pros- perous of them is the Chester Spi'ings school. It was established in 1869, and after varying vicissitudes is now under the supervision of Prof. John H. Smith, one of the most, progressive and successful educa- tors of the State. Serpentine Beds. — Col. Joseph Wilcox, in a report on the serjjentine beds of Ches- ter and Delaware counties, and their asso- ciated minerals, says : "The origin of "these (serpentine) rocks in Pennsylvania has not been satisfactorily determined. Though probably eroded to a considerable extent, they still exist in great thickness, having been penetrated to the depth of seven hundred feet, at the chrome mines in Lancaster county. "Serpentine is now used extensively for building purposes, and it is acquiring popu- larity on account of its color, and its soft- ness, which permits it to be easily chiseled or sawed into blocks and other desirable forms. " On account of its light weight, it is easily handled and transported. Its softness has sometimes excited a suspicion in regard to its durability. The proofs of its endurance are abundant. The walls of houses in Chester county, built with this stone, dur- ing the last century, manifest no indication of erosion or decay; and in that respect it is superior to marble. In northern New York and Canada serpentine is often mixed with the white limestone. "Among tbe products resulting from the decomposition of serpentine rocks in Ches- ter and Delaware counties, cellular qnartz and limonite may be classed as the most abundant. These minerals may often be seen in the different stages of alteration, and in various degrees of combination, from limonite to pure quartz. "Limonite has been mined at several local- ities in^lddletown township, in Delaware county, in the serpentine beds; but not with profitable results. " Chromic iron is more or less to be found in the serpentine rocks. By the decompo- sition of these rocks a large amount of this ore has been liberated, chiefly in small crys- tals, which has been transported to the valleys below, and deposited in the gravel. Corundum is one of the most interesting, as well as valuable minerals, found in con- nection with serpentine. "Until 1870, wlien corundum was found in considerable quantity, and of great beauty, in North Carolina, the crystals of that min- eral, from Chester and Delaware counties, were much prized by mineralogists in this country and in Europe. In Newlin, near UniouviJle, in Chester county, corundum has been found more abundantly. " The extent of the serpentine bed, at this place, exceeds 100 acres. Corundum has been obtained in many places there, and fine crystals were found during many years be- fore its commercial value was known. "From my friend, Mr. William W. Jef- feris, of West Chester, I have obtained the following history concerning this interesting locality: " 'John and Joel Bailey claim to have dis- covered corundum at that place sometime between the years 1822 and 1825. The former person still preserves tiie original specimens. Al)out that time William Jack- son also obtained specimens.' "Dr. Thomas Seal, of Unionville, also a OF CHESTER COUNTY. 175 collector of minerals, obtained specimens of corundum there about the year 1832. " Mr. JefFeris states that his first visit to the locality was made in 1837 or 1838, and at that time large lumps of corundun\ could be seen in the fields and fence corners. 'In 1848 Mr. Lewis W. Williams sent to Liv- erpool a large lump of the mineral, which weighed more than 5,200 pounds.' "In the spring of 1886 John Leslie dug up about five tons of corundum, which he sold for $60 per ton." " Soon after that time the mineral was in great demand for certain purposes, being much harder than emery, and tlie price ad- vanced to fifty cents per pound. "In 1872 John H.Smedley, while engaged in exploring for corundum, on the farm of Messrs. Pusey, Ball & Chandler, discovered a large mass of it, which weighed about two hundred tons. It was found on the margin of the serpentine bed." Corundum is still mined to a small extent in JSTewlin. Some portions of it are largely mixed with margarite, damourite lesleyite, albite, tourmaline and spinel. Feldspar is another mineral often associ- ated with serpentine. It has also been mined near the corundum locality in Newliu township. It is accompanied largely with quartz, and sparingly with mica. Asbestos and steatite, or soapstone, are also associates of serpentine. Prof. J. P. Lesley says, "Serijentine is an exactly equal compound of silica (43.6) and magnesia (43.4) cliargcd with about one-seventh (13.0) of water," and that "it is evident that the corundum in ITewiin township is a metamoi'pliosed part of the gneiss comjiosed more exclusively of alu- mina than the rest." "Amongother minerals of less importance found with the serpentine in Pennsylvania, I will mention brucite, picrolFte, bronzite, enstatite, anthophyllite, actinolite, talc, and chlorite in many varieties, the most beauti- ful of which are clinochlore and ripidolite." Brinton's serpentine quarry, at Avondale, three miles south of West Chester, was opened in 1730, and the estimated quantity of green serpentine quarried since that date has been 500,000 cubic yards. The largest block ever taken out was a three feet square section, sixteen feet in length. Of the prominent structures built of this stone, is the university of Pennsylvania, the academy of natural sciences, and about twenty churches in Philadelphia; and the court house of Wilmington, Delaware. The' Carter and Reynold's serpentine quarry was opened in 1875, and produces a stratified, rhombic, fine-grained, homogen- ous building-stone, which is used in Phila- delphia and Baltimore. Chester Valley. — This valley, which is often spoken of as the " Great Valley,"' and geo- locally as the "Downingtown Limestone Valley," if pictured on a map Avould resem- ble a slender garfish, fins and all, with its tapering jaws asunder. It is fifty-eight miles long, with an average width of two and a half miles. Prof. H. D. Rogers de- scribes it as follows : "Externally the tract, with its highly cultivated farms, numerous thriving villages, factories, furnaces, and mills full of prosperous industry, presents a scene unsurpassed in the United States. The soft, picturesque beauty of the plain or bed of the valley is much enhanced by the two ranges of slate hills, still clothed with the remnants of the natural forests. It lies between these like the deck of a slender, shallow boat between its sloping sides. Its surface is in almost every part irrigated ne BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY with running brooks of pure, transparent water, and it is crossed by several swift- iiowing, sparkling streams, as large as the rivers of some countries. The grandest of these is the Schuylkill. It is here a broad current, and bears deservedly the title of river. The enclosing hills, or two edges of the general upland, between which this valley lies, at an average depression of nearly three hundred feet, are superbly carved into innumerable wooded ravines and narrov\' dells. This is especially true of the slope overlooking the valley on the south. From any point on the southern table-land near the head of one of its ra- vines, the view is truly enchanting; broad slopes of foliage and a shady dell fill the foreground of the picture ; wheatfields and pastures, orchards and snug, tidy farm- houses, many of "them of the dignity of country mansions, occupy for miles the middle distance ; and the extended back- ground is a rich succession of fading hills and far-stretching mountains. Breaking what might, otherwise approach to monot- ony in the curves of the landscape are here and there deeper gorges in the north and south barriers of the valley, furnishing waterway for the larger streams, the Schuyl- kill, the "Wissahickon, the Brandywine in both its branches, and the Octoraro. The narrower parts of some of these are precip- itous, and so shut in and wild as to present a most graceful contrast in their tangled foliage, rough rocks, and mossy cliffs, with the neighboring scenes of open pastures and sunny corn lields." Chester County Marbles. — The Chester county white marble is nearly a pure car- bonate of lime mixed with silex, and con- tains little or no earthy matter and no talc, hence it is hard and durable, will not disin- tegrate, stain, or blemish ; finishes smoothly, retains its color, and is very valuable for carving and monumental purposes. Mar- bles of all shades, from pure white to gray, blue, dark blue, and pure black, are all found within the county. These marbles are found principally in tlie Downingtown limestone vallej'. " Through- out this limestone basin the southern steeply upturned outcrop exhibits a far higher de- gree of metamorphism by heat than the northern, and this alteration appears greater where the strata approach most nearly the vertical position, and is greater still where they are inverted, that is to say, between the Wissahickon and the Brandywine. It is chiefly within these limits that the else- where bluish and yellowish limestone is in a condition of crystalline and granular mar- ble, white, shaded or mottled, from the dis- persing and segregating action of "a high temperature upon its changeable ingredients. An examination will show that all the mar- ble quarries hitherto opened are included within this steeply upturned or overturned outcrop, the best of them lying within half a mile of the southern edge of the forma- tion, or of some sharp inverted anticlinal like that of the Conshohocken ridge." Roads. — The county contains numerous roads, which are kept in good condition. Fourturnpike roads traverse it; all of them made by incorporated companies to facilitate the transport of the rich agricultural pro- ductions to the Philadelphia market. TheGapaiid Newportturnpike crosses the southern jiart of the county from north- west to south-east, through Penningtonville and Cochranviile. The Philadeljihia and Lancaster turnpike crosses the south valley hill to Downing- town, follows the valley to Coatesville, and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 177 then to the top of the north valley hill west- ward. The Harrisburg pike leaves the P. and L. pike at Downingtown, and follows the high divide, between the Brandywines, north- westward to Waynesburg. The Conestoga pike leaves the P. and L. pike west of Paoli, crosses the valley and north valley hill, and runs through Spring field. Bibliography. — Chester county is noted for the number of authors which she has furnished. Over four hundred and fifty bound volumes, written by natives and res- dents of the county, have issued from the press. We have compiled the following list, which includes nearly all these authoi's, and opposite their names have placed the character of their works and the period of publication. In some cases, where there has been only one production, its name is given : Veriod Author. Character of Work. of Publication. F. A. Allen Geographical...l852-1864 Eliz'th Ashbridge.Religious 1 846 Samuel Alsop Surveying 1857 M. M. Auge Historical 1879 Rev. Sam'l Blair.. Religious 1752 Rev. John Blair. . .Religious 1766-1770 John Bartram Botanical 1751-1769 Wm. Bartram Travels 1791 Wm. Baldwin Botanical Titus Bennett Arithmetical ... 1824 Anthony Bolmar..Educational.... 1838-1850 Robert Bailey Autobiographical 1822 Jane Bettle Memoir 1843 Thomas Baldwin. .Gazetteer 1845 Dr. D.G.Brinton.. Scientific 1866-1878 Nelson P. Boyer..Live Stock 1869 Rev. R. P. Dubois..Genealogy 1858 Capt.W. H. Bell...Travel8 1873 1875 n L. K. Brown Religious Period Author. Character of Work. of Publication. Jane W. Bruner.."Free Pi-isoners" 1877 Mrs. D.Boyd Romance 1857-1879 Fannie H. Bent. . .Romance 1863-1881 W. E. Bailey "Modern Rhymes" 1879 T. K. Brown Algebi-aical 1879 E. A. Barber Scientific 1877-1878 Gilbert Cope Historical 1881 Morris Cope Religious 1858 John Churchman.. Religious 1779 John Churchman.. Atlas 1 794 John Comly Grammatical... 1803 Thos.Carrington.. Religious 1778 John Creswell Essays 1820 Rev. J. Crowell... Religious 1849 Dr. J.W. Cooper..." Game Fowls'" 1869 Gilbert Cope Genealogy 1861-1892 Rebecca Conard.. .Poetry 1875 Jesse Conard Romance 1834-1848 Dr.W.Darlington.Botanical 1826-1862 Rev. R. P. DuBois. Genealogy 1860 W. W. Dewees..."Westtown School" 1872 Fred'kS.Dickson.Legal 1872-1876 Rev. David Evans. "Law and Gospel " 1746 Dr. Sam'l Emlin..." Yellow Fever " 1819 Dr. E. C. Evans... Chemistry 1854 J. B. Everhart Literary 1862-1874 J. Smith Futhey.. Historical 1881 John Gummere... Surveying 1814 Prof. F. Glass "Washington" 1814 Dr.Wm. Gibbons.. Religious 1823-1832 Mrs. M.J. Guthrie." Silver Lining," 1872 H. W. Gilbert " Aldornere,".. 1872 Prof. G. G. Groff... Scientific 1881-1892 Dr.W.D.Hartman Scientific 1874-1892 Gen. J. Harlan.... Travels 1842 Rachel Hunt Poetry 1843 l^Toble Heath Arithmetical... 1855 Mrs. G.M. Hoopes.Memoi r 1862 Mrs. LP. Huston.. Poetry 1873 Dr. L L Hayes.... Travels 1860-1875 Hon.A.D.Harlan.Political 1873 178 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY Author. Character of Work. Period of Publication. W. p. Hazard Annals 1879 W. T. Haines Legal 1860 Hugh Judge Memoirs 1841 Dr.Sara'lJackson.Medical 1827-1869 John Jones Religious 1829 Joshua Jones Gramnaatical... 1833 Halliday Jackson. Religious 1830 Dr.Wm. Johnston.Medical 1841 John M. Jenkins.. Journalistic .. . . 1881 Jesse Kersey Religious 1815 Dr. T. F. Kloz Medical 1837 Susan'aLightfoot.Religious 1844 Enoch Lewis Educational ...1810-1856 Joseph T. Lewis.. Historical 1824 Susan Lukens Literary 1873 John E.Leonard. .Poetical 1871 Charlton T.Lewis.Literary 1866-1879 George Lippard... Romance 1842-1854 Benj. Mason Religious 1790 John Minis Farriery 1764 H. Marshall Botanical 1785-1786 A]ex. Mai tland... Political 1833 Charles Miner Essays 1815 Dr. E.Michener... Literary 1860-1874 Jason W. Mahan.. Mathematical .. 1836 Rev. G. L Miles... Religious 1836 Dr. M. Matson.... Literary 1829-1845 Gen.G.A.McCall.Letters 1868 James Monaghan.Law 1880 Rev. W. E. Moore.. Religious 1861 Mrs. H. F. Moore.. Religious 1868 Mary A. Moore ...Poetry 1873 Benjamin E'aylor. Scientific 1850 Rev.Wm. Newton Religious 1859 Mrs. S.L.Oberholtzer.. Poetry 1873 Caleb Pusey Religious 1 675-1706 John Pierce Religious 1720 Henry B. Pearson.Educational .... 1 837 Barclay PennoclcLiterary 1854 Issacher Price Poetry 1856 Evan Pugh Chemical, 1861 Period Author. Character of Work. of Publication. B. and J. Price Literary 1867 Eli K. Price Legal 1861-1878 Ann S. Paschall... Religious 1875 Lewis Palmer Genealogy 1873 Howard Painter.. .Mineralogy 1875 Maj. Isaiah Price.Historical 1875 S. W.Pennypack'r Historical 1872 Dr. Thos. Ruston. Medical 1768 John Rutter Astronomical . . 1833 T. Buchanan Read.Poetical 1847-1865 J. L. Ringwalt.... "Printing" 1871 Dr.J.T.Rothrock.Botanical 1867-1893 John Rutter "Peach Culture." 1880 Phebe Speakman. Travels Joseph Sharpless.. Genealogy 1816 Dr.T. L. Smith... Romance...;.... 1829 S. P. Sharpless Chemistry 1866 Cyrus Sterne Genealogy John R. Sweeney.. Musical 1872-1882 Isaac Sharpless ...Geometrical.... 1879 Hon. P. F. Smith..Legal 1862-1876 Bayard Taylor .. . .Literary 1844-1878 Dr. I. P. Trimble.Horticulture. . . Esther J. Trimble.Literature 1875-1882 John Vanderslice. Travels 1876 Dr. H.Williamson Literary 1810-1820 Thos. Woodward.Literary 1819 Wm. Whitehead..Historical 1859-1872 J. P.Wickersham .Educational.. . .1864-1891 E. H. Williamson .Romance 1859-1879 Dr. L. Woodward.Genealogy 1869 Dr. J. G. Young ...Genealogy 1869 J. Russell Young.. Travels 1877-1879 Genealogies have been published of the Kirk, Phillips and Jackson families. The most voluminous authors have been : Bayard Taylor, whose volumes number 50 ; Mrs. M. D. R. Boyd, 32 ; George Lippard, 20; Enoch Lewis, 16; T. Buchanan Read, 15; FannieH. Bent, 12; John R. Sweeney, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 179 12; Daniel G. Brinton, 11; and "William Darlington, 10. Chester county authors who have achieved world-wide reputation are : Dr. Willaim Darlington, John Bartram, Humphry Mar- shall, Bayard Taylor, T. Buchanan Read, James P. Wickersham and Joseph T. Roth- rock. Historical. — "The History of Chester county, Pennsylvania," by J. Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope, was issued in 1881. The work is a large quarto volume of eight hun- dred and twenty-six double-column pages. It contains four hundred and sixty pages of carefully prepared history of the county, and three hundred and twenty-two pages of interesting biographical and genealogical sketches of prominent citizens and old fam- ilies, to which is attached an appendix giv- ing the roster of the Chester county soldiers in the civil war, from 1861 to 1865. To this work Dr. Ezra Michener, Dr. "W". D. Hartman, Prof. G. G. Groff and Prof. E. D. Cope contributed valuable articles. The "Anuals of Phoenixville," by Samuel W. Pennypacker, is a large 8vo volume of two hundred and ninety-five pages. It not only gives a full and accurate history of PhcEuixville, but contains much valuable information concerning the Schuylkill valley. First Cotton Factory. — The first cotton fac- tory west of the Schuylkill river is said to have been built, at an early day, by Samuel Dickey, on his farm in West !N^ottingham township. This factory was a crude aftair, whose motive power was furnished by horses. About the commencement of the present century Mr. Dickey removed to Hopewell, where he erected a cotton factory that was afterward destroyed by fire. North Primal Rocks. — There are three principal areas of these primal or Potsdam rocks north of the Chester valley. One of these, bounded by the gneiss on the north and the limestone on the south, stretches through Cain, East Cain, West Whiteiand, East Whiteiand, aud Tredyfl'rin townships. Another, bounded by the gneiss, stretcTies from the southern part of Honeybrook to Coatesville. Here it borders the Valley limestone through Valley township to Pom- eroy, makes a high northern loop around Pomeroy and Sadsburyville and down to Parkesburg, whence it runs westward into Lancaster county, between the north and south boundary lines of Sadsbury township. A third crosses from Lancaster county into West Nantmeal near the town of Springfield in contact with the southern limit of the dolerite mass occurring there. Thence it enters and turns back from War- wick, and passing through the northwestern part of West Ifantmeal and Honey Brook, re-enters Lancaster county. Banks. — During the last twelve years the following banks have been established in the county : Farmers' National bank of West Chester, National bank of West Grove; Dime and Savings bank of West Chester, Farmers' National bank of Oxford, Down- ingtown National bank, the National bank of Kennett Square, and National bank of Malvern. Paoli Monument. — On the centennial an- niversary of the massacre of Paoli — Sep- tember 20, 1877 — the present monument on the illfated field was dedicated with ap- propriate military exercises. The crowd present on the occasion numbered nearly ten thousand. The monument is of Quincy granite, twenty-two and a half feet in height, chaste in design, and impressive in sim- plicity. Appropriate inscriptions are on its sides. It was erected by the citizens of 180 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Chester and Delawai'e counties, and the old monument, nine feet in height, which was dedicated September 11, 1817, still stands. Silk Culture. — In 1771 Chester county produced three hundred and thirty-five pounds of cocoons. In 1836 the "Chester County Silk Company" was organized, with a capital of $50,000. The company pur- chased sixteen acres of land at West Ches- ter, erected a large cocoonery, and set out five acres of white Italian mulberry trees. About this time the Chinese mulberry, morus multicatdus, was introduced, and such rash speculation was indulged in raising it that a loss of confidence in silk culture soon prevailed. This unfavorable change of public opinion led to the dissolution of the " Chester County Silk Company," before it had made a full test of the Italian trees. Early Indian Traders. — From 1722 to 1726 the following persons, all of whom were recommended by the court of Chester county to the governor as proper persons to be licensed as Indian traders, received license to trade with the Indians: James Le Tort, James Patterson, Thomas Perrin, Jonah Davenport, Joseph Cloud and John Burt. County Home. — On February 27, 1798, the legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act providing for the erection of poor houses in Chester and Lancaster counties, and the election of six directors in each county. The commissioners for Chester county were: Joshua Ashbridge, Edward Darlington, Moses Marshall, Robert Miller, John Davis, John Rinehart, James M. Gib- bons, Samuel Carter and James Johnson. They selected the present county home farm, in West Bradford township, on ISTovember 21, 1798, and purchased it from (Stephen Harlan for £3,000. The farm contained three hundred and twenty-five and one-half acres, from which forty-five and one-half acres were sold in 1801. The first county home building erected was a brick structure, forty by one hundred feet in dimensions. It was succeeded in 1855 by the present structure. Early Taverns. — Of the early taverns we find the following account in Futhey and Cope's "History of Chester County:" " Our early inn-keepers, in giving names to their houses, adopted those to which they were accustomed in the old country. Dur- ing the war of the revolution, and for some time afterward, the names of the patriot generals who had figured prominently in that contest, became favorite appellations, and many of the old time-honored names gave place to them. In these latter days the names given to new houses are not so euphonious as those given by our fathers. Time has not made any improvement in this respect. With the decrease in the number of public houses many of the old names have disappeared, and are being rapidly for- gotten. In order to preserve them from oblivion, reference will be made to some of those which were borne by well-known hos- tel ries in former days. "On the 'Old Lancaster road' there were the Buck, Plow, Admiral Yernon (after- ward the Warren), White Horse, Ship (nowDr.Eshleman's,westofDowningtown), Wagon (now Wagontown), and Mariner's Compass (now Compassville). "On the Paxtang road, leading from Downingtown toward the settlements at and near Ilarrisburg, or its successor, the Horseshoe pike, were the Buck, Cross Keys (changed to Washington), Olive Branch, Spread Eagle (Rockville), Leopard, Bull's Head (afterward General Wayne), Black Horse, Rising Sun, Red Lion. From 1792 OF CHESTER COVNTY. 181 to 1800 there was a tavern kept in the house where Gen. Matthew Stanley long resided. The 'Brick' was opened in 1807, and was the first brick building erected in that sec- tion of the county. " On the Lancaster turnpike were (among others) the Spread Eagle, Spring House, Bear, Paoli, Green Tree, Warren, General Wayne, Steamboat, Sheaf of Wheat, Ship, General Washington, Swan, Prussian Eagle, Midway, States' Arms, Rainbow, Washing- ton, Black Horse, Cross Keys. The ' Ship ' was originally west of Downingtown, at a point where the old Lancaster road, and the more modern Lancaster turnpike, occupied the same ground. The sign, after this house ceased to be kept as a tavern, was taken to the new house of the same name on the turnpike in West Whiteland. The 'Ship' tavern was one of the oldest as well as most noted public houses in the county, being much frequented by persons on public business. During the revolution the host remained loyal to the ci-own, and on one occasion some Continentals, not liking the usage they had received of him, deliber- ately shot thirteen bullets through the effigy of the ship, and the old sign carried the marks as long as it swung at the old stand or at the new one in West Whiteland. " The Downing hotel, or ' stage-office,' the name it was generally known by, was at the east end of the village of Downingtown, and for many years a noted stopping-place. Its swinging sign bore the e&gy of Wash- ington and a civilian standing side by side. Here presidents, governors, supreme judges, and all kinds of dignitaries ate and slept. It was kept by Hunt Downing until 1816, by William Frame and Jesse Evans until 1827, and by Isaac Downing until 1836. "On the Strasburg road there were the Sheaf of Wheat, Black Horse, ("entre House (Marshallton), General Wayne, Gol- den Eagle (Worth's), White Horse ('^'oung's), Dravo (Humphreyville), Fountain Inn (Parkesburg), Swan. "About the beginning of the present cen- tury there was a house, known as the 'Peggy Bann Inn,' at the foot of the hill on the Strasburg road as you leave Youngs- burg, in East Fallowfield township, going east. It .is still standing in a somewhat dilapidated condition, but not used as a pub- lic-house. According to tradition, the origin of the name of this house was in this wise: A son of Erin opened for the mutual benefit of the public and himself this wayside inn. When the sign came to be painted, which, by the way, was a most important part of the tavern in those days, the proprietor had the artist portray the imaginary lineaments of the former's sweetheart, Peggy Bann, whom he had left in Ireland. Afterward the name of the house was changed to that of the 'Three Stripes,' and the new sign painted over the other. It was remarked by the residents of the neighborhood for many years subsequently that no matter how well the sign was kept painted the lineaments of Peggy would still peep through the stripes. It was kept for some years by James and Robert Young; but the latter erected a new public house a short distance west of it prior to 1820, and the old house was no longer used as a place whereat to cheer man and beast. "Among other public houses were the Anvil, Unicorn, and Plow, in Kenuett; Hammer and Trowel, in New Garden; Half-way House (now Chatham), and White Horse,in Londongrove ; Stage and Leopard, in Easttown; Buck, in Coventry; Lamb, in Wallace ; Gum Tree, Sorrel Horse (formerly 182 BIO GRAPH Y AND HIST OR Y Spinning-wheelj, and Mason's Arms, in West Fallowfield; General Green, Boot, and Three Tniis, in East Goshen; Cross Keys and Fox Chase and Drove, in East Marlborongh ; Globe, in West Notting- ham ; Rising Sun, Washington, and Yellow Springs, in West Pikeland ; Bull, Fountain Inn, Valley Forge, General Pike, and Gen- eral Lafayette, in Schuylkill; Red Lion and Eagle, in Uwchlan ; Seven Stars, Cap- tain Lawrence, and Poplar Tree, in Vin- cent; Indian King and Grove, in West Whiteland ; Dolphin (now Dilworthtown), in Birmingham ; White Horse and William Penn, in Willistown; and Eel's Foot, in East Bradford, near Jeft'eris' Ford. In West Chester were the Turk's Head, Wash- ington, Cross Keys (afterward White Hall), Black Bear, Green Tree, Eagle, and Trav- el ver's Rest (afterward the Star). The present Mansion house was originally called the Chester County hotel. The name was not improved by the change." Early Roads. — The eai'liest highways were the Indian trails. The Swedish au- thorities provided for "good and passable ways" in 1678, and in the early days of provincial government the public roads were laid out by the grand jury. The " Old Street road" was laid out by William Penn, who named it "Marlborough street," and Ziba Darlington states that it ran nearly, if not quite, straight its whole distance, a stretch of some five miles, beginning in the Pennsbury line, east of the Red Lion tav- ern, and ending at Marlborough Friends' meeting-house premises. The Street road is HOW a name applied to the highway from Market street bridge, Philadelphia, to Mc- Call's Ferry, on the Susquehanna. Of other early public roads. Judge Futhey says: "At a very early period a public road, familiarly known as the 'Old Lancaster,' or 'Provincial' road, was laid out from Phila- delphia to Lancaster. It passed (in Ches- ter county) the present Eagle station, on the Pennsylvania railroad, Paoli, Admiral Warren, White Horse, Moore's Mill (Down- ingtown), Ship (now Dr. Eshlemau's), Cain Friends' meeting. Wagon (now Wagon- town), and Mariner's Compass. A part of the bed of this road is occupied by the Lan- caster turnpike, but the greater portion of it is still used as an ordinary public road. The 'Swede's Ford' road ran from a ford- ing over the Schuylkill just below If orris- town westward, and joined the Old Lancas- ter road in East Whiteland township, near the present residence of Joseph A. Malin. The road known as the 'Boot road' ran from the ferry, at Philadelphia, by way of the 'Boot tavern,' in Goshen, to Moore's mill (Downingtown). The Great Chester road, running north from Chester, inter- sected this road at the 'Boot,' and is said to have been laid on an old Indian trail. A road ran from Moore's mill westward, being a continuation of the Boot road, crossing the west branch of the Brandywine near Coatesville, and Buck run at Pomeroy, and leaving the valley at the farm late of Cyrus Cooper, and running north of the valley to the 'Gap.' The 'Strasburg road' was laid out at dift'erent times, and, as at pres- ' ent used, in its entirety, it dates from 1794. It existed, however, as a highway, varying from its present course in places, long be- fore that year. Part of the original road is what is now known as the ' Goshen street," forming the northern line of the borough of West Chester, uniting in its westward course with the present Strasburg road at the foot of the Black Horse hill, in East OP CHESTER OOVNTY. 188 Bradford, and passing eastwardly by the residence of "William P. Marshall and Fern Hill station, on the old West Chester rail- road. That portion of this road between High street. West Chester, and its western junction with the Strasburg road has been closed. The road from Wilmington to Reading, passing through' West Chester," has existed from a very early period. A road ran from Downingtown, by way of Waynesburg, to the Conestoga settlements. The 'Horseshoe turnpike' runs on the line of this last-mentioned road, and in places occupies its bed. The road from Philadel- phia, by way of Concord, Chad's Ford, Hamorton, Kennett Square and New Lon- don to Baltimore is an early road, and was long a leading stage route between Phila- delphia and the south. A road led fronj Wilmington, by way of Hamorton, Union- ville. Doe Run, Ercildoun, Humphreyville and Sadsburyville to the Pequea valley. Another road intersected this at Humph- reyville, and led past Upper Octoraro church and the old Black Horse tavern northward. The 'Gap and Newport road' led from the 'Gap,' in Lancaster county, to Newport, in the State of Delaware, and was long a leading road from Lancaster to Wil- mington. Parts of this old road are still in use. A road ran from West Chester in a southwest direction, crossing the Brandy- wine at Jefl:"eris' ford, known as the 'Oil Mill road,' from an oil mill which stood on the farm now of Edwin James. This road was superseded by a State road, laid out in 1830, from New Hope, on the Delaware river, through Doylestown, Norristowu, West Chester, Unionville, White Horse, and Oxford, to the Maryland line, in a direc- tion toward Baltimore. The 'Limestone road,' in the western part of the county. was an old Indian trail, and is believed never to have been laid out. In 1809 a road was authorized by act of assembly from John G. Parke's (now Parkesburg) to McCall's ferry, on the Susquehanna. This road runs along the ' Great valley,' and is known as the Valley, or McCall's Ferry road." Bridges. — Of the early bridges in the county we have but little account, and of the bridges whose time of construction is unknown are: Meconky's, in East Brad- ford township; Worth's, in Lower Oxford; Old Lancaster, over the west branch of the Brandywine; Kirk's, on the road from Kirk's mill to Oxford ; Milford, on the east branch of the Brandywine; Chester Springs, across Pickering creek ; Pughtown, stone arch bridge; Enlbreeville, over the west branch of the Brandywine ; Hatfield's covered bridge; Baldwin's flood bi-idge; Valley Forge stone bridge ; Rapps, on Pickering creek ; Taylor's Run stone bridge ; Pocopson, on Pocopson creek; Steelville covered bridge ; Chad's Ford, on the Bran- dywine ; Moorehall stone bridge; Plankin- ton's, over the west branch of Red Clay creek; Miller's, on the east branch of White Clay creek ; Richardson's, on Big Elk creek ; Nevin's, on west bank of White Clay creek ; Pennock's Ford- flood bridge; Milltown stone bridge; Bull Road covered bridge; Mount Rocky, over Little Elk; and Gar- rett's Paper Mill bridge. The following bridges in Chester coimty were built in the years given after their names: Dovvuings, 1741; Cruin Creek, 1769; French Creek, 1771; Brandywine, 1772, Marshall's, 1795; Keener's, 1796; Elk, 1802; Pigeon Creek, 1803; Cope's, 1807, at a cost of |26,597 ; Kelly's Mill, 1813; Charlestown, 1814, at a cost of 184 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY $5,000; Andrews', 1814; Garrett's, 1818; Kuauertowii, 1819; Moorestowu, 1819; Mortoiiville, 1826; MoClenachan's, 1829; Christiutiirs, 1834; Seed's, 1834; Wilson's, 1835; Beaver Creek, 1835; Hatfield's, 1837 ; Coventryville, 1837 ; Dorian's, 1842 ; Richardson's, 1842; Street Eoad, 1845; Pine Grove Kolling Mills, 1846; Phoenix- ville, 1847; Cornog's, 1849; Lee's, 1849; Vandever's, 1849; Elk Dale, 1850; Buck Eun, 1850; Sugar's, 1850; Hutchinson's, 1850; BelTs Ford, 1850; Lawrenceville, 1851; Sharplcss, 1851; Taylor's, 1852; f'ennypacker's, 1852; Hoopes', 1852; Os- mond's, 1852; Harvey's, 1853; Mode's, 1853; Pickering Creek, 1853; Maekey's Mill, 1853; Charlestown, 1853; Reed's, 1854; Waterloo Mills, 1854: Brinton's, 1854; Reiif's, 1855; McDonald's, 1855; Tustin's, 1855; Nivin's, 1855; Wicker- sham's, 1855 ; McDowell's, 1855 ; Sager's, 1856 ; Kennedy's, 1856 ; Pyle's Ford, 1856 ; Huston's, 1857; Evans', 1857; Painter's, 1857; A^alley Forge Dam, 1857; Milford, 1857 ; Ashbridge road, 1858 ; Roberts' Ford, 1858; Marshall's, 1858; Grosstown Ford; Davis', 1 859 ; Hickman's Ford, 1859 ; Jordan, 1859 ; Stubbs', 1860 ; McCreary's Mill, 1860 ; Shaw's, 1862; Mount Vernon, 1865; Den- ny's, 1866; Snyder's, 1866; Twaddle's, 1866; Bartrara's, 1866; Sinclair's, 1867; Cupola Station, 1867 ; Worrall's Mill, 1867 ; Dowlin's Ford, 1867; Strawbridge's, 1868; Masscy's Ford, 1868; Parker's, 1869; Ken- nett Borough, 1869; Gibson's Ford, 1870; Phoenixvilk., 1870; Young's Ford, 1870; JSTorth Bend, 1870; Rokeby, 1874: Lig- gett'sMill, 1876; Coatesville, 1877; Sager's Mill, 1877; Ackland's Mill, 1877; Saylor's Mill, 1879; Buck Run, 1880; Elk Creek, 1880, and Mercer's Ford, 1880. Witchcraft. — As late as 1760 there were persons in Chester county who believed in witches, and we have the following account of a persecution for witchcraft in that year, near West Chester: "There lived in a log cabin on the bar- rens, a few miles from where West Chester now stands, an inoffensive old woman, named Molly Otley, who was superstitiously characterized as a witch. A daughter of Joshua Ashbridge, who had become de- mented, acted strangely, uttering at tlie same time unintelligible sounds, which were construed into ' molotly, molotly.' This was conclusive evidence that she was bewitched, and by Moll Otley. So one Seventh-day the populace assembled for her trial — not a judicial one, but a la Judge Lynch — and it is said the whole country-side were there, 'gentle, simple, learned, and ignorant,' all carried away by the then popular belief in witchcraft. James Gibbons (then living on what has since been known as the ' Westtown School farm,') was deputized to bring the old woman. During his absence some were to draw her image on a board, and fire at it with pieces of silver (for lead would not hurt a witch) ; wherever the image was hit there the witch would be wounded. Mr. Gibbons was charged to notice if she mani- fested any pain or uneasiness by the wa^'. After riding some distance she complained and said she would rather walk, and did so the rest of the way. Arriving at the door of the house (over which a horseshoe had been nailed, the floor newly scrubbed, and salt sprinkled on the threshold), Molly turned around to clean her shoes, when the cry went forth, 'she's a witch, and can't pass over the salt until she performs some conjuration.' They then took her to the mill, put her in one scale and the bible in the other, for it was held that the holy bible OF CHESTER COUNTY. 185 would always outweigh a witch. She re- marked, 'Children, I '11 outweigh that book,' and she did. She was next examined by a jury of matrous to see if her body bore any marks from the silver pieces fired at her image ; but none were found. The next or- deal proposed was to throw her into the mill-dam, believing that if she was a witch she would swim out quickly ; otherwise, sink. Mr. Gibbons and others prevailed with the crowd to desist from this under- taking. But the final act in this farce, which had already well-nigh proved a trag- edy, was yet to come. In accordance with a cui'rent superstition (that if the bewitched could draw blood on the witch above the breath — i. c, above the nostrils — and the witched would pray for the recovery of the •possessed,' they would recover), she was carried to Ashbridge's, into the presence of the child, in whose hand the father put a pen-knife; but Molly said, 'Joshua, I will not let thy crazy child'cut me; take it and cut me thyself.' But as the blood must be drawn by the bewitched, and none other, Molly was held while the child scratched her face with her finger-nails until it bled profusely. Then she was compelled to pray, which she did in these words : ' my God ! have mercy on this child, and restore her to health!' 'No! not thy God, for he is the devil, but to my God and the child's God.' Finally satisfied, they released her; she de- parted, and the crowd dispersed, no doubt confident in the belief that they had to do with as veritable a witch as that of Endor, whom the bible says Saul consulted." Mesozoic Fossils. — In the Connecticut val- ley immense numbers of foot prints, mostly of three-toed animals, have been found in the -quarries of the mesozoic formation. These animals were at first supposed to be birds, and a few of them gigantic batrachians (frogs); but subsequent discoveries in many parts of the world, and especially in the western territories of the United States, have proved them to be large sauroid (lizard- like) animals with certain bird-like features. Some of these foot prints may have been made by early forms of birds, but the ma- jority of them were undoubtedly made by reptiles, some of which were furnished with wings. This is proved by the sudden com- mencement and termination of the rows of foot prints, showing that the creatures alighted on and again rose from the shore mud into the air. In Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, saurian bones were found, described by Dr. Isaac Lea, under the name of Clepsisaurus femi- sylvanicus. "At Phoenixville, while the tunnel was made, many fossil bones, teeth and plants were thrown out, and collected by Mr. Charles M. Wheatley. Prof. Rogers found here a tooth, which he figures, Geol. Pa. II., page 693. Dr. Lea supposed this tooth to have belonged either to a Clepsisaurus, or to another lizard called Centemodon sidcatus, found in New Jersey." Ganoid fish scales have also been found at Phcenixville. Extinct Vertebrates. — Of the thirty species of vertibrate animals of northern Chester county examined by Prof. E. D. Cope (see Proc. Anier. Philosoph. Soc. XII., p. 15, February 3, 1871) there were serpents, (mostly harmless), and tortoises of several species. Among the rodents was beaver. Among the ruminants were several tapirs and a small horse. Among the carnivora was a cat of large size, and a large bear {Leidy's Ursus j^ristinus) entirely distinct from the cavebear orlivingspeciesof Europe and America. Three species of sloths were 186 BIOGRAPHY AND MISTORY found, mostly gigantic; one was new, and named by Prof. Cope Megalonyx loheatleyi; two were Mylodons, and one of these was probably new. Teeth and tusks of a mas- todon (Trilophodon ohioticns), which had fal- len into the tissure of a large limestone cav- ern, or been swept into it, were also found. jS^one of the bones were gnawed, and the fissure had never been used by or known to the aborigines or predacious beasts, being completely concealed until exposed by quarrymen. Indian Purchases. — In 1683 Penn pur- chased of an Indian chief, Wingabone, all of his land that was west of the Schuylkill river. In the same year two Indian chiefs, Secane and Icquoquehan, conveyed to Penn the lands lying between the Schuyl- kill river and Chester creek, while Kekel- lappan sold Penn half of his land between the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. Two years later, on July 30, 1685, Shakahoppoh, Secane, Malibor, and Tangoras, Indian "sakemakers," sold all of the central and northern parts of Chester county to Penn. In 1706 the commissioners of property paid one hundred pounds to the Indian chief, Sheehonickan, for a strip of land along the Brandywine; and on September 17, 1718, a deed of release was made by several Del- aware chiefs for all the land within the county. Eaiiji Lawyers. — The following list em- braces the names of all the members of the bar admitted at West Chester from 1787 to 1821: 1787. — David iSmith, Jamos Wade, John Joseph Henry, William R. Atlee, W. Mont- gomery, Sampson Levy, James Hopkins, Samuel Roberts, Samuel Bayard, Matthias Baldwin and James A. Bayard. 1788.— Thomas Armstrong, Peter S. Du- ponceau, Jasper Yeates, Peter Hoofnagle, Joseph Hubley, William Graham. 1789. — John Hallowell, Joseph Thomas, Robert Porter, Charles Healty, Anthony Morris, John Craig Wells, John Cadwalla- der, John Moore. 1790. — Thomas B. Dick, Abraham Chap- man, John Thompson, Marks John Biddle, David Moore, Isaac Telfair. 1791. — Robert H. Durkin, Seth Chapman. 1792. — Miles Merion, Robert -Frazer, John Price. 1793.— Thomas W. Tallman, John H. Brinton, Evan Rice Evans, Joseph Hemp- hill, Michael Kepple, John Shippen, Henry Kelmuth, A. W. Foster. 1794. — Jacob Richards, Joseph B. Hop- kinson, William Martin. 1795. — J. Harvey Hurst, James Hunter, jr., James Milner, James Lattimer, jr., John Cloyd, Joseph Reid, Isaac Wayne. 1797.— W. Lee Hannum. 1798.— C. Chauncey,jr. 1799._ Jonathan T. Haight, John Tay- lor, William Hemphill. 1800. — Jonathan W. Condy, John Ser- geant, T. Barton Zantzinger, William De- wees. 1801. — Isaac Darlington. 1803. — James D. Bernard, Thomas Ser- geant, Samuel Jacobs, John Ewing Portei-. 1804.— John Duer. 1806.— John Edwards, Charles W. Hum- phrey. 1807.— Reuben Eaclins. 1808.— Ziba Pyle. 1809.— Jefferis Moore, Matthias Morris, Daniel Addis. 1810. — Blathwaite J. Shober, Archibald T. Dick. .1811.— Philip S. Markley, Michael W. Ash. OF , CHESTEH CO UATY. 18T 1813. — Benjamin Tilghnian, Thomas Breintnall. 181.4. — James Madison Porter, William B. Smith, Clement B. Bnckley, Henry Ship- pen, John Kerlin, Benjamin Evans. 1815.— George B. Porter, Samuel Ed- wards. 1816.— George C. Willing, William H. Dillingham, Isaac D. Bernard, Thomas Kit- tera, Thomas A. May bin. 1818. — Townsend Haines. 1819. — Jesse Conard. 1820.— William Williamson. 1821.— William S. Haines, David Paul Brown, Thomas S. Bell, Edward Darling- ton, Henry H. VanAmringe, John Freedley and Samuel Parke. Members of Congress. — The following is a list of tlie members of Congress from Chester CQunty, with the years in which they were elected, the number of the Congress in which they served, and their term of service: Year No. Congress Xame. 1794. Fourth Richard Thomas. 1796. Fifth Richard Thomas. 1798. Sixth Richard Thomas. 1800. Seventh Joseph Hemphill. 1802. Eighth Isaac Anderson. 1804. Ninth Isaac Anderson. 1806. Tenth John Heister. 1808. Eleventh Daniel Heister. 1810. Twelfth Dr. Roger Davis. 1812. Thirteenth Dr. Roger Davis. 1814. Fourteenth Dr. W. Darlington. 1816. Fifteenth Isaac Darlington. 1818. Sixteenth Dr. W. Darlington. 1820. Seventeenth Dr. W. Darlington. 1822. Eighteenth Col. Isaac Wayne. 1824. Nineteenth Charles Miner. 1826. Twentieth Charles Miner. 1828. Twenty -iirst Joshua Evans. 1830. Twenty-second. .Joshua Evans. Year. No. Congress. Name. 1830. Twenty-second. .David Potts, jr. 1832. Twenty-third.. . .David Potts, jr. 1834. Twenty-fourth...David Potts, jr. 1836. Twenty-fifth David Potts, jr. 1838. Twenty-sixth.... Francis James. 1840. Twenty-seventh Francis James. 1843. Twenty-eighth.. A. R. McIIvaine. 1844. Twenty-ninth ....A. R. McIIvaine. 1846. Thirtieth A. R. McIIvaine. 1348. Thirty-first Jesse C. Dickey. 1850. Thirty-second . . .Dr. J. A. Morrison. 1852. Thirty-third William Everhart. 1854. Thirty-fourth. ...John Hickman. 1856. Thirty -fifth John Hickman. 1858. Thirth-sixth .'John Hickman. 1860. Thirty-seventh ..John Iliekriiau. 1862. Thirty-eighth... Jno. M. Broomall. 1864. Thirty-ninth Jno. M. Broomall. 1866. Fortieth Jno. M. Broomall. 1868. Forty-first W. Townsend.' 1870. Forty-second. ...W. Townsend. 1872. Forty -third W. Townsend. 1874. Forty-fourth W. Townsend. 1876. Forty-fifth William Ward. 1878. Forty-sixth William Ward. 1880. Forty-seventh... William Ward. 1882. Forty-eighth James B. Everhart. 1884. Forty-ninth James B. Everhart. 1886. Fiftieth Smedley Darlington 1888. Fifty-first Smedley Darlington 1890. Fifty-second John B. Robinson. 1892. Fifty-third John B. Robinson. Ercildoun Tornado. — At 3 o'clock on the afternoon of July 1, 1877, a terrible tor- nado commenced at a point three-fourths of a mile southeast of the Gap Station, on the Pennsylvania railroad, and about two miles west of the Chester county line. It swept a tract from fifty to two hundred yards in width, from the Chester county line to Broad run in West Bradford township, a 188 BIOGRAPHY AND BISTOItV distance of about twenty-two miles. The path of. the tornado was marked with fear- ful destruction, and while several persons were badly injured, only one — Mary Hop- kins, a negro woman — was killed. The storm-cloud in its course passed along the southern limit of Parkesburg, overthrowing several frame buildings. Four miles east of Parkesburg it struck Ercildoun, destroying one-half of the houses in that place. The loss of property in Chester county by this tornado amounted to over thirty-six thous- and dollars. It has since been known as "the Ercildoun tornado." Welsh Tract. — The large survey known as the Welsh Tract included the townships of Haverford and Radnor in Delaware county; Merion, in Philadelphia county, and Tredy- lirin, "Whiteland, Willistown, Easttown, Groshen, and part of Westtown, in Chester county. It comprised forty thousand acres, and was sold prior to 1684, by William Penn, to a colony of Welsh, from Haver- fordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire, Wales. Conclusion. — Chester county is rich in its possibilities of production, and for nearly two centuries has been noted for the efiergy and enterprise of its business men and the virtue and intelligence of its people. First born of the sixty-seven counties of the great Keystone State, Chester was early settled by English, Welsh, German, and Scotch-Irish emigrants, who, however they difl'ered in matters of opinion, were alike possessed of remarkable thrift, sterling in- tegrity, and all the sterner virtues which characterize a high-minded, honorable and self-reliant people. Their mental and moral qualities have been transmitted to later generations, and to-day the people of Ches- ter constitute an intelligent, refined, and cultured "population; while the record of the county's progress and development, from its earliest existence to the present hour, forms one of the brightest pages in the eventful history of the grand old Com- monwealth of Pennsylvania. Samuel T. Wiley. (^i^n. ^y//iam^ -^eZ/Wf-r^r/r//. CHESTER COUNTY ^^BIOQRAPHIRB.^ HON.WILIilAM BELL WADDELL, president judge of the Fifteenth judi- cial district of Pennsylvania, and who has served with distinction in the legislature and senate of the "Keystone State," is an able lawyer and fine jurist, and has presided over the courts of Chester county with abil- ity, efficiency and impartiality. He is a son of Robert and Mary (Bell) Waddell, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania, September 21, 1828. The Wad- dell family is of Scotch-Irish origin and traces its transatlantic ancestry back to the historic north of Ireland, where its Presby- terian ancestors were distinguished for brav- ery, firmness, intelligence and the love of liberty. One member of the family who was born in Ireland was the eloquent Dr. James Waddell, who, as "The Blind Preacher" of William Wirt, will live for- ever in Virginia's eventful history. Another member of the family in Ireland was William Waddell, the grandfather of Judge Waddell, and the founder of one of the Waddell fam- ilies of the United States. He was a com- patriot with Robert Emmet in the attempted struggle for Irish independence in 1803, and only escaped the fate of Emmet, whose dying words of eloquence will live until the end of time, by being helped out of prison, (19 and escaping from Ireland on a vessel bound for the United States. He brought his son Robert with him, and settled in Baltimore. There Robert Waddell (father) grew to manhood, and learned the trade of wood carver. After attaining his majority, he followed his trade in Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey, in which latter city he died on April 10, 1881, when in the eightieth year of his age. He married Mary S. Bell, who was a native of Philadel- phia, and passed away May 19, 1841, at thirty -five years of age. William Bell' Waddell at six years of age was taken by his parents from Philadelphia to Trenton, New Jersey, where his mother died seven years later, and he was then sent to West Chester to prepare for college. He pursued his academic studies in the private school of James Crowell, and in 1846 en- tered Princeton college, from which time- honored institution of learning he was graduated in the class of 1849. Leaving college he returned to West Chester, where he read law with Joseph Hemphill, father of Judge Joseph Hemphill. He was admit- ted to the bar March 2, 1852, and was steadily engaged in the practice of his profession at West Chester until his elevation to the bench in 1887. 1) 193 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY On December 27, 1855, Judge Waddell was united in marriage with Mary Jane Worthington, daughter of Carver Worth - ington, and a member of the old and highly respected Worthington family, of Chester county. They have two children : Robert S. and Ruth R. Robert S. Waddell was graduated from Princeton college in the class of 1882, read law with his father, and was admitted to the Chester county bar on January 5, 1885, since which time he has been engaged in the active practice of his chosen profession at West Chester. In politics. Judge Waddell is a repub- lican, and his political career commenced in 1864, when he was elected as a member of the house of representatives, of which body he was a member until 1867. During his second year as a member of the house, he was made chairman of the committee on judiciary, and during histhird year heserved as chairman of the committee of ways and means, and was one of the candidates nom- inated for speaker, but was defeated. In 1871 he was elected to the State senate and served until the close of his term in 1873, when he resumed his law practice, and gave his attention to it up to 1887. In that year the office of additional law judge was created for Chester county, and Mr. Waddell was unanimously recommended by the members of the bar. He had no opposition or com- petition, and was appointed by the governor to serve as additional law judge until the fall election of 1887. At that election he was elected for a term of ten years to com- mence in 1888 and expire in 1898. Upon the death of Judge J. Smith Futhey, in 1888, by right of succession he became president judge of the Fifteenth judicial district, and has served acceptably in that position ever since. Judge Waddell is popular with his party and represented his district in the Repub- lican national convention of 1880 at Chi- cago, where he was the leader of the Blaine forces of Pennsylvania, and faithfully la- bored among his own delegation in the cause of the "Plumed Knight," in obedience to the instructions of his -district, and the sentiment of the State, although his own preference was for John Sherman, of Ohio, whom he admired as a statesman and finan- cier. As a legislator he was ever true to the interests of his constituents, and never neglectful of the public welfare. In religious belief Judge Waddell leans to the doctrines and teachings of the Presby- terian church, in whose faith his Scotch- Irish ancestors lived and died. In the municipal and financial aft'airs of WestChes- ter he has always taken interest, and while refusing to accept any boi'ough office, yet has served for several years as a director of the National bank of Chester county. His high reputation as a lawyer is well deserved. He is clear, logical and practical, and by close and exhaustive study, always fully prepared his cases for trial. Able as a jurist, courteous as a citizen, honorable as a man, upright as a judge, William Bell Waddell has discharged all his duties to his country, his fellow-citizens, and society, in a manner that has caused him to be feared by evil doers, respected by the law-abiding, and popular with the great masses of the people. jq^NTHGNY WAYNE. The fearless courage and desperate energy of Gen. Anthony Wayne obtained for him, among his countrymen, the title of "Mad Anthony;" and some of his exploits entitle him to the OF CHESTER COUNT y. 198 distinction. He was born in Easttowii, Chester county, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of January, 1745. He was educated with con- siderable care, in Philadelphia, became pro- ficient in mathematics, and commenced the business of surveying, in his native town, at the age of about eighteen years. Skill and popularity in his profession soon estab- lished his reputation permanently; and in 1765, when only twenty years of age, he was sent by a company of gentlemen to lo- cate lands for them in Ifova Scotia. They made him superintendent of the settlement, but after remaining there about two j'ears, he returned home, married, and resumed his business of surveyor, in his native county. His talent attracted general attention, and, in 1773, he was elected to a seat in the Pennsylvania assembly. He continued in that service until 1775, when he left the council for the field, having been appointed colonel in the Continental army. He ac- companied General Thomas to Canada, in the spring of 1776, and at the close of ser- vice there, he was promoted to brigadier. After a year of active service, he was en- gaged efficiently with the commander-in- chief in the battles of Brandywine, Ger- mantown, and Monmouth, in all of which his skill and valor were conspicuous. In 1779 he made a night attack upon the strong fortress at Stony Point, on the Hudson, and the entire garrison were made prisoners. It was one of the most brilliant achievements of the war, and congress rewarded him with its thanks and a gold medal. It made him the most popular man" in the army, below the commander-in-chief,and his praises were spoken in every part of the land. He conquered the western Indians in 1794, and died at Presque Isle (now Erie), on the shore of Lake Erie, December 14, 1796, where his remains were first interred, but in 1809 they were removed and en- tombed in the family cemetery at St. David's church, in Chester county. "Mad Anthony Wayne," wise in council, brave in danger, and terrible in battle, has left behind him a name that will livethrough all the centuries, and his momory will ever be cherished throughout the earth wherever patriotism, duty and high moral worth are known and appreciated. J[AMES PYLE WICKERSHAM, liL.D., one of the leading educators of the United States, was a son of Caleb Wick- ersham, and was born in Newlin township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1825. The Wickersham family is a branch of the old Wickersham family of Bolney parish, England, from which Thomas Wickersham came to Marlborough town- ship, where he bought a thousand acre tract of land. Fifth in descent from him was Caleb Wickersham (father), who mar- ried a Miss Pyle, of Quaker faith. James Wickersham's education was ob- tained mainly in common schools and at the Unionville academy. At the age of six- teen he began to teach school, and while he taught he worked hai-der than any of his pupils, and by the time he was twenty he had become a good general scholar; being well versed in mathematics and in some of the natural sciences, and reading with facility several of the ancient and modern languages. As a teacher, Mr. Wickersham's success was marked from the beginning. The common schools he taught were considered among the very best. In 1845 he became principal of the Marietta academy, Lancas- 194 BIOGRAPHY AND IflSTORY ter county, in which position he was very successful, and remained ten years. Upon the establishment of the office he was elected county superintendent of schools in the county where he lived, and a year thereafter founded the Normal institute, at Millersville, out of which eventually de- veloped the first State Normal school in Pennsylvania, and, in fact, the whole nor- mal school system. In 1856 he became the permanent principal of this school, and made it, in the ten years he remained at its head, one of the most flourishing institu- tions in the county, running the number of students in attendance up to a thousand. In 1866 he accepted the position of State superintendent of common schools, and served until 1881. During his adminis- tration Pennsylvania made great progress in her school affairs, and became the acknowl- edged peer in this respect of any State in the Union. The educational exhibition made under his direction at the Centennial was unequaled by that of any other State or nation. While serving as State superintend- ent he was repeatedly offered important and honorable educational positions in other States, but always declined to accept them. During President Arthur's administration Dr. Wickersham served as minister to Denmark, and after his return to the United States, was actively engaged in educational work until his death, which occurred at Lancaster, this State, March 25, 1891, at sixty-six years of age. In 1863 he com- manded an emergency regiment during the Gettysburg campaign. He served twice as president of the National association of teachers, and was the author of three valu- able educational works, two of which — School Economy and Methods of Teaching — are of world-wide reputation. i^OBEBT EMMET MONAGHAN is ▼■ a leading member of the Chester county bar. He has always taken a deep interest in the business enterprises of the country, and the political afl'airs of his county and State. He is a son of James and Catharine (Streeper) Monaghan, and was born on the 24th of July, 1822, in West Fallowfield township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His father was a native of county Fermanagh, Ireland, from whence he came to America about 1799, when he was nineteen years of age. He had been engaged in the rebellion in Ireland, under the leadership of Robert Emmet, and was secretary of one of the United Irishmen's associations, and took an active part in their contest against the British govern- ment. When Emmet failed, the young secretary was compelled to flee to the United States. He landed with other fugi- tives, at New Castle, Delaware, without funds and among strangers. Being pos- sessed of a liberal education he taught school in Delaware State, and in Chester county, Pennsylvania; and for a consider- able period was a clerk in a store and a " nail-works." He subsequently became a farmer in Chester county, and resided on his farm in the same county until his death in October, 1841. He took an active part in the various entei-prises of his neighbor- hood, and in the politics of his adopted country. He was an earnest and positive democrat. For many years he was a jus- tice of the peace, and was nominated by the Democratic party as a candidate for the State legislature in 1836, and lacked only thirty votes of being elected. He was twice married. His first wife was Hannah Jackson, a sister of the Hon. William Jack- son, who was, at one time, a state senator. ^i OF CHESTER COUNTY. ]',).) By this marriage he had three cliildren : John, William and Hannah, all of whom are deceased. Plis second wife was of Ger- man descent, and was born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. Her niaiden name was Catharine Streeper. They had ten children : James, Jonathan J., Margaret 8., Mary J., R. Montgomery, Andrew J., Cath- arine S., Robert Emmet, Alicia R., and E. Randolph. Six of these still survive, and all reside in their native county of Chester. Robert Emmet Monaghan was born on his father's farm and grew up as a practical farmer's boy until he was over twenty years of age. He received his education in the neighborhood of his birthplace and at the academies of LTnionville and New London, in Chester coulity, and Strasburg, in Lan- caster county. He commenced his business life by teaching school in his native county for twenty dollars per month. He also assisted to teach in Xew London and LTnionville academies. After teaching for a time he was offered the position of col- lector on the Pennsylvania canal, at Liver- pool, Perry county, which office he occu- pied for three years, during which period he read law under the instruction of Hon. Hamilton Aldricks, of Harrisburg. Being of a studious character and industrious habits, and possessing a full measure of the Irish gift of eloquence, he began the practice of the law at West Chester some forty years ago. ,The earnest manner in which he adopted the cause of his clients soon gave him prominence in his profes- sion ; and his frank, fearless and indepen- dent manner of speech, and the honest ad- herence to his every conviction, gained the confidence of the citizens in all parts of his county. During the whole of his pro- fessional life he has retained the support 13 and highest regards of tlic people. His name is connected with a number of lead- ing cases found in the reports of the Su- preme court of the State. He is, and always has been, an ardent and leading democrat, and lias taken an active and influential part in the councils of the party for many years. He represented the county of Chester in the legislature when quite a young man ; has been many times a representative in the State convention^*, and was chairman of the conventions of 1876 and 1880, which elected the delegates to the National conventions that nominated Samuel J. Tilden and General Hancock. He was elector at large on the Hancock electoral ticket in 1880, and received the highest number of votes of any candidate on the ticket. He was twice delegate to the National conventions of his party, and was an original Tilden delegate in the St. Louis convention, in 1876, which nom- inated Mr. Tilden. He has been several times a member of the Democratic State Central Committee. He was a member of that committee in the eventful cam- paign of 1860, and did all in his power to unite his party in the State, so as to defeat the election of Mr. Lincoln, on the ground, as he then said, "to prevent a conflict be- tween the sections of the Union." He was an influential member of the committee of thirty-four, sent by the Democratic State convention at Harrisburg, to Washington city, in the month of February, 1861, whose mission was to aid in effecting some com- promise among the States, and, if possible, to save the country from the civil strife be- tween the North and South, which after- wards desolated the States. He was a can- didate for Congress in 1868, but was defeated by Hon. Washington Townsend. He and 19« BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Mr. Towiisend stumped the district in joint discussion, with credit to themselves and great satisfaction to their friends. And to their great honor they were better friends at the close of the campaign than at the commencement of the contest. Their warm personal friendship continues undinimed hy years. Mr. Monaghan was nominated against Hon. Wayne MacVeagh for the office of District attorney in Chester county, and was beaten by about five hundred votes in the county, which gave thousands of a majority against his party. lie has served in the councils of the borough of West Chester, for twelve years was a trustee of the N^ornial school of West Chester, and for a portion of the time he was president of the board of trustees. He always gave his influence in favor of such projects as would develop and advance the best inter- ests of the people. He has been and is director in several of the local improvements of his county. He was one of the first di- rectors of the Electric Light Company in West Chester. He is a member of the board of public charities. He is also the president of the West Chester Gentleman's club, and the Assembly Building associa- tion, of which he was one of the originators. He is now president, and one of the active managers, of the Chester County Agricul- tural society. He was one of the corpor- ators of the Union Trust Company of Phil- adelphia, and has been, and is, a member of its board of directors from its organization to the present time. His name was twice before the Democratic State convention and received a respectable vote as a candiate for the office of governor. In 1891 he was placed on the Democratic State ticket as a delegate at large to the proposed Constitu- tional convention, and was elected, leading his ticket in the State by over four hundred votes. In 1890 he was appointed by Gov- ernor Beaver a member of the joint com- mission from the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware, composed of Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, W. H. Miller, Esq., and himself, of Pennsylvania, and Hon. Thomas F. Bay- ard, Dr. B. L. Lewis, and Hon. John H. Hoft'ecker, of the State of Delaware. The duties of these commissioners are to define, settle and mark the dividing line between the two States. Recently he has been ap- pointed by Governor Pattison on the impor- tant commission, with Hon. Charles R. Buckalew and Ovid F. Johnson, Esq., for the "Promotion of the uniformity of legis- lation in the United States." He adheres to the teachings of the fathers of democracy. He is for tariff reform, by the absolute re- duction of duties to the needs of the gov- ernment, conducted on the strictest princi- ples of economy, and opposed to the increase of salaries of public officers. In politics he adheres to the doctrines and principles ad- vocated by Jefferson and sustained by Jack- son. He believes that taxation should be equal to be just, and fairness should be done as well to agriculturists as to manufacturers and the other active pursuits of the people. He favors the Jackson standard of hard money, both gold and silver. On the cur- rency question he adheres to the position he took in 1876, when, as president of the Democratic State convention, at Lancaster, he declared in his address at the opening of the convention, "My best judgement is that we should have a sound currency based upon gold andsilver,therecognizedcommer- cial representatives of exchange througout the nations of the world." He believes, with Senator Daniels, of Virginia, and other leading democratic statesmen, that free and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 197 fair coinage of silver is deniaiuled by the agriculturists and others of the producing and laboring classes; and that the time has come when it is impossible to keep the sil- ver question from being one of the leading issues of the hour; and that the people of the north, south, east and west have forced it to the front, and that neither Wall street money changers, nor the managers of cor- porations and monopolies, nor the gamblers in stocks, can divert the people from the contest. In addition to his legal business Mr. Mon- aghan has always taken an active interest in farming. In his earlier years he invested his savings in land, which constitutes the foundation of the large farming interests he has been conducting for the past fifteen years in the State of Missouri. Mr. Mon- aghan has eaten no bread of idleness. He has lived a very busy life of constant indus- try and activity. He is a man of positive character, and of undoubted ability, and whose honesty of purpose has gained for- him a high place in the estimation of the community in which he lives, and through- out the State wherever he is known. FRANK P. DARLINGTON, one of the leading business men of West Chester, who is vice president of the West Chester board of trade, and prominently identified with a number of important en- terprises in the borough, is fourth of the five sons of Amos H. and Sarah H. (Strode) Darlington, and was born June 1, 1860, in East Bradford township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He grew to manhood in this county, and received a superior English education at Fairviile institute. After leav- ing school he engaged for a time in farming on the old homestead in East Bradford township, and then accepted a position as bookkeeper with the dry goods firm of N. H. Brown & Co., in the city of Philadel- phia. At the end of two years he became salesman for the same company and spent about two years in tliat capacity, after which he returned to West Chester, this county, and in 1871 embarked in the grocery and provision business at this place. His store is located on the corner of Market and Church streets, and contains at all times a full stock of everything connected with his line. Being a man of fine execu- tive ability, sound judgment and strict in- tegrity, he has succeeded in building up a large trade, and now finds himself at the head of a lucrative and constantly growing business. In addition to this he is largely connected with a number of other enter- prises, being secretary and treasurer of the Cooper Medicine Company; vice president of the West Chester board of trade; and a director in the West Chester Electric Light Company, besides other business in- terests here and elsewhere. Mr. Darlington has always taken an active part in every enterprise calculated to increase the pros- perity of the borough, and as a business man and citizen stands deservedly high. Politically he is a republican, and has served as a member of the borough council two terms, during the latter of which he acted as second burgess, and in the absence of the chief burgess served as chief burgess for a time. On April 30, 1879, Mr. Darlington was united in marriage to Annie D. Tate, a daughter of Joseph G. Tate, a well-known and prosperous business man of Philadel- phia. To Mr. and Mrs. Darlington have been born three sons : Herbert T., born 198 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY September 11, 1880; J. Benson, born Au- gust 3, 1887; and Irwin, born May 10, 1890. The Darlingtons of Chester county are descended from Job and Mary Darlington, of Darnhall, Cheshire, England, two of ■whose sons, Abraham and John, emigrated to America prior to 1711, and settled near the town of Chester, in what is now Dela- ware county. John, the younger of these two brothers, finally removed to Maryland,, and his history and that of his descendants, if any, has become obscure and uncertain. Abraham Darlington married Deborah Car- ter, a daughter of Joseph Carter, and after her death without issue, in 1716, he wedded Elizabeth Hillborn, a daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Hillborn, of Bucks county, and became the progenitor of the numer- ous family of Darlingtons in Chester county and vicinity, now numbering nearly two thousand souls. He had learned the sad- dler's trade in England, but it is supposed he did not devote much attention to it after locating on the farm in Chester county. He, however, became widely known as a physician and surgeon, being very skillful in the treatment of disease, and apparantly a natural born surgeon. After his mar- riage Abraham lived in Ashtou township, then Chester, now Delaware county, until 1723, when he removed to a farm on the left bank of Brandy wine creek in Birming- ham township, about half a mile above Chad's Ford. Here he purchased two hun- dred acres of laud for eighty pounds ster- ling, and resided upon it until his death, February 9, 1776. His wife died December 28,1771. Their children were ten in num- ber: Mary, Deborah, Elizabeth, Abraham, Thomas (great-grandfather), John, Hannah, Rachel, Job and Rebecca. The f{irm de- scended to the eldest son, Abraham Dar- lington (2), and has since passed out of the family, the principal portion of it being now the property of Clement Biddle. Thomas Darlington (great-grandfather), married, April 25, 1754, Hannah Brinton, a daughter of Edward Brinton, of Birming- ham, and settled in East Bradford, on one hundred acres of his father's land, purchased from John Strode in 1750. Their children were : Edward, Abraham, Thomas, Jesse, Amos, George, Stephen, Hannah, Elizabeth, Emanuel and Brinton. Emanuel Darlington (grandfather) was born June 28, 1775, in East Bradford township, this county, and after attaining manhood engaged in agri- culture, and followed that pursuit all his life. Politically he was an old-line whig, and in religion a sti'ict member of the Society of Friends. He married Martha House, and had a family of five children, one sou and four daughters : Sarah, Hannah, Phoebe, Mary and Amos Darlington (father). The latter was a native of East Bradford town- ship, born in 1814. He was reared on the home farm and educated in the subscription schools of his neighborhood. After leaving school he engaged in farming and made that the principal business of his life. He died at his home in East Bradford township, April 20, 1866, aged fifty-two years, and greatly respected by a wide circle of friends. In politics he was an active republican, and held many of the offices in his township. He was a life long member of the Society of Friends, and married Sarah H. Strode, a daughter of Richard Strode. She was born in East Bradford township in 1810, and is still living in her native township, being very active for a woman of her great age. Her father was born in Westtown township, but lived during the latter part of OF CHEST EH COUNT y. I'J'J his life in West Chester, dying there at an advanced age. He was a farmer and nur- seryman. By his marriage with Sarah 11. Strode Mr. Darlington had a family of live (.'hildren, all sons: Richard S., who served in the State militia during the civil war, and is now superintendent of the West Chester brick and tile works at West Chester: Eu- gene, now a resident of Greenwood, Ken- tucky, where he is engaged in merchandis- ing; Edwin, a prosperous farmer residing on the old homestead in East Bradford township; Frank P., the subject of this sketch ; and S. Barnard, now a clerk and bookkeeper in the employ of his brother, Frank P. Darlington, at West Chester. nEV. JOHN MILLER DICKEY, D. D., a distinguished Presbyterian divine, and the principal founder of Lincoln uni- versity, the first JSTegro college in the world, was a son of Eev. Ebeiiezer Dickey, and was born at Oxford, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania-, December 1.6, 1806. lie was of Scotch- Irish descent, and his great-grandfather, Samuel Dickey, sr;, came in an early day from the north of Ireland to West Notting-- ham township, where his son, Samuel Dickey (grandfather), built the first cotton factory west of the Schuylkill river. Samuel Dickey married, and his son. Rev. Ebenezer Dickey (father), was a prominent Presbyterian min- ister of Chester county. Rev. Ebenezer Dickey married and reared a family of three sons and three daughters. The sons. Rev. John M., Rev. Samuel, and Dr. Ebenezer V., were all very prominent and highly useful men in Chester county. John M. Dickey was a graduate of Dick- inson college and Princeton Theological seminary, and spent half a century in the Presbyterian ministry, from the granting of his license to preach, in 1828. to his death, which occurred in 1878, when he was in the seventy-second year of his age. He was the founder of Oxford seminary, a training school for women as teachers, iiiid Ashmiiii, now Lincoln, university, for the education of Negro teachers and ministers to serve their race in every quarter of the world. Mr. Dickey was a strong abolitionist, helped found the National bank of Oxford, and was ".a leading spirit in all departments of public usefulness in which he was engaged." IA>ALTER A. MacDONALD, who is now serving his second term as county surveyor of Chester county, is the youngest son of John and Jane (Lilley) MacDonald, and, was born at C^ochranvillo, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September 30, 18.5!t. His early education was obtained in the public schools of Perry county, to which his parents had removed, and he subsequently entered the Cumberland ^'alley institute, at Mechanicsburg, Cumberland county, where he took a thorough course of ti'aining under the tutelage of Dr. Ege, and studied sur- veying and civil engineering. After com- pleting his studies he was engaged for a time with the Ilairisburg cit}' surveying corps in active service at the State capital. Later he i-ame to Chester county and en- gaged in teaching for two or three years. In 1883 he assisted in making the surveys of Chester county from which the excellent county map of that year was prejjared, and the following year he was connected with the city surveying corps of Reading, Penn- sylvania. During 188] he was in the em- ploy of the Peunsyhaniu Railroad Com- pany, engaged in surveying theii- extensions 300 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY in Centre county, and in the spring of 1886 was appointed borough surveyor of West Chester, this county. In 1886 Mr. Mac- Donald was elected county surveyor of Chester county, and discharged the duties of that position with such distinguished ability that he was reelected in 1889 for a second term. He has served at the same time as borough surveyor for West Chester, and does a large amount of outside survey- ing and civil engineering, among which has been considerable bridge work. He is un- married. Archibald MacDouald, paternal grand- father of Walter A., was born in the high- lands of Scotland, amid scenes made forever famous by the immortal Burns, and grew up and was educated there. Ere middle life was reached he determined to leave his native land and seek a newer home in that new world which scientists believe to be the old. He came to America, and was led by circumstances to Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, where he settled near Coatesville, and passed the renjainder of his life. Im- bued by early associations and inherited tendencies, with a love for out-door exist- ence and personal independence, he devoted his life to agricultural pursuits, and became prosperous and influential. He reared a large family, of whom John MacDonald (father) was one. Tlie latter was born in Chester county, near Coatesville, in 1811, grew to manhood on the farm, and re- ceived such education as was afforded by the schools of that early day. After leav- ing school he learned the trade of mill- wright, and in 1844 was married to Jane Lilley, by M'hom he had a family of four children. He worked at his trade in this county for a number of years, but while his children were yet small removed to Perry county, and continued to reside there until his death, in 1887, at the advanced age of seventy-six years. In later life lie became a farmer and was quite successful. Politi- cally he was a republican, and actively sup- ported that party in all its efforts to pre- serve the unity of this country, free tlie slaves, and establish the government on a firm and enduring basis. For many years he was a prominent member of the Metho- dist Episcopal church, and earnest in his support of all efforts intended to benefit his fellow man. Many still live who cau tes- tify to his kindly nature and frequent acts of benevolence and hearty good will for his neighbors and all with whom he was ac- quainted. His wife preceded him to the tomb, dying in 1871, at the age of sixty years. Their two daughters are Lizzie A. and Lydia A., twins, the former of whom married Thomas Pennell, a prosperous farmer residing near Duncannon, Perry county, and the latter living also at Dun- cannon. The two sons are John Wesley, now with the Kent Iron and Hardware company at Wilmington, Delaware, and Walter A., the principal subject of the fore- going sketch, who to-day stands among the most successful, useful, and highly re- spected young men of Chester count}-. HON. JOHN HICKMAN, who won IsTational reputation, and whose con- gressional speeches attracted universal at- tention by their force and keenness of satire, was a son of John and Sarah (Jefferis) Hick- man, and was born in what is now Pocopson township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September 11, 1810. Francis and Elizabeth Hickman came from England to Chester county prior to 1685. Their son, Ben- OF CHESTER COVNTY. 301 jamin Hickmau, married Ann Buffingtoii, and their son, Francis Hickmau, wedded Ann Marshall, and reared a family of several children, one of whom was John Hickman, the father of the subject of this sketch. John Hickman received his education at "Bragg Hill" under the instruction of a private instructor, who was a graduate of Edinburgh -university. He read law with Townsend Haines, was admitted to the bar in 1832, and his career as a lawyer was one of eminent success. Mr. Hickmau was u charming and win- ning speaker, and soon became popular in the Democratic party. He held the- office of district attorney for three terms, and served as a member of Congress from 1855 to 1863. His vote was recorded against admitting Kansas as a State under the Le- compton constitution, and in the Thirty- sixth Congress he voted witii the republi- cans. He was a prominent candidate for the republican nomination for the vice-pres- idency in 1860, and in 1863 declined a re- election to Congress. Mr. Hickman was a merciless opponent of slavery and secession, and sarcastically referred to the John Brown raid as an event in which the whole State of Virgiiiia was frightened by seventeen men and a cow. He also asked the State's rights leaders in Congress, during 1860, if eighteen millions of northern men, with all the appliances of art, would not be able to cope with eight millions of southern men without those appliances. During the war his views of public policy were in advance of his political contemporaries. While he gave National reputation to his district, was firm as a rock, eloquent, and of undoubted integrity, yet he lacked some qualities es- sential to political leadership, and never reached the higher positions in govern- mental affairs for which he was (jualilied by ability and scholarship. Hewas well known throughout the country for his remarkable mental power and brilliant scintilations of wit, and died at his home at West Chester, March 23, 1875. Q AMUEL D. RAMSEY, whose acti ve i n- tellect was early attracted by the mystei'- ies of that profession to which Blackstonede- voted his powerful mind, has for more than a score of years maintained a position of prom- inence at the West Chester bar. He is the second son of James R. and Mary (Dickey) Ramsey, being born July 24, 1848, in the borough of Hopewell, Chester county, Penn- sylvania. The Ramseys are of Celtic origin, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, William Ramsey, having been born in Ireland, but emigrated from that country while yet a lad and located at East Notting- ham, this county. After reaching man's es- tate he n)arried and reared a family, but con- tinued to reside at East Nottingham until his death at an advanced age. His sou William Ramsey (grandfather), was born in East Nottingham township, this county, but after attaining manhood removed to Lan- caster county and settled near Georgetown, where he died. He was a merchant, and marrij3d Rebecca Wilson, by whom he had a family of two children, one son and a daugh- ter : James R. (father) and Ann. James R. Ramsey was born February 14, 1815, in Lan- caster county, this State. He i-eceived what was considered a good education in that day, aud became an energetic and successful busi- ness man. He engaged in a number of en- terprises, all of which seemed to prosper in his hands. During the last twenty years ot his life he served as treasurer of the Phila- 'Myi BIOORAPHY AND HIST OH Y (lelpliiu & Baltimore Central liailroad Coni- piiny. Jle died December 24, 1871, at his liome near Oxford, this county. Politically he was a republican, and served during the dark days of the civil war as president of the L'nion League of Oxford. He held a number of minor offices, and was a f)romi- nent member of the Presbyterian church, serving as trustee for many years. He mar- ried Mary Dickey, and to them was born a lamily of three sons: ^\^i^iam W., now a well known business man in the city of Chi- cago and president of the corporation of Ramsey, Rhodes & Co.; Samuel D., the principal sulyect of this sketch ; and J. Everton, cashier of the National bank of Oxford, this county. iSamuel D. Ramsey was educated at Hope- well academy and Oxford seminary, and after completing his academic education he, in April, liSHM, entered the office of that dis- tinguished attorney and statesman, the Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, in West Chester, and began the study of law. After two years of careful preparation he was admitted to the bar on April 24, 1871, and immediately opened an office in West Chester for the practice of his profession. Being endowed with great native ability and the energy of character necessary to develop and cultivate bis powers, he soon became quite successful and won an honorable position at the bar. He early learned the truth of the adage that there is no excellence without great labor, and gives to every cause he undertakes that tliorough consideration which is necessary (o enable an advocate to handle his case with skill and success. He has now been in con- tinuous practice in the courts of this county for more than twenty years, and enjoys a large and constantly increasing clientage. On December (i, 1«77, Mr. Ramsey was united in marriage to Sarah M. Briuton, of the borough of West Chester. This union has been blessed by the birth of two daugh- ters : Eleanor B. and Edith M. In religion he is a Presbyterian, and a leading member of that denomination in the place of his resi- dence. Politically he is a stanch republicaii, and always gives his support and intiuencc to that great party. He is a member of Oxford Lodge, No. 353, Free and Accepted Masons, and occupies an enviable position both ill his profession and as a useful, enter- l)rising and intiuential citizen of ('hestei' county. JAMEW W. MASTERS, proprietor of the Malvern creamery in East White- land township, this county,and a well known business man of Philadelphia, is the second son of Joseph and Sarah (Edwards) Masters, and was born February 12, 1845, in Colum- bia county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grandfather, David Masters, was a native of the same county, and was a son of James Masters, who, it is thought, was born in Chester county, and went from there into Columbia county among the iirst settlers. At any rate James Masters was among the early pioneers of Columbia county, where he cleared out a fine farm, upon which he lived and died. His son, David (grand- father), purchased the homestead after his father's death, and passed the remainder of his life there, dying in 1858, aged neariy seventy-five years. He was a farmer by occupation, and all the family were strict members of the Society of Friends. His wife was Mary Eves, a member of a numer- ous and prominent family of that county, and by her he had a family of eight chil- dren : Oeorgt', James, Joseph, Parvin, Sarah, Margaret, Elizabeth and Mary. The third OV CHESTER COUNTY. 208 son, Joseph Masters (fatlier), was born on the old homestead in Cohmibia county in 1816, where he grew to maturity, and was educated in the subscription schools of that day. In early manhood he learned the milling business and divided his time be- tween that occupation and farming, being quite successful in each. Tn later life he removed to Lycoming county, this State, where he died about 1887. Politically he was a stanch republican, and in religion a prominent member of the orthodox Society of Friends. lie married Sarah Edwards, a daughter of Joel and Ann (Green) Ed- wards, and to Mr. and Mrs. Masters was born a family of nine children : Morris, who owns a fine farm adjoining the old liome- stead in Columbia county; .lames, the sub- ject of this sketch ; Parvin, now a book- keeper in the city of Chicago ; David, a res- ident of Wilmington, Delaware; Dubre, now foreman in the glass factory of Whitall, Tatum & Co., at Millville, JSTew Jersey ; ■lennie, married George Pim, a farmer of Marshallton, this county; Anna; Eliza- beth, married Henry Ferris, a printer and publisher of Philadelphia; and Harriet, who married Joseph Rhodes, of Wilming- ton, Delaware, now a member of the fac- ulty of Westtown boarding school. James AV. Masters was reared principally on the farm, and educated in tlic Westtown boarding school, which he left in 1863 to assist his father on the fai-m, help for tlii>i being. hard to procure during tlic war. In 1867 he engaged in the merchantile busi- ness in Lycoming county, where he re- mained two years. In 1869 he removed to the city of Philadelphia and embarked in the grocery business, and afterward engaged in the milk, butter, and Qgg trade, wbich lie has successfully conducted for nearly twenty years. lie now employs tifteen men regu - lai'ly, and twelve horses are used in the de- livery of the produce he handles. He estab- lished a creamery in East Whiteland town- ship in 1887, with a capacit}' for using five thousand pounds of milk per day, and has since been largely engaged in the manu- facture of butter, in addition to his general business in Philadelphia. He is a man of untiring activity, and has been very suc- cessful in his business career. On the 1st day of May, 1867, Mr. Mas- tei's was united in marriage to Rebecca Kite, a daughter of James and Lydia (Bas- sett) Kite, and a direct descendent of Sir Admiral Kite, an English baronet in the time of Oliver ®romwell. One of the bar- onet's sons, James Kite, came to America and settled in Philadelphia, and from him the present Kite family is descended. Mrs. Masters' mother, Lydia Bassett, was of JSTew England stock, and a recommended minis- ter in the Society of Friends. Mrs. Masters is also a recommended minister in the So- ciety, and was educated at the Friends' Westtown boarding school. She is now one of the managing committee of that in- stitution. To Mr. and Mrs. Masters have been born six children, one son and live daughters. The eldest, Marian, died at the age of nine years, and two others are also deceased. Those living are Helen B., A. Gertrude, and Herbert W. In politics Mr. Masters is an ardent re- publican, taking an active part in support- ing the party of his choice. His name has frequently been mentioned in connection with a nomination for assemblyman and the city council, but he has always declined to become a candig committee of the dio- cese of central New York from 1868 to 1870. He was dean of Burlington from 1874 to 1888, archdeacon from 1888 to 1890, and served as deputy to the General convention from New Jersey in 1877, 1880, 1883, 1886, and 1889. He was chairman of the committee on the state of the church from 1883 to 1890, and also served as com- missioner from New Jersey of the American church building fund commission, and was a member of the commission of fifteen on Christian unity from 1886 to 1890. Dr. Hills was a man of literary ability, and gave considerable time and attention to the history of his church and the defense of its principles. He wrote several books and pamphlets, beside many historical papers, and was the author of an excellent history of the church in Burlington, New Jersey. On October 7, 1852, in St. Bartholomew's church, in New York city, Dr. Hills was united in marriage with Sarah Dows, who was born in Jersey City, February 19, 1832. To Dr. and Mrs. Hills were born six chil- dren, of whom two died in infancy. Their oldest living ciiiild is Eev. John Dows Hills, a graduate of Trinity college, and valedic- torian of the class of '78. George Heathcote Hills was prej^ai-ed for college at Burlington college, the Protes- tant Episcopal academy of Philadelphia, and by private tutors, after which he en- tered the time-honored walls of Trinity college, Hartford, Connecticut, from which he was graduated B. A., cum honore, in the class of 1884. He was ordered deacon in St. Mary's church, Burlington, New Jer- sey, on June 11, 1885, by lit. Rev. John Scarborough, bishop of New Jersey, and advanced to the priesthood in the same church May 12, 1887, by the same bishop. He was curate of St. Mary's church, Bur- lington, New Jersey, from 1885 to 1887, when he became assistant at St. James' church, New York city, where he served acceptably until 1888. In that year he re» signed to become rector of Christ church, Eiverton, New Jersey, where he remained until October, 1891, when he accepted a call to become rector of the church of the Holy Trinity, West Chester. In this field he has labored zealously and successfully for the establishment of the principles of morality, civilization and Christianitj'. On May 24, 1887, Rev. Mr. Hills was united in marriage in St. James church. New York city, with Carrie Louise Pear- son, daughter of James B. and Ellen Jose- phine (Ferree) Pearson, of that city. Rev. and Mrs. Hills have three children, one son and two daughters : Beatrice Heathcote Hills, born in New York city, March 21, 1888; Pearson Heathcote Hills, born at Riverton, New Jersey, October 5, 1889; and Violet Heathcote Hills, born at River- ton, June 13, 1891. Rev. George Heathcote Hills received his degree of M. A. from Trinitly college in 1887. He is a member of thc^ fraternity of Alpha Delta Phi, was chaplain of the Girls' Friendly society of the diocese of New Jer- sey from 1889 to 1891, and registrar of that important diocese in 1891. Mr. Hills' preacViing is characterized by an earnest- ness and sincerity that makes it impressive 206 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY and conviueiiiif. His sermons are scriptural and practical, and so well arranged and clearly expressed as to be understood by all thoughtful hearers. He always keeps in siglit the great object of his important mis- sion, and as a conse(|uence his ministry has been fruitful of good results. With him religion is something that concerns the understanding as well as the emotions, and through his well directed labors his congre- gation is well instructed in the great truths of Christianity and the distinctive doctrines •of the Episcopal church. gDUAR ALLEN, M. I)., a graduate from Jefferson Medical college, Phila- delphia, who has been in active practice in this county since early in 1891, and has already won considerable distinction in his profession, is a son of John and Catharine (Dalrymple) Allen, and a native of Hunter- don county. New Jersey, where he was born April 2, 1861. He attended the common schools of Bloomsbury, New Jersey, during his boyhood, where he made rapid progress, and when about fifteen years of age secured a position as clerk in a dry goods store at Easton, Pennsylvania, where he pursued liis studies of evenings in a night school, while clerking during the day. Possessed of an earnest and ambitious disposition, and de- termined to secure an education and become a useful member of society, he rapidly mas- tered the ordinary branches, and in 1885 began the study of medicine with Dr. A.L. Kotz, of Easton. Later he matriculated at Jefferson Mi^dical college, Philadelphia, and was graduated from that well known insti- tution in tile siiring of ISild. He returned to Easton and immediately opened an otHce for the practice of the healing art. After one year's practice at that place he removed in 1891 to St. Mary's, Warwick township, Chester county, where he has been success- fully engaged in the duties of his profession ever since. Having thoroughl}' prepared himself, and naturally possessing many traits which mark the true physician, he has been successful in building up a lucrative practice that has aggregated oVer three thousand dollars in the short time he has been located here. Dr. Allen is inclined toward inde- pendence in political action, and in religion is a member of the German Eeformed church. He is also a member of Pughtown Lodge, No. 369, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and of Washington Gamp, No. 335, Patriotic Order Sons of America, at the village of Nautmeal. On October 30, 1884, Dr. Allen was wedded to Lizzie H. Lattig, a daughter of Simon H. Lattig, of Northampton county, this State. To the Doctor and Mrs. Allen has been born one child, a daughter, named Katharine Ruth, whose natal day was July 16, 1892. The Aliens are of Holland descent, but have been natives of New Jersey since the early days of that Commonwealth. John B. Allen, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Hunterdon county. New Jersey, where he lived all his life, and died at a good old age. In early life he learned the shoemaker's trade and worked at that occupation nearly all his (lays. Politically he was a Jacksonian dem- ocrat, and soon after attainiiTg his majority married a Miss McCullom, a native of New Jersey, by whom he had a family of nine children. One of his sons was John Allen (father), who was born in Hunterdon countv. New .Jersey, iiu 181,S,aMd died April 6, 1891 , at his home on the old Allen homestead in that county. He was a carpenter and builder OF CHmTJiB GOVNTY. 207 by occupation, a stanch democrat in politics, and in religion a member of the Christian church. He married Csitharine Dalrymple, a daugliter of William Dalrymple, a pros- perous farmer of Hunterdon couuty, where he lived all his life, becoming influential and prominent. By his marriage with Miss Dalrymple Mr. Allen had a family of eight children, live sons and three daughters: William H., Theodore G. and David B. are engaged in contracting and building in the city of Newark, l!few Jersey, where they reside ; Charles S. is a druggist at Blooms- bury, in Hunterdon county, that State; Dr. Edgar, the subject of this sketch ; Mary E. ; Elnora, died in infancy ; and Christiana, deceased at the age of twenty-three. Mrs. Catharine Allen (mother) is still living. t\R. WILLIAM DARLINGTON, LL. D., whose name is known and respected throughout the botanical world, was the eld- est child of Edward and Hannah (Townsend) Darlington,and was born nearDilworth town, Birmingham township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 28, 1782. He was the flrst medical student to graduate from the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania. He always resided in his na- tive county, and while practicing his profes- sion to some extent, yet gave his time chiefly to botanical research. In 1826 he published his "Cestrica," and in 1847 his "Agricultural Botany." Besides these he published many interesting botanical papers. In 1825 he was among the first that were interested in State canals and railroads. Dr. Darlington served in the Fourteenth, Six- teenth and Seventeenth Congresses of the United States, and was opposed to the ex- tension of slavery. He died April 23, 1863, and the memorial stone over his remains in Oakland cemetery bears the following lines written by himself twenty years before his death: "The plants of Chester, which he loved and described, may they blossom for- ever above his tomb." toENJAMIN J. TORBERT, a well re spected citizen of Downingtown, and who served as an ofiicer in an emergency company when Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1863, is a son of William and Hannah (Lewis) Torbert,and was born at Gallagher- ville, Chester county, Penns^'lvania, January 7, 1830. His paternal grandfather, William Torbert, sr., born January 1, 1756, was a native of Ireland, and in the latter part of the eighteenth century came to Montgomery county. He was a democrat, a farmer and hotel keeper. On April 18, 1782, he mar- ried Jane Oliver, who was born February 21, 1759, and had a family of seven chil- dren : Alexander, William, Samuel, Benja- min, James, Andrew and Mary Gallagher. William Torbert (father) was born near Spring House tavern, on the Lancaster pike, in Montgomery county, November 1, 1789. In early life he came to Chester county, where he was engaged in farming near Gallagherville, until his death in 1873, at eighty-four years of age. He was a demo- crat in politics, and served as an American soldier in the war of 1812, during which great contest he participated in several severe battles. He married Hannah Lewis, and to their union were born seven chil- dren : William, Jane, Hester, Benjamin J., Oliver, Andrew and Obed. Mrs. Torbert was a member of the Society of Friends, and died August 2, 1886, when in the 208 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY niriety-tirst year of her age. She was a daughter of "William Lewis, and a grand- daughter of Lewis Lewis, a native of Wales. William settled near Downingtown, and followed farming. He was a democrat and Presbyterian, and served in the Federal army, while his brother entered the Con- federate ranks. He married and had three children: Joseph, William, and Mrs. Han- nah Torbert. Benjamin J. Torbert was reared on the farm, attended the common schools, and then engaged in farming and stock raising, which he followed successfully near Galla- gherville, until 1891. In that year he re- moved to Downingtown, where he has resided ever since. During Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863, Mr. Torbert en- listed in Go. H, 21st regiment of Pennsyl- vania militia, and served as a corporal until his regiment was mustered out of service. On January 24, 1854, Mr. Torbert mar- ried Emmeline Jones, daughter of Samuel Jones, of Honeybrook, Pennsylvania, whose ancestors came from England. To their union have been born four children, one son and three daughters : William, a farmer of near Unionville, this county ; Hester L. ; Rachel, now dead, who was the wife of Charles H. Fahnestock, a business man of Philadelphia; and Hannah P. In politics Benjamin J. Torbert has always been a strong democrat, who be- lieves in the principles of the Democratic party as advocated by Thomas Jeftcrson, and in an economical administration of the government of the United States. By honesty, good judgment and judicious man- agement, Mr. Torbert has acquired a com- petency, and is now well situated to enjoy life, HON. THOMAS McKEAN, \Aj. D., governor of Pennsylvania for three successive terms, and a signer of the im- mortal Declaration of Independence, was a son of William and Letilia (Finnfey) Mc- Kean, and was born in New London town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 19, 1734. He received his education at Rev. Francis Alison's academy, and then removed to N"ew Castle, Delaware, where he practiced law and was variously em- ployed in public positions until 1773. He then removed to Philadelphia, where he died June 24, 1817, aged eighty-three years. Thomas McKcan was a member of the Colonial Congress of 1765, and of the Con- tinental Congress during its entire exist- ence. In 1777 he was commissioned chief justice of Pennsylvania, although serving at that time as speaker of the assembly, presi- dent of the State of Delaware, and a mem- ber of Congress. In 1799 Mr. McKean was elected governor of Pennsylvania, and served as such until 1808. He wrote the first constitution of Delaware, and was a member of the convention that framed the Pennsylvania constitution of 1790. A dis- tinguished patriot and an eminent jurist, it was his proud distinction to have solidified the Delaware delegation in favor of separa- tion from England, and thus secured the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the unanimous act of the thirteen colonies. 'J'HOMAS C. HOGUE is one of whom it may be said without detracting aught from any other representative business man of southeastern Pennsylvania, that his hon- esty and energy, his great industry and re- markable success in life, and his public spir- ited interest in the material development OF CHESTER COVNIY. 209 and substantial prosperity of his borough, county and State, furnish au example worthy of study by the young men of to-day who aspire to an honorable, honest and progres- sive business career. He is a son of Levi and Mary (Hirst) Hogue, and was born in Belmont county, Ohio, February 25, 1845. When the great northwest teri'itory which Virginia had ceded to the Union was opened to settlers, among those who left the "Old Dominion"' to seek their fortunes north of the Ohio river, was William Hogue, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch and a son of William Hogue, sr., who was of Welsh descent. William Hogue was a native of Loudon county, Virginia, where he learned the trade of tanner, and from which he removed about 1800 to Flushing, Belmont county, Ohio. After his removal he embarked in the tanning business upon what was an extensive scale for that early day. He was ingenious and inventive, and a skilled workman whose leather was noted all over his and adjacent counties for its ■durability and excellent finish. He was a whig, and a member of the Society of Or- thodox Friends, and died about 1846, at an advanced age. He married Sarah Crawford, who was born in his native county, and rearedafamily of five children : Levi, Elisha, John , Mary Holloway , and Eunice Holloway. Of these children only John and Eunice are living. The eldest son, Levi Hogue (father), wasborn at Flushing, Ohio, where he learned the trade of tanner, which he followed until his marriage. He then engaged in farming, which received his attention until his death, which occurred April 5, 1857. He was a man of sterling integrity, a strict member and regular attendant of the Society of Friends, and supported the old Whig party. He married Mary Hirst, who was a daughter of David and Ann Hirst, and who died April 27,1855. Their children were : David, who was born October 10, 1839, and died August 12, 1850; Asa, born February 23, 1842, married Ruth A. Crew, and is a farmer of Belmont county, Ohio ; Thomas C. ; Re- becca Wright, born October 22, 1847, and is the wife of Joshua Gilbert, a merchant of West Branch, Iowa; John Barclay, born January 9, 1850, married Mary Lochery, and is a druggist of St. Clairsville, Ohio; and Joseph Scattergood, born October 18, 1852, married Anna M. Steer, and resides at Barneeville, Ohio, where he is engaged in farming and dealing in fine and imported stock. Thomas C. Hogue attended select schools at his native town until he was fifteen years of age, and then entered Mt.Pleasant Board- ing school of Jefterson county, Ohio, which he attended two winter terms. Soon after leaving this school he became a teacher in the public schools of that State. At the end of one year's teaching, in October, 1864, he came to Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he completed his academical course at West- town Boarding school. He was then pro- moted to tutor, which position he occupied one year, when he was again advanced to the position of regular teacher in that old institution. He occupied the latter position for four years, to the entire satisfaction of the board of managers. Leaving that ex- cellent educational institution in 1870, he resolved upon entering into an active busi- ness life in some particular line in the great commercial world, and in order to more fully qualify himself for his new undertak- ing he took a course at Bryant & Stratton's Business college in Philadelphia. Immedi- ately after taking liis commercial course of studies he came to West Chester, as adcsir- 310 BIOORAPllY AND HISTORY able location, and after an examination of varions lines oi' business, selected that of groceries as the most favorable tield in which to embark. He then purchased the interest of T. Elwood Townsend in the grocery firm of Thatcher & Townsend, whose business stand was the oldest in the town and dated back prior to the first year of the present century, when it was founded as a general store by John Townsend. The new firm became Thatcher & liogne. At the end of a 3'ear Mr. Hogue purchased his partner's interest and has conducted a constantly in- creasing business ever since. On January 4, 1881, Mr. Hogue was united ill marriage with Martha J., a daugliter of •fohn and Susan Woolley of West Chester. Mr. and Mrs. Hogue have three children : Julia S., born October 17, 1881 : Mary J., October 1-2,1883; and Helena M., June 2:!, 1885. The wholesale and retail grocery estab- lishment of Mr. Hogue is situated on the southeast corner of Gay and High streets. The store building is three stories high with a basement, and fronts forty-eight feet on Gay street while it extends back twenty- eight feet on High street. He is the only mercliant of West Chester who owns his own warehouse, whieli is a four story struc- tuTe on Chestnut street, lying along the tracks of the Pennsylvania railroad, and has a capacity of ten car loads of barrelled goods. In addition to this warehouse he has to rent a part of the old depot, where he has a storage capacity of five car loads of goods. He carries pure and fresh lines of fine and staple groceries, spices, canned goods, provisions, fruits, produce, oils, paints and varnishes. His establishment is well equipped with all necessary devices for sav- ing time and labor, and for the proper dis- play of his choice and large stock. Al- though young in years as a merchant, yet he is old in practical experience and enjoys perfected facilities and influential trade con- nections. His remarkable success is an in- teresting instance of visible growth, com- mencing with a small business but built on the solid foundation of knowing what his patrons wanted, and growing into a wonder- fully large town and country trade. He employs six clerks and runs two delivery wagons in order to accommodate his custo- mers and fill his orders. In addition to his large mercantile operations Mr. Hogue takes a great interest in growing hot house grapes. Among the leading and late varieties which he grows are : Gross Coleman, Black Ham- burg, Muscat Hamburg, Flame Tokay, Bo- wood-Muscat, Golden Hamburg, Zinfindall, Gi'oss Morock, Anlnwick seedling, Black Prince, Champion Hamburg and Totenham Muscat. The (ilross Coleman, his latest va- riety, is a grape that is one and one-quarter inches in diameter, and the clusters vary in weight from one to five pounds, and sell late in winter at from two to five dollars per pound. In politics Mr. Hogue is a republican. He is a member of the Horticultural so- ciety of Philadelphia, and the Orthodox Society of Friends, in which he is an active and efltective worker; often accompanying the ministers of his denomination in their travels in difl:erent parts of the United States. Thomas C. Hogue is a man of quiet man- ners and pleasing address, of consistent morals, and of well known liberality. He makes himself useful in society, in the busi- ness world, the cause of temperance, tlie work of his church, and in the cause of Christianity. ()F CHESTER CO UNT)t. Sll □ LFRED P. REID, a prominent mem- ber of the West Chester bar, who is closely identified with the tinancial, insur- ance and educational ali'airs of the county, and who has had a large influence in estab- lishing several of the most important and leading banks of southeastern Pennsylva- nia, is a son of James and Hannah (Mc- Caughey) Reid, and was born on a farm in Highland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, September 3, 1842. He is of Scotch-Irish lineage, and his paternal grand- father, Adam Reid, came from the north of Ireland to Philadelphia, where he kept a grocery store for many years. He was a Presbyterian in religious faith, like nearly all of the sturdy and energetic race from which he was descended. James Reid was born in Philadelphia, and removed to High- land township, this county, where he served as a school director, and held various other local offices. He married Hannah Mc- Caughey, a daughter of E^athaniel Mc- Caughey, who was a farmer, came, in 1797, from Londonderry, Ireland, and settled in West Sadsbury township, where he married Jeannette Stewart, a grand-daughter of Walter and Margaret (Andrew) Stewart, residents of Chester county as early as 1720. Alfred P. Reid grew to manhood on the farm, and attended the district schools. He was prepared for college in Parkesburg, Coatesville and West Chester academies, and then entered Lafayette college, from which well known institution of learning he was graduated in the class of 1864. He then read law with Judge Futhey, of West Chester, was admitted to the bar on August 14, 1866, and has been engaged ever since in the successful practice of his profession in West Chester. His j)ractice is second to 14 none in the county, and is surpassed by few in the eastern part of the State. On June 15, 1870, Mr. Reid was united in marriage with Emma Bowman, a grand- daughter of John Comly, the author of the celebrated Condy spelling book that was so remarkably popular in its day in Pennsyl- vania. Mr. and Mrs. Reid have three chil- dren, one son and two daughters: Arthur P., Edith C, and Laura B. Mr. Reid is a republican in politics, and a member and elder of \\'^e8tminster Pres- byterian church of West Chester. As a lawyer he practices iu his own and adjoin- ing counties, and thus comes in contact with some of the ablest lawyers of Penn- sylvania. While prominent, active and progressive in his profession, he finds time to devote considerable attention to educa- tional and business aftairs. He is president of the board of trustees of the West Chester State Normal school and the Penn Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which was incor- porated in 1867, and now operates in this and adjoining counties. He owns consid- erable real estate in the county. Alfred P. Reid's chief line of business has been banking, in whose development in south- eastern Pennsylvania he has been a potent factor. He has attained to distinction as a financier of ability and correct business methods. From being a stockholder and director in several banking institutions, his advice and counsels in difficult financial transactions were so judicious and well- timed to the directors of the banks with which he was then connected, that in re- cognition of his special fitness and_ unusual ability for the management of banking operations, he became vice-president and president of several of those banks. He is now serving as vice-president of the First 313 BtOOltAPHY AND HtlSTORY National bank of West Chester, and presi- dent of the Dime and Saving bank of West Chester, which he was instrumental in or- ganizing and having incorporated in 1890, under the general banking laws of Pennsyl- vania. The Dime and Saving bank is purely a benevolent organization for the benefit of thousands whose small savings at the end of the week would not be accept- able as deposits at most of the banks. This bank has branches at Phoenixville and other important towns in this section of the State, and has about $30,000 of deposits. It loans its money on real estate, and is in a very prosperous condition. Mr. lieid, in' bank management, is conservative and progres- sive, and while neglecting no point of efficiency demanded by modern commercial practice, yet at the same time carefully guards the interests of the, depositors, by scrupulously protecting them against any possibility of risk. He has also made it a point that the banks with which he is connected are pro- vided with every facility to meet the legiti- mate necessities of the communities in which they are situated. By ability, by energy, by perseverance and integrity, Mr. Reid has carved out for himself a success- ful, distinguished and enviable career. QANDERS McCULLOUGH, who turned his attention chiefly and suc- cessfully to agricultural pursuits, and who was a highly respected citizen of Oxford, was a son of Hugh and Grace (Bell) Mc- Cullough, and was born in Lancaster county, February 27, 1809. Hugh McCullough was born and reared in Lancaster county, of which he was a life-long resident. He passed his life on the farm on which he was born, and died May 3, 1848, when well ad- vanced in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He was an extensive farmer for his day, and a man who was progressive in agri- cultural affairs. He was a strong democrat, trained in the Jefi'ersonian school, and an ardent supporter of Jackson. He married G-race Bell, and reared a family of four children. Sanders McCullough grew to manhood on his father's farm in Lancaster couiTfcy, and received his education in the schools of his neighborhood. He assisted his father for a few years in the management and cul- tivation of the home farm, and then en- gaged in farming for himself, which he fol- lowed successfully in his native county until April, 1874, when he removed to Oxford, this county, where he resided until his death, in 1885. On May 19, 1840, Mr. McCullough mar-, ried Sarah Rowlands, who died April 10, 1849, and on January 16, 1851, he wedded Jeannette King, who is a daughter of John * King, a native and life-long resident of Lancaster county, where he died in January, 1847, when in the fifty-fourth year of his age. Mr. King was a prosperous farmer, a strong democrat, and a strict and useful member of the Presbyterian church. He , married Isabella McSparran, and reared a family of two children : Mrs. Jeannette Mc- Cullough and Mrs. Eleanor Sides. Sanders McCullough was a successful farmer and business man. He took delight in farming, did all of his work well, and was industrious, hospitable, and charitable. He died on June 26, 1885, and his remains were entombed in a beautiful spot in Chest- nut Level cemetery. He was an old-time democrat in politics, and an active and prominent member and ruling elder of the 'f^t2M^'i r- OP OM^STMUi COUlfTy. 213 "resbjterian church. Mr. McCiiUough hoii- 'Ored the responsible position which he held in a church that has always called to the eldership men of bhuaeless character and uprightness in life, lie wats a highly re- spected citizen, an earnest Christian, and a useful man, whose death was sincerely IL,IiIAM EVERHART was bom on the 17th of May, 1785, in Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and was the eldest son of James Everhart, of whom an obituary notice in the Philadel- phia North American thus speaks : " It was at a very critical period, when failure seemed imminent, just after the defeat of Brandy- wine and the massacre of Paoli ; when the enemy had the strongholds of the country ; when the most zealous were dishearted and the lukewarm turned back, and the disaf- fected withheld provisions from the army and betrayed its movements, deserters thinned, that James Everhart volunteered, at the early age of seventeen years. His gun with the lock tied on, his uniform his leather breeches, his knapsack his pocket, his bed the ground, his covering the sky; exposed day and night to the rigors of winter, some- times marching through tlic storm without shoes, sometimes sleeping under the snow without a blanket ; always without pay, often without food, struggling against na- ture, the elements and the enemy; against fatigue, frost, famine, and the British, Thus schooled and thus tried, he exhibited the vigor and virtue of those heroic days. Rigidly temperate and just, he had a con- stitution free from disease and a character beyond reproach." William Everhart, before he had reached his majority, entered into the mercantile business on his own account. On the decla- ration of war against England, he raised and drilled a rifle corps, but peace was con- cluded without an opportunity being afforded for active service. Soon afterward, for the purpose of making arrangements for im- porting merchandise, he sailed from New York for Liverpool in the packet ship Albion. The wreck of that vessel on the coast of Ireland, by which so many dis- tinguished lives were lost, was made still more remarkable by the marvelous preser- vation of Mr. Everhart. Such a terrible wreck and loss of life, and on the part of Mr. Everhart such a miraculous preserva- tion, excited the public sensibility through- out Europe and America. When he landed at Liverpool it was diiScult for him to get along the streets, the people crowded around in such numbers to see the only passenger "saved from the wreck of the Albion." When Mr. Everhart recovered from sick- ness, being in a strange land and perfectly destitute by the loss of flOjOOt), although that amount was found and freely and earnestly offered to him by the agents of the government, as it was most probably his, he nevertheless refused it for fear he might be mistaken in its identity. To this. Master James Redmond Barry, esq., of Glanmore House, Ireland, thus refers in a note to a friend, as well as to another inci- dent in this connection, that after the lapse of a quarter of a century, duringthc late Irish famine, Mr. Everhart had the gratification Ot CHESTER COUNTY. 319 of contributing to the liberal aid which his native country designedly sent to the very neighborhood where he had been so kindly cared for. Mr. Everhart's name is and has been reverenced for many years by all who remember the event of 1822, when he evinced proofs of that upright and virtuous mind, which has since then dictated his noble exertions in directing the attention of his generous countrymen to the wants of our distressed community. That he and they may long enjoy every blessing that this world can afford, and still greater happiness hereafter — these are and have been the prayers of thousands who have participated in the bounty of the Chester county dona- tions, and they have a cordial response from one, who to the end of his life will never forget the name of Everhart. When Mr. Everhart returned from England he re- moved to West Chester, then a small vil- lage. He bought an adjoining property, and in a liberal public spirit laid it out in wide streets at his own expense, included many elegant buildings, and gave such an impetus to improvement that in a few years the town more than doubled its extent, and is now one of the most handsome and in- teresting in Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Everhart, with a well known character for business discretion and in- tegrity, was chosen to represent the district, composed of Chester and Delaware coun- ties, in the house of representatives of the United States. His majority was very con- siderably above the rest of the ticket, and in his own town far exceeded that of any previous candidate of his party. We may aptly conclude this sketch by a newspaper article from the press of the Hon. Charles Miner, the venerable author of the history of Wyoming, distinguished no less for his talents than for the excellent qualities of his heart. He says, in speaking of Mr. Everhart's nomination for Congress in Chester county: "It will give pleasure to many attached friends in Luzerne. A holder of valuable property in this county, he is a frequent, a i-espected and ever wel- come visitor. One of the most extensive merchants in West Chester — he has been an importer for thirty years — has visited Europe, and the name will be recollected by many with interest, who have not the pleasure of an acquaintance with him, by the fact that he was the only passenger saved from the disastrous wreck of the ill- fated Albion. It showed his unshaken ed mind, that amid the appalling horrors that surrounded him, he saw everything, re- membered everything, and the public is indebted to his clear narrative for the deeply affecting circumstances attending that melancholy event. Simple in manners, pleasing and unostentious, he was a man of bold and successful enterprise." • West Chester, that has grown from a village to a populous and beautiful city, owes its wonderful increase in a great meas- ure to his purchase of the Wollerton farm. nEV. HENRY WHEELER, D. D., pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church at Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was born in Wedmore, Somersetshire, England, in 1835. His childhood and youth were spent amid the beautiful scenery of his na- tive country, with the Mendip hills on the east and north, the Bristol jDhannel on the west, and the mountains of Wales beyond. He was reared in the established church, and was educated in its schools. When about fifteen years of age he chanced to 330 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY visit the Wesleyan chapel, and became in- terested in the Sunday school. A little later he united with the Methodist society. At sixteen he became a teacher in the Sunday school, and distributed tracts from house to house, occasionally holding prayer meetings in the cottages of the poor. At eighteen he was licensed as a local or lay preacher, and was placed on the circuit plan, preaching in the surrounding villages ten Sundays in thirteen. His youthful ap- pearance attracted lai'ge audiences. At twenty he was recommended to the district meeting to be educated for admission to the conference, but turning his attention to the United States, he came to this country in June, 1855. In August of the same year he was sent by the presiding elder to the Northmoreland circuit as junior preacher. This circuit had fifteen appoint- ments in Luzerne and "Wyoming counties, Pennsylvania. In 1856 he joined the Wy- oming conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. A part of that year and the fol- lowing he was a student in the Wyoming seminary under its president, Dr. Eeuben Nelson. After his marriage in 1858, to Miss Mary Sparkes, of Binghamton, New York, he served as pastor at Plainsville, Grreat Bend, and Waymart, in Pennsylva- nia, leaving this work to become chaplain of the 17th Pennsylvania cavalry, in which capacity he served in 1862 and 1863. After his return from the army he was stationed at the Central church, Wilkesbarre, Penn- sylvania; at Wyoming, Pennsylvania; at Waverly, New York ; Owego, New York, and Norwich, New York. At the two last named places he was eligaged in building churches, which now stand among the finest church edifices in that part of the State. He was then made pi^esiding older of Otsego district, and later pastor of the church in Kingston, Pennsylvania. In 1872 he was elected reserve delegate to the general con- ference held in Brooklyn, and served in that body for a time in place of an absent delegate. Dr. R. Nelson. In 1876 he was elected delegate to the 'general conference which met in Baltimore. In 1879 he was transferred to the Philadelphia conference, at the urgent request of the church in Columbia, which church he served for three years. He has served a full term each Christ church and Cumberland street church in the city of Philadelphia. In 1888 he was asked for and sent as pastor to the Metho- dist Episcopal church, Phoenixville, and at the present writing is serving that church for the fifth year. He is popular with his people, and loved throughout the community. Dr. Wheeler is widely known in his de- nomination as an author. In 1883 the Western Methodist Book concern published from his pen " Methodism and the Temper- ance Reformation," which has ever since ranked as a standard authority upon that subject. A year later " Bays of Light in the Valley of Sorrow" was published by P. W. Ziegler & Co., Philadelphia, which has had a wide sale. In 1889 the Methodist Book Concern of New York published " Deaconesses : Ancient and Modern." Bishop Hurst says of this book : " It is the first, so far as I know, in English, which gives a history of this important move- ment, and shows its place in the life and work of the church." These works have received flattering notice in this country and England. In 1891 the Methodist Book concern published from his pen, in tract form, " One Hundred Questions and Answers on the History, Polity, and Usages of the Methodist Episcopal Church," which is OB CHESTER COUNTY. 331 being used very largely by young people's societies and children's classes. A writer in the Evening Call, of Philadelphia, says in a review of Dr. "Wheeler and his work: " He is a clear, bright, strong, vivacious man, and the church of which he is pastor is one of the most progressive, and exerts a wide influence in the part of the city in which it is located." Dr. Wheeler is still in the prime of life, and gives no evidence of abatement in zeal or labor. He is still busy with his pen, preparing a historical work for the use of the denomination. In 1890 the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the Little Rock university, a well deserved recognition of his literary work. Dr. Wheeler has three children : One daughter, Mrs. Minnie W. Ifewbury, A.M., wife of T. P. Newbury, of the Philadelphia conference of the Methodist Episcopal church ; H. S. Wheeier, M. D., and George P. Wheeler, University Fellow in English, Princeton university. Q D. ARMSTRONG, M. D., one of the oldest physicians in Chester county, who graduated from Jefferson Med- ical college in 1839, and has been in con- tinuous practice since that time, is a son of William and Jane (Little) Ai'mstrong, and was born in Xewcaetle county, Delaware, January 22, 1815. His father was a life- long resident of the state of Delaware, and died there about 1834, aged sixty-five years. He was a prosperous farmer, an old-line whig in politics, and a member of Lower Brandywine Presbyterian church, in which he served as an eldei* for many years. He mar- I'ied Jane Little, by whom he had a family of six children, four sons and two daughters, among whom was Dr. G. D. Armstrong, the subject of this sketch. Dr. G. D. Armstrong received his educa- tion at Mosco academy and Delaware col- lege, under the tutorage of Rev. Francis Latta. After leaving college he read medi- cine with Dr. H. F. Askew, of Wilmington, Delaware, and later matriculated at Jeffer- son Medical college, Philadelphia, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of M. D. in the spring of 1839. He soon afterward began practicing in New London township, Chester county, where he has been successfully engaged in the line of his profession ever since, and is now one of the oldest physicians in the county. He has always been inclined toward agricultural pursuits, also, and now owns two fine farms comprising one hundred and twenty acres of valuable land, highly improved, and in a good state of cultivation. His buildings are commodious and comfortable, and he takes great pleasure in superintending his farm operations, frequently lending a hand himself during the busy season. He owns stock in the Oxford National bank, and has been a director in that institution for a number of years. On January 9, 1840, Dr. Armstrong mar- ried Anna M. Morrison, a native of Wil- mington, Delaware. To this union was born an only child, a daughter named M. J., who married George D. Hodgson, now deceased. Mrs. Hodgson now resides with her parents in their comfortable home in New London township. In political sentiment Dr. Armstrong is a pronounced republican, but has never felt inclined to take a very active part in prac- tical politics, preferring to devote his time and attention to the requirements of liis 332 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY profession. In religion he has followed the traditions of his ancestors, and is connected with the New London Presbyterian church, which he is now serving as a member and secretary of its board of trustees. Dr. Armstrong is a man of medium height, stout build, and wonderful energy, being yet active and energetic, although now in the seventy-seventh year of what has been a busy and successful life. HON. PERSIFOR FKAZER SMITH was born in Philadelphia, January 23, 1808, and died at West Chester, this county, on the 25th day of May, 1882, aged seventy-four years. His father was Joseph Smith, son of Robert Smith, of Uwchlan, Chester county. His mother was Mary (Frazer) Smith, a daughter of Col. Persifor Frazer, of Thornbury, then Chester county,- but now Delaware county. From a carefully prepared pamphlet by Joseph S. Harris on the life of Rol5tert Smith, reprinted from the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Bi- ography, we glean many of the following interesting facts : Robert Smith was of Scotch descent. Little is known of the history of his family prior to the emigration to Pennsylvania, except that the family name was originally Macdonald, and that the branch of it from which he was descended formed an import- ant part of the earliest Scottish emigration across the North Channel into Ireland, in the time of James I., of England. Near the end of the seventeenth century Robert Smith's grandfather lived in the northeast- ern part of Ireland. Just before the battle of the Boyne, as the soldier king, William III., was personally reconnoitering the local- ity, which was soon to become famous, his horse cast a shoe. There was, of course, no farrier in attendance to replace it; but Macdonald, in whose neighborhood the accident occurred, and who, like many other farmers in thinly-peopled districts, was something of a blacksmith, volunteered to repair the injuries, shod the horse, and so enabled the king to Jtroceed. His neighbors, who, like himself, were in sympathy with the cause of which William was the champion, dubbed Macdonald "the Smith." Such a change of name would not now be considered a compliment, as Smiths are so numerous that the name confers no special distinction ; but in that district there was a surfeit of Macdonalds ; all the possi- ble changes had been rung on the name, and still there were hardly enough names to individualize the members of the clan. Smith was a novelty, and the branch of trade it represented has always been an honored one, especially in primitive society, and this particular Scotchman, proud to have his name linked with that a great man, and a decisive battle, as that of Boynewater was soon known to be, accepted the cognomen, and handed it down to his posterity as the family name. The Macdonalds held their lands in Ire- land by tenant right, and while they, -with the rest of their countrymen, were subduing the savage land which they then called home, they lived in obscurity. The Scotch-Irish emigration to Pennsyl- vania in the iirst half of the eighteenth century, which gave to that colony so many of its best citizens, and which has done almost as much' to determine the character of the State as the Puritan emigration did to decide the character of New England, included among its number the parents of Robert Smith — John and Susanna — who (iS ii^^ye^ J^-mp, OF CHFSTtlR GOVNry. S23 left their homes in 1720, one yeai' after the enforcement of "The Test," and whose special grievance was not the raising of the rent of their homestead, but the absolute refusal of their landlord to renew their lease unless they would comply with the require- ments of that hated act. Though the voyage was stormy and un- usually long, even for those days of dull sailors, tradition tells of no losses of life on the journey, while there was certainly one life gained, for Robert Smith was boi'n at sea. Immediately after landing at Phila- delphia, the emigrants pushed westward thirty miles into Chester county, and passing by the fertile Great Valley, al ready partly peo- pled by Welsh settlers, heavily wooded, and probably at that time not free from the ma- laria which the early emigrants had so much reason to dread, took up lands to the north- ward, in the hilly country of Uwehlan township, in a locality long known as the Brandywine settlement. With her brother John came Mary Smith, who married Alexander Fulton, removed to Little Britain, Lancaster county, and to whom in due time was born a grandson, Robert Fulton, who has indissolubly linked his name with the history of steam naviga- tion. His next appearance is in the commence- ment of the revolution, in August, 1775. He took an active part in supervising the erection of military defences, and afterward sat in the convention which, on the 28th of Septem- ber, 1776, adopted the first State constitu- tion of Pennsylvania. He was at this time a man of considerable wealth, great energy, and extensive influence. On the 12th of March, 1777, the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania selected him as colonel of the military forces of Chester county. He took an active part in the struggles of colo- nial times and the eventful years which followed, was a member of the State assem- bly in 1785, and held various other offices of honor and trust, and died in 1803, at the age of eighty-three years. His son Joseph, father of the subject of this article, was an iron shipping merchant in Philadelphia. The maternal grandfather. Col. Persifor Fi'azer, was in the American army during the revolution, where he served with much gallantry and distinction. It will thus be seen that Mr. Smith is the direct lineal descendant of the early settlers of this country, who became famous in his- tory for their intelligence and patriotism. He was educated in Philadelphia, princi- pally in the classical school of Dr. Samuel B. Wylie and Joseph P. Engles. He grad- uated at the university of Pennsylvania on the 31st of July, 1824, and in the same year removed with his father to EastWhiteland, Chester county, Pennsylvania. In October, 1826, he commenced the study of law in the office of William H. Dillingham, esq., and was admitted to pi-actice in the courts of Chester county at the November term, 1829. He was admitted to the supreme court in December, 1831, and in October of the following year to the circuit court of the United States for what was then known as the Third circuit of Pennsylvania. He was married on the 24th of July, 1833, to Thomasine S. Fairlamb, daughter of Dr. George A. Fairlamb, of Downingtown,Ches- ter county. In May, 1835, he was ap- pointed clerk of the Orphans' court of Chester county by Governor George Wolf, and on February 25, 1839, was appointed prosecuting attorney for Delaware county by Ovid F. Johnson, attorney -general under Governor David R. Porter. His progress 224 MlOGRAPHY AlfD msTORY was steadily marked, and his valuable ser- vices were in general demand, lie was not allowed to remain long out of official posi- tions, and it is to his credit that in every instance he fuliilled the various duties as- signed him with integrity, punctuality, and signal ability. lu February, 1849, he was admitted to practice before the supreme court of the United States. He studiously followed the practice of his profession, and became extensively known by lawyers and judges. He maintained a very high posi- tion at the bar, and was long recognized as one of its leaders, both in- the county and State. His opinion on the perplexing ques- tions constantly arising in the practice of the law were largely sought for by his pro- fessional brethren. In 1861, during the stirring times which marked the beginning of the civil war, he was elected a member of the legislature, and the fact that he was returned by his constituents for the years of 1862-3-4, shows the high esteem in which he was held, having been chosen four years in succession at a time when the term of that office was for one year only. Dur- ing the civil war he was one of the most stanch supporters of the Union cause. In the year 1866 he was honored, as was also the county, by his appointment as state re- porter of the supreme court of Pennsyl- vania, which position he filled with recog- nized fidelity and ability, and relinquished it in May, 1876. There is not a law library in any court or lawyer's office in Pennsyl- vania which does not contain the thirty-two volumes of State reports compiled and ar- ranged during the ten years he filled that arduous and responsible office. He was also the author of the valuable legal text book entitled, "Forms of Procedure." While Mr. Smith never engaged in any occupation which was not in the line of the profession of his choice, he took great in- terest in local and general politics, and in every project calculated to develop the country. By his varied rea,ding and close observation he kept himself abreast with all that transpired in the literary and scien- tific world. His life was one of unwearied activity, and he was time and again called by his fellow citizens and those in authority to fill grave and responsible trusts. Mr. Smith was warmly identified with every good word and work calculated to enhance the interests and increase the usefulness of his town and county. His legal career ex- tended over more than half a century. He literally "died in the harness," for his death occurred in the court house at West Chester on the 25th day of May, 1882, while argu- ing a case before Judge Futhey. His son, George Fairlamb Smith, who served with distinction in the civil war, and was afterward elected district at- torney for Chester county, and still later served as a member of the legislature of Pennsylvania, was for several years asso- ciated with his father in the practice of the law. He died October 18, 1877. Mr. Smith's youngest and only surviving son and namesake, Persifor Frazer Smith, who now resides in Allegheny City, Pennsyl- vania, is president of the Wellsville Plate & Iron Company, whose plant is located at Wellsville, Ohio. The only surviving daughter is the wife of Robert Emmet Monoghan, of West Chester. I^R. JAMES B. RAYNER, a graduate of the Veterinary college of Philadel- phia, and one of the founders of the United States Veterinary Medical association, and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 225 who has successfully practiced his profession ill West Chester since 1864, is a son of Dr. "William and Mary (Buckley) Rayner, and was born in Lancashire, England, March 18, 1826. His paternal grandparents were natives and life-long residents of England. His father was born and reared in Lanca- shire, where he received his education. At an early age he turned his attention to the study of the veterinary science, and soon became proficient therein. He married Mary Buckley, of his native country, who died in 1868, aged seventy-six years. In 1842, with his wife and their ten children, he came to Pennsylvania, where he settled at Manayunk, above the city of Philadel- phia, of which place he was a resident until his death, in 1866, when- he was in the seventy-second year of his age. He was a very successful veterinary surgeon, and one of his six sons. Dr. George Rayner, served as a veterinary surgeon in the Federal army during the last great civil war. Dr. William Rayner was a useful citizen, well qualified for his veterinary work, and after coming to this county, be- came an active republican in politics. James B. Rayner was reared in Lanca- shire, received his education in the schools of his neighborhood, and pursued his veter- inary studies under his father, both in En- gland and the United States. He accom- panied his father, in 1842, from Lancashire to Manayunk, and in 1853 commenced the jjractice of his profession, which he followed until 1863, when, to fully perfect himself as a veterinary surgeon, he entered the Veter- inary college of Philadelphia, from which he was graduated in 1864. After graduation he came to West Chester, where he has built up his present extensive practice. On March 29th, 1846, Doctor Rayner married Sarah Jackson, of Lower Merion, Montgomery county, who died in 1881, aged fifty-five years. After her death he wedded, on June 19, 1889, Mrs. Lizzie T. Hurford, a daughter of Joseph D. Taylor, of Kennett township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. Dr. James B. Rayner is a republican in politics. He is a member of West Chester Lodge, ISo. 322, Free and Accepted Masons ; Lodge No. 130, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Tamened Tribe, JSTo. 192, Im- proved Order of Red Men ; Goshen Castle, No. 78, Knights of the Golden Eagle ; and Estella Lodge, No. 131, Knights of Pythias. He is one of the oldest Odd Fellows in the county, having become a member of that order in 1847. Doctor Rayner is one of the founders and a member of the Veter- inary association of Pennsylvania, and is one of the founders and active members of the United States Veterinary Medical asso- ciation. He is skillful and successful in his line of work, and ranks among those who, by energy and labor, have won merited success. C AMUEL IVISON, jr., one of Oxford's successful merchants, and a man of good business qualifications, is a son of Samuel and Rebecca (Henderson) Ivison, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, November 10, 1851. His paternal grandfather, John Ivison, was born in En- gland, where he was reared and received his education. He learned the trade of printer, which he followed in his native country until 1830, when he came to Phila- delphia, where he died in 1870, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. He was a republican in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and mar- ried Anna Sargason. They were the parents 226 BlOGltAPltY AifD SISTOSV of eleven children, one son and ten daugh- ters. The son, Samuel Ivison (father), was born, in 1821, in England, and came with his parents, in 1830, to Philadelphia, where he received his education. After attaini"ng his majority he engaged in business, and is now a cotton goods manufacturer of the " Quaker City." He is a supporter of the principles of the Republican party, and in religious belief and church membership is a Meth- odist. He married Rebecca Henderson, and their union was blessed with live children, three sons and two daughters : Dr. John, of Coatesville ; Isaac, proprietor of the Chester house, of Media; Mary McDowell ; Samuel, jr. ; and Anna E. Johnson. Samuel Ivison, jr., was reared in Phila- delphia, and received his education in the public schools and Lincoln grammar school of that city. He was graduated from the last named school, and then engaged in the wholesale notion business with 0. J. Daily & Co. At the end of one year he left this firm and went to Delaware county, in which he was engaged in agricultural pursuits up to 1876. In that year he came to New Garden, this county, where he embarked in the general mercantile business, which he followed there until the succeeding year, when he removed to Lincoln. At that place he conducted a general mercantile store for five years, and then was engaged in the sale of fertilizers until 1887. In that year he came to Oxford and became a member of the present firm of Josiah Cope & C!o. They deal in grain, hay and fertil- izers, and have a large and lucrative trade. They handle first-class grades of goods, make a specialty of securing whatever their pa- trons desire, and have a constant and in- creasing demand for everything which they carry in stock. On November 20, 1875, Mr. Ivison married Marguerite Sharpless, who was a daughter of Joel Sharpless, of Delaware county, and died October 27, 1880, leaving two children : John M. and Marion S. Five years later, on November 25, 1886, he wedded Mary Gibson, and to this second union have been born two children, a son and a daughter: Josiah H. and Josephine C. In politics Mr. Ivison is a stanch republi- can, who is ever active in the interests of his party. He has served for three years as a member of the town council, and his name has been favorably mentioned by many of bis own party in connection with the office of register of wills, on account of his busi- ness ability and special qualifications for that important position. He is a past master of Oxford Lodge, No. 353, Free and Accepted Masons, and a past high priest of Oxford Chapter, No. 223, Royal Arch Masons. QHARLES S. HORNING, M. D., is a graduate from the Hahnemann Medi- cal college, of Philadelphia, who has been in active and successful practice since 1881. He was born at Shannonville, in Montgom- ery county, this State, on the 12th of March, 1858, and reared principally at Norristown, that county. His genei-al education was obtained in the public schools of his native county, and after leaving school he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Thomas L. Pratt, now deceased, at Norris- town. Later he entered the Hahnemann Medical college, at Philadelphia, and was graduaied from that institution in the spring of 1881. He began practice at Phcenix- ville, this county, and remained here until 1886, when he removed for a time to Shan- nonville, Montgomery county, though he OP CHESTER COUNTY. 227 still attended to his practice at Phcenixville. After a residence of three years in Mont- gomery county he returned to his old loca- tion here, and has ever since resided in Phcenixville. He possesses many charac- teristics of the successful physician, and already enjoys a good practice, which is increasing every year. lie takes rank with the rising young physicians of Chester county, and bids fair to write his name prominently in the medical history of this section. Dr. Horning is a member of the Knights of the Golden Eagle, and of the order of Pente, and in political sentiment is a stanch democrat. He is unmarried. The Hornings are descended from an ancient Holland family, and trace their American ancestry back through eight or ten generations to one Louis Horning, who came over from Holland among the earliest settlers of this country. They have a good degree of that activity, thrift, and enter- prise for which their sturdy race is noted, and have been useful and honorable citizens, .lames Horning, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, and taught school in that county when a yonng man. He was afterward engaged in the manufacture of linseed oil in Dauphin county, and furnished the oil used in paint- ing the State hospital at Harrisburg. Polit- ically he was a Jacksonian democrat, and died suddenly in 1864, while on a visit to the old homestead in Montgomery county, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. His son, Benjamin Franklin Horning (father), was born in Mifflin county, this State, in 1830, but moved with his father's family to Montgomery county while yet a boy, and lived there until 1855, when he came to 15 Phcenixville, Chester county, where he now resides. In early life he learned the trade of wheelwright, and followed that occupa- tion for many years, but is now engaged in the insurance business. Like his father, he is a democrat in politics. In 1853 he mar- ried Jane E. Armstrong, a native of Millers- burg, Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, who is still living, being now in the sixty-third year of her age. To them was born a family of three children, all sons, of whom Dr. Charles S. Horning is the second. The oldest son, J. Oscar Horning, married Julia Friedly, from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was formerly employed as photog- rapher at the State Insane asylum at JSTor- ristown. The younger son, Lewis Horn- ing, married Carrie Davis, of Phcenixville. He is now carrying on the photograph business in his native town, that of Phcenix- ville. J. Oscar Horning now has charge of the House of Refuge at Glen Mills, Dela- ware county, Pennsylvania. TTDDISON L. JONES, superintendent of the public schools of the city of West Chester, was born near Norristown, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, on Jan- uary 20, 1856, and is the eldest of the two sons born to Samuel and Mary (Landes) Jones. This bi'anch of the Jones family is of German lineage, being planted in this country by Peter Jones (great-grandfather), who was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Ger- many, but leaving the Fatherland in middle life emigrated to America and established himself in Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania. He was a Mennonite preacher, mar- ried and reared a family, one of his sons being Samuel Jones (grandfather), who was born in Montgomery county, this State, 228 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY where he grew to manhood and became a farmer, passing his life principally in the cultivation of the soil. He married Anna Kolb, by whom he had a family of six chil- dren, five sons and a daughter: John, de- ceased ; Henry, also dead ; Nathan, now living in Korristown ; Samuel (father), who resides on a farm near Norristown ; Joseph, also a resident of Iforristown ; and Maria, who married Abraham Poole, of Schwenks- ville, Montgomery county, this State. Sam-- uel Jones (father) was born March 23,1828, and while a boy learned the trade of cabinet maker, at which he worked for a time, but later began farming, and devoted most of his life to that occupation. He retired from active business some years ago, and now resides quietly in I^orristown. He is a member of the Mennonite church, and a republican in political conviction. He mar- ried Mary Landes, who was born March 20, 1830, in the northern part of Montgomei'y county. To them was born a family of two sons, the elder being Addison L., the sub- ject of this sketch, and the younger Samuel L., who married Emma J. Gaumer, and now resides in the city of Trenton, Ifew Jersej'. Addison L. Jones was reared on a farm in Montgomery county, and received his education in the public schools of his neigh- borhood. Possessing an active mind, and inclined to earnest study, he made rapid progress, and when fifteen years of age began teaching in his native county, having charge of the school in his own district for a period of seven years. During this time he diligently pursued his studies, and later came to West Chester and entered the State Iformal school, from which he was graduated in the class of 1881. He was then tendered, and accepted, the position of principal of the Unionville High school, in this county, and remained in charge of that institution for a period of five years, doing excellent work and acquiring considerable reputation as an educator. For a few months he was principal teacher in the Sol- diers' Orphans' school at Chester Springs, but, liking public school work better, he re- signed. In the autumn of 1886 he came to the West Chester State Normal school as assistant teacher in the English branches, and served in that capacity for a term of two years, after which he assumed charge of the Conshohocken public schools for one year, and was then elected superintendent of the puVjlic schools of West Chester, which position he has ever since filled in an able and acceptable manner. Superintendent Jones was united in mar- riage on December 22, 1886, to Clara Pyle Loller, a daughter of C. Wilson Loller, of Unionville, and to them has been born one child, a daughter, named Marguerite Landes. In politics Superintendent Jones is a re- publican, but too deeply concerned in his educational work to give much attention to political matters. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, and has for several years served as president of the Chester County Teachers' association, and also of the Second District association of Chester county. He has also been president of the University Extension association of West Chester, and is a member of the Philo- sophical society of the county. As may be seen from this condensed statement of what he has accomplished. Superintendent Jonew has been an active and progressive teacher, taking a prominent part in all matters per- taining to his work, and gaining an honor- able standing in his profession. OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 229 TSAAC SPACKMAN, a well qualified business man, and who has served for twelve years as secretary of the old and reliable Chester County Mutual Fire Insur- ance Company, is a son of Thomas and Hannah (Maxton) Spademan, and was born in what is now Cain township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, December 9, 1829. His paternal great-grandparents, Isaac and Esther (Beale) Spackman, wei'e residents of Hankertou, near Malnisbury, in Wilt- shire, England, where the husband, who was a worsted comber, died about 1746, and left his widow and seven children in straight- ened circumstances. Their son, Isaac Spack- man (grandfather), was born November 21, 1739, and in 1750 was brought by his uncle, William Beale, to Pennsylvania, where he was bound out to service for a sufficient length of time to pay for his passage. He grew to manhood in Chester county, and in 1786 purchased the farm in Cain township which his grandson, the subject of this sketch, now owns. He died April 15, 1823, aged eighty-four years. He married, April 21, 1768, Susanna Clayton, of West Brad- ford, and their children were : George, Ann, James, Isaac, Mary, Susanna, Thomas, and Edith. Thomas Spackman (father), the youngest son, was born in 1782, and died February 20, 1846, at sixty -four years "^of age. He was a prosperous farmer, and always resided on the home farm. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and an old-line whig in politics, and served as one of the early school directors of his town- ship. He married Hannah Maxton, a na- tive of Bradford township, who died Sep- tember 17, 1884, when in the eighty-second year of her age. They had six children, one son and five daughters. Isaac Spackman grew to manhood on the home farm, received his education in the common and boarding schools, and was en- gaged in farming for fifty years, excepting two winters, during which he taught school. In 1880 he was elected as secretary of the Chester County Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and removed to Coatesville, where he has resided ever since. On January 5, 1854, Mr. Spackman mar- ried Ann Eliza Branson, daughter of James C and Elizabeth Branson, of West Bragdy- wine township. Mr. and Mrs. Spackman have six children : Thomas, Horace B., George H., William W., John E., and Owen F. Isaac Spackman is a republican in poli- tics, and a member of the Presbyterian church. While residing in Cain township he served one term as assessor, three years as supervisor, sixteen years as school direc- tor, and eight years as county auditor. He does some land surveying, still owns the old homestead farm, and is a good business man. In September, 1862, he served as a soldier in one of the emergency militia regiments that were called out by Pennsyl- vania to repel Lee's threatened invasion of the State. The Chester County Mutual Fire Insur- ance Company was organized in 1840, has had its office at Coatesville since 1861; and has twenty-five million dollars insur- ance, with over eight hundred thousand dollars of storm insurance. The aim of the company has been to furnish insurance at the lowest possible cost, which it has done successfully. It has paid over one million dollars of losses to its members, and has a membership of over nine thousand. Its operations are mainly confined to Chester county, and it is considered as one of the best managed and most solid and successful 230 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIORY lire insurance companies in the United States. Its popularity and prosperity are on the increase, and much of its able man- agement and success is due to the efforts of its present secretary, who has labored most faithfully in its interests. Isaac Spackman is a man of thorough experience, as well as energy and excellent business ability, and has always served creditably in any busi- ness enterprise in which he has ever been engaged. He is pleasant and courteous, easily approached, and is known throughout the county as an honest citizen and an upright man. nOBERT COWAN, deceased, was a representative in the generation now passed away, of that sturdy, independent, industrious element, to which the common- wealth of Pennsylvania owes much of her progress and development. He was the son of Adam and Elizabeth (Wi throw) Cowan, and was born in what was then Sadsbury township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, on October 14, 1792. He was reared on the farm and attended the public school in winter until his sixteenth year, when he went to what is now Coatesville, this county, and set in to learn the black- smith's trade. His education was limited and he spent his leisure time while learning his trade in efforts to improve his mind by reading and study. Having a remarkable memory he easily retained what he ac- quired, and came to be a man of wide intelligence and much general information. He passed five years as an apprentice, thor- oughly mastering his trade in all its branches, and then worked as a journey- man until 1823, when he married Mary Cowan, of Sadsbury township, and return- ing to his native place, took charge of the home farm, where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. In connection with his farm he conducted a blacksmith shop, where he did a great deal of work. He was a strict adherent of the Presbyterian church, and took an active part in supporting all its charitable and religious interests. In politics he was a democrat until the breaking out of the civil war, when he became a republican, and ever afterward supported the policy of that political organization. He was elected to the of&ce of justice of the peace in Sadsbury township and served one term. In business his energy, industry and ability rendered him successful, and he was a man of broad sympathies and generous impulses. No one was ever turned away empty-handed from his door, and his memory is yet fondly cherished by many whom he befriended during his active and useful life. By his marriage to Mary Cowan he had a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters, of whom four are still living: Elizabeth, who married William Simpson, and now resides in Parkesburg, this county ; Margarpt, also residing in Parkesburg, unmarried; Caroline, the wife of Robert Irwin, of Coatesville; and Robert Calvin, now engaged in the harness making busi- ness at Atglen. Miss Margaret Cowan, or Maggie Cowan, as she is familiarly known, was educated principally at select private schools in this county, and in 1878 came to Parkesburg, where she has resided ever since. She is now the president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, of Parkesburg, and has been a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars since 1862. She is an active and successful Sun- day seliool worker, having been engaged OP CHESIER COVNIY. 331 in the Sunday school nearly all her life, either as scholar or teacher. ,, The Cowan family is of Irish extraction. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, whose name was also Robert, came from the north of Ireland at an early day, and settled in Sadsbury township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he purchased a large tract of land, the deed for which is dated in 1770, and is now in possession of his great-granddaughter, Margaret Cowan. Adam Cowan (father) was born in Sadsbury township, where he died in 1802, aged fifty -live years. His wife, by whom he had a family of four children, died in 1834, in her eighty-third year. The maternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Hugh Cowan, also an emigrant from the north of Ireland, and probably remotely connected with the paternal side of Eobert Cowan's family. He settled in Sadsbury township, this county, previous to the coming of Robert's paternal grandfather, and was a prosperous farmer and influential citizen in his day. The Cowans were among the earliest set- tlers here, and were active and well known among the early militia of the county. QEORGE D. PETERS, burgess of ' Spring City, and one of the active and progressive young business men of that prosperous borough, is a son of Charles and Mary (Diemer) Peters, and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 27, 1864. His paternal grandfather, Charles Peters, was born and reared in the city of Bordeaux, France, from which he came in 1814 to Philadelphia, where he resided for a number of years, when he removed to Spring City, where he died. He was a book-binder Ijy trade, and married Ann War nock, and had a family of three sons and two daughters : Theodore, Charles, Josephine, Virginia, and Joseph. Charles, the second son and father of the subject of this sketch, was born November 9, 1825, and learned the trade of book-binder, which he followed at various places until 1866, when he came to Spring City and was suc- cessively engaged in the general mercantile and hotel business. His hotel stood on the site of Yeager & Hunter's foundry, and was known as the "Springville Hotel." Within the last few years Mr. Peters has retired from active life, and still resides at Spring City. He is a democrat in politics, and while residing in Philadelphia served two years as assessor and the same length of time as clerk to the engineer of water- works. He married Mary Diemer, daughter of Michael and Rachel Diemer, and to them were born four children, two sons and two daughters. George D. Peters was reared principally at Spring City, and received his education in the public schools and the high school of that place. Leaving school he went to Philadelphia and entered Pierce's Business college, from which he was graduated in the spring class of 1881. He then became book-keeper for the stove manufacturing firm of 0. B. Keeley & Co., of Spring City, and went with them when they removed their works to Columbia, where he re- mained 'but two months. At the end of that time he accepted a position as book- keeper with Jame« Spear, stove manufac- turer, of Philadelp'hia, and six months later resigned to engage with S. M. Reynolds & Co., of Middletown, Delaware, where he remained but three months. He then, in 1884, accepted a position in the Spring City 282 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY N^atioiial bank, which lie resigned two years later to engage with Yeager & Hunter, in whose employ he remained until October 1, 1889, when he returned to the bank, of which he has been teller ever since. On February 8, 1889, Mr. Peters was united in marriage with -Florence Sheeler, daughter of John Sheeler, who was form- erly a stove manufacturer of Royer's Ford, Montgomery county. In politics Mr. Peters is a strong demo- crat, and served as a member of the council for three years and auditor for three years. He was elected burgess in February, 1892, and has been discharging the duties of that position very successfully ever since being inducted in office. He is a member of Spring City Lodge, No. 553, Free and Ac- cepted Masons; Phoenix Chapter, No. 198, Royal Arch Masons; Palestine Council, No. 8, Royal and Select Masters, and Jerusalem Commandery, No. 15, Knights Templar. He is also a member and deacon of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and has been serving for some time as president of the Spring City Fire Company. George D. Peters has rapidly won his way to the front rank of the successful young business men of his borough by energy, hard work and a genius for overcoming difficulties. t3ROF. A. THOMAS SMITH, vice- principal of West Chester State Nor- mal school, in which he has held Wie chair of pedagogy for seven years, is a son of Erasmus P. and Elizabfith (Baker) Smith, and was born at Jeftersonville, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, September 10, 1862. A. Thomas Smith was reared in Mont- gomery county, and received his education in the j)ublic schools, the "West Chester State Normal school, from which he was graduated in the class of 1883, and in special study under Dr. W. H. Payne and Dr. Jerome Allen. Immediately after graduation he was offered and accepted the position of iirst assistant in the Soldiers' Orphan school of Chester Springs, this county, which he held until the autumn of 1884. He was then elected principal and served until January, 1885, when he resigned to take the chair of pedagogy in West Chester State Normal school, whieb he has held ever since. The studies in his depart- ment embrace psychology, logic, ethics, methods of culture and instruction, school economy and educational history, and are so arranged and classified as to thoroughly treat of the science of pedagogics. Pro- fessor Smith has systematized his work and brought it up to a high standard, and the successful results of his teaching have been such as to cause a great demand for his services as a county institute instructor thi'oughout Eastern Pennsylvania and in the States of New Jersey and Delaware. On August?, 1888, Prof. Smith was united in marriage with Lizzie Fenton Ogden, daughter of George Ogden, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, and who was graduated from the West Chester State Normal school in the class of 1886. Mrs. Smith is now a teacher of geography and history in her Alma mater. Professor Smith is a republican in politics, and a charter member of the Westminster Presbyterian church of AVest Chester, in which organization he was chosen one of the six original ruling elders. His time is given chiefly to his profession, in which he has always been an active and zealous worker. Professor Smith is in touch with the educational thought of the age, and con- OF CHESTER COVNTV. stantly seeks to enlarge the boundaries of his knowledge in the noble field of human learning in which he labors. He is a member of the West Chester Philosophical society, and now in the enjoyment of a year's leave of absence, a resident member of the school of pedagogy of the University of the city of New York. We cannot estimate too highly the ser- vices rendered to the cause of education in Pennsylvania by her State Normal schools, of which West Chester has deserved right to rank high. One of the most important depaVtments of West Chester State Normal school is that of pedagogics, which, under the charge of Prof. A. Thomas Smith, has achieved enviable reputation. Professor Smith is in the early prime of life, and has before him long years of activity and useful- ness in a noble sphere of action. JACOB F. KEPHART, whose business career spans half a century, and who has been connected with the Schuylkill Valley Stove Company of Spring City since its organization, is a son of John and Esther (Fox) Kephart, and was born in Limerick township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, August 28, 1826. His pater- nal grandfather, Adam Kephart, was a native of Lehigh county, and in addition to serving as a soldier in the revolutionary war, he furnished several cavalry horses and a team for the use of the Continental army. Some years after peace was declared in 1783, he removed to Limerick township, Montgomery county, where he followed farming until his death. He married Susannah Shuman, and to them were born four sons and one daughter. The sons were Andrew, John, Adam, and Christian, of whom Andrew and Adam served as sol- diers in the war of 1812. John Kephart, the second son, and father of Jacob F. Kep- hart, was born in 1788, in Lehigh county, and settled in Limerick township, where he died June 6, 1868, at four score years of age. He learned the trade of stone-mason, which he followed for nearly fifty years. He was a democrat in politics and a mem- ber of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and married Esther Fox, who died June 7, 1878, aged eighty years, and was a daugh- ter of Jacob Fox, a native of Berks, and a resident farmer of Montgomery county. Mr. and Mrs. Kephart were the parents of four children : Susanna, Jacob F., Enos, who married Maria Walters, and Esther, jvidow of William B. Kugler, who resides at Pottstown, this State. Jacob F. Kephart was reai'ed in his native township, received a practical edu- cation in the schools of his neighborhood, and then learned the trade of blacksmith, at which he worked until 1847. In that year he was given charge of the blacksmith shops at " Yankee Dam," on the canal three miles above Spring City, which position he held until 1851, when he went to Eeading, where he was engaged in the manufacture of farming implements for two years. He was then successively engaged in the same line of business at Lebanon for three years, and at Harrisburg for nine years. At the end of that time, in 1865, he embarked in farming and in the grain threshing machine business, which he followed until 1879, when he sold his farm and resided at different places for ten years. He then (1889) be- came a member and director of the present Schuylkill Valley Stove Company, of Spring City. This company was organized in the spring of 1889, and purchased its present 234 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY plant, which had been built three years pre- vious and run until that time under the au- spices of the Knights of Labor. The plant covers a large area, and its principal buildings are a four-story warehouse, an engine and boiler house, a cleaning room, a two-story cupola house, and a molding room. The company employs eighty-five skilled work- men, turns out annually over one hundred thousand dollars' worth of stoves, and has a large patronage in nearly every State in the Union. In political sentiment Mr. Kephart is a democrat, but in local politics supports men and measures independent of party consid- eration. He is a member of the Evangeli- cal Lutheran church, and has had many years of valuable and successful experience in different manufacturing enterprises. JAMES S. PHIPPS, for many years a prominent and prosperous farmer of Uwchlan township, but since 1877 a resident of the city of West Chester, is a son of Jonathan and Isabella (Peters) Phipps, and was born February 6, 1823, on the old Phipps homestead in Uwchlan township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. There he grew to manhood, receiving his education in the common schools, and after leaving school engaged in farming. For a number of years he taught during the winter season, and at one time was widely known and popular as a teacher. After some eight or ten years spent in this manner he abandoned teaching and devoted his entire attention to agricultural pursuits until 1877, when he removed to the city of West Chester, where he has since resided, practically re- tired from active business. He still owns and directs the operations of two fine farms in Uwchlan township, one consisting of one hundred and ten acres of valuable land and the other containing about one hundred and thirty acres. Both are well improved and in a good state of cultivation. Mr. Phipps is a member of the orthodox Society of Friends, and a republican in his political opinions. He i^s a man of sound judgment, strict integrity, and great uprightness of character, and has been called on by a large number of his friends to sei've in the posi- tion of guardian and trustee. He now has in his keeping many trusts of this kind. He was elected justice of the peace in 1866, and remained in office until removing from the township. On November 31, 1849, Mr. Phipps was wedded to Hannah James, a daughter of Hon. Jesse James, of West Nantmeal town- ship, this county. To their union was born a family of two children, one son and a daughter: Margaret, who married J. E. Armstrong, now a large oil operator resid- ing at Petrolia, Ontario, Dominion of Can- ada; and Jesse, who died February, 1872, aged four years. Mrs. Phipps died in April, 1877, in the forty-seventh year of her age. The Phipps family is of English extrac- tion, and was planted in America by John Phipps (paternal great-grandfather), who came over from England in 1686 and settled in Uwchlan township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He took up one thousand acres of land, which is now owned in part by the subject of this sketch and his sister. Joseph Phipps (grandfather) was born in 1750, and after his father's death inherited the latter's estate and spent his entire life in agricultural pursuits. He was accidently killed while on his way home from court. In politics he was an old-line whig, and in religion a Friend, or Quaker. He married OF CHESTER COUNTY. 235 Mary Ann Keeley, by whom he had a family of nine children, four sons and five daughters. One of these sons was Jonathan Phipps (father), who was born on the old homestead in 1790, and being left an orphan at an early age, by the death of his father, he was reared and educated by his mother. After attaining manhood he engaged in farming, and passed his days in the cultiva- tion of the soil. He was a whig and re- publican in politics, a strict adherent of the Society of Friends, and died in 1866 at the advanced age of seventy-six years. In January, 1818, he married Isabella Peters, of Delaware county, and to them was born a family of eight children, only two of whom now survive. They were all members of the Society of Friends, and lived active, useful, and honorable lives. vJAMES REA MAXWELL, M. D., a graduate of Jefferson Medical college, and a rising young physician of Parkes- burg, is a son of Robert and Mary (Rea) Maxwell, and was born September 20, 1862, near the Gap, in Lancaster county, Penn- sylvania. The Maxwells are of English extraction, and trace their American ances- try back to William Maxwell, who came over from England long prior to the revo- lutionary war, and settled at Stewartstown, ISTew Jersey. They are of the same Max- well family from whom sprung General Maxwell, who distinguished himself during the revolutionary struggle. William Max- well (grandfather) removed from New Jer- sey at a very early day, and located in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where he purchased a large farm, on which he resided until his death at the age of sixty years, and where his descendants have become numerous and the family taken a prominent place. Among his sons was Robert Max- well (father), who is a prosperous farmer of Lancaster county, owning the old homestead on which he resides, being now in his seventieth year. He is a republican in politics, and for many years has been a member and elder in the Presbyterian church. In 1855 he married Mary Rea, a member of the Presbyterian church, and a native of Gap, who died Fovfember 10, 1890, at the advanced age of sixty-six years. To them was born a family of three children, two of whom died in infancy. James Rea Maxwell was reared on the farm, and obtained his education in the com- mon schools and the State Normal school at . Millersville, Pennsylvania. After leaving the Normal school he engaged in teaching for a couple of years, after which he entered the office of Dr. John B. Martin, at Bart, Lan- caster county, Pennsylvania, and began the study of medicine, toward which he had been inclined since early youth. After an assiduous course of reading with Doctor Martin he entered the Jefferson Medical college of Philadelphia, and in 1888 was graduated from that popular institution with the degree of M. D. He immediately located at Parkesburg, this county, where he has conducted an active practice ever since, and where he has won a good degree of success by his skill and devotion to the important profession of his choice. At the time of the Johnstown flood Dr. Maxwell went to that stricken city and spent a week of hard work in the hospital there, endeavoring to alleviate the suffer- ings of the survivors of that awful catas- trophe. He is a member of the Chester County Medical society, and takes an active interest in its proceedings. He is also a 236 BIOQBAPHY AND HISTOMY member of the Presbyterian church of Parkesburg, and an earnest Sunday school worker, having been superintendent of the Sunday school at Lenover ever since its organization. In politics he is a stanch republican, and occupies the position of notary public at Parkesburg. He is also a member of Keystone Lodge, 'Eo. 569, Free and Accepted Masons. Dr. Maxwell is unmarried. As a citizen and as a physician he has the confidence of the community, and bids fair to occupy an important page in the medical history of Chester county. HENRY K. KURTZ, a member of the iron firm of W. W. Kurtz & Sons, has general charge of the Valley Iron works at Coatesville. He is a son of William W. and Annie (Bunn) Kurtz, and was born in the city of Philadelpliia, Pennsylvania, August 2, 1857. William W. Kurtz (father) is a native of Gettysburg, this State, but in early man- hood removed to the City of Philadelphia, where he has resided e^ver since. After becoming a resident of Philadelphia he engaged in the dry goods business, which he very successfully managed for a number of years. He th«n became a banker, and for nearly a quarter of a century conducted a large general banking business in the city of Philadelphia, under the firm name of W. W. Kurtz & Co., bankers and brokers, No. 131 South Fourth street. He was engaged for some time in his father's banking house in Philadelphia and then accepted a position as superintendent of the Allentown Gas works, at Allentown, Lehigh county, this State, where he re- mained in charge for a period of six years. He then returned to Philadelphia and was engaged with his father in the banking business until 1889. In that year the iron firm of W. W. Kurtz & Sons was organized and succeeded to the business of C. E. Pennock & Co., known as the Valley Iron works, at Coatesville, this county. Henry K. Kurtz, became a member of this firm, was appointed manager of the business, and has had general charge of the works ever since. The mill furnishes a superior quality of boiler, bridge, ship and tank plate, and has a capacity of ten thousand tons yearly. The firm is composed of William W. Kurtz, William B. Kurtz and Henry K. Kurtz. In 1884, Henry K. Kurtz married Leila Longaker, a daughter of Hon. A. B. Lon- gaker, of Allentown, Lehigh county, Penn- sylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Kurtz have three children, two sons and a daughter : William W., Leila, and Henry K., jr. • TSAAC S. COCHRAN, a prominent citi- zen of Chester county, residing in West Chester, who enjoys the distinction of being the oldest and largest live stock dealer in the county, is the eldest son of William L. and Eliza (Stanley) Cochran, and was born near Media, Delaware county, Pennsyl- vania, January 28, 1826. His paternal grandfather, Isaac Cochran, was also a na- tive of Delaware county, but iu later life removed to Chester county, where he died about 1852. He was a farmer during his earlier years, but became an inn-keeper and for many years was proprietor of the Rose Tree hotel, near Media. In politics he was an old-time whig, and so popular in Delaware county that he was elected to the responsible position of sheriff", and served one term with entire satisfaction to the OF CHESTER COUNTY. 237 public and credit to himself. He married, and had a family of seven children. "Wil- liam L. Cochran (father) was born in Del- aware county in 1799, but removed to Ches- ter county about 1832, where he continued to reside until his death, in 1869, at the ripe old age of seventy years. He was a cattle dealer and farmer in Willistown township, and possessing sound judgment and great business energy, he became suc- cessful and prosperous. In politics he was lirst a whig and later a republican, always taking considerable interest in public ques- tions. He married Eliza Stanley, a daugh- ter of Jacob Stanley, of England, and to them was born a family of eight children, four sons and a like number of daughters, of whom Isaac S., the subject of this sketch, is the eldest. Isaac S. Cochran received his education in the academy conducted by Joseph Strode, in this county — at that time a well-known boarding school for boys and young men — and after completing his studies and leaving school he began life on his own account as a dealer in live-stock, buying and selling cattle. At one time he owned and operated a large stock farm near the borough of West Chester. He has handled stock more or less all his life, and is an expert judge of cattle. His business has grown to such an extent that it is perhaps true that he buys and sells a larger number of animals every year than any other man or firm in Chester county. On December 31, 1851, Mr. Cochran was united in marriage to Phoebe Shinier, a daughter of Edward Shinier, of this county. To their union was born a family of four children, three sons (two sons are now de- ceased) and a daughter. The daughter, Laura, is now the wife of R. H. Johnson, a contractor and Viuilder, of Wayne, Delaware county, this State. The son, Harry Coch- ran, married Clara Smith, and resides with his father, being also engaged in buying and selling live-stock. In politics Mr. Cochran is a republican, but is too busy with business affairs to take any active part in politics. n NEWTON THOMAS, the senior member of the firm of R. ]^. Thomas & Co., which is extensively engaged in the coal, feed, grain and flour business at West Chester, is a son of David R. and Isabella (Doyle) Thomas, and was born at I^ew London, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Jan- uary 1, 1843. The Thomas family of Chester county, of which the subject of this sketch is a member, was founded by Dr. David Thomas (grandfather), who was born in Hilltown, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in 1759, where he resided until 1808, when he settled in Lower Oxford township, Ches- ter county, in which he died in 1824, aged sixty-five years. He was a physician, and served as a private in the revolutionary war and surgeon in the war of 1812. He was a strong democrat, and a leading Baptist in the community where he resided, and in 1791 married Mary Jones, of Bucks county. His son, David R. Thomas (father), was born at Hilltown, Bucks county, May 8, 1803, and died in Wilmington, Delaware, Februai'y 20, 1874, when in the seventy- first year of his age. He was a tanner and leather currier by trade, and worked for many years at Wilmington, Delaware. He was a consistent Methodist, and in politics left the Democratic party on the subject of slavery to identify himself with the repub- licans. In 1856 he married Isabella Doyle, who is now in the eighty-fourth year of her 338 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were born eleven children : Mary Jane, wife of Thomas Kennedy, and now dead ; Euphe- mia A., wife of John Edwards : John W. (dead); Margaret, widow of Anthony Don- nan ; Joseph L., who was a Union soldier in the late war, and died in Missouri, April 24, 1886; Francis A., now register of wills of Chester county (see his sketch); E. Newton ; L. Fletcher, who served in three Pennsylvania regiments during the last war, and then was engaged in Philadelphia in the hide and tallow business until his death, on April 26, 1890; Charles W., a member of the furniture firm of Clark, Thomas & Co., of Philadelphia; Tacey M., who married Lewis Leiaderman ; and James M., now engaged in the wholesale butcher business in Wilmington, Delaware. R. Newton Thomas spent his boyhood days in New London township, received his education at New London, this county, and at eighteen years of age quit working on the farm to learn the trade of currier and tanner with his father, in Lower Ox- ford, Chester county. After learning his trade he did journey work for his father until 1862, when he enlisted in one of the independent companies of emergency men, which was raised to help repel Lee's in- vasion of Pennsylvania. Again, in 1863, when Lee threatened Pennsylvania a second time, he enlisted and served three months in Co. A, 29th regiment of Emergency men. Returning from his second service in the army, he resumed journey work with his father, which he followed until 1865. He then did journey work for John Way, at Chatham, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and with M. B. Chambers, Marshallton, Chester county, Pennsylvania, until 1869, when he became deputy sheriff of Chester county under Sheriff D. W. C. Lewis, and at the end of his term accepted a position in the United States mint at Philadelphia, which he held for nine months. Li 1872 Mr. Thomas became a member of the firm of R. N. Thomas & Co., and engaged in the coal business, to which, in 1878, he added the handling of grain, flour and feed. The firm have their office on Chestnut street, and have built up a very fine trade in their different lines of business. On October 10, 1872, Mr. Thomas was united in marriage with Margaretta Dicks, a daughter of James Dicks, of West Goshen township, and to their union have been born four children : Lavina H., Ada L, Anita M., and Clara M. R. Newton Thomas 'is a republican in politics. He is a member of Goshen Castle, No. 78, Knights of the Golden Eagle; Ban- ner Lodge, No. 359, Independent Order of Odd Fellows (with which he united in 1864), and Gen. George A. McCall Post, No. 31, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he is a past commander. At an early age Mr. Thomas developed those business habits which became the foundation of his present success in life. QHARLES E. WOODWARD, M. D., an active, skilled and popular phy- sician of West Chester, is a son of William P. and Rachel (England) Woodward. He was born at Marshallton, in West Bradford township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 8, 1846. His paternal grandfather, Eli Woodward, was born and reared in Chester county, where he followed farming during all the years of his active life. He owned a good farm near Marshallton, in West Bradford township, where he died. OF GHESTEB. COUNTY. 239 His son, William P. Woodward (father), was born in 1817 on the homestead, where he passed his boyhood days. He died in the summer of 1863, on his farm near Marshallton, Chester county, Pennsylvania, in the forty-sixth year of his age. He was actively engaged in farming and mer- chandising at the time of his death. He was one of the early abolitionists of Eastern Pennsylvania, who so determinedly and persistently opposed human servitude, and lived to see slavery pass from the institu- tions of the American Republic. During the latter years of his life he was identified with the republican party and served for some time as a member of the school-board of his township. He was a consistent member of the Society of Friends, and married Rachel England, a daughter of Thomas England, a native of England, who came with his father and settled near Eli Woodward (paternal grandfather), in West Bradford township. To Mr. and Mrs. Woodward were born five children, two sons and three daughters : Dr. Charles E., Lydia D., wife of Paschal Worth, a farmer of Chester county ; Mary E., who married John M. Sager, and is dead; Lindley and Anna, who died in infancy. Charles E. Woodward was reared in his native county, received his education at Westtown Boarding school, and then at- tended the college of pharmacy of Philadel- phia, from which he graduated in 1867. In a short time after this he commenced the study of medicine, and 1872enteredthemed- ical department of the university of Penn- sylvania, from which he was graduated in theclassof 1874. Immediately after gradua- tion he came to West Chester, where he has been engaged ever since in the active and successful practice of his profession. On June 7, 1876, Dr. Woodward was united in marriage with Ellen L. James, a daughter of Wellington C. James, now a retired business man of West Chester. Dr. and Mrs. Woodward have two children, a son and a daughter: Florence and Wel- lington. Dr. Woodward is a republican in politics. He is a member of West Chester Lodge, No. 322, Free and Accepted Masons, and West Chester Lodge, JSTo. 42, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Dr. Woodward has ever taken a deep interest in the profession of his choice and has never failed to improve any offering opportunity within his reach in the field of medical progress and advancement. He is a member of the West Chester, Chester county, and Penn- sylvania State medical societies, and of the pension examining board of Chester county, and a member of the college of Physicians of Philadelphia, attending physician to Chester county prison, and lately elected to the medical staff of the West Chester hospital. To his profession he has given nearly a quarter of a century of close application and hard labor, and while allow- ing nothing to command much of his time from his professional labors, yet he has taken such interest always in the welfare and progress of his borough, that he is highly esteemed as a citizen as well as deservedly popular as a physician. vTACOB L. FUNK, one of the solid and substantial citizens of East Coventry township, this county, and a leading mem- ber of the Mennonite church, is the eldest son of John and Susan (Latshaw) Funk, and was born April 4, 1824, in W^ashington township, Berks county, Pennsylvania. His 340 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY paternal great-grandfather was Henry Funk, who removed to Buckingham county, Vir- ginia, about 1786, and resided there until his death. He married Barbara Showalter, a native of Germany, who died in 1824. They had eleven children : Jacob, Chi'istian, John, Henry, Daniel, Joseph, Susan, Eliza- beth, Hester, Samuel, and Catherine. Their eldest son. Rev. Jacob Funk (grandfather), was born May 30, 1761, in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, but removed in early life to East Vincent township, this county, where he passed the remainder of his life, and died July 22, 1817, aged fifty-six years. He was a member and minister of the Mennon- ite church, and died immediately after re- turning home from preaching a friend's funeral. He was twice married, first wed- ding Mary Shelley, who died April 27, 1809, leaving a family of nine children : Elizabeth, who married Abram Haldeman, a minister of the Mennonite church, who preached in Chester and Juniata counties ; Susan, married John Longacee, a farmer of Montgomery county; Fannie, married Benjamin Haldeman, who was a farmer residing at Vincent, this county; Mary, married John "Wise, a farmer of Butler county ; Barbara, married John Showalter, and lives near Phcenixville, this county; Katie, married Frank Shelley, a prosperous farmer of Berks county; Jacob, married Anna Heistand, and resided in East Vincent township, this county, where he was engaged in farming; John, father of the subject of this sketch ; and Rev. Henry, who united in marriage with a Miss High, and resided in Berks county. All the family were strict members of the Mennonite church. After the death of Mrs. Funk, Rev. Jacob Funk wedded the second time, but had no children by his second marriage. John Funk (father) was born July 12, 1800, in that part of Vincent which is now East Vincent township, this county, where he resided until a short time before his marriage, when he removed to "Washington township, Berks county. In 1825 he re- turned to Chester county, locating in East Coventry township, and later went to North Coventry, where he died October 26, 1877, aged seventy-seven years. He was a farmer all his life, a republican in political faith, and in religion a strict member of the Mennonite church, in the various interests of which he was always active and ever ready to do his part in any good work. On March 2, 1823, he married Susan Latshaw, who was born March 11, 1800, and died August 2, 1885. They had two children : Jacob L., the subject of this sketch, and Hannah, who was born January 23, 1831, and on December 22, 1853, married George "W. Landis, who was born June 13, 1832, and is now feed and stock agent for the Philadelphia & Reading railroad. Mr. and Mrs. Landis had two children : John D., born June 29, 1859 ; and Sue, born Decem- ber 8, 1861. The former married Florence May Swindles, of Philadelphia, on October 14, 1886, by whom he has one child — Harold Landis, born July 18, 1887 — and he is now chief clerk in the passenger agents' department of the Philadelphia & Readingrailroad,andresidesin Philadelphia. Jacob L. Funk was reared partly in East and partly in North Coventry townships, re- ceiving his education in the common schools. He has been a farmer, fruit grower, and stockman all his life, and owns a large lumber yard and four houses. In political sentiment he is a stanch republican, and in religious belief follows the traditions of his ancestors, and is a prominent member of OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 341 tlie Mennonite church, of which he is treasurer. On May 6, 1847, Mr. Funk married Eliz- abeth Gable, a daughter of Plenryand Eliz- abeth Gable, who was born October 29, 1827, and died June 1, 1881, aged fiftj'-four years. By this marriage he had a family of live children : (1) Lavina, born July 20, 1848, and died May 19, 1857; (2) John, a farmer of East Coventry township, who was born June 9, 1851, and on September 14, 1876, married Kate Delwiter, by whom he has two children — Emma L., born June 17, 1877, and Etna E., born May 6, 1879; ( 8 ) Hannah L., born July 29, 1858, married John Haldeman September 28, 1882, and has three children — OUie R., born July 28, 1884 ; Florence M., born N"ovember 1, 1886 ; and Martha L., born October 19, 1887 ; (4) Hattie, born September 12, 1863, married W. H. Saylor September 11, 1884, and has four children; and (5) Sue, born October 17, 1865, and on July 19, 1892, married John E. Latshaw, of Spring City, who was born August 1, 1865, and is a carpenter employed in the foundry of Buckwalter & Slauffer. HAROLD B. PUG-H, one of the suc- sessful young business men of Chester county, and the senior member of the well known Jordan Bank ci'eamery firm of H. B. & E. A. Pugh of Oxford, is a son of William and Mary E. (Brown) Pugh, and was born in East Ifottingham township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 28, 1864. His paternal great-grandfather, Jesse Pugh, was of Welsh descent, and of the third generation from the emigrant ancestor John Pugh. Hisson, Abner Pugh (grand- father), was born in East ITottinghaixi town- ship, where he purchased the farm now owned by his grandsons. He was an early abolitionist and a member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends. He fol- lowed farming and married Charlotte Mich- ner, and reared a family of six children, one son and five daughters: Rebecca Reynolds, now dead ; Rachel, who married Dr. Jacob Way ; Elizabeth, the second wife of Jo'seph T. Reynolds; Esther, now dead; William and Annie, now also deceased. The son, William Pugh (father), was born Septem- ber 18, 1836, in East Nottingham township, where he resided during the greater part of his life. He was a farmer and dairyman by occupation, a pronounced republican in politics and a member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends. He owned and operated the well known Jordan Bank dairy (which was established in 1866), and died June 3, 1892, aged fifty-six years. He was very successful in dairying and other agricultural pursuits, and married Mary E. Brown, a native of Lancaster county, who was born August 31, 1842, and received her education in the public schools and Millersville State Normal school. She died January 28, 1883, at forty years of age. To their union were born three children : Harold B. and Edwin A., managers of the home farm and mem- bers of the creamery firm of H. B. & E. A. Pugh ; and Charles E., who is assistant teller in West Grove National bank of Chester county. Mrs. Mary E. Pugh (mother) was a daughter of Elisha Brown, who was a prosperous farmer and resided near Fulton house, Lancaster county. He was a republican and a member of the Society of Friends, and married Rachel W. Bradway, by whom he had six children : Slater F., Thomas B., of the firm of Pyle & 243 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Brown, of West Chester, this county, who is president of the Southern Kansas Mort- gage Company, of Wellington, Kansas, and of the Dingee & Conrad Company, of West Grove, this county ; Charles H., who was a successful business man in Philadelphia, but is now dead ; Mrs. Mary E. Pugh ; Walter W., cashier of the West Grove E'ational bank; and "Worthiiigton, who is now dead. Harold B. Pugh was reared on the farm and received his education in the public schools and a Friend's select school in Oxford, Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1884 he engaged in the creamery business with his father, which he continued until 1888, when he formed a partnership with his brother, Edwin A., under the firm name of H. B. & E. A. Pugh, and they have con- ducted a most successful creamery business ever since. They have the home dairy where they keep sixty cows, and own and operate the well known and celebrated Jordan Bank creamery, whose product is so popular in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. During the year 1891 they paid out over twenty-five thousand dollars for milk, and sent one hundred and twenty- five thousand pounds of butter to market. They are also extensively engaged in farm- ing and raising thoroughbred and registered Jersey dairy stock. On October 23, 1890, Mr. Pugh was united in marriage with Clara L. Kirk, daughter of Isaac S. and Fannie L. Kirk, of Fremont, this State. Harold B. Pugh is a republican in politics, and a member of the Oxford meet- ing of the Society of Friends, as is alno his wife. He is one of the trustworthy and reliable citizens of East Nottingham, and has been remarkably successful in his various business enterprises. He is at prt'Hcnt w'w.r- president of the National Creamery, Butter- makers and Factory Cheesemakers asso- ciation for the State of Pennsylvania. vJACOB W. MOYEK, a prominent farmer of East Vincent township and a leading member of the German Reformed church, is the second child and eldest son of William and Deborah (Wagoner) Moyer, and was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, November 12, 1831. He grew to manhood on his father's farm, received his training in the public schools, and resided in his native township until 1877, when he removed to East Vincent township, where he now lives. Here he owns a fine farm, contain- ing sixty-nine acres, and has it well im- proved, supplied with good buildings, and in a high state of cultivation. In his polit- ical faith Mr. Moyer is a stanch democrat, and in religion a strict member of the Ger- man Reformed church, of which he has been a deacon for many years, first in East Pikeland, and later in East Vincent town- ship. On December 23, 1856, Mr. Moyer was married to Mary E. Vanderslice, a daugh- ter of Joseph Vanderslice, of East Vincent township. To them was born a family of three children, one son and two daughters : Deborah, married Davis Brownback, a car- penter, residing at Phoenixville, this county, and has one child — Chester; Sallie, who wedded James Kimes, a prominent under- taker at Spring City; and Irvin, who was united in marriage with Anna Rapp, and now lives with his father on the farm in East Vincent township, and has one (thild, a daughter named Myrtle. The piitornal grandfather of the subject OP GJttlStMB COtJNtY. 243 of this sketch, Jacob Moyer, was a resident of East Pikeland township, this county, and died there about 1849, at the advanced age of seventy years. He was a farmer by oc- cupation, and passed his long and active life in the cultivation of the soil and I'aising good stock. Politically he was a democrat of the old school, and served as supervisor of his township for many years. He was a Lutheran in religion and took an active part in supporting the interests of his church. He served in the war of 1812, and was a member of the ISTational guards. His wife was Mariah Shade, by whom he had two children : William, and a daugh- ter named Elizabeth, who married a man named Yager, and is now deceased. Wil- liam Moyer (father), was born in East Pike- land township in 1803, and lived there all his life. He was a farmer and shoemaker, and became quite prosperous. He died in 1874, aged about seventy-two years. Fol- lowing the political traditions of his family, he was an active democrat, and served his township as assessor and supervisor. In religion he was a strict member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and married Deborah Wagoner, a daughter of Jacob Wagoner, of East Pikeland township, this cou»ty. To them was born a family of children, six of whom lived to reach matur- ity and became useful and respected citi- zens of this county: Mariah, married George Walker (now deceased), has one child, and lives in East Pikeland township ; Jacob, the subject of this sketch ; William, a farmer of East Pikeland township, who married Louisa Yager, and has three chil- dren ; Benjamin, a carpenter, who married Andora Whitby, has two children, and re- sides at Phoenixville ; Isaac, who married Hannah Starr, has four children, and is now 16 a member of the police force at lioxborough, Philadelphia county ; and Elwood, who wedded Manda Harpel, and is engaged in farming on the old homstead in East Pikeland township, this county. Joseph Vanderslice, the father of Mrs. Moyer, was born in East Pikeland town- ship, this county, in the year 1806. He was a tailor by trade, but engaged in farm- ing during his later years, and lived in this county all his life. In polities he was a democrat, and resided in East V^incent township at the time of his death. He' was killed by a train on the Philadelphia & Reading railroad, in December, 1882, when in the seventy-sixth year of his age. His wife was Sarah Custer, and they reared a family of ten children, seven sons and three daughters, four of whom still survive: Nicholas, William, Hamilton, and Mary E., the wife of the subject of this sketch. J^OHN BUCKWALiTER, one of the enterprising and useful citizens re- siding in the vicinity of Kenilworth, is the eldest sou and second child of William and Catherine (Lotshaw) Buckwalter, and was born in East Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 27, 1856. The Buckwalter family in America was founded by Francis Buckwalter, a Protestant refugee from Grermany who settled on the Manavon tract, at what is now Phoenixville, in 1720. There he purchased six hundred and fifty acres of land from David Lloyd, the patentee, for one hundred and ninety- five pounds. His children were Joseph, Jacob, Johannes, Mary and Yost, and from them are descended the numerous Buck- waiter family of this section. They have intermarried with some of the oldest and 244 BtOOBAPHY AND ^STOHY best families in Chester county, and among them have been a number who have dis- tinguished themselves in various lines of activity, including stock raising, finance, merchandising and official station. David Buckv^alter, paternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Chester county, and passed his entire life within her boi'ders, actively engaged in agriculture. He married a Miss Ziegler, by whom he had a family of seven children : John, Daniel, David, Samuel, Joseph, Jacob and Barbara. Samuel Buckwalter (grandfather), was born on the old Buckwalter farm near Phcenixville, this county, about 1782, and died in East Vincent township in 1877, aged nearly ninety-five years. He was a wheelright by trade, and iu politics a whig and republican. For a number of years he served as school director in his township, and was a member of the Mennonite church. He married Mary Johnson, and had a family of fourteen children : Samuel, Annie, David, Joseph, Jacob, William (father), Mary, Barbara, Samuel ( 2 ), IsTathan, Seth and Sarah (twins), Benjamin and Lovina. William Buckwalter (father) was born in Upper Providence township, Mont- gomery county, this State, January 2, 1818, where he grew to manhood and received a common school education. He then learned the trade of carpenter, but has worked very little at that business, preferring agricultural pursuits. While yet a young man he removed to Chester county and has con- tinued his residence here ever since, for the last ten years residing with his son in North Coventry township. In politics he is a pronounced republican with whig anteced- ents, and in religion a strict adherent of the Mennonite church. On St. Valentine's day, 1850, he was united in wedlock with Catherine Lotshaw; a daughter of Jacob Lotshaw, of East Pikeland township. To this marriage was born a family of four children, three sons and one daughter : Annie, now the wife of Seneca Mowry, a prosperous farmer of East Vincent town- ship, by whom she has four children — Samuel Howard, William Ashley, Milton and Newton; John (subject); Theodore, who died in infancy, and Hiram, who wedded Elma G-rubb, resides in East Vin- cent township, and has five children — Ada, William, Bessie, Russell and Annie. The mother, Mrs. Catherine Buckwalter, died in 1882, aged nearly fifty-seven, years. John Buckwalter was reared principally in this county, and received his education in the public schools of East Coventry town- ship. After attaining manhood he began life on his own account as a farmer and has followed that vocation all his life, meeting with good success and accumu- lating some property. In his political affilia- tions he is a republican, and in 1892 was elected to the office of school director. Religiously he is a Dunkard, or German Baptist, and has long been an active and useful member of that denomination. On December 13, 1879, Mr. Buckwalter was married to Ella Prizer, a daughter of Harmon Prizeib, of East Coventry township, and the fruit of their union has been two children : Clifton, born September 28, 1880 ; and Wilmer, born November 22, 1885. lyjARK TOWNSEND, an industrious ' citizen and a successful fruit grower of Oxford, is a son of Henry and Anna (Davis) Townsend, and was born in Wilt- shire, England, February 11, 1830. His paternal grandfather, John Townsend, was 6P CltESTER COUNTY. Ub born and reared in the town of Melkshani, Wiltshire, England, where he followed haul- ing. He married and had six sons and one daughter: John, Henry, James, Thomas, Richard, George, and Ann. Thomas, Q-eorge and James were soldiers in the British army for several years, and James fought at the battle of Waterloo. These, sons received a good education, and the second one, Henry (father), was a builder by trade. He married Ann Davis, a daugh- ter of James Davis, of Tedbury, Gloucester county, England, and reared a family of ten children : James, now deceased, was a tailor and linen draper; Jane, wife of William Edwards, a gardener of Ambledon, Hamp- shire county, England; Eliza, wife of Boaz Shepard, of Trowbridge, Wiltshire county, England; Henry, (deceased); George, a builder, who married a Miss Brooks, and now resides in Melksham, Wiltshire county, England ; Thomas who died young ; Henry ( 2 ) now dead ; Hannah and Job, who also died young. Mark Townsend was reared in his native country, received a good practical education in the elementary and the private schools of Wiltshire, and then learned the trade of builder. He worked as a builder and con- tractor in his native country for several years, and in 1873 came to the United States and settled at Ridgeway, North Carolina, where he was engaged in farming and fruit growing until 1889. In that year he came to his present farm near Oxford, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he has been successfully engaged in fruit growing up to this time. On January 30, 1854, Mr. Townsend married Mary A. Davis, a daughter of Job Davis, of England. To their union have been born seven children, four sons and three daughters : Frederick W., engaged in the fruit business at Ridgeway, ISTorth Caro- lina; Wesley J., station agent at Marion, that State: Mary Jane, wife of J. H. Mor- rison, of Oxford, Pennsylvania ; Caroline and Sydney who died in infancy; and Albert E. and Lizzie A., who reside in Oxford, this State. Mark Townsend yet gives his time principally to his prosperous and rapidly increasing fruit business. nICHARD T. ELLICOTT, one of the older and highly respected citizens of Chester county, is the only son of I^athaniel H. and Tamson (Roberts-Trimble) EUicott, and was born at EUicott City, Maryland, on January 18, 1844. He is descended from the old EUicott family so well known in Mary- land, and received his education in the Friends' school at Providence, Rhode Island. After leaving school he associated himself with Col. John Clark, in the contracting business, in which they were very success- ful, both retiring very comfortably well off. Jonathan EUicott, for whom EUicott City (Maryland) was named, was the paternal grandfather of Richard T. EUicott, and his brother, Andrew EUicott, was a prominent surveyor of that day, and as such was en- gaged in laying out the city of Washington about L792. -l^athaniel H. EUicott (father) was born at what is now EUicott City, Maryland, in 1791, where he was reared and educated. About 1849 he removed to Chester county, Pennsylvania, and settled at West Chester, in the house now occupied by the subject of this sketch, where he continued to reside until his death in 1861, when in his seventieth year. He was a miller by trade, and a strong abolitionist, believing that the "peculiar institution" 'M6 hlOOitAPHY ANb HtStOMIt was the sum of all iniquity, and that part of the constitution which supported it a " league with hell." In his religious con- victions he was a Quaker, and a life-long member of the Society of Friends. Not- withstanding his adherence to that organi- zation, there was a strong military side to his character, and in 1814, when less than fourteen years of age, he took part in the engagement at Fort McHenry, at the time Scott Keys wrote his now famous song, " The Star Spangled Banner," while a pris- oner on board at British man-of-war. In 1821 he married Thamazine Roberts, nee Trimble, a daughter of Richard Trimble, who was the founder of the free school system of New York city. By this mar- riage Mr. EUicott had two children : Rich- ard T., and a daughter named Jane T., who married Joseph P. Wilson. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are now dead. They had a family of three children, one son and two daugh- ters : Cornelia T., who married R. Jones Monaghan, now a well known member of the bar at West Chester; Mary, wedded J. Townsend Fairlamb, now deceased, who was formerly western ixianager of the Pennsylvania Investment Company; and Henry George. lyjONTGOMERY FRICK, one of the * young and successful business men of Spring City, and secretary of the well known Schuylkill "Valley Stove Manufactur- ing Company, is a son pf Charles and Mary Ann (Evans) Frick, and was born at Linfield, Limerick township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, March 31, 1860. The Frick family, which was settled in Pennsylvania at an early day during the last century, is of Swiss origin, and Hon. Benjamin Frick (grandfather), was a prominent man in his day. He owned several boats on the old canal, then was interested in the con- struction of a railroad, and his popularity was such that he was elected as a republican member of the State senate fron; Mont- gomery county when it was strongly demo- cratic. He was very active and influential in politics, and married Ellen Davis, by whomhe had six children, of whom one was Charles Frick, father of Montgomery Frick. Charles Frick was born in 1828, at Linfield, where he still resides. He has been engaged for many years in general business, but making specialties of lumber and coal. He is a republican in politics, served for several years as postmaster of Linfield, and takes an active part in the political affairs of his county. He is a member of the Baptist church, and married Mary Ann Evans, who is a daughter of Ezekiel Evans. To them were born four children : Benjamin, now dead ; Lewis, who is engaged in business at Linfield ; Montgomery and Mary. Montgomery Frick was reared at Linfield, received his education in the public schools and Millersville State Normal school, and then was engaged in business with his father until 1889, when he helped to organize the Schuylkill Valley Stove Manu- facturing Company, of Spring City, of which he has served as secretary ever since. On October ' 28, 1885, Mr. Frick was united in marriage with Savilla Thoriias, daughter of John Thomas, of Limerick, Montgomery county, and to them has been born (1892) one child, a son, named Charles Thomas. Montgomery Frick is a republican in politics, but does not take a very active part in political aflairs and gives his time to the business enterprise in which he is en- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 247 gaged. The Schuylkill Valley Stove Manu- facturiug Company was organized early in the year 1889, and purchased their present plant which had been erected and operated up to that time under the auspices of the Knights of Labor. This extensive plant, which covers an area of three and a half acres of ground, is situated in the southern part of the borough, on the Schuylkill river and Schuylkill Valley railroad. The main buildings are brick, and comprise a four- story ware-house, an engine and boiler house, a cleaning room, a two-story cupola house and a molding room, all of which are thoroughly equipped with the latest and most approved machinery for stove manufacturing. The company employs eighty-five skilled workmen, has an annual output of one hundred thousand dollars' worth of stoves from their works, and have a large patronage in nearly every State of the Union. Mr. Frick has pursued a con- servative but pei*fectly safe financial policy, and has thus contributed largely to the remarkable success of the company. QOIi. NATHANIEL, M. ELLIS, a soldier and financier, was born at Potts- town, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, February 25, 1821. His parents Avere Christopher and Margaret (Missimer) Ellis, the former of English and the latter of German descent. Christopher EUie was one of the early settlers of Montgomery county, this State, a shoemaker by trade, and lived at Pottstown. He was a demo- crat in politics, and served in the war of 1812. He died about 1850, aged sixty-four years, and his wife passed away in 1824, in the thirty-second year of her age. The subject of this sketch, Col. Nathaniel M. Ellis, received his esirly education in tlie public schools of Pottstown, and completed his studies under private tution in the city of Philadelphia. At the early age of twelve and a half years he entered the service of the Reading Railroad Company, in the location, and was first employed in taking cross sections of the road. When it was completed from Pottstown to IS'ori'istown he was placed in temporary charge of the station at Phcenixville. He soon afterward left the employ of the company and re- sumed his studies in Philadelphia, where he remained for one year engaged m perfecting his education. In 1838 he returned to active service on the road, and Phcenixville having become an important point he was ap- pointed general agent of the company at this place, having charge of all the various departments. He continued in the satis- factory discharge of the multitudinous duties connected with this responsible position until' 1873, when he was compelled to resign on account of his health. In 1842 Mr. Ellis was elected and com- missioned as major of volunteers, and ap- pointed in 1860 aid-de-camp to Governor Packer during his term of office. He has held many offices of public trust and honor, among them burgess of Phcenixville, presi- dent of the town council, borough engineer, and president of the school board, of which latter he was a member for many years, having always taken a profound interest in the great cause of popular education. In his political affiliations he has always been democratic, and was an active supporter of Judge- Douglas in his contest for the presidency in 1860. At the breaking out of the civil war he took an active part in politics, deeming it his duty to at once openly espouse the cause his conscience 348 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY held to be right. He was prominent in the organization of the Phoenixville National bank, and was one of its directors for a number of years, and also served as a director of the Morris Cemetery Company, which he helped to organize. In addition to these he was also a director in the Masonic Hall association of Phcenixville. As a business man he was noted, during an active career extending from 1835 to 1872, for stability of purpose and strict integrity in all his dealings. In religious belief he is a Baptist, and is a prominent member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons. He has about retired from active business, and resides in a beautiful home, which he erected in 1844, at the corner of Main and Morgan streets. During all his life he has been known for the firmness of his friendships, and is among the most highly esteemed citizens of Phoenixville and Ches- ter county. In February, 1842, Colonel Ellis was united in marriage with Mary Morgan, a daughter of Hon. John Morgan, of Phoenix- ville, who was a prominent man in his day. To the Colonel and Mrs. Ellis was born a family of three children, one son and two daughters: Mordicai, who is now chief clerk in the oflJce of the Phoenixville Bridge Company ; Mary, who married Dr. William T. Porter, of this borough ; and Sallie, living at home with her parents. QTEPHEN DARLINGTON, who was a constant student, a ripe scholar and one of the finest linguists of Pennsylvania, ranked high as a scientific and progressive farmer. He was a son of George and Lydia Barnard Darlington, and was born in what is now Pocopson township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 28, 1799. The pri- mogenitor of the Darlington family in Chester county was Abraham Darlington, who came from England about the year 1708. He was reared on a farm and learned the trade of saddler, but after coming to this county he settled east of the Brandy- wine on a farm of two hundred acres. His second wife was Elizabeth Hillborn, and their fifth child, Thomas Darlington, re- moved higher up on the Branywine, where he settled on a farm now owned by one of his grandsons. Thomas Darlington married Hannah Brinton, and their sixth son, George Darlington (father), who was a farmer and miller by occupation and trade, settled, near the close of the last century, west of the Brandywine, on the Pocopson stream. He married Lydia Barnard, and his children in the order of age were : Hannah, Richard, Stephen, Cyrus, George, Joseph B., Hill- born, Lydia, and Eliza. Stephen Darlington was reared on the farm, received a good education, and then engaged in farming and the study of mathematics. He settled on a farm border- ing the Brandywine, and between that stream and his father's home, which had been previously owned by Henry Hoopes. This farm was in poor condition when Mr. Darlington came into possession of it, but he immediately commenced the fertilization of its soil and the improvement of its fences and buildings, and in fifty years he had brought it up to such a state that it ranks as one of the best farms of Pennsylvania. He brought the soil up to garden richness, and while his buildings were not orna- mental, they were permanently finished and roofed with slate, from the dwelling to the pig sty. His fences were constructed ^^; 'i^U'^n'm^m. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 249 of iron and placed upon a stone basis so securely as to stand the test of a century. On September 15, 1825, Mr. Darlington married Ann Mendenhall, who was born October 27, 1804, and died March 9, 1885, aged eighty years. She was a daughter of Aaron Meudenhall, who owned a fine farm in Pennsbury township, which had de- scended as a patrimonial estate from his father, Isaac,who inherited it from his father, Joseph, one of the sons of the immigrant Benjamin, who came about 1686, from Married Hill, Wiltshire, England, with his brother John, and settled in Pennsylvania, and from whom all of the name of Menden- hall now in America are descended. Mr. and Mrs. Darlington had five children : Fenelou, Sarah, Louisa, Emma, and Lamar- tine. Mr. Darlington was fortunate in the ' choice of a partner, who contributed her full share to the success of out-door as well as household operations. She was tidy in the extreme, and busied in usefulness from morn to bed time. She with her husband uniformly attended meetings of worship and business in the Society of Friends, of which they were members. She rarely took up a book or paper unless in the afternoon of the first day of the week. ^Notwithstanding this full timing of her hours, she was foremost in looking after those in sufl['ering or in want, and was free in administering unto these by heart, hand ajid purse. A memorable occasion of Stephen Dar- lington's life was his golden wedding which was celebrated Wednesday, September 15, 1875, with appropriate and interesting ceremonies, a full account of which ap- peared in the Daily Local News. It was really a grand reunion of the Darlingtons and Mendenhalls, families so noted for punctuality and honesty that it is a common expression "as punctual as a Darlington or as honest as a Mendenhall." A magnificent repast was furnished in the commodious barn to acomniodate the large number that were present. Addresses were delivered and poems read by several of the guests, but two of the most distinguishing events of the occasion were the marriage of Sarah D., the eldest daughter of Mr. Darlington, to Samuel Auge, of West Chester, who was a guest at the original wedding, fifty years before, and the address of welcome from Mr. Darlington and his wife, whicli was a poetical eftbrt on the part of Stephen Darlington of so much merit that we repro- duce it as it appeared in the public press : " When noble LaFayette from beyond the sea, Reviewed the land himself had helped to free, Received the plaudits of a grateful shore. Which scarcely ever man received before ; T'was then in early youth, as man and wife, We ventured on the doubtful path of life; Poor and of small account, we took our stand, But thanks to toil and Heaven's protecting hand, Enough of comfort 'round our home appears, To satisfy the needs of closing years; Enough of fame our modest cause attends, And not the least, a list of valued friends ; And now since fifty suns have pass&d away, Gladly we greet you on this bridal day; You who with us have shared the early morn, Or, who the bloom of later years adorn - To all we wish a long and prosperous life, A noble husband, or a worthy wife." Stephen Darlington was a republican in politics. He gave close attention to the education of his children, and at the close of the day's labor after examining their work and progress in their studies, he gave them a lesson in the languages as a general rule. In early manhood he exhibited the taste and well-read scholarship of the poet, the persevering tact and thrift and effort of the mathematician ; and gathered the self- 360 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTOJRY sought and self-found gems and treasures in language — while he shrunk not from the dull and slow and sturdy rounds of the practical farmer. In his eai-ly studies each new effort was crowned with a new joy (such as he only knows who ascends the golden pathway of art, of science or of duty), but in later life he confined his efforts mainly to farming operations and the study of the classics. Stephen Darlington's long and practically useful life closed on May 16, 1884, when he passed away from the scenes of his earthly labors. His re- mains were interred in a beautiful lot in Birmingham cemetery, but he will be long remembered in the community where he resided. A successful teacher of the county pays the following beautiful and well de- served tribute to his memory : " While Stephen Darlington was a model agricul- turalist, he was also a constant student, a ripe scholar, and as a linguist had few equals, if any, in his native State." HENKY P. WAITNEIGHT, one of the young and energetic members of of the Chester county bar, is a son of William "Walters and Margaret C. (Broom- all) Waitneight, and was born in Phoenix- ville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Sep- tember 6, 1861. The Waitneight family is of German lineage, but is American by residence for over a century. Its founder was Jacob Waitneight, who came from Germany, and, after serving in the Ameri- can army during the revolutionary struggle for separation from the mother country and political independence, he married Catb- arine Grate, and settled in Chester county, where he followed farming for a livlihood. His son, Jonathan Waitneight, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in East Pikeland township, where he also followed farming, and died at an early age. He was an old-line whig in po- litical sentiment, and 'married Maria Wal- ters, sister of the late George Walters, for so many years civil engineer for the Phoenix Iron company, and had children. His old- est son, William W. Waitneight, was born July 19th, 1820, and at twenty years of age came to Phoenixville, which he made his home until his death, which occurred February 6th, 1886. He was a blacksmith by trade, and worked for many years for the Phoenix Iron company. Mr. Waitneight took con- siderable interest in municipal and county affairs, and served frequently as a member of the town council, of which he was presi- dent for several years. He was a whig, and republican in politics, and served as the first superintendent of the water works. He was a member of Zion Evangelical Lutheran church, and Phoenix Lodge, I^o. 212, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he had been secretary for twenty -five years. He married Margaret C. Broomall, a mem- ber of the old Broomall family of Delaware county, and to their union were born seven children. Mrs. Waitneight, who still re- sides at Phoenixville, was born in Delaware county, June 16, 1823; her mother was Hannah Griswold (Conner) Broomall, who died in Phoenixville in 1879, at the advanced age of ninety-two ; and has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church since her early youth. Henry P. Waitneight was reared at Phoenixville, and after be was graduated from the High school in the class of 1879, he entered Dickinson college, of Carlisle, this State, where he took a classical course. Leaving eoUego he made choi<-e of the legal OF CHESTER COVNTY. 2S1 pi'ofession as his life work. He read law with the firm of Monaghan & Hause, was admitted to the bar in 1886, and since then has been engaged in successful practice in Chester county, and has gained an enviable reputation as a careful and conservative ad- viser. In politics he is a stanch and pro- nounced republican, who believes in an en- ergetic support of the cardinal principles of his party. He has been many times a dele- gate to county conventions, and was a dele- gate to the Harrisburg convention in April, 1892, which nominated Hon. John Dean, of Blair county, for supreme judge. He is a vestryman of St. Peter's Protestant Epis- copal church, and a member of Phoenixville Lodge, Bo. 212, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. Waitneight takes a deep in- terest in educational affairs as well as polit- ical matters. He was appointed in 1889 to fill a vacancy in the school board, occasioned by the death of Dr. L. B. Hawley, and in 1890 was elected for a full term of three years as a member of the board, of which he has twice been made president by a unanimous vote. Mr. Waitneight, although young in years, is prominently identified with the progress of Phoenixville, whose best interests he has always at heart. He is a recognized advocate of learning and ability in his chosen profession, and has gained reputation as an interesting speaker and as a man of broad and liberal views on all public questions of interest or import- ance. pBOF. JOHN HUNTER WOR- RALiLi, the widely known educator, who early won deserved recognition in his chosen profession, has been connected with the educational interests of this county since 1856. He is a son of Frederick and Sarah (Hunter) Worrall,and was born near what is now Strafford, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, in the first half of the present century. His grandfather, Elisha "Worrall, was also a native of Delaware county, born near Middletown, where he was reared and passed most of his active and useful life. He was a farmer by vocation, and died near Strofferd, then called the Old Spread Eagle, at an advanced age. Frederick Worrall (father) was born near Concord, Delaware county, and spent his life in agricultural pursuits. He was a federalist and whig in politics, and married Sarah Hunter, a daughter of James Hunter, of Delaware county. By this union he had a family of five children, four sons and one daughter : Elisha, a farmer, who removed to Montn gomery county, where he died in October, 1890 ; William, a miller by occupation, who died near Collegeville, Montgomery county ; Joseph L., whose residence is in the city of Philadelphia; Martha Ann, married Caleb B. Ring, a farmer of Chadd's Ford, this county; and John Hunter, the subject of this sketch. Frederick Worrall died near the Old Spread Eagle hotel in Delaware county, in April, 1847, aged sixty-eight years. John Hunter Worrall began his studies at Dr. Rollins' private school in Newtown township, Chester county, and later entered a like institution under the management of Thomas Connard, in Philadelphia, where he remained for two years. He then went to New Haven, Connecticut, and, under the instruction of Edward Umstead, prepared to enter Yale college, from which institu- tion he was graduated with honors in the class of 1856. He immediately came to West Chester, this county, where he began teach- ing in the West Chester academy, and rcv 262 BIOOMAPHY AND HISTOBY mained three years. Returning to New Haven at the end of that time, he eiitered on a post-graduate course, which occupied nearly three years, and from which he was graduated with the degree of Ph. J). Pro- fessor Worral] then returned to West Ches- ter and filled the chair of mathematics in the Pennsylvania Military academy for a period of two years. In 1864 he again be- came connected with the West Chester academy, and, in connection with Eugene Pauline, conducted that institution until 1870, when the trustees sold, the property, and adding the fund derived from its sale to the appropriation made by the State, erected the West Chester l^ormal school building. Professor Worrall was then called to the chair of mathematics in the ISTormal school, but after one year in that position he re- tired and organized Worrall's Classical and Mathematical academy at West Chester, which he continued until the autumn of 1891, when failing health compelled him to relinquish its care. He still gives lessons in his rooms to a limited number of pupils, and many of the successful young business and professional men of this county have been prepared for the active duties of life under his care and instruction. Professor Worrall is a leading member of the Episcopal church, in which he served as vestryman for a period of fifteen years, and as accounting warden for more than a de- cade. The mental equipments with which he began active life were indicated in the fact that in his freshman year he took first prize in his class in mathematics, and em- phasized this triumph by repeating it in the sophomore year. He also received the gold medal on graduation for work done and high standing in mathematics. These early promises received ample fulfillment in the active career of Professor Worrall, who soon became widely known for his scholastic attainments and greatly valued for his un- usual merit as a teacher. He takes rank with the best and most popular educators in this part of Pennsylvania, and notwith- standing his recognized ability — rather, perhaps, on account of it — he is modest and unassuming in deportment. His popu- larity is co-extensive with his acquaintance, and is founded no less on his admirable qualities as a man than on his brilliant ac- quirements as an educator. nEV. ISAAC URNER BROWER, a minister of the German Baptist or Brethren's church, and a well respected citizen of Parker Ford, is a son of Gilbert and Lydia (Urner) Brower, and was born in East Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 7, 1844. The Brower family of Chester county is a branch of the old Brower family of Holland, and was founded in Chester county by Henry Brower about the year 1740. Gilbert Brower, a great-grandson of the above mentioned Henry Brower, was the father of the sub- ject of this sketch. Gilbert Brower was born February 6, 1815, and died December 18, 1890. He married Lydia Urner, and to their union were born three sons and two daughters : Harrison, the eldest (now deceased); Dr. William, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume, and in which is given a full history of both the Brower and Urner families ; Rev. Isaac U. ; Sallie H. (now deceased) ; and Elizabeth, who died in early childhood. Mrs. Lydia (Urner) Brower, was borri December 20, 1818, and died December 28, Of CHESTER COUNTY. 258 1881, aged sixty-three years and eight days. She was descended from the old and historic Urner family of Canton Uri, Switzer- land, one of whose members, Ulrick Urner, went in 1672 to Alsace, France, from which his three sons, John, Bishop Martin, and Jacob, came to Philadelphia in 1708. Jacob Urner died in 1744, and his son, the second Bishop Martin Urner, was the father of Martin Urner, whose son, John, married Elizabeth Grubb, and was the father of Mrs. Lydia Brower, the mother of the subject of this sketch. Isaac Urner Brower received his educa- tion in the common schools, Freeland semin- ary (now Ursinus college), and the Millers- ville State ^N^ormal school, and taught twelve terms in the public schools of his own and adjoining counties. He was ordained as a minister of the Brethren's church in 1875. He has resided since 1867 on his present farm, near Parker Ford, of whose German Baptist or Brethren's church he has been one of the pastors for the past seventeen years. On January 2, 1868, Rev. Isaac Urner Brower married Mary A. Johnson, and this union has been blessed with one child, Charles J., born June 29, 1871, and who graduated from Spring City High school in the class of 1890, and is now (1892) reading medicine with his uncle. Dr. William Brower, having attended one course of lectures at Jefferson Medical college, from which institution he will graduate in class of 1894. Mrs. Mary A. Brower, daughter of Abraham and Eliza- beth (Weikel) Johnson, was born in Upper Providence, Montgomery countj-, Penn- sylvania, March 16, 1848. Kev. Isaac U. Brower has served since 1875, as treasurer of East Coventry Union church and cemetery. In politics he is a conservative republican, but takes no part in political affairs, giving his time to his farm and to his ministerial labors. TT liBERT WEEKS, M. D., a graduate of the Jefferson Medical college of Philadelphia, who has been in successful general practice at Phcenixville for more than ten years, is a son of Job and Hannah (Adams) "Weeks, and was born in Burling- ton county, l^ew Jersey, June 15, 1858. The paternal great-grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch was a native of England, but came to the United States one hundred and twenty years ago and settled in New Jersey, where he died at an advanced age. His son. Job Weeks (grandfather), was born in Burlington county, that State, and was a farmer all his life. He died on his farm there about 1862, in the sixtieth year of his age. In politics he was a whig and re- publican, and an active member of the Methodist Episcopal church for many years. He married and reared a large family, among them being Job Weeks (father), who is also a native of Burlington county, Few Jersey, where he still resides. He owns a large farm, and was for many years an extensive contractor and builder, but is now practi- cally retired from active business, being in his seventy-second year. Politically he is an ardent republican, and has held nearly all the offices of his township. In religion he is a strict adherent of the Methodist Episcopal church, and has served as superin- tendent of the Sunday school for a number of years. In 1842 he married Hannah Adams, a native of Burlington county. New Jersey, by whom he had a family of eleven children. She is still living, being now in the seventy-second year of her age. She is 264 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY a member of the same church as her husband, and greatly esteemed for her kindliness and splendid Christian character. Dr. Albert Weeks was reared in Burling- ton county, IsTew Jersey, and received a good English education in the excellent public schools of that State. After leaving school he entered a drug store in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he re- mained for two years as clerk and salesman. At the end of that time he began reading medicine with the eminent Dr. D. D. Rich- ardson, then of Philadelphia, but now superintendent of the State asylum for the insane at Wilmington, Delaware. Later he matriculated at Jeflerson Medical college, Philadelphia, from which well known in- stitution he was graduated in the spring of 1880, with the degree of M. D. After graduation he became first assistant phy- sician in the insane department of the Philadelphia hospital, and occupied that position two years. April 1, 1882, he re- moved to Phceuixville, this county, where he immediately opened an ofiice, and has been continuously engaged in the practice of his profession ever since. His thorough knowledge of medicine and acquired skill in its administration have given him great success as a physician, and he has conse- quently built up a practice which is now quite large and correspondingly lucrative. On August 2, 1882, Dr. Weeks was united in marriage with Mary Umstead, a daughter of Joseph and Sarah Umstead, of the city of Philadelphia. To the Dr. and Mrs. Weeks have been born two children, both daughters: Sarah lone and Vivian. In his political affiliations Dr. Weeks is republican, though taking no very active part in politics; and he is a strict member of the Methodist Episcopal church of Phoenixville, and also a member of Castle, No. 67, Knights of the Golden Eagle. Dr. Weeks' ability and standing in his pro- fession is acknowledged wherever he is known, and he is a prominent member of the Chester County Medical society, and of the Inter-County Medical society. In ad- dition to giving strict attention to the arduous duties connected with his large private practice, he is also serving as official examiner for several leading life insurance companies doing business in Phoenixville. nTHOMAS D. DUNN, M. D., a promi- nent and active physician and surgeon of West Chester, and who has had ten years of successful practice in the hospitals of Philadelphia, and at the county seat of Chester county, is the son of Rev. Thomas H. and Diantha M. (Curtis) Dunn, and was born in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, January 30, 1855. The Dunns trace their trans-Atlantic ancestry to Scotland, from which country Philip Dunn, the paternal great-grandfather of Dr. Dunn, came to Pennsylvania during the last century and settled in I^ew Jersey. In a short time he left that State to become one of the pioneer settlers of Crawford county, whose teri-itory was then scarcely free from the incursion of the Indian tribes of what is now the State of Ohio. He took up a large tract of land and cleared out a good farm, on which he resided until his death. His son, Gideon Dunn (grandfather), was born in New Jer- sey, served in the land forces of the United States along the northern border during the war of 1812, and followed farming until his death in Crawford county, to which he had removed in early life with his father. He married Rachel Holton, the only white of GHESfER COVNTt. woman who escaped in the Indian massacre at Sandusky, Ohio, and real'ed a family of two children : Rev. Thomas H. and Philip. Rev. Thomas H. Dunn (father), was born on his father's Crawford county farm in 1826, received his education at Allgheuy college of Meadville, Pennsylvania, and served for many years as a minister of the Seventh Day Baptist church. He was a man of influence in his neighborhood, and a republican in politics, and died August 29th, 1881, aged fifty-five years. He mar- ried Diantha M. Curtis, now resident of Meadville, Crawford county, who was a daughter of Miles Curtis, of iN'ew York, and was born in Crawford county in 1832. To them were born a family of four children, three sons and one daughter : Elizabeth R., Dr. Thomas D., Dr. Ira J., who was gradu- ated from the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania in 1891, and Arthur D., now seventeen years of age and at home. Thomas D. Dunn attended the public schools and then entered the ^Northwestern State INormal school of Edinboro', Erie county, from which institution he was grad- uated in the class of 1875. Leaving the normal school he took a special course at Allegheny college, and having made choice of a professional career, became a medical student in the oflice of Dr. Jacob Price, of West Chester, whose sketch appears else- where in this volume. After completing the required course of reading he entered the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania, of Philadelphia, from which he was graduated in 1881. Immedi- ately after graduation he entered the Uni- versity hogpital as resident physician, where he served one year. After a terra of six months at the Children's hospital, Philadel- phia, he settled to the practice of his chosen profession in West Chester. On the 28th of November, 1883, Dr. Dunn was united in marriage with Kate E. Cobb, daughter of T. B. Cobb, of Tionesta, For- est county. Their union has been blessed with one child, a daughter, named Rachel, who was born April 4, 1885. Dr. Dunn is a republican in politics, but has never aspired to political preferment or sought office at the hands of his fellow- citizens. He is a member of the Philadel- phia Pathological society, the college of Physicians of Philadelphia, and of the Pennsylvania State Medical society. HENRY EPPEHIMEB, a reliable busi- ness man, and vice-president of the Schuylkill Valley Stove Manufacturing Company, of Spring City, is a son of George and Eliza (Ortlip) Eppehimer, and was born at Lawrenceville, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, June 11, 1835. His paternal great- grandfather, Eppehimer, was a native of Switzerland, and left his mountain home to settle in Montgomery county, where his son, Valentine Eppejiimer (grandfather), was born and reared. Valentine Eppehimer learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed in his native county until the con- struction of the Schuylkill Canal, when he was employed as tool dresser, and died from malaria caught while thus engaged. He married a Miss Yokum, by whom he had four children, three sons and one daughter : Mary, George, Jonas and John. George Eppehimer, the second son and father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1809, in Potts Grove township, Montgomery county, and at fifteen years of age went to PhUadelphia, where he learned the trade of 3S6 BtOGMAPSY AJffD HtSTOBV tailor, whieh he followed until 1832. In that year he came to Lawrenceville, this county, and opened a tailoring establish- ment, which he conducted up to his death in October, 1879, when he was well ad- vanced in the seventy-first year of his age. He was a democrat in politics until 1856, when he identified himself with the Republi- can party, which he ever afterwards sup-_ ported. He married Eliza Ortlip, who died in May, 1875, aged fifty-nine years. To their union were born five sons and one daughter : Henry ; William, who was killed in a steamboat explosion on the Delaware river in 1854 ; Frank, who operated a stove foundry for some years, and is now engaged in general mercantile business at Royer's Ford; Mary, married Albert Hartman, and after his death wedded Andrew Anderson, who is now dead ; Howard P., who is in the employ of the Schuylkill Valley Stove Man- facturing Company of Spring City ; and Addison, who is a merchant tailor of Royer's Ford, Montgomery county. Henry Eppehimer was reared at Law- renceville, received his education in the common schools of Chester county, and learned the trade of molder, which he fol- lowed at various places until 1889. In that year he became a member of the Schuylkill Valley Stove Manufacturing Company, of which has served as vice-president ever since. On May 1, 1858, Mr. Eppehimer married a Miss Schueck, daughter of Matthias Schueck, of Montgomery county. Mr. and Mrs. Eppehimer have eight children, four sons and four daughters : Alice, wife of Lewis Caldwell, of Philadelphia; Minerva, William K., Harry C, Edmund 8., Stella, Maggie M., and George. The Schuylkill Valley Stove Manufactur- ing Company was organized in the spring of 1889, and purchased its present plant ot a company which had erected it under the auspices of the Knights of Labor. The plant is in the southern part of the borough, and consists of a large four story ware- house, an engine and boiler house, a clean- ing room, a two story cupola house, and a molding room. The buildings are all of brick, and have been thoroughly equipped throughout with the best of machinery for the manufacture of stoves. The company employs a force of eighty-five skilled work- men, and the annual output of their works is valued at one hundred thousand dollars. The company has been remarkably success- ful, and has a steady demand for its stoves in nearly every State of the Union. Henry Eppehimer is a republican in political sentiment, and has been a member for several years of Spring City Lodge, Wo. 553, Free and Accepted Masons. He is a skilled workman and a thorough-going business man. He is fully conversant with every detail and feature of his important industry, and ranks as a substantial and useful citizen of his borough. FRANCIS A. THOMAS, a successful business man of West Chester, a Union soldier of the late civil war, and the present register of wills of Chester county, whose term of office will expire in 1895, is a son of David R. and Isabella ( Doyle ) Thomas, and was born at Jennersville, Chester coun- ty, Pennsylvania, May 24, 1841. His pater- nal grandfather, Dr. David Thomas, was born in Hilltown, Bucks county, Pennsyl- vania, in 1759, and after reaching manhood, he left in 1808 to settle in Lower Oxford township, this county, where he died in OP CSESTMB COUNTY. m 1824, at sixty -five years of age. He was a physician, and served as a private in the American army during the last years of the revolutionary war, and in the war of 1812 served as surgeon. He was a democrat in politics and a consistent member of the Baptist church, in which he was a pillar of strength. He married Mary Jones, of Bucks county, in 1791, and reared a family of sons and daughters. Their son, David R. Thomas, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Hilltown, Bucks county. May 8,- 1803, and came with his father to Twaddell, in Lower Ox- ford township, this county, where he learned the trade of tanner and leather currier, which he followed in Wilming- ton, Delaware, until a few years before his death. He was a democrat in politics until the slavery question became prominent in politics, when he identified himself with the republican party and supported its prin- ciples ever afterwards. He died February 20, 1873, aged seventy-one years. He was a strict member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and married Isabella Doyle, who was born in Philadelphia, October 28,1808, and now resides with her son, R. B'ewton Thomas, of "West Chester. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas had a family of eleven children : Mary Jane, born March 28, 1832, married Thomas Kennedy, and is now dead ; Euphe- mia A., wife of John Edwards of Chester, Delaware county, born February 14, 1834; John W., born in June, 1835, and died in 1842; Margaret, born March 14, 1837, and now widow of Anthony Donnan, of Phila- delphia, where she now resides ; Joseph L., born June 27, 1839, served three years in the Federal army during the late war, and afterward went to Missouri, where he died April 24, 1886; Francis A.; R. Ifewton (see his sketch); L. Fletcher, born Decem- ber 6, 1844, who served during the late war in the 124tl) Pennsylvania infantry, 43d regiment emergency men, and the 192d Pennsylvania infantry, and after the war went to Philadelphia, where he was en- gaged in the hide and tallow business until his death in 1890 ; Charles W., born Janu- ary 3, 1847, a member of the firm of Clark, Thomas & Co., manufacturers and dealers in furniture at Twenty-third and Passyunk streets, Philadelphia ; Tacy M., born June 28, 1849, and married Lewis Lenderman, of Wilmington, Delaware ; and James M., who was born July 16, 1852, and is engaged in the wholesale butcher business at Wilming- ton, Delaware. Francis A. Thomas was reared in Chester county, received his education in the com- mon schools of his native township, and learned the trade of wheelwright, which he followed until the commencement of the late civil war, when, on September 1, 1861, he enlisted in Purnell's Legion of Maryland volunteers. He participated in many of the hard battles of the Army of the Potomac, received a flesh wound in the face at Cold Harbor, and was wounded in the left arm at the Weldon railroad fight. He was hon- orably discharged from the Federal service on October 28, 1864, at Baltimore, Maryland, and returned to Chester county, where he was engaged in farming until 1871, when he again engaged at his trade, but was com- pelled to quit it on account of impaired health. He then accepted a position with his brother, R. Ifewton, who was engaged in the flour, feed, coal and grain business in West Chester, and remained with him until January 1, 1891, when he entered upon the duties of his office as register, to which he had been elected on the republican 358 IStOOttAPHY AifD Hi^TOnY ticket at the preceding November election of 1890. , On January 3, 1866, Mr. Thomas married Grace Squire, daughter of William Squire, of Hopewell borough, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, and to their union have been born two children : "William S. and David E. Francis A. Thomas is a stanch and active republican in politics. He is a member of West Chester Lodge, ISo. 322, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, and West Chester Castle, N'o. 226, Knights of the Golden Eagle. Mr. Thomas has discharged well all of the many duties of his present responsible posi- tion, and is an honorable and respected citi- zen of West Chester, ever doing all in his power for the business interests and the prosperity of his city and county. He is past post commander of Post 31, Grand Army of the Republic, West Chester ; member of Minqua Tribe, Wo. 8, Improved Order of Red Men, Wilmington, Delaware; and past-chancellor commander of Oriental Lodge, jSTo. 13, Knights of Pythias, Wilming^ ton, Delaware, and member of Veteran Le- gion, No. 2, Philadelphia. QEORG-E G-. MYEK, now serving his fifth year as justice of the peace at Coatesville, is one of our veteran soldiers who saw active service during the entire progress of the civil war. He was among those who " went out first and came in last." He is a prominent Mason and an intelligent, useful and highly respected citizen. Squire Myer is a son of John and Catharine (Bream) Myer, and was born in the city of New York, June 8,1839. John Myer (father) was a native of Baden, Germany, but left the Fatherland in early life to seek a home in the new world. Upon his arrival in America he settled in New York city and remained there until 1850, when he removed to Lan- caster city, Pennsylvania. He lived in Lan- caster, where he was engaged in the shoe business, until June, 1877, when he went to Missouri, where he remained for twelve years, and where he died in his sixty-seventh year. In politics he was a democrat, and in religious faith a follower of Martin Luther, being a member of the Evangelical Luth- eran church for many years previous to his death. His wife, Catharine Bream, was also a native of Germany and a member of the Lutheran church. She died at Lancaster in 1878, aged sixty-four years. One of their sons, Gustavus, now resides in Lancaster city, this State, and their only surviving daughter, Josephine, is also a resident of that city. George G. Myer was reared in the city of New York until his eleventh year, when he came with his parents to Lancaster city, this State. He received a good English education in the common schools, and after leaving school was associated with his father in the shoe business at Lancaster until 1861. Early in that year, April, 1861, he volun- teered as a musician in the 1st Pennsylvania infantry, and on the expiration of his term of service re-enlisted for nine months in Co. A, 122d Pennsylvania infantry, as cor- poral, and afterward in Co. F, 9th Pennsyl- vania cavalry. He was wounded at the battle of Chancellorsville, was with General Sherman on his famous march to the sea, and served until the Confederacy collapsed and the great civil war had gone into his- tory. Returning to his home in Pennsyl- vania with shattered health, he rested for a time and then learned the barber's trade and engaged in that occupation at Lancaster until 1868, when he removed to Coatesville, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 269 Chester county, where he has resided ever since, conducting a large barber shop with gratifying success and a constantly increas- ing business. In political sentiment Squire Myer is a democrat, but broad and liberal in his views and popular beyond his party. Although the borough is largely republican, he has been elected and served one term as chief burgess of Coatesville, three terms as coun- cilman, school director for three years, and is now serving his fifth year as justice of the peace. He is the first democrat ever elected to all these ofilces, and the simple statement of this fact is a most eloquent testimonial to the character and high standing of Squire Myer in the community where he has so long resided. On December 26, 1859, Mr. Myer was married to Anna Cochran, a daughter of Oliver Cochran, of Marietta, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. In the Masonic circles of Chester county Squire Myer is well known, being past- master of Goddard Lodge, '^o. 383, Free and Accepted Masons ; Coatesville Chapter, No. 207, Royal Arch Masons ; and eminent commander of Centennial Commandery, ISo. 55, Knights Templar. He is also a member of Onondaga Tribe, No. 83, Im- proved Order of Red Men, and of Brandy- wine Post, No. 54, Grand Army of the Republic. • ^ > |3ERCY C. HOSKEVS, M. D., of West Chester, who has achieved an enviable reputation in his profession and is an active member of the Pennsylvania State Medical society, is a son of Dr. John R. and Hannah (Cheever) Hoskins, and was born in East Goshen township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, December 17, 1852. Interest always 17 attaches to those who have been the found- ers of well known and substantial families in any State or county, and the Hoskins family which was planted in eastern Penn- sylvania during the last century, is of Welsh descent. The first of the name in the State was the great-grandfather of Dr. Hoskins, and who married and reared a family. One of his grandsons. Dr. J ohn R. Hoskins, was born in 1820, at Village Green, then known as Seven Stars, in Delaware county. In early life he shipped on board a trading vessel commanded by Captain Cheyney of his native county, and made a voyage to the Isle of France and the city of Calcutta, the metropolis of British India. After leaving the 'ocean he read medicine and entered Jefferson Medical college, from which he was graduated in the class of 1844. Im- mediately upon graduation he opened an ofiice at Sugartown, but soon removed to East Goshen,^where he remained until 1877, when he came to West Chester, in which city he died on March 4, 1884, at sixty-four years of age. He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal, church, and a Jeff'er- sonian democrat in politics, and married Hannah Cheever, who was born in 1832, and is still living. Dr. and Mrs. Hoskins were the parents of two children, a son and a daughter : Sarah P., wife of sheriff" James G. Parker, whose sketch appears in this vol- ume ; and Dr. Percy C, the subject of this sketch. Percy C. Hoskins was reared in East Goshen township, received his education in West Chester academy and West Chester State Normal school, and then determined upon medicine as a life vocation. He read with his father and upon completing the re- quired course entered Jefferson Medical college of Philadelphia, from which time- 260 BIOQRAPEY AND HISTORY honored institution he was graduated with high standing in his class on March 13, 1875. After graduation he opened an office in East Goshen township, where he soon had an extensive practice, which he relinquished in 1883, to remove to West Chester. He l^as steadily built up a very fine practice at the county seat, and is regarded as one of the most successful physicians of the bor- ough. On October 16, 1877, Dr. Hoskins mar- ried Stella M. Locke, daughter of Thomas M. Locke, of Philadelphia, and to their union have been born five children, three sons and two daughters : Emily L., John R., Thomas L., Percy C, jr., who died August 17, 1887 ; and Phyllis C. Dr. Hoskins is a democrat in politics, and a member and vestryman of Holy Trinity Prot- estant Episcopal church of West Chester. He i§. a member of Tamenend Tribe, ISo. 197, Independent Order of Red Men, and West Chester Lodge, No. 42, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and a member and past master of Thompson Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons, of Duftryn Mawr. Dr. Hoskins is a member of the West Ches- ter Medical society, secretary of the Chester ; County Medical association, and has held membership for several years in the Penn- sylvania State Medical society. During \ President Cleveland's administration he served as a member of the board of pension examiners for Chester county. Dr. Percy i 0. Hoskins is an aftable gentleman, and a highly respected citizen of his city and county, and ranks as an able and skillful physician in a section of the "Keystone" State, where merit only commands prom- inence; was division surgeon under General : Dobson of the tenth division of National i Guards of Pennsylvania, which figured in . the riots of 1877, at Pittsburg, was in this during 1876 and 1877, or until the State militia was reorganized. ^ HOWARD RICHARD, a well * known business man, and president of the Schuylkill Valley Stove Company, of Spring City, is a son of Anthony and Elizabeth (Ammon) Richafd, and was born in the city of Reading, Berks county, Penn- sylvania, July 30, 1850. Anthony Richard was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1807, and died at Pottstown, Montgomery county, this State, August 28, 1870, when in the sixty-third year of his age. He was a man of good business ability, and served for many years as superintendent of the ship- ping department of the Reading railroad at Pottstown. He was a republican in politics, and a Baptist in religious belief and church membership. He married Elizabeth Ammon, a native of Berks county, Penn- sylvania, who died November 19, 1878, aged sixty-eight years. They had a family of three children : Henry A., of Pottstown, who is a real estate superintendent for the Reading Railroad Company ; Howard ; and John, who died in infancy. J. Howard Richard was reared princi- pally in Montgomery county, received a common school and academic education, and after leaving Pottstown academy en- tered the service of the Reading Railroad Company as a fireman. After serving for a necessaiy length of time as fireman he was promoted to locomotive engineer, and con- tinued in that capacity until 1875, when he resigned to engage in the bakery business at CoUegeville, Montgomery county, which he followed successfully up to 1888. In that year he went to Pottstown, but not finding OF CHESTER COUNTY. 261 sufficient inducements at that place to enter into any kind of business there he came to Spring City, in the the spring of 1889, and was instrumental in organizing the present Schuylkill Valley Stove Company, of which he was treasurer and superin- tendent up to January, 1892, when he was elected president. On May 24, 1873, Mr. Richard was united in marriage with Sallie M., daughter of James and Sarah Dunlop, of Linlield, Mont- gomery county. J. Howard Richard is a republican in politics, and has served as a member of the borough council. He has been prominent in the Masonic fraternity for some years, and is a member of Warren Lodge, l^o. 310, Free and Accepted Masons, of Trappe, Montgomery county; Pottstown Chapter, 'So. 271, Royal Arch Masons ; and Hutchin- son Commandery, So. 32, Knights Templar. Besides his business affairs at Spring City, he is interested in financial matters at Royer's Ford, of whose Industrial Savings bank he has served as a trustee ever since it was organized. The Schuylkill Valley Stove and Manu- facturing Company (limited), was organized in the spring of 1889, with J. Howard Richard, as treasurer and superintendent; Henry Eppehimer, p:^sident; and Mont- gomery Frick as secretary, who, together with John W. Gephart, E. W. Foley, William F. Stephen and L. L. Esenhower, constitute the present board of directors, and with C. C. Armpriester, treasurer, are the chief stockholders of the company. The company's plant was built and operated for a short time under the auspices of the Knights of Labor, and was bought of the Knights of Labor in the spring of 1889, by the . Schuylkill Valley . Stove and Manu- facturing Company (limited). It is situated in the southern part of the borough, on the Schuylkill canal and Schuylkill Valley rail- road. The plant consists of the following brick buildings: a large four story ware- house, 60x90 feet; an engine and boiler house, 36x36 feet; a cleaning room, 24x45 feet; a two story cupola house, 24x36 feet; and a molding room, 80x160 feet. It is one of the finest equipped plants of its kind in the country^ and furnishes regular employment to a force of eighty-five skilled workmen. Its annual output is valued at one hundred thousand dollars, and the company's stoves find a ready market, being sold in nearly every State of the Union. In building up this enterprise to its present prosperous condition Mr. Richard has been very active. He has given to it that care and attention which are necessary to suc- cess, while his management has been both skillful and judicious. J"OHN SliEICHTEK, one of the prosper- ous and progressive young farmers of North Coventry township, is the eldest son and second child of Isaac and Mary (Kullp) Sleichter, and was born June 17, 1859, in East Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The family is of German descent, the first of the name to come to America, so far as we have any account, being Michael Sleichter, paternal great- grandfather, who left his native home in the Fatherland at an early day to seek his for- tune in the newer west. He came to the United States and settled in East Vincent township, this county, where he lived until his death. He was a farmer by vocation, and reared a large family, among whom was Abram Sleichter (grandfather). The 263 BIOQBAFHY AND HISTORY latter was reared on the farm, and after at- taining manhood married Sarah Hau8e,and to them was born a family of six children, two sons and four daughters : Isaac, father of the subject of this sketch; Abram, a laborer who lives in East Vincent township ; Kate, deceased; Mary, also dead; Hettie, who married William Lukens, now deceased ; and Dessie, who is now the widow of Ben- jamin Boyer. Abram Sleichter was a farmer all his life and died in East Vincent town- ship. His wife is also dead. Their son, Isaac (father), was born in East Vincent township in 1839, of which he is still a resi- dent. He grew up on the farm, receiving his education in the common schools, and has followed agricultural pursuits all his life. In politics he is a republican and has served his township as school director. He takes an active and intelligent interest in all public questions and keeps well posted on the progress of current events. In re- ligious faith he is a Mennonite, and always ready to do his part in the support of his church and its diflerent religious and char- itable interests. He married Mary KuUp, a daughter of John Kullp, of East Vincent. By this marriage he had a family of five children, two sous and three daughters: Sarah, married Harry Steyer, a successful farmer of East Vincent township, and has two children — Webster and Mary; John, the subject of this sketch ; Webster, who wedded Lily Finkbiner, a daughter of David Finkbiner, of Spring City (whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume), and has two sons — Walter and Grant; and Lizzie and Annie, both of whom are living at home with their parents. John Sleichter was reared on his father's farm in East Coventry township, and re- ceived a good English education in the ex- cellent public schools of his neighborhood. He was not one of that numerous class of farmer's sons who desert the farm for un- derpaid employment in the town or city, as soon as they can get away ; but on the con- trary became early impressed with the dig- nity and independence of farm life, and determined to devote his attention to the cultivation of the soil and kindred pursuits. In April, 1886, he purchased the farm on which he now resides, located on the Schuyl- kill road in l^orth Coventry township. It consists of seventy-three acres of valuable land, finely improved and supplied with all necessary farm buildings. The soil is rich and productive, and the place is kept in a high state of cultivation. In connection with his other operations he carries on a small dairying business, owning ten fine cows. ■ He is active, energetic and enter- prising, and finds little cause to help swell the popular wail that " farming does n't pay." In 1883 Mr. Sleichter was united in marriage with Kate Prizer, a daughter of Harman Prizer, of East Coventry township. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Sleichter has been blessed by the birth of one child, a daughter, named Mary, who was born Feb- ruary 10, 1884. In politics Mr. Sleichter is an ardent republican, giving his party a hearty support on 'all leading questions, while in religious faith he is a strict mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal church at Pottstown. nEV. JACOB B. SOULE, the present popular, earnest and efficient pastor of Parker Ford Baptist church, who has a wide reputation as a pulpit orator, is what may rightly be termed a model minister, and an affiable, cultivated and agreeable gentleman. He was born September 18, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 263 1825, in Buff'alo township, Perry county, Pennsylvania, and is the eldest son of John and Nancy (Lackey) Soule. The family is of German origin, but American by a resi- dence of several generations. Jacob Soule, paternal grandfather, was born in Loraine, Germany, but came early to the United States, and settled, in all probability, within the bounds of Chester county, where he remained but a short time and then removed to Perry county. He was a farmer by occupation, and purchasing land in Perry county, lived there until his death at an advanced age. In early life he was a Catholic in religion, but afterward left that church and embraced the Protestant faith. His son, John Soule (father), was born on the homestead in Buffalo township, Perry county, September 11, 1804, and was reared on the farm and educated in the common schools of his neighborhood. After leaving school he learned the carpenter's trade, and for a number of years devoted his time and attention to that vocation. He afterward purchased a farm, and gave his later years to agriTjultural pursuits. In politics he was a democrat until the organization of the republican party, when he identified him- self with the latter, and always took an active and patriotic interest in political affairs. He was reared in the Protestant faith and became a member of the Church of God, in which he was prominent, active and useful for many years. He died at his home in Carroll township, near Bloomfield, Perry county, in 1878, at the age of seventy- one years, having passed his whole life in that county. In 1824 he married Nancy Lackey, a daughter of Henry Lackey, a native of the Emerald Isle, who came to America and settled in Perry county, Penn- sylvania, at an early day, where he lived until his death. By this marriage Mr. Soule had a family of four children, three sons and a daughter, all of whom lived to reach maturity and become useful and in- fluential members of society. The eldest was Rev. Jacob B., the subject of this sketch. The second was a son named Henry L., who acquired a fine classical and theological education, and is now a minister of the Church of God, actively engaged in his chosen work in South Dakota. He is a distinguished scholar and fine linguist. The third son, John Wesley, resides in Perry county, this State, and is a teacher of high standing. He also owns a fine farm there, to' the management of which he devotes part of his time. The only daughter, named for her mother, Nancy, received a good education, and after reaching woman- hood became the wife of John Carberry, of Huntingdon county, this State. Eev. Jacob B. Soule was reared in Perry county, where he received an academic education. In later life he took up the Chautauqua course of study, graduating in theology under Rev. Dr. Townsend, the eminent theologian and one of the Chautau- qua professors, on March 1, 1888. He had completed his Greek studies under Rev. Alfred A. Wright, February 28 of the same year. For a number of yeai's he had been engaged in teaching, having been superintendent of the model department of a normal school in Perry county. He also taught music in connection with his other duties. In 1854 he was ordained to the ministry in the Church of God, and began preaching, his first charge being at Shippens- burg, this State. From there he went to Wooster, Ohio, and next to Decatur, Illinois. He subsequently served his church suc- cessively at Chambersburg, Carlisle and 364 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Lancaster city. He then joined the Baptist church, and served the following churches: Colerain, Lancaster county ; Atglen, Chester county, and in the city of Little York, York county, Pennsylvania. On June 15, 1888, he came to Parker Ford, where he has been successfully engaged in doing the work of his divine Master ever since. In connection with his ministerial labors he publishes a small monthly paper called The Quiver, devoted to the religious and church interests of his people. He has always been earnest and successful in his work, possessing more than the ordinary degree of energy and will power, and many admirable traits of character which qualify him for his duties and contribute to his influence and success. In politics he is a prohibitionist, and a prominent member of the Good Templars and Knights of Honor. He is a member of the Union League, and was elected chaplain, which office he holds to this day. Rev. Jacob B. Soule has been twice married. His first wife was Mary Stam- baugh, a daughter of Daniel Stambaugh, the first sherift" of Perry county. To that union was born a family of three children : Frances Amanda, who died in infancy; William Alexander, also deceased at an early age ; Jane Mary, living at home with her father. After the death of his first wife. Rev. Mr. Soule wedded Mrs. Rebecca Smetlz, nee Hoflman. He has no children by this marriage. JOSIAH HOOPES, senior member of the great nursery firm of Hoopes, Brother & Thomas, of West Chester, who in addition to his great reputation as a suc- cessful business man, is known throughout the United States and Europe as a botanist of considerable repute, is the eldest son of Pierce and Sarah (Andrews) Hoopes, and was born in the city of West Chester, Penn- sylvania, on the 9th of November, 1832. The Hoopes are descended from English Quaker stock, the first of the name to come to America being Joshua Hoopes, who left his native town in Yorkshire, England, about 1683, and settled in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, with his wife Isabel and three children — Daniel, Margaret and Christian. Daniel married Jane Worrilow, and had a large family of twenty-one children. Three of his sons came to the immediate vicinity of West Chester, and from them have de- scended the very numerous and highly re- spected family of Hoopes now found in Chester county. Thomas Hoopes, the pa- ternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born on the old Hoopes homestead in the edge of West Chester, and was the son of ITathan and Margaret Hoopes. Here his son, Abner Hoopes (grandfather), was born, lived and died. Here, too, in 1801, was born Pierce Hoopes (father), who received the best education aftbrded by the common schools of that day and afterward attended for a time that an- cient and popular Quaker institution of learning,, the Westtown academy. Until that time the occupation of this branch of the family had been universally that of till- ers of the soil, but after finishing his educa- tion Pierce Hoopes engaged in the mercan- tile business in West Chester, and success- fully conducted a general store in that place from 1830 to 1835. In the latter year he removed to the city of Philadelphia, where he embarked in the lumber trade and be- came quite prosperous. He continued to reside and do business in Philadelphia until OF CHESTER COUNTY. 265 1850, when a desire possessed him to return to the old homestead in Chester county, part of which he then purchased. Here he lived for a number of years, surrounded by all the comforts of life and enjoying that happy and peaceful contentment which comes to crown a life well spent. He was a quiet, unassuming man, possessing many good qualities and universally esteemed for his personal worth and kindly disposition. His death occurred August 20, 1888, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. In 1831 he married Sarah Andrews, a daughter of James Andrews, of Wilmington, Delaware, whose ancestors came to America with William Penn and settled in the old village of Darby, near Philadelphia. To them was born a family of two sons, the elder being the subject of this sketch, and the younger, Abner Hoopes, now a member of the well- known and popular nursery firm of Hoopes, Brother & Thomas, of West Chester. Josiah Hoopes was reared principally in Philadelphia, where his father was engaged in busiuess, and received a superior English and classical education in the high schools of that city. His chief delight was in the study of botany, and he early became an enthusiast on that subject. Following his inclinations, in 1853 he built a small green- house, which he filled with specimens of the'flora, of the world, laboriously gathered from all parts of the continent. To this collection he continued to' add, as opportun- ity and circumstances permitted, until it finally developed into the present large and prosperous nursery business, which occupies " at least five hundred acres of thei best land in the vicinity of West Chester, devoted to the production of every variety of flower or fruit that will succeed in this climate. This vast product is presented to the general pub- lic by a large corps of trained salesmen who travel through all parts of the United States. In their line the firm of Hoopes, Brother & Thomas is among the largest dealers in this country. Liberally educated himself, Mr. Hoopes has always manifested a lively interest in the great question of popular education, and for a number of years served as trustee of the West Chester State Normal school. He is an active member of the board of trade in this city, and being a man of sound judgment and keen business insight, his services are in almiDst universal demand among advisory committees and others connected with the management of the various public and private institutions of the place. He takes a special delight, however, in the scientific development of his chosen work, and never wearies in his experiments and researches along the line of botanical or scientific investiga- tion. He has written much on horticulture, botany and kindred subjects, being for many years a regular contributor to the horticul- tural department of the N"eW York Tribune and other publications. He has traveled extensively in Europe, visiting nearly all the famous flower gardens, parterres and botan- ical collections of the old world, and making himself familiar vrith the flora of all lands. In 1868 he published his valuable "Book of Evergreens," a practical treatise on the conifera, or cone-bearing plants of the world, which has since been recognized as author- ity on this class of trees in America. pROF. CARLOS B. COCHRAN, a graduate of the Michigan State univer- sity at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and now at the head of the scientific department of the 266 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Pennsylvania State Normal school at West Chester, Pennsylvania, is the eldest son of Isaac Cook and Julia Augusta (Bingham) Cochran, and was born July 1, 1854, at Albion, Michigan. His paternal grand- father, Isaac Cochran, was a native of Scot- land, born and reared on the historic high- lands of that ancient country, who in middle life emigrated to America and settled among the green mountains of Vermont, where he passed the remainder of his days. His son, Isaac C. Cochran (father), was born in Ver- mont in 1822, but removed to Michigan while yet a boy. He entered Albion col- lege, at Albion, that State, and after gradua- tion became a teacher in the college, and was thus employed for some years. Later he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church. He died at Utica, Mich- igan, in 1868, aged forty-six years. In 1853 he united in marriage with Julia Augusta Bingham, a daughter of Nathaniel D. Bing- ham, who was a native of New York. By this marriage he had a family of four chil- dren, two sons and two daughters : Carlos B., the subject of this sketch ; Flora Grace, now deceased ; Alice and Alfred. Prof. Carlos B. Cochran was educated at the Ann Arbor university, Ann Arbor, Mich- igan, finishing the classical course and being graduated from that institution in the sum- mer of 1877. He took a post-graduate course in the sciences and then matriculated in the medical department of the university. His medical studies were continued until within one yearof graduation, when, in 1879, he was prevailed on to abandon them and accept a position as professor of natural science in the scientific department of the Pennsylvania State Normal school at "West Chester. At the same time he is connected with the Pennsylvania State board of ag- riculture as inspector of food, being as- sociated in the latter with Dr. Henry Leff'man, of the city of Philadelphia. Their function is to make analysis of meats, butter, and other food products, for the Pennsylvania State board of ag- riculture. In addition to his other du- ties Professor Cochran is frequently called upon for work in his line as a chemist. He has been a close student, has an excellent mental equipment for his work, and ranks high among his scientific associates. On July 16, 1885, Professor Cochran was united in marriage to Sarah Marshall, a daughter of Abraham Marshall, of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and . their union has been blessed by the birth of one child, a daughter, named Flora Grace. In politics Professor Cochran is a stanch republican, but his professional duties are such as to preclude any active participation in prac- tical politics. J^OSEPH H. BEIVJAMIN, a member of the fire brick manufacturing firm of Rogers, Benjamin & Co., of Spring City, and whose services were freely given for the de- fense of his State when Governor Curtin called for emergency men in 1863, was born October 4, 1841, in East Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and is a son of Daniel A. and Rebecca (Wanamaker) Benjamin, natives respectively of the city of Philadelphia and Lehigh county. Mr. Ben- jamin was reared in his native township, received his education in the common schools and then learned the trade of painter, which he followed with fair success for three years. He then became manager of the Moorhead clay works, at Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 367 where his services were of such a desirable character that he held his position for eighteen consecutive years. At the end of that time, in 1884, Mr. Benjamin resigned and came to Spring City, which has been his home ever since. His object in coming to the latter named place was to engage in the fire-brick business. He and Allen Rogers formed a partnership, and after ex- amining various works and sites, purchased the brick plant of Custer & VanLeer,which they fitted up and thoroughly equipped for the manufacture of fire-brick and stove linings. Two years later the firm name changed from Rogers & Benjamin to Rogers, Benjamin & Co. Their plant is situated on First avenue, and lies along the tracks of the Reading railroad. From time to time since coming in possession of their works, as their increased trade demanded or they perceived some new method worthy of trial, they have enlarged their plant and placed improved machinery within their buildings until they now have one of the best equipped plants of its kind in the State. Their main building is a solid brick structure, two stories high, with a basement, and is 50 feet in width by 120 feet in length. Almost ad- joining it is a three-story brick fire-proof building, 40x50 feet in dimensions, and at various other places on the plant are situa- ted all other buildings necessary to the manufacture of their products. They em- ploy from twelve to fifteen men. The repu- tation of their fire-brick and stove linings and the demand for the same extends over a considerable area of country. Their clay is of first-class quality, their productions are manufactured with the utmost care by ex- perienced and skilled workmen, and their trade has been rapidly increasing from year to year. Mr. Benjamin is a member and trustee of the Spring City Methodist Epis- copal church, and has held membership for several years in Marble Hall Lodge, No. 351, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In politics he is a prohibitionist, who believes in aggressive political action as the surest means to wipe out the cui-se of intemperance in this country. In February, 1868, Mr. Benjamin was united in marriage with Hester A. Steltz, daughter of Henry Steltz, a farmer of Mont- gomery county. The Benjamin family of which Joseph H. Benjamin is a member, is of Jewish descent. His grandfather, Alexander Benjamin, came to Philadelphia, where his son, Daniel A. Benjamin (father), was born, in 1801. Daniel A. Benjamin was reared principally in East Vincent township, Chester county, and learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed for several years. He was a democrat and a member of the Reformed church, and died at Spring City in 1882, aged eighty-one years. He married Rebecca Wanamaker, a daughter of Casper Wana- maker, a farmer of Lynn township, Lehigh county. To Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin were born seven children : Elizabeth and Susan, who are both dead ; John, of Spring City, who served in Co. B, 175th Pennsylvania infantry, during the late war; Mary A., de- ceased; Joseph H., the subject of this sketch ; Franklin, a resident of Philadelphia, and in the employ of a leading railway company ; and Rachel, who is now dead. Joseph H. Benjamin served in 1863 in Co. C, 33d regiment of Pennsylvania militia, which was called out by Governor Curtin to protect Pennsylvania from Lee's invading legions. Mr. Benjamin is one of Spring City's well-known business men and reliable citizens. 268 BIOGRAPHY AND HIS20RY vjOSHUA RINEHAKT, one of the older, substantial and prosperous farm- ers of East Coventry township, is a repre- sentative of that sturdy Grerman element which has always been prominent in the material development and growth of the old Keystone State. He was born March 6, 1813, in the township where he now -resides, and has given nearly all his long and active life to agricultural pursuits. During his boyhood he attended tha early public schools, where he acquired a good practical education, and afterward became an ap- prentice and learned the useful trade of carpenter. For a period of four years he followed that occupation in the city of Philadelphia, and then returned to this county, where he has engaged in it more or less ever since, except when attending to the requirements of his agricultural work on the farm where he resides. He has met with good success in his combined employ- ments, and is now in condition to take life easy and comfortable. In politics he is a republican, and has been elected and served as school director of his township for three years. On April 15, 1841, Mr. Einehart married Amelia S. Dare, a daughter of David and Mary Dare, of Cumberland county, ITew Jersey, and to them was born a family of four childi-en, two sons and a like number of daughters. The eldest son, Howard, married Annie Wauger, by whom he has five children. He is now engaged in farm- ing, and resides on the Schuylkill road in East Coventry township. Cornelia, the eldest daughter, married J. Irwin White, who is engaged in the insurance business at Millersville, in Lancaster county. The youngest daughter, Francina, is still at home, while Edgar, the youngest son, married Lavinia Sowders, and is engaged in farming in East CovCTitry township. He has a family of three children. Mrs. Amelia S. Einehart died March 23, 1891, in the eighty-third year of her age. Joshua Einehart is one of the eight sons born to Abram and Catharine (Brower) Einehart, who had also three daughters. Abram Einehart's paternal grandfather, [Jlrich Einehart, was a native of Germany, who left the Fatherland in early life (1733) to seek his fortunes in the newer world, then, as now, attracting the attention of enterprising men in all parts of Europe, who were desirous of improving their cir- cumstances and bettering their condition in life. After landing in America Ulrich Einehart spent some time in considering the advantages offered by different sections, and finally settled in East Coventry town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he continued to reside until his death. His son, John Einehart (grandfather), was a hard working, industrious man, and cleared out and cultivated a large farm, beside owning and operating- one of the earliest mills in his neighborhood. His son Abram (father) was born on the home farm in East Coventry township, where he was reared and educated, and where he spent his entire life. He was an extensive and prosperous farmer, and also engaged to some extent in the business of distilling. In politics he was an old line whig, and in religion a member and local preacher of the German Baptist church. In 1792 he mar- ried Catharine Brower, a daughter of Henry Brower, of East Coventry, and of their eleven children only two now survive. Abram Einehart died in 1842, aged seventy- two years, and his wife in 1849, when in the seventy-seventh year of her age. OF CHESTER COVJ^TY. 369 QlilVER WELIiS is the youngest son and sixth child of James and Margaret (TJmstead) Wells, and was born September 28, 1827, in that part of Coventry which is now North Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The family is de- scended from English Quaker stock, and was planted in America by John Wells, paternal great-grandfather of Oliver, who was born near Bath, England, but in early life bid a long farewell to his native shores and sought to make himself a " local habitation and a name " in the new world. He was naturally attracted to Pennsylvania and settled in the eastern part of the State, where he lived and died, and where his descendants have become numerous. One of his sous, Joseph "Wells (grandfather), was born in Robinson township, Berks county, this State. He was a farmer by occupation and became pros- perous and influential in his community. In religion he was a strict member of the Society of Orthodox Eriends, and maintained a high reputation for honesty, integrity and general uprightness of character. He mar- ried Margaret Wells, and reared a family of ten children, all of whom attained maturity and lived honorable, useful lives. Only one of the family now survives, David Wells, who resides in Iforth Coventry township, near Price's meeting house. He was a car- penter for many years, but devoted the latter part of his life to agricultural pursuits, and is now almost ninety years of age. James Wells (father) was born on the old homestead in Robinson township, Berks county, Pennsylvania, in March, 1790. There he grew to manhood and received a care- ful religious training and such education - as was furnished by the schools of that day. He was a young man of great energy and wonderful industry, and an ability far above the average. After leaving school he learned the trade of carpenter, and followed that occupation most of his life. In 1825 he removed from Berks to Chester county, and settled in North Coventry township, where he continued to live until his death, June 14, 1853. By birthright he was a member of the Society of Friends, but in 1846 he joined the G-erman Baptist Brethren church, of which he remained a faithful ad- herent the remainder of his life. He was married twice — first to Margaret Hmstead, a daughter of Samuel Umstead, a prosper- ous farmer of Union township, Berks county. By this union he had a family of nine children, four sons and five daughters : Sam- uel, deceased; Umstead, also dead; Chris- tiana, married George Keim, a farmer of North Coventry township; Herman, now deceased, who was for many years paymas- ter on the Philadelphia & Reading railroad ; Hannah, married John A. Pennypacker, of Phoenixville ; Oliver, whose name introduces this sketch ; Elmira, died May 26, 1892, at the age of sixty-one years; Margaret, now the wife of Joseph Cox, of Philadelphia; and Elizabeth, who wedded John Cox, of the same city. The mother of these children, Mrs. Margaret Wells, died March 27, 1847, and Mr. Wells afterward, February, 1850, married Sarah Rinewalt, now also deceased. - Oliver Wells was reared principally in North Coventry township, this county, and received a good practical education in the common schools of his neighborhood. After attaining his majority he engaged in busi- ness for himself as a lumber merchant, and having the native energy and ability which constitutes the best working capital of life, he has met with good success, and is now in comfortable circumstances. If he is re- markable for any one thing, it is probably 370 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY the modesty with which he regards his own achievements and his reticence in speaking, or rather in never speaking, of them. On December 26, 1854, Mr. Wells was united in marriage with Katherine Mintzer, a daughter of Henry Mintzer, of Pottstown, Montgomery county, this State. To them was born a family of eight children : Jose- phine, married James K. Huey, an employee of Pottstown Iron Company, residing in North Coventry township ; Sophie, the wife of Rev. William Eader, a Congregationalist minister, now located at Biddeford, Maine; Harry M., James Edgar, Herman and Olivia, all four of whom died of diphtheria within one week, in March, 1872 ; Horace 0., who has just graduated (1892) from PhiUips academy, at Andover, Massachusetts, and will at once enter Williams college at Wil- liamstown, that State, where he proposes to take a full course ; and Cheyney T., resid- ing at home with his parents and attending school. Mrs. Wells is an earnest, capable woman, and is now in the fifty-eighth year of her age, having been born in North Coventry township, Chester county, in Feb- ruary, 1835. TAllLMER W. MacEIiREE is a son of James and Mariah (BuflSngton) Mac- Elree, and was born at West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, December 17, 1859. His paternal grandfather, George MacElree, was a native of Ireland, and died on board the vessel on which he had embarked for America. His son, James MacElree (father), was born in 1825, in Ireland, where he received an excellent education. He is a good scholar and a tine linguist. In 1847 he came to Pennsylvania, and settled in Lancaster county, where he taught school for several years, and worked some little at the carpenter trade, which he had learned in his native country before coming to America. In 1852 he came to West Chester, where he has resided ever since. He married Mariah Buffington, a member of the old and well known Buffington family, of Chester county, and to their union have been born two children : Wilmer W., and Dr. George A., who was graduated from the university of Pennsylvania, and is now engaged in the successful practice of his profession in Kansas. Wilmer W. MacElree grew to manhood in his native city, received his education in the public schools, and took special courses in languages under the tutorship of Prof. J. Hunter Worrall. He read law with John J. Pinkerton, was admitted the bar in 1880, and since then has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession at West Chester. On .January 18, 1884, Mr. MacElree was united in marriage with Ella Eyre, a daughter of David Eyre, of West Chester. To their union have been born three chil- dren, two sons and one daughther: Mary E., Willmer H., who died March 19, 1892, and J. Paul. Wilmer W. MacElree is a republican in politics upon the leading political issues of the day, but in State and local afiairs is in- clined to be rather independent in his sup- port of men and measures. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, of West Chester Lodge, No. 42, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Westminster Presbyterian church,of West Chester. Wilmer W. Mac- Elree has always realized the importance of the Sunday school as a potent factor in the growth of the church and the advancement of Christianity and civilization. He has OF CHESTER COUNTY. 371 labored arduously and successfully in es- tablishing Sunday schools in different parts of the county, where they had never existed or had gone down for want of necessary support. He has done consider- able lecturing on literary subjects through- out the county and in Philadelphia, and has interested himself in all efforts to promote or extend the beneficent influences of the religion of the E^azarene, which "the fishermen of Galilee brought to the throne of the Caesars." TA/LLMAR W. west, one of the prominent farmers and esteemed citi- zens of Sheeder, and a brother of Hon. Joseph G. West, is a son of David and Elizabeth (Green) West, and was born June 8, 1832, in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His pater- nal grandfather, David West, was a native of Chester county, and lived and died within her borders. He was a blacksmith by trade, and married and had an only son, David West (father), who was born in Goshen township, this county, January 1, 1803, where he was reared, and received the limited education afforded by the schools of that early day. Upon reaching his majority he engaged in farming, and some years later sold his farm of thirty acres and removed to East Pikeland township, and from there to East Vincent, on April 1, 1851. He continued to reside in East Vincent township until 1867, when he once more removed and settled at Kemblesville, Franklin township, where he died January 1, 1870, aged sixty-seven years. His life was principally devoted to agricultural pur- suits, and he owned a farm of one hundred and forty-three acres in East Pikeland town- ship, and another of a hundred and forty- two acres in East Vincent. He was a democrat in early life, but changed to the opposition during the Harrison campaign of 1840, and adhered firmly to the republi- can party from its formation. For a number of years he served as justice of the peace in East Pikeland township, and was a man of strong will and good judgment, holding the respect of all who knew him. In religion he was a Quaker, and for many years an active and influential member of the Society of Friends. He married Eliza- beth Green, a daughter of John Green, of Vincent township, and was the father of six children, five sons and a daughter: Anna, now the widow of Levi Pennypacker ; Thomas G., who married Edith Green (now deceased), and lives in Wisconsin ; J. Pierce, (deceased) was a farmer and justice of the peace in this county, and married Elizabeth J. Maris, who survives him and now resides in Philadelphia, where her husband was for some time a clerk in the office of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and where he died January 22, 1886, aged fifty-seven years; William, deceased in early life ; Wilmar W., the subject of this sketch; and Dr. Joseph G., who married Ella Haynes (now deceased), and lives in Franklin township, this county, practically retired from active business. Dr. Joseph G. West was born May 2, 1834, educated at Pughtown, Oakdale seminary, and Strobe's school, then managed by Professor Levis; taught school in Lebanon county one winter, and afteward read medicine with Dr. Maurice Fussell, of Chester Springs. Later he entered the medical department of the university of Penn- sylvania, and was graduated from that institution with the degree M. D., in the 273 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY class of 1860. He located at Kemblesville, this county, in the fall of that year, where he was successfully engaged in practice and also conducted a drug store until 1889, when he retired and was succeeded by his son, Dr. Frederick West. Dr. Joseph G. West served as postmaster at Kemblesville for a number of years, and in 1890 was elected by the republicans of Chester county as a member of the house of repre- sentatives of Pennsylvania, running one hundred and four votes ahead of his ticket, and receiving a total vote of ten thousand four hundred and sixty-four. He is now (1892) a candidate for re-election. Wilmar W. West was reared principally in East Pikeland township, and came to East Vincent with his father's family when about nineteen years of age, and has resided here ever since. His education was obtained in the public schools of his neighborhood, and after leaving school he settled down to farming, and has been exclusively engaged in agricultural pursuits, in which he has been successful. He is a man of marked intelligence, and in his political affiliations has always been republican, though never taking an active part in politics. On September 5, 1885, Mr. West united in marriage with Elizabeth Green, a daugh- ter of John Green, of Chester county, this State. ,To them was born a family of four children : John G., who married Flora Pennypacker and resides on the old home- stead; William G., wedded Anna Barker and now lives at Sylmar, Cecil county, Maryland ; David, now a clerk in the office of the Western Publishing Company, at Chicago, Illinois; and Ada, who married Chester Smith, a prosperous farmer of East Vincent township, this county. Mrs. Eliza- beth West died June 21, 1862, at the early age of twenty-seven years, and on May 18, 1864, Mr. West wedded Joanna Rowland, a daughter of Joseph Rowland, of East Vincent township. By this second mar- riage he had three children, two sons and a daughter: Charles 0., deceased; Jen- nie B., also dead; and Elton G., now a machinist and pipe repairer in the city of Philadelphia. J. Piej-ce West had three children by his marriage with Elizabeth J. Maris, one son and two daughters: Levi G., who married Caroline H. Burrell, and now resides in the city of Philadelphia, where he is engaged in the flour and feed business ; Anna, mar- ried William C. Passmore, a well-to-do farmer of London Britain township, this county; and Emma F., who has acquired considerable skill and reputation as a teacher of the deaf, and is now traveling in Europe, studying the methods in use among such teachers on the continent. QEORGE KEIM, one of the oldest and best known farmers in the vicinity of Kenilworth, is the fifth child and third son of Jacob and Hannah (Swetzer) Keim, and saw the light first, June 29, 1814, in Nantmeal township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on the farm, where he be- came familiar with '' hard work and plenty of it," and received his education in the common schools of the neighborhood. After leaving school he learned the carpenter trade and has worked at that business a great deal, though engaged in farming to some extent, and also in boating and burn- ing lime. When a young man he run a boat on the Schuylkill canal for some nine years, and afterward operated a lime-kiln in this county for nearly a quarter of a cen- OF CHESTER COVNTY. 273 tury, manufacturing building lime and sup- plying Pottstown with his product for many years before there was a railroad in this section. In his political opinions he is a republican, and has served as school director for two terms in I^orth Coventry township. He is a strict adherent of the religious de- nomination known as the Brethren or Dunkards, and takes an active part in sup- porting its various interests. On January 14, 1841, Mr. Keim was mar- ried to Christina Wells, a daughter of James Wells, a prosperous farmer of ]!Torth Cov- entry township, and the fruit of their union was a family of five children : James W., formerly a merchant at Kenilworth, but now deceased; Elizabeth, also deceased; Her- man, likewise dead ; Mary, married Wiley Ragan, a grocer at Pottstown, Montgomery county, where they reside; and Martha, now the wife of James A. Healy, a member of the coal and lumber firm of J. A. Healy & Bro., of Pottstown. The mother, Mrs. Christina Keim, is a native of Iforth Cov- entry township, this county, and was born December 13, 1817. She is consequently now in her seventy-fifth year, and remark- ably active for a woman of her age. The paternal grandfather of the present George Keim was also named George. He was a native of Chester county, where he lived all his life, and died in East JSTantmeal township about 1822, at an advanced age. By occupation he was a farmer and stock raiser, and married Catharine Shingle, by whom he had a family of eight children, three sons and five daughters. One of his sons, Jacob Keim (father), was born about 1777, in Chester county, and lived in ISTant- meal township, where he died about 1822, at the early age of forty-five years. He was also devoted to agricultural pursuits, was an old-line whig in politics, and served as tax collector of East Ifantmeal township. In religious faith and church membership he was a Dunkard or German Baptist, as was his wife, Hannah Swetzer. They had a family of six children, four sons and two daughters : David, who resides in Warwick township, and is now in his eighty-ninth year ; Samuel, who lived on the old home- stead in Warwick township, but is now de- ceased ; Esther, also deceased ; Kessiah, who married David Wells, a farmer of ITorth Coventry township ; George, the principal subject of this sketch ; and Jonathan, who now resides in Montgomery county. James Wells, the father of Mrs. Keim, was a native of Berks county, this State, born March 25, 1790, in Robinson township. He learned the trade of carpenter when a young man, and in later life removed to Chester county and became a farmer. He died at his, home in this county June 25, 1853, aged sixty-three years. Politically he was a whig, and in religion a Dunkard, or German Baptist. He married Margaret Umstead, by whom he had a family of nine children, four sons and five daughters : Sam- uel, Umstead and Herman, deceased ; Oliver, Christiana, and Hannah, living; Elmira, deceased; Margaret and. Elizabeth, living. V JACOB HIGH, an excellent farmer and deservedly popular citizen of this county, residing near Vincent, was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania, December 31, 1827, and is the second son of Henry and Anna (East) High. He was reared on the farm, inured to hard work, and has spent a long and rather active life in agricultural pur- suits, in which he has been remarkably suc- cessful. He now owns two fine farms in 374 BIOGRAPHY ANDimSTOBY East Vincent township, one containing sev- enty-two acres and the other eighty-two. Each is well improved and valuable. His education was obtained in the common schools of his neighborhood, and he has al- ways manifested considerable interest in public questions and kept himself well posted on passing events. Though never taking an active part in politics he is a stanch republican, and being a man of deep religious convictions, has long been a strict member of the German Reformed church, which he has served for many years, in the capacity of elder. In 1857 Mr. High was wedded to Hannah Keyser, a daughter of Isaac Keyser, of Vin- cent, and by that union had two children. The eldest, Anna E., married John W. Gulp, who now resides with Mr. High. The younger child was a son named "William H., who is now deceased. Mrs. High died in 1862, at the early age of thirty years, and on Christmas eve, 1865, Mr. High married Elizabeth Tyson, a daughter of Mathias Tyson, of East Vincent township. To thiem was born two daughters : Mary F., now the wife of Winfield S. Wismer, a prosperous farmer of East Coventry township; and Lilia B., living at home with her parents. Mrs. High's father, Mathias Tyson, was born in 1809, in Worcester township, Montgom- ery county, this State, where he lived until 1840, when he removed to Chester county, settling in East Vincent township, where he died in 1874, aged sixty-seven. He belonged to the yeomanry of the land and spent his life principally in the cultivation of the soil. In politics he was a whig and republican, and by religious conviction and church mem- bership a Dunkard or German Baptist. He married Kezia Ranck, of Lancaster county, in 1838, and had a family of four children : Anna, deceased ; Elizabeth, now Mrs. High ; Susan, who married David G. Burgey ; and Emaline, now deceased. The Highs are of German desceaai; but have been native Peunsylvanians for many generations. Jacob High, paternal grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Cumberland county, this State, where he lived all his life and where he died at an advanced age. He was a farmei* and stock raiser, and in politics identified him- self with what is known as the old-line whigs. He married Magdalene Gable, by whom he had a family of two children, and after her death married again, and had a family of four or five children. Henry High (father) was born in East Vincent township, this county, about 1798, and died at his home in North Coventry township in November, 1858, aged sixty years. He was a farmer by occupation, a whig and repub- lican politically, and a member of the Men- nonite church. In 1825 he married Anna East, a daughter of Samuel East, of Berks county, and to them was born a family of nine children, three sons and six daughters : Samuel, Jacob and Henry, the latter now deceased ; Mary, Sarah and Leah, also dead ; Elizabeth, the wife of Adam Mench, of Upper Providence, Montgomery county; Kate, now the wife of John Mench, of Potts- town, Montgomery county, and Anna, un- married. The High family is an old one in Penn- sylvania, and has given the Commonwealth a number of useful, industrious and honor- able citizens. ^jM ILLIAM E. REIFF, secretary and treasurer of the Keystone Agricul- tural works of Pottstown, who is also in- terested in various other enterprises in this OF CHESTER CO UNI Y. 276 State and elsewhere, is the second child and only son of Rudolph and Magdalena (East) Reift", and was born March 3, 1836, near Pottstown, in North Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared principally on the farm and received his early education in the common schools of his neighborhood, completing his studies in Freeland seminary, at what is now called CoUegeville, Montgomery county. At the close of the civil war he embarked in the lumbering business on his own account in North Carolina, as a member of the firm of Landis, Whitman & Co. He remained there only one year, and then returned to his old home in Pennsylvania and opened a grocery store at Pottstown Landing, which he suc- cessfully conducted for more than twelve years, building up a large and lucrative trade and becoming quite prosperous. In 1881 he became secretary and treasurer of the Keystone Agricultural works at Pottstown, a position which he has continued to fill with ability and distinction ever since. He is a stockholder in the business, and to his energy, enterprise and executive talents is due in a large measure the growing success of this manufacturing concern. Mr. Reiff is also a stockholder and director in the Pottstown National Iron bank, and a mem- ber of the Pottstown Land and Improve- ment Company, in which he is likewise a director. In addition to his other business enterprises he is interested in the Montgom- ery Lead and Zinc Mining Company, of Joplin, Jasper county, Missouri, the business of which is owned principally by Pennsyl- vania capitalists. On February 24, 1869, Mr. Reifl" was united in marriage with Emma M. Law, a daughter of Bavis and Rebecca (Urner) Law, of this county. In his political affilia- 18 tions he has always been a republican, and while he is no politician and entertains a distaste for what is known as practical poli- tics, he is at all times well posted on current questions, and exercises a gOod deal of in- fluence in his party. The Reifl:8 are of Grerman descent, but have been honored citizens of the Com- monwealth of Pennsylvania since early times. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Joseph Reifi", was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, his ancestors having removed from Leaeock township, Lancaster county, to this county, about 1750, and settled in North Coventry township. There he continued to reside until his death in 1838, at which time he had attained the age of nearly sixty-one years. He was a farmer by occupation and became very prosperous, owning large tracts of land and conducting his operations on an extensive scale. In religious faith he was a Mennonite, and a life-long member of that church, while politically he adhered to the old whig party. He married Sarah Harley, and was the father of ten children. Rudolph Reiff (father) was born in North Coventry township, this county, in 1808, and passed his entire life in that township. He was reared on the farm, educated in the common schools of that day, and devoted his life to the cultivation of the soil and stock raising. His farm contained one hun- dred and thirty-six acres of excellent land, to which he afterward added ten acres, and was always well cultivated and carefully managed. He died at his home in North Coventry township in 1884, aged seventy- six years. Politically he was a whig and republican, and in religion a strict member of the Mennonite church. He was an active man, of sound judgment and good business ■276 BIOOMAPHY AND HISTOSY ability, and served as director of the Potts- town Mutual Insurance Company for many years, and was also a director in the Potts- town Bridge Company. He married Mag- dalena East, of Berks county, Pennsylvania, by whom he had a family of three children, one son and two daughters. The eldest was Mary A., who married Isaac Delwiter, a prosperous farmer residing at Charleston village, this county. They have three children. The other daughter, Sarah, wedded William W. Yarnell, a farmer of North Coventry township, this county, and has three children. The mother, Mrs. Mag- dalena Eeiff, died in 1840, in the twenty- ninth year of her age, and greatly respected and beloved by her neighbors and friends. TSAAC J. TUSTIN, one of the active business men of Phcenixville, and who has been a large dealer in agricultural im- plements since 1880, is a son of Jones and Elizabeth (Pennypacker) Tustiu, and was born in SchuylkiU township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 19, 1854. He was reared on the farm, received his education in the common schools of his native county, and was engaged in farming until 1880. In that year he removed to Phcenixville, and established his present business house, which is located on Bridge street. He handles agricultural implements of all kinds, has a heavy and well selected stock of reapers, mowers, horse rakes, plows and improved cultivators; also deals in fine carriages and wagons, and commands a good trade in the northern part of Chester and the westca-n part of Montgomery county. He has good facilities for shipment over a wide area of surrounding country, and being a practical farmer is specially qualified to select the best and most useful farm machinery to be had in the market. Mr. Tustin -has made himself master of his business, in which he takes great delight to serve the best interests of his numerous patrons. His business is marked by a steady annual increase, and its present pros- perity augurs well for the future. He is a republican in pQlitics. On September ,6, 1882, Mr. Tustin was united in marriage with Hannah L., daugh- ter of Reuben and Mary Caveny, of Juniata county. Isaac J. Tustin, as the name of Tustin would imply, is of Welsh lineage, and his grandfather, Isaac Tustin, was a farmer and life-long resident of Chester county. He was an old- line whig, and a member of the Baptist church. He married a Miss Jones, by whom he had five children : Jones, Joseph, Isaac (now deceased), John (dead), and Rachel. Jones Tustin, the first son and father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Chester Springs, in West Pike- land township, September 10, 1816. He was engaged extensively in farming until about ten years ago, when he retired from active business life. He is a republican and Lutheran, and still takes an active part in the affairs of his party and church. In 1838 Jones Tustin wedded Elizabeth Pennypacker, who was a con- sistent member of the Evangelical Lu- theran church, and passed away from this earthly life and its troubles on January 26, 1877, when in the fifty-eighth year of her age. To their union were born three childi-en, two sons and one daughter: Milton, now clerk in the employ of the Phoenix Iron Company ; Annie, wife of James Anderson, a farmer of this county ; and Isaac J. The Tustin family possesses the same OF GHESTES COUNTY. 21^ characteristics that have distinguished the numerous old and highly respected "Welsh families of this county, some of whom came over with Penn, and all of whom are noted for thrift, energy and honesty. lyr A J. GEORGE M. RUPERT, a mem- ^ ber of the Chester cQunty bar, who has been engaged since 1859 in the active practice of his profession at West Chester, is a son of William and Rachel (Achuff) Rupert, and was born in Upper Oxford township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 12, 1835. His paternal grand- father, "William Rupert, sr., was born and reared in Philadelphia county, ere the city limits had become identical with the county boundary lines. He received a good edu- cation in the select and academic schools of the "Quaker City," which he left about 1820, to settle in Upper Oxford township, this county, where he purchased a farm. He followed teaching, was enthusiastically devoted to his profession, and was one of the most successful teachers of his day. He was a useful and well respected citizen in the community where he resided. He married and reared a family of industrious and respectable sons and daughters. His son, "William Rupert, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1808, in Philadelphia county, and at twelve years of age was brought by his parents to Upper Oxford township. He received a good English education ■ and after arriving at manhood's estate removed to "West Fallow- field, where he was engaged in the general mercantile business, and which he re- linquished some years before his death, whicTi occured in April, 1878, when he was in the seventieth year of his age. He was an active and thorough-going man, and in addition to merchandising, was engaged to some extent in farming. He married Rachel Achuff, who died April 13, 1890, aged seventy-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Rupert were the parents of seven children, of whom six grew to maturity : Noah, who is engaged in farming in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania; George M., Alfred, a justice of the peace and stationer of "West Chester, who has served as prothonotary of the county, and whose sketch appears in this volume ; Charles A., who is postmaster at Ercildoun, East Fallowfield township, where he has served for several years as general manager of a large mercantile establish- ment; David H., who holds a position in the office of the Philadelphia Street Trac- tion Railway Company; and Martha J., who married John Y. Latta, a cattle dealer and prominent business man of Sadsbury town- ship, and died a few years ago. George M. Rupert grew to manhood in his native county, received his education at Hopewell academy, and then made choice of the legal profession as his life vocation. He read law with Judge "William Butler, then of Chester county, but now a United States District judge at Philadelphia, and under his instruction acquired a good theoretical and practical knowledge of law, as Judge Butler had an extensive clientage and tried many important cases in the difterent courts of Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the bar on October 20, 1859, and has been engaged in the active and successful practice of his pro- fession at "West Chester ever si'nce. He believes that willingness and application are among the main things necessary to success in the practice of the law. He is a republican in politics, but gives his time 278 BlOQIiAPHY AND HISTORY chiefly to his professoual labors. He is a member of Holy Trinity Protestant Episco- pal church, and West Chester Lodge, No. 322, Free and Accepted Masons. When Lee threatened the fair fields of the Keystone State in 1862, Mr. Rupert left his practice and enlisted in a regiment of Emergency men, of which he was made major. Again in 1863, when Lee poured his legions into Maryland, Mr. Rupert hastened to offer his services to the au- thorities of his native State, and was detailed to serve at Harrisburg under General Couch, who commanded the depart- ment of the Susquehanna. On June 15, 1871, Mr. Rupert was united in marriage with Anne B. Briuton, daugh- ter of John B. Brinton, of West Chester. To their union have been born three children, one son and two daughters: Bessie B., Anne B., and George H. JEREMIAH S. LEOPOLD, now de- ceased, was a prosperous farmer who lived an active and useful life, serving many years as president of the Pottsgrove Live Stock Insurance company, and becoming widely known in this part of the Keystone State. He was the only son of Jacob aud Catharine (Strunk) Leopold, and was born January 8, 1818, in E"orth Coventry town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on the farm and received the best education aftbrded by the country schools of that day. After leaving school he devoted himself almost exclusively to agricultural pursuits, except a few years spent in running a market in the city of Philadelphia, and became the owner of a fine farm of one hundred and six acres in his native township of North Coventry, in the management of which he was very suc- cessful. He was a man of good business ability aud sound judgment, and for a period of eighteen years he served as president of the Pottsgrove Live Stock Insurance com- pany, of Pottstown. In political sentiment he was an ardent democrat, and while never taking a very active part in politics, was al- ways found supporting the great principles of equality and justice enunciated by the founders and early leaders of his party. His was an intensely religious nature, and for many years he was a strict member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and later became attached to Shenkel's Reformed church. He died on his farm June 24, 1887, in the seventieth year of his age, and greatly respected and beloved by a wide circle of friends, old and young. On October 6, 1864, Mr. Leopold was married to Sallie Stauffer, a daughter of John and Susan (Benner) Stauffer, of Ches- ter county. To Mr. and Mrs. Leopold was born a family of five children, two sons and three daughters : Emma K., born January 2, 1866 ; Annie L., born September 30, 1869 ; A. Howard, born February 18, 1871; G. Warren, born July 15, 1873 ; and Mai-y H., born August 19, 1876. MrSj^Saliie A. Leo- pold is a native of East Coventry township, this county, born May 23, 1841, and is con- sequently now in the fifty-first year of h©r age. After the death of Mr. Leopold the family removed to South Pottstown, whese they now reside, and where they have a commodious, well arranged and beautiful home, which in every part displays the great care and excellent taste with which it is kept. Jacob Leopold, father of the subject of this sketch, was born July 2, 1790, in Forth Coventry township, Chester county, where OF CHESTEB COUNTY. zn he lived all his life, dying March 11, 1872, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. He was a farmer by occupation, but worked some at the mason's trade, which he had learned when a young man. In political faith he was a Jacksonian democrat, and in religious life a strict member of the Evan- gelical Lutheran church, which he served as elder for many yeare. He married Cath- arine Strunk, February 21, 1817, and was the father of three children, one son and two daughters. The eldest of these was Jeremiah 8., whose brief biography has here been given. The second was Mary A., born October 19, 1820, who married Arnold Pen- nypacker (now deceased), and lives at Vin- cent, this county. The youngest daughter was Elizabeth A., whose natal day was December 20, 1831. John Leopold, father of Jacob Leopold, came to this country from Germany when a boy, and lived on the same farm till an advanced age. Three genera- tions lived and died on the same farm. J'OSEPH C. GREEN, a well known general merchant of Pughtown, is the eldest son of John and Sarah (Morrison) Green, and was born in East Vincent town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Octo- ber 18th, 1826. His paternal grandfather, George Green, was a native of Bdgemont, Delaware county, this state, and lived and died on the farm where he was born. He spent his life in agricultural pursuits, was- a large land owner, and died about 1842, in his feightieth year, leaving an estate valued at eighty thousand dollars. Politically he was &n old-line whig and became prominent i II the politics of his section. He was elected to the position of commissioner of Delaware county, and served in that capacity a num- ber of years. In religious faith he was a Quaker, and was a life-long member of the Society of Friends. He married Mary Chaney, who was also a Quaker, and who, being gifted in speech, frequently preached for the Friends in that county. They reared a family of seven children: Chaney, Edith, John, Jesse, Hiram, Isaac, and Mary A., all of whom are now deceased! John Green (father) was born on the old Green home- stead in Delaware county in 1801, from which he removed to East Vincent town- ship, Chester county, in the spring of 1826. He was an intelligent, progressive farmer, and did much to encourage improved meth- ods among the farmers of his neighborhood, being among the first in Chester county to introduce and use lime on his lands. His farm was always well kept and carefully cultivated, and he became very successful and prosperous. He died at his home in East Vincent township, October 10th, 1876, at the good old age of seventy-four years. In politics he was a whig and republican, and served as supervisor and constable of his township. In 18 — he married Sarah Morrison, a daughter of John Morrison, of Delaware county, and to them was born ii family of ten children, four sons and six daughters: Joseph C, the subject of this sketch ; Hannah, who married Levi Penny- packer, and is now deceased ; Mary, also . dead ; Edith, married Thomas G. West, and died in 1891 ; George, also deceased ; Eliza- beth, wedded Wilmer "W. West, and is now dead ; Martha, also deceased ; Rebecca, now the wife of Isaac P. Davis, a farmer of East Vincent township ; John, now in the grocery business in Philadelphia, who served three years as a musician in the army during the civil war, and later married Bell Penny- packer, by whom he has a family of (children ; .380 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOMY and George, a machinist of Pottstown, who married Lovina Staufer and has three chil- dren living and one dead. Joseph C. Green was reared principally on his father's farm in East Vincent town- ship, and received the best education ob- tainable in the public schools of this county. After leaving school he engaged in agricul- tural pursuits to some extent, and remained a resident of his native (township for half a century. In 1877 he removed to Pughtown, where he conducted a hotel for one year, and then embarked in the general mer- chandise business, which he has very suc- cessfully managed ever since. He owns the handsome buildingin which he does busi- ness, and also the building now occupied by the public school, and sixteen acres of valu- able land upon which is a handsome brick residence adjoining Pughtown. Politically he is a republican, but takes no active part in politics. He is a member of Strichter Lodge, N"o. 254, Free and Accepted Masons, of Pottstown, and also of Yankton Tribe, "Eo. 218, Improved Order of Red Men, at Pughtown, of which latter he has served as treasurer. In 1866 Mr. Green was married to Leah Priser, a daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Priser, of South Coyentry town- ship. FRANK N. SAVAGE, one of the lead- ing young farmers of East Coventry township, now residing on the old Savage homestead near Parker Ford, is the young- est son of Davis and Aquilla (Harley) Sav- age, and was born in East Coventry town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania,. April 26, 1863. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Zenue Savage, was a native of Chester county, and for many years a farmer of East Coventry township, where he died at an advanced age, on the old homestead now in possession of Frank N. Savage. He was a democrat in political opinion, and married Rebecca March, by whom he had a family of four children : Washington, now deceased, but a resident of East Coventry township during life, where he was engaged as a farmer and car- penter, having also been connected with the foundry and stove manufacturing business ; Davis (father) ; Emaline, married George Missuiner, and after his death wedded Hern Dietrick ; and Elias Swortley, who now re- sides in Florida. Davis Savage (father) was born at the old homestead in East Coventry township, December 29, 1828. He was educated in the common schools and after- ward taught one term himself, when he set- tled down to farining in East Coventry township. There he continued to reside, engaged in agricultural pursuits, until his death, February 5, 1890, when in his sixty- second year. Politically he was a repub- lican, and his sound judgment and other stable qualities caused him to be elected jqstice of the peace in his township, an office he administered with satisfaction to the pub- lic and credit to himself during an entire decade. In 1850 he married Aquilla Har- ley, a daughter of Benjamin Harley, of N^orth Coventry township, who was a farmer in early life, a butcher in his later days, and served for fifteen years as a justice of the peace in his township. By this marriage Mr. Savage had a family of five children : Wilmot, born October 17, 1851, and died November 14, 1851 ; Rebecca, born October 9, 1852, married Christian Miller, of Seattle, State of Washington, a contractor and builder in the employ of the Puget Sound Improvement Company, who has four chil- dren — Davis, Chanceford, Edmund and Ina OF CHESTER COUNTY. 381 Kate ; Allen, born March 7, 1854, deceased August 25, 1861; Caroline, born November 23, 1856, married Elwood Leopold, a pros- perous farmer x)f East Coventry township, and has one child — Stella; and Frank N., the subject of this sketch. The mother, Mrs. Aquilla Savage, was born July 11, 1829, and passed away from earth August 27, 1891, at almost the exact age at which her husband died in 1890. Frank N. Savage was reared at the old homestead in East Coventry township, this county, inured to farm labor and familiar with all the varied processes of successful agriculture. He received a good English education in the public schools of the neigh- borhood, and after leaving school determ- ined to become a farmer, and has spent all his life in the cultivation of the soil. He now owns a line farm of forty-two acres of valuable land, splendidly improved and sup- plied with all necessary farm biiildings. In- heriting the energy and enterprise of his ancestors, he promises to attain still greater success in the years to come. On Christmas day, 1883, Mr. Savage was wedded to Amelia J. Reagan, a daughter of Washington Reagan, residing near Pugh- town, this county. Their union has been blessed by the birth of one child, a son named Davis "Washington, who was born January 9, 1885. I^AVID G. WELLS, first burgess of Spring City, and one of the substantial business men of the Schuylkill valley, is a son bf Jesse and Mary (Grubb) Wells. He was borri on September 12, 1825, in I^orth Coventry township, this county, where he was reared on the farm and received a good practical English education. Arriving at man's estate he saw no opening in any busi- ness that was then within his reach that was more profitable than farming, and pur- chased his father's farm, which he owned and tilled for two years. He then sold the farm and was engaged successfully at Spring City for four years in the general mercan- tile business with his brother, Joseph Wells, and David S. Taylor. At the end of that time, in 1861, he became a member of the firm of Smith, Francis & Wells, which leased the Spring City foundry for ten years, but after seven years of that time had elapsed, he withdrew from the company to engage in farming in North Coventry township, ■ where he remained one year. He then pur- chased a farm in the neighborhood of Kim- berton. East Pikeland township, which he disposed of four years later to build a bakery at Spring City, which he owned for two years. He was then interested in various lines of business until 1874; when he pur- chased his present dairy farm of sixteen acres, and has been engaged in dairying ever since. In 1862, when Lee was pushing his veteran columns northward across the State of Maryland, Mr. Wells was one of those who volunteered to defend his country and State from Confederate invasion. He was commissioned as second lieutenant of Co. C, 21st Pennsylvania militia, and served until the army of Northern Virginia was defeated at Antietam and driven back across the Potomac. Mr. Wells served two con- secutive terms as burgess of Spring City, and at present is a member of the borough school board, of which body he has been trieasurer and secretary. He is a prohibi- tionist in politics, and has been an active member for eighteen years of the German Baptist church of Coventry, of whose Sun- 282 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY- day school he has served as superintendent for several terms. In 1851 Mr. Wells married Emeline, daughter of Jacob Sharitz, a farmer of Parker Ford. To their union was born eleven children, five sons and six daughters : Isaac Erwin, Samuel, Enos Milton, Clara, Joseph, George, Ella, Annie, Emma, Katie, and one daughter who died in infancy. After the death of his first wife, on the 4th of June, 1890, David G. Wells married Sarah A. Grubb, formerly of Coventry, lat- terly of Philadelphia. She was a daiighter of Peter and Catharine Grubb, of Coventry, both now deceased, and granddaughter of David Grubb, herein mentioned. David G.Wells is known as an intelligent, honest and reliable man. He traces his paternal ancestry back to the old Quaker Wells family of Chester county, of which his grandfather, Joseph Wells, was a mem- ber. Joseph Wells was a farmer by occu- pation, and an old-line whig in politics, and removed to Joanna Heights in Berks county, where he died. He married and reared a family of ten children : Isaac, Samuel,Wil- liam, James, Edmund, Jesse, Joseph, David, Ann and Hannah. Jesse Wells, the sixth son, and the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1798, at Joanna Heights, where he was reared and grew to manhood, after which he removed to North Coventry township, opposite Pottstown. He there learned the trade of weaver, which was then a much more profitable business than at the present day. He purchased a small farm soon after removing to Iforth Coventry, where he was engaged in farming and weav- ing from 1828 to 1840, when he went to Berks county, in which he remained two years. He then came to East Vincent town- ship and purchased a farm of eighty acres, one mile west of Spring City, on which he resided until 1855, when he came to the above named borough, where he died in 1876, aged seventy-eight years. While liv- ing in North Coventry township, Jesse Wells married Mary Grubb, who was a daughter of David Grubb, and died in 1883, aged eighty-seven years. They reared a family of three children : Lieut. David G. ; Joseph, a merdhant of Spring City, who died in September, 1858; and Mary A., widow of Samuel B. Taylor, and now a resi- dent of Spring City. The Wells family is widely known for its industry and thrift, and its reputation is ably sustained by David G. Wells, whose name heads this sketch. riNDREW J. WILLIAMS, general manager for the Parkesburg Iron Company, and a successful business man who has done much for the upbuilding of his town and county, and the development ! of the industrial interests of this section, ; is a son of David D. and Esther (Way) Wil- liams, and was born in West Cain township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 16, ; 1840. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Williams, was a native of Scotland, where he married and from whence he came with his wife to the United States about 1800, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where they resided only a short time before re- moving to Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was a tailor by trade, and engaged in that occupation for many years near Fogg's Manor, this county, where he died in 1855, at an advanced age. During the war of 1812 he served as a soldier in the American army, was a democrat in politics, and a mem- ber of the United Presbyterian church. His son, David D. Williams (father) was a OF CHESTER COUNTY. native of this county, born near Fogg's Manor in 1809, and reared and educated at that place. After attaining manhood he married Esther Way, and became a prosper- ous farmer of West Cain township, this county, where he lived until his death in 1849, at the early age of forty years. Like his father he was a democrat and a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church. Mrs. Wil- liams was born near Cochransville, this county, was a member of the Presbyterian church, and died in 1843. Andrew J. Williams was left an orphan when only three years old, and was reared on a farm in West Cain township until he had attained his eighteenth year. He at- tended the public schools in boyhood, and later took a course of instruction in the academy at !N^ew Bloomfield, Perry county, finishing by two terms at the Coatesville academy. After leaving school he engaged in teaching for nearly three years, and in 1863 entered the employ of the Hibernia Iron Works in West Cain township as a clerk, where he remained until 1872. In that year he came to Parkesburg as super- intendent of the iron works here, and since 1882 has occupied the position of general manager of the Parkesburg Iron Company in which he is a stockholder and director. This extensive industrial concern was es- tablished in 1873, and in 1882 was in- corporated and the present organization effected. The product consists principally of tube skelp, which is iron used for boiler tubes, and the output is about ten thousand tons every year. The mills are fitted up with improved appliances, railroad switches pass through the yards, incandescent lights are used, telephonic connection is had, and an average force of two hundred and fifty workmen are employed. The product of these works is known as of a superior or- der, and is much sought after by consumers all over the country. Mr. Williams is, also a stockholder in the Parkesburg Water Company and the Coatesville Opera House Company, and is treasurer of the Parkes- burg Building and Loan association. In January, 1879, Mr. Williams was mar- ried to Sarah L. Wilson, a daughter of Ol- iver P. Wilson, of Sadsbury township, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Williams have been born one son and two daughters : El- len B., Augusta H., and Horace A. Politically Mr. Williams is an ardent re- publican, always giving his party a loyal and active support, and has served as a member of the borough council. He is a member of Coatesville Lodge, ISo. 564, Free and Accepted Masons; and of the Parkesburg Beneficial association, of which latter he is now vice president. In 18-63 he enlisted at Coatesville in an independent cavalry company, called the Continental troop, and was sworn into the service of the United States, but never assigned to any regiment. They served for two or three months as a body guard for Gen. Baldy Smith. Mr. Williams is treasurer of the Episcopal church of Parkesburg. |3EV. JOSEPH S. EVANS, an honored ▼■ minister and respected citizen of West Chester, and who has served continuously for thirty-two years as the pastor of the Goshen Baptist church of West Goshen township, is a son of Thomas and Phoebe (Spragg) Evans, and was born in Mount Holly, New Jersey, September 15, 1831. The Evans family of Chester county, of whom the subject of this sketch is a mem- ber, is of Welsh descent, and was founded 286 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTOSY by Lot Evans, who came from Wales and settled in Uwchland township, where he fol- lowed farming until his final summons to rest from earthly labor came to him. His son, Jesse Evans (grandfather), was born and reared in Uwchland township, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits until his death. He married and reared a family of children. One of his sons, Thomas Evans (father), was born in 1786, and learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed for some years. Being a man of far more than ordinary intelligence, he soon became active and prominent in his community. He was a whig in politics, and served for several years as deputy sherifl' of Chester county. He was a nlember of the Society of Friends, and died March 31, 1838, when in the fifty-second year of his age. He married a Miss Graves, who died at an early age, and he then wedded Phcebe Spragg, a daughter of Jesse Spragg, who was a native of New Jersey, and at the time of his death a resi- dent of West Chester, where his widow lived to be over one hundred years of age. Mrs. Phoebe (Spragg) Evans was born September 28, 1797, and died July 16, 1886, aged eighty-nine years. By his second marriage Thomas Evans had seven children, four sous and three daughters : Martha, wife of Adam Webber, of West Chester ; Catharine, widow of Chambers Heck, of West Chester ; Cha- rity, widow of James Pope, of Burlington, New Jersey, and now a resident of the city of Philadelphia; Rev. Joseph S. Evans, and Lewis'Y. Evans, now residing in Chester county, Pennsylvania. Joseph S. Evans received his education ■ at Lewisburg (now Bucknell) university, which he was compelled by impaired health 'to leave some time before his class was graduated. Leaving college he returned to the farm, where he remained until he was twenty-four years of age, and then having regained his health to some extent, he en- gaged in teaching, which he followed for ten years, the last six of which he was prin- cipal of one of the West Chester schools. During the latter years of his teaching he studied for the ministry. He was licensed to preach on November 17, 1860, and on November 14, 1861, was ordained to the ministry, in which he has continued to serve Goshen. Baptist church up to the present time, excepting about one year that he spent in the Union army during the last war, as a chaplain and teacher. In 1866 Mr. Evans opened a first class drug store at No. 9 North Church street, which he has operated successfully ever since. He keeps a choice stock of fresh and pure drugs, has courteous clerks, and makes a specialty of filling prescriptions. On February 9, 1859, Mr. Evans married liuth Anna Peirce, daughter of Richard- son Peirce, of Westtown, this county, and to their union have been born six children, one son and five daughters : Sallie, (dead) ; Mary, Willie Anna, now dead; Sarah, Ruth, de- ceased; and Joseph S., attending Haverford college, Pennsylvania, from which time-hon- ored institution of learning he will be gradu- ated in the class of 1895. Rev. Joseph S. Evans is a republican in politics, but no aspirant for office and never takes any part in party contests, although a close observer of political matters, upon which he keeps well informed. He enlisted in the United States service in 1862 as chap- lain of the 124th Pennsylvania infantry, and served for nearly one year. He has acted for twenty years as chaplain of Gen. George A. McCall Post, No. 31, Grand Army of the Republic, of West Chester, and has served OF CHESTER COUNTY. 287 since 1890 as chaplain of the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. The Goshen Baptist church is situated in West Goshen township, at the junction of the old Philadelphia and Strasburg roads, and some two miles from "West , Chester. The first church building was erected in 1809, for the use of all denominations, until the Baptists should be strong enough to organize a church, which they did January 20, 1827. Its pastors have been Revs. Simeon Sigfried, Robert Compton, A. G. Compton, Charles E. Moore, Enos Barker, Thomas Griffith, Henry Essick, Josiah Phil- lips, George W. Mitchell, F. Jasinky, John Reece, J. W. Warwick, and Joseph S. Evans since N"ovember 14, 1861. When Rev. Evans became pastor of Goshen church it was not in a very flourish- ing condition, but under his labors it has increased from thirty -five members in 1861 to over two hundred at this time. The old church building having been damaged by fire in February, 1874, Rev. Evans then ad- vocated the erection of a new church, and was so successful in his efibrts that he se- cured $3,200, with which the present hand- some stone church was erected on the site of the old one. He moved with so much expedition in the undertaking that the new church was dedicated on November 25, 1874, having been erected in less than six months. Rev. Evans is a sound logieian,.a clear thinker, and au interesting and enter- taining speaker. He is a hard student, and has given to his church the best years of his life and a thoroughly conscientious and faithful ministry. Joseph S. Evans is a zealous and untiring worker in the vine- yard of his Divine Master, where his labors have been crowned with abundant success. QOL. FRANCIS C. HOOTON, a popu- lar republican leader of Pennsylvania, and who commanded the 175th Pennsyl- vania infantry during the Peninsula cam- paign, is an ex-district attorney of Chester county, and is bne of the oldest members of the West Chester bar. He is the son of Mott and Eliza (Carpenter) Hooton, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, October 31, 1836. The Hootons are of English Quaker stock, of Yorkshire, England, and settled in New Jersey at an early day in the history of that State, while the Carpenters trace their lineage to Glou- cestershire, from which country the founder of the Chester county branch of the family came to America. Colonel Hooton's great- grandfather, Capt. John Hooton, was com- missioned as a captain in the King's Ameri- can dragoons, and served in the English cavalry during the revolutionary war. At the close of that great struggle between the Thirteen Colonies and the "Mother Coun- try," Captain Hooton was transferred with the English forces that were sent to Nova Scotia, where he soon retired as a cavalry officer on half-pay. He was a native of New Jersey, and married and reared a family. His son, Andrew Hooton (paternal grand- father), was born in Nova Scotia, and in early life came to Morrestown, New Jersey. He went from thence to Philadelphia, where he was a conveyancer and real estate agent for many years. He served as alderman at Philadelphia, and removed about 1840 to Iowa, where he served as a member of the first Constitutional convention of that State. His son, Mott Hooton, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1813, in the-city of Philadelphia, where he died in 1838, and where his remains were interred in the cem- etery of St. Andrew's church. He was a BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY hardware merchant, and married Anna Eliza Carpenter, by whom he had two chil- dren : Colonel Francis and Captain Mott,the latter enlisted as first sergeant in April, 1861, and at the close of the war entered the reg- ular army, in which he is now serving as captain of Co. F, 22d U. S. infantry, at Fort Keogh, Montana. Mrs. Hooton, after her husband's death, married Maris Rhoads, a farmer of Delaware county, and had two children by her second marriage : Sallie,and Anna who married Morton Chase, and died in 1888, leaving two children. Mrs. Rhoads died March 8, 1892, at seventy-eight years of age. She was a daughter of John Carpen- ter and a granddaughter of Capt. Thomas Carpenter, who commanded Co. A, 6th regi- ment Pennsylvania Militia, and entered the Continental army, where he commanded a company with distinction at Long Island and Monmouth. He was a native of Ches- ter county, and his remains were interred in Friends burying ground at Marshalltown. His sou, John Carpenter (maternal grand- father), was born in Chester county, and removed to Philadelphia, where he engaged in business. Francis C. Hooton received his education in the Friends' Select school of Philadelphia, Bolmar's institute for young men of West Chester, and Fairmount seminary of Norris- town. He read law with Hon. John Hick- man, Ju^geW.B.Waddell, and was admitted to the bar on October 30, 1857. He has practiced his profession successfully at West Chester ever since, except when serving in defense of his country's liberties during the last great civil war. He was appointed by President Lincoln as a draft commis- sioner and conducted the first draft ordered for the county of Chester in 1862, and in the autumn of that year was elected as lieutenant-colonel of the 175th Pennsylvania infantry, which served bravely in North Carolina, and in the Peninsula and Mary- land campaigns of 1862 and 1863. The colonel of the regiment resigned early in July, and Lieutenant-Colonel Hooton was promoted to colonel, and led his regiment in several severe engagements. The regiment was mustered out of the Federal service in August, 1863, and Colonel Hooton returned to the active practice of his chosen profes- sion. On June 29, 1870, Colonel Hooton mar- ried Anna, daughter of the late John R. Penrose, of Philadelphia, and they have one child, a daughter, named Mary Penrose. In politics Colonel Hooton is a pro- nounced and leading. republican, who ener- getically advocates the cardinal principles of his party. He was elected district at- torney of Chester county in 1867, and ren- dered good satisfaction as a public official during his term of service. He was the republican presidential elector of his district in 1868, served as chairman of jthe repub- lican county committee for 1876, 1877 and 1878, and was chairrhan of the republican State central committee in 1879. His rec- ord of service for his party is one to which his friends can point with justifiable pride. He is a member of the West Chester Lodge, No. 322, Free and Accepted Masons, and is its present representative to the grand lodge of the State. He is also a member of Mc- Call Post, No. 31, Grand Army of the Re- public; P. H. R. A. Chapter, No. 198, Military Order of the Loyal Legion ; and the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution, which numbers only four hun- dred and forty in membership. While Col- onel Hooton's revolutionary progenitors on the paternal side were loyalists to the cause OF CHESTER COUNTY. of Great Britain, his maternal ancestors were among the stoutest hearts and bravest whigs who drew their swords first in the cause of colonial rights and afterwards for American independence. Col. Francis C. Hooton is a member of the Protestant Epi-acopal church of West Chester. He is intelligent and well read in his profession, active and energetic, and has made good use of his time and opportunities. In 1869 he prepared a small work, entitled "The General and Special Pennsylvania Road Laws," which was published at West Chester. It met with such approval that, in 1872, he wrote a second and larger work upon roads, entitled "The Supervisor's Guide," which was pub- lished by Kay & Brother, of Philadelphia, and is regarded throughout the State as a standard authority upon the subjects of which it treats ; also " Hooton's Justice and Legal Guide," published by Rees, Welsh & Co. Colonel Hooton manages his cases with tact and judgment, and has made a good record in the field of his chosen pro- fession. QAPT. HENRY EVANS CHRIST- MAN, one of the substantial and pro- gressive farmers of Chester county, and a man who stands high as a citizen, is the youngest son of Col. Jacob and Margaret (Evans) Christman, and was born in East Vincent township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, April 8, 1822. He was reared on the farm, and received his education in the public schools and at the Trappe academy in Monl^mery county, then conducted by the Rev. Mr. Rodenbaugh. After leaving school he engaged in farming for his father, aad managed hie estate until 1873, when he purchased the farm and began business on his own account. He now owns and oper- ates a splendid farm containing two hundred and seventy-six acres of as fine land as can be found in this section, all well improved except about fifty acres, on which stands a dense growth of valuable timber. The farm is carefully cultivated, yields excellent crops, and is supplied with handsome, commodious, and elegant farm buildings, and all the necessary improved farm machinery. His present residence was erected in 1880, and his farm is a part of the Callowhill Manor property of one. thousand acres on French creek, which was conveyed by the proprie- tary under Penn, April 16, 1686, to Robert Thompson ; and this tract of two hundred and seventy-six acres was purchased at judicial sale, in the settlement of the Hazel Thomas estate, "by Henry Christman, the paternal grandfather of Henry B. Christ- man, the deed being 'dated February 26, 1819. On June 13, 1877, Mr. Christman united in marriage with Martha Christman, a daughter of John Christman, of this county. In politics he is an ardent democrat, has been a school director, and was elected as justice of the peace, but did not serve. He is a regular attendant and liberal supporter of the Evangelical Lutheran church. The family to which Mr. Christman be- longs is of German origin, tracing its ancestry back to the Fatherland, from whence came Daniel Christman in the good ship Alexander, William Clymer, master, " from Rotterdam, last from Cowes," as the vessel's report shows. He landed in Amer- ica September 5, 1730, and settled in Wor- cester township, then part of Philadelphia county, but now comprised in th« county of Montgomery. He afterward removed to Frederick township, Montgomery county. 390 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY where he died. He was a farmer by occu- pation, a member of the Lutheran church, and his remains lie entombed at Leedy's burying-ground in Frederick township. His children were : Anna E., married Jo- hannes Grobb in December, 1749, and lived in East Coventry township, this county; Felix, born in 1733, and removed to Vin- cent township; Elizabeth, born in 1734; Jacob, born in 1737, and died February 27, 1804; Greorge, born in 1739, was a farmer, and lived in Frederick township, Mont- gomery county ; and Henry (grandfather), who was born in Frederick township, that county, in 1744. At an early age the latter came with his father's family to Vincent township, this county, where he continued to reside until his death, September 16, 1823, at the age of seventy-nine. In early life he learned the saddler's trade, and followed that occupation nearly all his life. He was a stanch democrat, and a firm adherent of the Lutheran church, and being a man of enthusiasm and great activity, he became prominent in both political and religious circles. By his industry and good business management he accumulated con- siderable wealth. He married Susan Keely, by whom he had a family of ten children : Susan, born February 25, 1750, married Henry Ohristman, and died September 19, 1823 ; Elizabeth, born May 29, 1768 ; Cath- arine, born July 19, 1770; Susan, born October 24, 1773 ; Magdalena, born April 28, 1776; Henry, born March 14, 1779; Margaret, born February 6, 1782; Mary W., born January 7, 1785; Jacob, born May 5, 1788; and George, born May 9, 1793. Jacob Christman, father of Henry E., was born in Vincent township, and died there March 2, 1871. He spent his life principally in agricultural pursuits, and took rank with the most advanced farmers of his day. In politics he was a democrat, and served as school director and filled other local offices at different times. He was a member of the State militia for many years, serving for a time as colonel of his regiment. On January 30, 1809, he married Margaret Evans, a daughter of farmer John Evans, of this county, who was of Welsh extraction. To them was born a family of five children, three sons and two daughters : Susan, born July 8, 1810 ; Elizabeth, born October 23, 1812, and died June 21, 1853 ; Samuel (deceased), born February 16, 1814 ; Jacob, born July 16, 1815 ; and Henry E., the subject of this sketch. Some of the Christman families have dropped the "t" from the name, but their German ancestors all inserted it as indicating their belief in Christ and their church connections. Henry E. Christman often heard his parents tell the story of his grandmother Christman's experience during the revolu- tionary war. In the autumn of 1777, after the battle of Brandywine and the massacre at Paoli, while the colonial troops were re- treating over the "Warwick hills, she on one occasion used her oven all day baking bread for the hungry soldiers. Her children be- came impatient and cried, but they had to wait until the patriots were served. ^ATHANIEIi F. DOTTERER, a pros- ^ perous farmer residing near Pottstown, who for some years has been serving as justice of the peace in North Coventry township, and is a valuable and highly es- teemed citizen of Chester county, is the eldest son of Michael and Caroline (Fegley) Dotterer, and was born in Frederick town- ship, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 291 April 6, 1839. He was reared on his father's farm, where he early became accus- tomed to hard work, and learned those habits of industry, frugality and honesty that lie at the base of all honorable success in life. His education was received in the common schools of his neighborhood, and after leaving school he learned the trade of millwright, and followed that occupation about three years, when he for five years following worked at the carpenter trade during the summer seasons and teaching public school during the winter — teaching two terms in Frederick township, Mont- gomery county, and three terms in Chester county. In 1862 he entered the employ of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Com- pany as a carpenter, and in 1865 was pro- moted to the position of assistant to the superintendent of their shops at Pottstown. Later he was given charge of the railway trains and engines, and the machine shop at Pottstown, on the main line division of that road, and also at the same time served as shipping clerk, having charge of the roadway materials which were principally all distributed from Pottstown by trains for the main line and all branches operated by the company until 1878, at which time the work shops, train department and material yards were vacated at Pottstown, moved to Reading, taken in charge of and operated by the Transportation department. Dur- ing 1883 and 1884 he had charge of the laying of tracks on the Shamokin, Sunbury & Lewisburg railroad — a line of thirty-two miles in length, and running from Shamo- kin to "West Milton; also the building of new side-tracks at Williamsport and at New- berry — improvements made to facilitate and improve the anthracite coal trade westward, and which are operated by the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company. He was af- terward employed for some time as super- visor of the Port Richmond wharves of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Com- pany, at Philadelphia, but resigned during the labor troubles of 1887, and in 1887 pur- chased a farm of one hundred and seven- teen acres of valuable land in North Cov- entry township, since which time he has devoted his attention entirely to agricul- tural pursuits, and has been very successful. On April 25th, 1860, Mr. Dotterer was united in marriage with Caroline L. Rudy, a daughter of Jacob Rudy, then residing in Frederick township, Montgomery county, this State, though a native of Switzerland. To Mr. and Mrs. Dotterer has been, born a family of five children, one son and four daughters : Alice, Florence, Ed[gar, Laura and Emma. The latter two are twins. The second daughter, Florence, died Octo- ber 15, 1865, aged 7 weeks, and the other children are all living at home with their parents on the farm. Politically Squire Dotterer has always been a republican, but is inclined toward independence in politics. He has served one term as school director of his township, and in the autumn of 1889 was elected to the responsible position of justice of the peace, the duties of which oflBce he is now discharging with ability and a jus- tice that gives general satisfaction. Squire Dotterer is a member of Stichter Lodge, No. 254, Free and Accepted Masons, at Pottstown, of which he is past master. Squire Dotterer's paternal grandfather was Conrad Dotterer, a native of Mont- gomery county, this .State, where he lived all his life, and died in 1827, at the age of fifty-eight years. He was a millwright by trade, and also engaged to some extent in 393 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY agriculture. Politically he was a democrat, aodin religious faith an adherent of the Ger- man Reformed church. He was married to Catharine Younkijj, by whom he had six children. Michael Dotterer (father) was born in Frederick township, Montgomery county, this State, June 18, 1811, and was a resident of that township until 1858, when he came to Cheater county and settled in East Coventry township. Later he re- moved to North Coventry township, where he now resides with his son, the subject of this sketch. He has always been engaged in the cultivation of the soil, is a democrat in his political belief, and following the re- ligious traditions of his ancestors is a be- liever in the faith of the the German Re- formed church. In 1837 he married Caro- line Fegley, of New Hanover township, Montgomery county. She died January 25, 1887, in her seventieth year. To them was born a family of six sons and daughters, of whom the subject of this sketch is the eldest. The others are : Sophia, wko mar- ried Moses M. Grubb; Catharine, who wedded Joshua Frederick; Benjamin, de- ceased ; Milton, and Caroline, who married Joseph Engail. The following genealogy of the family was compiled and furnished by N. F. Dot- terer : First generation: George Philip Dotterer, Veronica (maiden name unknown), his wife; George Philip Dotterer died in Frederick township, Montgomery county, Nov. 6th, 1741 ; Veronica Dotterer died before De- cember 9, 1752 ; they were born in Europe — .where we know not; do not know when they arrived in Pennsylvania, but think in 1722 — certainly not later. Children: Mich- ael'' Dotterer, born in Europe in spring of 1698; Bernhardt' Dotterer, died in New Hanover township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, between January 20, 1758 and April 12, 1758; Anna Elizabeth" Dot- terer, married (first) Michael Zimmerman, married (second) Jacob Korr; Heironimus* Dotterer, died in Falkner Swamp, in No- vember, 1727; Barbara'^ Dotterer, married Jacob Markley ; Conrad'' Dotterer, born in September, 1712, died in Frederick town- ship, in January, 1801. Second generation : MichaeP Dotterer, born in Europe, in spring of 1698 ; died in Frederick township, April 7, 1786; aged 87 years, 11 months, and several days ; Anna Maria ( Fisher) Dotterer, his wife. Children : Anna Sophia' Dotterer, born March 5, 1726 ; Anna Veronica'* Dotterer, born September 5, 1727; George Philip' Dotterer, born Au- gust 30, 1729 ; John Conrad' Dotterer, born. May 10, 1731 ; Maria Margaretta' Dotterer, born June 27, 1733 ; John MichaeP Dot- terer, born October 31, 1735 ; John Jacob' Dotterer, born July 4, 1737; A son (no name), born January 22, 1739 ; Johannes' and twins, born November 18, 1741 ; Anna Maria' Dotterer, born January 4, 1745. Third generation: John MichaeP Dot- terer, born October 31, 1735 ; died in Fred- erick township, March 12, 1811 ; first wife, Anna (Reiff) Dotterer, born in 1740; died January 30, 1766 ; second wife, Catherine (Reiff) Dotterer (sister to foregoing Anna Reiff"), born February, 11, 1745; died No- vember 16, 1820. Children by first wife : Philippina* Dotterer, born June 22, 1761 ; Philip* Dotterer, born July 17,1763; Peter* Dotterer, born ; Michael* Dotterer, born January 30, 1766. Children by second wife : John* Dotterer, born ; died June 25, 1836; Conrad* Dotterer, born April 9, 1769; Anna Maria* Dotterer, born May 11^ vmt' OP CSESTtlS COUNTY. 1773 ; Catharine* Dotterer, born Auguet 6, 1778. Fourth generatiou : Conrad*Dotterer,born April 9, 1769 ; born, lived and died in Fred- erick township ; died September 29,1827; wife, Catharine ( Younkin) Dotterer, born in Buck's county, August 25, 1777; died in Frederick township, September 16, 1840. Children : John" Dotterer, born — -; died ; SamueF Dotterer, born September 2, 1801; died February 21, 1854; Eliza' Dot- terer, born August 18, 1805 ; died February 19j 1867; Philip* Dotterer, born August 4, 1809, died July 21,1884; MichaeP Dotterer, (father of subject) born June 18, 1811 ; still living ; Sophia* Dotterer, born December 3, 1819, died October 23, 1884. vJAMES McCIiURG-, of Newton Stew art, County G-alloway (now Wigton), Scotland, was the father of Dr. Walter McClurg, a surgeon in the royal navy, who married and settled at Hampton, Virginia, prior to 1746, and who resigned, lived, and died there in 1783. His only son, Dr. James McClurg, M. D., was born at Hamp- ton, Virginia, in 1746, graduated from William and Mary college, 1762 ; as M. D. University of Edinburgh, 1770; and stud- ied in Paris during 1771-2. He was urged to locate in London, but was prevented by his strong Americanism. Returning to Virginia in 1773, he located at Williams- burg, Virginia. Elected a member of the American Philosophical society of Phila- delphia, 1774. Appointed a surgeon in the Virginia navy, 1776, and later in the year physician general of hospitals of the south- ern department, at Williamsburg. Ap- pointed professor of anatomy and medicine in the William and Mary college, 1779. Declined the chair of medicine in the University of Pennsylvania. Rismoved to Richmond, Virginia, in 1783. In 1787 was appointed a member of the Federal conven- tion, sitting in Philadelphia, to frame a constitution for the United States. He here acted with the Washington-Madison group. Duty called him home before the final adoption. Received a grant of land and back pay for services during the revo- lution. His only son, Walter, died in 1810. Was thrown from his carriage, severely in- jured, and died July 9, 1823. Thus the elder line became extinct. James McClurg's younger son, John McClurg, was born at Newton Stewart, Scotland, JSToveraber 14, 1726. Came to Hampton, Virginia, in 1752, and thence to Chester county, Pennsylvania. On the 20 th of October, 1752, he was granted by the Pennsylvania proprietaries one hundred acres of land in Londonderry (now Lower Oxford) township, Chester county, Penn- .sylvania, for £15 lOs., with the yearly quitrent of one half penny sterling for every acre thereof. One hundred and nine- teen and one-half acres were surveyed November 10, 1752, and settled by him. In the county records of 1754 he is rated as "a land owner and taxpayer." In 1753 he married Eliza Jackson, (daughter of Samuel Jackson, who had come to Chester county prior to 1737, and who was a prom- inent land owner and elder in the Presby- terian church,) and their children were : Samuel ; William,who " went west," to Pitts- burg, it is believed; Elizabeth, no record; and John, who removed to Slateridge,York county, Pennsylvania, where he married and died, leaving two children, William and Mary, the former of whom was killed by a horse, and the male line is extinct. 19 294 BIOQItAPHY AND HISTOBY John McClurg died in Lower Oxford township, Friday, July 12, 1799. Samuel McClurg, oldest son of John and Eliza McClurg, was born on his father's farm in Lower Oxford township,' Tuesday, July 9, 1754. He removed to Slateridge, York county, Pennsylvania, and purchased a farm. In 1787 he married Agnes Foulis, of Lower Oxford township, Chester county, daughter of Archibald and Mary Foulis. It is told how this devoui Presbyterian couple would, on each communion Sunday, ride on horseback by way of McCall's Ferry, Susquehanna river, to Oxford, a dis- tance of at least thirty miles. He died Wednesday, April 4, 1810, of chronic pneu- monia, resulting from exposure. Agnes Foulis was born Tuesday, May 24, 1763, in Scotland. Her father, Archi- bald Foulis, and James Patton, both loved Mary Wilson, who married the latter, and before he died, in 1760, bore him eight children. Archibald Foulis, meanwhile lived in Belfast, Ireland, having left Scot- land when rejected, and now returned and married the widow, Agnes being their only child. They soon went to Chester county, Pennsylvania, and in 1772, his name is on the list of "land owners and taxpayers."' After the death of her husband. Agues, with her children, removed to a homestead near Oxford, Pennsylvania, where, in 1811, her name appears on the church records, among the heads of families. Died at Ox- ford, Saturday, December 8, 1849. Their children were : Mary, married James Rey- burn ; Elizabeth, married William Os- mond; Archibald; Jane, married Joseph Kelso ; Rachel, married George Irwin ; l^aney, married John Pollock; John, born Thursday, January 27, 1803, and died Mon- day, December 20, 1869 — and who married. first, Martha Moore — second, Nancy Jane Mclntire ; and Sarah, married James Smith. Archibald McClurg, elder son of Samuel and Agnes McClurg, was born at Slateridge, York county, Pennsylvania, on his father's farm, on Tuesday, March 25, 1794. Removed in 1810 to Lower Oxford township. Was a farmer, and assisted in building the then large bridge over the Susquehanna river, at McCall's Ferry. On February 27, 1819, he bought forty acres of land near Oxford, Pennsylvania, from his mother. On Thursday, IS'ovember 25, 1819, he married Sarah Russell, of Russell- ville, Chester county, Pennsylvania. In 1825, he bought a tract of land at Mill Creek Hundred, Delaware, which he soon sold. In 1839 he bought "a plantation of one hundred and fourteen acres in West Nottingham township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, (near Glenroy), subject to the payment of the original patent." In religion he was a Presbyterian, in politics, a whig, and later a republican ; and in his earlier life, was an enthusiastic militiaman. Died on his farm, at West Nottingham, Saturday, May 8, 1864, of acute gastroeon- teritis. Sarah Russell, his wife, was born Thursday, April 10, 1797, at Russellville, and died at her home, in West Nottingham, Chester county, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, January 4, 1852. Her father, John Russell, esquire, was born in Chester county, in 1759, and died Wednesday, May 16, 1804. Her mother, Margaret McNeil, was born in Chester county in 1770, and died at Rus- sellville, Friday, December 9, 1814. The children of Archibald and Sarah McClurg were: John Russell; Nancy, born 1822, married Edward Lloyd ; Samuel, born 1823, died unmarried; Margaret, born 1825, mar- ried Marshal Wright ; Sarah Elizabeth, born OF CHESTER COUNTY. 396 1828, married William Wright ; Jane, born 1839, unmarried; James Hervey, born 1832, married Elizabeth Grier — -two chil- dren, Blanche and James Patterson ; Wil- liam, born 1834, bachelor; Mary, born 1836, died unmarried ; Archibald Alexan- der, born at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va., December 13, 1862 ; and Hanna Eu- phemia, born 1844, unmarried. John Russell McClurg, M. D., was the oldest child of the foregoing ; and born in Lower Oxford township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Saturday, September 23, 1820. Eeared on his father's farms, and educated at the public schools, and the l^ew London, Pennsylvania, and Newark, Dela- ware, academies. He taught in the public schools and in the Il^ewark academy. Stu- died medicine under Dr. David W. Hutch- inson, of Oxford, Pennsylvania, and gradu- ated from the Jefferson Medical college, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as an M. D., March 14, 1846. Located at Chandlers- ville (now Landenberg), Chester county, Pennsylvania, and there practiced his pro- fession until 1858. Removed to Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania, in 1859. After a suc- cessful examination before an army medical board, he was commissioned major and sur- geon. United States volunteers, October 4, 1862. His record of service was : Tempo- rary duty at Jefterson barracks, St. Louis, Missouri, November 11 to Noveniber 21, 1862, when he was ordered to establish and take charge of a United States general hos- pital at Cleveland, Ohio. This duty was performed in such a thorough and expedi- tious manner, as to win him much commen- dation from his superiors. While stationed here, he delivered a course of lectures on military surgery at the Cleveland Medical college. He was commended by Governor Brough, of Ohio, for arming a number of convalescents in the hospital and sending them to enforce the draft. Was presented with a sword by the inmates of the hospi- tal as a token of their appreciation. Was ordered, September 4, 1864, to Jackson, Michigan, as inspector of recruiting, and here unearthed many frauds, and on De- cember 8, 1864, to similar duty at Detroit, Michigan. On December 17, 1864, was ordered, by telegraph, to Louisville, Ken- tucky, and established and took charge of the ^transfer general hospital. On March 25, 1865, was ordered to the charge of the- " Joe Holt ' United States general hospital, together with the eruptive hospitals, at Louisville, Kentucky, and Jefl'ersonville, Indiana, aggregating about three thousand beds. On July 29, 1865, ordered to the ad- ditional duty of president of an examining board for assistant surgeons. On August 7, 1865, was ordered to close all hospitals, destroy infected stores, etc. On September 19, 1865, ordered home. Breveted lieu- tenant colonel, United States volunteers, October 6, 1865 ; and honorably mustered out October 7, 1865. In November 1865, located at West Grove, Pennsylvania, and practiced his profession there until May, 1870, when he removed to West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he has since resided, and successfully practiced his profession. A perminent member of the American Medical association, a member of the Ches- ter County Medical society, of the Oxford Medical society, honorary member of the Lancaster city and County Medical society, of the biological and microscopical section of the Academy of Sciences, of Philadel- phia, an associate member of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical society of Great Britain, a founder of the Philosophical BIOGSAPHY AND HISTOBV society of West Chester, Pennsylvania, a member of the Bi-Centenial executive committee, 1876, and a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. Was married on January 1, 1851, at Mont- gomeryville, Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, to Ruth Ann Higgins, daughter of the Rev. George Higgins and Mary (born Landreth), his vfife. They have two chil- dren, Walter Audubon ; and Frank Lay- ard, born March 7, 1857. Ruth Ann Higgins was born at Mil- ton, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, ■Wednesday, March 2, 1831. She was the daughter of the Rev. George Higgins, a noted Baptist clergyman, born at Philadel- phia, Monday, December 16, 1799, died at Montgomeryville, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, March 9, 1869, and Mary Landreth, his wife, born at Philadel- phia, Monday, August 20, 1804, and died at Philadelphia, Thursday, April 6, 1848. The only child of George Higgins, a native of England, who married Margaret Trim- ble, at Philadelphia, in 1799, and died the same year at Cape May, ISTew Jersey, of the yellow fever. Mary Landreth was the daughter of Cuthbert Landreth, who mar- ried Pelatiah Burroughs, at Philadelphia, Saturday, May 25, 1793. "Walter Audubon McClurg, eldest son of the foregoing, was born Wednesday, Feb- ruary 4,1852, at Chandlersville (nowLan- denberg), Chester county, Pennsylvania, educated at the public schools, Cleveland, Ohio, Military academy, the Kennett Square academy, and the Millersville State Normal school ; studied medicine under his father, and graduated as an M. D. on (Saturday, March 9, 1872, from Jeflferson Medical col- lege, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Practiced his profession for nearly two years at West Chester, Pennsylvania, then passed a suc- cessful examination before the Naval Medi- cal Examining board, and was commissioned an assistant surgeon. United States navy, (ranking with Ensign), February 8, 1874. Promoted to passed assistant surgeon (lieu- tenant J. G.), November 2, 1877, and to surgeon (lieutenant), January 25, 1889. Record of service : Naval hospital, Phila- delphia, Pennsylvania, June 12 to iNovem- berl8, 1874; Flagship Pensacola, Pacific Station, and Tuscarora, Pacific Station, November 18, 1874, to September 14, 1876 ; Steamer Plymouth, North Atlantic Station, January 26, to July 7, 1877; Store-ship New Hampshire, Port Royal, South Caro- lina, December 10, 1877, to January 6, 1879 ; Naval Hospital, Washington, Janu- ary 6, to December 2, 1879 ; Flagship Ten- nessee, North Atlantic Station, December 2, 1879, to December 2, 1882; Naval academy, Annapolis, December 7, 1882, to May, 1883; Practice-ship Dale, May to September 2, 1883 ; Naval academy, Sep- tember 1, 1883, to October 7, 1884; Naval hospital, Philadelphia, October 7, 1884, to January 6, 1886 ; Steamer Tallapoosa, South Atlantic Station, January 6, 1886, to March 7, 1889 ; Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Navy department, Washington, June 1, 1889, on special duty. J^ONATHAN H. KULP, the represen tative of an old Holland family which has been resident in this Commonwealth for nearly two hundred years, is the seventh child and fourth son of Samuel and Cath- arine (Hunsberger) Kulp, and was born in Limerick (now Rogersford) township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, August 9, 1833. When he was only eight months OF CHESTER COUNTY. 297 old the family removed to Chester county and settled on the farm near Pottstown, where he now resides, and which has ever since been his home. Here he acquired a good practical education in the excellent public schools, and then settled down to farm life, unattracted by the temptations which were even then luring many young men from the farm to engage in other pur- suits in our larger towns and cities. The homestead, which has been owned by Mr. Kulp since 1874, contains one hundred acres of as good land as can be found in this sec- tion, and is all improved. It is very pro- ductive, and in its management Mr. Kulp has been successful and prosperous. Polit- ically he is a stanch republican, and has served two terms as school director of his township. In religious faith he is a Men- nonite and actively supports the various in- terests of that church, to which his people have belonged for many generations. On the 31st of October, 1859, Mr. Kulp was wedded to Harriet Amole, a daughter of Jonas and Rachel Amole, of North Cov- entry township, this county. To their union was born a family of six children, three sons and three daughters : Jonas, who married Ida Reigner, and now resides at Royer's Ford, Montgomery county ; Henry, . still living at home; Emma, now the wife of John L. Kulp, a farmer of Royer's Ford ; Katie, Sallie, and Ernest, the three latter also living at home with their parents. The Kulps are descended from an old Holland family, and trace their American ancestry back to three brothers, Peter, Martin and Henry Kulp, Mennonite preach- ers, wht) emigrated from Holland in 1707, and settled in and near Germantown, Penn- sylvania. The paternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Dielman Kulp, a grandson of one of those brothers, and a native of "Worcester township, Mont- gomery county, where he lived and died. He married WilminaRellenhouse, by whom he had a family of eight children : Esther, Magdalena, Wilmina, Henry, Daniel, Ma- thias, Martin and Isaac. Daniel Kulp (grandfather), was born in Worcester town- ship, Montgomery county, where he lived most of his life, but removed to ISTortoii township some time previous to his death. He was a farmer by occupation, and in relig- iousfaith and church membership aMennon- ite. Politically he was a whig and federalist, and married Elizabeth Funk,by whom he had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters: Jacob, Daniel, David, Samuel, Magdalena, Wilmina and Anna, all of whom are now deceased. Samuel Kulp (father) was born in 1798, on ithe old homestead in Worcester township, Montgomery county, where he grew up and was educated in the common schools. He also inclined toward agricultural pursuits, and after leaving school became a farmer in Montgomery county, where he continued to live until 1853, when he removed to Chester county and settled in North Coventry township. At his home there he died in 1872, after an active life comprising nearly three quarters of a century. In political sentiment he was first a whig and later a republican, and mar- ried Catharine Hunsberger, a daughter of Samuel Hunsberger, of Montgomery county. They had a family of nine children, four sons and five daughters : Catharine, de- ceased ; Ann, married Samuel Stauffer, now a retired farmer residing at Pottstown ; Daniel H., a sketch of whom appears else- where in this volume ; Sarah, now the wife of Samuel High, a retired farmer of North Coventry township; Samuel, deceased; Da- 298 BIOGRAPHY AND SISTOBY vid, who wedded Emily "Wells and resides in North Coventry township, where he is en- gaged in farming; Jonathan H., the prin- cipal subject of this sketch ; Elizabeth, mar- ried William P. Staufler, a prosperous farmer of East Coventry township ; and Mary A., the wife of Abraham L. Delwiler, amiller by vocation who now resides in East Coventry township. TTHOMAS K. STERRET:T, deceased, was one of the active, talented, and prosperous men of the last generation, who, inheriting great business ability, possessed also the rarer gift of utilizing each power of mind and making every faculty con- tribute to his usefulness and success in life. He was a son of John and Margaret (Hagar) Sterrett, and was born May 6, 1830, in Warwick township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His early education was obtained in the common schools, but he subsequently took a full academic course, and acquired a fine classical education, to- gether with a practical business training. Leaving school, he accepted a responsible position with the firm of A. M. Campbell & Co., of the city of Philadelphia, in whose business his father, John 8terrett,was owner, where he became book-keeper and general manager. This position gave him ample scope for the exercise of those accurate methods in looking after details and that fine executive ability which became his distinguishing characteristics. Tohiswatclj- ful care and able management was largely due the great success of this prosperous firm, and with it he remained for a period of between twenty and twenty-five years. In May, 1879, he practically retired from active business, and returning to his native county, settled at Warwick Furnace, where he was afterward appointed postmaster, and served in that capacity for a number of years. It was a matter of comment that the postal affairs of the town were never more accurately managed nor more satisfactorily conducted than during his administration of the office. Mr. Sterrett was also a large stockholder in the Pottstown ]!^ational Iron bank, and was serving as director of that financial institution at the time of his death. He died at his home in Warwick April 21, 1890, in the sixtieth year of his age. In political faith he was a democrat, and his sympathies were always with the great mass of the people. He was broad and liberal in his views, but devotedly attached to the idea of popular government — a gov- ernment which should secure equal rights for all and allow special privileges to none. On July 2, 1867, Mr. Sterrett was united in marriage with Mary R. Baker, a daughter of Bassett and Catherine Baker, of the city of Philadelphia. This union was blessed by the birth of one child, a daughter, named Mary Maud, who was born September 30, 1868, in Philadelphia. On September 27, 1892, Mary Maud Sterrett was united in marriage with H. Clarence McMichael, son of Belinda and William McMichael, of Upper Uwchlan, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and they now live with her mother in their handsome home at Warwick. Mrs. Mary A. Sterrett was born July 17, 1836, in Philadelphia, is a woman of intelligence and refinement, and possesses remarkable business capacity. She is sole manager of a fine farni containing five hundred acres of valuable land, beside which she owns part of another excellent farm, and controls an interest in the business of a prosperous firm in Philadelphia. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 299 John Sterrett, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in "Warwick township, this county, August 31, 1796, where he grew to manhood. His occupation was that of miller, and he erected and for many years operated the mill now owned by Frank James. He sold out, came to the city, and when Thomas K. Sterrett married, lived with his son, also coming back with him to Warwick, at which place he died March 26, 1888. He was placed in St. Mary's cemetery. He was a man of great energy and good business ability, and became very prosperous in later life. He married Mar- garet Hagar, and was the father of six children, all now deceased, of whom Thomas K., the subject of this . sketch, was the youngest. The others were Margaret, James, Catharine, William, and John R. Politically John K. Sterrett was a stanch democrat, kept well posted on the questions of his day, and was always active in support of democratic principles. In religious faith and church membership he was an Episco- palian, and his death occurred at his home in Warwick township, March 26, 1880, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. His funeral took place on Easter Sunday, March 28, at which time his remains were followed to their last resting place in St. Mary's cemetry by a large concourse of relatives, friends, and neighbors, among whom his entire life had been spent, and in whose hearts his memory was deeply cherished. FRANK D. EMAGK, M. D., a son of Elbert G. and Margaret (Turner) Emack, was born April 22, 1850 in Prince George county, Maryland. He was reared on the farm. He entered Columbia college at Washington, District of Columbia, and took a thorough course of training in that institution, after which he read medicine in his native county, and was graduated from the medical department of the University of Maryland, at Baltimore, in 1875. Im- mediately after receiving his degree he was appointed one of the resident physicians of the Bayview asylum in Baltimore, which position he held for several months, and then resigned to locate in Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, for the practice of his profession. He was engaged in cori- tinuous practice in that county until 1881, when he removed to Phoenixville, Chester county. Here he ' soon acquired a large general practice, which he has successfully conducted ever since. He is a prominent member of the Chester County Medical society and the American Medical associa- tion. Doctor Emack has been a close student of medicine and its allied sciences, has made many original investigations and accurate observations, and his standing as a physician is deservedly high. In 1884 Doctor Emack was united in marriage to Clara L. Love, a daughter of John B. Love, of the city of Philadelphia. To the Doctor and Mrs. Emack have been born two children, one son and a daughter: Margaret C. and John Beresford. ' In poli- tics the Doctor is a stanch democrat, and in religion a strict Episcopalian, being a mem- ber and vestryman of St. Peter's Episcopal church of Phcenixville. The Emacks are of Scotch-Irish origin, and have been residents of the United States for three generations. The first of the name to come to America was William Emack, paternal grandfather of Dr. Prank D. Emack. He was born in the north of Ireland (County Tyrone), of Scotch-Irish parentage, and while yet a young man left 300 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY the Emerald Isle and emigrated to this country, settling in Washington city. His wife was Ann Jackson Duke, of the Mor- duit family, England. He was a merchant, and continued to reside and do business in Washington until his death in 1833, then in the sixtieth year of his age. He reared a family, one of whom, Elbert G. Emack (father), became a merchant, and engaged in business in his native city of Washing- ton until 1840, when he removed to Prince George county, Maryland. There he pur- chased a large farm, and engaged in agri- cultural pursuits during the remainder of his life. He died September 12, 1886, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. For forty years he was vestryman iu the Episcopal church, and always took an active part in supporting the varied interests of his denomination. In politics he was first a whig, and later became a democrat. He was elected and served as a member of the constitutional convention of 1868, but al- ways declined to accept any political office. In 1886 he married Margaret Turner, a native of Baltimore county, Maryland, by whom he had a family of nine children. She is a member of the Episcopal church, and still resides on the old homestead in Prince George county, Maryland, being yet hale and hearty, though now in the seventy- seventh year of her age. Her father, Hon. James Turner, maternal grandfather of Doctor Eraack, was a native of Harford county, Maryland, who became a resident of Baltimore county when a young n)an, where he died March 27, 1861, aged sixty-six years. He was an extensive and prosperous farmer, owning over one thousand acres of fine land in Baltimore county. In politics he was a democrat, and became a prominent and influential leader in his party. He represented his district in the lower house of the legislature of Maryland, and also in the State senate, and afterward served four years as a member of Congress at Wash- ington. The maternal great-grandfather of Doctor Emack was James Calder, a brother of Admiral Sir Robert Calder. They were of Scotch-Irish descent, and their mother was a Miss Stewart. jJOHN GIIiFILLAN, awell known and prominent business man of Coatesville and Chester county, and a worthy descen- dant of that wonderful Scotch-Irish race, so noted for firmness, temperance and honesty, is a son of James and Ann (Scobey) Gilfil- lan,andwas born near Londonderry, County Derry, province of Ulster, Ireland, Novem- ber, 1815. Two centuries ago three Gilfil- lan brothers left Scotland, and settled in the north of Ireland, which, at that time, was a land of refuge for the persecuted Scottish Covenanters. The land on which these brothers settled is still in the hands of their descendants, and one of them founded the family of which James Gilfillan (father) was a member. James Gilfillan passed his life on his farm, which was with- in five miles of Londonderry, and died in 1872, at eighty-eight years of age. He was a conscientious man, and a strict member of the Presbyterian church, and married Ann Scobey, who died when in the seven- ty-fourth year of her age. John Gilfillan was reared on his father's farm, and, after attending private schools, entered Temple Moyle agricultural college, where the higher mathematics and modern languages were taught. On alternate days his class worked on the college fjirm, and OF CBESIEB COVNTY. 808 thus, by this plan, he received both a thorough literary and practical agricultural education. This college at that time was one of the leading agricultural institutions of Great Britain, whose students were care- fully instructed in the latest and most ap- proved methods of successful farming. Leav- ing college, and having no great taste for agricultural pursuits, Mr. Gilfillan turned his eyes toward the United States, as a wider and more favorable field for success in business life than what was aftbrded hira at home or on the continent of Europe. In 1834 he set sail for Philadelphia, accom- panied by his uncle, David Scobey, who be- came a prosperous merchant of Schuylkill county, where he died a few years ago ; and his cousin, Robert Gilfillan, who established a grocery house in Philadelphia, and is now dead. Mr. Gilfillan, in a few days after land- ing at Philadelphia, came to Cochransville, where he learned the trade of tanner, with James Wilson, to whom he had letters of introduction from Ireland. In 1837 Mr. Wilson removed to East Fallowfield town- ship, and Mr. Gilfillan and Samuel Wilson purchased the tannery, which they ran very successfully until 1839. In that year Mr. Gilfillan bought his partner's interest, and operated the tannery until 1872, when he gave over its management to his sons, with the view of retiring from business, and resid- ing at Parkesburg, where he had ptirchased property. His intentions of a retired life were, however, defeated by the following circumstances: He was appointed, on ac- count of his knowledge of tanning, to settle the estate of John Shely, at Coatesville. A part of the estate was the Coatesville tan- nery, which Mr. Gilfillan perceived was in such shape, and so situated, as to offer a fine bilsiness opening, and after settling tip the estate, he purchased it, and has operated it successfully ever since. In 1841 Mr. Gilfillan married Anna C. Steel, who died ten mouths later, and on September 26, 1843, he wedded Jane, daughter of Eobert Wilson. By his sec- ond marriage he has had nine children, of whom seven are living: J. B., a leather dealer, at Cochransville; F. P., now in Philadelphia ; Rev. Joel 8., who has charge of the Presbyterian church of Livermore, California; Robert, of Virginia; John P.; Emma, wife of Joseph R. Kenworthy ; and Lucinda. John Gilfillan is a democrat in polities. He was appointed in 1857 as collector of tolls at Parkesburg, served two terms as justice of the peace at Cochransville; and was a member of the town council of Coatesville from 1878 to 1879. He has al- ways been an earnest advocate of popular education, was among the first to recom- mehd the establishment of a graded school in every district, and while serving as a school director of Coatfesville, was largely instrumental in having the school debt of that place refunded in five per cent, bonds, in place of those issued at seven per cent. Mr. Gilfillan is a director of the Penn Mu- tual Fire Insurance Comjpany of West Ches- ter, and the National bank of Coatesville, and has acted as administrator during the last twenty years, in settling up many large estates. He is a member of tke Presbyte- rian church of Coatesville ; Skerrett Lodge, No. 343, Free and Accepted Masons of Cochransville ; and Hebron Lodge, No. 437, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is also a Royal Arch Mason, and the repre- sentative of Skerrett Lodge to the Masonic Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. The Coates- ville tannery plant of Mr. Gilfillan waS es- 304 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIOBY tablished in 1830, by a Mr. Temple-. TTie main buildings are two in number, with, a large tan yard in cover between them. He employes four skilled workmen, and is ex- tensively engaged in the manufacture of all kinds of leather, except 'sole leather, which how.ever, he keeps in stock. Altogether a self-made man, in the truest sense of the word, he has slowly but steadily pushed on- ward in the busy world, and his labors, in his own particular line of business, have been crowned with marked success. nOBERT C. KELTON, the founder of the thriving village of Kelton and one of the older and most highly respected citi- zens of Penn township, is a son of Capt. John M. and Elizabeth (Correy) Kelton, and was born at West Grove, London Grove township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, November 3, 1819. lie spent his boyhood years on the farm, attended the public and private schools of his neighborhood, and upon attaining his majority, engaged in farming in London Grove township, which he followed but one year. He then went to Wilmington, Delaware, where he ,was in the grocery business for four years. At the end of that time, in 1859, he came to the site of the present station of Kelton, which bears, his name, and is forty -three miles south' of Philadelphia on the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central railroad. He has been station agent there for thirty-five years, and was the first postmaster of the place, serv- ing from 1874 to ,1889. He has a good farm of seventy acres, and in connection with farming owns a warehouse, which was built on his land in 1868. He has been active and industrious throughout his life, and has seen Kelton grow from a single log hut to a small village of good buildings and enjoy- ing such a present amount of business as to warrant it size and prosperity in the future. Mr. Kelton was formerly a democrat, but i^ now a republican in politics. His patriot- ism was attested in 1863, when he enlisted in the Pennsylvania militia and served in defending the State against Lee's second northern invasion. He is a member of New London Presbyterian church and was a trustee of New London church while re- siding near it. Mr. Kelton has always been faithful to every trust reposed in him and has lived such a life as to honor his church and reflect credit on the old and honest Scotch Kelton family from which he is de- scended. On March 21, 1848, Mr. Kelton married Martha E. Nelson, a daughter of William Nelson, of Penn township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. To their union have been born five children : Mary and May, who died in childhood; William, a farmer of New Garden township, who married Anna Brown, of New Garden township; John, married Elizabeth Barrett, of Arlington, Illinois, and is now engaged in farming in South Dakota; and Ellie, manager of the telegraph office at Kelton. Robert C. Kelton is a lineal descendant of James Kelton, who was born in Scotland in 1695, and came from the north of Ireland to Chester county in the early part of the last century. He purchased five hundred acres of land near West Grove, built a house which is still standing, and was a Jeft'ersonian democrat in politics. He died in 1781, aged eighty-six years. After the death of his first wife Margaretta, he mar- ried Mary Hackett, of London Grove town- ship, daughter of James Haclett, by whom he had two children: Hon. James, jr., and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 305 Margaret, wife of James Menough. Hon. James Kelton, jr. (grandfather), was one of the prominent men of his day in eastern Pennsylvania. He was born in 1776 ; was sheriff for thi-ee years, served ten years in the assembly and four in the State senate, and died E'ovember 25, 1844, aged sixty- eight years. He was the first postmaster of West Grove, serving as such for twenty years, and acted for a long time as a stock- holder of the first stage route in the United States, and which was between Philadelphia and Baltimore. He was a democrat and a Presbyterian, and on Feb- ruary 7, 1793, married Agues Mackey, who was a daughter of David Mackey, and died May 16, 1823. Their children were: David, Capt. John M., James, Mary Jackson, Kob- ert, Joseph, Agnes Lambson, Margaretta, George, Julia, and Rachel McClenahan. Capt. John M. Kelton (father) was born February 1, 1795, and died December 10, 1886, when in the ninety-second year of his age. He was both prominent and useful as a man and a citizen. He was a republican and a Presbyterian. He served as justice of the peace for forty years; was director of the poor for- eleven years; and was one of the founders of Lincoln (then Ashton) uni- versity, and a promoter of the building of the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central rail- road. John M. Kelton organized and was commissioned captain of a company during the war of 1812, but it was never called into active service. Captaiii Kelton, on De- cember 10, 1818, married Elizabeth Correy, who died August 7, 1872, in her seventy- ninth year. To their union was born two children : Robert C, whose name appears at the head of this sketch, and Ellen, wife of James Mackey, who resides at Avondalc, Chester county, Pennsylvania. wJAMES C. SELLERS, a graduate of Yale college, and a prominent lawyer of Philadelphia and West Chester, who has been in active and successful practice since the centennial year, is the only son of James and Emmeline B. (Smith) Sellers, and was born May 4, 1854, at South Orange, New Jersey. The Sellers are descended from old English Quaker stock, the family hav- ing been planted in America by Samuel Sellers, a weaver, who came over from Der- byshire, England, in one of the vessels that crossed the Atlantic with William Penn in 1682. He took up one hundred acres of land, and established himself in the weav- ing business, in Darby, then Chester, now Delaware county. From him the now num- erous Sellers family of this State have de- scended. The first in America to weave wire into sieves and screens was his grand- son, John Sellers (1728 to 1804), who be- came distinguished for his mechanical in- genuity, was a member of the American Philosophical society, and occupied several important official places, being a member of the Provincial assembly from 1767 to 1771, of the Constitutional Convention of 1789, and of the State senate in 1790. James Sellers, paternal grandfather . of the subject of this sketch, and a grandson of the John Sellers above mentioned, was a native of Delaware County, this State,, but, removed to the city of Philadelphia, where, he engaged in the wire weaving business and became an inventor of considerable note. He was a member of the Society of Friends — as were all the Sellers — and mar- ^ riedElizabethCadwallader, of Bucks county, by whom he had a family of fourteen chil- dren. One of these was James Sellers (father), who was born in Philadelphia in 1823. He received a liberal education. 306 BIOGRAPHY AND BISIOBY studied medicine in the university of Penn- sylvania and at the college of physicians and surgeons in New York, and after grad- uation located at South Orange, New Jer- sey, where he died in 1854, when but thirty years of age. He was a man of strong anti-slavery proclivities, and a firm friend of the negro race. He married Emmeline B. Smith, a daughter of Captain John Holly Smith, and by this marriage had an only son, James C. Captain Smith (ma- ternal grandfather) was a native of Stam- ford, Connecticut, and served for a number of years as captain in the regular United States navy. His wife, Louisa Ireland, be- longed to the old New York familj' of that name. James C. Sellers received his early edu- cation in the West Chester academy, where he proved himself an apt pupil and an earnest student. After leaving this school he entered Yale college, from which he was giraduated with honors in the class of 1874. He then began the study of law in the office of Henry Wharton, Philadelphia, was admitted to the bar in December, 1876, and has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession ever since, principally in the city of Philadelphia, though he also practices at the West Chester bar. As a lawyer he is distinguished for the thorough- ness with which he works up his cases, and the ability he displays in handling them in court. On April 25, 1878, Mr. Sellers was mar- ried to Elma A. Townsend, a daughter of Hon. Washington Townsend, of the borough of West Chester. She died April 5, 1881, leaving one sou, James C, jr., and on June 18, 1889, Mr. Sellers wedded Eleanor C. Barber, daughter of William E. Barber, deceased, of West Chester, and by this second marriage has one child, a daughter named Marie. He resides in West Chester, having his law office in Philadelphia. Politically Mr. Sellers is an ardent repub- lican, taking an active interest in the spread of those principles and the triumph of that policy which distinguishes the party of his choice. He is in frequent demand for the stump, has served as president of the Young Men's Republican club of West Chester, but has never been a candidate for public office. He has long been connected with the Episcopal church, and is serving as a member and secretary of the vestry of his church, being also superintendent of the Sunday school, and secretary and treasurer of the convocation of Chester. For a num- ber of years he has been assistant secretary of the convention of the diocese of Penn- sylvania, and a member of the Executive Board of the Sunday school association of the diocese of Pennsylvania. He is also connected with the local council of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and a member of its executive committee, and is one of the trustees of the Advancement society of Pennsylvania. In every relation of life Mr. Sellers has sustained a high character, and has won an enviable standing in his pro- fession, and as a useful and influential citi- zen. He is an afi'able gentleman, of pleas- ing address, and very popular wherever known. gLiI URNER, the well-known farmer and business man of Pughtown, and a representative of one of the oldest families in this State, is the eldest child and only son of Jacob and Elizabeth (Halderman) Urner, and was born in Warwick township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, June 27, 1821. He was reared on his father's farm OF CHBSTtlB COUNTY. &&i and educated in the public schools of his neighborhood. After leaving home he en- gaged in the butchering business some iive or six years, and then became a stock dealer and drover. He was and is yet an expert judge of good stock. He then purchased a farm in Warwick, and spent another ten years in agricultural pursuits in that town- ship, after which he removed to South Coventry township. Here he farmed for a year or two and then once more engaged in the butchering business, in which he con- tinued for fifteen years. In 1889 he pur- chased a farm (the old homestead) of two hundred and twelve acres in Warwick town- ship, and again gave his attention to the cultivation of the soil. In 1881 he moved into Bucktown, where he now resides. Politically he is an ardent republican, taking an active interest in all public questions and attending nearly all the conventions and public meetings of his party. He is a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal church. .During the civil war he was connected with the quartermaster's department for two or three years. He is an intelligent, affable gentleman, and a popular and highly es- teemed member of his community. On September 19, 1842, Mr. Urner was united in marriage with Sarah Eichards, a daughter of Samuel Richards, of Warwick township, this county, and to them was born a family of seven children who lived to reach maturity : Oliver ^., who married Sarah Murphy, and now resides at Norris- town, this State, where he is serving as jus- tice of the peace; John, now deceased; Hannah E., wedded Lewis Burgoyne, a farmer of South Coventry township, this county ; Allen, married Deborah Shick, re- sides at " The Buck," and is agent for the Mount Penn Stove works of Reading, Penn- sylvania; Filmore, who wedded AnnaFred- erick and lives in South Coventry township, where he is engaged in farming; Webster, who married Millie Bradford, and resides at Spring City, proprietor of the|Hoo8ier Manufacturing Company, at Royer's Ford, Montgomery county, and Mary A., deceased. The Urner family is of Swiss descent, coming originally from the canton of Uri, Switzerland — whence the name. (See Schiller's poem entitled " Wilhelm Tell." ) Three brothers, John, Martin and Jacob, sons of Uriah Urner, were driven from their homes in the Swiss valleys by religious per- secutions, and settled for a time in the prov- ince of Alsace, now comprised in the Ger- man empire, but later — sometime between 1708 and 1712 — came to America and set- tled in Chester county, Pennsylvania. John Urner died unmarried in 1743, and was the first person buried in the Brethren graveyard of Coventry. Martin Urner and his wife were two of the first six- persons ever baptized by the Brethren in this country, this rite being performed in the Wissahickon, at Philadelphia, in 1723. In 1724 he removed to Coventry, this county, where he organized the Coventry church of the Brethren, over which he presided as preacher and bishop until the time of his death in 1755, and in the cemetery of which his remains now sleep. His descendants are now found in various parts of Vir- ginia, Missouri and New York. The third brother, Jacob,, settled originally in Potts- grove township, near Ringing Hill, Mont- gomery county. He died in 1744, leaving a wife, Ann, and three children : Elizabeth, who married Jacob Frick ; Hester, who be- came the wife of Ulrich Switzer ; and Mar- tin, who wedded Barbara Switzer, and became the second preacher and bishop of 308 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY the Brethren's church at Coventry, which he served as such from 1755 to 1799. At his death he left four children : Martin, grandfather of Eli Urner; Jonas; Mary, who married David Eeinhart, of Maryland; and Elizabeth, who became the wife of Abra- ham Titlow, of Lancaster county, Penn- sylvania. Martin Urner (grandfather) was born in Coventry township, Chester county, in 1762, and died in K'orth Coventry town- ship in 1838, aged seventy-six years. He was a farmer by vocation, an old-line whig in politics, a member of the German Bap- tist church, and married Barbara Baugh,by whom he had four sons : John, Daniel, Israel and Jacob, all of whom are now de- ceased. John, the eldest, was born in 1784 and died in 1827. He was twice married, iirst to Susannah Grubb, who died without issue, and later to Elizabeth Grubb, by whom he had two children : Lydia, who married Gilbert Brower; and Isaac N. Jacob Urner (father) was born in Coventry township in the initial year of this century, and lived there until 1828, when with his family he moved to Warwick township, dying February 16, 1868, in his sixty-eighth year. He also was a farmer, and devoted his life principally to agricultural pursuits, in which he was very successful. In both religion and politics he followed the tradi- tions of his family, and was a stanch whig and republican, and a member of the Ger- man Baptist or Duukard church. He mar- ried Elizabeth Halderman in 1820, and was the father of three children, one son and two daughters : Eli, the subject of this sketch; Hannah B., who married Lewis C. Templin, and now resides in Warwick town- ship ; and Elizabeth, the wife of J. L.Wells, of Warwick township. The daughters were educated at Emberton's seminary. Among the descendants of the other sons of Bishop Martin Urner was Milton G. Urner, a member from Virginia of the forty-sixth and forty-seventh congresses of the United States ; and Isaac 1^. Urner, LL. D., a graduate from Dickinson college, who was president of the Mississippi Baptist college from 1851 to 1867. QEORGE W. LANDIS, a successful business man of Pottstown Landing, and one of the progressive farmers of Ches- ter county, is the eldest of the two sons of David and Catharine (Latsliaw) Landis, and was born near Boyertown, Berks county, Pennsylvania, July 13, 1832. He was principally reared in J^orth Coventry town- ship, this county, and received his education in the public schools there and in Samuel Aaron's boarding school at IS'orristown. After leaving school he learned the trade of coachmaker with Isaac Heistand, near Phoenixville, but followed it only one year.. In 1854 he embarked in the mercantile business at Madisonville and Pottstown Landing, and soon drifted into the coal and lumber business also at the latter place, in connection with the store. This combined enterprise he successfully continued until about 1866, when he disposed of it and went to North Carolina, where he engaged with several others in the manufacture of lumber in connection with a grist mill and general store, on the Pantego river, in Beaufort county. After conducting these mills for a year and a half an opportunity was afforded to dispose of them, which was done. Re- turning to Pennsylvania he was again, for a period of three years, in the coal and lumber business at Pottstown Landing. In 1868 he was made superintendent of teams OF CHES2ER COUNTY. \ for the Schuylkill Navigation Company, which position he filled until this company sold out to the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, in 1870, when he be- came and remained superintendent for the latter company until 1876. Since the latter year he has been purchasing the mules, feed and other like supplies for the canal and railroad company, as well as for the Phila- delphia & Reading Coal and Iron Company. Mr. Landis also owns and operates a tine farm of one hundred and eighty-two acres of highly productive land in North Coven- try township. In his political affiliations he has always been a republican, and served as justice of the peace from 1865 to 1870. The following year he was again re-elected, but resigned the position in 1874, and de- clined to serve longer. In religion he fol- lows the footsteps of his ancestors, and is a member of the Mennonite church. On December 22, 1853, Mr. Landis was married to Hannah L. Tunk, a daughter of John Funk, of East Coventry township, Chester county. To Mr. and Mrs. Landis were born two children, one son and a daughter. The son, John D. P., was born June 29, 1859, and on October 14, 1886, wedded Florence M. Swindells, a daugh- ter of Rev. W. Swindells, D. D. He is now chief clerk in the office of the Phila- delphia & Reading Railroad Company, and resides at Trevose, Bucks county. The daughter is Susanna F., now living at home with her parents. David Landis (father) was also a native of Berks county, born near Boyertown May 15, 1804. In that county he passed his life, principally engaged in the tannery business, though he owned and successfully managed a tine farm. He was a man of en- ergy and good business ability, lived an ac- tive and useful life, and passed away on October 4, 1839, at the early age of thirty- tive years. Almost in boyhood he embraced the political doctrines of the old whig party, and remained an ardent supporter of that organization all his life. In religious faith he was a Mennonite and an active member of that church. April 21, 1831, he married Catharine Latshaw, a daughter of John Latshaw, of this county, and to this union were born two sons, George W.,the subject of this sketch, and Rev. John L., who now resides at Cape May, New Jersey, where he is engaged in pastoral work as a minister of the Presbyterian church. The latter was educated at Collegeville, and early adopted the gospel ministry as his chosen life work. He married Florence Miles, of Potter county, Pennsylvania. Three years after the death of David Landis, April 28, 1842,Mrs.Catharine Landis married Rudolph Reiff, who died January 12, 1884, aged sev- enty-six, having been born April 3, 1808. She now li,ves at Pottstown Landing, having reached the eighty-second year of her age in January last. The maternal grandfather of George W. Landis, John Latshaw, was a native of Chester Springs, this county, born March 26, 1785. He purchased a large farm near Chester Springs, where he was engaged in farming. For a time he lived near Potts- t6wn Landing, retired, but returned to Ches- ter Springs, where he died May 13, 1860, aged seventy-five years. He was a whig and republican in politics, and a member of the Mennonite church, in which he was trustee for many years. He married Susan High, and reared a family of two sons and six daughters, the eldest of whom becacae the wife of David Landis, and the mothei- of George W. The others were : Madeline, 310 BIOQRAPSY AMD SISTOIiY married John McCurdy, a farmer, justice of the peace, surveyor, and real estate dealer (now deceased), and now lives in Tredyffrin township, this county ; Susan, who wedded Rudolph Harley, a retired farmer of Cairo, Illinois; Jacob B., deceased; Elizabeth, married Isaac Heistand, and they are both now deceased ; Mary, wedded Israel Beidler, a Mennonite minister (now dead), and lives in Cleveland, Ohio ; John, a farmer of West Pikeland township, who married Elizabeth Jones; and Sarah, who wedded Horatio Adams, a machinist, residing in the city of Philadelphia. HABMAN PRIZER, one of the enter- prising and successful citizens of East Coventry, and a gentleman widely known among the business men of this section of the old ^P^eystone State, is the fourth child and only son of Henry and Elizabeth (Diff'endaffer) Prizer. He was born on the old homestead in East Coventry township, this county, l^ovember 5, 1832, and educated in the public schools there. After attaining manhood he was engaged for a time in op- erating the home farm, on which G. W. Shantz now resides, and has devoted his whole life to agricultural and kindred pur- suits. In 1862 he purchased the Heister property, and owns one of the most desir- able farms in this locality, containing one hundred and twenty acres of choice land, nearly all improved. He keeps a number of fine cows and. is engaged to" some extent in shipping milk to Philadelphia, besides which he was a stockholder and director in the East Coventry — now "Elgin" — cream- ery, having been among the earliest pro- moters of that enterprise, and officially con- nected therewith since its organization in the spring of 1883. Mr. Prizer is also a stockholder and director in the Citizen's National bank of Pottstown, and has held that relation since the organization of the bank in March, 1892. In his political affil- iations he is a republican, though an ardent temperance advocate, and has been school director three terras and also served as town clerk, and made the first and second military enrollments in East Coventry township. He is now a member of Brown- back's German Reformed church and super- intendent of the Sabbath school, though formerly connected with New Bethel Metho- dist Episcopal church, in which he served as trustee. On October 28, 1855, Mr. Prizer was united in marriage to Mary A. W anger, a daughter of Abraham and Mary (Bergey) Wanger, of North Coventry township, Chester county. This union was blessed by a family of eleven children, six sons and five daughters : L. Ella, born 1856, mar- ried John Buckwalter, who resides at Kenilworth, and a sketch of whose life ap- pears on another page of this book; H. Clifton, born October 5, 1857, married Mary Guest, and is a prosperous farmer of South Coventry township ; Flora K., born Febru- ary 19, 1859, wedded John Schlichter,whose biography will be found elsewhere in this volume; William W., born September 15, 1860, and died in infancy ; William A., born September 10, 1861, married Anna P. Hall- man, and now resides near Stauft'er's shops in East Coventry township, where he is en- gaged in farming; G. Milton, born July 19, 1863, wedded Emma High and farms at home; Anna L., born June 15, 1865, who became the wife of Addison Miller, now re- siding at Sheeder; Rose M., born March 29, 1868, and died at the age of four nem ^^i^-mne-, r- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 313 years and one month ; N. Bella, born Au- gust 29, 1869 ; F. Newton, born February 6, 1874 ; and Irvin W., who died in infancy. For a detailed statement of the ancestral history of the Prizer family, see the sketch of Henry Prizer, father of Harman Prizer, which appears elsewhere in this work. nAGNEW FUTHEY is a representa- tive of one of the oldest families of Chester county, who has the distinction of having been the first school superintendent of the county, and was for many years con- nected with her banking interests. He was long an active, intelligent and successful man of affairs, but for some years has been living in retirement at his elegant home in Parkesburg. He is the eldest son of Sam- uel and Ann (Parkinson) Futhey, and was born September 2, 1824, in what was then West Fallowfield, but is now Highland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Futheys are of original Scotch descent, but the American branch is of Scotch-Irish parentage. Their home in the seventeeth century was near Arbroath, on the eastern coast of Scotland, where they owned lands bearing the same name. The family was prominent and influential, two of its mem- bers — Alexanderand Henry — beingin par- liament during the reign of Charles II., while others filled positions of honor and trust. Robert Futhey emigrated from Scot- land to the north of Ireland in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and his son, also named Robert, came from Ireland to America between 1725 and 1730, and settled in the southern part of Chester county, Pennsylvania. He died soon after his arrival, leaving four children — Robert, 20 Samuel, Margery and Henry — from whom have descended the numerous Futhey family now scattered in all parts of the United States. Robert removed to the Cumberland valley about 1770, and his de- scendants can be found throughout western Pennsylvania and in some of the southern and western States. Henry removed to the western part of North Carolina, and has de- scendants in both the Carolinas. Samuel, who was born in 1725, remained in Ches- ter county, where he became prominent and took an active part in aiding the American cause during the revolution. In January, 1750, he married Ruth Steele, of New London township, and in 1763 pui'chased and removed to a farm of two hundred acres in "West Fallow- field (now Highland) township. He died January 27, 1790, and was buried in the family burying ground at New London. At his death he left two surviving children, Ann and Samuel. Samuel's brother, Robert Futhey, served in the American army dur- ing the revolution, and died soon afterward from exposure while in the service. Ann Futhey married Samuel Dale, who became an influential citizen of the Buffalo valley, and served in the house of representatives of Pennsylvania ten years and in the State senate six years. Samuel Futhey (2) (grand- ,father) had considerable taste for military life, and served five campaigns in the revo- lutionary war. In 1794 he was adjutant of a regiment of cavalry that took part in suppressing the whisky insurrection in western Pennsylvania. He subsequently filled the office of brigade inspector for seven years-, with the rank of major, by which title he was ever afterward addressed. He was a member of the Presbyterian church and an old-line whig in politics. In 314 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 1782 he married Margaret McPherson, who died in 1784, and in 1788 he wedded Martha Smith. Major Futhey died February 22, 1812, leaving five children : Robert, Jane, Sarah, Samuel and John S. Robert Futhey was born January 21, 1789, served in the war of 1812, was a member of the Pennsyl- vania legislature in 1841-42, and died July 29, 1870. He married Margaret Parkinson, of Carlisle, this State, and at his death left five children: J. Smith, James L., Martha, Elizabeth J. and Robert. His eldest son. Judge J. Smith Futhey (now deceased), was one of the authors of the history of Chester county, published by Louis H. Evarts, at Philadelphia, in 1881, and for a number of years president judge of the courts of Ches- ter county. John S. Futhey, the Major's youngest son, was born December 20, 1796. He resided for many years in Wrightsville, York eount}^, and during his later life in West Chester, where he died August 18, 1867. He married Juliann Heintzelman, a sister of the late Gen. Samuel P. Heintzel- but left no descendants. Samuel man. Futhey (3) (father) was born February 2, 1794, in what was then "West Fallowfield township, this county, and was a prosperous farmer there until his death, Maz'ch 29, 1856, at the advanced age of sixty-two years. He owned and occupied the old homestead, was a member of the Upper Octoraro Presby- terian church, a whig in politics, and a great admirer of Henry Clay. By his marriage to Ann Parkinson — who was a sister of his brother Robert's wife — he had a family of three children : Robert Agnew, the subject of this sketch ; Mary A. ; and Samuel Dale. Mrs. Futhey was a native of Cumberland county, this State, a devoted member of the Presbyterian church, and died April 27, 1871, in the seventy-fourth year of her age. Robert Agnew Futhey was reared on the old homestead in Highland township, pur- suing his primary studies in the common schools and receiving his academic educa- tion at New London and Unionville acad- emies. After leaving school he engaged in teaching, and was assistant teacher under Prof. Myers at the old West Chester acad- emy until 1854, when he was elected county superintendent of public schools, being the first superintendent ever elected in Chester county. He held his position three years, during which time his father died, and at the expiration of his term of office he re- turned to the old homestead and took charge of the farm. He continued to be occupied in agricultural pursuits until 1868, when he removed to the vicinity of Parkesburg. In the following year was organized the private banking house of Parke, Smith & Co., at Parkesburg, and Mr. Futhey accepted a position as clerk in that institution. He served for one year in that capacity and was then made cashier, in which position he re- mained until 1883, when he retired from ac- tive business. In 1870 he moved into Parkesburg, where he has one of the hand- somest and most finely appointed residences in the borough. In December, 1855, Mr. Futhey was united in marriage to Sarah P. Taylor, a daughter of Jacob Taylor, of this county. He is a member of the Presbyterian church and a stanch republican in politics. Many times he has been called on to fill local of- fices, and has served as burgess of Parkes- burg, school director, and member of the borough council. He is a worthy represen- tative of a worthy family, and is passing his declining years surrounded by comfort and luxury, and enjoying the respect and esteem of a wide circle of steadfast friends. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 816 TSAAC B. HALDERMAN, one of the old and honored citizens of ITorth Cov- entry township, residing near Pottstown, is the eldest son of John and Rebecca (Rein- hart) Halderman, and was born January 2, 1828, in North Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he has always resided. He was reared on the farm, edu- cated in the common schools, and has divi- ded his attention between farming and mill- ing, being successful in both occupations. He now owns two hundred and five acres of valuable improved land in that township, and also owns and operates a grist mill and saw mill on pigeon creek — the same mill erected by his father about 1814, and the first ever built on this creek. Isaac R. Halderman has been twice wed- ded. His first wife was Magaret Sabold, whom he married on Christmas day, 1855, and by whom he had three children — one son and two daughters : Valeria, born Oc- tober 21, 1856, and died May 1, 1859 ; John H., a sketch of whom will be found on an- other page of this work ; and Arabella, born April 14, 1860, and passed away November 16, 1861. Mrs. Halderman died April 7, 1852, aged thirty-one years, and on March 24, 1864, Mr. Halderman wedded Hannah Keim, who was born April 19, 1831, and is a daughter of Samuel Keim, of Warwick township, Chester county. By this mar- riage Mr. Halderman had two sons and a daughter : Wilmar K., born July 20, 1865 ; Alice K., born December 17, 1868, gradu- ated in June, 1892, from the Normal school at Kutztown, and is now engaged in teach- ing; and Maurice S., born March 18, 1877. The Halderman family is of German de- scent and is an old family in Pennsylvania, having been resident here for many genera- tions. The paternal grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch, Samuel Halderman, was a native of lierks county, this State, where he died at the early age of twenty- eight years. He was a democrat in politics, a farmer by occupation, and married Magda- lena Wanger, by whom he had two chil- dren, who lived to maturity : John "W., and Susan, who married John Rinehart. John W. Halderman (father), was born on the old " Felix farm " in Berks county, on January 3, 1799, and after his father's death, when only six or eight years of age, came to Ches- ter county with his mother, and was reared in North Coventry township. There he passed the remainder of his life, dying Feb- ruary 18, 1880, in the eighty-first year of his age. He was by turns, a farmer, shoe- maker, and miller, and in 1814 erected the first mill ever built on Pigeon creek, which he successfully conducted for a number of years. In politics he was a democrat. He married Rebecca Rinehart, a daughter of Abraham Rinehart, of East Coventry, Ches- ter county, and had a family of six chil- dren : Isaac R., the subject of this sketch : Nathan R., deceased; "William R., born November 25, 1829, and died January 8, 1845; Ann Amelia, born July 17, 1831, and died August 21, 1855 ; Catharine, born August 31, 1833, and died September 1, 1856 ; and Valeria, who was born March 28, 1835. Mrs. Rebecca (Rinehart) Hal- derman was born March 10, 1807, and is yet living, being now in the eighty-sixth year of her age. FRED A. TENCATE, cashier of the Phcenix Iron Company, of Phoenix- ville, is a veteran of the civil war and an energetic, useful and prominent citizen of Chester county, who is en- 316 BIOGMAPHY AND HISTOBY titled to rank with the self-made men of whom this Commonwealth is justly proud. He is a son of John E. and Frances S. (Cal- loway) Tencate, and was born January 3, 1842, on the isle of Guernsey, Great Britain. His parents were both natives of England, but emigrated to America in the summer of 1852, and located at Phcenixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where they continued to reside until called away by death. The father died August 17, 1879, aged Hfty-nine years and eight months. He was a shoe- maker by occupation, a member of the Pres- byterian church, and a stanch republican in politics. Mrs. Tencate died June 27, 1890, in the seventy-tirst year of her age. She also was a devoted and faithful member of the Presbyterian church. Fred A. Tencate came to Phcenixville with his parents when only ten years old, and at that early age began working with his father at the shoemaking trade, which he followed for three years. lie then se- cured employment in the rolling mills of what is now Phoenix Iron works of this town, where he remained until June 6, 1861, working through all grades up to a finish- ing roller. In 1861, when only nineteen years of age, he enlisted in Co. G, 1st Penn- sylvania reserve corps, as a private, and at Harrison Landing, Virginia, August 4, 1862, was promoted to be regimental commissary sergeant and served as such until November, 1863, when after the first advance in the Mine Run expedition, he was sent back to Washington as disabled and unfit for field duty. Up to this time he had never lost a day from active duty, and after reaching Washington he was assigned to duty as ex- ecutive clerk for the board of examining surgeons of the Veteran Reserve Corps, lie held this position until the expiration of his term of enlistment, when he re-enlisted as first sergeant, and at the request of the board of surgeons was continued as their clerk. In October, 1864, he procured a furlough and visited Philadelphia, desiring to become a citizen of the United States, and cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln in the following November. He was granted final naturalization papers October 8, 1864, having already done three years and four months active military duty, which was in the strictest sense the purely voluntary ser- vice of an alien. At the request of Mr. Tencate he was assigned to duty as chief clerk at the military prison at Louisville, Kentucky. December 15, 1864, he was com- missioned captain of Co. B, 124th colored infantry, and while holding that rank served in the position of assistant adjutant general at Camp Nelson, Kentucky, and also as pro- vost marshal and as provost marshal- general of the first division, departinent of Kentucky, with headquarters at Lex- ington. September 14, 1865, he took charge of his regiment and was in command until it was mustered out of the service. He was discharged October 24, 1865, at Louisville,Kentucky, and returning to Penn- sylvania was commissioned first lieutenant of the 5th colored cavalry. Finding him- self physically unfit for work in the rolling mills, he accepted the commission and joined the regiment at Helena, Arkansas, March 9, 1866. At the mustering out of the 5th colored cavalry he was assigned to duty as superintendent of the bureau of refugees at Hamburg, Ashley county, Arkansas, and served in that capacity until July 9, 1866, when he resigned and returned to Phcenix- ville to accept the position of assistant cash- ier with the Phcenix Iron Company. He occupied that place until March, 1879,when OF CHESTER COUNTY. 317 on the death of J. B. McAllister, Mr Ten- cate was made cashier by the company and has acceptably filled this position ever since. On January 17, 1866, Mr. Tencate was united in marriage to Jennie E. Bradley, a daughter of Rev. Joel E. Bradley, of Phce- nixville. To their union has been born a family of six children, two sons and four daughters : Joel E., Francis J., a graduate from the State ITormal school at West Ches- ter, Pennsylvania, and now teaching in the grammar department of the public schools of Phcenixville ; Jennie, Mary, Caroline W., and one deceased. Politically Mr. Tencate is an ardent re- publican and an active, untiring worker for the success of his party. He has been a member of the Baptist church since his eighteenth year, and is a prominent teacher in its Sabbath school. He has also served his town as school director and president of the town councils. He is also secretary and treasurer of the following enterprises : the Phoenix Pottery; Kaolin and Fire Brick Company, and Phcenixville Land and Im- provement Company, in the latter of which he is financially interested. He is a mem- ber of Stratford Castle, Wo. 67, Knights of the Grolden Eagle, of which he is past noble chief. Mr. Tencate has always had a mili- tary side to his character, and in 1870, in association wit!) Gen. J. R. Dobson, began the present military organization of the Penn- sylvania i^ational Gruardsin Chester and Lan- caster counties, being appointed April 27, 1870, as second lieutenant of the Reeves Rifies, of Phcenixville. • On June 30, 1870, he was promoted to first lieutenant, and April 22, 1871, was made lieutentant-col- onel and assistant adjutant general, third division of the uniformed militia of Chester and Lancaster counties. September 15, 1873, he was commissioned major of the first provisional battalion, third division National Guards, and April 4, 187.4, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel of this battalion. He became colonel of the 11th regiment, JS'ational Guards of Penn- sylvania, on September 8, 1874, which com- mission he resigned February 22, 1877, hav- ing served about five years in the United States service, and nearly seven years in the State service. He was a charter member of Lieut. Josiah White Post, !N"o. 45, Grand Army of the Republic, and is now com- mander of his post. QAPT. BENJAMIN H. SWENEY, an honored veteran of the civil war and one among the oldest and best known busi- ness men of the city of West Chester, is the eldest son of John H. and Ann (Hodgson) Sweney, and was born at West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, on the 10th of September, 1829. The paternal great- grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Thomas Sweney, a resident of Bucks county, who was descended from Scotch-Irish stock, and served in the revolutionary war, being attached for a time to the staft" of General Washington. He was a farmer by vocation, devoted his eftbrts after the war to winning a livelihood from the soil, until the advanc- ing infirmities of old age compelled him to desist. His son, Thomas Sweney (grand- father), was a resident of Chester county, making West Chester his home after his marriage. He died in West Chester in 1856. Mr. Sweney served in the war of 1812, and died after an active and laborious life of nearly eighty years. He reared a 318 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY large family, among whom was John H. Sweney (father), who was born in "West Chester, this county, in 1805, and died here March 26, 1881, at the advanced age of seventy-six years. He was a tailor by trade, and married Ann Hodgson, a daughter of Rev. William Hodgson, a Methodist min- ister, who came to West Chester in 1812 from Yorkshire, England, where Mrs. Sweney was born July 16, 1806. By this marriage John H. Sweney had a family of nine children, the eldest being Capt. Ben- jamin H. Sweney. Captain Sweney was reared in West Chester, and i-eceived his education in the public schools of that borough and atBolmas academy. After leaving school he became an apprentice to the bakei-'s trade, which he thoroughly learned and followed as an oc- cupation for a number of years. He then engaged in the grocery and provision trade at West Chester, and successfully conducted that business for a period of fifteen years. Later he again opened a bakery in the city, and is still engaged in that useful calling. His energy and business ability are well known and such as would insure a cred- itable success in any line of endeavor. At the very beginning of the great civil war, impelled by that spirit of patriotism which moved the people of the Northern States as if touched by the hand of some divine magician, Benjamin H. Sweney en- listed in his country's service, becoming a member of Co. G, 2d Pennsylvania infantry, and on the organization of the company was elected and commissioned as captain. This was the first company raised in Chester county'. At the expiration of their three months' term of service. Captain Sweney re- enlisted in Co. F, 49th Pennsylvania in- fantry, and served as captain of that com- pany until N^ovember 19, 1863, when this regiment was consolidated, and'he entered the cavalry arm of the service in the 20th Pennsylvania cavalry, with which he served until the close of the war, being mustered out as captain on July 16, 1865. During his service with the infantry Captain Sweney took part at the head of his com- pany in the battles of Williamsburg, the Wilderness, Antietam, Fredericksburg, White Oak Swamp and Malvern Hill, be- sides numerous less important engagements and skirmishes. As a member of the cav- alry force he was engaged in the battles of second Winchester, Ifew Market, Piedmont, and Sheridan's raid, and also took part in Hunter's raid. He was in the battle at Five Forks, and was present at- the surrender of General Lee at Appomatox. On February 22, 1853, Captain Sweney married Mary Ingraham, who died January 28, 1856, leaving one child, a daughter named Hester A., who married William Savidge and had one daughter, Mary S. In 1873 he was again married, wedding Jane E. Taylor, a daughter of John H. Tay- lor, of West Chester. By this second mar- riage he has three daughters : Carrie M., Sarah T. and Catherine D. Politically Captain Sweney has always been a republican, and after coming out of the army served for some time as deputy collector of internal revenue for this dis- trict. He and his family are members of the Reformed Episcopal church, and liberal in their support of all church interests. He is a member of General McCall Post, No. 31, , Grand Army of the Republic, has been identified with the Masonic order for over thirty-two years, being now a member of West Chester Lodge, No. 322, Free and Accepted Masons. OF CHESTES COUNTY. 319 lUTARY SPARKES WHEELER, au- * thor, poet and preacher, was born near Tinton abbey ,England, June 21,1835. When six years of age she came to the United States with her parents and settled in Binghamton, N"ew York, where her childhood and youth were spent. Bishop Newman, of Washing- ton, District of Columbia, speaking of her father, represents him as "a man of sturdy piety and heroic faith, with robust intellect and large culture, whose familiarity with great authors, dead and living, enables him to give to the world rare books." Mrs. Wheeler holds among her treasures an autograph letter received by her father from Mr. Gladstone, of England, in com- mendation of one of his works. Her mother was a woman of clear intellect, refined sen- sibilities and devoted to her family and her church. One of Mrs. Wheeler's sisters. Miss Fan- nie J. Sparkes, spent twenty years in India as a missionary, first as president of a large orphanage and boarding school in Bareilly, and later founded a home for high caste women in Muttra. In childhood Mrs. Wheeler showed great fondness for books, nearly always being at the head of her classes. When very small her teachers took delight in " showing her off" on all important occasions in mathe- matics and astronomy. These studies were her especial delight. In composition she excelled, and began writing for the press at a very early age. In former years she wrote more poetry than prose, and is author of a volume entitled "Poems for the Fire- side," published by Walden & Stowe, Cin- cinnati, Ohio. Some of these poems have been republished and extensively used by elocutionists, especially her " Charge of the Rum Brigade." The lamented P. P. Bliss, Profs. Sweeney, Kirkpatrick, and others, have set many of her poems to music. By request of Prof. Sweeney, who composed the music, she wrote the two well known soldiers' decoration hymns, "Peacefully Rest" and "Scatter Loves' Beautiful Garlands above Them." These are known throughout the nation. Previous to her marriage to Rev. Henry Wheeler (see his sketch), which occurred April 13, 1858, she was principal of the largest school in the city of Binghamton. Never were husband and wife more united in heart, in life, and purpose — each a help- meet for the other. After her marriage, for many years her time was given mostly to her children, who were in delicate health, having inherited frail constitutions. Of the seven born to them but three now survive. Mrs. Wheeler has an innate love for the beautiful — is arlover of art. She has spent much time with her pencil and brush, and has in her possession a diploma awarded her for the best crayons and oil paintings at a State exhibition. Her home is a bower of beauty, decorated largely with the work of her own hands. Her china painting has at- tracted much attention by the lovers of art in Philadelphia. The New York daily Tribune,\n August, 1890, said : " Mrs. Mary Sparkes Wheeler is one of the prominent workers at Ocean Grove. She is the author of three books : ' The First Decade of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society,' 'Modern Cosmogony and the Bible,' and 'Poems for the Fire- side' — and is an industrious contributor to periodical literature. *She is president of the Philadelphia branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal church, and has for ten years had supervision of this work in two States — 320 BIOQRAPBY AND HISTORY Pennsylvania and Delaware. She is also National evangelist of the Woman's Chris- tian Temperance union, and a member of the N^ational Lecture bureau in Chicago, Illinois. Her special delight is in preaching and conducting evangelistic services. Here she is at her best, and is eminently success- ful. She has spoken in many of the largest churches in the land, from Boston, east, to Lincoln, ITebraska, west. She has also ad- dressed large audiences in the open air in such summer resorts as Thousand Island park and Ocean Grove. She is an eloquent and forcible speaker, of medium height, dignified in bearing, refined in manner, with a clear, strong voice, and never fails to win and hold her audiences. When not en- gaged in public speaking she is busy with her pen, preparing another volume which will soon be ready for the press." TAllIiLIAM BROWERjM.D., a worthy descendant of two old and honorable families of Chester county, and one of the most active public men of Spring City, is a man who stands high in the medical profession, and enjoys a very extensive practice in eastern Chester and western Montgomery counties. He is a son of Gilbert and Lydia (Urner) Brower, and was born in East Coventry township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, February 25, 1842. The first ancestor of Dr. William Brower in this country, on the paternal side, Henry Brower, who was born February 14, 1720, and died October 14, 1784, came originally from Holland about the year 1740, and settled along the river Schuylkill, in what is now East Coventry township, in Chester county. He was a man of considerable local prominence, as the early colonial records show. He was twice married, hav- ing seven children, five sons and two daugh- ters. Abraham, the eldest of the five sons, born April 1, 1745, and died October 21, 1805, was the father of ten children, two sons and eight daughters. He was a pros- perous farmer and an active and consistent member of the Mennonite church. Henry Brower, one of the two sons, who was born September 29, 1785, and died April 23, 1833, was the grandfather of Dr. William Brower, the subject of this biography. Henry Brower, grandfather of Dr. Brower, had seven children, six sons and one daugh- ter. One of these sons, Gilbert Brower (father), was born on the old ancestral farm, February 5, 1815, and died December 18, 1890, when well advanced in the seventy- sixth year of his age. He was a life-long resident of East Coventpy township, except- ing a few years in earlier life spent in Berks county. He was a farmer by occu- pation, and a whig and republican in poli- tics, and during the early days of the agitation of the slavery question was a prominent and pronounced abolitionist. An early and earnest friend of the temperance movement, he strongly sympathized in his latter years with every efibrt looking toward the complete prohibition of the liquor traflic. He was was a useful member of the Brethren's church, and married Lydia Ur- ner, by whom he had five children, three sons and two daughters: Harrison, the eldest, who died February 15, 1877; Dr. William; Eev. Isaac U. (see his sketch); Sallie, who died June 29, 1888; and Eliza- beth, who died in early childhood. Dr. William Brower, on his maternal side, traces his ancestry back six generations, to Ulrich Urner, a member of the patriotic, honor- ^. ^for his excellent qualities of heart as for his fine mental acquirements. nEV. EDWARD WEBB, financial sec- retary of Lincoln university, who labored earnestly and faithfully for twenty years as a missionary for the conversion and civilization of the benighted heathen of India, is a son of Thomas and Susan (Grimsby) Webb, and was born in Lowes- toft, Sufitblk county, England, December 15, 1819. Thomas "Webb was a native of Eng- land, where he married Susan Grimsby, and died some years afterward. His widow and their four children — three sons and one daughter — came in 1840 to Andover, Mas- sachusetts,where they resided for some time. She died at Greenwich, that State, in 1847, when in the sixty-third year of her age. Edward "Webb was reared in England and took the classical course at the King Edward's Grammar school in Bury street, Ed- munds, from which institution he was grad- uated in 1838. He was then private tutor in a family until 1840, when he came to Andover, Massachusetts. He there entered the Theological seminary, from which he was graduated in 1845, and in the same year went to India as a missionarj' under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign missions. En- gaged in philanthropic and Christian labor for the spiritual and intellectual good of India's ignorant millions, he established Christian churches and schools. He trans- lated and edited school books and religious works, including a periodical entitled "The Tamil Quarterly Repository." He also ed- ited a volume of native hymns, which were set to Indian music. He remained in India until 1864, when he returned to the United States, and spent one year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recruiting his health, which had been impaired by long residence and overwork and the tropical heat of Asia. At the end of that time he took charge of the Pencader Presbyterian church in New Castle county, Delaware, where he remained until 1871, when he became pastor of a church in Andover, New Jersey, which he left in April, 1873, to accept his present charge, which he has held until the present time. Mr."Webb's missionary labors did not cease with his residence in India, but he continued them in his work for Lincoln university (whose his- tory appears elsewhere in this volume), and has done a large amount of work in the in- terests of that institution, whose object is the education of young men of color for evangelical ministry among our seven mil- lions of Afro-Americans and the unnum- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 341 bered minions of the "Dark Continent." For the last nineteen years he has held his present relation tothefinances oftheeollege. On September 30, 1845, Mr. Webb mar- ried Nancy A.Foote, a teacher in Mt.Holyoke Ladies' seminary, of which she was a grad- uate. To Mr. and Mrs. Webb in India were born eight children: LuciusandAllyn (de- ceased), Mary E., wife of J. Wilkins Cooch, probate judge of New Castle county, Dela- ware; Dr. Ella S., who was graduated from the Womans' Medical college, of Philadel- phia, in 1886, and since then has been in active practice at Oxford ; Edward A., ed- itor of an agricultural paper at St. Paul, Minnesota ; Sarah (deceased) ; Rev. Samuel G., who is pastor of the Presbyterian church of New Gretna, New Jersey; and Anna F., who is a missionary at San Sebastian, Spain. In politics Mr. Webb is a republican. He was licensed to preach in 1844, and ordained to the ministry in 1845. One of his dis- tinguishing characteristics is earnestness, and he throws his whole soul into any cause in which he labors. Well known as a min- ister and missionary, he has been successful in his efibrts to advance the interests of Lincoln university. TSAAC MASSEY, M.D., of West Ches- ter, whose talent and labors have wrought out marked success for him in the field of his chosen profession, is a son of John and Jemima (Garrett) Massey, was born' in West Goshen township, near West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1838. The paternal ancestors of Dr. Mas- sey were of English stock, and his grand- father, Israel Massey, was a life long resi- dent of Valley Forge, where he owned this land upon which Washington's head-quar- ters were situated while the Continental army lay through the midnight of the revolution at that celebrated place. He married Rachel Vodges, who was born No- vember 6, 1767, and of whose ancestors genealogist Cope, of Chester county, has compiled the following: "In pursuance of an act of Parliament, made in the thirteenth year of the reign of King George II (of Great Britain), entitled 'an act for natural- izing such foreign Protestants and others therein mentioned, as are settled or shall settle in any of Plis Majesty's colonies in America,' Richard Vodges took and sub- scribed the qualifications in 1743. He mar- ried and had two children : Jacob and Bar- bara. Jacob married Elizabeth Hampton, who was, perhaps, a daughter of Benjamin Hampton, of Edgemont and Willistown townships. By this marriagehe hadafamily of twelve children, of which Rachel ( Vodges) Massey was one. Jacob Vodges purchased a farm in Willistown township, for two hundred pounds in gold and silver money, and in the deed is styled, 'a blacksmith.'" Israel and Rachel (Vodges) Massey reared a family of children, and their son, John Massey (father), who was born in 1798, at Valley Forge, is now a resident of West Chester. He was a farmer in early life, and afterwards was engaged in merchandising. He is a member of the Friends' church, and a republican in politics, and married Jemima Garrett, who died in 1883, aged 83 years, and whose ancestors settled in Willistown township over two hundred years ago. They had a family of three children, two sons and one daughter : Rebecca, wife of William H. Garrett, of Swarthmore, Dela- ware county; William, who died in 1869, and Dr. Isaac. Mr. Massey celebrated his ninety-fourth birthday in November, 1892, 343 BIOGBAPHY AND HISIOBY and is well preserved physically, for his great age. Isaac Massey received his education in Ercildoun and IfTorristown academi es. Leav- ing school he became (1859) professor of higher mathematics and English in the William F. Wyers academy, of West Ches- ter, which position he held for five terms. In the meantime he determined upon med- icine as a profession, read in Philadelphia, and entered Jefterson Medical college, from which well known institution he was grad- uated in the class of 1864. After gradu- ation he became acting assistant surgeon of the United States army, and served as such until the close of the war. Returning from the army, he opened an office at West Ches- ter, where he has remained ever since in the active and successful practice of his pro- fession. In 1866 Dr. Massey married Mary Hin- man, a daughter of D. B. Hinman, a prom- inent wholesale merchant of Philadelphia. She died in 1874, and on January 8, 1879, he wedded Sarah Connor, daughter of John Connor, a native of Boston, who died at West Chester, 1853, aged thirty-six years. By his second marriage Dr. Massey has one child, a daughter, named Frances Price, who was born January 22, 1883. Dr. Massey is a republican in politics. He is a member of the Chester County Medical society, the college of Physicians and Surgeons of Philadelphia, the Pennsyl- vania State Medical association. He is also a member of the board of health, and has been physician to the Westtown Boarding school for the last decade. Dr. Massey has served for several years at West Chester, as surgeon of the Pennsylvania and the Wilmington and Baltimore railroads. He has never refused to accept and discharge other duties than those of his profession when it was the will of his fellow citizens to ask such service at his hands, and thus he served for eighteen years as a member of the city school board, where he had much to do in building up the excellent system of schools for which West Chester is favor- ably known to-day. He has always taken a justifiable pride in the interesting history and substantial progress of his county and State, and has been a useful member for some years of the Pennsylvania Historical society. Dr. Isaac Massey is of that able and energetic class of progressive physicians who love their profession and quickly and efficiently apply in practice what they have learned by close application and thorough study. Respected and esteemed as a citi- zen, and popular as a physician, his skill and success has placed him among the fore- most physicians of southeastern Pennsyl- vania. QDOLPHUS BONZANO, a well known civil engineer of the United States, and a member of the great bridge building com- pany of Phoenix ville, was born December 5, 1830, in the city of Ehingen, kingdom of Wtirtemberg, Germany. He early re- ceived a classical as well as polytechnical education, and arrived at New York city in September, 1850. He then went to Phila- delphia, where, from October until May, 1851, he was engaged in the study of the English language. From May, 1851, to 1855, he was at the American Machine works, at Springfield, Massachusetts, where and at which time he learned the machinist business in all its important branches. Dur- ing the year 1855 he was engaged in erect- ing machinery in the southern States, and OF CHESTEM COUNTY. 343 then went to Detroit, Michigan, where he resided until 1868. Adolphus Bonzano was engaged until 1860 as superintendent of machine shops, and then as designer and superinten- dent of bridge construction. In 1868 he removed to Phcenixville, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of carrying on iron bridge building, as a member of the firm of Clarke, Reeves & Co., and had charge of the esti- mates, general plans, and details of con- struction. This company constructed an immense number of iron bridges, iron via- ducts and roofs, amounting, up to Decem- ber, 1880, to four hundred million pounds in weight. Among the principal works executed by this firm are : the Girard avenue bridge, at Philadelphia; the Hudson river bridge, at Albany ; the bridges for the inter- colonial railway, Canada, and for the North Shore railway, Canada ; the elevated railway in the Second, Sixth, Eighth, and JSTinth avenues, New York city ; and the Susque- hanna bridge at Havre de Grace, Maryland. This company, known as the Phcenix Bridge Company, had its principal office at No. 410 Walnut street, Philadelphia, and its works at Phcenixville. The firm was composed of Thomas C. Clarke, Adolphus Bonzano, and John Griffin, and continued in existence until 1884. Since 1884 Mr. Bonzano has been engaged as vice president and chief engineer of the Phcenix Bridge Company, which is the successor of Clarke, Reeves & Co. Since the organization of the Phcenix Bridge Company some very large iron struct- ures have been completed, notably the large double track bridge over the Ohio river at Cincinnati, and the great iron viaduct over the Pecos river in Texas, for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Mr. Bonzano is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mining Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is a thirty- second degree Mason, a Knight Templar, and a member of the Philadelphia Consistory. In politics, Mr. Bonzano is a republican, but he takes no decided part in political affairs, as his time is given to the duties of his profession and the needs of his business interests. His native talent, strong indi- viduality, and untiring industry are the means by which he has won his way into the front rank of civil engineering, while the large and substanstial bridges which he has erected in the United States and Canada are but so many enduring and conspicuous monuments of his skill and success. toEV. WILLIAM R. STOCKTON, D. V D., who for the third of a century has been the popular pastor of St. Peter's Epis- copal church at Phcenixville, and is an author of considerable repute, was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Oc- tober 31, 1820. He grew to manhood in his native city, receiving a superior educa- tion in the best private schools of Philadel- phia, and after leaving school was engaged for a time in the real estate business and conveyancing. His theological training was received at the divinity school at Philadel- phia. On November 5, 1857, the standing committee of the diocese admitted him as a candidate for Holy Orders. He was or- dained to the office of deacon by Bishop Samuel Bowman, December 19, 1858, at St. Philip's church, Philadelphia, and to the priesthood by Bishop Alonzo Potter and Bishop Samuel Bowman, on Sunday, De- cember 18, 1859, at the church of St. Matthias, Philadelphia. Ou August 9, 1858, 344 BIOGBAPMY AND HISTOBY he was unanimously elected to the rector- ship of St. Peter's Episcopal church at Phcenixville, and St. James' church at Evansburg, Montgomery county. He was unanimously re-elected after his ordination, and continued to serve both congregations regularly for four years, when he resigned his charge in Montgomery county. During all the intervening years he has continued in the acceptable discharge of his duties as pastor of the church in Phcenixville, and has also temporarily taken charge of other churches until they could be supplied by regular pastors, having been elected by the several vestries. In this way he has preached on Sunday afternoons for periods ranging from two to four years, in St. Mary's church, at Warwick ; St. Andrew's church at West Vincent; St. John's church at Pickering bridge ; and St. Peter's church in Great Valley, all of this county. At the beginning of the great civil war, Rev. Dr. Stockton was appointed chaplain of the Gist regiment of Pennsylvania volunteers by Governor Curtin, and obtaining a three months' leave of absence from his church, he accepted the appointment and went to the front. During the battle of the Seven Pines or Fair Oaks, he was captured by the Confederate forces, while attending to the wounded, and held in confinement at Libby prison in Richmond, and at Salisbury, North Carolina. He was released, however, in time to return to Pennsylvania at the ex- piration of his leave of absence, and re- sumed the duties of a pastorate which has suft'ered no interruption since. Dr. Stockton has been successful in his work as a pastor, the church building has several times been greatly improved during his rectorship, and additions to the membership have been made by confirmation regularly every year. Preliminary steps have been taken to build a new church and several thousand dollars have been subscribed for that purpose. He is the author of several books that have had a wide circulation in the libraries of the Sunday schools connected with the Episcopal church in all parts of America. Amiong these children of his pen may be mentioned : Child's book on the Creed, Fragments for the Young, and Christmas Tokens. Rev. Dr. Stockton married Emma T. Gross, of the city of Philadelphia, in March ^ 1843, and. Providence permitting, will cele- brate his golden wedding in March, 1893- He is the father of thirteen children, eleven of whom are still living, four sons and seven daughters. One of Rev. Dr. Stockton's sons, the eldest, Charles H., was appointed a^ cadet to the United States Naval academy, then at Newport, Rhode Island. He gradu- ated at the close of the civil war, and is still an officer in the United States navy, with the rank of commander. At present he is one of the professors of the United States war college at Newport, Rhode Island. He married Miss Neelie Carter, daughter of Rev. A. B. Carter, D. D., of New York, and after her death wedded Miss Pauline King, daughter of Mr. Peter King, a prom- inent merchant of that city. Another son, Lewis Stockton, is a prominent attorney at law of Buffalo, New York. He was mar- ried to Miss Eloise Gilbert, a daughter of Mr. Colgate Gilbert, a wealthy manufacturer of that city. Four of the daughters are married. Two of the sons remain single : one, William B., resides in Helena, Montana, and the other, David Reeves Stockton, is at home engaged in the large iron works of the place. Rev. William R. Stockton is a republican OF CHESTER COUNTY. 345 in politics, and his degree of doctor of divin- ity was conferred on him October 19, 1889. He is a son of Charles and Eliza M. ("Whar- ton) Stockton, and traces his ancestry back to Richard Stockton, the founder pf the Stockton family of New Jersey. Richard was a son of John Stockton, of Keddington, in the parish of Malpas, Chestershire, Eng- land, and came to America prior to 1660. The English Stocktons are an ancient and honorable family and were privileged to use a family coat of arms, still used by the family. Among the early members of the family who distinguished themselves in America was Hon. Richard Stockton, the first man from New Jersey to sign the Declaration of Independence. Charles Stockton, father of Dr. "William R. Stockton, was born at Burlington, JSTew Jersey, in 1801, but removed to Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania, while yet a young man, and was engaged in the clothing business in that city for many years. He became very prosperous, and finally retired from business possessed of a handsome competency. He died at his home in Phiadelphia, December 22, 1883, at the remarkable age of ninety- two years. In politics the elder Stockton was a whig and republican, and in religion a strict member of the Presbyterian church. April 30, 1818, he was united in marriage to Eliza M. "Wharton, a native of Philadel- phia, who died at her home in that city, March 12, 1837. To this union was born a family of eight children, of whom Dr. Stockton is the eldest living. HENRY S. HALLMAN, a stockholder and director of the Spring City Bloom "Works Company, is a son of Henry and Anna (Setzler) Hallman, and was born near Mingo Shute, in Upper Providence town- ship, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, November 18, 1844. lie obtained his edu- cation in the common schools of his native township, and "Washington Hall school of Trappe, Montgomery county, which he at- tended for three terms. Leaving school, he learned the trade of miller, and after fol- lowing milling for two years, entered the employ of the Reading Railroad Company, with whom he remained until 1862, when he left his engine to enlist in the naval service of the United States After two years' service as an engineer in the North Atlantic squadron, and participating in the battles of Plymouth, Roanoke, and Fort Fisher, and two other engagements, he was honorably discharged from the navy, and resumed his former line of work as a loco- motive engineer, which he followed contin- uously until 1866. He then purchased a half interest in the stove tile works of Finkbiner & Beerbrower, and organized the firm of Finkbiner & Hallman, which con- tinued in existence for twelve years. At the end of that time Mr. Hallman and his partner disposed of their works and business to Seholknob & Co. He was then variously engaged until 1883, when he became a member of the firm of Francis & Co., which established in that year the present Spring City Bloom "Works. The firm continued until 1890, when it was reorganized as a stock company, under the name of the Spring City Bloom "Works Company, whose officers are : Samuel Egolf, president ; Henry Francis, treasurer ; W."W. Emery, secretary. Its present board of directors are : Willis Rogers, Milton Latshaw, and Mr. Hallman, who has served continuously as a director since the organization of the company. The plant is situated in the southeastern part of 346 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOMY the borough, and its main buildings are : the bloomery, 40x80 feet, with an L 40x40 feet, and a coal house 30 x 50 feet. The works are fully equipped with modern ap- pliances, and run by a twenty-eight horse- power engine. The company employ thirty- six men during the busy season of the year, and manufacture charcoal blooms of a su- perior quality, for boiler plates and other machine shop work, which are in steady demand in this and several other States. In December, 1871, Mr. Hallman married Gertrude Beerbrower, daughter of Reuben Beerbrower, of East Pikeland township. Henry S. Hallman is inclined to be rather an independent in polities. He has served as a councilman of his borough, and is a member of a lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. Mr. Hallman comes of an old German family. His father, Henry Hallman, was born about 1810, in Upper Providence township, Montgomery county, where he died in 1877. He was a farmer and a dem- ocrat, and had been a member of the Evan- gelical Lutheran church for many years before his death. His wife, Hannah Hall- man, was a daughter of William Setzler, who served in the American army during the war of 1812. They reared a family of seven children, of whom all grew to matur- ity, and four are now living : Abram, Henry 8., Mary, and Elwood. Abram is station agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany at Norristown, Montgomery county ; Mary, married the late Franklin Beerbrower, and now resides in Philadelphia; and El- wood is a lawyer in active pi-actice at Eoyer's Ford, Montgomery county. Henry Hallman was a son of Abram Hallman (grandfather), whose father, Abram Hallman, sr., came from Germany to Montgomery county at an, early day in its history. Abram Hallman was a carpenter by trade, but followed farming principally. He always voted the democratic ticket, and was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, in whose faith he was reared. He married Sarah Prizer, and had but one child, Henry, the father of the subject of this sketch. Henry S. Hallman is an active and thor- oughgoing business man, who by industry and good management has achieved success. HENRY BEAN, deceased, who served for a number of years as justice of the peace in Schuylkill township, was a man of rare business ability, and one who left his mark on the industrial development of his section. He was the fourth child and eldest sou of Mcholas and Mary Ann (Vanderslice) Bean, and was born August 4, 1833, at Pawl- ing, Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. There he grew manhood, re- ceiving a superior English education at the Trappe school and in the boarding school at Iforristown. Soon after leaving school he be- came associated with his father in the lum- ber and coal trade at Pawling, and was, more or less, interested in that business all his life, owning and operating a large saw mill for many years. About 1860 he em- barked with his brothor, Capt. B. F. Bean, under the firm name of H. & B. F. Bean, in the sand crushing business at Pawling, where he continued that business until 1881, in connection with his brother, Capt. Benjamin F. Bean. In 1881 the co-part- nership of H. & B. F. Bean was dissolved, Henry Bean moving to Valley Forge, where, under the firm-title of the Bean Fire Sand Company, he started a similar enterprise. His business proved successful, the demand ■n- iait 'ane lean. OF CHESTER COVNTY. 351 for his product constantly increasing. The business was conducted under the above name until 1888, when a joint stock com- pany was organized under the style of Bean Fire Sand Company, limited, to run iive years. Henry Bean was a man of great energy of character, and had a wonderful capacity for managing the details of busi- ness. He seemed capable of creating suc- cess, in every enterprise he touched, and was apparently at the zenith of a successful career when called away by death, Septem- ; ber 5, 1890, at the age of fifty-seven years. His remains lie entombed in the Morris cemetery at Phoenixville. In politics Mr. Bean was an ardent and enthusiastic repub- lican, and was honored by his fellow citi- zens of Schuylkill township with election to the office of justice of the peace, in which he served with distinction for three full terms, and was holding the position at the ; time of his death. Henry Bean was twice married. His first ] wife was Andora IJmsted, by whom he had one son, Alfred Umsted, who married Sarah ' Reed, and now resides in the city of Pitts- burg, where he is engaged in the real estate business. Some years after the death of his first wife, on December 27, 1860, Mr. Bean was united in marriage to Mary Jane Tyson, a daughter of Robert and Jane M. Tyson, members of the Society of Friends, of Lower Providence township, Montgomery county, this State. To them was born a family of seven children, all of whom died in infancy except the third son, Mcholas, who married May R. Rowan, and resided in Schuylkill township, where he was engaged in the sand business with his father until his death, September 8, 1890^ at the age of twenty- seven years. His widow is now living at Philadelphia. The other six children of 22 Henry and Mary Jane Bean were Franklin, Jesse, Robert, John, Mary Jane and Andora. For ancestral history of Henry Bean, see the sketch of Capt. Benjamin Franklin Bean, which appears elsewhere in this volume. After the death of her husband, in 1890, Mrs. Mary J. Bean took his place in the management of the stone crushing business at Valley Forge, and has proved herself a shining example of that latent 'business ability possessed by a large class of Ameri- can women, who only need some sudden emergency to call into action a power and force of character that might else have never been suspected. She is of German and Welsh descent, and was reared and ed- ucated in Montgomery county, where her family is among the oldest and most res- pected, and has furnished the Common- wealth with a number of active, useful and influential citizens. HON. THEODORE K. STUBBS was a member of the State legislature from 1881 to 1886, and is now a prominent at- torney of' Oxford, who by energetic and zealous work has attained more than the ordinary degree of success. He is the eld- est son of Daniel and Rachel A. (Kirk) Stubbs, and was born June 10, 1847, in East Nottingham, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania. Isaac Stubbs (grandfather) was a native of Lancaster county, and died there in 1832, at the advanced age of seventy- five years. He was a farmer by occupation, and married Hannah Brown, by whom he had a family of nine children. One of his sons was Daniel Stubbs (father) who was born in Lancaster county, July 17,1812, but in early manhood removed to East Nottingham, 352 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOSY Chester county. He died at Notting- ham, April 29, 1869, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and greatly esteemed by all who knew him. He passed his life princi- pally in mercantile pursuits. While yet a lad he clerked for a time in a store at Wil- mington, Delaware, and later formed a partnership with his brother, Amer Stubbs, and engaged in general merchandising at Peach Bottom, Lancaster county, which business he conducted for some time, and then joined another brother, Joseph Stubbs, in the purchase of a farm, store and paper mill at l^Tottingham. Another farm and grist mill were purchased from his brother- in-law, Roger Kirk. Later he sold his in- terest in the lower farm to his brother, and removed to the upper farm and flour mills, at Hilamans, where he erected a store build- ing and several fine brick houses. He was one of the first directors of the Baltimore Centra] railroad, and after its completion removed to Nottingham, where he resided until his death. He was also a director of the Oxford National bank, and Oxford Fire Insurance company. In political sentiment he was a republican, and in religion a faith- ful adherent of the Society of Friends. On October 3, 1844, he married Rachel A. Kirk, and to them was born a family of five chil- dren, three sons and two daughters : Hon. Theodore Kirk, the subject of this sketch ; Isaac F., born December 29, 1848, died Feb- ruary 27, 1879; Phoebe M., born July 1, 1850, and died January 22, 1876 ; Dr. Dan- iel A., born June 29, 1852, educated at Swarthmore college, graduated with the degree of M.D. from Jefterson Medical col- lege, and is now a prominent physician of Oxford, this county; and Ida E., who re ceived a classical education at the Swarth more college. The maternal great-grandfather of Hon. Theodore Kirk Stubbs was Capt. Roger Kirk, who served with distinction in the revolutionary war, and after the close of that struggle was elected and served as a member of the State assembly at Philadel- phia, representing Chester county in that honorable body. He was re-elected at the close of his first term, serving in several consecutive sessions, and becoming promi- nent and influential in the halls of legis- lation. He secured among other enact- ments the passage of abill to locate and grade the old State road, known as the Christianna or " Christeen " road. His son, Josiah Kirk (maternal grandfather), was born in Chester county, August 17, 1784, and died September 8, 1821, at the early age of thirty-seven years. He was a man of great activity and fine business qualifi- cations, and was successively engaged in the management of flouring mills, paper mills and a cotton factory. He married Phoebe Passmore, by whom he had a family of four children, three sons and a daughter, Rachel A., who became the mother of Hon. TJieo- dore K. Stubbs. Honorable Theodore Kirk Stubbs re- ceived a liberal education in' the Oxford academy, Wyer's military school, and the university of Michigan. He read law at West Chester, with Judge J. Smith Futhey, and was admitted to the bar in 1875. He immediately opened a law of&ce at Oxford, where he now enjoys a large and remuner- ative practice. He has been an earnest stu- dent of his profession, mastering Black- stone, Kent, Tucker, and other authorities, and has great skill in presenting his cases in court and to a jury. He never appeals to passion or depends upon excitement for success, but relies on his ability to convince OF CHESTERf COUNTY. 353 the minds of a jury by clear and logical reasoning, and a lucid presentation of the facts. That he is not mistaken in his esti- mate of the best way to approach a jury is abundantly proven by his almost uniform success in this branch of practice. In 1881 Mr. Stubbs was elected by the Republican party as a member of the State assembly, and so ably and acceptably did he discharge the duties of that exalted position that he was twice re-elected, serving contin- uously from 1881 to 1886. He is one of the first men from Chester county to break what is known as "the third term rule" and secure an election to the State legislature three times in succession. Only two mem- bers have ever been accorded this honor- This fact proclaims his popularity among his fellow citizens of Chester county far more eloquently than any words could do. In the house of representatives he was ac- tive and zealous on behalf of his constitu- ents, and early came to be recognized as one of the most indefatigable workers in that body. In recognition of his industry and ability he was placed on nearly all the important committees — serving on a greater number than any other man in the house. Among these were the committees on appro- priations, judiciary, labor, industry, corpor- ations, apportionment, and a number o* others. He had charge of the temperance education bill in the house, introduced the normal school bill, and was an active sup- porter of the. anti-oleomargerine bill, and that for the equalization of taxation. He also introduced and championed several other general bills, and a number of local bills in the interests of his county and con- stituents. In the local councils of his party Hon. Theodore K. Stubbs is. active and influential. !No man is better posted on the political history of this country, and none keeps in closer touch with the political movements of the day. His characteristic energy marks the service done his party as fully as it en- ters into every other department of his ac- tivity. nEV. JOHN FLINT, a prominent local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church, and general superintendent of the works owned by Grander Stove Company, at Royer's Ford, of which corporation he is also a member, is of English nativity, hav- ing been born in the town of Derby, Derby- shire, England, on August 27, 1848. His parents were John and Emma (Jones) Flint, natives of the same place. His mother died when he was only two years old, and in 1862 young Flint accompanied his father to America. The latter was a rope maker by trade, and worked at that occupation for a time in the city of Philadelphia, but finally returned to England. John remained in this country when his father recrossed the Atlantic, and for a time was employed in Elizabeth City, N'ew Jersey. Later he made his way to Philadelphia, where he became acquainted with a number of young men about to enlist in the Federal army, to take part in the civil war then opening. He de- termined to become one of the number, and was greatly disappointed when upon the regular examination he was rejected, be- cause of his frail physical organization. Being left alone after his friends had all entered the army, he decided upon a sea- faring life. He accordingly engaged in the merchant marine service of the country, where in different capacities he spent some time. Leaving the water after the war had 354 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY closed, he located in Philadelphia, and at the age of eighteen started in to learn the trade of stove molder. That occupation he followed continuously in the city of Phila- delphia until 1875, when he removed to Spring City, this county, where he worked at his trade as a journeyman for a period of nearly five years. In connection with others he then organized the firm of Grander, Springer & Co., and commenced the manu- facture of stoves in Royer's Ford. Mr. Sprin- ger withdrew in a short time, and the firm then became Grander, Rogers & Co., which existed and did business until 1889, when Mr. Rogers sold out his interest, and a stock company was organized under the name of Grander Stove Company, most of the stock being held by the original members of the firm. When the business was first started it was conducted under many disadvantages, and considerable difficulty was encountered in getting it upon a paying basis. During this time for nearly six years Mr. Flint worked on the floor with the other men, but for the last five years he has been gen- eral superintendent of the works. Their factory is located at Royer's Ford, opposite Spring City, and is a fine brick structure. It is conceded to be one of the best arranged factories in the valley, and is amply supplied with every convenience for turning out a superior product. The company gives regu- lar employment to nearly one hundred men, and its business now ranks among the most important industries in this part of Chester county. While Rev. Mr. Flint has been an indus- trious and successful business man, he is still more widely known as an earnest and elo- quent local preacher of the Methodist Epis- copal church. His title has been well earned, and his career contains many unusual inci- dents. While unconverted and associating on the high seas with men whose conduct and conversation was not exactly calculated to lead the mind toward things sacred, he was constantly visited by a "still small voice," which on divers occasions, and un- der diverse circumstances, kept saying to him, "You ought to preach the gospel." Finally, after quitting the sea and locating in Philadelphia, he was converted and joined the Front Street Methodist Episcopal church. There his ability and devout life commended him to the church authorities, and he was urged to become an exhorter. He declined, however, but at the same time felt a strong desire to comply, and at once set about the study of theology and began preparing him- self as best he could for the work he deemed it his duty to do — though he let no one know of his intentions. After coming to Spring City he persistently applied himself to theology, working during the day and studying at night. In 1885 he passed an examination (standing highest in his class of fourteen), and was ordained a deacon in the Philadelphia conference, by Bishop Cyrus D. Foss. He was again examined in 1889, by Bishop Merrill, and at that time ordained an elder of the Methodist Episcopal church. Since his ordination he has been continually in the service of his Divine Master, having served various charges throughout Chester county. He now has charge of the church at Evensburg, Mont- gomery county, where he preaches twice every Sunday. He also has charge of the bible class in the Sabbath school. Rev. Mr. Flint has always been a great reader and an earnest student, and has accumulated a fine library, containing many rare and valu- able works. In the lines of theology and history it is probably the most complete to OF CHESTER COUNTY. 366 be found in this part of the State. He lives in a nicely arranged and comfortaable home on Broad street, overlooking the city of his adoption, and affording a fine view of the beautiful Schuylkill river, and the many elegant residences of Eoyer's Ford that dot its winding banks toward the east. In poli- tics the reverend gentleman is an ardent prohibitionist, and is a member of Apollo Lodge, !N"o. 9, Knights of Pythias. On November 25, 1869, Rev. John Flint was united in marriage to Mary A. Newell, a daughter of William and Mary Newell of Philadelphia. To them has been born a family of three children — one son and two daughters, the former of whom died in infancy, while the daughters are both liv- ing. T^HOMAS HOOPES, an able business man of many years successful exper- ience, and a member of the well known firm Hoopes, Brother & Darlington, who own and operate the largest wheel factory east of the Allegheny mountains, is a son of Thomas, sr., and Elizabeth (Darlington) Hoopes, and was born in West Goshen town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Novem- ber 27,1834. The Hoopes family is among the oldest and most respectable families of Pennsylvania, and was founded in 1683 in Bucks county by Joshua Hoopes, who, with his wife Isabel, came in that year from Cleveland in Yorkshire, England. They brought with them their three children : Daniel, Margaret and Christian. Daniel Hoopes came to Westtown township in 1696, and on December 10th of that year, he married Jane Worrilow, daughter of Thomas and Jane Worrilow, of Edgmont. His son, Thomas Hoopes (great-grandfather) was born October 22, 1714, and settled on a portion of the six hundred and thirty acre tract of land in Goshen township which his father had purchased from a sea captain, who had bought it from the Penns. He was a farmer by occupation, and died May 21, 1803, aged eighty-nine years. He married Susanna Davies, and after her death. Amy Cope. A son by his second marriage was Jesse Cope (grandfather), who died in 1825. One of his sons was Thomas Hoopes, sr. (father), born in 1794, on the old home- stead, where he died in May, 1880, at eighty- six years of age. He was a farmer by occu- pation, and a member of the Society of Friends. He was a useful man, and a whig and republican in politics, and in 1816, mar- ried Eliza Darlington, who was born in 1797, and passed away in 1878, when in the eighty-first year of her age. Mr. and Mrs. Hoopes had nine children, seven sons and two daughters. Thomas Hoopes grew to manhood on the paternal acres, and received his education in the public and high schools of West Chester. At the early age of sixteen years he commenced farming, which he followed until he was twenty-three, when he went west, where he was engaged for five years in Colorado and Iowa in mining and the lumber business. At the end of that time, in 1862, he returned to Chester county and was engaged in farming until 1868, when he removed with his brother William to West Chester, and organized the present celebrated West Chester spoke and wheel manufacturing firm of Hoopes, Bro. & Dar- lington. Their plant, which is known as the West Chester wheel works, occupies three acres of ground, on which are erected large and commodious frame and brick buildings, embracing engine house, work 356 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY shops, finishing factory, and a neat and tasteful office building. The company has 100,000 square feet of floor surface in their buildings. They employ from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men, and have an output of forty thousand sets of wheels per year. Mr. Hoopes' is one of the lead- ing industrial establishments of the eastern part of the State, and he has made for him- self a name as an honorable and first class manufacturer in the many different sections of the State and country where the products of his works are used. On June 14, 1864, Mr. Hoopes was united in marriage with Amanda Russell, daughter of Thomas Russell, of the city of Balti- more. To their union have been born six children, five sons and one daughter : Charles R., who is in charge of the office of Hoopes, Brother & Darlington; "William, superin- tendent of the Bala & Merion Electric Company; Herbert, deceased; Maurice, superintendent of the electric light plant of West Chester; Arthur, now a student in Edison's laboratory at Orange, New Jersey ; and Emily. Thomas Hoopes is a republican, and has cast his vote for every presidential candi- date of that party since its organization in 1856. He is interested in the industrial progress and general prosperity of his na- tive city, and has served for some time as the president of the board of trade. His time and attention are chiefly given to the extensive business which has been built up during the last quarter of a century. He is now in the line of his proper life-work, and the results of his labor are those of substantial success, as attested by the exist- ence of the splendidly equipped factory and extensive trade over a wide area of terri- tory. He is modest and reserved, yet affa- ble and pleasant. Mr. Hoopes' success and reputation have come, not as the result of accident, but as the fruits of excellence of work and special ability of management. |3EV. WILLIAM W. HAKTMAN, a ▼■ prominent citizen of Chester county, residing near Coventryville, is a man of great activity and energy, and is somewhat noted for his success in crushing the trap rock of geology for use in constructing macadamized roadbeds. He is the third son of Jacob D. and Elizabeth (Saybold) Hart- man, and was born in Juniata county, Penn- sylvania, July 21, 1842. He was reared partly in that and partly in Montgomery county, and received a good English educa- tion in the public schools. After leaving school he learned the trade of plasterer and followed that occupation for a quarter of a century. He has also been engaged in farming to some extent, owning and culti- vating a farm of thirty acres in South Cov- entry township, near Coventryville, where he has a beautiful home. On January 1, 1892, Mr. Hartman em- barked in the business of crushing stone for macadamizing roadways, and has been suc- cessful in building up a large trade in that article. He uses the best and most ap- proved machinery, employing six men and a number of teams, -and has a capacity of from fifty to one hundred and fifty tons per day. The popularity of his product and his re- markable success in this unique business is largely due to the fact that he uses only the celebrated trap rock of his region, com- monly known as iron stone, which is the most durable material in existence for road- beds. It is said to be almost identical with the stone used in constructing the Appian OF CHESTER COUNTY. 857 "Way and other ancient roads in Italy and Rome, some of which were made hundreds of years before the dawn of the Christian era, and were among the best, longest-lived and most famous thoroughfares ever devised by man. It is only recently that this rock has been found in this section, and Mr. Hart- man claims to have the only quarry of gen- uine trap rock now worked in Chester county. On Christmas day, 1864, Mr. Hartman was united in marriage with Sydney Liece, a daughter of Harry Liece, of Lieceport, Berks county, this State. In politics he is now a stanch prohibitionist, but was form- erly identified with the Republican party. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he has filled all the offices except steward, and has been a local preacher for twenty years, frequently supplying the pulpits of his denomination in this part of the county when the regular pastors were compelled to be absent. He is a leading member of the Sons of Temperance, and is also prominently identified with the Knights of Temperance. The family of Hartmans are of original French extraction, and trace their ancestry back to three brothers of the name who left France and settled in Northern Germany, but becoming dissatisfied with that country, made their way to America in 1768, and located in Pennsylvania, one settling in Montgomery county, another in Chester county, and the third at some point in the western part of the State. Frederick Hart- man, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a son of that Hartman who settled in Montgomery county, and was born near Trappe in that county, where he resided until about 1815, when he removed to Chester county. He remained in this county only a few years, however, and then returned to Montgomery, where he died in 1851, in his eighty-fourth year. He was a contractor and builder, and built the first dam across the Schuylkill river for the Schuylkill Navigation Company. In later years he was engaged in farming and be- came very successful and prosperous. In politics he was a Jacksonian democrat, and for many years an active and liberal mem- ber of the Evangelical Lutheran church. He married Sarah Wise, and was the father of eight children, four sons and four daugh- ters, all of whom are now deceased : Jacob D., Frederick, G-eorge, Kate, who married a Mr. Posey; Sophia, wedded a Mr. Smith Sarah, wife of Richard R. Smith ; Rebecca, married to a Mr. Bidding; and Daniel The eldest son, Jacob D. Hartman (father) was born in Pottsgrove township, Mont gomery county, this State, August 23, 1798 At the age of twelve years he came to Ches- ter county with his father's family, and after living here ten years removed to Juniata county, where he also resided dur- ing a decade, and then returned to his na- tive county of Montgomery, where he died at Pottstown in 1884, at almost the exact age reached by his father — not quite eighty- four years. He was a tailor by trade and followed that business a number of years, but later became a farmer. In politics he was a democrat during his earlier years, but attached himself to the Republican party in later life, and was a strict member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he was always a zealous worker, and for a long period trustee and class leader. In 1826 he married Elizabeth Saybold, a daugh- ter of John Saybold, of Montgomery county. To their union was born a family of six children who lived to reach maturity : 358 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Zephaniali, who married Susan March, and now lives at Snowdonville, Chester county ; Sarah A., married A. Boyer, a prosperous farmer of Pottsgrove township, this county ; Jacob, deceased ; Mary A., married Daniel Johnson, and is now dead; William W., the subject of this sketch ; and James E., who has been twice married, first to Esther Byers, and after her death to Lisey Trace, and is now engaged in the livery business at Pottstown, Montgomery county. i'^AVID COLiGAN, a prominent farmer, hay dealer and dairyman of Elkview, is a son of Charles and Philena (Brown) Colgan, and was born on Christmas day, 1831, near Avondale, London Grove town- ship, this county. His paternal grand- father, William Colgan, was a native of the Emerald Isle, who emigrated to Amer- ica at an early age, and settled near Coates- ville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he died at an advanced age. By occupation he was a farmer, lived most of his life near Cain station, and was a whig in politics. He married Grace Coates,and was the father of ten children, three sons and seven daugh- ters : Lydia, who married Jacob Myers ; Rebecca, wedded James Miller ; Mary, mar- ried to Melchor Shope; Hannah, married Samuel Gray; Sarah, unmarried; Emily, wedded Samuel Jackson ; Zillah ; Isaac ; Mark, unmarried; and Charles. Charles Colgan (father), was born near Coatesville, this county, and spent his life successively in Lancaster, Chester, and York counties, dying in 1880, at the age of seventy-four years, on the farm where his son David now lives, in Upper Oxford township. He was a potter by trade, but spent a number of years in farming in this and York counties. He was also proprietor of a hotel for some time at Avondale and elsewhere in Chester, York, and Lancaster counties. Politically he was a democrat until the civil war, after which he became a republican, and took an active part in the support of the latter party. He was twice married, the first time to Philena Brown, by whom he had two children : Isaac, who died in early childhood, and David, to whom this sketch is devoted. After her death he wedded Sarah Pearl, and by this second marriage had one child, Anna M., who died at the age of eighteen. David Colgan was reared on the farm, and received his early education in the public schools of East Fallowfield township. He afterward attended Unionville academy, and the institute at Greenwood Dell, con- ducted by Professor Gauze. Upon leaving school he set in to woz'k with his father, and remained with him a number of years. Later he became a farmer in York county, this State, and has followed agricultural pursuits ever since. In 1886 he removed to his present location near Elkview, where he is now engaged in farming and baling hay for the Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chester markets. He makes a specialty of his hay baling business, and also operates a dairy. He owns a fine farm, consisting of one hundred and thirteen acres of val- uable land, which is highly improved and very productive, with two sets of fine buildings. On March 27, 1866, Mr. Colgan was mar- ried to Hannah Dunlap, a daughter of An- drew Dunlap, of York county. In politics Mr. Colgan is a stanch republican, and earnestly supports the principles and tenets of that great political organization. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 369 JACOB CHRISTMAS, a retired farmer who has achieved remarkable financial success, and is now a stockholder in several banking houses and manufacturing enter- prises, is the eldest son of Jacob and Mar- garet (Evans) Christman, and was born July 16, 1815, in Uwchlan township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania. There he grew to manhood, working on the farm in sum- mer and attending the public school in winter. In this way he acquired a good English education, and after leaving school settled down to farming on the old home- stead, and remained there until 1856, when he removed to East Coventry township and purchased the fine farm of seventy-three acres which he still owns, though it is now occupied by his only son. Pierce Christman. In 1879 he purchased a tract containing five acres, on what is known as the Schuylkill road, and erected comfortable and commo- dious buildings thereon. Here he now re- sides, practically retired from active busi- , ness, and surrounded by all the comforts necessary to a peaceful, quiet, and happy life. Mr. Christman is a stanch democrat, and has occupied a number of the township offices. In religion he follows the_example set by his ancestors, and is a strict member of the Evangelical Lutheran church. He helped organize the I^ational bank of Spring City,and has served as one of its directors ever since. He is also a stockholder in two banks at Pottstown, and in another at Doylestown, beside which he owns stock in the Window Glass works at Spring City, and is interested in other enterprises. On November 25, 1845, Mr. Christman was united in marriage to Hannah Wor- mana, of East Coventry township, and by this union had a family of four children, one son and three daughters : Emma, who mar- ried W. P. Pennypacker, a prosperous farmer of East Pikeland township, residing near Phoenixville ; Alice and Irene, both living at home with their parents; and Pierce, who wedded Sallie Diemer, a daughter of Frederick Diemer, of Spring City. He is now engaged in managing his father's farm in East Coventry township, and gives evi- dence of having inherited much of his father's ability and aptitude for business. Henry Christman, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Montgomery county, who in early life bid farewell to the Fatherland and pushed his way toward the new world, about which such glowing accounts had reached his native hamlet. Arriving in America, he . drifted into Pennsylvania, and finally settled on French creek, in what is now East Vin- cent township, this county. He was a farmer by vocation, and devoted his life to clearing out and improving his land, and creating a comfortable home for himself and family. He married Susannah Keeley, by whom he had nine children, most of whom lived to reach maturity and become useful and respected citizens of this county. One of his sons was Jacob Christman (father), who was born on French creek, in East Vincent township, this county, where he was reared and lived until after his marriage, when he removed to Uwchlan township. There he purchased a farm and resided for a number of years, but finally returned to East Vincent township, where he died in 1872, at the age of eighty-two years. The active part of his life was en- tirely devoted to agricultural pursuits. In political faith he was an ardent democrat, and while taking little part in political contests, he was at all times ready to do what he could to secure the triumph of the 360 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY great fundamental principles upon which his party was based. He was a firm adher- ent of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and an active member for many years previous to his death. He married Margaret Evans, a daughter of John Evans. By this mar- riage he had a family of four children, two sons and two daughters : Susannah, unmar- ried, who is still living, being now in the eighty-second year of her age; Elizabeth, married Jesse Brownback, of East Coventry township, and is now deceased; Jacob, to whom this sketch is devoted; and Henry, who married Martha Christman, and is now engaged in farming in East Coventry township. nEV. ROBERT WHITE was born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, about the year 1785; received his classical and mathematical education at l^orristown ; studied theology under the direction of Rev. Nathan Grier, of Brandywine Manor, and ■vyas licensed to, preach by the Presbytery of New Castle, April 4, 1809. The same year he married the eldest daughter of his theo- logical preceptor, Mr. Grrier. He became pastor of the Presbyterian church of Fagg's Manor, Chester county, in 1810, which re- lation he sustained until his death, Septem- ber 20, 1835. He was a man of fine talents, an instruct- ive preacher, and a friend of thorough edu- cation. He had no desire to gain the ap- plause of man. There was nothing of an affected, sanctimonious manner about him. He could not act the part of a hypocrite, and no one could be in his company for any length of time without being impressed with his humble. Christian spirit. Religion with him was a reality, in the pulpit and out of it. It gave direction to all he did and said. The power of his example no man could gainsay. nEV. WILLIAM O. OWEN, the pres- ent popular and efficient pastor of the Baptist church at Pughtown, Chester county, is the fourth son of John W. and and Elizabeth (Kiefer) Owen, and was born in Eranklin county, Pennsylvania, May 26, 1830. He is one of five brothers, all of whom entered the Christian ministry and led such lives as reflect honor on the now sainted parents, who so carefully trained them in youth for usefulness and helpful activity in later life. Rev. "William 0. , Owen received his early education in the common schools, and learned the print- ing business in the office of the Repository and Transcript, at Chambersburg, Franklin county. Later he entered the Pennsylvania college at Gettysburg, where he took a reg- ular college course, lacking one year of graduation. After leaving college he en- gaged in teaching for a short time, and then entered the pulpit as a minister of the Church of God. For ten years he was ac- tively engaged in the ministry of that de- nomination, and then united with the regu- lar Baptist church, in which he continued his ministerial labors, preaching at Colerain, Lancaster county, five years; at Drumore (which church was organized under his aus- pices) six years ; in Lancaster city, at First Baptist church, one year; at Saint Clair, Schuylkill county, four years; and at Parkesburg and Pughtown, Chester county, during the last six years. "While in Lan- caster county he was principal of the Chest- nut Level academy in connection with his ministerial work at Drumore church. He has also worked in the field of literature, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 861 having written " Christ, the True Glory of the Church," "Come, the Inspiring Word of Grace," and numerous newspaper arti- cles of a controversial, secular and political order. In political faith he is a republican. On September 28, 1857, Rev. Mr. Owen was united in holy matrimony to Rebecca McFerren, a daughter of George McFerren, of Franklin county, this State. To them was born a family of seven children, two sons and five daughters: Emma C, born June 29, 1858, married William Chandler, a druggist of Strasburg, Franklin county, and has two children — Pearl and Verna; Rev. George M., born December 27, 1859, educated in classics at Selinsgrove insti- tute, graduated from Crozier Theological seminary at Old Chester, married Hannah Mace, of Delaware county, and is now pas- tor of the Baptist church at Baptistown, Hunterdon county, 'Eew Jersey; William, born January 31, 1862, and now employed as a printer at Lasher's Publishing house in the city of Philadelphia; Edith V., born June 27, 1865, married (1889) John Parm- ley, a plumber of Phcenixville ; Mary E., born September 19, 1867 ; Sadie, born June 10, 1870 ; and Anna, born iCfovember 11, 1872, the three latter living at home with their parents. The Owens are of Welsh descent, and the family was planted in America before the revolutionary war. The paternal grand- father of Rev. William 0. Owen was a na- tive of Wales, and married a Miss Walker, who was a native of England, and a rela- tive of Walker the lexicographer. After the death of her first husband, she married a Mr. Seine, by whom she had two sons, both of whom became ministers of the Christian denomination. John W. Owens (father) was born in Franklin county, April 22, 1786, and by his own efi:brt8 obtained a good education and taught in the public schools of his native county for forty years. He was of a very studious nature and deeply religious. To him the idea was very real that this life is intended to be used mainly as a preparation for that fuller and com- pleter life which awaits us beyond the golden gates that open on paradise. He was a life long member of the Presbyterian church. In politics he was originally a democrat, but voted for General Harrison in 1840, and afterward continued to afliliate with the Whig party. On February 19, 1820, he united in marriage with Elizabeth Kiefer, a daughter of Abraham Kiefer, of Franklin county, this State. To them was born a family of nine children, five sous and four daughters, all of whom except one lived to reach maturity : Alexander, born October 22, 1820, who became a prominent minister of the United Brethren church, and at the time of his death, December 3, 1861, was serving as president of Otterbein univer- sity; Abraham, born February 19, 1825, who for a number of years was an active and influential minister in the Ohio confer- ence of the Methodist Episcopal church, during part of which time he was presid- ing elder, and is now serving as secretary of the Educational society of that confer- ence ; Wilson, born May 25, 1827, educated *at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, became a min- ister of the United Brethren church and achieved distinction, was twice married — first to Catharine Henniger, and after her death, to Margaret Thompson — and died at Orrstown, in 1876; William 0., the sub- ject of this sketch; Catharine, born Febru- ary 7, 1832, married a Mr. Stone, and now resides in Idaho ; Eleanor, born- November 18,1833, wedded John Leedy, and removed 362 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY to the west, dying at Kansas City, Missouri, in 1880; Rev. Stephen Owen, D.D., born September 13, 1837, who was educated at Selinsgrove Lutheran institute, and has served for a period of twenty-three years as pastor of St. John's Lutheran church at Hagerstown, Maryland ; Selena, born -May 11, 1835, now the wife of Peter Coon, of La Grande, Oregon ; Rebecca, born Febru- ary 22, 1844, and died March 21, 1849. The mother of this family, Mrs. Elizabeth Owen, was born April 27, 1799, and died September 13, 1860, after a useful, beauti- ful and honored life of a little more than three score years. The maternal grandparents were both of German stock, and seem to have sprung originally from the same province bordering on France. Abraham Kiefer (maternal grandfather) was a son of DeWalt Kiefer. He (Abraham) laid out Strasburg, Frank- lin county, this State, and was one of the most intelligent and respected citizens of Franklin county. By frugality and enter- prise he accumulated much wealth, and died, 1855, wanting onlyoa few months to complete the one hundredth year of his age. He married Catharine Beaver, daugh- ter of George Beaver, who with his two brothers, John and DeWalt, came to Amer- ica from his native place in Alsace, now Germany, about 1740. George settled in Chester county, Pennsylvania. Here he lived and died, and his remains are en- tombed in the cemetery of the Great Val- ley church. His son George served as a soldier in the revolutionary war; and after the war clouds had dispersed at the dawn of peace, and the colonies were free, he moved to Franklin county and married Catharine Kiefer, a sister of Abraham Kiefer, his comrade in the army. Abraham Kiefer in turn married Catharine Beaver, a sister of George Beaver. These were the maternal grandparents of the subject of this sketch. An anecdote is related of this couple which illustrates the rugged inde- pendence of our forefathers. Soon after marriage, while Abraham with his bride was sitting in front of an old-fashioned fire place, on which a large log was blazing, pensively and gloomily thinking of their future prospects, as both were poor, Cath- arine suddenly flashed out with an idea which dispersed all his sadness. She said, " Why, Abraham, I would not give you for ten thousand dollars." To this Abraham responded, " Well, Catharine, I would not give you for ten thousand dollars." With this joint capital of twenty thousand dol- lars, as he himself often jokingly said, he earned three large farms in Franklin county, where he spent his long and honorable life, and where with his devoted wife Catharine, he reared a large family, the descendants of whom are scattered over the country, occupying posts of honor in the pulpit, in the State, and in several branches of pri- vate enterprise. Frank A. Burr, of the Philadelphia Press, in his "Life and Achievements of James A. Beaver," late governor of this State, and also a descendant of this intermar- riage between the Beavers and the Kief- ers, corroborates what has just been said of this large and influential family : "Tradition says of George Beaver, the elder, that he was a man of fine physique, marvelous endurance, strong mind, and un- tiring industry. He devoted himself with characteristic energy to agricultural pur- suits, determined to make a comfortable home for the small family which he had brought with him. OF CHESTER COUNTY. "In the Indian wars he took a part, and when the Revolution came, hie eldest son, George, fired with patriotic fervor, was among the first to shoulder his musket for the independence of the colonies. He en- listed in Captain Church's company of fam- ous Mad Anthony Wayne's regiment, and bore himself with conspicuous valor through that long" and doubtful conflict. In the camp and in the field he displayed the spirit of fortitude and courage which made the American soldier the admiration of the world, and at last crowned the American arms with the glory of victory and the nobler fruits of peace and independence. "At the close of hostilities, George Beaver, named after his sire, moved to Franklin county, where he married Cath- arine Kiefer, the sister of an army com- rade. Comrade Kiefer took his sweet re- venge by carrying off a sister of George Beaver. Thus the Beavers and the Kiefers united in a common stock the best strains of German blood. The Kiefers were hardy pioneer of great physical development and remarkable mental force. They were val- uable citizens of the community, and took an honorable part in the progress of their couhtry." Ij T. BREMERMAN, A. M., M. D., a * well educated and remarkably suc- cessful physician of Downingtown, who is a surgeon to the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany, is a son of Frederick William and Malinda (Trout) Bremerman, and was born in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, October 26, 1849. His paternal grandfather, Har- mon Bremerman, was born and reared in Breman, Germany, where he learned the trade of cooper. He came in 1812 to Bal- timore, where he followed coopering for many years. He was a democrat in politics, and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and was twice married. He has five children : Frederick William, Amelia (Trout), Anthony, Anna and John. Fred- erick William Bremerman (father) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, May 26, 1814, and received his education in the German institute of that city, then under the aus- pices of the Evangelical Lutheran church. He was educated for the ministry, which he never entered, and afterwards united with the Methodist Episcopal church. He was a cooper by trade, and in 1850 settled at Fred- erick City, Maryland, where he remained until 1860, when he removed to Harper's Ferry. From the last named place he went, in 1862, to Washington city, from which, in 1884,he removed on accountof failing health to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he died No- vember 20, 1890, when in the seventy-sev- enth year of his age. He was extensively engaged in business during his active years of life, and at one time owned a farm, store, and two coopering establishments, and em- ployed from seventy to eighty men. In 1834 he married Malinda Trout, and their children were : Joseph, who died in infancy ; John L., a Confederate soldier of the late war, and now a resident of Indianapolis; Jacob H., of Philadelphia ; Annie E. Peck; William F., who was thrown from a horse and killed ; Charles E. ; Charlotte A., wife of Rev. John E. Darby, pastor of .the Meth- odist Protestant church of Table Rock, Nebraska ; Thomas H., manager of a whole- sale and retail grocery in Washington city ; Dr. L. T. ; James H., a lawyer of Kansas City, Missouri; Otis (dead); Elisha, de- ceased ; and Malinda, who died in infancy. Mrs. Malinda Bremerman, who was born 364 BIOGRAPHY AND HI8I0RY January 6, 1816, at Frederick City, Mary- land, is now residing with her son, John L., at Indianapolis, Indiana, and has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church for over sixty years. She is a daughter of Jacob Trout, a farmer and democrat, who was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and married and reared a family of nine children: John, Joseph, William, Re- becca, Malinda (Bremerman), Dorcas, wife of George Kerfoot, a near relative of the celebrated liishop Kerfoot; Airy Mix and Sevilla Snyder. L. T. Bremerman received his elementary education in the public schools of Frederick county, Maryland, completed his academic studies in the grammar schools of Washing- ton city, and took his collegiate and pro- fessional courses at Columbian university, Washington, District of Columbia, from which he was graduated in the collegiate class of 1871, with the degree of A. B., and from medical department in 1874, with the degree of M. D. During the last named year he received the degree of A. M. from his Alma Mater. After graduation he ac- cepted a position in the surgeon general's office, where he remained until 1876, when he resigned in order to commence practice in Washington city, which he left in Jan- uary, 1878, to settle at Downingtown, where he has continued in the active practice of his profession up to the present time. On October 3, 1872, Dr. Bremerman was united in marriage with Helen K., daughter of George Khinehart, of Washington city, and to their union have been born two chil- dren : Clarence L., who was graduated from Philadelphia Commercial college in the class of 1892, and is in business in the "Quaker - City" ; and Lewis W., who is attending the public schools of Washington, and has en- tered the classical course of the high school of that city. In politics Dr. Bremerman is an ardent democrat, who works zealously in local. State and national campaigns. He served one term as a councilman, and four contin- uous terms as burgess of Downingtown, and in 1888 was honored by his party with the nomination for State senator, but was defeated in the district, which was strongly republican. He is a member of Phi Kappa Psi Society of Columbian university,Wash- ington. District of Columbia; and Hiram Lodge, No. 10, Free and Accepted Masons, of Washington city. Dr. Bremerman is medical examiner for the Equitable Insur- ance Company and the Northwestern Ma- sonic Insurance Association. He has been a surgeon to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for three years, and is a member of the National -Association of Railroad Surgeons. He is well read and successful as a physician, active and influential in political affairs, and is popular and useful as a citizen and a man. QAPT. J. T. CARPENTER, who served during the civil war and was afterward prothonotary of Chester county, is now a real estate dealer and conveyancer at Down- ingtown, and was for many years a prom- inent carriage manufacturer of this county. He is the eldest son of George W. and Mary (Townsley) Carpenter, and was born in Honeybrook township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, November 6, 1835. This branch of the Carpenter family is of Ger- man extraction, and has long been settled in Lancaster county. There Henry Carpenter (grandfather) was born about 1787, and there he lived until his death in 1868, in his OF CHESTER COUNTY. 365 eighty-second year. He was a carpenter by trade and also engaged in farming to some extent ; was a whig in politics, and a mem- ber of the Mennonite church. He married Elizabeth Carpenter, by whom he had nine children, five sons and four daughters. She died in 1829, and lies buried beside her hus- band at Weaverland Mennonite church. George W. Carpenter (father) was born in Lancaster county in 1810, and lived there until 1850, when he removed to Delaware township, in Juniata county, and in 1866 tame to Chester county. He died near Coatesville, this county, in 1882, in the seventy-second year of his age. He was a shoemaker by trade and also a veterinary surgeon, and followed these combined oc- cupations all his life. In politics he was first a whig and later became a republican, while in religion he was a member of the Baptist church. He enlisted in Co. 1, 53d Pennsylvania infantry, in August, 1861, and served nearly a year, being discharged at Alexandria, Virginia. In 1833 he married Mary Townsley, and to them was born a family of nine children : J. T., the subject of this sketch ; George W., who served as a corporal in Co. I, 53d Pennsylvania infantry for two years during the civil war, partici- pating in all the battles of the peninsular campaign, and now lives at Sterling, Kansas ; Barton J., a blacksmith, now residing in Harrisburg ; Elizabeth Carr ; Edwin, a shoe- maker of Chester county ; Thomas Benton, a blacksmith residing atEastDowningtown ; Mary Daller, living at Thorndale ; James S., a blacksmith of Coatesville, this county ; and Anna, who married John Y. Woodward, and resides at Coatesville. Capt. J. T. Carpenter received his educa- tian in the common schools of Lancaster and Juniata counties. After leaving school he engaged in teaching for nearly three years, and then concluded to learn the car- penter trade, at which he worked until 1860. Early in 1861 he enlisted in Co. I, 53d Pennsylvania infantry, in which he served one year, taking part in nearly all the bat- tles of McClellan's peninsular campaign, and being discharged at David's Island, IsTew York, on account of sickness. After regaining his health, on June 30, 1863, he re-enlisted, and was made captain of Co. K, 34th Pennsylvania infantry, and served with that rank until August 10, 1863, when the regiment was discharged at Reading, Penn- sylvania. In 1867 he located at Downing- town, where he has resided ever since. On coming here he embarked with George T. Jones in the carriage and undertaking business, which they successfully conducted until 1872, when the firm name was changed to Downing Brothers & Carpenter, which firm erected a large factory and engaged extensively in building fine carriages, until 1875, when the firm dissolved, Mr. Carpen- ter continuing in the undertaking and furn- iture business until 1883, when he disposed of his interests and retired from the busi- ness. In 1884 he was elected to the ofiSce of prothonotary of Chester county for a term of three years, and discharged the duties of that position with faithfulness and ability. In that contest he was elected by a majority of four thousand, nearly two hun- dred more than the head of the ticket. After the expiration of his term of office, in 1887, he engaged in the real estate and conveyancing business, and has continued in that line ever since, meeting with good success and handling a great deal of valua- ble property. During his connection with the undertaking business he invented and patented a device for preserving dead bodies BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY by means of ice and cold air, which has been extensively used. His inventive genius has also been exercised in other directions, and he has secured several additional pat- ents on inventions perfected by himself. He was married in 1870 toEliza J.Laerd, a native of this county, and to them has been born a family of five children, two sons and three daughters : Charles D., Harris S., Laura B., Mary and Florence. They are all now living at home with their parents. In politics Captain Carpenter is an ardent republican, and in addition to, serving as prothonotary of Chester county, has occu- pied the position of burgess and justice of the peace in Downingtown, and is now serving as a school director in that borough. He is a member of Hancock Post, 'So. 255, Grand Army of the Republic, in which he has been adj utant. He is also a member of Brandywine Lodge, 'So. 388, and General Marion Encampment, Ifo. 91, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in the former of which he is a past grand, and has served for two years as district deputy for Chester county. In Masonic circles he is also prom- inent, being a member of "Williamson Lodge, No. 309, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is past master and now treasurer ; Howell Chapter, No. 202, Royal Arch Ma- sons; and St. Alban's Commandery, ISTo. 47, Knights Templar, of Philadelphia. QAPT. JOHN DENITHORNE, of Bat- tery C, Pennsylvania National Guards, and founder of the well known bridge build- ing firm of John Denithorne & Sons, of Phoenixville, is a son of John and Ann (Bartel) Denithorne, and was born Novem- ber 22, 1834, in Cornwall, England. His parents were both natives of Cornwall, but came to the United States in 1847, and set- tled first in Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania. After a three year's residence they removed to Shannon ville, Montgomery county, where they remained only a short time, and then came to Phoenixville. Here they continued to reside until called away by death — the father in 1877, aged seventy-five, and the mother May 30, 1880, in her seventy-second year. They were both members of the Episcopal church, and lived active, useful lives. Mr. Denithorne was a republican in politics and a stone mason by trade. He followed general contracting, was a man of sound judgment and upright character, and was very successful in business. Capt. John Denithorne was reared at Cornwall until his thirteenth year, when he came to the United States with his parents, and when seventeen removed with them to Phoenixville. He received a good practical education in the public schools, and after- ward served an apprenticeship as a machin- ist and boiler maker with "William DeAven at Minersville, Schuylkill county. After learning his trade he returned to Phoenix- ville and entered the employ of the Phoenix Iron Company, taking charge of one of their shops, where he remained for the ex- tended period of eighteen years. In 1877 he formed a partnership with two of his brothers, Richard and James, under the firm name of Denithorne Brothers, and engaged in the business of boiler making and iron bridge building. That firm continued the business until 1883, when Captain Denithorne pur- chased the interests of his brothers, and ad- mitting his sons, "William and John B.,into partnership, organized the present firm of John Denithorne & Sons. They now have a large and lucrative trade, their establish- '/. o^n^ ne. OP CMPSiES CODNitf. 369 ment being one of the most extensive in- dustrial concerns of Phcenixville. They manufacture roadway bridges, roof trusses, stand pipes, railway bridges and iron roofing, and make specialties of bridge contracting and iron roofing. Their shops are fitted up with the best improved machinery for the business, are large and commodious, and the industry is one of the most successful of its kind in this country. Contracts are taken and work executed in all parts of the United States, and the establishment furnishes regular employment to from thirty to fifty men the year round. In July, 1852, Captain Denithorne was married to Caroline Francis, a daughter of Richard and Ann Francis, of Schuylkill county, this State. To them was born a family of seven children, two sons and five daughters : William, now in business with his father.; John B., also a member of the firm of John Denithorne & Sons; Annie, married John A. Wood, of Phcenixville; Mary B., wife of John Evans, now residing in the city of Philadelphia; Emma T., wedded Thomas Wood, of Phcenixville ; Kate G., married G-eorge Nailor, also of this place ; and Carrie, living at home with her parents. In 1863 Captain Denithorne assisted in the organization of an emergency company here, and was elected captain, but the com- pany was never sworn into service. In June, 1871, he was instrumental in organ- izing battery C of the Pennsylvania Na- tional Guards, and was commissioned captain by Governor Geary, which rank he has held ever since. This battery served during the Pittsburg riots of 1877, and again at Home- stead during the labor trouble of 1892. In political sentiment Captain Denithorne is a republican, and served as burgess of Phoenix- 23 ville in 1884. He is a member of the Epis- copal church, and is prominent in the secret society circles of Chester county, being a member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons; Phoenix Chapter, No. 198, Eoyal Arch Masons; and Jerusalem Commandery, No. 15, Knights Templar. He also holds membership in Stafford Castle, No. 67, Knights of the Golden Eagle. He is affable in manner, a good conversational- ist, keen and shrewd in business, and pos- sessing that untiring energy, always asso- ciated with conspicuous success in life. TlEVI 0BERH01,TZER,M.D., a grad- uate of the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, and who is one of the leading druggists of Phcenixville, is a son of Elias and Catherine (Acker) Ober- holtzer, and was born in Uwchlan town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 27, 1832. The Oberholtzer family traces its ancestral history back to Switzerland in 1732, when an Oberholtzer left that moun- tain-walled republic of continental Europe and settled in what is now the United States. In lineal descent from him was John Oberholtzer, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He was a native of Bucks county, and in early life removed to the central part of this county, where he married a Miss Coffinan, a mem- ber of the old Coftman family of Chester valley, and was engaged in school teaching for several years. He afterwards removed, in 1812, to Juniata county, where he followed farming until his death. He reared a family, and of his children, one was Elias Ober- holtzer (father), who never left his native county of Chester. He was a farmer and a miller of what is now West Pikeland town- 370 BIOGMAPHY AND HISTOSY ship, in which he died December 17, 1875, when in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, took an active part in religious af- fairs, and had served as superintendent of the Sunday school of his church for many years. He was a useful citizen and an in- fluential business man, and at the time of his death was serving as president of the Farmers' and Mechanics' National bank of Phcenixville. Mr. Oberholtzer was a re- publican in politics, and married Catherine Acker, who was born in Upper Uwchlan township in 1809, and is a member of the Lutheran church. She is a daughter of Peter Acker, who was a well-to-do farmer of his day. To Mr. and Mrs. Oberholtzer were born ten children, of whom four sons and four daughters are living. Dr. Levi Oberholtzer was reared princi- pally on his father's West Pikeland town- ship farm, received his education at Free- land's seminary, and then read medicine with Dr. Hiram Corson of Plymouth, Mont- gomery county. He entered the medical department of the University of Pennsyl- vania, Philadelphia, from which he was graduated in the class of 1854. Soon after graduation, in 1855, he came to Phcenix- ville, where he embarked in the drug busi- ness. Li 1856 he erected a powder mill on a small stream which empties into French creek, about three miles above Phcenixville. Here he carried on the manufacture of gun powder for blasting purposes until 1864. About this time it became diflacult to ship large quantities of powder, either by rail or boat, and he was compelled to abandon the enterprise. During the time he was engaged in man- ufacturing powder he continued to conduct his drug business, and when he relinquished the former he gave his whole attention to the latter. In 1866 he went to Philadelphia, and was engaged in the wholesale drug trade until 1879, when he returned to Phcenixville, where, together with his sons, he has con- tinued in the drug business ever since. On October 28, 1866, Dr. Oberholtzer married Angeline, daughter of John Van- derslice, of Phcenixville. They have six children, four sons and two daughters : John v., Kate P., wife of Egbert F. Penny- packer; Charles H., F. Elizabeth, William B., and George K. In politics Dr. Oberholtzer is a democrat. He served for three terms as mayor of Phce- nixville, and in 1883 was nominated for State senator by his party, and, although the district was overwhelmingly republican, yet he made a race that was highly credita- ble to him. He is the oldest druggist at Phcenixville, and in addition to his drug business he devotes considerable time to fruit culture. He has made a specialty of the peach and plum at his home north, and of the orange in his groves at Esmeralda, Lake county, Florida. Dr. Oberholtzer is a past master of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons, and enjoys the enviable reputation of being a pleasant gentleman, a useful citizen, and an honorable business man. J^IRAM ROBERTS, a retired farmer * and stockman, now living at Malvern, this county, is a son of Isaac and Alice (Comfort) Roberts, and was born August 28, 1816, in Whitemarsh township, Mont- gomery county, Pennsylvania. The Rob- erts family is of Welsh descent, and among the oldest in Pennsylvania. Joseph Rob- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 371 erts, paternal grandfather of Hiram, was born in Montgomery county, and passed his entire life there, engaged in farming. His son, Isaac Roberts (father), was also a native of Whitemarsh township, that county, and died there in 1851, aged seventy-six years. He also was a farmer, and passed his life principally in the cultivation of the soil and stock raising. In political senti- ment he was a whig, and in religious faith a Friend, or Quaker. By his marriage to Alice Comfort he had a family of nine chil- dren, six sons and three daughters, only four of whom now survive. Hiram Roberts was educated at West- town boarding school, in Montgomery county, and his business in life has been mainly farming, stock raising and dairying, all of which he pursued successfully in Montgomery county until 1885, when he retired from business and came to reside with his nephew, Josiah A. Roberts, at Mal- vern, this county. He never married. Josiah A. Roberts, with whom his uncle, the principal subject of this sketch, now re- sides, is the eldest son of Jacob and Phoebe (Williams) Roberts, and was born in White- marsh township, Montgomery county, March 16, 1837. He was educated in the West- town boarding school, and afterward em- barked in the nursery business on his father's farm, which he conducted until 1869, when he came to his present location in this county, and purchased a farm of twenty acres of choice land, all of which is now within the corporate limits of Mal- vern borough. Here he continued the nur- sery business, and now has a large and pros- perous trade. He is a stockholder in the Ifational bank of Malvern, and ranks with her most enterprising citizens. In his politi- cal ajfiliations Josiah Roberts is an ardent republican, and has served as councilman in Malvern for two terms — ever since the or- ganization of its borough government. Jacob Roberts, father of Josiah, and brother of Hiram, was born June 16, 1810, in Montgomery county, this State, where he took up the vocation of a farmer and was engaged in the cultivation of the soil until 1841, when he removed to Chester county and settled in Willistown township, where he still resides. In 1837 he married Phoebe Williams, a daughter of Jesse Williams, of North Carolina. To Mr. and Mrs. Roberts was born a family of five children, all of whom attained maturity, and four of whom are still living: Josiah, Joseph, Hannah, Sarah, and Alice, who is deceased. The mother of these children, Mrs. Phoebe Rob- erts, is a member and minister of the Society of Friends, and is a woman endowed with many rare gifts and excellent traits of char- acter. nOBERT J. HENDERSON, the pres- ent efficient postmaster of Phoenixville, and who, by ability, honesty and industry, has earned the reputation of being one of the representative business men of his county, is a son of James and Mary (Ortlip) Henderson, and was born at Phoenixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 18, 1860. He received his education in the public schools of his town. Leaving school he worked one year on the farm for Jacob Detwiler, in East Pikeland township, and on August 15, 1877, accepted a position in the shipping department of the Phoenix Iron works, where he was steadily engaged until February 5, 1890, when he resigned to assume charge of the Phoenixville post- office, of which he had been appointed post- master on December 18, 1889, by President 372 BtOGJRAPltY AND BtSTOllY Harrison, and confirmed by the United States senate. Entering upon the duties of his responsible office' February 6, 1890, he instituted thorough system and active service in every department, and so increased the efficiency and receipts of his office, that on July 1, 1890, it vs^as raised from a third class to a second class presidential postoffice. He is courteous and obliging to all, but never allows anything to be done in the office contrary to correct business prin- ciples. He is active, energetic and pro- gressive, and not only has given Phoenix- ville a good postal system, but has raised the office, under his praiseworthy manage- ment, to a high rank among the best man- aged and most efficient offices of the State. Mr. Henderson is an active republican in politics, and served as a member of the re- publican county committee from the first ward of Phoenixville for five years, being secretary of the committee two years of that time. He is a member of Washington Cas- tle, ISTo. 45, Knights of the Golden Eagle, and Phcenix Lodge, No. 212, and Phoenix Encampment, No. 79, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was a member of Co. D, 6th Pennsylvania National guards, from February, 1881 to 1886, serving as ser- geant. On December 26, 1888, Mr. Henderson was united in marriage with Tillie C. Buck, daughter of William and Isabella Buck, of Phoenixville. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson have one child, a son, named Smedley D., who was born December 19, 1889. Robert J. Henderson, on his paternal side is a descendant of the Henderson family of Ireland, which is frequently mentiond in the local history of County Derry of that country. His grandfather, James Hender- son, was a native of County Derry, in which he passed his life as a farmer. He was a strict Presbyterian in faith, and died in 1840, aged fifty-eight years. He married Isabella Thompson, by whom he had nine children : William, Robert, Annie, Isabella, Mary, Catherine, Matilda, Margaret Jane, and James, the father of the subject of this sketch, all now deceased. James Hender- son was born in County Derry, November 11, 1830, received his education in the schools of his neighborhood, and in 1847 came to Chester county, where he settled at Emberton. He was engaged in farming and milling at that place until 1850, when he came to Phoenixville, where he entered the employ of Joseph S. Buckwalter, baker, and the next year was employed by Keeley & Rorke in the same business. In 1854 he worked for Reeves & Cornell, and in 1856 became a member of the firm of Henderson & Williams, in the grocery business. In 1858 he engaged in the flour business for himself, and has been successfully engaged in that line ever since. Mr. Henderson is a republican in politics, but gives nearly all of his time to his business and takes no active part in political affairs. He married Mary Ortlip, and to them were born seven children : James A., Samana, William, Isa- bella, Robert J., Joseph S., and A. Kennedy, now dead. Mrs. Mary Henderson, who died July 1, 1885, aged sixty years, was a daugh- ter of Samuel Ortlip, who was born in Ches- ter county, February 8, 1786, and followed the occupation of a mill wright for a liveli- hood. He was a Lutheran in religious faith and church membership, and mar- ried Hannah Fouse, by whom he had eleven children: William, Ann, Oliver, Samuel, Maria, Mahlon, John, Mrs. Mary Hender- son, Isaac, Jefferson, and Sarah, all deceased except the three last named. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 373 Although young in years, Robert J. Hen- derson already ranks as a business man of ability and success. While rigid and ex- acting in all that applies to business, yet he is pleasant in manner and ever ready to accommodate any one, and has many warm personal friends who esteem him highly for his integrity and generous social qualities. TAllLIilAM PRICE CORYELL, of Kenilworth, is a son of George and Sarah Ann (Price) Coryell ; was born in Pottsgrove township, Montgomery county, this State, August 14, 1858. The Coryells were originally natives of France, and the family was transplanted to America after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the landing being at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, which was followed by the taking up of land on Scotch Plains, near Plainfield. Later we find one of the family, Emanuel, located on the Delaware river at Lambert- ville, where Coryell's ferry connecting Lam- bertville with New Hope was owned and operated by the family until it was super- seded in 1818 by what was then considered the wonderful bridge. It was at this ferry (in low water Coryell's ford) that "Washing- ton and the Continental army made several of their memorable crossings. The family attained great age. Emanuel Coryell's son Cornelius (great-grandfather of William P. Coryell), was ninety-nine years old when he died, July 10, 1831, having been born June 27, 1732; and another son, Abraham, died at the age of ninety, in 1828. Cornelius married Mary Shaw, and reared a family of nine children, his eldest son, George, was a patriot of the revolution, and fought at the battle of Monmouth. Later in life he was a confidential friend of Geor Washington, and was a fellow member with Washington of Lodge 22 of Masons. He was also one of Washington's pall bearers. He was born August 19, 1760, and died February 18, 1850, as his tombstone in the Presbyterian churchyard at Lambertville will tell you, " The last survivor of the six men who laid 'The Father of his country' in his grave." Another son, John (grandfather), who was born May 30, 1766, and reared in the vicin- ity of the ferry, after attaining his majority settled in what was then New Hanover, now Pottsgrove township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He was a democrat in polit- ical belief, and married Sarah, daughter of Israel Ortlip, by whom he had a family of nine children : Mary Ann, Susan, John, Sarah, George, Abbie, Rebecca, Eleanor and Alexander. Of the three sons, George was the only one to marry and continue the name; Alexander died in childhood, and John died when a young man, unmarried. George Coryell (father) was a native of Pottsgrove township, was born there Octo- ber 22, 1810. He lived in Montgomery county until 1866, when he removed to Chester county. Here he lived for a period of ten years, dying February 3, 1876, on the farm now owned by the subject of this sketch. He was a farmer, a whig and re- publican in politics, and always active in behalf of his party's interests. On January 1, 1850, he married Sarah Ann, daughter o William Price, of North Coventry, this county. By this marriage Mr. Coryell had a family of five children, two sons and three daughters: Sallie, Ella (died in in- fancy), Louis Augustus (died in his seventh year), William P. and Carrie. William P. Coryell was reared partly in Montgomery and partly in Chester county. In boyhood he attended the public school of the district, 374 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY from whicli he went to Millersville Normal, until the death of his father caused him to return home to assume (at the age of seven- teen) in connection with his sisters, charge of the farm (their mother having died previous to their father). He then attended for a time, as a day scholar, the Hill school at Pottstown, continuing to farm on the old homestead in East Coventry township, this county, which he has ever since culti- vated and now owns. It consists of fifty- two acres of valuable land, highly improved and in a good state of cultivation. In poli- tics Mr. Coryell is republican, and gives his party a loyal support on all leading ques- tions. He is unmarried. The maternal great-great-grandfather of "William P. Coryell, George Price, was a native of Chester county, and died at his farm near Pottstown, September 25, 1823, aged seventy years. He was a preacher in the Dunkard or German Baptist church. He married Sarah Harley, and reared a large family, among his children being Daniel Price (maternal great-grandfather), who was also born in this county and fol- lowed farming, dying August 20, 1810, at his home in what is now North Coventry, aged thirty-five years. He was married to Han- nah Bach, and left two daughters and one son, William Price (grandfather), who fol- lowed the peaceful and independent voca- tion of farmer, and was quite successful in his calling. He was a thinker, a close ob- server of events. His intelligence, sound judgment, and independence of thought and action made him a man of more than or- dinary prominence and usefulness. He was a whig and later a republican, and repre- sented his district in the legislature in the sessions of 1844 and 1845. He died in February, 1875, aged seventy-four, in the house in which he had been born and lived all his life. He married Lydia Urner (a daughter of Jonas Urner, who was a preacher in the Dunkard church), and reared a family of six children, three sons and three daugh- ters. They all married, and with one ex- ception are now dead. Sarah Ann and Elizabeth (both deceased); Daniel, who is president of the National bank of Potts- town; Caroline, deceased; Jonas, who was sergeant in the army, and was killed in battle at Greenbrier, Virginia; and Nathan, now deceased, who removed to Kansas, and at the breaking out of the war enlisted in ■a Kansas regiment. He served as a captain, and afterward studied law and became pres- ident judge of Doniphan, Brown and Atchison counties, Kansas. l^ATHAN G. THOMPSON, M. D., "^ now practicing at Coatesville, is one of the oldest and best known physicians in Chester county, having been in continuous practice since 1852. He is a son of Dr. Eobert and Sarah (Grier) Thompson, and was born in Londonderry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 12, 1829. The Thompsons are of Scotch-Irish extrac- tion, and for at least three generations have been prominent in medical records. Dr. William Thompson (grandfather) was a na- tive of Oxford, studied medicine, and be- came a surgeon in the United States navy. He was what was known in that day as a "blue stocking" Presbyterian — noted for his dignified manner and austere life, and died at Oxford, in 1813, aged forty-five years. He married a Miss Johnson, and reared a family of six children. His son, Dr. Robert Thompson (father), was born near Oxford, this county, on September 18, OF CBESIEB COUNTY. 375 1794, and after securing the best education afforded by the schools of that day, entered the medical department of the old Pennsyl- vania university, from which he was gradu- ated with the degree of M. D. He was an earnest student of his profession, and gifted by nature with many qitalities that go to make the successful physician. He located near Cochransville, this county, where he was engaged in extensive practice for a period of twenty years, only quitting his laborious work when touched by the hand of death. He died February 21, 1836, at the early age of forty-one years. He was a J acksonian democrat in politics, a member of the Fagg's Manor Presbyterian church, and married Sarah Grier, born in the first year of this century, by whom he had a family of five children. He was a skillful physician and one who secured the confi- dence and love of his patients and friends in a remarkable degree. His wife survived him some forty-four years, dying in 1884, in the eighty-fourth year of her age. She was a native of West Brandywine township, this county, and a life-long member of the Presbyterian church. Dr. Nathan G. Thompson was reared principally in West Brandywine township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and is in- debted to the public schools of that locality for his fearly education. When only four- teen years of age he left school and secured a position as clerk in a mercantile house at Wagontown, this county, where he re- mained for a year, and then came to Mid- way — now the west end of Coatesville — and spent two years clerking in a general store. At the end of that time he was of- fered a position as assistant book-keeper in a wholesale dry goods house in Philadelphia, and removed to that city. It was not long. however, till the sedentary character of this new employment began to undermine his health, and he resigned the place and re- turned to Chester county. He then deter- mined to read medicine, toward which he had long been inclined, and accordingly entered the office of Dr. Alexander K. Gaston, where he studied for a time and afterward matriculated at the Philadelphia college of medicine, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of M. D. in the spring of 1852. A little later he located in West Brandywine township, where by de- grees he built up a large and lucrative prac- tice, to which he continued to devote his time and attention for the space of forty years, his name becoming a household word in all the surrounding country. In the lat- ter part of March, 1892, he removed to Coatesville, where he is now practicing his profession and meeting with a marked de- gree of success. On March 12, 1856, Doctor Thompson was married to Agnes W. McClure, a daughter of William W. McClure, of Bran- dywine Manor. By this union he had four children : two died in infancy; Horace, lived to be twenty-one years of age; his daughter, Alice A., who is now a widow for the second time, and resides with her father. Her first husband was John M. Neely. By their union one child was born, Robert T. l^eely, who is ten years of age, residing with his mother; and her second marriage was to William H. Holmes, who died leaving no children. Doctor Thompson has been a member of the Brandywine Manor Presbyterian church for forty years, during fifteen of which he has served as a ruling elder. In politics he is a republican, and served as president of the school board in Brandywine for more 376 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY than fifteen years. He is a member of the Chester County Medical society, and stands high in the county, both as a citizen and a physician. QASPER S. FRANCIS, who is entitled to the honor of giving to Spring City its name, and who is prominent among the successful and progressive business men of Chester county, is a son of Joseph and Susannah (Snyder) Francis, and was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 31, 1811. The Fran- cis family is of Swedish lineage, and was one of the early settled families of Mont- gomery county, where Thomas Francis, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born and reared and who afterward re- moved to Chester county. His son, Joseph Francis (father), was born in Montgomery county, and resided in East Pikeland town- ship, Chester county, where he died at about fifty-three years of age. He was a prosper- ous farmer, an old-line whig in politics, and a consistent member of the Reformed church. He married Susannah Snyder, who was born in 1789, and died in 1845, aged fifty-six years. She was a daughter of Cas- per Snyder, a successful farmer and miller of East Pikeland township, who was a brigade inspector during the war 1812. Mr. and Mrs. Francis reared a family of seven children, six sons and one daughter: Thomas, a farmer and shoemaker by trade ; Casper S.,the subject of this sketch ; Arnold, who resides in East Vincent township ; Joseph, of Coventry township ; John, a resi- dent of Kimberton ; Henry ; and Mary Ann, who married Alexander Hoflman, and is now dead. Henry Francis, the youngest son, was born March 21, 1820, received a common school education, and learned the trade of wheelwright, at which he worked for some time, after which he was success- fully engaged in milling with C. S. Francis at Spring City. Casper Snyder Francis was reared on the farm, received his education in the common schools, and then -learned the trades of car- penter and millwright, which he followed for six years. At the end of that time, in 1837, he purchased a farm and a grist and saw mill on Stony run, in East Vincent township, which he run until 1860, when he came to Spring City, then Springville, and formed a partnership with David G. Wells of that place and Samuel Smith of Philadelphia, under the firm name of Smith, Francis & Wells. Th6y erected and operated a stove foundry until 1865, when Mr. Francis with- drew .from the firm, and embarked, in 1866, in the stove foundry business at Royer's Ford, as a member of the firm of Francis, Buckwalter «& Co., which continued up to 1878, in which year Mr. Francis sold his interest to his partners, John Sheeler, J. A. Buckwalter, Henry Buckwalter and Henry Francis. He was then engaged in various business enterprises until 1886, when he and others started the Spring City Bloom Iron works, which they operated for six years, of which company he was president from its organization. He then sold his interest in the plant to Willis Grant Rogers, a grandson of Mr. Francis. Since then Mr. Francis has been engaged in looking after his various interests in difi'erent busi- ness enterprises. On September 20, 1836, Mr. Francis mar- ried Maria Finkbinder, daughter of Jacob Finkbinder,who was born November 15, 1813. They have two children : Susannah, born February 26, 1838, and wife of James Rogers, a fonndryman of Limerick, Mont- ^ad4e4 ^. (^-anc^. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 379 gomery county, Pennsylvania (this exten- sive plant has recently been moved to Potts- town, where a large trade is being carried on) ; and Martha, who was born April 23, 1844, and married R. D. Evans, of East Pikeland township, now in the employ of the Phoenixville Iron Company. Casper S. Francis has been a whig and republican in politics, and is a member of Spring City Reformed church, of which he served as a deacon and elder until a few years ago, when he resigned on account of impaired hearing. Since coming to Spring City he has been prominently identified with nearly every important enterprise of that thriving town. He served as the second burgess of the place, and was mainly instru- mental in having the name of the postoffice and borough of Springville changed to that of Spring City. - In 1872 he procured the charter of the National bank of Spring City, of which he was president for fourteen years. He was also interested in the Phoenixville Ifational bank, of which he was a director for ten years, and only retired from his prominent position in the bank on account of his impaired hearing. Mr. Francis has also served his borough frequently as school director and treasurer, and in many other ways conducive to its progress and prosper- ity. As a citizen he has always enjoyed the highest respect of his fellow-townsmen, and as a man stands high on account of his hon- esty and integrity. C. S. Francis was among the first to agi- tate the subject of securing a railroad branch into Spring City. He was among the first persons to consult with the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to urge the propriety of extending the Frazer branch up to Spring City, which proposition was more than accepted, by the construction of the Schuylkill Valley division through Spring City. He was also employed as as- sistant in adjusting damages to property holders along the line from Phoenixville to Parker Ford. ^ALEB HOOPES, a retired farmer and well respected citizen of Toughkena- mon, is a son of Benjamin and Phebe (Pen- nock) Hoopes, and was born in IsTew Gar- den township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, March 15, 1817. He was reared on the home farm, received his education in the common and select schools of his native township, and then engaged in farming in I^ew Garden until 1868, then at Westtown Farm for seven years. He then, in 1875, removed to his present home at Toughkena- mon, and within the last few years has re- tired from active life. Mr. Hoopes is very comfortably situated to enjoy the fruits of his many years of la- bor. He is a republican in politics, has held various township offices, and is one of the substantial and reliable citizens of lifew Garden township. He is a member of New Garden meeting. Orthodox Society of Friends. On November 20, 1845, Mr. Hoopes united in marriage with Mary, daughter of Aaron Cooper, of Sadsbury township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. They have five chil- dren, two sous and three daughters : Ben- jamin P., who married Julia Walter, and is a farmer in Lancaster county ; Priscilla, wife of Mark Hughes, a farmer of London Grove township ; Phebe, who married Henry Pal- mer, a farmer of the above named town- ship ; and Edwin A., who married Susan- nah Walter, and is in the dyewood business in Chester, Delaware county, Pennsylvania. 380 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY The Hoopes family of Chester county, of which Caleb Hoopes is a member, is one of the oldest families of the State. His pater- nal grandfather, Jonathan Hoopes, was born in Chester county, where he passed his life. He was a shoemaker by trade, a Friend in religion, and a republican in politics during the last years of his life. He married Eliza- beth Bane, and their children were : Tamzin, "William, Margaret, Jane, Israel, Elizabeth, Benjamin, James, Phoebe, Joel, Thomas, and Susannah. Benjamin Hoopes (father), the third son, was born August 15, 1782. He learned the trade of shoemaker, but was principally engaged in farming until his death, which occurred July 31, 1860, at seventy-eight years of age. He was a re- publican and an Orthodox Friend, and mar- ried for his first wife Elizabeth Marshall, who died and left four children : William, Anna, Lydia, and Phineas. His second wife was Phebe Pennock, a daughter of Caleb Pennock. She was born July 21, 1783. By his second marriage, Benjamin Hoopes had six children : Pennock, Caleb, Elizabeth Cooper, Benjamin, jr., Phebe Cooper, and Samuel. IkEVI E. WARNER, deceased, was one of the intelligent, energetic, progres- sive, and successful business men of the generation now passing away. He possessed business ability of a high order, was a son of Isaac and Jane (Latch) Warner, and a native of Lower Marion township, Mont- gomery county, this State. He was born some time in October, 1820, and was reared principally in Montgomery county, where he attended the common schools for a time, but completed his education at the State iN'ormal school in "West Chester, this county. In early boyhood he manifested the posses- sion of unusual talent, and, using every ad- vantage that came within reach, he soon acquired a good education. After leaving school he learned the trade of shoemaker, and shortly afterward opened a shoe store in Montgomery county. He was energetic and successful, and in a short time had an extensive trade, with eight or ten men in his employ. For a number of years he conducted this business, living at Rose Mont for a period of seventeen years, and he then removed to Straftbrd, Chester county, where he purchased a fine farm containing seven- ty-seven acres, and devoted his remaining years principally to agricultural pursuits. In 1880 he opened a serpentine stone quarry on this farm, and operated that enterprise successfully until his death, October 18, 1881, (afterwards carried on by the family until 1889), when just closing his sixty-first year. In political faith he was an ardent republican, and in church membership a strict- Lutheran, being active and influential in the religious circles of his neighborhood. On April 25, 1858, Mr. Warner was wedded to Emma D. Hansell, a daughter of Norris and Sarah Hansell, of Libertyville, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. This union was blessed by the birth of eight children, five sons and three daughters : ITorris, born February 21, 1859, and now engaged in sinking artesian wells; Lewis, born March 26, 1861, married Clara Stan- ley, and is a contractor and builder, resid- ing at Strafford, this county; Levi E., jr., born July 3, 1863, married Ella J. Horton, and resides at Devon, this county, where he is engaged as carpenter and builder; Mary Jane, died in childhood ; Gardner L., born November 1, 1867, now managing the home farm: Anna H., born February 22, OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 381 1870, married Joseph H. Childes, jr., a prosperous fai'mer of Wayne, Delaware county; Jacob, born November 8, 1872, and is now living at home and learning the carpenter trade ; and Emma L., born March 13, 1875, also residing at home with her mother. The mother of these children, Mrs. Emma D. Warner, was born in Liber- tyville, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. She grew to womanhood and was educated in Montgomery county, and is a member of the Baptist church. The family ranks among the best in Chester county and is widely known. QEORGE H. beaver, one of the prosperous farmers residing near ITew Centreville, is the only son of Charles and Catharine (Spare) Beaver, being born March 31, 1858, near Centreville, Tredyffrin town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Beaver family is of original German de- scent, but this branch was planted in America by members who emigrated from England at an early day, and settled in Pennsylvania. Tradition says five brothers of the same name came over from England and settled in various parts of this State. Among them was Devault Beaver (great-grand- father), who located above Howellville, Tredyfirin township, this county, where he died at an advanced age. By occupation he was a farmer, and in religion a member of the Lutheran church. He married and reared a family of five sons and four daugh- ters. Among his sons was Daniel, born in 1789, married Catharine Detwiler, by whom he had four sons, and died October 22, 1861, on the old homestead ; and George Beaver (grandfather), who was born in Tredyfi'rin township, this county, and died there in 1848, at the age of eighty-one years. The latter was a farmer, and also built and for many years operated a tannery in that township. He was a member of the Great Valley Baptist church, and a democrat in politics. His wife was Susanna Houseman, by whom he had a family of ten children, six sons and four daughters. Among the sons was Charles Beaver (father), who was born January 1, 1806, in the house where the subject of this sketch now resides, which had been built by George Beaver (grand- father). Here Charles passed his entire life engaged in agricultural pursuits, dying IJTovember 6, 1881, in the seventy -fifth year of his age. His farm operations were con- ducted on an extensive scale and he became quite prosperous. He was a democrat until 1861, when he voted for Abraham Lincoln, and ever afterward adhered to the Repub- lican party. In religious faith he was a Baptist, and was a prominent member and deacon of the Great Valley church of that denomination for many years. He was married twice, first wedding Catharine Spare, in 1855, by whom he had one son, the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Beaver died April 14, 1872, aged fifty-two years. In 1875 Mr. Beaver married for his second wife Sarah A. Miller, of Harrisburg, who survives her husband and now resides in her native city. George H. Beaver was reared on the old homestead in Tredyfirin township, and ob- tained his early education in the public schools of the neighborhood. Later he took a course of training in the Tremont seminary at Norristown, under Dr. John W. Loch, and afterward attended Bryant & Stratton's Business college in Philadelphia. Leaving school he returned to the home farm, which he had inherited, and has since 383 BIOQRAPEY AND HISTORY been almost exclusively engaged in agricul- tural pursuits. The farm contains one hun- dred and fifteen acres of valuable land, eighty -five of which are improved and in an excellent state of cultivation. Politi- cally Mr. Beaver is a republican, and while not taking any active part in politics, yet al- ways gives his party a loyal support. In 1881 Mr. Beaver was married to Ida E. Smith, a daughter of Jesse and Julia A. Smith, of Centreville, Chester county, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Beaver has been born a family of five children, three sons and two daughters : Anna M., born N'ovem- ber 18,1881; Eva G., born April 1, 1884; Charles E., born July 2, 1887; H. Norman, born December 16, 1889; and Devault, born July 26, 1892. C AMUEL WHITSON, a member of the grain and lumber firm of Hastings & Whitson, at Atglen, and a prosperous far- mer (jf that town, who has served as com- missioner of Chester county, and held im- portant positions in his borough, is a son of Thomas and Martha (Hobson) Whitson, and was born January 29, 1838, in Bart township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on his father's farm in that county, and educated in the common schools of his neighborhood. After leaving school he settled down to farming, and that has been his principal occupation ever since. He now owns a valuable farm, situated in- side the borough limits of Atglen. In the spring of 1892 he formed a partnership with William S. Hastings, under the firm name of Hastings & Whitson, and engaged in the grain, lumber and coal business at Atglen. The firm already has a large trade, and being gentlemen of established charac- ter, command the entire confidence of the community. In politics Mr. Whitson is a stanch re- publican, and while never a bitter partisan, at all times gives his party a loyal support on all leading political questions. In 1884 he was nominated by his party and elected as county commissioner, in which office he served one term with an ability which re- flected credit on himself and was entirely satisfactory to the people. In addition to this he has been a member of the borough council most of the time since his residence here, and has become familiar with the public business of this part of the county. In religion he is a strict member of the Society of Friends, and liberal in his sup- port of its various interests. Mr. Whitson has never married, and is a pleasant, affable gentleman, widely known and universally esteemed. The Whitson family is of Celtic origin, coming from Ireland to Pennsylvania at a very early day. Thomas Whitson, grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Chester county, and spent most of his life in the neighborhood of Atglen. He was a farmer by occupation, a Quaker in religion, and in politics an old line whig. He married Hannah Starr, and was the father of eight children, among whom was Thomas Whitson (father). The latter was born in Chester county, near Atglen, where he was reared and educated, but he removed to Lancaster county soon after marriage, and resided in that county until 1861. In that year he returned to Chester county, and died in West Fallowfield township, this county, in ISTovember, 1864, at the advanced age of sixty-nine years. All his active years were devoted to agricultural pursuits, in which he was very successful. He was a OP CMESTAH cotmrr. Friend, or Quaker, in religion, and in 1827 married Martha Hobson, by whom he had a fstmily of children. She was a daughter of Francis and Ann Hobson, and like her husband was a member of the Society of Friends. She was a native of E'ew Garden township, this county, and passed from earth June 18, 1887, in the eighty-seventh year of her age, after an active, useful, and honored life, spent principally in the service of those she loved, and in doing good to all around her. CDWAKD KERR, M. D., a progres- sive and successful young physician of Downingtown and a member of the Chester County Medical society, is a son of George and Margaret (Pollock) Kerr, and was born !N"ovember 16, 1867, in East Bradford town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He re- ceived his education in the Downingtown public schools and took a preparatory course for the study of medicine at the West Chester State ^Normal school. He then (1887) entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in the class of 1890. Im- mediately after graduation he returned to Downingtown, where he succeeded to the practice of Dr. Clifton Donlin, which he not only held but has largely increased until he is now one of the leading physicians of the central part of the county. On October 13, 1891, Dr. Kerr was united in marriage with Anna Worrall, daughter of Wesley Worrall, of Downingtown. Dr. Edward Kerr is a republican in polit- ical opinion. He is devoted to his profes- sion, in which he is rapidly attaining to a prominent position, I^AVID ABRAHAM, a well known and prosperous farmer residing near New Centreville, is a gentleman of wide experience, great information and fine con- versational powers. He is the elder of the two surviving sons of Daniel and Eliza (Philips) Abraham, and was born August 29, 1814, at Willistown, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was educated in the public schools of Delaware county, and at Haddinton college, in the county of Phila- delphia, and after leaving school engaged in farming, which has been his principal busi- ness in life. Since 1839 he has been a con- tinuous resident of his native county, and owns a fine farm of one hundred and sev- enteen acres of choice land in TredyflErin township, which is all highly improved and in first-class condition. Politically he is a republican, giving his party a loyal support on all general questions, and keeping well posted on passing events. The Abraham family is of English-Welsh descent, and was founded in this country by James Abraham, whose mother was Sarah Abraham, who emigrated to America in 1700 with her th«ee sons and two daughters, and settled in Montgomery county, Penn- sylvania. Here he passed the remainder of his life and died at a good old age. He was a farmer, and his wife was Margaret Davis. Two sons, James and Isaac, and three daughters were born to them. The son, Isaac Abraham (great-grandfather), was born in Upper Merion township, Montgom- ery county, and lived there all his life. He also was a farmer by occupation, and mar- ried into a Quaker family, his wife being Dinah Howard, by whom he had two chil- dren. One of these was a son named Isaac Abraham (grandfather), who was born on the old homestead in Montgomery county. 384 BIOQSAPItY AND HISTORY and resided there for a time, but later sold out and removed to Delaware' county, set- tling near the present site of Wayne, where he died about 1813, aged nearly fifty-eight years. His remains sleep in the cemetery adjoining the Great Valley Baptist church, of which he was a prominent member, deacon and ordained elder for many years. In politics he was a federalist, and he mar- ried Jane Carnogg, to whom was born a family of four children, three sons and one daughter. Daniel Abraham, son of Isaac and Jane Abraham, and father of the sub- ject of this sketch, was born January 11, 1781, on the spot where the village of Wayne now stands. At the age of sixteen he re- moved to Willistown township, this county, where he lived until 1817, when he went to Radnor township, Delaware county, and re- sided there until 1835. In that year he re- moved to Philadelphia county, but returned to Delaware county in a couple of years, and in 1889 came to Tredyffrin township, this county, where he died iN^ovember 30, 1861, aged eighty years. His life was prin- cipally devoted to agriculture, in which he was very successful, owning three fine farms at the time of his death, one containing one hundred and thirty acres, and another consisting of two hundred acres, all well improved. He was a man of more than ordinary ability and judgment, and in 1812 was appointed justice of the peace by the governor of Pennsylvania, Simon Snyder, and held that ofiice until his removal to Delaware county in 1817. He was again appointed to the same office by Governor John Andrew Shultz, and held the position until he changed his residence in 1835. In politics he was a federalist until Jackson's election to the presidency, when he became a whig and ever after adhered to that party. He was a Baptist in religious belief, and was for many years a prominent member and a deacon of the Great Yalley church of that denomination. His service as deacon extended from 1832 to his death, in 1861. In 1807 he married Eliza Philips, a daugh- ter of Jonathan Philips, and to them was born a family of eleven children,five sons and six daughters, all of whom are now de- ceased except Daniel and the subject of this sketch. » ^ « QOIjOMOIN" KEPNEB, who for a quar- ter of a century was a prominent woolen manufacturer in Chester, Lancaster and Mifflin counties, and is one of the most suc- cessful inventors in this part of Pennsyl- vania, was born October 19, 1814, in Lim- erick township, Montgomery county, this State. He is a son of Samuel and Rebecca (Yost) Kepner, and Was reared and educated in his native county. Soon after leaving school he became an apprentice to the wool manufacturing business, and feeling the force of the sentiment, afterward embodied in Longfellow's psalm, that life is real and earnest, he gave himself up to a thorough preparation for its practical duties. He be- gan at the bottom and steadily worked up- ward through the various processes then in vogue, making himself familiar with every detail connected with the manufacture of woolen goods of all descriptions. He was naturally gifted with a good degree of mechanical ingenuity and inventive genius, and it was not long until he began to make improvements in the cumbersome machinery then in use, and perfect processes which were defective or unnecessarily slow in their operation. His factory in this county was located ©n Pigeon creek. He was afterward engaged for a number of years in the man- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 885 ufacture of woolen goods in Lancaster and Mifflin counties, but in 1855 relinquished the manufacturing business, and since that time has devoted his time more to perfect- ing some of his inventions, and managing the sale of his patent rights. He has se- cured more than a score of patents on dif- ferent inventions in various lines. During the last thirty-three years he has resided at Kenilworth, this county. In politics he is a republican, and in religion an adherent of the German Baptist church. On April 7, 1835, Mr. Kepner was united in marriage to Eliza Ellis, a daughter of James Ellis, of Ireland, who came to Amer- ica and located in East Coventry township, where he married Maria Strickland, daugh- ter of George Strickland. To Mr. and Mrs. Kepner was born a family of five children, two sons and three daughters : Maria, mar- ried George W. Reagan (who was killed during a storm, in 1881), by whom she had a family of six children — Ellis, Frank, Al- bertis, Arthur, Ethel, and Howard (de- ceased) — who now live with their mother in Chicago. The second child and eldest son was John Price, who married Augusta Massey, of Washington city, and had two children — M. Blanche and La Clare. He enlisted at the age of twenty-one in Co. I, 6th Pennsylvania cavalry, and served through the entire war. Later he entered the office of the surgeon general at Wash- ington, and became chief clerk of that de- partment, where he remained until his death in 1881. The third child was Annie, who first married James Kime, by whom she had three children — Ella, Alfred and George — and after his death wedded Harry Radclift'e, an employee of the Cofrode & Saylor Bridge works, residing in IS'orth Coventry township. Rebecca, the fourth child, married William E. Harley, a clerk in the war department at Washington, and has one child, a daughter named Bessie E. The youngest son, Ellis W., is now acting as private secretary to the first comptroller of the treasury at Washington. The Kepners are descended from German stock, but have been residents of Pennsyl- vania since early times. The paternal grandfather of Solomon Kepner married a Miss Brant, daughter of Adam Brant, a native of Germany, who came to America previous to the revolutionary war andsettled between Pottstown and Crooked Hill, in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He was a well-known clock maker in his day, and many of his clocks may yet be found in the country round about Pottstown. Samuel Kepner (father) learned the trade of clock maker with his grandfather Brant, serving an apprenticeship of seven years. He fol- lowed the business for a number of years, relinquishing it about 1810 to engage in the cultivation of the soil. He was engaged in farming for the remainder of his life, except a term of service in the American army during the war of 1812. He died in 1848, at the advanced age of sixty-two years. In politics he was first a democrat and later a whig, while in religious belief he was a German Baptist. He married Rebecca Yo8t„a daughter of Henry Yost, and reared a family of nine children, six sons and three daughters: Henry, deceased, who was en- gaged at an early day in hauling goods from Philadelphia to Pittsburg; John, Gabriel, Amos, Solomon, the subject of this sketch ; Sarah; Isaac, now located in the city of Philadelphia, where he is engaged in the grocery business; Mary and Ellen. Of these children only Solomon and Isaac now survive. mo&itAPSY A]^D m&fony JOSEPH H. JOHNSON, a real estate dealer and justice of the peace at Down- ingtown, who has served as county surveyor of Chester county, and occupied a number of other positions of responsibility and trust, is the youngest son of John and Eliz- abeth K. ( Meredith) Johnson, and was born April 4, 1848, in Wallace township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Johnsons are of Welsh descent, the family being founded in America by William Johnson (great- grandfather), who came from Wales about 1760, and settled in Chester county, on the farm in East Brandywine township now owned by Gr. E.. North. There he lived until his 'death, which occurred in 1811. He was buried in the old church yard at Brandywine Manor. Among his sons was John Johnson (grandfather), who was born in East Brandywine township in 1766, where he lived all his life, dying June 30, 1836. His remains also lie entombed at Brandywine Manor cemetery. He was a prominent farmer, who adhered to the Whig party in politics, and in religion was a strict Presbyterian. In 1792 he married Dorathy Kennedy, and reared a family of two sons and five daughters : Robert, John, Mary, who married James McGruyon ; Nancy, who became the wife of Henry Lewis; Jane, wedded David Baum; Elizabeth, married James Arters; and Margaret, died at the age of twelve years. John Johnson (father) was born on the old homestead, in Wallace township, this county, April 17thj 1808, where he spent his entire life, and where he died June 18, 1884. He owned one hundred and twenty-five acres of land, and became prosperous. Politically he was a republican, but took little part in politics, and in religion he leaned toward the Friends, and his wife was a member of that religious body. On November 10, 1831, he married Elizabeth K. Meredith, a native of Chester county, and to them was born a family of six chil- dren, five sons and a daughter, viz. : Robert, a prosperous farmer of Loag's Corner, West Nantmeal township, who marrried Mary A. Harlan ; John, who married Harriet Lukins, and now owns and lives on the old home- stead in Wallace township; Isaiah, who wedded Phoebe S. Roberts, and is engaged in farming in Oakland county, Michigan ; Hannah, married Baldwin Hughs, a farmer of East Brandywine township, this county ; William H., who enlisted in Co. A, 124th Pennsylvania infantry, at West Chester; August 4, 1862, and took part as a raw re- cruit in the terrible struggle at Antietam, and died from typhoid fever brought on by exposure, October 18, a little over two months after his enlistment; and Joseph H., the subject of this sketch. Joseph H. Johnson was reared on the home farm in Wallace township, and at- tended the common schools of his neighbor- hood, laying the foundation of the fine prac- tical education he afterward acquired. He subsequently took a course of training in the academy at Eallston, Harford county, Maryland, in which institution he taught Mathematics one year, then returning to Chester county in 1866, he engaged in teach- ing in the public schools of the county, where he taught successfully for a period of some seven years. December 28, 1869, Mr. Johnson was united in marriage to Laura A. Harlan, youngest daughter of William A. and Sarah Harlan, of Livonia county, Michigan. They have three children living, one daughter, Marion S., and two sons, G. Curtiss and Wilmer C. In the winter of 1873, he purchased the (Q^tki-e^ (^^. (oj/odn^Mn. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 389 Matthew Stanley farm, now owned by Hon. Matthew Stanley Quay, in West Brandy- wine township, to which he removed in the following spring, and for three years he prosecuted the business of farming success- fully. His neighbors in West Brandywine township were not slow in discovering Mr. Johnson's business qualifications, and at the end of the first year's residence with them they elected him to the oflice of justice of the peace, which office he filled acceptably until his removal from the township, which took place in the spring of 1877, at which time he sold his farm, making a neat little sum on the transaction, and removed to Downingtown, where he has since resided. The summer of 1877 was spent by Mr. Johnson traveling in the west, taking his wife with him for a visit to her people, and coming home in the fall. Shortly after his return a vacancy occurred in the grammar department of the Downingtown public school, and upon the solicitation of the di- rectors he accepted the position and again taught until the following spring, when he engaged in the manufacture of paint, oper- ating what became known as the Excelsior Paint Works, successfully, for some five years. Shortly after Mr. Johnson's removal to Downingtown, he was elected borough surveyor, to which position he was annually re-elected thereafter for fourteen consecutive years. In 1884 he was elected county surveyor, which office he served for the term of three years. In 1882 he was elected justice of the peace for the borough of Downingtown, which position he has held ever since, and is now serving his fourth term in that important position — one term in the township of West Brandy- wine and three in the borough of Downing- town. Mr. Johnson soon found that the 24 duties of his office were absorbing so much of his time that he considered it advisable to give up the paint business, which he did, and for the last ten years he has devoted his time exclusively to the duties of his office, and to surveying, conveyancing, real estate and insurance ; he has also settled a number of important estates, and prosecuted successfully quite a number of pension claims. His business abilities are demon- strated by the fact that his business has been successful and constantly increasing, until latterly he has been compelled to call to his aid the constant service of a stenogra- pher. ' He has been closely identified with the business interests of his town ever since his residence therein, ever active and aggressive in vigorously pushing to a suc- cessful completion that of which his con- science approved. He was largely instrumental in organiz- ing the present Building and Loan associa- tion, which has done a great deal for the advancement of Downingtown, having served as its secretary ever since its organ- ization. He is first vice president of the board of trade of the town, and a chair- man of one of its important committees. He has been an important factor in im- proving Downingtown real estate, having built a number of houses, some of which he has sold to customers on easy terms, and in one of which he now resides, on the main street of the town adjacent to his office. He is treasurer of the Downing- town Improvement Company ; this is a cor- poration recently chartered, and is already engaged in the erection of a building, which, when completed, will be the finest building in town ; judging from the character of the live men that are at the head of this con- cern, and the start they are already making. 390 BIOOMAPEY AND HISTORY this corporation will bring in a new era for Downingtown. Politically Mr. Johnson is a stanch re- publican, and an earnest worker for the success of his party and the promulgation of its principles; he is a local leader of recognized ability, and is now serving his fifth term as a member of the republican county committee, and has been honored by his party in being called upon to preside at their deliberations in county conventions. In religion he is a Baptist, and one of the trustees of the Downingtown Baptist church. He was very active as a member of the building committee in the erection of the new church edifice, and he, in connection with his wife, did some very effective work as members of the finance committee, in the paying off of the debt of the church. He also takes a great interest in Sunday school work, teaching regularly every Sun- day two large adult Bible classes, one at his own church in the forenoon, and one at a mission school, held in the afternoon, at the brandywine Baptist church. He is a member of the Alert Fire Com- pany, JSTo. 1, of Downingtown, Pennsylvania, and is ever active in the promulgation of such measures as are for the best interests of the company, and it was he who origi- nated the idea and prepared the petition that led to the borough purchasing the splen- did equipment that the company now enjoys. He is also a past grand of Brandywine Lodge, No. 388, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is now serving the order as chaplain. To sum up the case in one brief terse sen- tence, the subject of this sketch is one of Downingtown's successful, live, wide awake, busy men, who believes in the motto " That it is better to wear out than to rust out." QEORGE smith, Jr., a wealthy farmer of North Coventry township, this county, who amassed his fortune by real estate transactions, is a representative of one of the most prominent families in this part of the State. He is the third son of George L. and Margaret (Bright) Smith, and was born on Christmas day, 1831, in Cumru township, Berks county, Pennsyl- vania. There he was reared and attended the public schools during his early youth, but not taking very kindly to " book learn- ing" he concluded to try what the great college of practical business life would do toward the education of an active, energetic and wide-awake young man. Accordingly, at the early age of eighteen years, he en- gaged in the grain and milling business on his own account, but a little later aban- doned that to learn the trade of millwright, and followed milling until 1865. In that year he engaged in farming in his native county of Berks. After his father's death he was occupied for some time in settling up the estate, and was also engaged to some extent in the real estate business, with which he has been more or less connected ever since. He now owns property in seven different wards of Reading, and a fine farm of twenty-three acres in North Coventry township, this county, which he purchased in 1886, and to which he removed in 1889. There he has x-esided ever since in a very handsome and comfortable home. Beside his investments in the city of Reading he owns property in Berks county, and is also interested in various lines of street railway. Adhering to the political traditions of his family, Mr. Smith has always been a demo- crat of broad and liberal views, and is a local leader of great influence. He has twice been a delegate to the National con- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 391 ventions of his party — in 1884 and again in 1888 — and in the former was one of the five original Cleveland men in his delega- tion. He was frequently sent as a delegate to the State conventions of the Democratic party while a resident of Berks county, and actively supported Robert E. Pattison in the convention that first nominated him for governor of Pennsylvania. He has also represented his district in county conven- tions since coming to Chester. Mr. Smith is a man of medium height but portly build, and measures fifty-six inches around the body. He is fond of sport, keeps thirty- five hounds, and is considered one of the best shots in this section. By an extensive course of reading he has acquired a vast fund of general information, and is a ready, pleasant and entertaining conversationalist. On January 21, 1854, Mr. Smith united in marriage with Elnora Leinbach, a daugh- ter of William Leinbach, of Spring town- ship, near Reading, this State. To them was born a family of thirteen children, ten of whom are still living: Margaret, died at the age of two and a half years ; Charles, dead ; Kate, married Charles Hatch, assistant cashier of the Merchant's bank of Philadelphia; Douglass, a druggist, now deceased, who married Bessie Lincoln, who survives him and resides at Birdboro ; Mary, Edmund L., Bessie, J. Bright, Harry W., John F., George H., and Joseph, the latter nine still living at home with their parents. John F. Smith, paternal great-grandfather of George Smith, jr., was a native of Prussia, and was professor in a school at Halle, and also a minister in the Lutheran church. During the Revolutionary war he emigra- ted to America and had charge of a church at Philadelphia, which was used for a time by the British soldiers. He married and was the father of two sons, Fredterick and Jacob. Frederick Smith (grandfather) was educated for the law, and became prominent at the bar and on the bench. He served as district attorney of Berks county, practiced in Philadelphia and in Lehigh and North- ampton counties, and was commissioned attorney general of the State under Gov. J. A. Shulze, December 18, 1823, only two days after the governor took the oath of office. After the expiration of his term in that position he was, in 1827, appointed as an associate judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, receiving his commission Jan- uary 31, 1828. He was an able advocate of the doctrines of the Democratic party and a strict constructionist on constitutional questions. He was reared in the Lutheran faith and was a prominent member and lib- eral supporter of that church nearly all his life. He married Catharine Leif, of Pottstown, by whom he had a family of six children : Mary, married Henry Snyder, a son of Governor Simon Sny- der ; Fredericka, wedded Edward P. Pear- son, a prominent lawyer of Reading and Philadelphia; Sarah, deceased; John F., who married Ann Snyder of Berks county, by whom he had six children — J. Fraley, a wealthy dry goods merchant of Philadelphia, and William M., a distin- guished lawyer of Philadelphia ; Henry and Frederick, and Mary and Amelia. George L. Smith (father) was born in the old Smith mansion at Reading, this State, March 15, 1802, where he was reared and educated. At the age of sixteen he apprenticed him- self to a miller at what was then known as the "Governor Hiester mill," so named for its owner. Gov. Joseph Hiester. Some years afterward he purchased and operated this mill, building up a large and remunerative 392 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY trade. He increased the efficiency of the mill, extended the field of his operations and sought the markets of Philadelphia and the surrounding counties. Subsequently he associated himself with the late Lewis Reese, under the firm name of Smith & Reese, and they conducted an extensive business for a number of years, having one of the leading plants in western Pennsyl- vania. Reese had formerly managed Frick's mills on the Schuylkill river. In 1830 Mr. Smith was commissioned register of Berks county by Gov. George Wolf, and in 1839 by Gov. David R. Porter flour inspector, serving in that capacity alto- gether for nearly twelve years. He was a delegate to the Democratic ITa- tional convention of 1832, which nominated Andrew Jackson for the presidency, and was a firm supporter of Old Hickory ; and was a member of the State convention that nominated Governor Wolf in 1829. In 1848 he was appointed to nominate a board of canal commissioners, and received a vote of thanks for that service. In 1853 Mr. Smith disposed of his interest in the Governor Hiester mill, and united with his son, George Smith, jr., in the milling business at Birds- boro, Berks county, in which he was inter- ested until 1859, when he retired and there- after devoted his attention mainly to look- ing after his real estate interests until his death, September 29, 1878, when in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He married Margaret Bright in 1821, and reared a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. The eldest of these sons was Jacob B. Smith, who graduated from the Georgetown academy, read law with his uncles, Edward P. Pearson and Henry W. Smith, and removed to Colorado, where he was the first judge elected in that State. He died at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1886, after a long and brilliant career as a lawyer and jurist. Maj. Edmund Smith, the sec- ond son, graduated from Georgetown, Dis- trict of Columbia, in 1849, taking second honors, and was admitted to the bar of Berks county in 1851. Six years later he was elected to the legislature from that county, and when the civil war opened he enlisted as a private in the Ringgold artillery, and was afterward made captain of a company. He served under General McClellan and par- ticipated in most of the battles fought by the army of the Potomac. Thirteen months of his time was spent in Libby prison, from which he escaped only to be recaptured after six weeks of liberty employed in un- successful attempts to reach the Federal lines. The third son of George L. and Margaret Smith was George, the subject of this sketch, and their youngest son was Charles F., who died in 1863, in the twenty- fifth year of his age. Their three daughters were : Angelina, who married Dr. Lemuel Stewart, and is now deceased; Mary, the wife of Joseph Depuy Davis, a retired law- yer of Reading, this State ; and Kate, who has spent much of her time in Europe, vis- iting nearly all the historic places in the old world. wTOHN C. SAYIiOR, a prominent busi- ness man, and the proprietor of the widely known Saylor's flouring mill, of Parker Ford, and whose industral career has been one of remarkable and continued success, is a son of George C. and Catherine (Sholl) Saylor, and was born August 80, 1828, in Wittenberg, Germany. He was reared principally in Montgomery county, being brought there when he was but seven years of age. He received his education OF CHESTER COUNTY. 398 in the common schools, and went out into the great business world to do for himself at thirteen years of age, as a driver on the towpath of the Scuylkill canal. He rose from post to post on the canal, until he was captain of a boat in less than six years from commencing at the bottom round of canal life, and before he was nineteen years of age. He left the field of his youthful labors to learn the trade of miller, and soon en- tered upon his present successful business career. In 1845 he rented a mill in Berks county, which he operated until 1854. When Mr. Saylor came to East Coventry township, he purchased his present flouring mill near Parker Ford. This mill is first class in every respect, and has been thor- oughly equipped with the latest and most improved milling machinery. The products of the mill so well recommend themselves that there is an extensive and continually increasing demand for them in Chester and adjoining counties. In addition to his mill property Mr. Saylor owns forty acres of productive land, and holds stock in the 'S&- tional bank of Spring City. He is a repub- lican in politics, and has served his town- ship as treasurer and as a member of its school board. He is a member of Mana- tawny Lodge, JSTo. 214, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Stichter Lodge, ISo. 254, Free and Accepted Masons of Potts- town, Montgomery county. John C. Saylor is of German descent, and the Saylor family is traced back for several centuries in the local history of that part of Germany in which George C. Saylor, the father of John C. Saylor, was born. George C. Saylor came from Germany to Mont- gomery county, and in 1860 removed to the vicinity of Parker Ford, where he died one year later, in 1861, when in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He was a well-to-do farmer, managing hisbusiness with ability and pru- dence, and securing for himself a comforta- ble home. He was a democrat until the commencement of the late war, and then became a republican. He was a consistent member of the Lutheran church, and mar- ried Catherine ShoU, who died in 1856. Their children are : Adam, formerly steward of the Montgomery County home, and now a resident of Pottstown, that county ; John C, and Margaret, wife of George Miller. Mr. Saylor married Rosanna Geigner, daughter of Joseph Geigner, of Montgomery county. Their children are : Catharine M., wife of J. Ellis Orr, superintendent of the Mt. Penn stove works, of Reading, this State; Irvin married Mary C. Forges, and is superintendent of his father's mill; Al- fred, who married Jennie Prizer, and is an editor and publisher in Philadelphia ; Lewis, married Lizzie Harley, and has been en- gaged for some time in the printing and publishing business at Pottstown, Mont- gomery county; Alice, wife of Sylvester Pennypacker, who is a resident of Phila- delphia, where he is engaged in the milk business ; Emma ; John, who married Lizzie Carter, and is a foreman in one of the shops of the Great Baldwin Locomotive works of Philadelphia; Edward, a machinist, now in Europe; Harvey, a pattern maker at the Baldwin Locomotive works ; Mary, wife of M. C. Haspel, shipping clerk of Devlin's Philadelphia hardware house ; and Charles, a machinist. John C. Saylor is an active and influen- tial member of the Lutheran church. In business he has always been distinguished for his clear perception and sound judg- ment. His almost uniform success attests 394 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOItY this, while his transactions are always char- acterized by prude^nce and good fortune. An indulgent father, he is nevertheless a thoughtful and considerate parent. He has always counseled his children to tread those paths which lead to usefulness, honor and happiness, and they, profiting by his advice and example, have become respected and useful members of society. As a man Mr. Saylor stands high, and as a citizen is full of public spirit, and ever anxious to advance the general welfare of his town and county. lyrORDECAI THOMAS, residing near ■^ White Horse, is a splendid representa- tive of that class known as independent farmers. By the exercise of energy, fru- gality and good business judgment, he has accumulated a handsome competency, and is now practically retired and living in the enjoyment of the fruits of his industry. He is the only son of Ezra and Susan (Massey) Thomas, and a native of Willis- town township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, where he was born May 15, 1832. His education was obtained in Joshua Hoopes' school, at West Chester, and in that conducted by Daniel Foulke, at Gwynedd. After leaving school he engaged in farming in Willistown to,wnship, and has followed that occupation principally all his life. He owns a fine farm of one hundred and nine acres, all improved, and is now in inde- pendent circumstances. In politics he is a stanch republican, and has served as school director two terms. On November 7, 1871, Mr. Thomas was united in marriage to Ida Garrett, a daugh- ter of Davis and Elizabeth (Wilson) Gar- rett, of Hockessin, Delaware. To them has been born a family of three children, two sons and a daughter : Lizzie, Ezra and Har- vey, all living at home with their parents. The family to which Mr. Thomas be- longs is of Welsh descent, and takes rank with the oldest and best known families of the Commonwealth. Jacob Thomas, pa- ternal great-grandfather, was a native of Wales, born in 1712. He was a farmer, married and reared a family, among whom was Mordecai Thomas (grandfather), born July 21, 1767, who lived nearly all his life in Willistown township, Chester county, where he died May 7, 1837. The latter learned the trade of cabinet maker in early life, and combined that occupation with farming, being very successful in both, and accumulating considerable property. He was a strict member of the Society of Friends, and married LydiaHoopes,by whom he had a family of ten children, seven of whom were sons : Isaac, Ezra, Emmor, George, Jesse, Hoopes, Mary A., Eliza, and Mordecai — all of whom are now deceased. Ezra Thomas (father) was born in Willis- town township, this county. May 17, 1799, and died here October 18, 1871, aged sev- enty-two years. He spent his life in agri- cultural pursuits, and owned and operated two excellent farms, being considered one of the leading and most progressive farmers of his day. Politically, he was first a whig and later became a republican, and served his township as school director for a period of six years. "He was reared in the Quaker faith and adhered to it all his life. On May 12, 1831, he married Susan Massey, a daugh- ter of James Massey, at that time residing near White Horse, this county. By this marriage he had a family consisting of one son and two daughters : Mordecai, the sub- ject of this sketch ; Anna Mary, who mar- ried Franklin Leonard (now deceased), and OF CHESTEB CO UNI Y. 395 lives near "White Horse; and Lydia, de- ceased. James Massey, maternal grandfather of Mordecai Thomas, was born in England, but emigrated to the United States while yet a young man. He settled in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and lived most of his life near White Horse, where he died. By oc- cupation he was a farmer, and was the father of fotir children : James, "William, Susan, and one that died in infancy. Susan, mother of Mordecai Thomas, died in 1849, in the forty-eighth year of her age. TTilLilAAm li. PAXSON, a prosper- ous farmer, residing near Black Horse post office, is the seventh in line of descent from James Paxson, an English Quaker, who settled in Pennsylvania in 1682. William Ti. is the eldest son of Timothy and Martha (Lippincott) Paxson, and was born where he now resides, in West Sadsbury township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, J^ovember 18, 1836. He was reared on the home farm here, and received superior education in the common schools and academies of his native county. After finishing his studies he engaged in teaching for a while in this county, and was known as an earnest and successful teacher. Later he adopted agriculture as his life vocation, and has since been continuously engaged in the cultivation of the soil, stock raising and dairying, generally keeping from fifteen to twenty fine cows. He now owns one hun- dred and thirty acres of choice farming land in West Sadsbury township, all well im- proved, beside some woodland, also located in this township. The property includes the old homestead formerly owned by his father, and is situated on the Philadelphia and Lancaster pike — built in 1792 — and on the ridge which divides the waters of the Susquehanna river from those of the Dela- ware. On January 19, 1869, Mr. Paxson was married to Rebecca Kling, a daughter of David and Mary Kling, of Lancaster county, this State. She died in 1875, at the age of twenty-five, leaving no children. On Feb- ruary 21, 1878, he was again married, wed- ding for his second wife Hannah Wilson, a daughter of Joshua and Hannah Wilson, of East Fall owfield township, this county. To this union was born a family of three chil- dren, two of whom survive: Benjamin and Mareenha, both living at home with their parents. Mrs. Paxson was born November 13, 1840. Her ancestors came over to America just three months later than the time the first Paxsons arrived. Politically Mr. Paxson is a stanch repub- lican, and has served his township for six- teen years as school director, besides hold- ing other township offices. He takes great interest in the cause of education and has made a useful and efficient school officer, and given entire satisfaction in every position he has been called upon to occupy. In religion he adheres to the traditions of the early Paxsons, and has been a life long member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends. He is a man of intelligence and character, well posted on all current topics, and is most highly respected by his neigh- bors and all who know him. The Paxsons, as has been said, are of English descent, and this branch of the family in America traces its ancestry back to James Paxson, who was born in Eng- land, but came to this country while yet a young man in the good ship Samuel, to- gether with his brothers, Henry and Wil- 396 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY liam, in 1682. William settled on land two miles east of where Langhorne now stands, in Bucks county, this State, while James Paxson located near Solesberry, in the same county. Henry Paxson settled near I*few- town, that county. They are all Quakers. Joseph Paxson, great-grandfather of Wil- liam L., and fourth in regular line of de- scent from James Paxson, the original immi- grant, settled in Sadsbury township, Ches- ter county, about the close of the revolu- tionary war. He purchased more than seven hundred acres of land here, married, and was the father of fifteen children, of whom Joseph Paxson (grandfather) was the eldest. He died in 1827, aged sixty-eight years. In politics he was a whig, and was serving as one of the directors when the present poor farm near West Chester was purchased by the county. His wife was Phebe Cooper, by whom he had a family of five children, and one of his sons was Timothy Paxson (father), who was born in Sadsbury town- ship, in December, 1800, where he lived nearly all his life. He was engaged in the mercantile business for a number of years, and erected the building now occupied by William L. Paxson as a residence, for dwel- ling and storehouse. Here he kept a gen- eral country store, and was also postmaster for many years, the office being known as Black Horse postoffice. He also owned and operated a farm, was an old-line whig in politics, and a strict member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends. In 1834 he married Martha Lippincott, a daughter of William and Ann Lippincott, of West- field, Burlington county, New Jersey, by whom he had five children. He died March 28, 1863. The Lippincotts are among the oldest and most respected families of that State, and have furnished a number of dis- tinguished citizens to our sister Common- wealth. Mrs. Paxson died in the summer of 1884, in the eighty-third year of her age. C KOBISON MARCH, burgess of * Phoenixville, and a leading railroad contractor of this part of the State, who has become prominent in Masonic circles, and is widely known for his energy, ability and business success, is a son of Samuel and Rebecca (Tredenick) March, and was born October 1, 1844, in West Pikeland town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The March family is of German origin, but have been residents of Chester county for five generations. The great-grandfather of S. Robison March was a native of Germany, who emigrated to America while yet a young man and located in Pikeland town- ship, becoming one of the early settlers of Chester county. He married in this county and reared a large family. Among his sons was Nicholas March (grandfather), who was born in this county about 1783. He served in the war of 1812, and afterward became a prosperous farmer of West Pikeland town- ship, where he died at the age of sixty-nine years. He was a democrat in politics, in religion a member of the German Reformed church, and married Elizabeth Emery, by whom he has a family often children. Sam- uel March (father) was born on the home farm in West Pikeland township, August 24, 1808, and resided in that township all his life, dying November 3, 1867, at the age of fifty-nine years. He learned the trade of blacksmith when a young man and worked at that business for a time, but later pur- chased a farm and was afterward engaged solely in agricultural pursuits, becoming prosperous in his later years. He was a ■m>-fd^(?n (Si^l^Laie. OF CHESIEjR county. 309 member of the German Reformed church, which he served in an official capacity for many years. He was a democrat in politics and always took an active interest in the public questions of his day. He married Eebecca Tredenick in 1840, and to them was born a family of eight children. Mrs. March, born February 15, 1815, was a native of Chester county, a member of the German Reformed church, and died in 1890, after an active and useful life of three quar- ters of a century. Her father, Robert Tredenick, was born in this county of Ger- man parentage, and her mother was a daugh- ter of Isaac Smith, an early settler and cab- inet maker of this township, who for many years furnished all the coffins needed in the surrounding country, and lived to the re- markable age of ninety-four years. S. Robison March was reared on the home farm in West Pikeland township, and re- ceived a good practical education in the common schools of his neighborhood and at Freelands seminary in Montgomery county. After leaving school he entered the employ of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company as clerk and telegraph operator, and remained with that company a number of years. In 1876 he came to Phoenixville and engaged in farming, which occupation he followed for five years, and in 1881 em- barked in the business of railroad contract- ing. He graded the Frazer branch of the Pennsylvania railroad from the Schuylkill river to Harveyville, and also two and a half miles on the Schuylkill Valley branch of that road. Among other large contracts executed by him was one for seven thousand yards of masonry at the Sixteenth street station of the Philadelphia & Reading rail- road, in the city of Philadelphia, and an- other for five miles of railroad in Jlunting- don county, for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He has also done the masonry for several large bridges on these roads, be- side completing many other railroad con- tracts. He is now (1892) engaged in building a branch road, and grading for a new freight yard and doing the masonry work on the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's new depot building at Phoenixville. Mr. March has also been engaged in real estate trans- actions, having built and sold a large num- ber of the finest houses in Phoenixville, and purchased several farms in the county, which he improved and then sold again. He has been successful in his various under- takings, which may be ascribed principally to his energy and ability for looking after the details of his business. On March 22, 1866, he united in marriage with Mary A. Fry, a daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Fry, of West Vincent town- ship, this county. To them was born a family of three children, a son and two daughters : Ida L., who died January 18, 1892, in her twenty-fifth year; Bertha E., and S. Roy, the two latter now living at home with their parents. Politically Mr. March is a democrat, giv- ing his party a right loyal support on all national questions, but inclined to indepen- dence in local politics. He served as sec- retary of the school board in West Pikeland township, and in the spring of 1890 was elected to the position of burgess of Phoenix- ville, which he filled in a manner so satis- factory to the people that he was re-elected in 1891 by an increased majority, and chosen for a third time to the same office in 1892 — an eventwhich never before occurred in the history of Phoenixville. Mr. March is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, in which he has served as deacon 400 BIOGRAPHY AND HI810BY and elder. He is also prominent in Masonic circles, being a member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons; Phoenix Chapter, ITo. 198, Royal Arch Masons; Pal- estine Council, No. 8, Royal and Select Mas- ters; and Jerusalem Commandery, No. 15, Knights Templar, and has filled all the chairs in these various bodies. He is also a member of Caldwell Consistory, S.-. P.-. R.-. S.-. 32°, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Masons, and a man who is everywhere popular be- cause of his affability, personal worth and energetic character. QLATER B. RUSSELL, who is promi- nently identified with the insurance and real estate business of West Chester, is the eldest son of John Neal and Amelia (Kii'k) Russell, and was born in Drumore township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 18th of June, 1834. His paternal great-grandfather, Paul Russell (or Roussel, as originally spelled), was a native of Al- sace, Germany, but emigrated to America about 1720, and settled in Chester county, this State. His son, John Russell (grand- father), was born in Chester county, but removed to New Castle county, Delaware, and from thence, in 1806, to Lancaster county, this State, and located in Drumore township, where he passed the remainder of his life. He was a farmer by occupation, and in politics a Jacksonian democrat. He married Ann Neal, by whom he had an only son, John Neal Russell, father of the subject of this sketch, who was born July 8, 1804, in New Castle county, Delaware. "When only two years old he was brought by his parents to Lancaster county, this State, and there lived until his death, which occurred December 23, 1876, at the age of seventy- two years. He devoted his life to agricul- tural pursuits, and became noted as a suc- cessful, progressive and scientific farmer. He was a whig and republican in politics, and took a lively interest in all public ques- tions. He wedded Amelia Kirk, a daughter of Elisha Kirk, of Cecil county, Maryland, by whom he had a family of six children, two sons and four daughters: Slater B., to whom this sketch is devoted; Ann N., who married G-eorge H. Kirk (now deceased), and resides in the city of Philadelphia; Mary B., who married Jacob T. Whitson, a farmer of Lancaster county; Rachel H., now the wife of "William M. Hayes, a mem- ber of the "West Chester bar ; Hannah M., who married El wood Smedley, a farmer of Lancaster county; and George H., who served during the civil war in the 21st Pennsylvania cavalry, and who was unfor- tunately frozen to death in the mountains of Mbntana, during the extreme cold weather of January, 1887. Mr. Russell received an academic educa- tion, having attended the Millersville Normal school, London Grove boarding school, and other superior institutions of learning in Chester and Lancaster counties. After leaving school, at the age of twenty-one, he began teaching and passed three years in educational work in Lancaster and Chester counties. In May, 1861, he received an ap- pointment as corresponding clerk in the war department at Washington and immediately entered upon the discharge of his duties as such. There he remained until May, 1867, when he resigned and returned to Lancas- ter county, this State, where he was engaged in farming until the spring of 1870. In March, 1865, he was appointed by Secretary Stanton captain commissary of volunteers, but deeming the war nearly at an end he OF CHESTER COUNTY. 401 did not accept. In the spring of 1870 he located at Oxford, this county, and remained there for a period of five years, after which he transferred his residence to West Ches- ter and embarked in the insurance and real estate business. In 1882 he was elected to the position of justice of the peace for the borough of West Chester, which office he has held acceptably ever since. On October 23, 1861, Mr. Russell united in marriage with Amelia K. Levis, a daugh- ter of I^Torris Levis, of Cecil county, Mary- land, and to them have been born four daughters : Anne L., Mary C, Florence E. and Harriet. Mr. Russell is a stanch re- publican. He is also a member of high degree of both the Masonic and Odd Fel- lows' orders, and is a firm believer in the efficacy of these and kindred orders to pro- mote the happiness and well being of man- kind. By virtue of his descent from Capt. Roger Kirk, of the 4th battalion of Asso- ciators, of the county of Chester, who was his maternal great-grandfather, he is a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution. QEORGE K. SPRATT, M. D., a grad- uate of the university of Pennsylva- nia, now in leading practice at Coatesville, and ranking among the most prominent physicians of Chester county, is a son of Rev. Dr. George M. and Abagail (Reed) Spratt, and was born December 19, 1839, in Northumberland county, Pennsylvania. He is the third in line of descent to become prominent and attain distinction. George S. Spratt, M. D., paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Win- chester, England, July 8, 1787, and at the age of twenty-four, January 11, 1811, mar- ried Elizabeth Main, and three days later set sail for the East Indies as a medical missionary. Providence, however, guided him to Quebec, Canada, where he labored for some time as pastor in an independent church. Coming to Philadelphia, he be- came convinced of the truth of the doc- trines held by the Baptist church, and not only received scriptural baptism but was again ordained,, the brethren of that day being unwilling to recognize the orthodoxy of an alien administration of either baptism or the official act of consecration to the functions of the gospel ministry. His first pastorate in his new connection was of the then recently formed church in Bridgeton, New Jersey, but his subsequent labors were given to the churches of Shamokin, Penn- sylvania, and vicinity. The church at Covington, Tioga county, Pennsylvania, was formed through his labors, while Alle- gheny and Mead Corners churches, in north- western Pennsylvania, shared in his pas- toral eflforts. The last church he served as pastor was the Great Valley church, in Chester county, Pennsylvania. After clos- ing his labors here, the growing infirmities of age precluded any regular charge, but he occasionally supplied the Valley Forge church until his sudden death, January 28, 1863, after an active and useful life, extend- ing over three quarters of a century, fifty- three years of which were devoted to an able and acceptable ministry. "A sinner saved by grace," is the record on his tomb- stone, ordered to be placed there as a memorial in his last will and testament. George M. Spratt, D. D. (father), was born in Quebec, Canada, April 7, 1813, con- verted when only seven years of age, and joined the Baptist church. He began his 402 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY theological studies at Hamilton, New York, in 1830, having walked all the way from his home in Pennsylvania, and was after- ward ordained as a missionary in central Pennsylvania. During his missionary labors he organized three churches, built three meeting houses, and baptized many converts. He subsequently became pastor of the church of Towanda, this State, where he remained four years. He was also pastor for a time at Elmira and Fairport, New York. In 1869 he received the degree of doctor of divinity from the university at Lewisburg, to the establishment and growth of which institution he had contributed a large measure of efficient service. In 1851 he was made corresponding secretary and financial agent for the Pennsylvania Bap- tist Educational society, and which position he still retains. He is an earnest and in- structive preacher, and has labored long and well in the upbuilding of the interests of his denominatiqn throughout eastern Penn- sylvania and western New York. He mar- ried Abagail Reed, a daughter of Jacob Reed, of Pennsylvania, and to their union was born a family of four children. Their daughter, Harriet E. Spratt, was for several years previous to her death principal of the University Female institute at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. 0. W. Spratt, the third child, is prominently connected with the American Baptist Publishing society. Rev. Dr. Spratt now resides in the city of Philadelphia. George R. Spratt, M. D., was reared prin- cipally at Lewisburg, this State, and received a liberal education at the Bucknell univer- sity, from which he was graduated in 1860, with the degree of A. M. He soon after entered the office of Dr. Thomas H. Wil- son, of Lewisburg, and began the study of medicine. Later he matriculated in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, where he pursued the full medical course, and from which he was graduated in the spring of 1864, with the degree of M. D. He immediately enlisted as second assistant surgeon in the 49th Pennsylvania infantry, and served until the close of the civil war, being mustered out •as surgeon. Soon afterward he located at Corry, Erie county, this State, where he opened an office and was engaged in prac- tice two years, after which he removed to Clymer, Chautauqua county. New York, and was in successful practice at that place for a period of six years. In 1873 Dr. Spratt returned to Pennsylvania, and located at Coatesville, where he has ever since re- sided, devoting his time and attention strictly to the duties connected with his profession. His practice has steadily en- larged until it is perhaps second to none in this part of the county. On the day before Christmas, 1866, Doc- tor Spratt was united in marriage to Mary E. Hulbert, a daughter of Kaleb Hulbert, of Westfield, Chautauqua county, New York. To Dr. and Mrs. Spratt were born one daughter, Harriet E., the deceased wife of Prof. Lincoln Hulley Bucknell, and one son, George Alexander, who is nowreading medicine with his father. In politics Dr. Spratt is a stanch republi- can, and has served for a period of eight years as a member of the school board of Coatesville, during five of which he has been president of the board. Like his father and grandfather, he is a member of the Baptist church, and active in support of the various religious and charitable in- terests of his denomination. He is pleasant and affable in manners, and esteemed alike for personal worth and professional skill. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 408 QAPT. EDWARD I.. GILLIGAN, a veteran of the civil war who was awarded a special medal of honor by the United States congress, and who for eighteen years has been an efficient, careful and suc- cessful railroad conductor, is the eldest of the two living sons of Charles and Sarah (Grim- shaw) Gilligan, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April. 18, 1843. Charles Gilligan was a native of Wales, who left the place of his birth in 1824, to find a new home in the United States. He first located at Lynn, Massa- chusetts, but in a short time removed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he be- came agent for Benner & Dowling, proprie- tors of a leading omnibus line in that city, which position he occupied for a number of years. He was a war democrat, and pos- sessing the courage of his convictions, he enlisted April 20, 1861, in Co. A, 23d Penn- sylvania infantry, and served three months, participating in the engagement at Falling Water, Virginia, and a number of skirm- ishes. At the expiration of his term of service he was honorably discharged in the city of Philadelphia, but the exposure and hardships undergone in the camp and on the march had broken his never robust con- stitution, and he died at his home in Phila- delphia on January 5, 1865, at the early age of forty-seven years, from the effects of disease contracted in the army. In 1841 he married Sarah Grimshaw, a native of Philadelphia, and to them was born a family of four children, three sons and a daughter : Edward, deceased; Edward L., the subject of this sketch; Ella, who married Albert Morozzi, and now resides in the city of Philadelphia; and George W., who also lives in Philadelphia, where he is employed as a salesman in the shoe department of John Wannamaker's mammoth store. Mrs. Sarah Gilligan was born in 1819, and is still living, being a member of the family of her daughter, Mrs. Ella Morozzi, in Philadel- phia, and remarkably active for a woman of her age. Capt. Edward L. Gilligan was reared in Philadelphia, and received his education principally in the Ringgold Grammar school of that city. In 1861, soon after the boom of Sumter's guns had electrified the North, while strong men were everywhere pressing forward to oft'er themselves for their coun- try's defense, young Gilli'gan, then only eighteen years of age, enrolled his name in Co. E, 88th Pennsylvania infantry, and marched away to aid the cause each loyal heart held dear. After faithfully perform- ing a soldier's duties for two years and a half, he re-enlisted as a veteran in the same company and served until July 18, 1865, when he was honorably discharged in the city of Philadelphia. He held successively all the offices in his company, from eighth corporal to captain, being the senior captain in his regiment. Captain Gilligan actively participated in all the battles fought by the army of the Potomac up to March 31, 1865, at which time he was wounded in the bril- liant engagement at Stony creek. This in- jury prevented his taking an active part in army movements for some time, but near the end of June, 1865, he again joined his regiment, of which he had command at the grand military review in Washington city, although still walking on crutches. During the battle of Gettysburg, Penn- sylvania, where grim-visaged war crushed life from more than fifty thousand brave men at a stroke, and while victory seemed yet uncertain — inclined now to perch on the standards of the Confederacy, and again 404 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY to abide with the stars and stripes — Captain Gilligan, begrimed by smoke and fighting with an intensity inspired by the fierce struggle whose billows rose and fell around him, joined in a desperate charge on the 23d North Carolina infantry, and succeeded in capturing the colors of that brave band of Confederate soldiers. For this act of con- spicuous heroism the congress of the United States presented him with a medal of honor, bearing this inscription : " The Congress : To Capt. Edward L. Gilligan, Co. E, 88th regiment, Pennsylvania volunteers. For distinguished bravery at the battle of Get- tysburg, July 1, 1863." After the close of the civil war Captain Gilligan returned to Philadelphia, and was employed as a street car conductor for nearly five years, after which he served as clerk of the Stockton hotel at Cape May for two seasons. He then became a brakeman on the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore railroad, and after running one year was promoted to be baggage master. In that capacity he served three years, and was then made conductor. The latter position he still holds, being now employed on the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. On April 11, 1876, Captain Gilligan was united in marriage to Cora E. Orr, a daugh- ter of James Orr, of Port Deposit, Cecil county, Maryland. To them have been born three children, all daughters : Jennie E., Sarah G. and Lucretia G. Captain Gilligan is republican in his political affiliations, and served as census enumerator in Philadelphia in 1870. He is a member of Thompson Post, JSTo. 132, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he is past commander and now adjutant. He is also a member of Philadelphia Lodge, No. 13, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is probably the oldest Odd Fellow of his years to be found in the United States, as he was admitted to the order before he was of age, under a special dispensation of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. For many years he has been a member of the Metho- dist Episcopal church, and is now serving as trustee and steward of his church, being also treasurer of the board of trustees. He is an active and successful Sunday school worker, and commands the respect and es- teem of a wide circle of friends. He is pleasant in manner, a good conversationalist, and a most agreeable gentleman. He is a member of the Oxford board of trade ; Ffeb- ruary, 1891, was elected to the borough council for a term of three years; and is also a member of the Junior Order of American Mechanics. QEOKGE W. WALTON, a veteran Union soldier of the late war, and an industrious and comfortably situated farmer of East Nottingham township, is a son of Thomas and Phebe (Hoskins), and was born in Upper Oxford township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 27, 1844. His paternal grandfather, Thomas Walton, was a native of Montgomery county, this State, and in early life removed to Upper Oxford town- ship, where he was engaged in farming and stockraising until his death. He was an old- line whig, but being an unassuming man never took an active part in political affairs, although he was always interested in his party's success. He was a member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends. He was twice married and had five children, two sons and three daughters. One of his sons was Thomas Walton, the father of the OF CHESTER COUNTi. 405 subject of this sketcli. Thomas Walton •was born in 1814, in East Fallowfield town- ship, and spent over thirty years in Upper Oxford township. He then removed to "West Chester, where he resided until his death in 1879. He was a farmer by occu- pation, a whig and republican in politics, and a Friend or Quaker in religious belief and church membership. He was a friend of popular education and served for thirteen years as a school director in Upper Oxford township. He also held other local offices in that township, and made a good record as a public official. Mr. Walton was patri- otic, and when the late war commenced warmly advocated the cause of the Union, in whose defence he enlisted as a soldier in 1863 for three months. He served as a private in a Pennsylvania infantry company and was honorably discharged from the Fed- eral service. He married Phebe Hoskins, who was a daughter of Joseph Hoskins, of Upper Oxford township, and is now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Walton had eleven children : seven sons and four daughters : Anna E., who died at twenty-one years of age; Joseph, George W., Thomas J., Hannah M. Johnson, John, (deceased) ; Charles H., Malinda, who died in early life ; Brinton ; and a son and daughter who died in infancy. George W. Walton was reared on the farm, and received his education in the com- mon schools of Upper Oxford township and Coatesville academy, then under charge of Professor Griffin. Leaving school he enlisted on September 21, 1861, in Co. C, 97th Pennsylvania in- fantry, and served until September 20, 1864, when he was honorably discharged from the Federal service at near Petersburg, Virginia. He was at the siege of Ft. Sumter, and in the southern department of the Atlantic until 1864, when his regiment was ordered north, and he served in the armies of the James and the Potomac. He was in the dreadful charges at Cold Harbor and the mine explosion in front of Petersburg, and was one of the three hundred men who made the celebrated and desperate attempt to capture the Confederate battery on Green Plains between Petersburg and Richmond. Returning home from the army Mr. Wal- ton engaged in farming, which he has suc- cessfully followed ever since. His farm of seventy acres of good tillable land lies one- half mile west of Oxford. He is a republi- can in politics, and devotes the most of his time and attention to farming and other agricultural pursuits. He has two sons, William A. and Howard T. Walton. J'OHN H. DAVIS, senior member of the firm of Davis & Mowrey, at Spring City, and a gentleman who has served for several years in the common council of that borough, is a son of William D. and Sarah (Cook) Davis, and was born at Parker Ford, Chester county, Pennsylvania, July 16, 1853. He was reared principally in East Coventry township, and secured a good education in the public schools of his neigh- borhood. After quitting the school room he served an apprenticeship at the carpenter trade, and followed that occupation for a number of years. About 1889 he aban- doned his trade and embarked in the coal and feed business at Spring City, under the firm name of Davis & Mowrey, his part- ner being Joseph I. Mowrey, a sketch of whom will be found elsewhere in this work. The firm has been quite prosperous, and has built up an extensive and lucrative trade. Its business includes coal, wood, fiour, feed, 406 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY lime and sand, and any article in these va- rious lines can always be obtained at the lowest prices, from this well-known firm. They own and operate a chopping mill in connection with their feed department, and their business has more than doubled dur- ing the last two years. The firm is on the highway to unusual prosperity, and well de- serves its success. Mr. Davis was wedded to Lydia Mowrey, a daughter of Samuel and Leah Mowrey, of Spring City, and to this union has been born five children : Blanche, Laura, (de- ceased); Bertha, Arthur (also dead); and Walter. Mr. Davis is a member and stew- ard of the Methodist Episcopal church, at Spring City, and in politics a stanch repub- lican. He was elected a member of the borough council in 1887, and ably dis- charged the duties of that position for a period of three years. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, John Davis, was born in Montgomery county, and during the latter part of his life lived in Limerick township, Montgomery county. He married, and was the father of seven children, four sons and three daughters : David, Elizabeth, Su- san, William D., l^athan, Michael, Kate. Elizabeth married John Rapor ; Susan mar- ried John Loag ; and Kate wedded Joseph Essick. The second son, William Davis (father), was born at Limerick, Montgomery county, December 21, 1817, where he grew up and received a fair education in the com- mon schools. After attaining manhood he learned the carpenter's trade, and for several years followed it exclusively. Later he removed to Schuylkill county, engaged in the lumber business for ten years, where he was quite successful, then moved back to Chester county and engaged in farming to some extent, and became quite prosperous. In his political belief he was a stanch re- publican, and held the office of school di- rector in his township for a number of years. He was a member of the German Reformed church, in which he served as trustee for a long time. In 1842 he married Sarah Cook, a daughter of Samuel Cook, of Ches- ter county, and to their union was born eight children, six sons and two daughters : Allen S., Kate (married Irwin Brown back), Benjamin and Thomas (twins), Emma (wedded Edgar Leopold), John H. (subject of this sketch), Edwin W., and George B. The father, William D. Davis, died at his home, in East Coventry township, on March 13, 1890, at the advanced age of seventy- two years. His wife survives him, being now in the seventy-fourth year of her age. QEORG-E WALTERS, who was hon- ored in' life for his many excellent traits and sincerely mourned at his death, was a prominent member of the Methodist Epis- copal church, aqd an excellent architect, whose fame as a railway engineer was achieved when he built the great Interna- tional bridge across the Niagara river. He was a son of William and Catharine (Em- ory) Walters, and was born in East Pike- land township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, March 22, 1810. He received a good practical English education and left the pa- ternal acres to learn the trade of coach maker which he followed for a few years. In 1838 he disposed of his small coachmak- ing establishment and came to Phcenixville, as affording a wider and far more advanced field for all manufacturing industries with which his trade was connected than was to ^eo-i^^- OF CHE8TEB COUNTY. 409 be found in the smaller towns in the north- ern part of the county. While several de- sirable openings in these towns were invit- ing offers to him as favorable for establish- ing a prosperous business, yet he carefully measured his powers, and after judiciously weighing all chances, boldly launched out into the more extended field at Phoenixville with its many possibilities of future pro- gress. He was practical as well as ambi- tious, and sought not to risk his partly un- tried powers by assuming the chief direc- torship of some new or promising enter- prise, but preferred rather to accept a sub- ordinate place in a substantial business, and slowly attain to a responsible and advanced position. In carrying out this view he en- tered the employ of the Phoenixville Iron Company as a pattern maker. His capacity for business and an aptitude for draughting and architectural work secured him succes- sive promotions until at the time of his death, in 1885, he was chief draughtsman of the great iron works which had grown up from a very moderate commencement. For nearly fifty years he thought, and planned, and wrought in the Phoenix Iron works, and each success achieved was but the stepping stone toward a greater suc- cess attempted. His natural genius was supplemented by an energy that enabled him to make the best use of all opportuni- ties that came in his way, and thus he was enabled to accomplish satisfactory results where others had utterly failed. As a draughtsman and architect his work was noted for symmetry of design and the grace- ful form and disposition of all details. With characteristic genius he often went aside from the beaten tract to originate new models, but they always possessed beauty and were noted for durability and service. 25 His hand and mind was ever engaged upon a wide range of subjects, and while not neglecting the fashioning and proportion- ing of the smaller wares of the works, he also planned and wrought out the designs of large structures and immense bridges. He was the architect and also the engineer in charge of the building of the International bridge over the Niagara river, besides draughting the plans of several other impor- tant bridges and numerous large iron build- ings. He was a republican in politics, and served one term as burgess of Phoenixville. He was known far and wide for his activity and usefulness in the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he had been an influential and honored member for many years. December 27, 1832, Mr. Walters married Rebecca Gougler, who died May 26, 1878, aged sixty-eight years, and left one child, a son, named ISToah. On N'ovember 9, 1880, he wedded Mary G. Boyer, who was born December 21, 1828, and is a granddaughter of Benjamin Boyer, of Schuylkill township. His son, John Boyer, the father of Mrs. Walters, was a farmer, a whig, and a mem- ber of Valley Forge Baptist church, and died in Maryland in 1870, aged seventy-six years. He married Mary Rapp, who was a daughter of Barnett and Ester Rapp, and passed away in 1871, aged seventy-nineyears. John and Mary Boyer were the parents of seven children: Elizabeth (dead), Samuel, Sarah, Naomi (dead), Mary, now Mrs. Wal- ters ; Benjamin, and John. Mrs. Walters, who is an amiable woman, has a fine home and has shown good ability in the manage- ment of the estate left her by her husband. George Walters was of German descent. His grandfather, John Walters, was born in Germany, June 30, 1738, and died in East Pikeland, April 7, 1818. He was a 410 BIOGSAPBY AND HISTORY farmer and blacksmith, a member of the Lutheran church, and married Maria Cath- arine, who was born July 20, 1722, and died May 17, 1810. Their son, William Walters, (father), was born in East Pikeland, Chester county, May 6, 1764, and died in East Pike- land, March 26, 1818. He was a whig and a member of the Lutheran church. He fol- lowed farming and blacksmithing for a liv- ing, and married Catharine Emory, who was born January 3, 1769, and passed away on September 29, 1831. They reared a family of nine children. As most men draw towards their three score and ten years their powers become enfeebled and they retire from active life, but George Walters, when past his seven- tieth year, still performed his usual labors with accuracy and efficiency. His final sum- mons came on USTovember 20, 1885, and his spirit was freed from earth. His remains were entombed with appropriate ceremo- nies, and a marble shaft records his name and age, but the works of his life are writ- ten in the memories of those who witnessed his success in business and his disinterested labors in the cause of his church and Chris- tianity. ♦ * > vJOHN G. SMEDLEY, a prosperous far- mer of Willistown township, is a son of Hunter and Ann (Johnson) Sniedley, and a native of East Goshen township, Chester county, where he was born July 22, 1834. He was educated principally at the Union- ville boarding school, taught by Prof. Mil- ton Durnall, and after leaving school en- gaged in farming. This has been his occu- pation through life, and by industry and good management he has accumulated con- siderable property. He has always resided in Willistown township, and now owns a valuable farm here, consisting of one hun- dred and fifty acres of choice land, seventy- five acres of which are improved and in a good state of cultivation. Upon it are all necessary farm buildings, including a sub- stantial dwelling, which was erected by his great-grandfather, George Smedley, in 1766. In his political affiliations he is a republican, and while never taking an active part ih politics, is always ready to do what he can for the success of his party. On December 22, 1875, Mr. Smedley was united in marriage to Mary C. Green, a daughter of Hiram and Julia A. Green, of Edgemont township, Delaware county, this State. Their union has been blessed by the birth of two children, both sons : J. Harvey, born January 20, 1878, and Restore B., whose natal day was July 7, 1881. The Sniedley family traces its American ancestry back to George Smedley, a Quaker, who emigrated from Derbyshire, England, about 1683, and settled at Darby, this State. It has become quite numerous in Pennsyl- vania, and has furnished the Commonwealth with some of her best and most enterprising citizens. Among these may be named Wil- liam F. Smedley, the artist, whose pencil has been employed in illustrating various periodicals and other publications ; James Smedley, for years a leading hatter in Phila- delphia; William Smedley, long connected with the Provident Life and Trust Company ; and Samuel L. Smedley, who served as chief engineer of Philadelphia, and spent consid- erable time in collecting the family history. George Smedley (paternal great-grand- father) was a farmer by occupation, and also owned and operated a fulling mill on Ridley creek. He lived most of his life and died on the farm now occupied by his grand- son, the subject of this sketch, in the south- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 411 ern part of Willistown township, which farm is part of a large tract purchased by the earlier Smedleys from the original Penn sur- vey. He was a man of great energy and good business judgment, and became wealthy, owning three valuable farms, besides his fulling mill, at the time of his death. He was a member of the Friend's meeting, and married Patience Mercer, by whom he had three sons, Thomas, Jesse, and John ; and three daughters, Priscilla, who became the wife of George Green ; Sarah, who became the wife of George Matlack ; and Ann, who became the wife of Jonathan Matlack. Jesse Smedley (grandfather) was born on the old homestead — as were his brothers — and after attaining manhood devoted his time almost exclusively to agricultural pur- suits, clearing up land and making himself a comfortable home. He was a member of the Society of Eriends, and very strict in his observance of their rules. He died at his home in this township in 1862, aged eighty- six years. His wife was Mary Matlack, and they were the parents of eleven children : George, Clinton, Mifflin, Francis, Salem, Hunter, Sydnie (married Garrett Edwards), Mary A. (wedded Abraham Coburn), Bar- tholomew, Sarah (became the wife of Bald- win Howard), and Hannah, who married John Garrett. They are all now deceased. Hunter Smedley (father) was born on the old homestead December 18, 1794, and died here October 2, 1871, aged nearly seventy- five years. In religion he was a Quaker, as all his ancestors had been, and he spent his long, active and useful life principally in the cultivation of the soil. Politically he was a whig and republican. On June 17, 1819, he married Ann Johnson, a daughter of John Johnson, and to them was born a family of six children, three sons and three daughters : Thomas H. (deceased), Barthol- omew, Hannah G., Mary (also dead), John G. (whose name heads this sketch), and Phoebe A., now deceased. lyrORDECAI DAVIS, a well known "^ farmer residing in Chester Valley, a highly esteemed citizen of his community and a representative of one of the old fam- ilies of Pennsylvania, is the third child and only surviving son of Joseph and Eleanor (Stephens) Davis, and was born in Tredyf- frin township, Chester county, on the 13th of October, 1829. The Davis family is of "Welsh descent, and this branch traces its ancestral line back to Joseph Davis (pater- nal great-grandfather),who came from Wales at an early day, and settled in Willistown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he passed the remainder of his life and died. He was an extensive farmer and owned three hundred acres of land, beside owning a grist mill and blacksmith shop. Among his sons was Mordecai Davis (grand- father), who lived in Easttown township, at Waterloo mills. In politics he was a whig, and married Gennis Davis, by whom he had a family of nine children : Joseph, Margaret, Sarah, Eebecca, Samuel, John, William, Lewis, and Susan, all now deceased. The eldest son, Joseph Davis (father), was born in the city of Philadelphia in 1790, but passed his life in Chester county, dying in Tredyflrin township in 1879, at the ad- vanced age of eighty-nine years. By occu- pation he was a farmer and devoted most of his life to agricultural pursuits. In re- ligion he was a member of the Society of Friends, and for a number of years was a well known minister of that church, trav- eling and preaching in various parts of the 412 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTOBY country. His was a stainless character, and his life was so uniformly in accord with his professions as to win the highest esteem of all who knew him. He was twice married. In the autumn of 1824 he wedded Eleanor Stephens, a daughter of Stephen Stephens, of Tredyffrin township, this county, and to them was born a family of four children, two sons and two daughters: Sarah, who married Moses Walker; Susan, wedded Lewis "Walker, and is now deceased; Mor- decai, the subject of this sketch; and Stephen, deceased. After the death of his wife, in 1846, he married again, his second wife being Elizabeth Maule Peart. He had no children by his second marriage. Mordecai Davis was reared on the old homestead and received his education in the public schools of his neighborhood, after- wards going to Gwynedd and London Grrove Friends' schools. After leaving school he settled down to farming, and has passed his whole life on the farm where he was born, and which he now owns. It consists of one hundred and six acres of desirable land, ninety-six acres being well improved and the remaining ten covered by a fine growth of valuable timber. His life has been that of the average industrious, progressive and prosperous farmer, unmarked by^any great changes or catastrophes, and unvexed by ambitious or unsatisfied longings for a dif- ferent sphere. In political sentiment he has always been a republican, and gives his party a loyal support on all leading ques- tions. In religion he has adhered to the faith wherein he was reared, and has been a life-long member of the Society of i'riends. He takes an active and intelligent interest in all public questions, keeps well posted on passing events, and is an agreeable and aff'a- able gentleman. On March 29, 1871, Mordecai Davis was married to Hannah M. Beidler, a daughter of Abraham and Sarah (Stephens) Beidler, of Montgomery county, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Davis was born one child, a daugh- ter, named Ellen S., who is living at home with her parents. She was educated at the Friends' Central school in the city of Phila- delphia, from which institution she was graduated with honors in the class of 1889, and has since been engaged in teaching. rjMlLMER E. PETOfYP ACKER, an active republican, a man of consider- able business experience, and the present efficient treasurer of Chester county, is a son of li^athan and Esther A. Pennypacker, and was born in West Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 20, 1846. The Pennypacker family had its ori- gin in !N^orth Bravant, Holland, from which some of its members went to Germany, where Heinrich Pennypacker, the founder of the Chester county Pennypacker family, was born at Crefeldt, on the Rhine, from which place he came between 1712 and 1716, to Schwenksville, Montgomery county. He was said to have been the first German sur- veyor in Pennsylvania. He was a large land- holder, did quite an amount of conveyanc- ing, and was a strict and consistent member of the Mennonite church. Several members of his family removed to Virginia and other southern States, where their descendants are known as Pennybakers and Pennybackers, and during the late civil war one hundred and twenty-nine of the family served as sol- diers and officers in the Confederate army, while one hundred and twenty-six of the northern Pennypacker families were in the Union army. Of the grandsons of Heinrich OF CHESIER COUNTY. 413 Pennypacker who remained in Penneyl- vania, one was Matthias Pennypacker, who settled near Phcenixville, about the com- mencement of the revolutionary war. He was born October 14, 1742, and died Feb- ruary 13, 1808. He was a wealthy farmer and miller, spoke both German and English fluently, and served for many years before his death as a bishop it the Mennonite church. His mill was badly damaged by the British in 1777, and in 1793, when Phila- delphia was ravaged by the yellow fever, he gave two hundred and forty dollars. One of his sons was Harmon Pennypacker (grandfather), who was born near Phcenix- ville, and died at Pikeland station. He was a farmer, owned three hundred acres of good land, and operated a flouring mill. He was a member of the Mennonite church, and married Ann Showalter, by whom he had twelve children. His son, Ifathan Pen- nypacker (father), was born in "West Pike- land, and was killed October 4, 1874, in a wreck on the Pickering Valley railroad, at Schwenksville, while attending a reunion of the Pennypacker family. He was an abolitionist and a republican in politics, and married Esther A. King, who was born March 20, 1820, in Delaware county, and is now a resident of Chester. They had four children : Phoebe, wife of Lewis H. Evans, of Chester county; Wilmer A., Maggie, wife of Isaac A. Hartman, who is engaged in farming in West Pikeland township ; and N'athan, a druggist, of Philadelphia. Wilmer A. Pennypacker was reared on the farm, received his education in the pub- lic schools and Wye's Military academy, of West Chester, and then engaged in farming and milling, which he followed until 1887, when he sold his property to remove to Chester Springs station. He embarked in the coal and lumber business at that place, where he built up and held a good trade until 1890, when he came to West Chester. On October 4, 1873, Mr. Pennypacker was united in marriage with Hannah M. Ober- holtzer, and to their union have been born two children : one which died in infancy, and Alice. Wilmer E. Pennypacker is a stanch re- publican, and has always given his party an earnest and whole-hearted support, and has ever been active and successful as a worker in his community in the interest of the Re- publican party. In the autumn of 1890 he was elected on the republican ticket as treasurer of Chester county, and in Janu- ary, 1891, entered upon the duties of his office, which he has discharged in a satis- factory manner ever since. He is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church of West Chester, and Mount Pickering Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. In the man- agement of the county treasury Mr. Penny- packer has discharged every duty of his office faithfully, and with credit to himself. His record as a public official is satisfactory. His business qualifications and pi'actical ex- perience well fit him for the discharge of public duties. TA/lLLIAM BURLING, a prosperous and successful business man of Oxford, and an inventor of considerable note, is the eldest living son of George W. and Matilda (Carr) Burling, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 20, 1852. His paternal grandfather was an English sea captain, whose son, George W. Burling (father), was born in Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, from which he removed to Trenton, and later to Philadelphia, in which city he 414 BIOGEAPEY AND HISTORY died April 1, 1864, aged sixty-one years. For many years after attaining manhood he followed a seafaring life, serving for three years in the United States navy. In 1861 he enlisted in Co. B, let New Jersey in- fantry, as a private, and rose to the rank of first lieutenant. He served for nearly three years, participating in the battles of second Bull Run, Fairfax Courthouse, Antietam, the seven day's fight before Richmond,'Wil- derness, Fredericksburg, and all the engage- ments of the array of the Potomac. He was seriously wounded at the battle of An- tietam, from which he lost the first finger of his right hand, and was soon afterward dis- charged on account of his disability. After the war he went to Philadelphia and en- gaged in the hardware, tin and stove busi- ness, in which he spent altogether about eighteen years. He was a republican in political faith and a strict adherent of the Methodist Episcopal church. In 1851 he married Matilda Carr, by whom he had a family of seven children, five of whom still survive : William, the subject of this sketch ; John W., died October 15, 1892; George W., residing at Pallaumi, California; Edward, a resident of Bryn Mawr, Montgomery county, and Harry, who also lives at Bryn Mawr. William Burling received a good practical education in the public and private schools of Trenton, Ifew Jersey, and after leaving school learned the trades of tinner and plumber, and was for eleven years engaged in that business with Mr. Patterson at Ox- ford. In 1872 he went in business for him- self in Oxford. He was energetic and in- dustrious, and being possessed of an ingenuity akin to mechanical genius, soon had the nucleus of what has grown into a large and prosperous business. He is now starting a foundry and machine shop, in which, among other things, he will manufacture the steam heating apparatus which he has invented and patented. On October 19, 1875, Mr. Burling united in marriage with Ella Bunting, a native of Colerain township, Lancaster county, this State. To them has been born a family of four children, three sons and a daughter: Walter B., Frank, Paul, and Olive. In politics Mr. Burling is a republican, and in religion a strict member of the Presbyterian church. He is also a member of Oxford Lodge, 'Eo. 353, Free and Accepted Masons. He is an enterprising, successful business man, and a very useful citizen, who has won and holds high standing in his community. QEO. WASHINGTON GUNKLE, a prosperous farmer residing near De- vault, in Charlestown township, is the eldest son of Daniel and Sarah (Kugler) Gunkle, and a native of Chester county, being born in East Whiteland township, August 22, 1822. The family is of German and French extraction, and among the oldest in Penn- sylvania. Michael Gunkle (grandfather) was a buhr-maker, of 8th Filbert street, Philadelphia, who removed to Chester county in 1797, and settled in East White- land township, where he passed the remain- der of his active and useful life, dying about 1820, at an advanced age. His remains re- pose in the cemetery connected with the Presbyterian church at Frazer. On coming to this county he purchased one thousand acres of land from the original Penn grant, cleared off' the timber and put up many buildings, including two grist mills and a saw mill, beside making other valuable im- provements. He was a stanch whig in politics, and had two brothers who settled OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 415 in Ohio, from one of whom descended Hon. L. B. Gunkle, in 1875 congressman from Dayton, that State. Michael Gunkle was a man of wonderful energy, indomitable will and great public spirit, and was highly es- teemed by his contemporaries. He married Catharine Miller, born at Millbaugh, Leba- non county, where her father, Jonathan Miller, owned one of the oldest mills in Pennsvlvania, which was once used as a fort for protecting the early settlers from Indian attacks. By his marriage with Catharine Miller, Michael Gunkle had four sons : John, Michael, Dr. William, and Daniel, all now deceased. Some time before his death he divided his large real estate into three equal parts between his three sons, John, William, M. D., and Daniel ; Michael Gunkle getting his equal proportion in other prop- erty. Daniel Gunkle (father) was born Decem- ber 8, 1798, in East Whiteland township, where he resided all his life, dying there December 3, 1879. He was well educated, having attended, beside the common schools, the famous school taught by Rev. Mr. Grier, at Brandywine Manor. After completing his studies he became a farmer from choice, having also learned the trade of miller, and spent nearly all his days in agricultural pur- suits. In religious faith he was a Presby- terian, and for many years a strict mem- ber of the Frazer church of that denomi- nation, while in politics he was a whig and republican. He was a prominent Mason, being a member of Downingtown Lodge, was interested in all public questions, did much for the improvement of his neighbor- hood, and was universally respected in his community. On October 29, 1822, he mar- ried Sarah Kugler, who was born July 15, 1803, and was a daughter of John and Har- riet Kugler, of Lower Merion, Montgomery county, and granddaughter of Miss Pechin, who, at the age of twelve years, fled from her native land (France) in company with her father, Peter Pechin, a Huguenot, per- secuted for his religious belief; Miss Pechin married Martin Miller, a German immigrant. To Daniel and Sarah Gunkle was born a family of nine children : George W., the subject of this sketch ; Dr. William H., now deceased, who married Mary R. Ellmaker, graduated from the Pennsylvania universi- versity, and practiced medicine at Glenloch for a number of years; Harriet C, who died in infancy; Eliza C, married John Dunwoody, of Philadelphia; Harriet A., who became the wife of Dr. Frank Rieser, of Reading, Berks county; Michael M., and Sarah S., now living at the old home- stead, in East Whiteland township; Vic- toria J., who wedded Dr. John G. Thomas, of Newton Square, Delaware county; John F., married Lizzie Davis, and is living at Chester county academy, in East Whiteland township. G. Washington Gunkle was reared on his father's farm, in East Whiteland township, and received a superior common school ed- ucation. After attaining manhood he en- gaged in farming, and continued to be a resident of that township until about 1862, when he removed to Charlestown township, where he has ever since resided. He owns a fine farm here, consisting of one hundred and thirteen acres of choice land, all im- proved except thirteen acres of woodland. Politically Mr. Gunkle follows the traditions of his ancestors and is a stanch republican, though he has never taken any prominent part in politics. He has served as school director eight years, and also as supervisor of his township, beside holding other local 416 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY offices. He is well known in Masonic cir- cles, having been a member of Thompson Lodge, IN"©. 340, Free and Accepted Ma- sons, at Duffryn Mawr, for several years, of which lodge he is now a past master. His brothers are all past masters of that lodge, also, and all have frequently sat together with their father therein. Mr. Gunkle is also a member of Columbia Chapter, ~S.o. 91, Koyal Arch Masons, of Philadelphia. On New Year day, 1851, Mr. Gunkle was married to Louisa Watson, a daughter of John and Margaret "Watson, of East White- land township. To this union was born a family of three children, all sons : William W., who was born January 4, 1852, and is now engaged in cultivating the home farm ; George H., born October 19, 1853, married Mary K. Kennedy, was a clerk for a num- ber of years, and died February 17, 1886, at Port Kennedy, where his widow now lives ; and Daniel R., who was born Octo- ber 80, 1856, married May Hibberd, and resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he is engaged in milling. Mrs. Louisa Gunkle was born June 22, 1819, and died at her home in Charlestown township, this county. May 26, 1885, aged sixty-six years. She was a woman of many excellent traits of character, and was greatly respected by a wide circle of friends. HON. WILLIAM T. FULTON, an ex member of the house of representa- tives of Pennsylvania, and a prominent lawyer of Chester county, who served in the late war as major of the Purnell Legion, of Maryland, is a son of James J. and Nancy A. (Eamsey) Fulton, and was born in West Nottingham township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 27, 1835. Immigrant Johp Fulton was of Scotch-Irish descent, and in 1750 came from the historic north of Ireland to settle at Eugh's fulling mills, near Oxford. In 1800 he deeded his farm to his son, Capt. James Fulton (grand- father), who was born in 1752, and died in West Nottingham township in 1832, aged eighty years. He was a member of the old Seceder church, served as captain under Washington in the revolutionary struggle, and married Jane Miller, by whom he had six children : James J., John, Miller, Jo- seph, Rachel, and a daughter, who married a Mr. Hutchinson. James J. Fulton (father), the eldest son, was born in 1800, and learned the trade of papermaker, which he followed for many years. He then removed from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, to what is now known as McCleary's mill, in West Nottingham township, where he purchased a paper mill which he operated until some years before his death, which occurred April 28, 1864, when aged sixty-four years. He was a whig and republican, and a member and elder of the Presbyterian church in West Nottingham township. He was an influential and leading citizen, and married Nancy A. Eamsey, who was a daughter of Hugh Eamsey, and died January, 1870, when in the sixty- ninth year of her age. They had six children : Dr. James, who was grad- uated from Jefierson Medical college, served with distinction at Gettysburg, and is now a prominent physician of Chester county ; William T. ; Joseph M., now deceased, who was a pharmacist; Hugh E., a graduate of Ann Arbor Law school, and who was county solicitor of Lancaster county, and has since been engaged in the practice of his pro- fession; and Eachel and Jane, who both died in infancy. William T. Fulton received his education (^^n. W^Z/mm d^(rfS^> t?n. OF GHESIEB COUNTY. 419 in the common schools, and the old Jordan Bank academy, then under the charge of Dr. Evan Eugh. He read law with Thad- deus Stevens, "the Great Commoner" of Lancaster, and Judge J. Smith Futhey, of "West Chester, was admitted to the bar, May 13, 1861, and commenced the practice of his profession at Oxford, where he re- mained until August, when he helped to recruit Co. E, Purnell Legion, Maryland infantry, which was composed of the bor- dermen of Pennsylvania and Maryland. He was commissioned captain of Co. E, and led his command in the engagements at Harper's Ferry and Catlett Station, and the battle of Antietam. He was promoted to major in August, 1862, suffered considerably with fever and jaundice during the fall of 1862 and the spring of 1863, and was dis- charged on account of physical disability, January, 1868. Major Fulton then returned to Oxford and resumed'the practice of his profession, which he has followed success- fully ever since, except when serving, in 1863, as a volunteer in repelling Lee's in- vasion of Pennsylvania. On April 5, 1866, Mr. Fulton was united in marriage with Hannah A. Kirk, who was a daughter of Joseph Kirk, of West Ifot- tingham, and died April 12, 1875, leaving two children : Kirk Fulton, who married Sarah J. Kimble, and now resides in East N'ottingham ; and Anna E. Mr. Fulton was remarried on October 19, 1876, wedding Annie E. ISTeeper, and by his second mar- riage has one child, a daughter named Eleanor J. In politics Mr. Fulton is a republican, and has always been active in the councils of his party in Chester county. He served as justice of the peace from 1863 to 1876, and then resigned to become a member of the house of representatives of Pennsylvania, to which he had been elected in that year, and to which he was re-elected in 1878. He is a past grand of Fairview Lodge, No. 324, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a past commander of "William S. Thomp- son Post, No. 132, Grand Army of the Ee- public, and a member and president of the board of trustees of the Presbyterian church of Oxford. William T. Fulton is public spirited and has great and useful influence in his community. He is quiet and unassum- ing, but energetic and successful, and his course in life has been such as to command confidence, and win respect and esteem. vJAMES AIKEN, M. D., a well estab- lished and successful physician of Ber- wyn, and a lineal descendent of the old Aiken family of Scotland, is a son of Thomas Aiken, and was born February 21, 1848, in East Whiteland township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania. He was reared in East Whiteland and Tredyffrin town- ships, received his education at John W. Lock's seminary, of Norristown, Montgom- ery county, and leaving school made choice of medicine as his life vocation. He read with Dr. Jacob Eickabaugh of Tredyffrin township, and then entered the medical de- partment of the university of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in the class of 1868. Immediately after graduation he came to Berwyn, where he has practiced ever since with good success. Dr. Aiken is a strong republican in political matters, has served as a member of the school board of his township, and in various other local ofllces, and has always worked heartily for the success of his party. He is an elder of Berwyn Presbyterian church, and a member 420 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY of Berwyn Lodge, No. 998, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Dr. Aiken is descended from the old Aiken family of Scotland, from which country his grandfather, John Aiken, went into the historic north of Ireland, where he resided until 1832. In that year he came to East "Whiteland township, of which he was a resident until his death. He was a carpet weaver by trade, and while in Scotland married and was the father of four chil- dren, two sons and two daughters. One of the sons was Thomas Aiken, the father of Dr. Aiken. He was born in the north of Ireland, April 3, 1811, and came in 1882 with his father to East Whiteland town- ship, where he was engaged in farming un- til 1865. In that year he removed to Tredyffrin township and purchased a farm, which he tilled until 1867, when he came to Berwyn, where he has lived a retired life ever since. He is a republican in politics, and has served as an elder in the Presbyterian church for over forty years. Mr. Aiken married and reared a family of six chil- dren : Dr. John, a graduate of the university of Pennsylvania, who served as surgeon of the Tlst Pennsylvania infantry, and died from cold contracted while serving in the Federal army; Mary J., wife of E. S. Wells ; Rev. Thomas J.^ a graduate of Lafayette college and Princeton seminary, and pastor of the Berwyn Presbyterian church since 1878 ; Sallie and Elizabeth, who are both dead ; and Dr. James. Dr. Aiken enjoys a fine practice at Ber- wyn and in the surrounding country. In addition to his professional duties he gives considerable personal attention to his pres- ent well-stocked drug store, which he estab- lished several years ago. On March 2, 1881, Dr. James Aiken was united in marriage with Clara, daughter of George Alexander, of North Coventry town- ship. Their union has been blessed with two children: Thomas, born January 17, 1884 ; and Clara, born August 24, 1889. r^APTAIN BENJAMIN FRANKIilN BEAN, one of the energetic, progres- sive and prosperous business men of Ches- ter county, who is a large stockholder and manager of the Bean Fire Sand Company, of Valley Forge and Pawling, and who served with distinction in the Union army during the civil war, is a son of Nicholas and Mary Ann (Vanderslice) Bean. He was born near Pawling, Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 18, 1835, and received his education principally in the public schools and at Norristown boarding school, and in the seminary at Wy- oming, Luzerne county. Leaving school in 1856 he joined a party, consisting of his brother Henry and two other young men, and together they made a tour, with ox teams, of the western country, visiting Pike's Peak and other places, then attract- ing attention in Colorado and Kansas. After satisfying their curiosity in that direction they returned to Pennsylvania, and Mr. Bean engaged in stock dealing, shipping cattle and sheep from Iowa to the markets of Chicago and Philadelphia. He had been in this business only two years, when he abandoned it to take charge, with his bro- ther Heni-y, of his father's lumber and coal business at Pawling. There had always been a military side to his nature, and when the civil war broke out, prompted by the spirit of patriotism which vibrated in every breeze that swept his native hills, young Beau repaired to Harrisburg, and early in OF CHESTER COUNTY. 431 1862 enlisted in Co. I, 129th Pennsylvania infantry, of which company he soon becamg second lieutenant, and subsequently was pro- moted to be captain. After serving out his term of enlistment — ten months — he re- enlisted as captain of Co. B, 34th regiment of emergency men, for three months. Dur- ing his service in the army he participated in the battles of second Bull Run, Chintilla, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and a number of less important contests and skirmishes. In 1868 he was made' quarter-master of the tenth divisou, Ifa- tional guards of 'Pennsylvania, with the rank of major, and continued to occupy that posi- tion until 1876, when the division was dis- banded. He then became a member of the Washington troop of Chester county, with headquarters at Paoli, enlisting as a private. In a short time he was promoted to be quartermaster's sergeant, and after holding that rank two years, was made captain of the troop, and as such is still serving. While yet a student at Wyoming, Captain Bean was a member of the Wyoming artillery, and the knowledge obtained in practice there did much toward fitting him for the military positions he afterward occupied, and for active duty in the field. After the war closed Captain Bean re- turned to Chester county, and again en- gaged in the coal and lumber trade with his brother Henry, under the firm name of H. & B. F. Bean, which business they contin- ued successfully until 1880. In 1880 they embarked in the stone and sand crushing business, under the same firm name, and that firm continued operations until 1887, when the concern was resolved into a joint stock company for a period of five years, with Henry Bean as manager. At the death of Henry Bean, September, 1890, B. F. Bean became manager. Their principal business is the manufacture of furnace and fire-brick sand, in which they have an im- mense and constantly increasing trade. Captain Bean was united in marriage in 1865 to Martha J. Beckley, a daughter of Jacob and Hannah Beckley, of Lower Provi- dence township, Montgomery county, this State. They have two children, both sons : Francis M. and Benjamin Franklin, jr. In politics Captain Bean is a stanch republican, and never voted the democratic ticket out- side of his township, and while cherishing no political ambitions of his own, is always loyal in the support of the principles that underlie the organization of the great party to which he adheres and in the glory of whose record he shares. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Post ISo. 45, of which he is now commander, and is also a member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons. Henry Bean, paternal grandfather of Capt. Benjamin Franklin Bean, was a native of eastern Pennsylvania, and lived during the greater part of his life near Pawling, this county, where he died in 1820, at the age of sixty years. He owned a small farm and his principal occupation was the culti- vation of the soil. To him and his wife, Susannah, were born eight children, two sons and six daughters, all of whom are now deceased. The daughters were : Sarah A., married Jacob Rasor; Catharine, wedded Jno. R. Dean; Rebecca, became the wife of Joshua Zimmerman; Susan, married Marks Morris. The sons were: Nicholas Bean (father), who was born January 17, 1801, and Henry, who died at the age of nine- teen. Nicholas Bean was born on the old Bean homestead near Pawling, where he was reared and educated, and where 433 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIORY he passed a long, active and useful life, dying there in April, 1878, in the sev- enty-eighth year of his age. In early man- hood he learned the trades of carpenter and cabinet-maker, and followed that combined occupation for a number of years. He sub- sequently began dealing in lumber and coal, which became his chief business during the remainder of his life. In connection with this, however, he owned and operated a farm, and became very successful and prosperous. He was a man of great energy and good business judgment, and at the time of his death had an extensive trade, which was thereafter conducted by his sons, Henry and Benjamin Franklin. In politics he was originally a whig, and when that party went to pieces about 1856, he attached himself to the Republican party, and gave the latter an active and influential support so long as he lived. He married Mary A. Vanderslice, of Schuylkill township, this county, and to them was born a family of ten children, five sons and five daughters : Anna, who mar- ried Jesse Jarrett ; Sarah, wedded William Govett, and is now deceased; Susannah, became the wife of Abin Evenson, and is also dead ; Harriet R., married Joseph Gulp ; Mary F., wedded John T. Cox ; Henry B., deceased; Benjamin F., the subject of this sketch ; Jones B., George W., and Lewis U. The mother, Mrs. Mary A. Bean, died in 1885, in the seventy-eighth year of her age. pROF. JACOB K. JONES, an able, experienced and popular educator, and who has been principal of Spring City High school since 1877, is a son of George W. and Mary Jane (Seymour) Jones, and was born in Reading, Berks county, Pennsylvania, September 18, 1846. His paternal grand- father, Thomas Jones, was a native of Wales, and came during the war of 1812 to Gibraltar, Berks county, where he re- sided until his death. He married Mary Housman, and reared a family of four chil- dren, three sons and one daughter : Robert, who enlisted in the 78th Pennsylvania in- fantry, and was killed at the second Bull Run battle ; Daniel, who settled at Danville, Montour county, where he died ; George W., and Sarah, wife of Joseph Bradigham, of Reading. Geo. W. Jones was born in 1818, and after commencing life for himself set- tled at Birdsboro, in " his native county, where he still resides. He was engaged for many years in the lime burning business in the southern part of Berks county, but is now living a retired life. He is a member of the Lutheran church, has always been a democrat in politics, and has held various local township offices. He married Mary Jane Seymour, who was born in 1820, and is a daughter of Solomon Seymour, of Lan- caster county, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Jones have had seven children, four sons and three daughters : Prof. Jacob K. ; Ellen, wife of George Arters, who is employed as an iron cutter in Brooks' rolling mill at Birdsboro ; Rachel, who married Jesse B. Gross, now employed in a large rolling mill at Coatesville, where they reside ; Amanda, (dead) ; G. Mori-is, who married Elizabeth Wirt, and is a "boss puddler" in Brooks' rolling mill; Daniel, who died young; and Frank, now dead. Jacob K. Jones was reared in his native county, and received his education in the common schools, Boyertown academy, and Kutztown State Normal school, from which excellent educational institution he was graduated in the class of 1877. He com- menced teaching in the autumn of 1867, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 423 in the common schools of Union township, Schuykill county, and two years later came to Charlestown township, this county, where he taught the same school for seven succes- sive winter terms, and had his salary in- creased each winter by the citizens, in order to retain his services. At the end of that time he returned to Kutztown Normal school to finish his course there in the sen- ior class. After graduation in 1877, he ac- cepted the principalship of Spring City High school, which important position he has held ever since. On August 14, 1879, Professor Jones was united in marriage with Miss Annie V., daughter of John F. and Mary C. Young, and their union has been blessed with one child, Clarence M., who was born August 7, 1890. Prof. Jacob K. Jones is a prohibitionist in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he has served as financial secretary of the board of stewards, and as an exhorter and a class leader. When he assumed charge of the Spring City High school. Professor Jones found but four grades, but determining upon bringing the school up to a high standard, he went to work with a will to succeed, and has brought the school up to nine well arranged grades. Eleven rooms are now used to accommodate over five hundred pupils. The course of instruction has been extended so as to em- brace algebra, geometry, book-keeping, physics, and the elements of Latin, and ten classes have been graduated since 1881. Progress and prosperity have marked the school since it has been under Professor Jones' charge. In recognition of his ability, scholars.hip and success as a teacher, he has been several times elected as a member of the committee on permanent certificates for Chester county. He is treasurer of the teachers' county institute fund, and has ar- ranged and constructed a set of school ap- paratus for philosophical experiments that is spoken of very highly. While not neg- lecting his school work he is interested in the prosperity of his borough and has served as secretary of the Building and Loan asso- ciation since its organization in June, 1891, when he was chairman of the committee which drew up its constitution and by-laws. He is an active and successful school and institute worker, and keeps abreast of the educational progress of the age. 'CLiI J. LiEWIS is a prosperous and well known farmer of Willistown town- ship, who is now practically retired from active business, and quietly enjoying the comforts and blessings of rural life, on a small property of ten acres in East Goshen township, purchased of the admin- istrators of Dr. John K. Hoskins, Febru- ary 2, 1885. He is the fourth child and second son of Sharpless and Susanna G. (Ashbridge) Lewis, and was born in Wil- listown township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, March 12, 1842, where he grew to manhood and received his early edu- cation. After leaving the common school he entered the select school taught by Prof. Phineas Garrett at Sugartown, and later took a course of training in the select school in Delaware county under the care of James A. Baker. His education was finished under the tutelage of Joseph Short- ledge, A. M., at Concord. He resided in Willistown township until 1873, when he removed to Edgemont and lived there two years, after which he returned to the place 434 BIOGSAPHY AND MISTOBY of his birth, where he continued to reside until 1885. In that year he settled in the southeast part of East Goshen township. He owns a valuable farm, containing one hundred and thirty-five acres of choice land, in "Willistown township — the old home- stead — and also owns and lives on the Dr. Hoskins place, consisting of ten acres. He has devoted his life principally to farming, and has been successful and prosperous. On October 5, 1872, Mr. Lewis was united in marriage to Annie E. Baker, a daughter of Aaron and Miranda Baker, of Edgemont, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have been born three children : Mi- randa B., Sharpless H. and Edgar A., all living at home with their parents. The paternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Didymus Lewis, who was born November 6, 1747, in New"- town township (now Delaware county), on a farm taken up by his ancestors from the original Penn purchase. There he lived all his life, and died at an advanced age. He was a farmer by occupation, a Quaker in religion, and married Phebe Matlack, by whom he had a family of nine children : Debbe, Tamar, Phebe, Mary, Nathan, Eli, Thomas, Margaret and Tacy. Eli Lewis (grandfather) was born in Newtown town- ship, then Chester, now Delaware county, July 18, 1784. He spent his entire life in that county, dying May 11, 1847, at the age of three scpre and three years. He also was a farmer and a strict member of the religious Society of Friends. Politically he was an old line whig, and his wife was Hannah Sharpless. He was the father of nine children, four sons and five daughters : Sharpless, father of Eli J. ; Elizabeth, mar- ried Benjamin Thomas, and after his death wedded Dutton L. Otley; Phebe A., who became the wife of Lewis Garrett ; Milton,' a retired farmer, who served as trustee in Marple township, was deputy prothonotary for three or four years, and now resides re- tired in Media; Dr. Isaiah M., deceased, who practiced medicine in Delaware county for a number of years and then removed to Kansas, where he became a large real es- tate owner, and where he died; Mary L., married Worrall Garrett, a farmer of East Goshen township, this county ; Edith, who wedded Emmor Hickman, and now resides in the State of Iowa; Eli, deceased, who married Mrs. Elizabeth Lewis ; and Hannah, who wedded Albert Hatch, and is also dead. Sharpless Lewis (father) was born in Newtown township, Delaware county, this State, January 17, 1816, where he was reared and received what was considered a good education in that early day. On April 1, 1842, he removed to Willistown township, Chester county, where he continued to re- side, and retired for several years up to the time of his death, November 29, 1880, when in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His death was caused by an injury received while engaged in hunting in Hartford county, Maryland. He was a farmer most of his life, but engaged in merchandising at Go- shenville, for some years. Politically he was a whig, as his father had been, until the Republican party took the place of the older organization, after which he acted with the latter. He married Susanna G. Ashbridge, January 10, 1842, and to their union was born a family of four children : Elma, now deceased ; Hannah M., married Frederick "W. Baker, a farmer and carpen- ter of West Goshen township; Caspar, wedded Anna M. Bishop, and is now a pros- perous farmer of West Pikeland township ; and Eli J., to whom this sketch is devoted. OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 435 TA>II^LIAM G. MATSON, editor and proprietor of the Item newspaper at Malvern, this county, is the second eldest son of Wesley and Edith (Heyburn) Matson, and was born May 16, 1861, at "West Chester, Pennsylvania. He grew to manhood in his native county, and received his education in the public schools. After leaving school he entered the office of the American Republican at West Chester, and learned the trade of printer, which occupation he followed in that borough for a period of six years, be- coming thoroughly familiar with all depart- ments of the mechanical and editorial work that go to the creation of the modern news- paper. In 1885 he came to Malvern, where he accepted a position on the Malvern Item, having charge of the local work for a time. In September of 1887 he purchased the plant and assumed control of the paper, since which time he has continued to occupy the position of editor and proprietor. The Malvern Item is a six column folio sheet, pub- lished every Saturday, and is republican in politics. It is now in its fifteenth year of successful publication, and has a wide circu- lation throughout this section. In its edi- torial department it is ably managed, and as a local newspaper is bright, snappy, and al- ways up with the times. Its advertising patronage is good, and in addition to the weekly newspaper, a large amount of job work is turned out at this establishment. In 1891 Mr. Matson served as a delegate to the Republican State convention, and is an earnest and active writer and worker who already exerts much influence in the local councils of his party. He is a member of Malvern Camp, 'Eo. 548, Patriotic Order Sons of America. On June 1, 1892, Mr. Matson was united in marriage with Marie Amelia Burnett, a daughter of James and Mary Ann Burnett, of I^orristown, Montgomery county, this State. William G. Matson's paternal grandfather, George Matson, was of English descent, and passed most of his life in New Centreville, Delaware State, where he owned a farm and was engaged in agricultural pursuits. He married and reared a family, one of whom was Wesley Matson (father), who was born in ITew Centreville, Delaware State, Novem- ber 22, 1822, and now resides in East Marl- borough township, this county, near Ken- nett Square. In his earlier days he was a farmer, but the last thirty years of his active life were given almost exclusively to the business of a cattle dealer, drover and butcher, in which his operations were at one time very extensive. He is now in his seventieth year, and for some time has been living a rather retired life on his farm. In political faith he was first a whig, and when that party disintegrated, became a repub- lican. Religiously he and his family are Quakers, as were their ancestors. In 1854 he married Edith Heyburn, a daughter of George E. Heyburn, a farmer residing near Chadd's Ford, Delaware county, this State. By this union Wesley Matson had a family of four children, three sons and a daughter: George, now a resident of West Chester, and a painter by trade ; Anna R., living at home with her parents; William G., the subject of this sketch; and Emmor, also living with his father and managing the home farm. TOILLIAM H. STITELEE, who enjoys the respect of the community in which he resides, ai^ who is a comfortably situ- ated farmer of West Pikeland township, 426 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY was born December 20, 1845, in West Vin- cent township, Chester county, Pennsylva- nia. He is the fifth son and ninth child of Henry and Penina (Bermer) Stiteler, and was reared on the paternal acres in his na- tive county. He received a good common school education, and after attaining his majority was engaged in farming with his father for several years. At the end of that time Mr. Stiteler embarked in agricultural pursuits for himself, which he followed suc- cessfully until 1876, when he purchased and became resident on his present farm in West Pikeland township. His farm con- sists of one hundred and twenty acres of first class grain and dairy land, which is well improved and under good cultivation. He is one of the most prosperous farmers of his community, and raises considerable stock besides farming. He has always been a re- publican in political opinion, and takes an active part in local politics, being at the present time the member of the Eepublican County committee from his township. In the educational affairs of his section Mr. Stiteler takes interest, and is now a mem- ber of the school board of West Pikeland township. He is a member of the Evangel- ical Lutheran church, of Uwchlan, and ranks in his community as an industrious farmer and a reliable man. In 1870 Mr. Stiteler married Mary, daugh- ter of ISTewton and Hannah Evans, of Ches- ter county. Mr. and Mrs. Stiteler have three children : Carrie B., Penina E., and Anna. William H. Stiteler is of German descent, and his ancestors for several generations back have been farmers. His paternal grandfather Stiteler was a farmer by occu- pation, and a member of the Seventh Day Baptist church. He married, and reared a family of nine children, all of whom are dead except two : Rebecca and Elizabeth. One of his sons was Henry Stiteler (father), who was born in 1811, in Chester county, where he was engaged during his lifetime in farming, and where he died in 1889, when in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was a republican and Baptist, and married Penina Bermer, who passed away in 1890, at seventy-eight years of age. Their fam- ily consisted of ten children, six sons and four daughters : George, Annie, Mary, Sarah, John, Henry, Elizabeth, Morris, William H., and Newton. QOIi. DANIEIi FOUIiKE MOORE, junior member of the well-known roof- ing firm of Caswell & Moore, Phcenixville, this county, who served in the civil war, and for a number of years was a telegraph operator for the Reading Railroad Com- pany, is a son of Edwin and Phoebe (Eoulke) Moore, and was born in Tipper Merion town- ship, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, July 24, 1841. The Moores are of ancient Scotch lineage, but have been settled in Montgomery county, this State, since the revolutionary period. Richard Moore (grand- father), was a native of Montgomery county, a farmer by occupation, and passed all his life in that county. There too, his son, Ed- win More (father), was born in 1811, and after obtaining such education as could be had in the common schools of that day, en- gaged in farming. He was pushing and energetic, endowed with good judgment and fine business ability, and became one of the largest and most prosperous farmers of his native county, where he remained un- til 1890, when he rented his farm and re- ~^t?/. '^Ofiie/ (&^t?'ii^e (^to{?ie. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 439 moved to Norristown, where he now reBides, retired from active business. He served as president of the Montgomery County Agri- cultural society for a number of years, and as school director, always taking an active part in educational matters. For several years he was a member and director of the Montgomery County Fire Insurance Com- pany. In politics he is a stanch republican, and has at all times manifested a deep in- terest in political and other public ques- tions. He is a member of the Society of Friends, but enlisted and served with the emergency men at the battle of Antietam. He married Phoebe Foulke in 1834, by whom he had a family of five children. She was a native of Gwynedd township, Mont- gomery county, a member of the Society of Friends, and died July 4, 1876, in the sixty- fifth year of her age. The Foulke family was planted in America in 1698 by Edward Foulke, who came over from Wales in that year and settled in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. In writing his biography he traces the Foulkes back to Shirid Flaidd, a well-known figure in "Welsh history, who resided at Rhiwardoy, and is frequently al- luded to in Welsh chronicles of the latter half of the twelfth century. He was lord of Penllyn, a "cantraf," containing five parishes north of Bala lake, and he has been described as founder of one of the fif- teen noble tribes of ITorth Wales. Edward Foulke, the immigrant of 1698, gave the name of Gwynedd to the settlement, which grew up where he located. There Joseph Foulke, maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born about 1783. He was the fourth in line of descent from Ed- ward Foulke, and after attaining manhood and acquiring a good education, he founded a boarding school for boys at Gwynedd, 26 which he conducted for nearly a lifetime. He was also a famous Quaker preacher, with strong anti -slavery proclivities, and actively interested in all the reform move- ments of his day. He became an eminent mathematician, and originated the Friends' almanac, himself making for many years all the astronomical calculations for that publication. This almanac is now published and its calculations made by his son. Dr. Joseph Foulke, of Bucks county, this State. Joseph Foulke died in 1863, at his home in Gwynedd, having attained the scripturally allotted age of four score years. Daniel Foulke Moore was reared on the home farm in Montgomery county until he had attained his twentieth year, receiving his education in the common schools and at the Gwynedd seminary conducted by his maternal grandfather. At the age of twenty he became a telegraph operator, entering the service of the Reading Railroad Com- pany at Reading, this State. He remained in the employ of this company until 1862, being stationed successively at Reading and Harrisburg, and in that year resigned his position and enlisted as a private in Co. E, 128th Pennsylvania infantry for nine months. He participated in the battles of Antietam and Chancellorsville and other minor en- gagements and skirmishes, and after the ex- piration of his term of service re-enlisted in Co. D, Slst Pennsylvania guards, known as "emergency men," and served four months. In 1863 he again entered the employ of the Reading Railroad Company as a telegraph operator, being stationed at Phoenixville, this county, where he faithfully performed the duties of his position until January, 1870, when he resigned, and in connection with E. L. Caswell, under the firm name of Caswell & Moore, engaged in 430 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY the business of furnishing and putting on tin, slate and corrugated iron roofs. This is the oldest firm of its kind in Phoenixville, and in addition to its main business of building and roofing houses, it also does plumbing, steam and gas fitting, and sells stoves, tinware and house furnishing goods. The business was originally founded iu 1855 by the senior member of the present firm. These gentlemen have built up a fine trade and carry a large stock of everything in their line. Their store is located at No. 237 Bridge street. In 1867 Colonel Moore was married to Melissa Conard, of Upper Merion township, Montgomery county, this State. She died iu 1869, leaving an infant son who survived its mother only three months. Some eight years later, in 1877, Colonel Moore was again married, this time wedding Emily M. Ashenfelter, a daughter of Henry Ashen- felter, of Phoenixville. To this union has been born one child, a daughter, named Martha Washington. Daniel Foulke Moore is a member of the Society of Friends, as have been many of his family. He is also connected with Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons, and is a member of White Post, No. 45, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he is past commander. When the militia was organized here, in 1871, he was placed on the staft" of Gen. J. R. Dobson as assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of colonel, which title he still bears. Colonel Moore is a stanch republican in his political 'convictions and has the honor of being the last republican burgess of Phoenixville. He has always taken an active part in politics, and is at present (1892) a prominent candi- date for member of the legislature from his district. QLIVEB H. SMEDLEY, whose par- ents were Bartholomew and Margaret (Hoopes) Smedley,i8 another agriculturalist who has spent a long and active life on the farm where he was born, tilling the broad acres formerly owned by his ancestors, and finding in his annual round of labor a contentment more satisfying if not so in- tense as that enjoyed by the "globe trotter," so called, who visits all climes and is ap- parently at home in every land. Mr. Smed- ley was born October 3, 1839, on the old homestead in East Goshen township, this county, and received his early education in the public schools of his neighborhood, which was afterward supplemented by an extended course in the State Normal school at Millersville. After completing his studies he engaged in farming on the home place, which passed into his possession in 1864, and has since given his time exclusively to agricultural pursuits. His farm contains one hundred and nineteen acress of valuable land, and is well improved and kept in good condition. Politically he is a republican and takes an interest in all public questions, though taking no active part in politics. In religion he is a Presbyterian and a member of the West Chester church of that denom- ination. He is also a member of Goshen Grange, No. 121, Patrons of Husbandry, and takes an active interest in all questions attecting the interests of the farmers of this country. On October 25, 1865, Mr. Smedley was wedded to Mary E. Megilligan, a daughter of James and Hannah Megilligan, of the city of Wilmington, Delaware. To Mr. and Mrs. Smedley has been born a family of four children, two sons and two daughters : Frank B., who married Emma Hendrickson, and now resides in East Goshen ; J. Eugene, OF CHESTER GOVNTY. 431 who is uovv at Colorado Springs, Colorado; Margaret H. and Bertha M., both living at home with their parents. The Smedley family is of English descent and was planted in America about 1683, by George Smedley, a Quaker, who came from Derbyshire, and settled at Darby, Pennsyl- vania. Jesse Smedley, paternal grandfather of Oliver H., was a native of Delaware county, this State, and passed all his active and useful life in that county, dying at Media, in 1850. He married and reared a family, one of whom was Bartholomew Smedley (father), who was born in Delaware county, but in 1838 removed to Chester county, and settled in the eastern part of East Goshen township, where he resided until his death in 1864. He was a farmer all his life and on coming to this county purchased the farm now owned by his son, the subject of this sketch. In politics he was first a whig, but soon after the organi- zation of the Republican party in Pennsyl- vania he became attached thereto, and ever after gave it an active support. Religiously he was a Quaker, in which faith he had been reared, and in 1838 he married Mar- garet Hoopes, a daughter of Israel Hoopes, of New Garden township, and to their union was born a family of five children, two sons and three daughtei's: Oliver H., whose nameintroduces.this sketch ; "William, now deceased, married Ella Sharpless, of East Goshen township, who is also dead; Anna Mary; Anna E., became the wife of Marshall Way, burgess of West Chester; and Philena H. Oliver H. Smedley is a first cousin of John G. Smedley, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume, and to that sketch reference is made for additional ancestral history of the Smedley family in America. I^ETEB ACKER, an industrious and prosperous farmer of Pawling, and a representative of one of the sturdy German families to which the Commonwealth owes so much, is the younger of the two sons of John and Susannah (Sloanacker) Acker, and was born on the old homestead, in Schuylkill township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, May 12, 1836. Here he was reared and educated, and here he has always lived, quietly and industriously engaged in agri- cultural pursuits. He now owns the home farm, consisting of one hundred and sixty acres of valuable land, all well improved except ten acres of woodland. In politics he is a stanch republican, and while never taking an active part in the turmoil of prac- tical politics, yet always gives an intelligent- and earnest support to the party of his choice. On February 19, 1861, Mr. Acker was united in marriage with Martha Jones, a daughter of Enoch and Mary (Johnson) Jones, of East Vincent township, this county, and to them was born a family of three children, two sons and a daughter : Enoch J>, born December 17, 1862, married Emma Stetler, and is now a prosperous young civil engineer, of Norfolk Virginia; Prances S., born September 12, 1864, married Theodore Cramer, a well known jeweler of Phcenix- ville ; and Burton J., born June 29, 1876, and now (1892) attending the State Nor- mal school at West Chester. Mrs. Martha Acker died December 15, 1882, aged forty- one years. The Ackers are of German descent, and trace their American ancestry back to Con- rad Acker, who was born in Germany, but left that country when a young man, and settled in Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, in 1732. He married Barbara Ruble, 432 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY and had an only son, Peter Acker (grand- father), who was born in Uwchlan town- ship, and after attaining his majority mar- ried Elizabeth Laugbaugh, who bore him one child, Conrad; and after her death wedded Elizabeth Beagle, by whom he had a family of nine children : Jacob, Isaac, Catharine, Mary, Sarah, Hannah, Rebecca, John, and one that died in infancy. All are now deceased except Isaac, who resides at Atglen. Peter Acker was a farmer by occupation, and passed all his life in Uwch- lan township, near Lionville, where he died at an advanced age. He owned a large quantity of land, and his farm operations were extensive. Politically he was a whig, and a Lutheran in religious belief and church membership. John Acker (father) was a native of Uwchlan township, born on the old homestead in 1813, where he lived until his marriage, in 1833. He then re- moved to Schuylkill township, locating half a mile east of Williams Corner, where the subject of this sketch now resides. Here he passed the remainder of his days, dying in 1888, after an active life of three quar- ters of a century. His occupation was that of a farmer and stock raiser, and he became prosperous and well-to-do. In religion he adhered to the faith in which he had been reared, and was almost a life-long member of the Evangelical Lutheran church. Polit- ically he was a whig and republican. In 1833 he married Susannah Sloanacker, a daughter of Jacob Sloanacker, of East Pike- land, and by this union had a family of two sons: Jacob S., who married Susannah Christman, and is now a prosperous farmer of Tredyfirin township; and Peter, whose name heads this sketch. Both are well known, useful and highly respected citizens of Chester county. rrJlIiLIAM H. SAYIiOR, postmaster ^^■^ at Keni] worth, this county, and a prosperous business man of that village, is the sixth child and third son of Adam F. and Hannah (Hetzel) Saylor, and a native of Pottsgrove town8hip,Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, where he was born October 10, 1856. He grew to manhood on his father's farm there, and received a good practical education in the public schools of his neighborhood. After leaving home he learned the milling business and followed that occupation some four years, when he became manager of a creamery in Potts- grove township, Montgomery county, and was thus engaged for three years and six months. In 1887 he removed to Chester county, and settled at Kenilworth, Jforth Coventry township, where he embarked in the lumber, coal and feed business, in which he has been very successful, and now enjoys a large and increasing patronage. Politi- cally he is a republican, and shortly after locating at Kenilworth, was appointed as postmaster at that place, a position he has acceptably filled ever since. He is a promi- nent member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and also a member of the Patriotic Order Sons of America. On September 11, 1884, Mr. Saylor was united in marriage to Hattie Funk, a daugh- ter of Jacob L. Funk. By this union he has four children: Ralph J., born July 1, 1885 ; Laura M., born February 24, 1887 ; Clyde T., born June 18, 1889; and Eveline Sue, born January 2, 1892. The Saylors trace their trans-Atlantic origin to Germany, where Frederick Say- lor, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born about 1793. He was reared and educated in his native land, and there married Cyntha Shaw. Some time OF CHESTER^COVNTY. 433 during the first quarter of the present cen- tury he, with his wife and two children, bid farewell to the Fatherland, and crossing the Atlantic, settled in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. There he passed the re- mainder of his days, dying near Parker Ford, in Pottsgrove township, that county, in 1861, at an advanced age. He was en- gaged in farming after his arrival in this country, and became prosperous and well- to-do. He was a democrat in politics, and a strict member of the German Lutheran church. He was the father of three chil- dren, two sons and a daughter: Sarah, Adam F., and Capt. John C, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. Adam F. Saylor (father) was born October 29, 1819, in Germany, and was brought by his father to America when quite young. He was principally reared in Montgomery county, and received a good common school education, after which he engaged in farm- ing, and spent most of his life in that occu- pation. For a time he was steward of the Montgomery county home, and now lives in Pottstown, that county, retired. He mar- ried Hannah Hetzel, a daughter of John Hetzel, of Pottsgrove, and by this union had a family of twelve children : John C, who married Mary Eoyer, and is now a prosperous farmer and truckster of Potts- grove township, Montgomery county ; Rosa, died young ; Caroline, also dead : Kate, now the wife of A. L. Ebert, of Pottstown ; Adam F., jr., who married Rosie Snyder, and is engaged in farming in Montgomery county ; William H., the subject of this sketch ; Franklin, married Ellen Meyers, and re- sides in the State of Florida; Elmer E., wedded Annie Munshower, and is engaged in the grocey business at Royer's Ford; H. Stephen, dead ; Rachel, the wife of Sum- ner Frick, of Pottstown ; Lizzie, now de- ceased, who married John Stauffer, of Roy- er's Ford ; and Harry C. nEV. THOMAS R. McDOWELL, the popular and successful pastor of Upper Octoraro Presbyterian church, near Parkes- burg, this county, is a graduate from Prince- ton Theological seminary, and a gentleman of much^culture and refinement. He was born October 22, 1855, in New London, Chester county, Pennsylvania, his parents being James B. and Eliza (Hall) McDowell. The McDowells are of Irish extraction and trace their ancestry back to James McDow- ell (great-great-grandfather), who was born in the north of Ireland in 1740, >nd about 1758 came to America and located in Penn- sylvania. He married Elizabeth Longhead, of Concord, and settled on land partly be- longing to her, later comprising the farms of Henry D. Hodgson and Franklin Garrett, at Lincoln station, in Lower Oxford town- ship. About 1798 he purchased from Dr. Thomas Ruston the Ruston tract of four hundred and twenty-five acres on Elk, and removed thither. He died September 12, 1815, and was buried at New London. He served through the revolutionary war, and on May 1, 1786, was commissioned as cap- tain of a troop of light horse militia in this county. His children were Mary, Jane, John, Margaret, Catharine, Elizabeth, Ann and Martha. John McDowell (great-grand- father) was born in 1768, married Sarah Gettys, of Philadelphia, and died in 1837. He was commissioned May 1, 1789, ensign of the fourth company of foot in the fifth battalion of militia, in the county of Ches- ter, and August 1, 1814, an ensign of the ninth company of the 91st Pennsylvania 434 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY militia, the latter commission being signed by Governor Findlay. His son, Jobn Mc- Dowell (grandfather), was a native of Ches- ter county, a prosperous farmer, and an at- tendent of the Presbyterian church. He married Eliza J. Carlile, by whom he had a family of four children, and died in 1860, aged sixty-nine years. James B. McDowell (father) was born near New London, this county, in 1827, and at his death, in 1864, was cashier of the Citizens' N'ational bank of Middletown, Delaware. Previous to ac- cepting that position he had been principal of the I^ew London academy for many years, and was widely known as a success- ful educator. He was a prominent member and elder of the Middletown Presbyterian church, and a stanch republican in his politi- cal belief. He married Eliza Hall, who was a native of Cecil county, Maryland, and a member of the Presbyterian church. She died in 1862, aged thirty-seven years, leav- ing a family of six children. Her father, Levi Hall, was of English descent, married Elizabeth Rankin, and died in Middletown, Delaware, at the advanced age of ninety- two years. Rev. Thomas R. McDowell was reared partly in Middletown and partly in Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was prepared for college at the West l^fottingham acad- emy, Cecil county, Maryland, and entering Delaware college, Newark, Delaware, was graduated from that institution with honors in the spring of 1881. He then began the study of theology, taking a three year's course at the Princeton Theological semin- ary, from which he was graduated in June, 1884. His first work after graduation was as pastor of the Lower Brandywine Presby- terian church, near Wilmington, Delaware, but in 1889 he returned to Chester county, and on May 22 of that year, was installed pastor of the Upper Octoraro Presbyterian church, near Parkesburg, which he has con- tinued to serve in an acceptable manner ever since. The history of this church dates back to 1720. At the present time it has a membership of four hundred and thirty- three, and its prosperous condition is largely due to the efficient labors of its enthusiastic and earnest pastor. Li addition to his pas- toral duties here, he has charge of three chapels elsewhere — one at Parkesburg, an- other at Pomeroy, and a third at Sadsbury- ville. On March 14, 1888, Rev. Thomas R. Mc- Dowell was united in holy matrimony with Sophia S. Pusey, a daughter of Edward Pusey, of Wilmington, Delaware. To them has been born three children : Edward P., James B., died at the age of fourteen months; and J. Norman. In political opinions Mr. McDowell is a republican, and is now serving as secretary of the school board of Sadsbury township. He is a member of Dupont Lodge, No. 29, Free and Accepted Masons, of Wilmington, Delaware; and of Centerville Lodge, No. 37, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, near the same city. He is a man of pleasant ad- dress, easily approached, and is immensely popular with his people and the general public. nEV. CHARLES M. HADDAWAY, the present efficient and popular pastor in charge of the Methodist Episcopal church at Glen Moore, this county, is a son of John Q. A. and Caroline M. (Harris) Hadd- away, and was born in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, April 28, 1856. His paternal grandfather, William Haddaway, was a na- tive of Talbot county, Maryland, and lived OF CHESIEB COUNTY. 435 most of his life at Bay Hundred, that county. He was a farmer by occupation, owning nearly five thousand acres of land, and in politics was a stanch whig, while in religion he was an active and influential member of the Methodist Episcopal church, widely known for his kindliness of'heart and generous hospitality. He married a Miss Kersey, and reared a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters : Samuel H., Elizabeth Caulp, Martha Seth, Caroline Kemp, Eliza Kemp, Thomas S., Cha,rles W., and John Q. A. (father). The latter was born at Bay Hundred, Talbot county, Maryland, January 21, 1828, where he was principally reared and educated. After attaining manhood he engaged in the dry goods business in Baltimore, and passed most of his active life in that city. After retiring from the dry goods trade he en- gaged in the life insurance business, and also organized and for some years conducted a newspaper advertising agency in that city. In 1847 he married Caroline M. Harris, a daughter of Capt. Samuel Harris, of Balti- more, and by this union had a family of six children, three sons and three daughters : Rev. Samuel W., a prominent minister of the Methodist Episcopal church South, who has filled leading pulpits in Baltimore and Washington city; Thomas Decatur, a well known lawyer of "Washington city ; Lizzie, married E. H.Delmar, a general newsdealer of that city ; Isabel J., became the wife of H. D. Gordon, who resides in Washington, where he is engaged in the real estate busi- ness; Mary E., wedded Robert L. Cohen, who is engaged with his father in the gen- eral shoe business in Washington city ; and Rev. Charles M., the subject of this sketch. Capt. Samuel Harris (maternal grand- father) was of English descent and a na- tive of Baltimore, but for many years followed a seafaring life, being captain of a trading vessel and serving with distinction in the United States navy during the war of 1812. He was in several engagements under Commodore Decatur, on the high seas, and his life was in many respects a very eventful one. While in command of his own vessel he circunmavigated the globe, and traded in many foreign ports, coming in contact with people of all nations, and having a number of unusual adventures. After retiring from the sea he became a wholesale merchant in Baltimore. Politically he was a democrat, and in relig- ion a strict member of the Univej-salist church. He was one of the projectors of the Baltimore monument erected to the memory of two young men who killed the leader of the British forces and saved that city from capture, during the war of 1812. He married a Miss Monroe, and reared a family of four children, two sons and two daughters : Thomas Decatur, Samuel, Mary, who married Prof. George W. Minnick, and Caroline M., who wedded John Q. A. Hadd- away, and became the mother of the subject of this sketch. She was educated at private schools in the city of Baltimore, now re- sides in Washington, District of Columbia, and is a member of the Evangelical Luth- eran church. Rev. Charles M. Haddaway grew to man- hood in Baltimore and obtained a good English education in the public schools of that city. He afterward took a course in the High school of Trappe, Talbot county, Maryland, and then studied under a private tutor for a time. Later he entered Garrett Biblical institute' at Evanston, Illinois, and began the study of theology. In 1875 he entered the ministry and was ordained a 436 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIOMY deacon in the Reformed Episcopal church in 1882, and 1889 was ordained as an elder by Bishop Vincent, of the Methodist Epis- copal church . He has had charge of churches in Washington and Baltimore cities, and in the State of Nebraska. In 1890 he re- moved from Nebraska to Evanston, where he remained two years, and while there at school he served two churches in Chicago, and in the spring of 1892 came to his present work at Glen Moore, having been transferred to the Philadelphia conference by Bishop Waldron. He is an earnest student and a fluent speaker, and is very popular with his people. On October 15, 1884, Rev. Mr. Haddaway was united in holy matrimony with Harriet Hutchins McKim, a daughter of Dr. S. A. H. McKim, one of the leading physicians of Washington, District of Columbia, who won distinction during the civil war by his able management of militai-y hospitals, and is now chief surgeon to the police board in that city. To Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Haddaway has been born one child, a son named Sam- uel McKim, who. is now (1892) seven years of age. ♦ ♦ ♦ QOIi. HAMIIiTON H. GILKYSON; a popular and successful member of the Chester county bar, who for thirteen years has served as borough solicitor of Phoenix- ville, and is widely known for his legal at- tainments and as an active, able and suc- cessful leader in the political movements of this section, is a son of James and Anna (Henry) Gilkyson, and was born December, 1848, at Doylestown, Bucks county, Penn- sylvania. The Gilkysons are of Irish ex- traction, and the family ranks among the oldest and most honored in Bucks county. James Gilkyson (father) is a native of Bucks county, and now resides at Doyles- town, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He is one of the oldest practicing lawyers in the county of Bucks, and served for a number of years as district attorney. His practice was extensive and remunera- tive, being especially large in the orphans' court. He is an ardent republican in poli- tics, an active worker for his party, and at one time made the race for State senator, but the county being largely democratic he was defeated. There is a military side to his character, and he always took a deep in- terest in army matters, having commanded a regiment of emergency men for several months at the time of Lee's invasion of this State in 1862. He is a member and one of the founders of the Episcopal church at Doylestown, and has served as a member of the vestry since the church was organized. In 1848 he married Anna Henry, by whom he had a family of six children. She was a native of Germantown, Pennsylvania, and died in August, 1884, at the age of fifty-six years. She also was a member of the Epis- copal church, and having great musical tal- ents, which had been carefully cultivated, she was for many years organist and leader of the choir in her church. The Henrys are an old and distinguished family of Ger- mantown, and the maternal grandmother of the subject of this sketch, whose maiden name was Eliza Neal, was a noted beauty of that place in her day. One of Sully's most celebrated pictures was a portrait of this Miss Eliza Neal, and was noted not only on account of the beauty of the subject, but also for its merit as a painting, and was on exhibition at the centennial in 1876. Hamilton H. Gilkyson was reared at Doylestown, Bucks county, this State, and received his education in the private schools It?-/ (^mm-^i^n ©^ Hf^mdt^n: OF CHESIER COUNTY. 439 of that place aud at Pennington's seminary in I^ew Jersey, from which latter institution he was graduated in 1864. After graduation he went west, and for several years was en- gaged in mercantile business and teaching. At the end of that time he returned to Pennsylvania and began reading law in his father's office at Doylestown. Having com- pleted his legal studies and passed his ex- aminations, he was regularly admitted to the bar in 1872, and immediately opened an office in Phoenixville, this county, where he has conducted a successful practice ever since. He also practices in the courts of Montgomery county and in the city of Philadelphia, and has won a proud position at the bar, being distinguished for the care and thoroughness with which he prepares his cases and the ability with which he pre- sents them in court. On March 4, 1880, Colonel Gilkyson was united in marriage to I^ellie H. Trego, a daughter of Thomas W. Trego, of Doyles- town, Bucks county. To Mr. and Mrs. Gilkyson have been born four children, three sons and one daughter : T. "Walter, Hamilton H., jr., James, and Anna. For many years Colonel Gilkyson was connected Vith the State National guards, and during the labor riots of 1877 was sta- tioned at Pittsburg, where he was made assistant adjutant-general of the ninth divis- ion, with the rank of colonel. In politics Colonel Gilkyson has always been a stanch republican, and is an active and influential local leader. He belongs to what is known as the Everhart wing of the party, and is one of the founders of that wing, which was formed in 1884 when James B. Everhart was elected to congress from this district over Mr. Darlington. No man in the dis- trict, perhaps, has worked harder or with greater ability and more gratifying success to advance the cause of his party and secure its triumphs at the polls, and to none does the party owe a deeper debt of gratitude for his untiring efforts in its behalf. Yet he would never permit the use of his name as a candidate for any political office, though he has served in some of the borough offices. He has been borough solicitor for a period of thirteen years, and has served as a mem- ber and president of the Phoenixville school board. TT\ liATTA DAVIS, a leading farmer residing near Aldham, who has spent a lifetime in the cultivation of the soil, and is well known and highly esteemed throughout this section, is the third and only surviving son of John S. and Mary (Pauling) Davis, and was born in Charles- town (now Schuylkill) township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 7, 1816. When only three years of age he was brought by his parents to his present loca- tion neai- Aldham postoffice, in Charles- town township, and has lived here ever since. He grew to manhood on the farm, accustomed to the hard labor that fell to the lot of farmer's sons, and received such education as was afforded by the country schools of that early day. After attaining his majority he engaged in farming on the old homestead with his father, and has been employed in agricultural pursuits all his life. He now owns the farm, consisting of one hundred and two acres of choice land, nearly all well improved and in good con- dition. Politically he is a stanch democrat, giving his party a uniform support on all leading questions, but never taking any very active part in politics. His life has been quiet and uneventful, strictly devoted to 440 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY business and to the discharge of his duties ■as a good citizen and in. the various rela- tions of life. On January Ij 1873, he was united in marriage to Mary A. Rapp, a daughter of John and Hannah Rapp, of Gharlestown .township. .... The paternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Llewellyn .Davis, a native of Wales, who came to America and settled in Chester county prior to 1705. He married Bridget Jones, by whom he had a family of four children (see sketch of William W. Davis in this volume),' the youngest of whom was Llewellyn Davis (grandfather), who was born in Schuylkill township, this county, where he lived all his- life, and died at the early age of forty-four years. He was a farmer by vocation, a democrat in political faith, •and a prominent member and trustee of the Great Valley Presbyterian church. His remains repose in the cemetery con- nected with that church; He married Rebecca Shannen, by whom he had a family of seven children, three sons and four daughters : Willmina, who married Samuel Pauling; Eliza,. Harriet, Mary Ann, John 8., Ezekiel H., and Shannon,, all now de- ceased.: John 8. Davis' (father) was born at the mines in Schuylkill township, this county, in 1784, ^nd died in Charlestown township in 1853, at the advanced age of sixty-nine years. He also was a farmer by occupation and devoted nearly all his. life to agricultural pursuits, including stock raising. He owned a farm of one hundred acres of fine land, and was very successful and prosperous. Politically he was a democrat and took an active part in public aflairs. During the. war of 1812 he was captain of a company of Pennsylvania militia, and about the time the British forces occupied Washington city was called out with his company and marched to Marcus Hook, hut owing to an accidental wound in the foot was not engaged in active service. In religion he adhered to the faith of.his ancestors, and was an active member, elder and trustee of the Great Valley Presbyterian church for many years, being liberal, in support of the various interests of his denomination, and prominent in all its work , and affairs. He married Mary Pauling, a daughter of Benjamin Pauling, and to their union was born a family of five sons: Benjamin P., Llewellyn, W. Latta, John A., and Jesse C, all now deceased except the subject of this sketch. The mother of these children, Mrs. Mary Davis, died in 1873, aged eighty-six years. nEV. JOHN M. HASTINGS, D. D., who was a regularly ordained minister in the Presbyterian church for nearly half a century, and was widely known in many parts of the LTnion, was a son of James and Letitia (McCluskey) Hastings, and was born January 27, 1816, in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. The Hastings ar5 of English descent. The family seems to have been among the earliest settlers in the colony of Penn, as we find references to men of the name in the records of that day, notably of Joshua Hastings, who served as a juryman in February, 1682, and was appointed an appraiser for Chester county, October 17, 1683. But the data necessary to trace the family was not preserved, and we present only such meagre facts as are now obtain- able. James Hastings (father) was a native of this State, and in early life took up his residence in Allegheny county, where he OF CHESTER COUNTY. 441 became a prosperous farmer and resided until about 1823, when be removed to Ohio, and located in Muskingum county, near Zanesville. There he again devoted his at- tention to agricultural pursuits, and was thus engaged until his demise in 1858, at which time he was in his eighty-fourth year. In politics he was an old-line whig, and for many years a devoted member of the Pres- byterian church. He married Letitia Mc- Cluskey, a native of Pennsylvania, and a daughter of William McCluskey, who was born in the north of Ireland of Scotch -Irish ■parentage, but emigrated to America in early manhood. Mrs. Hastings was a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church, and died at her home in Ohio in 1865, aged seventy- eight years. Rev. John M. Hastings was reared prin- cipally on the home farm in Muskingum county, Ohio, and received his early educa- tion in the academy at West Alexandria, Pennsylvania, after which he entered the old Washington college in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and was graduated from that venerable institution in 1838. Immediately after graduation he went to Kentucky, where he spent one year in teaching, near the city of Lexington. He then accepted a position in the Grove academy at Steubenville, Ohio, where he taught for two years. At the end of that time he began the study of theology with his uncle. Rev. John McCluskey, D. D., at West Alexandria, Pennsylvania, who con- ducted an academy at that place for a num- ber of years. When his theological studies were sufficiently advanced, in the summer of 1843, Mr. Hastings was licensed to preach in the Presbyterian church by the Presby- tery of Washington, and soon afterward entered the service of the educational board of that church, where he did efficient work during the next three years. He was then settled as the regular pastor of Beulah church, near Pittsburg, Allegheny county, this State, where he engaged in earnest and successful labor for a period of nearly twenty years. During the latter part of his service at that' place his health began failing, and in 1865 he gave up his charge, and some years after removed to Wooster, Ohio, to educate his sons. Later he went South on account of his health, and after a year spent in the milder climate, returned to Pennsyl- vania, and for some months resided at Ger- mantown, near Philadelphia. In 1882 'he. came to West Chester, where he has .re- sided ever since. After relinquishing his charge in 1865 he never accepted regular work on account of the variable state, of his health, but continued to preach as a supply for vacant churches. Dr. Hastings was united in marriage to Margaret M. Raybold, a daughter of Joshua Raybold, of Philadelphia, in 1845, who died the following year. In 1850 he married Mrs. Martha M. Taylor, daughter of Ed- ward McDonald, of McDonald, Washington county, who died in 1861, leaving two sons : John McDonald, who graduated from the Jefferson Medical college, Philadelphia, in 1878, and died at Germantown in 1882, aged twenty-six years; and Edward Mc- Donald, who was graduated from the Woos- ter (Ohio) university, spent two years teach- ing in the academy conducted by his uncle. Prof. Fulton W, Hastings, at West Phila- delphia, and died in November, 1888, in the thirty -first year of his age. In politics he was an independent repub- lican, and deeply concerned for the honor and welfa-re of the country. He was a life- long student, a clear thinker, an excellent 442 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY speaker, and was greatly respected and be- loved by a wide circle of appreciative friends. Dr. Hastings died at West Chester, Penn- sylvania, September 9, 1892, in the seventy- seventh year of his age. PBER H. HURFORD, one of the most influential and substantial citizens of NewgGarden township, is a son of Mcholas and Dinah2(!Gregg) Hurford, and was born in New Garden township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 10,]_1802. He was reared on the farm, received a practical ed- ucation in the schools of his neighborhood, and assisted his father in farming until he had attained his majority, when he engaged in agricultural pursuits, which he followed until eight years ago. He has always been a resident of ISTew Garden township, except a short time passed at Kennett Square and a few years spent in East Marlborough township. He sold his farm eight years ago, and has retired. Mr. Hurford is a stanch republican in politics, and has been for many years a member of Kennett meet- ing of the Society of Friends, in which he has always been active and useful. Mr. Hurford has been successful in his various business enterprises, and by good manage- ment and careful attention has secured a competency. He has with commendable energy and industry made a success of all of his various agricultural pursuits. Eber H. Hurford is of English descent. His paternal grandfather, John Hurford, was a native of Ashton, Delaware county, and about 1732 married Hannah Fairlamb. He was a cooper by trade, and a Friend in religious faith. Beside working at his trade he was engaged in the mercantile business, and was known in that early day of Pennsylvania's history as a "shopkeeper," the name then applied to one who followed that line of business. He died in Chestfer county, and left a family of eleven chil- dren, of whom one was Nicholas Hurford, the father of the subject of this sketch. Nicholas Hurford was born March 15, 1754, in New Garden township, where he died on March 28, 1837, aged eighty-four years. He was a farmer, a whig, and a Friend, a quiet, steady and useful man, and as a neighbor, a friend and a citizen, stood high in the community where he resided. His wife, Dinah (Gregg) Hurford, was a daughter of Michael and Sarah Gregg. Their union was blessed with seven children : Michael, Mary Booth, Jesse, Joel, Eber, Samuel, and Isaac. None of these children died under eighty years of age, while three of them, Eber, Samuel and Isaac, are still living. On September 17, 1828, Eber Hurford married Hannah Allen, who was a daugh- ter of Ellis and Kebecca Allen, and is now deceased. To Mr. and Mrs. Hurford were born eight children, three sons and five daughters : Lydia A., wife of David Cham- bers, a farmer of London Grove township ; Allen, who died in infancy ; Jesse, who is now deceased, married Elizabeth Taylor; Ellis (dead); Hannah M. ; R. Emma, mar- ried William Wilson, a farmer of Upper Oxford township; Sarah, wife of William Sharpless, now in the creamery business at Toughkenamon ; and Philena C. lyjAHIiON S. KOI.LER, a prosperous ^ young farmer of Sadsburyville, who for a number of years was connected with a wholesale grocery house in Philadelphia, is ason of James A. and Christiana (Sunday) Koller, and was born November 24, 1865 OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 448 in Berks county, Pennsylvania. The fam- ily to which Mr. KoUer belongs is of German origin and ranks among the oldest in Penn- sylvania. Andrew Koller, paternal grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Berks county, this State, in 1804 and lived there all his life. He was a farmer by occupation, as his ancestors had been, and was a man of great energy and industry. Politically he was a stanch democrat, and in religious belief and church membership a German Lutheran. He died at his home in Berks county in 1862, aged fifty-eight years. His wife was Hannah ( Sunday) Koller and they reared a family of six children, all of whom now survive. His son, James A. Koller (father), was born on the old homestead in Berks county in 1842, where he grew to manhood and was edu- cated in the common schools. In 1862 he married Christiana Sunday, a daughter of George Sunday, of that county, and settled down to farming. To their union was born a family of three children, one of whom is still living. In 1874 Mr. Koller quit farm- ing and removed to the State of Iowa, settling in Marion county, where for a period of nearly eight years he was engaged in the milling business, dealing largely in flour. Returning to Pennsylvania in 1881, he located in Philadelphia and became a traveling salesman for a wholesale grocery house in that city, which business he still fol- lows. Mrs. Christiana Koller is a native of Berks county, where she was born in 1844, and is consequently now in the forty-ninth year of her age. She is a strict member of the Presbyterian church. Mahlon S. Koller lived on the farm until his eighth year, when he went with his father to the State of Iowa. There he at- tended the public schools until his father returned to this State, when he also came back to Philadelphia, and soon after took a course of training in the Reading Business college, at Reading, this State. In the spring of 1882 he entered a wholesale grocery house in Philadelphia as shipping clerk, and remained in that position for more than six years, or until the fall of 1888, rendering entire satisfaction to his employers and demonstrating the posses- sion of business ability of a high order. On November 13, 1888, Mr. Koller was united in marriage with Jennie Bricker, a daughter of Joseph and Jane Bricker, of Kansas, and they have one child, a son named George B. Soon after his marriage, on December Ist of that year, he removed to his present farm, containing fifty-seven acres of choice land, well improved and located on the Lancaster pike one-fourth mile from Sads- buryville, in Sadsbury township. Since that time he has given his time and atten- tion mainly to agricultural pursuits, and has been very successful. Politically Mr. Koller is a democrat, as is his father, and gives his party an earnest and steady support on all leading questions. In religion he is a member of the Presby- terian church, and liberal in support of its various interests. He is a member of Patterson Lodge, ISTo. 394, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Sadsburyville, and also of William Pitt Encampment, of the same place. JOHN WILDS, one of the older and most highly respected citizens of the county, residing near Straftbrd, is a man who has spent a long and active life in ag- ricultural pursuits. He is the second of 444 BIOQUAPHY AND HISTORY the four surviving sons of John and Han- nah (Byerley) Wilds, and was ; born , in Tredyffrin tovrnship, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, February 16, 1821.. He vFas reared principally on the farm, and obtained a good practical education in the country schools of that day, after which he adopted the business of farming as his life occupation, and has adhered to it nearly all his days. He owns an excellent little farm of twenty- one acres, finely improved and cultivated like a garden. Politically he is a republi- can, and though no politician, is yet loyal and ardent in the support of his party. For many years he has been a member of the Baptist church, in which faith he was reared. On March 22, 1855, Mr. Wilds was united in marriage to Rachel Famous, a daughter of Andrew Famous, of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. To their union was born a family of two children, one son and a daugh- ter : Isaac E.., now living with his parents, and. managing the farm ;. and Mary, who married Joseph Dyson, a contractor and. builder, residing at Wayne, Pennsylvania. The Wilds are of English descent, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch having been born in Lancaster, Eng- land, from which he emigrated to America while yet a young man, and settled in Tredyffrin township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, Here he passed the remainder of his days. He was a, weaver. by trade, and a strict member of the Episcopal church, to which he had become attached while in England. Some time after his arrival in this county he married Barbara Wesley, of Chester county, and to them were born four children, two of whom were sons. The elder of these was James, and the younger John Wilds (father), who was born in Tredyffrin township in 1794, and died here in September, 1850, at the age of fifty-six years. After attaining manhood he engaged in farming, and spent most of his life in that occupation, being successful and pros- perous. He was a member of Radnor Bap- tist church, and in early life a democrat, in politics, but joined the opposition party in his later days. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812, being present at Marcus Hook. In 1819 he married Hannah Byer- ley, a daughter of John Byerley, and they reared a family of fourteen children, sev.en of whom were sons : James, Elijah, Mahlon, John, Maurice, Joseph, William, Edward, Elizabeth, Mary A., Alice, Sarah and Han- nah M. They are all now deceased except John, Elijah, Mahlon, and Maurice. QRANVILLE WII.L,IAMS, a worthy representative of one of the oldest Welsh families of this county, and a well known farmer and highly respected citizen, residing near Sugartown, is the third child and only son of Ifathan and Esther (Pratt) Williams, and a native of Chester county, having been born in Willistown township. May 6, 1836. He was reared on his father's farm in that township,, and received his edu- cation at Prof. Strode's boarding school and the school taught by Joseph Foulke, amin-. ister of the Society of Friends. On leaving school he engaged in farming, and has de- voted his whole life to agricultural pursuits, in which he has been successful. He now owns a fine farm containing one hundred and thirty-one acres of choice land, all well improved and in the best state of cultiva- tion. His farm buildings are substantial and pleasantly situated. For a number of years Mr. Williams served as a director of the OF CHESTER COUNTY. 445 Farmers' Market Company, of Philadelphia. Politically he is a republican, and has served as school director of his township. In religion he is a Quaker and a member of the Goshen monthly meeting. On the 14th of February, 1861, Mr. Wil- liams was wedded to Elizabeth S. Wor- rall, a daughter of Sharpless and Abigail (Thatcher) Worrall, of Willistown town- ship, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Wil- liams was born a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters : Elwood, born January 20, 1862, and died August 23, 1864; Esther, born October 15, 1863, and died August 23, 1864; Abbie T.,- born March 6, 1865, marrried Harry R. Sharp- less, and resides in West Chester; Lewis P., born November 11, 1867, and resides at Wyebrook, this State ; I^athan, laorn April 10, 1870; Emma G., born May 23, 1872; and Granville C, born October 19, 1876, the three latter living at home with their parents. The family of which the subject of this sketch is a member, is of Welsh descent, and traces its American ancestry back to Robert Williams, who settled in this State prior to 1691, and came to what is now Goshen township, this county, about 1700; being, it is thought, the first settler within the bounds of that township, where he took up a large tract of laud from the orig- inal Penn grant. At the home of Hugh Roberts, April 19, 1691, he married Gwen Cadwalader. In 1715 they removed to Uwchlan township, and in 1734 Robert Williams died, aged eighty-seven. His children, so far as known, were Elizabeth, Ellis, Lewis, John, Ann, William, Grace, Hannah, and Sarah. Ellis Williams (great- great-grandfather) was born in East Goshen township, where he lived all his life. He married in 1712, and died in 1756. His children were Robert, Esther, Mary, Thomias Garrett, Ellis (2), and Isaac. In religion he was a Quaker, as was his father. The second Ellis Williams (great-grandfather) was also a native of East Goshen township, and on February 1, 1748, married Lydia Haines, a daughter of Isaac and Catharine Haines, of East Goshen, by whom he had six children : Jesse, Ellis (3), Isaac, Nathan, Jane and Lydia. The third Ellis Williams (grandfather) was born in East Goshen township, about 1765, and died in Willis- town township. May 31, 1821, aged fifty-six years. He was a farmer by occupation, and- a life long member of the Society of Friends. On November 19, 1789, he mar- ried Jane Garrett, a daughter of Josiah and Mary (Yarnell) Garrett, by whom he had' a family of eight children: Lydia, born December 19, 1790, and died February 12, 1815 ; Mary, born September 9, 1792, and died March 31, 1810; Jesse, born Novem- ber 19, 1794, and died August 22, 1872 ; Ellis, born November 24, 1797, died Decem- ber 28, 1874 ; Josiah, born July 4, 1800, died February 27, 1817; Jane, born De- cember 24, 1802, died December 23, 1889 ; Nathan (father), born December 11, 1804, died December 24, 1883 ; Garrett, born December 26, 1806, died February 6, 1875; and George, born October 7, 1808, died July 17, 1811. The mother, Mrs. Jane Williams, passed to her final rest July 8, 1839, aged 72 years. ' Nathan Williams (father) was born in Willistown township, as were all his brothers and sisters, and after obtaining an educa- tion in the private schools of his neighbor- hood, engaged in farming and followed that occupation all his life, in his native town- ship. Politically he was a whig and repub- 446 BIOOMAPffY AND HISTORY lican, and became prominent in his com- munity. In religion he adhered to the faith of his childhood and was a member of the Society of Friends all his life, being connected with the Goshen meeting. On March 18, 1830, he married Esther Pratt, a daughter of Joseph and Priscilla Pratt. To their union was born a family of five children, one son and four daughters : Priscilla, born January 25, 1831, and died August 7, 1841; Emma, born March 12, 1833, and still living ; Granville, the sub- ject , of this sketch; Henrietta, born Oc- tober 4, 1838, died September 15, 1841, and Sarah, born November 23, 1840, died September 2, 1841. The mother, Mrs. Esther Williams, was born December 31, 1806, and passed away April 16, 1841, at the early age of thirty-five years. On i^ovember 17, 1847, Nathan "Williams re- married, wedding Susannah R. Smith, nee Russell, but had no children by this second marriage. TfOSEPH T. ROTHROCK, M.D., pro- fessor of botany in the university of Pennsylvania, and who ranks next to Asa Gray in the field of American botany,' first won national prominence and reputation by his reports in 1878 as botanist of the geologi- cal and geographical exploration and sur- vey west of the 100th meridian. He is a son of Dr. Abraham and Phoebe B. (Trim- ble) Rothrock, and was born at McVey- town, Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, April 9, 1839. In a pleasant little valley in northern Germany, on the waters of the beautiful upper Rhine, famous in German song and story, is the ancestral home of the Rothrocks, and the birth place of Abraham Rothrock, the founder of the Rothrock family of Pennsylvania. He was one of the forty Lutheran palatinates who came in colonial days to Berks county, where by industry, honesty and perseverance they prospered and became substantial and well respected citizens in the communities in which they settled. A lineal descendant of Abraham Rothrock was Philip Rothrock, the paternal grandfather of Dr. Rothrock, and who was a farmer in Mifflin county, where he died in 1850, at ninety-four years of age, being the oldest man at that time in the county. He was a Presbyterian, and married and reared a family. His son. Dr. Abraham Rothrock (father), was born April 19, 1806, near Lewistown, that county. He received his education at Lewistown acad- emy, then under the charge of Dr. James Woods, and entered the University of Penn- sylvania, from which medical institution he was graduated in 1835. He practiced two years prior to graduation, and since then has been in active practice at McVeytown, this State. During the late war he was surgeon of the board of enrollment of the seventeenth district of Pennsylvania, and was one of the three surgeons whose pay was never sus- pended or reduced, on account of the per- fect manner of conducting the business aftairs of their offlces. Dr. Abraham Roth- rock is a republican in politics, and an elder of the Presbyterian church, and justly ranks as one of the leading physicians of central Pennsylvania. On May 11, 1837, he mar- ried Phoebe B. Trimble, and they have three children: Dr. Joseph T., Ann A., and Mary M., wife of D. M. McFarland, a banker of West Chester, whose sketch ap- pears in this volume. Joseph Trimble Rothrock completed his academical course in Juniata county, and Freeland seminary, Montgomery county. (Q^U^J (^UmM- (^t?^At?cJ, <^. OF CHE81EB COUNTY. 449 and on August 7, 1862, enlisted as a private in Co. D, 131st Pennsylvania infantry, and was commissioned as captain on July 1, 1864, of Co. E, 20th Pennsylvania cavalry, which he commanded until January 6, 1864, when he was honorably discharged at Harrisburg. He participated in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg, and was wounded through the thigh at Fredericks- burg, where his regiment in forty minutes lost more men in its terrific charge, propor- tionately, than did the Light Brigade in its celebrated charge at Balaklava. Returning home from the army he resumed his studies and was graduated from the Lawrence Scientific school of Harvard university in 1864, and from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1868. He commenced practice in Centre county, but in 1870 removed to Wilkesbarre, mak- ing a specialty of diseases of the eye and ear, and in 1876 established the JSTorth Mountain school of physical culture. In the last named year he was appointed lec- turer on forestry by the American Philo- sophical society, and thus has contributed much toward developing the growing for- estry sentiment of this State. In 1866 he accompanied an exploring party into British Columbia, and in 1873 was appointed as surgeon and botanist to the United States geographical and geological exploration and survey west of the 100th meridian, under Lieutenant Gr. M. Wheeler. He served in that capacity from 1873 to 1875, inclusive, and added many plants to the botanical col- lections of the west that were not known of by Gray or King. He made extensive botanical collections in iffevada, Utah, Cali- fornia, Colorado, !N"ew Mexico and Arizona. In the valuable report of his work he cata- logues 104 orders, 687 genera, and 1657 27 species. His reports constitute the Sixth volume of these surveys, and contains 404 quarto pages, with fifty-two pages of physi- cal geography and economic botany. In his modest introduction to the work, he al- lows too much credit to others and does not do justice to his own achievements, but the work passed into the hands of the pub- lic, which appreciated the magnitude of Dr. Rothrock's labors, and the great value of his contributions to American botany, of which it is (as he said of another work) a prominent landmark. Prior to this he wrote a " Sketch of the Flora of Alaska," which was published in the report of the Smithsonian institution for 1867. In 1880 he wrote a catalogue of the trees and shrubs in the horticultural gardens of Fairmount park, Philadelphia, and has now in prepa- ration a forthcoming octavo volume of about six hundred pages, to be entitled the " Medical Botany of North America." He came in 1877 to West Chester, where he has resided ever since. On May 27, 1869, Dr. Rothrock married Martha E. May, only daughter of Addison and Elizabeth (Shafer) May, of West Ches- ter, this county, and they have three chil- dren living: Addison M., Henry A., and Elizabeth M. Dr. Joseph T. Rothrock is an indepen- dent in politics, and was for several years a vestryman of the Protestant Episcopal church of West Chester. He is a member of the American Philosophical society. So- ciety of Naturalists of the United States, Philadelphia Academy of natural sciences, Canadian Botanical society, American Acad- emy of Political and Social sciences, Penn- sylvania Historical society, and the American Geographical society. In 1866, while in British Columbia, he was serving under the 450 JBiO GttAPHY AND' HlSTOR Y Western Unidu Telegraph company, which explored and surveyed a telegraph route through Alaska and via Behring Strait to the mouth of the Amoor river in Asia. During the next year he became professor of botany at the Pennsylvania State agri- cultural college, which position he held a short time, and in 1876 took charge of the Young Ladies' seminary of Wilkesbarre, which he left the same year to accept his present position as professor of botany in the university of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rothrock is the author of various in- teresting and useful papers that have ap- peared for the last few years in botanical memoirs, scientific magazines, and the lead- ing medical journals of this country. He is an active and persistent worker, and even employs his vacations iii the interest of botany. In his yacht, White Cap, he con- ducted a university exploring expedition during his vacation of 1890 among the West Indian Isles, and returned with large and valuable accessions to the university mu- seum, as well as gleaning many new facts of the botanical wealth of the tropical waters of the Carribbean Sea. He photographed the trees of North America in order to make their botanical description more clear, and for this work was awarded a silver medal at the Paris exposition in 1878. Joseph T. Rothrock is an original thinker and an independent investigator, and while he gives due attention to the views of his predecessors and contemporaries in the field of botany, yet he collects his facts and can- didly tells their story, whether it be for or against the popular views and theories of the day. The natural sciences are indebted to members of the medical profession of Pennsylvania for some of their grandest discoveries and most advanced work. Dr. King of Westmoreland county, in the field of geology made the discovery that air breathing animals existed in the carbonifer- ous age ; while Dr. Alter, another Pennsyl- vaniau, was the true discover of spectrum analysis, by which the elements of the sun and stars are determined, and in the ad- vanced work of botany Dr. Rothrock has already associated his name with those of Bartram and Gray, and has a permanent place in the history and progress of botany in North America. 1r\R. JOHN CLEAVER BARTHOIiO- MEW, a young and popular veterin- ary surgeon of Berwyn, who was graduated from the university of Pennsylvania in the spnng of 1891, is the only son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Huddleson) Bartholomew, and a native of Chester valley, beins: born in East Whiteland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 10, 1863. The old and prominent Pennsylvania fam- ily of which Dr. Bartholomew is a member is said to be descended from the celebrated Barthelenii family of France, many of whom, having seceded from the Roman Catholic church, emigrated to Great Britain in order to escape persecution. From England they came to America at an early day, and the records show that members of the family were settled in Philadelphia as early as 1681, where George Bartholomew and his wife Mary owned and conducted the Blue Anchor tavern, being Philadel- phia's only public bouse — the first in the city and the State. It was here that William Penn first landed and was enter- tained. The old building still stands in a good state of preservation. July 25th fol- lowing, George Bartholomew was granted OF CHESTER COUNTY. 451 by William Penn a lot adjoining the tavern, which was laid out August 1, 1664, but the patent did not issue until 1686. (Taken from the history of the Bartholomew fam- ily.) John Bartholomew, paternal great- great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a resident of what is now Montgomery county, and died in 1756, and Mary, his widow, about 1762. They had eleven children : Ann, married Thomas Waters; Joseph; Thomas; Elizabeth, wedded Isaac Davis, of Tredytfrin ; Rachel, became the wife of Benjamin Davis; John; Andi-ew ; Benjamin ; Mary, married a Mr. Thomas; Augustine, and Edward. The eldest son, Joseph Bartholomew (great- great-grandfather), settled in East White- land township soon after 1740, and died there in November 1754, leaving a wife, Sarah, and four children : John, Benjamin, Hannah and Rachel. Their father's lands were divided between the sons, John re- ceiving the homestead with a hundred and eighty acres of land, while one hundred and sixty were devised to his brother Ben- jamin. Both were real lovers of rural life, and contentedly settled down to farming. From 1772 to 1775 Benjamin served as a member of the assembly, and when the muttering thunders of the opening revolu- tionary struggle broke on his peaceful home, spurning the idea of cultivating an invaded soil, he raised a company of volun- teers, at whose head as captain he marched to the tented field, where he fought gal- lantly and suffered much, but was provi- dentially spared to see the colonies free and again resume the quiet life of a farmer, which he loved so well. He died on his well-cultivated farm in East Whiteland township, March 31, 1812, aged sixty years, and his remains rest in the cemetery of the Great Valley Baptist church in Tredyft'riu. Captain Bartholomew married Rachel Dewees, a daughter of William and Sarah (Potts) Dewees, by whom he had a family of ten children : Joseph, married Hannah Davis, and died in Tredyffrin township in 1811 ; Hannah, married John Hughes; Sarah; John, grandfather of Dr. J. C. ; Rachel, wedded Thomas Davis ; Marian (Maryanne) died unmarried; Ed- ward, married Emily Cleaver; Augustine, wedded Maryanne Philips; Benjamin mar- ried Elizabeth Pritner ; and Ellen, who be- came the wife of Thomas Maxwell. John Bartholomew (paternal grandfather) was born in East Whiteland township, this county, where he lived all his life, engaged in agricultural pursuits. Politically he was an old line whig, and was active and prominent in the support of the tenets of that party. He married Lydia Cleaver, and was the father of a family of six children, four sons and two daughters. One of his sons was Benjamin Bartholomew (father), who was born in East Whiteland township in 1827, and now resides in the city of Philadelphia. He grew to manhood on his father's farm, received a good educa- tion in the public schools, and after leaving school engaged in farming in his native township, which occupation he followed until 1885, when he accepted a position in the custom house in Philadelphia and re- moved to that city. In his political affilia- tions he has been a republican ever since that party was organized in this State. In 1859 he married Rebecca Huddleson, a daughter of Dr. J. T. Huddleson, of Glen Mills, Delaware county, where he was a successful practitioner for many years. By this union Benjamin Bartholomew had a family of three children, one son and two 452 BIOGRAPHY AND ^HISTORY daughters: Mary Ellen, Caroline H. ;and Dr. John C, the subject of this sketch. Dr. John Cleaver Bartholomew was principally reared in his native township of East Whiteland, received his education in the public schools of Chester county and at the Great Valley Friends' school, and later entered the veterinary department of the university of Pennsylvania, at Philadel- phia, from which famous institution he was graduated in the spring of 1891. Early in the following year he located at Berwyn, where he has ever since been successfully engaged in the practice of his profession. Dr. Bartholomew has taken great pains to properly and thoroughly prepare himself for the work he proposed to do, and has already shown that he possesses an exhaus- tive knowledge in all matters pertaining to the diseases of live stock in general and horses in particular, and that he has ac- quired great skill in their treatment. In politics the doctor follows the tradi- tions of his ancestors and is an ardent re- publican, taking an intelligent interest in all public questions, and keeping well posted on current events. He is connected with the organization known as the Society of Cincinnati, having inherited his member- ship through his father, and is a popular and promising young professional gentle- man, who stands high in social circles and among business men wherever he is known. to FRANKLIN WILLIAMS, post- master at Williams Corner, and one of the enterprising and progressive men of this county, who served three years during the civil war, and has since enjoyed a busi- ness career' aggregating a fair degree of success, is a son of John and Sarah (Rob- erts) Williams, and was born January 1, 1844, in Charlestown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grand- father, Daniel Williams, was a native of the same township, and lived and died there. He was a farmer by occupation, a Presby- terian in religion, and in politics a Jackson- ian democrat. He married Jane McCoy and reared a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters : Mordecai, David, James, John, Juliann, Elizabeth, and Martha. John Williams (father) was also born in Charlestown township, his natal day being December 8, 1801, and resided there until 1858, when he disposed of his property and removed to Schuylkill township, settling near what is now known as Williams' Cor- ner, where he passed the remainder of his life, dying September 4, 1875, aged nearly seventy-four years. He was educated in the common schools of his neighborhood, and on leaving school learned the mason trade and became a contractor and builder. For a number of years he followed that oc- cupation, but in later life purchased a farm and devoted his last years to agricultural pursuits, conducting his operations on an extensive scale and becoming very prosper- ous. At one tim^ he owned and operated six farms, located in Schuylkill and Charles- town townships, and was also engaged for a time in the manufacture of paper at Wil- liams' Corner. In his earlier years he was a democrat in politics, but on account of his anti-slavery proclivities joined the Repub- lican party about the time of Lincoln's first election to the presidency, and ever after- ward supported that political organization. In religion he was a Presbyterian, and as contractor and builder erected many fine residences and public buildings between Downingtown and Philadelphia, besides OF CHESTER COUNTY. 453 bridges, &c., on the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad ; also the Presbyterian church at Charlestown. On April 12, 1833, he mar- ried Sarah Roberts, a daughter of Joseph and Mary Roberts, of Schuylkill township, Pennsylvania. To them was born a family of eight children, five of whom were sons : J. Robert, now deceased, who married Sarah J. Kungle ; Mary J., wedded William H. Johns, a prosperous farmer of East Pike- land township; Davis B., married Sallie Pennypacker and resides near Aldham, en- gaged in farming and crushing stone ; I. "Walker, now a farmer of Schuylkill town- ship, who married Susannah Stephens; Sallie A., became the wife of Everett W. Anderson, a farmer of Charlestown town- ship ; B. Franklin, the subject of this sketch : Dr. William K., who was graduated from the Hahnemann Medical college of Philadel- phia, married Millie Wright, and is now practicing his profession in the city of Philadelphia; and Retta, who wedded John T. Kinsey, a well known produce dealer of Bridgeport, Montgomery county, where they reside. B. Franklin Williams was reared partly in Charlestown and partly in Schuylkill township, where he attended the public schools until 1860, and on June 10, 1861, when little more than sixteen years of age, enlisted as a musician in Co. K, 4th Penn- sylvania reserves, for three years. He served out the full term of his enlistment, being detailed as a clerk at headquarters during the latter part, and was honorably dis- charged at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1864. While connected with the army he was in the seven days' fight around Rich- mond, at the battles of second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, South Mountain and An- tietam, and in southwestern Virginia took part in the contest at Cloyd Mountain, un- der General Crook, and in a number of skirmishes and minor engagements. After his discharge, Mr. Williams returned to Chester county, and after taking a course in the Quaker City Business college at Phil- adelphia, engaged in the manufacture of paper at Williams' Corner, which he suc- cessfully conducted until 1884, when he rented his plant to other parties and em- barked in the general mercantile business at the same place. He continued this en- terprise until 1891, and in that year rented his store to others and again assumed the management of his paper mill, in which he is now engaged. His specialty is the manu- facture of binder's board, and the mill has a capacity of six tons per week. The plant was formerly a cotton mill, operated by Roberts, Semers & Bevans,butwas converted into a paper mill in 1858, by Mr. Williams' father, who had purchased the property. In addition to his paper mill and store Mr. Williams also owns one fine farm in Schuyl- kill township. Politically he is a repub- lican and stands high in the local councils of his party. He has served as township au- ditor and assistant assessor, and in 1884 was appointed postmaster at Williams' Corner, a position he has ever since filled acceptably. He is connected with the Veteran Reserve corps, and is a member of Phoenixville Post, Grand Army of the Republic. ' On October 25, 1871, Mr. Williams was united in marriage to Josephine H. Steph- ens, a daughter of William M. and Hannah (Hall) Stephens, of Upper Merion, Mont- gomery county, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Williams was born one child, a sou named Howard S., who is now attending the Friends' Central school in the city of Philadelphia. 454 BIOGSAPHY AND HISTOBY QAMUEL S. FINKBINER, M.D., a graduate of the Jefferson Medical col- lege, and a member of the Schuylkill Inter- county Medical society, who has been in the active practice of his profession at Parker Ford for the last quarter of a cen- tury, is a son of Jacob and Margaret (Hambo) Finkbiner, and was born in East Vincent township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, October 17, 1838. He received a good academical education, and then took a course at Pennsylvania college, after which he read medicine with Dr. E. B. Hecket and Dr. A. R. Savage. At the com- pletion of his required course of reading he entered Jefferson Medical college, of Phila- delphia, from which famous institution he was graduated iu the class of 1865. After graduation he opened an office at St. Mary's, this county, which he left after a residence of eighteen months, to come to Parker Ford, where he has been in active and suc- cessful practice up to the present time. On December 24, 1864, Dr. Finkbiner married Elizabeth Catherine, daughter of Henry Hamor, of West Vincent township, and to their union have been born two chil- dren : Jacob H., of West Philadelphia, who married Eva Larkins, and is now engaged in mercantile business in West Philadel- phia, and Martin Luther, a graduate of the Philadelphia college of pharmacy. Dr. Finkbiner is of German lineage. His paternal grandfather, Jacob Finkbiner, sr., was a native of Chester county, Pennsylvania. His son, Jacob Finkbiner (father), was born on March 4, 1809, in East Vincent township, where he lived and where he died in March, 1891, when he had passed into his eighty-second year. He was a car- penter by trade, and after helping to build many of the locks on the Schuylkill canal. purchased a farm in his native township. He was a republican and a Lutheran , an d had been an active church worker for many years before his death. His wife, whose maiden name was Margaret Rambo, was born in Montgomery county. Their chil- dren were : Jehu E., who resides on the home farm; Rev. John W., a graduate of Pennsylvania college, and engaged in the mi nisterial work of the Evangelical Lutheran church in Cumberland, Maryland ; Mary E„ who died young ; Dr. Samuel S. ; and Alice and Susan Eliza, who are both dead. Li politics Dr. Finkbiner is a republican. He is a member of Zions Lutheran church and Pottstown Council, No. 351, Royal Ar- canum. He has gained success in the field of his profession by his knowledge, skill and efficiency. J^AMES M. PENNYPACKER, of Parker Ford, is a book-keeper and edu- cator of considerable note, and a represen- tative of one of the oldest and most promi- nent families in the commonwealth. He is the eldest son of Daniel and Rebecca (Major) Pennypacker, aLd a native of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, being born near Lower Providence postoffice, that county, January 2, 1838. The Penny- packer family had its origen in l^Torth Bra- bant, Holland, and numerous members of it still exist fn that country. About the year 1650 some of them went up the Rhine to Flomborn, a village near Worms, where they became Germanized and changed the Holland name Pannebakker (tile-maker) to Pfannebecker. The "Weissthum" or manuscript record of Flomborn from 1542 to 1656, signed by Johannes Pfannebecker, one of the town officers, was lately in pos- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 455 session .of Samuel "W. Pennypacker, of Philadelphia. About 1699, Heinrich Pfannebecker, born in 1674, came to America and settled at Germantown, near Philadelphia, from whence he moved to Skippack, where he died in 1754. He was the first GTerman surveyor in Pennsylvania, and a large land owner. Several of his grandsons crossed the Schuylkill into Chester county, Jacob settling at Perkio- men junction, Matthias at Pickering, Harman, John and Benjamin near Chester Springs, and Henry at Vincent. From these have descended the now numerous Pennypacker family of this and adjoining counties, among whom a number have achieved distinction in law, politics, mili- tary life, theology, literature and other lines of human endeavor. Perhaps the most conspicuous instance of all is the career of Galusha Pennypacker, born June 1, 1842, and serving as colonel of the 16th United States infantry, and brevet major general. United States army. He is known as the hero of Fort Fisher, and was the youngest general officer during the civil war. The story of his rapid elevation may be found in any history of that war — an elevation due solely to gallantry and intelli- gence — from the post of a private to the rank of brigadier general at the age of twenty-two. His seven wounds in eight months, five promotions within a year, and his gallant charge at Green Plains, to- gether with his leadership, flag in hand, over the traverse at Fort Fisher into the very jaws of death, which all thought he had met, signalize what in some respects is the most remarkable career of that gigantic struggle. James Pennypacker, paternal grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Chester county, born near Phoenixville. He was a farmer by occupa- tion and owned a large farm known as the "Garden spot," where he died about 1828, at an advanced age. His wife was Eliza- beth Showalter, and to them was born a family of five sons and two daughters : Jacob, Joseph, James, Oliver Perry, Daniel, Margaret and Mary. Daniel Pennypacker (father) was born in Lower Providence township, Montgomery county, this State, in October of the initial year of this century, and died at Parker Ford, Chester county, in 1873, in his seventy-third year. He served as lock tender on the old Schuyl- kill canal for a period of twenty-six years, and was a mechanical genius of a wide local reputation, there being hardly anything he could not make with tools if he once " set his head" to do it. Politically he was a republican in later life, though an ardent whig when a young man. In early man- hood he married Rebecca Major, a daughter of Isaac Major, of York county, Penn- sylvania. She still survives, being now in the seventy-eighth year of her age. To their union was born seven sons and three daughters : James M., (subject) and Eliza- beth, twins, the latter marrying Henry Steinruck, a wheelright residing at Parker Ford; Abel F., who served nine months as a private during the civil war, married Rachael Hall and now resides in the city of Reading, where he is a prosperous shoe- maker; Isaac, deceased; "Wilhelmina, D., married Thomas H. Morgan, who resides in Reading, where he is engaged in the manufacture of paints; D. Price Davis, dead; John, who resides at Royer's Ford, extensively engaged in contracting and building in that locality; Joseph, a jeweler and florist of Phoenixville, this county; and 456 BIOQRAPBY AND HISTORY Milton M. and Mary M., twins, both of whom died early in life, the latter at the age of eighteen. James M. Pennypacker was reared prin- cipally in East Vincent township, Chester county, and received his early education in the common schools of the neighborhood, finishing up by a course at the Trappe academy in Montgomery county, where he distinguished himself as a rapid penman and correct arithmetician. After leaving school he engaged in teaching, and was thus employed in Montgomery and Chester coun- ties for a period of nearly eight years, dur- ing which time he won considerable repu- tation as an earnest and successful teacher. He then became a book-keeper and for eighteen years has been engaged in that oc- cupation, residing mostly in Chester county. Since 1888 he has' lived at Parker Ford, and is in the employ of his brother John, at Royer's Ford, Pennsylvania. Originally a republican in politics, he has always been a strong temperance advocate, and of late is inclined to adhere to the Prohibition party. In religious faith he is a Baptist, and a prominent m.ember and deacon in the Parker Ford Baptist church, and was superinten- dent of the Sunday school seventeen years ; also superintendent of the Union Sunday school at Linfield, Montgomery county, four years, its sessions being in the afternoon. On December 25, 1865, Mr. Pennypacker was united in marriage to Catharine J. Swartz, a daughter of Henry and Catharine Swartz, of East Vincent township, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Pennypacker has been born a family of six children, only two of whom now survive : Sallie and Henry 8., both living at home with their parents. The deceased were : Bertha M., who died at the age of seventeen years; Annie W., at the age of six; Daniel, in infancy; and Towers, also young. Early in the civil war Mr. Pennypacker enlisted in the emergency service, being a member of Co. B,29th regiment, and shortly after the battle of Gettysburg enlisted in battery B, 1st regiment Pennsylvania re- serves, light artillery, with which he served in the army of the Potomac until the close of the war, his battery being attached to the first army corps during the earlier part of his service, but later constituting part of the fifth corps. The battery bore a con- spicuous part in the battles of Mine run. Wilderness, Spottsylvania Courthouse, Wel- don Railroad, Petersburg, and also partici- pated in a number of other engagements. Mr. Pennypacker enlisted as a private, but was promoted to second lieutenant of his battery, and was mustered out with that rank June 9, 1865, at Harrisburg, Penn- sylvania. vJAMES li. FUTHEY, for many years a prominent and prosperous farmer of Highland township, but now living in re- tirement at Atglen, is a son of Robert and Margaret (Parkinson) Futhey, and was born in West Fallowfield township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 29, 1822. He was reared on the farm on which he was born ; attended the common schools of his neighborhood, and completed his education at the Unionville and New London acad- emies. On leaving school he returned to his father's place in Highland township and engaged in farming, to which occupation he devoted nearly all the active years of his life. The property passed into his posses- sion in 1872, and he successfully continued his connection with agricultural pursuits until 1884, at which time he sold the farm OF CHEHIER COUNTY. 457 and removed to Atglen, where lie has led a retired life erer since, in a place where every reasonable want canbe gratified, and among a people with whom he finds it pleasant to dwell. In April, 1878, Mr. Futhey was united in marriage to Lavinia Sutton, a daughter of Joel Sutton, of Coleraine township, Lancas- ter county, this State. Mr. Futhey is of Presbyterian ancestry, and is an attendant and supporter of that church, and in poli- tics has always been a republican. In his earlier years he was an occasional contribu- tor to various journals, both in poetry and prose, and always acceptably. While living in Highland township he was frequently called to serve his fellow-citizens in official positions, and at one time or another has held nearly all the local offices of the town- ship. He is widely known and highly es- teemed for the integrity and steadfastness of his character, having been a good, honest, substantial farmer all hie life, and an intel- ligent, successful and useful citizen. . The family to which Mr. Futhey belongs is of Scotch-Irish origin, and among its members have been some of the most dis- tinguished citizens of this part of the Key- stone State. Not least among these was Mr. Futhey's grandfather. Major Samuel Futhey, and his brother. Judge J. Smith Futhey, author and jurist, and his cousin, Robert Agnew Futhey, a sketch of whom appears on page 313 of this work, to which reference is made for the ancestral history of this old and prominent family. J^OHN MARSHALL PRATT, an in- telligent, successful and highly respected farmer residing near Goshen ville, and a worthy representative of a worthy family. whose history runs back to colonial days, is the fifth child and eldest son of Phineas and Ann (Marshall) Pratt, and was born on the old Pratt homestead, in East Goshen township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 22, 1827. Here he grew to man- hood, receiving his education in the country schools of the neighborhood, and here he has ever since resided, a fine example of that love for the place of one's birth which is the distinguishing characteristic of so many old world papulations, but which seems to be the exception rather than the rule in America. On leaving school he en- gaged in farming, and has given his entire life to the cultivation and improvement of the ancestral acres. In the management of the farm he has been quite successful, and he now finds himself in independent cir- cumstances, and prepared to pass the even- ing of his days free from care and that constant activity which was his pride dur- ing the more active years of his life. Politi- cally he is a republican, with whig antece- dents, and while taking no active part in politics, is always deeply interested in every movement of public importance, and gives his party a generous support on all leading questions. He is a member of Goshen Castle, iSTo. 78, Knights of the Golden Ea- gle, of which he is past chief, and of Goshen Grange, No. 121, Patrons of Husbandry, for which he acted as treasurer for eighteen years, and which position his son, Harry H., has held since his resignation. On March 19, 1861, Mr. Pratt was mar- ried to Lucinda Baldwin, a daughter of Abner and Phoebe (Dickinson) Baldwin, of this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Pratt was born a family of eleven children, nine of whom lived to reach maturity : Ella, mar- ried Sharpless T. Saylor, of East Goshen, 4S8 BIOORAPMY AND HISTOItY and after his deatli wedded John F. Clarke, a prosperous farmer of East Bradford town- ship ; Maurice B., a clerk in the ITational bank of Chester county, at West Chester; Harry H., living at home ; Charles, a clerk in Yar- nall's paint and glass store in the city of Philadelphia ; Forence ; J. Herbert, resides with his three aunts in West Chester, at present attending Haverford College grammar school ; A. Fredd., Bertha L., and Arthur H., the three last named living at home with their parents. Abraham Pratt, first of the name in the province of Pennsylvania, lived in Dublin township, where he died in 1709, leaving three sons : Joseph, John, and Jeremiah, and a daughter named Elizabeth. Joseph Pratt, great-great-grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch, married Sarah, daugh- ter of William and Jane Edwards, on May 9, 1717, and settled on a farm in Edgemont. On I^ovember 25, 1728, he was again mar- ried, wedding Mary Jones, in Christ church, in the city of Philadelphia. His children, all ,by his first wife, were Thomas, Alice, Ann, Sarah, Rose, and Joseph. The young- est son, Joseph Pratt (great-grandfather), was born in 1727, married Jane Davis in 1752, and settled on his father's farm. To him was born a family of nine children : Abra- ham, Sarah, Jane, Joseph, David, Mary, Priscilla, Thomas and Sarah. Thomas Pratt (grandfather) was born in Delaware county, January 13, 1764, and passed his entire life in that county. He was a farmer and tanner by occupation, owning a large tan-yard at Blue Hill, and in politics an ar- dent whig. In religion he was reared a Quaker and remained a life long member of that Society. In 1786 he married Han- nah Massey, a daughter of Phineas Masse}-, who then owned the property on which the subject of this sketch now lives, but later willed it to his daughter, the wife of Thomas Pratt. They had a family of seven chil- dren: Ann, Susan, Mary, Phineas, Jane, Massey, and Priscilla. After her death, in 1813, he married Hannah Haycock, by whom he had one son, Thomas, and passed away in 1820, aged fifty-six years. Phineas Pratt (father) was born in Delaware county, this State, in 1795, where he was principally reared and received a good ordinary English education in the public schools. About 1820 he removed to East Goshen township, Chester county, and taking charge of the farm now owned by his son, John M. Pratt, he erected a number of new buildings, and improved the place in many ways. Here he resideded until 1861, when he removed to West Chester and continued to live there until his death, on March 1, 1879, when in the eighty-fourth year of his age. His principal occupation in life was that of a farmer and tanner, and he was a whig and republican in politics, while steadfastly ad- hei-ing to the religious faith of his child- hood and remaining a life long member of the Society of Friends. In 1818 he mar- ried Ann Marshall, a daughter of John and Sarah H. Marshall, then of East Goshen township, this county. By this marriage he had a family of nine children, two sons and seven daughters : Sarah, who married Edwin James and is now deceased; Hannah M. ; Martha (deceased); Elizabeth, (also dead); John M., whose name heads this sketch; Susannah (deceased); Phineas; Priscilla B., and Jennie A. John Marshall (maternal grandfather) was born and reared in Delaware county, but moved to Chester county during the initial year of the present century and settled in East Goshen township, where he OF CHESTER COUNTY. 459 died in ,1854, at the remarkable age of ninety-three years. He owned and occu- pied the farm of one hundred and eighty acres where Holiday J. Price now lives. In early life he learned the trade of wheel- wright, and worked at that occupation in connection with managing his farm. He married Sarah Hibberd, by whom he had two daughters: Ann (mother), born No- vember 6, 1800, died October 19, 1885, and Sarah; and after death wedded Martha Potts, but had no children by this second marriage. HENRY li. BRINTON, of the firm of H. L. Brinton & Sons, publishers of the Oxford Press, is a veteran in journalism. As a business man he has been successful, and is widely known as a ready writer who weilds a trenchant pen. He is the eldest son of Joseph and Susan (Hackett) Brinton, and was born on the historic battle ground of Brandywine, Birmingham township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 6, 1836. The English family of Brinton, from those in America derive descent, took their name from the parish of Brinton in Berk- shire. The first of whom there is any definite account was Robert de Brinton, who received a manor in Shropshire from King Henry II. about 1160. His lineal descendants removed to Staftbrdshire about 1450, and from that county came William Brinton in 1684 and settled in the township since called Birmingham, Chester county, Pennsylvania. As his home in England was near that town, it is supposed that he gave the name to the township. He had a son, "William Brinton, who was a Quaker, and had suffered persecution on that ac- count in England. William married Jane Thatcher, and had two sons, Joseph and Edward, who were prominent and active citizens, and from them has descended the numerous Brinton family of this country, among whom have been many men of marked individuality and great force of character. William Brinton, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a prominent Friend or Quaker of Birmingham township, and kept the church records for many years. He was a farmer by occupation, and his residence, which is still standing, was built directly on the ground made famous by being the scene of the unfortunate battle, September 11, 1777, between General Wash- ington and General Howe, when the American forces were compelled to retreat after a loss of twelve hundred in killed, wounded and prisoners. William Brinton was a federalist in politics, and died at his home in Birmingham township iu 1812, at the remarkable age of ninety-two years. His wife was Deborah Darlington, who was born on the Brandywine battle ground, and they reared a family of eight children, three sons and five daughters. One of these sons was Joseph Brinton (father), who was born on the old homestead in 1786, where he lived all his life, and where he died in 1865, in his eighty-first year. His entire life was devoted to agricultural pursuits, and he be- came prosperous and well-to-do, owning considerable land in his later years. In the war of 1812 he served as a soldier, and afterward held a number of local offices in his township. He was a man of great ac- tivity and fine mental powers, and unusually well informed for a man with only the lim- ited education attainable in that day. He was twice married, first to Jane Cross) ey, by whom he had a' family of two sons and four daughters ; and after her death he 460 BIOQBAPHY AND HISTORY wedded Susan Hackett. By this second marriage he had a family of ten children, eight of whom lived to reach maturity. Henry L. Brinton was reared principally on his father's farm in Birmingham town- ship, and received a good English education in the common schools of that locality. After leaving school, at the age of seventeen he became an apprentice in the office of the Village Record, at West Chester, and learned the trade of printer. He then engaged in teaching for a time, after which he became a canvasser for the American Republican. In the summer of 1859 he became assistant editor on the latter journal and occupied that position for eighteen months. He came to Oxford in the spring of 1861 and started a job printing establishment, which he operated successfully for a period of five years. In February, 1866, he began the publication of a weekly paper called the Oxford Press, which he conducted alone un- til 1869, when he admitted D. Hayes into partnership, under the firm name of Brinton & Hayes, and they continued the printing and publishing business until 1870, when Mr. Brinton disposed of his interest to Mr. Hayes, who then conducted the enterprise under the firm name of George D. Hayes & Co. Some time in 1871 Mr. Brinton be- came editor of the Press, in the employ of Hayes & Co., and in 1876 repurchased a half interest in the business, which was afterward conducted in the name of Hayes & Brinton until 1892. In the latter year Mr. Brinton purchased his partner's inter- est, and admitting his two sons, Douglas E. and William G., into partnership, formed the firm of H. L. Brinton & Sons, who have since been the editors and publishers of the Press. The business has proved a grand suc- cess, the Press now having a circulation of thirty-five hundred copies weekly. The Press is strictly independent in politics and depends for popularity on its merits as a newspaper, devoting much attention to local affairs. It is ably edited and its business affairs are well managed. In January, 1859, Mr. Brinton was mar- raied to Sarah F. Fisher, a daughter of James and Sarah Fisher, and to them was born a family of three children, two sons and one daughter. Politically Mr. Brinton is a republican, but never allows his polities to interfere with the independent attitude of his paper. He was elected school director soon after coming to Oxford, and is now president of the board. He has also served one term as member of the town council. In the fall of 1892 he was elected president of the Oxford Board of Trade. On July 6, 1863, he en- listed in Co. A, 43d Pennsylvania infantry, as a private. He served only six weeks, being discharged at Harrisburg in August, 1863. His four brothers— T. Elwood, Alfred, David R. P. and Levis — all served as soldiers in the civil war, the first being lieutenant in Co. C, independent battery ; Alfred, serving first in Co. M, 181st Penn- sylvania infantry, and afterward re-enlisting in Co. G, 20th cavalry, and participating in the campaign through the valley of Vir- ginia; while David R. P. and Levis Brin- ton wei'e members of Co. A, Ist Pennsyl- vania reserves. David was severely wounded while on picket duty in "Virginia. . J^AKRY E. WILLIAMS, M. D., a suc- ^ cessful physician of Coatesville, who favorably impresses all who come in contact with him by his energy, honesty and straightforwardness, is a son of Henry and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 461 Jane (Beach) Williams, and was born in New York city, April 30, 1840. The Wil- liams family is of English descent, and George Williams, the paternal grandfather of Dr. Williams, came from England in early life and settled in l^Tew York city, where he followed the hatting and furriery business for many years, and was well known in every part of the infant city and future metropolis of the new world. He served in the revolutionary war, was a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and died December 5, 1790, at the wonder- fully advanced age of ninety-eight years. He was very successful in business, and his wife, who was a native of England, survived him but two years, and then passed away when in the ninety-eighth year of her age. Their son, Henry Williams (father), was born December 9, 1785, in l^ew York city, where he was engaged in the dry goods bus- iness until his death, November 10, 1842, at fifty-seven years of age. He was a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal church, and married Jane Beach, who was a Methodist, and died April 5, 1850, aged fifty-seven years. They had three children, two sons and one daughter. Harry E. Williams passed his boyhood days in New York city, and at twelve years of age went to near New Haven, Connecticut, where he worked for three years on a farm. He then went to North Providence, Rhode Island, where he resided with his uncle un- til 1857, when he came to Philadelphia. He received his education in the common schools and a night school in Philadelphia, which he attended while working in that city. When President Lincoln's call for troops was made in those dark opening April days of 1861, Harry E. Williams was one among the first to respond to that ap- peal for the preservation of the country. He enlisted on April 4, 1861, in Co. E, 18th Pennsylvania volunteers, and served three months. On September 10, 1862, he re- enlisted and entered the 136th Pennsylva- nia infantry as hospital steward, in which capacity he served until January 26, 1863, when he was discharged on account of dis- ability. After recruiting his health to some extent he enlisted the third time on May 10, 1863, and became hospital steward of the 6th Pennsylvania cavalry. He was as- signed to duty at Washington city, where he served until the close of the war. He was honorably discharged from the United States service on June 19, 1865, and re- turned to Philadelphia. He then read med- icine and entered Hahnemann Medical col- lege, from which he was graduated March 1, 1866. After graduation he assisted his uncle. Dr. J. E. Kent, in his practice in Philadelphia for one year, and at the end of that time, in August, 1867, he came to Coatesville, where he has remained ever since in the active practice of his chosen profession. On September 10, 1868, Dr. Williams was united in marriage with Maria, daughter of William Fiss, of Philadelphia. To their union have been born three children, one son and two daughters : Harry E., jr., Marion E., and Mirabel A. Dr. Williams is a republican in politics, and has been a member of the Protestant Episcopal church for several years. He has served several terms as a member of the school board, of which he has been secre- tary for seven years. He is a member of Onondago Tribe, No. 83, Improved Order of Red Men; and Brandywine Post, No. 54, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he is a past commander, and which he 462 BIOGRAPHY AND^ HISTOMY served as surgeon for eight years. He is prominent in Q-raud Army circles, and was medical director of the departinent of Penn- sylvania for the year 1891. Dr. Williams is a self-made man, and has a fine practice. He is an intelligent and skillful physician, a pleasant and courteous gentleman, and is deservedly popular in the community where he resides. Zjrl M. CARROLL, TAYLOR, proprie- tor of the Main street drug store at Spring City, and an enterprising and use- ful citizen, is a sou of Samuel D. and Mary A. (Wells) Taylor, and was born March 20, 1857, in Spring City, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grandfather was a native of this county, and lived at Phcenixville most of his life. His avoca- tion was that of blacksmith. He married Sarah Ann Stiteler by whom he had a family of seven children : Samuel D. (father), David S., Thomas G., William C, Hannah, and two who died in infancy. SamuelD. Taylor was born in Uwchlan town- ship, this county, and removed to Spring City about 1840, where he continued to re- side until his death in 1891, at the advanced age of sixty-five years. He was a pattern finisher by trade, but when a young man engaged for a short time in merchandising at Spring City. In political faith he was an old line whig and later embraced the doctrines of the Republican party, while in religious convictions and church member- ship he was a Dunkard or German Baptist. In 1854 he united in marriage with Mary Ann Wells, a daughter of Jesse Wells, a well-to-do farmer of East Coventry town- ship. By this union he had a family of seven children, six sons and a daughter : J. Meyers, now occupying a position in the government printing office at Washington city ; William Carroll, the subject of this sketch ; H. Wells, now residing with his mother in Spring City, though employed as nickel plater in the Grander Stove com- pany at Eoyer's Eord, Montgomery county ; Linwood S., yet a boy living with his mother ; David, died in youth ; Emma J., also deceased ; and Willis, who died at the age of one year. Mrs. Mary A. Taylor is now in the sixtieth year of her age. William Carroll Taylor was reared at Spring City, and received a superior English education in the public schools here. On May 9, 1872, he entered a drug store in his native town, and began learning the drug business. He was apt and capable, and rapidly acquired a good knowledge of drugs and became accurate and skillful in compounding prescriptions. December 21, 1883, he embarked in the drug business on his own account, in the room ever since occupied by him on Main street. By care- ful attention to business, reinforced by the energy and enterprise necessary to success in any undertaking, he has built up a lucrative trade. On March 8, 1885, Mr. Taylor was united in marriage to Lottie B. Miller, a daughter of Charles G. Miller, of Montgomery county, this State. Their union has been blessed by the birth of one child, a son named Charles, who was born May 21, 1886. Mr. Taylor is a republican in his political affiliations, and while taking no very active part in practical politics, is always well posted on the general situation and gives his party a uniform support on all national and State issues. He is a member of the German Reformed church of Spring City, in which he has served for some time as elder. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 463 l^ATHAN W. YARNAIili, a well * known farmer residing near White Horse, on the old farm which has been the Yarnall homestead during the life of four generations, is the eldest son of Eli and Mary (Wood) Yarnall, and was born Sep- tember 25, 1830, on the farm where he now resides, in Willistown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Yarnalls are an old and numerous family in Pennsyl- vania, and were settled in Chester county prior to 1684. Nathan Yarnall (paternal great-grandfather) was born on the farm now owned by the subject of this sketch, and spent his life here engaged in the occu- pation of a farmer. He was a whig in politics, married and reared a family of eight children, three sons and five daugh- ters: Mordecai, Nathan, Lewis, Mary, Edith, Nancy, Hannah, and one that died in infancy. Nathan Yarnall (grandfather) was also born on the same farm, September 11, 1777, and died in 1822. He passed his life on property which was then a part of the farm now owned by Nathan W. Yarnall. By occupation he was a farmer and cattle dealer, and for a number of years was en- gaged in buying Lancaster county cattle for the Chester county markets. He was twice married, first wedding Sarah Scott, by whom he had two sons and a daughter : Anna, Eli (father), and Thomas. After his first wife's death he married Hannah Robinson, and by this union had three children : William, Sarah, and Nathan H. Eli Yarnall (father) was born March 4, 1804, in the house now occupied by his sou, Nathan W. Here he was reared and edu- cated, and after leaving school settled down to farming and passed his life in the culti- vation of the soil. His death occurred March 6, 1878, when he was in the seventy- fifth year of his age. He was a whig and republican in politics, and in 1826 married Mary Wood. To them was born a family of four children, three sons and a daughter : Martha E., who died in infancy; Nathan W., whose name heads this sketch; Alfred, and Eli. Nathan W. Yarnall grew to manhood on his father's farm, and received a good prac- tical education in the public schools of his neighborhood. His tastes led him to follow the example of his ancestors and become a cultivator of the soil, and to that occupa- tion he has devoted the greater part of his somewhat active and busy life, on the old home farm which passed into his possession in 1879. Li politics Mr. Yarnall is a stanch republican, taking an intelligent interest in all public questions, and earnestly supporting his party on all lead- ing issues, but not engaging prominently in political contests. On January 23, 1866, he was united in marriage to Lydia Ann Sill, a daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Baker) Sill, of Willis- town township. To Mr. and Mrs. Yarnall have been born two children, both daugh- ters : Sarah B. and Alice S. I^AVID EliDRIDGE, who has been a prosperous farmer and manufacturer of near Goshenville, but is now practically retired, is a worthy representative of one of the oldest and most respected families of Chester county. He is the second and only surviving son of Joseph and Abigail (Gar- rett) Eldridge, and a native of East Goshen township, this county, where he was born April 28, 1823. The family is descended from old English Quaker stock, and has been resident in this country since the time 464 BIOORAPHY AND HISIOBY of William Penn. The first of the name settled in New Jersey, from whence some of their descendants removed to Philadel- phia and Chester county. Thomas Eldridge and his wife Mary came from Philadelphia and settled in Cain township prior to 1717, where he died in March, 1739, leaving three children : James, Joseph and Mary. James married and moved to Washington, Dela- ware. His daughter, Martha, married John Whelen, and was the mother of the founder of the Village Record. Mary married John Starr, of Charlestown. Jonathan Eldridge settled in Goshen township at an early day, and was accidentally killed at what is known as McCall's mill in G«shen. He was twice married, first to Mary Garrett, by whom he had two children, Hannah and Joseph, and then to Sarah Davis, by whom he had a daughter, Lydia. Joseph Eldridge, son of Jonathan, and paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Gloucester county, JSTew Jersey, in 1770, and married Lydia GriflSth, a daughter of Nathan and Rachel Griffith, of Willistown, this county, and settled in the eastern part of East Goshen township, where he died in 1848, aged seventy-eight years. He was a weaver and farmer by occu- pation, and purchased a tract of one hun- dred and forty acres of land from his uncle, James Garrett, who had taken it up from the original Penn grant. He built a fulling mill on his farm, near the Willistown town- ship line, in 1813 ; was a Quaker in relig- ion, and by his marriage with Lydia Grif- fith had a family of ten children : Jonathan, born July 6, 1789, and died June 15, 1791 ; Nathan, born November 12, 1790, and died May 19, 1791 ; Joseph, father of David Eldridge; James, born November 19,1793, died September 27, 1794; Enos, born Sep- tember 13, 1795, and died December 29, 1868 ; John, born November 29, 1796, now deceased ; Lydia, born October 18, 1798, married Isaac G. Hoopes ; Reuben, born August 13, 1801, and recently deceased; Mary, born June 25, 1803, died August 3, 1807; and Abuer, born June 26,1806, mar- ried Amy (Hoopes) Davidson, and removed to Iowa. Josepb Eldridge (father) was born on the old homestead in East Goshen town- ship, March 16, 1792, and died here in 1882, in the ninetieth year of his age. At the age of twenty-two, June 6, 1814, he mar- sied Abigail Garrett, (who died at ninety- four years of age,) and settled on the old home place, where he operated the fulling mill for a number of years, enlarging it and adding other buildings. He was the father of five sons and two daughters: Mary, Lydia, (married Caleb S. Cope), Pennell, (deceased in infancy), David, (principal sub- ject of this sketch), William Penn, Jona- than and Pennell (2). The sons are all de- ceased except David. David Eldridge was reared on the old homestead here, and received his education in the country schools. After attaining his majority lie engaged in farming, and when his father died took charge of his estate and operated the fulling mill, which he con- verted into a cider and grist mill. Politi- cally Mr. Eldridge is a republican, and takes a genuine interest in public afl'airs, though never actively engaging in politics. He has all his life adhered to the religious faith in which he was reared, and is a member of the Society of Friends. In 1852, Mr. Eldridge was united in mar- riage to Susan Hall, a daughter of Maris Hall, of Willistown township, this county, and to them was born two children : Maris, deceased, and Jonathan, who married Anna ■a OF CHESTER COUNTY. 467 Thomas, aud is now engaged in farming in Birmingham township. Mrs.Eldridge died in 1859, and in 1866 Mr. Eldridge wedded Agnes Hanshaw, a daughter of Amos Haii- shaw. To this second union was born two children, both of whom died in infancy. Mr. Eldridge is a genial old gentleman, highly esteemed by all who know him, and takes considerable satisfaction in the long and respectable if not exceedingly brilliant record made by his family in this part of Pennsylvania. 'pHE URNER FAMILY came original- ly from the canton of Uri in Switzer- land, as the name implies ; the inhabitants of this canton being called TJrners, as the inhabitants of the canton of Schwyz are called Switzers. The Greek form of the name was Ouroi, which was Latinized by the Romans into Uri. Ulrich Urner, the lineal ancestor of all the TJrners in America, with his three sons, Hans, Jacob and Martin, came to America about the year 1708. The Colonial Records show them to have been here in 1712. The Urners came from the province of Alsace, having been driven out of Switzerland by the persecutions of 1672. Hans Urner died in 1743, unmarried. He was the first person buried in the Cov- entry Brethren graveyard, on the old Urner homstead, one mile south of Pottstown and half a mile south of Mount Zion cemetery. His name appears on one of the three Urner monuments in the graveyard. Jacob Urner settled on a farm one and a half miles northeast of Pottstown. He died young, in 1744. His wife, Ann, survived him, dying in 1758. They had three chil- dren : Elizabeth, who married Jacob Frick, and died in 1757 ; Martin, b. 9, 4, 1726, d. 28 5, 18, 1799, m. Barbara Switzer; and Hes- ter, b. 9, 20, 1740, d. 3, 24, 1818, m. Ulrich Switzer. See monuments in Coventry Breth- ren graveyard. Martin Urner, the third son, was born, in Alsace, a province of France, in 1695. He lirst settled at Boxborough, near Philadel- phia, then at Ephrata, Lancaster county, and in 1718 bought a tract of four hundred and fifty acres of the Penns on the Schuyl- kill, in Chester county, Pa., immediately opposite the present town of Pottstown. This became his permanent home and the home of one line of the Urners for six gen- erations. In 1719 the Brethren, sometimes called Dunkers, came to America and settled prin- cipally at Germantown. In the fall of 1722 they had a revival along the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia. On the 25th of December, 1723, Martin Urner and his wife, Barbara, and four oth- ers, were baptized in the Wissabickon, the first baptized by the Brethren in America. On November 7th, 1724, the Coventry Brethren church, the second oldest Brethren church, was organized, with this Martin Urner as preacher. This church, located on a part of his farm, under his ministry became strong and vigorous, and has con- tinued so down to the present time. Though the Germantown chijrch was organized eleven months earlier, owing to its location in a town, it never had much influence, while the Coventry church, composed mainly of farmers, had great influence, as its members colonized extensively. So it became the real mother church to a denomination now num- bering one hundred thousand adult mem- bers. A full account of this Martin Urner is given in the volume called "Materials toward a History of the American Baptists," 468 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY published in 1770 by "Morgan Edwards, then^Fellow of Rhode Island College and overseer of the Baptist church in Philadel- phia," and also by Abraham H. Cassel of Harleysville,Pa., the Historian of the Breth- ren Church; see article in Brethren's Al- manac of 1873 and his many other writings. This Martin Uruer died March 28, 1755 ; see monument in Coventry Brethren grave- yard. His wife, Catharine Reist, survived him, dying in 1758. Three children grew up, married, and left children ; Martin, died in 1747, m. Elizabeth Edis; Jacob, died, 2, 21, 1753, m. Barbara Light; and Maria, died, 9, 27, 1747, m. Andrew Wolff. This Martin Urner, founder of the Coventry church, is known as the First Bishop of the church. Martin Urner, son of Jacob Urner, on the death of his uncle, the First Bishop Martin Urner, bought his farm and lived on it the balance of his life. He also became the successor of his uncle as preacher of the Coventry church, and was the Second Bishop from 1755 to the time of his death, 1799. The church prospered greatly under his ministry and supervision, and "was often visited by able preachers of other localities and even of other denominations, such as Morgan Edwards, Elhanan Winchester, and George De Benneville." He also prospered in his worldly affairs, being accounted rich in his day. He left four children : Mary, b. 5, 2, 1755, d. 5, 30, 1813, m. David Rine- hart of Maryland; Martin, b. 7, 28, 1762, d. 2, 4, 1838, m. Barbara Baugh; Elizabeth, m. Abraham Titlow of Lancaster county ; Rev. Jonas, b. 12, 25, 1772, d. 5, 13, 1813, m. Hannah Reinhart. Biographies of this Martin Urner, the Second Bishop, are also given by Morgan Edwards and Abraham H. Cassel. Fifth generation in part: Children of Martin Urner, son of Second Bishop Mar- tin Urner : John, b. 9, 3, 1784, d. 4, 7, 1827, m. Susan Grubb, and, secondly, Elizabeth Grubb ; Daniel, b. 7, 7, 1791, d. 5, 16, 1842, m. Hannah Reinhart ; Israel, b. 5, 8, 1793, d. 12, 31, 1860, m. Sarah Price; Jacob, b. 4, 19, 1799, d. 2, 11, 1869, m. Elizabeth Halderman. They were all farmers, in Coventry township, Chester county. Pa., and all left descendants. Children of Rev. Jonas Urner of Fred- erick county, Md. : Benjamin, b. 7, 13, 1795, d. 7, 3, 1857, m. Elizabeth Keyser. - He was a merchant in Cincinnati, 0. ; Samuel, b. 12, 25, 1786, d. 8, 4, 1872 ; m. Elizabeth Snader and Susan l^orris ; he was a farmer in Frederick county, Md. ; David, b. 1, 22, 1801, d. 8, 6, 1874, m. Ann Jane McCracken ; a merchant in Springfield, 0. ; Lydia, b. 6, 19, 1803, d. 7, 20, 1874, m. Hon. William Price of Chester county. Pa. ; Sarah, b. 11, 16, 1806, d. 5, 8, 1886, m. Rev. George Price, of Phcenixville, Pa. ; Elizabeth, b. 4, 18, 1809, d. 12, 25, 1876, m. Jonathan P. Creager; Hannah, b. 5, 15, 1813, m. John Zimmerman and David Cunningham. Sixth generation in part : Isaac Newton Urner, L.L. D., son of John Urner, was born June 6th, 1821, on a part of the old Urner homestead. He graduated at Dick- inson college in the class of 1845, and in 1852 was married to Eliza Stover Grubb. He lived twenty-one years in the South, and was admitted to the bar in Charleston, S. C, in 1851. He was President of Mississippi college, the Baptist college of that State, for sixteen years, from 1851 to 1867. After resigning his connection with that institu- tion, the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him as a recognition of his services. Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 469 IJrner: Louis Grubb, b. Oct. 10, 1854, d. Nov. 9, 1887 ; Walter Hillman, b. Oct. 9, 1857, d. March 6, 1858; John Randolph, born Aug. 21, 1861, d. Oct. 30, 1890. After returning to Pennsylvania the family owned and lived upon the IJrner homestead farm for some years; the farm being known by the name of Belwood. LydiaUrner, sister of IsaacNewtonUrner, married Gilbert Brower. For an account of her and her family, see the articles un- der the name of Dr. William Brower and Rev. Isaac Urner Brower, her sons. Henry Clay Urner, a son of Benjamin Urner, of Cincinnati, 0., has acquired prominence in his native city, Cincinnati, and is much re- spected. He has filled various places of trust ; has been United States Marshal, and is now president of the Chamber of Com- merce. Benjamin, a brother of Henry Clay Urner, is President of " The Urner Publish- ing Company " of i^ew York city. A third brother, l^athan Dane, is an " Author, Jour- nalist and Poet" in l^ew York city. He is an able writer in both prose and verse. The Hon. Milton George Urner, son of Samuel Urner of Maryland, is a lawyer of Frederick city. He was a member of the Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh congresses, and is now, 1892, the Surveyor of the port of Baltimore. The descendants of the First Bishop, Martin Urner, moved at an early date to Maryland. The descendants of his daugh- ter, Maria Urner Wolff", live in Carroll, Frederick and Washington counties, Mary- land, and are very numerous. His descend- ants, bearing the name Urner, moved from Maryland to Rockingham county, Vir- ginia. Rev. Martin Urner of the Sixth genera- tion, a Baptist preacher, b. 1, 15, 1813, d. 3, 6, 1888, left four sons: John Osborn, b. Feb. 3, 1840, a merchant in St. Louis, Mo. ; Louis Harvey, b. May 13, 1842, a merchant in Nevada, Mo. ; Charles Keyser, b. Sept. 1, 1854, Principal and Proprietor of the ColumbiaCoUege of Commerce, Washington, D. C. ; and Clarence Henry, b. April 13, 1856, now in the Treasurer's office of the State of Virginia. Of the Seventh Generation — John Ro- dolph Urner, whose portrait accompanies this article, was born in Clinton, Mississippi, August 21, 1861, his father, Isaac Newton Urner, LL. D., being President of Mis- sissippi College at that time. He prepared for college at Williston Seminary, Massa- chusetts. His scholarship there was so good that Dr. Keep, Professor of Greek, reported him as facile princeps in his class. He graduated at Princeton College in 1884. He then entered Columbia College Law School, where he graduated in 1886. After being connected with a law firm for a few years in New York city, in the Spring of 1890, he and another young lawyer took a trip out West with a view of possibly lo- cating there. They got as far as Spokane Falls, Wash- ington, where they both found themselves dangerously sick from accidental exposure on the journey. His friend's sickness de- veloped into typhoid fever. Mr. Urner, badly broken down in health, was urged by the physicians to leave that sickly locality immediately and try to save himself, leav- ing to their care his sick and dying friend. But he thought that duty required him to stay and take the chances. After the death of his friend he took the remains back to relatives in New York and then went to his own home in Pennsylvania, where he lin- gered three months, and then died on Oc- 470 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIORY tober 30, 1890, aged 29 years, 2 months and 9 days, A Martyr to Duty. [The above sketch was carefully prepared and kindly furnished by one who is well acquainted with the Urner family, and by request is printed exactly as written. — Ed.] vJOSEPH MENKINS, one of the sub- stantial farmers and leading citizens of East Whiteland township, is a son of Henry and Sarah (McMinn) Menkins, and was born in East Whiteland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on the paternal acres, and after receiving a good common school education remained on the farm with his father until he was nat- urally drawn into farming, which has been essentially his life-work ever since. He owns a fine and well-improved farm of one hundred and four acres of land in his native township, and is very comfortably situated to enjoy the right and needful pleasures of life. He is a democrat in politics. On January 21, 1880, Mr. Menkins was united in marriage with Mary Louisa Todd, a daughter of John Todd, who was also a native of East Whiteland township, where he was engaged for many years in agricul- tural pursuits. He spent the latter part of his life at West Chester, where he died March 28, 1891, aged eighty-one years. He married Martha Heston, and their chil- dren were : David, who died while attend- ing Yale college ; I. Heston, a member of the lime-burning firm of Todd, Blair & Co. ; Gilbert H., a merchant of St. Louis; Mar- garet, at home with her mother ; Mrs. Mary Louisa Menkins; and Charlotte E., now dead. The coming of the Menkins family to this country is connected with and was a conse- quence of one of the best known and most important events in the history of the world — the burning of Moscow by the Russians. When I^fapoleon Bonaparte en- tered Moscow at the head of his magnificent army, the main part of the Eussian popu- lation fled, and among them was a youth just merging into manhood, who was Henry Menkins, the father of the subject of this sketch. He was a nephew of the mayor of Moscow, who procured him a pass to leave Russia. He came to Philadelphia, where he found himself without a cent of money, but being energetic and industrious he soon found employment, and six months later had means sufl&cient to bring him to East White- land township, where he was engaged in the burning of lime until his marriage. He then commenced farming on "the shares," and in a few years by industry and strict economy had saved sufficient money to pur- chase a farm of eighty acres, one mile east of Erazer, on the Lancaster pike, where he died August 11, 1871, aged seventy-eight years. He was a successful farmer, and added two fine farms to the small farm which he first bought. He adhered to the principles of the Democratic party, as taught by Jeflerson and enforced by Jack- son, and never would accept or hold any oflice except what his township could give. He married Sarah McMinn, who was a daughter of Thomas and Mary McMinn, and who died February 25, 1840, at forty- eight years of age. Their union was blessed with four children, two sons and two daugh- ters : Mary, of West Chester ; Margaretta, a resident also at the county-seat; Joseph, whose name heads this sketch ; and Henry J., whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 471 □ RTHUR T. PARKE, a promising young lawyer of the West Chester bar, and a worthy representative of one of the oldest families of this county, is the elder of the two sons of Samuel R. and Annie E. (Martin) Parke, and was born October 12, 1859, at Parkesburg, Chester county, Penn- sylvania. There he grew to manhood, was prepared for college in Parkesburg academy, and entering Princeton college took a full classical course in that venerable institution, from which he was graduated in the class of 1879. He entered upon the study of law in the fall of 1882, taking a course of one year in the Columbia Law school at l^ew York city, and afterward studied with A. P. lieid, being admitted to the bar in 1884, and immediately opened a law office at West Chester, where he has remained in the continuous practice of his chosen profession ever since. Politically he is a stanch re- publican, and in religion a member of the Presbyterian church. The family of which the subject of this sketch is a member is of Scotch-Irish origin, and was founded in America by Arthur Parke (then spelled Park), who emigrated from the north of Ireland at a very early day, and settled near the present borough of Parkesburg, this county, prior to 1724. He was one of the founders of the Octoraro Presbyterian church, and served it as an elder for many years. A fuller account of his life and of the early geperations of the Parke family will be found in the sketch of Samuel R. Parke, on another page of chis work. One of the descendants in the third generation was Arthur Parke (paternal grandfather of Arthur T.), who was born in Highland township, not far from Parkes- burg, in 1785, and died there in 1858, aged seventy -three. He was a wealthy farmer, served in the war of 1812, was a Presbyte- rian in religion, and married MaryR. Reyn- olds, of Wilmington, Delaware, by whom he had a family of six children. One of his sons, Samuel R. Parke (father), was born at Parkesburg in 1833, and was reared and educated there. For many years he has been president of the Ifational bank of Parkesburg, and is also treasurer of the Parkesburg Iron Company. Politically he is a republican, and in religion a strict mem- ber of the Presbyterian church, in which he has served as trustee and deacon for a num- ber of years. He is widely known and universally esteemed as an upright business man, and an aflable Christian gentleman. In 1858 he married Annie E. Martin, a daughter of Thomas Martin, of Chester county. She died in 1862,leavingtwo sons : Dr. William E. Parke, who was graduated from Princeton college in 1883, and from the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania in 1886, and is now engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Philadelphia ; and Arthur T., the subject of this sketch. lyrORITZ GEORGE LIPPERT, C. E., ^ a graduate of the famous Royal Poly- technic school of Dresden, kingdom of Sax- ony, and chief of the department of drawing of the Phoenix Bridge Company's works, is a son of Dr. George L. B. and- Phillipine F. (Rcehr) Lippert, and was born in Leipsic, kingdom of Saxony, Germany, November 19, 1846. He received his education in the High school of Leipsic, and then entered the Royal Polytechnic school of Dresden, from which he was graduated at the end of his course in 1865 with the degree of C. E. Leaving Dresden he was engaged for four 473 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY years with the firm of F. L. & E. Jacobi, iron founders and steam engine builders, at Meissen, Saxony, the seat of the famous "Dresden" china works. At the end of that time, in 1869, he sailed for the United States, and after a short stay in l^ew York city, came to Phcenixville, where he accepted his present position as chief of the drawing department of the firm of Kellogg, Clarke & Co., the predecessors to Clarke, Reeves & Co., which latter firm was succeeded in 1884 by the Phoenix Bridge Company. In that capacity he has served in a very intelligent and most acceptable manner to all interested in the operation of this great plant. On April 19, 1876, Mr. Lippert married Augusta P., who was a daughter of Conrad and Christine Koerper, of Philadelphia, and died June 20, 1878, after a short but happy union. After her death he wedded her sis- ter, Ottilie, on January 14th, 1880. They have only one child, a daughter, named Christine Ottilie. Mr. and Mrs. Lippert were among the victims of the terrible rail- road accident at Flat Rock, near Philadel- phia, on October 24, 1892, by which nine passengers were killed and forty injured in the collision of the fast express with a coal train. Mrs. Lippert had two limbs andMr. Lippert his left leg fractured, besides re- ceiving internal injuries'. They are now at St. Timothy's hospital, Philadelphia, and are slovply recovering. In politics Mr. Lippert has been a repub- lican ever since coming to this country. He is a member of the Unitarian church, ranks high as a draughtsman and engineer, and is recognized as a social and genial gentleman. "With the scientific education of the old, and over twenty years of the varied and prac- tical experience of the new world, he is well qualified for the line of special work in which he is successfully engaged at Phcenixville. The Lippert and Roehr families have long been residents on the territory of the pres- ent great German empire, whose unification was accomplished through the instrumen- tality of William I. and the "Iron Chan- cellor," Bismarck. Mr. Lippert's father. Dr. George L. B. Lippert, was born in 1801. He was one of the leading physicians and an influential man in the municipal aflPairs of Leipsic, his native city, which he served for twenty-five years as a member of its select councils. On declining a re-election for select councilman for the fifth time, the city of Leipsic conferred on him the hon- orary office of "elder" of the city, a rare distinction bestowed only in recognition of long and distinguished public services. On October 19, 1833, he married Phillipine F. Roehr, and of their thirteen children, nine are still living. Dr. Lippert died May 24, 1873, at seventy-two years of age, and his widow survived him until April 2, 1880, when she passed away, aged sixty-nine years. Mrs. Lippert was a daughter of Rev. Johann F. Roehr, a native of the Grand Duchy of Weimar, who was a prominent man in the religious aft'airs of Germany in his day. As a minister of the Lutheran church he was the successor of the poet Her- der in the ecclesiastical charge of the Grand Duchy of Weimar as general superintendent and president of the grand ducal consistory, and confirmed Augusta, wife of William I., and first empress of Germany, who was a princess of Weimar. In religious affairs he was the leader of the Rationalist as op- posed to the Orthodox party of Germany, and his letters on rationalism have been frequently republished since his death. He died June 15, 1848, aged seventy-one years. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 473 Dr. Roehr ranked high in the literary cir- cles of his country, and when Goethe died was selected to pronounce the funeral ora- tion over the remains of Germany's greatest poet and author. PRANK P. THOMAS, an active and -prosperous business man and a success- ful book and job printer of West Chester, is a son of Samuel and Elizabeth A. (Myers) Thomas, and was born on the 4th day of July, 1853, in Adams county, Pennsylvania. His great-grandfather, Philip Thomas, was a native of Pennsylvania, and lived in Adams county for many years before his death. His grandfather, John Philip Thomas, was born in the year 1786, in Adams county, where he was actively engaged in farming until his death, which occurred on January 28, 1857, when he was in the sixty-first year of his age. He was a member of the Lutheran church. In politics he was a strong demo- crat. He married Anna Maria Hoftman, and to them were born five children, three sons and two daughters : Henry, who served one term as sherifl" of Adams county, and now enjoys the life of a retired farmer in Straban township, Adams county; Jacob; Samuel, father of the subject of this sketch ; Susanna, married George Ehrehart, now deceased ; Margaret, who was first married to David Lockhart, and after his death wedded Edwin C. Gitt, of near ISevf Oxford, in Adams county. Samuel Thomas (father) was born in 1829, in Adams county, and died at York, York county, in 1887, aged fifty-eight years. By trade he was a car- penter, but after going to York he was en- gaged in the mercantile business for a good portion of the time before his death. In bis early life he was a democrat, but in after years he became a republican, and took an active interest in the principles advocated by the latter party. At one primary elec- tion he lacked only two votes of receiving the nomination for register and recorder of wills in the county in which he lived. Like his father, he was a member of the Ijutheran church. He married Elizabeth A. Myers, , who was born in 1835, and now lives in York. They had three children, two sons and one daughter : Margaret E., who mar- ried Frank O. "Watts, and they are both dead; Frank P., of whom this sketch is written ; and Willis M., who died in boy- hood. Frank P. Thomas received his education in the public and high schools of York, the town in which he was reared. He learned the trade of printer, and when only fifteen years of age was actirely engaged in com- pleting his knowledge of the " art preserva- tive of all arts." After serving for some time as foreman in the office of the paper where he learned his trade, he left York, and in 1878 removed to West Chester, where he accepted the position of foreman in the office of the Daily Republican, a prosperous paper of that town. He retained this posi- tion until March, 1888, when he engaged in the book and job printing business for him- self, and by prompt attention and care he has built up a flourishing business. On November 3, 1885, Mr. Thomas was united in marriage with M. Lizzie Fisher, a daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Fisher, of Lancaster, this State. Mr. Fisher is dead, but his widow still resides in Lancas- ter. To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas was born one child, Grace E., who died at seven months of age. In the political principles of the day Mr. Thomas adheres to the re- publicans. He is a member of Pocahontas 474 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIOBY Lodge, No. 316, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; West Chester Castle, No. 226, Knights of the Golden Eagle ; Estella Lodge, No. 131, Knights of Pythias; Kenhana Council, No. 248, Order of United American Mechanics; and a social and political or- ganization known as the West Chester Pio- neer Corps, No. 1. He is also a memher of the First West Chester Fire company, the Mutual Benefit society, and the Citizens' Beneficial society. In his line of business Mr. Thomas is well prepared to execute orders for all kinds of job work. He has his office thoroughly equipped with every- thing requisite for first-class work. He is a practical and skilled workman, allows nothing inferior to leave his establishment, and enjoys a constantly increasing trade. QEORGE morris PHIL,IPS,Ph.D., president of the West Chester State Normal school since 1881, and whose pro- fessional labors in training teachers and in the field of authorship, entitle him to an honorable place in the history of American education, is a son of John M. and Sarah (Jones) Philips, and was born at Penning- tonville, now Atglen, Sadsbury township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 28, 1851. Of the many honored and honorable families of Chester county, none stand higher for ability and uprightness of life than the Philips family, planted near West Chester, during the French and Indian war, by Joseph Philips, a native of Wales, who was an intelligent, temperate and industri- ous man. The Philips family is noted for its longevity and the strong religious ele- ment by which it is characterized. During the nineteenth century it has been pre- eminently a race of teachers, while in po- litical life its members have worn the judi- cial ermine and sat in the halls of legislation. Joseph Philips was born in 1716, in Wales, where his wife, Mary, was born in 1710. They were strong Baptists, and in 1755 came to near West Chester, where the husband died May 18, 1792, and the wife passed away on December 26th of the same year. Their second son, Lieut. John Philips, was born in Wales, served with his brothers, Capt. David and Lieut. Josiah, in the revo- lutionary war, and being taken prisoner in New Jersey, was confined for some time on a British prison ship at New York city. After the close of the war,Lieut. John Philips married and settled near Downingtown, where he died May 22, 1790, at forty-five years of age. His eldest son, George Philips, the grandfather of Dr. Philips, was born near Paoli, and in early life removed to a farm near Penningtouville, in West Fallowfield township, where his son, John M. Philips (father), was born May 8, 1812, and died on his farm July 21, 1879, aged sixty-seven years. John M. Philips was a farmer by occupation, and a deniocrat in politics until 1860, when he cast his last democratic vote for Stephen A. Douglas. After that he supported the Republican party. He was a man of influence in his community, ever active in political affairs, but sought no office and had served for many years before his death as a deacon in the Baptist church, of which he was an ex- ceedingly useful member. He was twice married, and his second wife, whom he wedded in 1844, was Sarah Jones, who was born in 1818. She is a daughter of Hon. Thomas and Elizabeth (Todd) Jones, the latter of whom was a cousin of President Lincoln's wife. Hon. Thomas Jones served as an associate judge of Chester county for m umd', OF CHESTER COVNIY. 477 several years, and was an inspector general of the militia of Pennsylvania in 1825,wlien he escorted Marquis LaFayette to the battle- field of Brandywine. Hon. Thomas Jones was a son of Enoch and Sarah (Davis) Jones, and a grandson of Samuel Jones, whose father, Griffith Jones (name origin- ally written John), came from Wales about 1712. John M. and Sarah (Jones) Philips had seven children : Mary, wife of D. B. Miller, a lawyer and the president of the National bank of Lewisburg; Thomas J., a graduate of the university of Lewisburg and prominent in agriculture and politics ; Dr. George Morris; Charlotte E., wife of Preston E. Hannum, of Lancaster county ; Caroline J., who married Matthew H.Boyd, of Atglen ; Sarah (deceased) ; and John T., who died in early manhood. George Morris Philips received his ele- mentary education in the schools of his town, pursued his academic studies in the high school, then under charge of Prof. Wm. E. Buck, a superior teacher and now superintendent of the schools of Manches- ter, N'ew Hampshire, and in 1867 entered the freshman class of Lewisburg university (now Bucknell), from which well-known educational institution he was graduated in the classical course in 1871 with the second honors of his class. His intention was to study law after leaving the university, but immediately after graduation he was elected professor of mathematics in Monongahela college, and relinquished his idea of legal studies to accept that position, which he held until 1873, when he was offered and accepted the same position in West Chester Iformal school. Five years later he re- signed at West Chester to become professor of mathematics and astronomy in Lewisburg university, where he remained until 1881, when Professor Maris resigned the presi- dency of West Chester N'ormal school, and he was elected to succeed him. Dr. Philips immediately entered upon the duties of the presidency, and under his charge the school has prospered greatly and increased in at- tendance from three hundred to almost a thousand pupils. On December 27, 1877, Dr. Philips mar- ried Elizabeth M., daughter of William H. and Anna (Taylor) Pyle, of Highland town- ship. Dr. and Mrs. Philips have two chil- dren : William P., born June 29, 1882 ; and Sara, born February 16, 1887. ■ Dr. Philips is a republican in politics, and a member of the First Baptist church of West Chester, in which he has served as a deacon for several years. He takes great interest in the prosperity of his city, and is now serving as a director of the iCfational bank of Chester county, as well as of the Dime Savings bank, as a manager of the West Chester hospital, and as a member of the board of trade of West Chester. He has aimed to make the West Chester E'or- mal school a first class and desirable insti- tution in every sense of the word. Under his administration great improvements have been carried forward in the erection of new buildings and the beautifying of the grounds. These improvements, costing over |200,000, have made the property worth at least $400,000. His present field of labor is one for which Dr. Philips is well qualified by adaptation, skill and experience. He uses methods that, founded upon the laws of na- ture, challenge investigation and inspire confidence. His discipline is of that char- acter that enforces obedience to just re- quirements and at the same time commands respect from those over whom it is exercised. Dr. Philips is an active and vigorous 478 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIOBY worker for common schools and popular education, and has a deep enthusiastic love of his work, and an abiding faith in its re- sults. He is a prominent institute instruc- tor in this and other States, and has traveled much throughout this country and in Eu- rope, where he has closely studied the dif- ferent systems of public instruction. In 1890 he was, by unanimous vote, elected to the presidency of the Pennsylvania State Teachers' association, and presided over that body at its Bedford meeting in 1891. While earnest in behalf of elementary instruction he has not lost interest in higher education, and in connection with President Isaac Sharpless, of Haverford college, has written a work on astronomy and another on natural philosophy, which are extensively used throughout the United States and rank very high among the standard school text- books of to-day. He is at present prepar- ing a text-book upon the history and gov- ernment of Pennsylvania. He was for years president of the Microscopical Society of West Chester, and has long been presi- dent of the Philiadelphia Alumni club of Buchnell university. George Morris Philips' ideal of education is high but practical ; he regards the school as representative of the family, and would by the habitual and rightful cultivation of all the faculties of the intellect and imagin- ation seek to form the well balanced mind, and by judicious instruction and proper culture would strive to fit the pupil for the intelligent discharge of every duty of good citizenship. He would have educators re- alize that they should be skilled workmen and master builders of our popular civiliza- tion, and would seek to impress them with the idea of fully qualifying themselves for the discharge of the responsible duties of such an important position. He regards teaching as a "high and holy calling" and the teacher's "fame as the property of na- tions." Dr. Philips is popular as an educa- tor, and in recognition of his services in behalf of education, Lewisburg university conferred the degree of Doctor of Philoso- phy upon him in 1884. His devotion to normal school work and the good of the public schools to be attained by intelligent and cultured teachers, is attested by his re- fusing to accept the presidency of the Lew- isburg university, to which he was unan- imously elected in 1888, and again in 1890 declining Grovernor Beaver's ofier to him of the position of State superintendent of pub- lic instruction of Pennsylvania. QYRUS S. MARGERUM, the efficient manager of the Cedar Valley Lime Company, is a son of Philemon and Eleanor (Polhanieus) Margerum, and was born in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, January 31, 1846. He received his education in the common schools, and learned the trade of blacksmith with his father, with whom he worked as a partner for over twenty years. In 1889 he quit blacksmithing to become manager of the Cedar Valley Lime Com- pany, which position he still holds. The works of this company were started about 1882 by William Bleakley, of Camden, New Jersey. The Cedar Valley lime kilns turn out nothing but wood-burnt lime, for which there is a great demand in the market. At these kilns Mr. Margerum works a regular force of twenty -two men. He has made some improvements in the methods of work- ing, and his management has been very ac- ceptable and entirely satisfactory to the company. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 479 The Margerum family has been resident for several generations at Trenton, the cap- ital of the State of New Jersey, where Philemon Margerum (father) was born. He came to Chester county in 1859 and settled at ]^ew Centreville, in Tredyffrin township, but afterward removed to Charlestown town- ship, where he died on August 10, 1888, at seventy-seven years of age. He was a blacksmith by trade, and a democrat in political opinion. He married Eleanor Polhanieus, a daughter of John and Mary Polhanieus, and they reared a family of three sons and three daughters : Philippina, wife of E. T. Bidding, of Montgomery county; Charles, a policeman of Philadel- phia ; Anna, wife of William De Haven, of iSTorristown, this. State ; John H., married Phebe Ruth, daughter of George and Sarah Ruth, served in the United States navy during the last war, and is now a resident of East Whiteland township ; Cyrus S. ; and Eleanora, wife of Charles Grover, of Phoe- nixville. Elenor, mother of C. S. Marger- um, died December 16, 1891, aged eighty- two years. In political opinion C. S. Margerum is a republican. He is a life member of Thomp- son Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons, of Green Tree. On May 14, 1868, Mr. Margerum married Emma, daughter of Samuel Rennard, a farmer of Charlestown township. To their union has been born five children, three sons and two daughters : Charles, George, William, Mary and Phoebe. QAMUEIi JACOBS, a well respected citizen and prosperous and successful merchant of Devault, is the eldest son of George and Mary (McCool) Jacobs, and was born in White Marsh township, Mont- gomery county, Pennsylvania, September 17, 1834. He received his education in the common schools, and was engaged in farm- ing for several years in difierent townships in the northern part of Chester county. In 1888 he came to Devault, once known as Aycrs' Corner, where he established his present general mercantile store. He car- ries a full and well assorted stock of dry goods, staple and fancy groceries, notions, boots and shoes, and everything in the mercantile line needed to supply the large trade which he has built up. On February 16, 1870, Mr. Jacobs mar- ried Phoebe Baker, daughter of David Baker, of Willistown township, this county. In politics Samuel Jacobs is a democrat. He is a member of Willistown Baptist church ; and Academy Lodge, No. 502, In- dependent Orderof Odd Fellows. Through- out life he has been careful, honest and eco- nomical, and has slowly but surely carried forward every agricultural or business en- terprise in which he has ever been engaged. The Jacobs family has been resident of Montgomery county for several generations ; the paternal grandfather of Samuel Jacobs was reared and died there. His son, George Jacobs (father), was born and reared in Montgomery county, and in 1839 came to White Horse, in East Whiteland township, where he resided until 1851, when he re- moved to a farm near Valley Store, that township, on which he resided until his death, which occurred April 11, 1889. He followed lime burning as an occupation, was a democrat in politics, and married Mary McCool, of White Marsh, Montgom- ery county. They were the parents of nine children, all sons : Samuel ; Robert, who died at two years of age; Charles, who 480 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIORY went west ih 1879 and of whom nothing has been heard since; Joseph, a merchant of Charlestown township, who served in an emergency regiment when Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1863 ; George, of Willis- town township, who also served in an emer- gency regiment; "William, a blacksmith, and resident of Charlestown township; John, of Titusville, this State, who served nine months in a Union regiment during the late civil war, and is now engaged as an oil well driller; Evan; and Morgan, who died February 23, 1883. QAPT. MATTHEW BARKER, a highly respected citizen and a prosper- ous farmer of East Whiteland township, is a son of John and Martha (Buchanan) Barker, and was born in Honeybrook township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 20, 1806. He attended the schools of his neighborhood and then learned the trade of tanner at Honeybrook. He did journey work for several years, after which he formed a partnership with his cousin, John Buchanan, and they conducted a suc- cessful tanning business for seventeen years. In the meantime, in 1886, he purchased a farm of sixty-one acres of land, to which he afterward added sixty-four acres more. Since retiring from the tanning business he has given his time and attention chiefly to the management of his farm, which is well improved and also provided with two sep- arate houses and barns. He has resided continuously since 1850 in the house which he now occupies, which was formerly owned by Dr. Stephen Harris. His father, John Barker, was a native of Chester county, and spent most of his life at Ringwood forge, where he died in the year 1812. He was a carpenter by trade, and married Martha Buchanan, who was a daughter of Matthew Buchanan, and died in 1839. To their union were born five chil- dren : Henry, Capt. Matthew, John, Joseph, and Mary. They are all dead except Capt. Matthew Barker. When Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1863, Captain Barker raised Co. I of the 1st Pennsylvania militia, and commanded it until it was discharged after the Confeder- ates were driven across the Potomac by General Meade. In politics he is a repub- lican. He served his township as a justice of the peace, and in 1873 was elected as a county commissioner for a term of three years, which expired in 1877. On February 6, 1834, -Captain Barker married Jane W. Kennedy, who was a daughter of Alexander Kennedy, and died ^November 16, 1863, aged fifty-three years. They had five children, three sons and two daughters : Matthew, of Colorado, who served as a Union soldier for three years, and was wounded at the battle of South Mountain ; William, married Tennie Esther, who is now dead; Alexander K., who married Louie Pierce, and is a resident of East Whiteland township ; Margaretta, wife of John Fetters, a farmer of the same town- ship; and Mary Jane, who married Dr. Benson, of Baltimore, Maryland. ^OHN" E. SMAIiE, a prosperous farmer of North Coventry township, and a member of the Ancient Order of Foresters, is a son of Jonas and Julia Ann (Beeler) Smale, and was born March 8, 1853, on the farm on which he now resides on the old State road in North Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 481 reared on the home farm, received his edu- cation in the common schools, and was care- fully trained to farming, which he has fol- lowed successfully ever since. He has al- ways resided on the home farm, of which he owns one hundred and nineteen acres. In connection with farming, he gives some attention to stock raising. His land is of good quality and highly productive. On Christmas Day, 1879, Mr. Smale mar- ried Isabella Knoll, a daughter of Frederick Knoll, of Pottstown, Montgomery county. To their union have been born three chil- dren, two sons and one daughter : H. Loyd, Flora B., and Jonas F. John E. Smale is a democrat in politics, and a member of the Ancient Order of For- esters, and also a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, of Pottstown, Montgom- ery county. While not neglectful of politi- cal matters, yet his time is chiefly given to the management of his farm and business aflairs. The Smale family traces back its history in Germany for several generations, and the American branch was planted by the great- grandfather of the subject of this sketch. His son, John Smale (grandfather), was in all probability born in Berks county, and he died in Chester county about 1855. He purchased the farm upon which his grand- son, John E. Smale, now resides, and at the time of his purchase the farm contained two hundred and sixty-four acres of land. He was a stone mason by trade, but gave his time chiefly to farming. He served as a soldier in the American army during the war of 1812, always supported the princi- ples of the Democratic party, and was an active member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, of Pottstown, Montgomery county. He married, and one of his sons, Jonas Smale (father), was horn April 4, 1816, on the home farm in North Coventry township, where he died October 25, 1882, aged sixty- six years, six months and nine days. He was a farmer by occupation, a democrat in politics, and a Lutheran in religious faith and church membership. He married Julia Ann Beeler, a daughter of Jacob Beeler, and to their union were born three children, one son and two daughters. The daughters were : Mary J. and Sarah Ann, the latter of whom married Theodore Nilman, a farmer of E"orth Coventry township, and has four children — Emma J., Austin H., Jonas and Harry. QIDEON T. KUTH, one of the substan- stautial citizens of Duftryn Mawr, is a son of Isaac and Julia ( Thomas) Ruth, and was born at that place April 4, 1847. His father, a prosperous farmer of Chester county, was a native of East Goshen town- ship, where he was born in 1800, but lived chiefly during his lifetime on the farm still owned by his son, Gideon, which originally comprised one hundred and fifty acres of the most valuable land in the northern part of "Willistown township, and is now almost entirely included in the present site of the village of Malvern. He was a stanch whig in politics, and latterly as stanch a repub- lican, through which party he held various township offices. He was a member of the Baptist church, with the principles and doc- trines of which he lived in the strictest ac- cordance, having been a deacon for thirty- seven years, and held other ofiicial positions in the church. He was early married to Julia Ann Thomas, whose father, Mordecai, lived near Malvern, being a resident almost all his life of Chester county. He was an ar- 482 BIOGSAPHY AND HISJORY dent patriot, and served in the war of 1812. He and his wife, Catherine, were the parents of four sons and two daughters : Hazaiel, Philip, lyTewton, Gideon, Julia Ann (mother of the subject of this sketch), and Mary Ritner. Mordecai Thomas died in March, 1850, at the age of seventy-three years. Isaac and Julia Ann Ruth had a family of nine children, the youngest of whom was GidA)n. In order of age they were : Cath- erine, married to Joseph A. Malin, a farmer ; Mordecai, a banker; Elizabeth, married to Milton Kurtz, a farmer in Willistown town- ship, Chester county ; Sarah, married Davis Lapp, of East Whiteland township ; Isaac Miles ; David ; James A. ; A. Judson, and Gideon. IsaacMiles servedthree years, while Mordecai audDavid each served three months in the civil war. In 1872 Isaac Ruth died at the age of seventy-two years. The sub- ject of the present sketch received his edu- cation in the public schools of Willistown, after which he was employed for some time in farming. He devoted several years to this interest, and then went into the boot and shoe business, in which, as one of the firm of Campbell & Ruth, he was success- fully engaged for five years. He has twice been married, but has no children. His first wife, Esther A. Supplee, died in Janu- ary, 1881. A. Clara Supplee, his present wife, is a niece of his former wife. Mr. Ruth holds the same religious faith and en- tertains the political principles of his father, for he is a republican, and a devoted mem- ber of the Baptist church, in which he is a deacon, and has occupied other prominent positions. He lives at present a quiet and retired life in his country home, which he has surrounded with all the substantial com- forts of the present age. His life has been unpretentious but straightforward, and he has been useful in the community as a neighbor, a citizen and a man whose endeavors have always been for the welfare of others as well as for his own success. "CLWOOD WEBSTER, a substantial citizen and a prosperous farmer and stock dealer of Lower Oxford township, is a son of William and Sarah (Lukens) Web- ster, and was born in Bart township, Lan- caster county, Pennsylvania, August 30, 1846. He received his education in the public schools of Chester county and the Unionville Boarding school, and then rented a farm which he tilled for several years. At the end of that time he bought some land in Lower Oxford township, and a few years later purchased his present farm, upon which he has resided ever since his purchase of it. His home farm consists of seventy acres of good land, and he owns another farm of one hundred and forty-seven acres in East ISTot- tingham township. His land is all under good cultivation, and he has been actively engaged for many years in farming and in shipping and dealing in live stock. He is an industrious and reliable man, and one of the best farmers of his section of the county. He is a republican in politics, who warmly supports his party, but who does not allow political matters to take any necessary time from his business affairs. On February 19, 1873, Elwood Webster married Clara Wilson, daughter of James Wilson, of West Grove, this county. To their union have been born two children, a son and a daughter : Dora C. and Lawrence. On his paternal side Mr. Webster is de- scended from the Webster family of Chester county, of which his grandfather, George OF GHESIER COVNIY. 483 "Webster, was a member. George "Webster was a native of Chester county, but spent the greater part of his life as a farmer in Bart township, Lancaster county, where he died. He was a whig and republican in politics, and a member of the Society of Friends. He married Sarah Conard, and reareda family of eight children : Hannah Brown, Martha Moore, Patience Smith Naylor, Jesse, George, "William, and Sam- uel. Of these children but two — Martha and Patience — are living. "William "Web- ster, one of these sons, and the father of Elwood "Webster, was born in January, 1809, in Lancaster county, but lived most of his life in Chester county, where he died in May, 1885, when in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He received a good education, and, after teaching school for some time, en- gaged in farming, which he followed until he retired from active life. He was a re- publican, and a member of the Society of Friends. He married Sarah Lukens, who was a daughter of Daniel Lukens, a farmer and Quaker, who married Mary Shoemaker, whose services as a minister of the Society of Friends were highly beneficial in mission- ary work among the Indians and the in- mates of prisons. Mrs. "Webster was born in November, 1808, was a Friend, and died in IToveraber, 1886. She left four children : Patience Kent, Mary L. Kent, Samuel, and Elwood. QAMUEL L. WEBSTER, the second child and eldest son of "William and Sarah (Lukens) Webster, was born in Bart township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, August 26, 1842. He received his educa- tion in the common schools of Chester county and Walnut Green and Unionville academies, and then took a course in the Poughkeepsie Business college of New York, from which he was graduated in 1864. Immediately after graduation he took a full course at the Chestnut Street Art school of Philadelphia, and taught art classes for three years in West Chester Normal school. He also taught in various academies and had classes in different parts of the county until 1873, when he abandoned art teaching. Since then he has been engaged in farming, and also gives some attention to literary work. He now owns a farm of ninety acres of improved land in Hopewell borough. He is a prohibitionist, and a member of the Hicksite Friends' meeting, and on March 11, 1875, married Esther, daughter of John Lancaster, of Baltimore, Maryland. His children are: Franklin, Sarah, Mary E., Helen, Alice C, Ethel, E. Stanley, Robert B., and Esther. Samuel Webster is known as a man of integrity and honor, whose in- fluence has always been for the good of his community. HENRY M. STAUFFER, an industri- ous and highly respected citizen of East Coventry township, who has been ac- tively engaged as a tradesman and farmer for over half a century, is a son of Jacob and Mary (Meyers) Stauffer, and was born in West Pikeland township, near Chester Springs, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Sep- tember 27, 1826. His paternal grandfather, John Stauffer, was the son of a Mr. Stauffer who came from Germany, and whose Chris- tian name has not been preserved. John Stauffer was born in Berks county, and came to East Coventry township, where he pur- chased a farm of one hundred and twenty- seven acres of land, which is now known as the old Stauffer homestead. He followed farming, was a member of the Mennonite 484 BIOGBAPHY AND HISIORY church, and married a Miss Latshaw, by whom he had five children : John, who was a life-long resident of his native township ; Catharine M., who married Rev. Jacob Har- ley, a minister of the German Baptist church ; Elizabeth, Jacob and Mary, who died young. Jacob Stauft'er (father) was born in 1790, in Berks county, and died on 'the Stauffer homestead on September 22, 1862, aged seventy-two years. He was a farmer, a Mennonite, and a republican, and married Mary Meyers, who was a daughter of Martin Meyers, and died l^ovember 7, 1873, in her seventy-ninth year. Their children were : John M., a farmer, who died in 1891 ; Catherine, who married Abram Halteman, lived in Juniata county, and is now dead; Mary Ann, married Christian Bliem, lived in Montgomery county, and is also dead; Jacob, jr., now deceased; Abra- ham, of Kenilworth ; Henry M. ; Sarah, wife of John Latshaw, of East Pikeland township, whose land lies partly within the borough limits of Spring City; Elizabeth, wife of Joel Ebert, of Kenilworth ; Isaac, a farmer and coachmaker, who died in 1891 at Linfield, Montgomery county ; William M., of Reading, British Columbia; Leah, wife of Hiram Ellis, a resident and former merchant of Pottstown,Montgomery county ; Harriet, who married Henry S. Penny- packer, of East Coventry ; and Lovina, wife of George C. Green, who is in the employ of the Keystone Agricultural Company, of Pottstown. Henry M. Stauffer was reared on the farm, received his education in the common schools, and learned the trade of coach- maker, at which he worked for over twenty years in his shop on the home farm. At the end of that time he turned his atten- tion entirely to farming, which he has con- tinued in ever since. He owns part of the homestead farm, on which he resides, and- has so improved, enriched and cultivated his land that his farm is considered as one of the best in that community. In poli- tics Mr. Stauffer supported the Republican party until recently, when he allied himself with the prohibitionists, and now desires the success of prohibition through political action. He served for several years as school director of his township, and was a director and the secretary and treasurer of the Madison Bridge Company almost from its inception up to the time of its dissolu- tion, after selling the bridge to Chester and Montgomery counties, and has been a mem- ber of the board of directors of Ursinus College, at CoUegeville, from its origin to the present. He has been for a number of years an active member of the German Re- formed church, takes an active part in Sun- day school work, education, and all moral improvements, and enjoys that popularity which springs from right living and the honorable treatment of his fellow citizens. The fruits of his diligence, tact and up- rightness are to be seen in his fine farm, pleasant home and the high esteem in which he is held by his neighbors. On February 24, 1852, Mr. Stauffer mar- ried Hannah Hart, who was a daughter of Jacob and Hannah (Ziebes) Hart, of Mont- gomery county. Mrs. Stauffier passed away on August 22, 1886, when in the sixty-fifth year of her age. JOHN T. EACHES, son of Eber and Hannah Philips Eaches, was born De- cember 16, 1842, in the village of Charles- town, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His parents were both natives of Pikeland ^t^nn ©/ ^^ae4ed^. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 487 township, in the same county. The father, a son of John Eaches, was of "Welsh de- scent. He was for many years a school teacher, farming and working at the cooper trade during the summer, and teaching school during the winter. He was widely known and universally esteemed. He set- tled in Phcenixvilie in 1847, and died there in 1880, in his seventy-eighth year. He was for many years an officer in the Baptist church of that place. His wife, the mother of John T. Eaches, is still living with un^ impaired faculties in her ninety-first year. The subject of this sketch was the young- est of four sons. The other brothers, Wil- liam, a carriage manufacturer in Philadel- phia; Josiah P., teller in the Phcenixvilie National Bank ; Owen P., pastor of the Bap- tist church at Hightown, New Jersey, all survive him. He received a superior English education in his boyhood in the public and private schools of Phcenixvilie. He possessed a quick and receptive mind. He was fond of study and made rapid progress, attaining a high rank as a scholar. About the time that he was finishing his studies and while making preparation for entering the duties of practical life, the storm of war burst upon the country. Every town and hamlet in Pennsylvania at once became a recruit- ing station for the army. Finishing the work to be done at home, he secured the consent of his parents and entered the ser- vice of his country in his nineteenth year. He enrolled himself a member of Co. G, 1st Pennsylvania reserves. He served during the three years term of service, not visiting his home during that entire time. He was faithful, brave, untiring in all the duties that came upon him. He did not know the meaning of shirking or of cowardice. He 29 became a corporal in his company. In the seven days' fight before Richmond, at the battle of Charles City Cross Roads, he was wounded, left on the field of battle, cap- tured by the Confederates, and placed in the Libby prison. After four week's imprison- ment he was exchanged. He was in the battle of Gettysburg and in all the import- ant battles of the Army of the Potomac. The soldier life was in his blood, as his grandfather and three of his brothers were the commanding officers in the seventh battalion of Pennsylvania troops in the war of the Revolution. At the close of the war he returned to Phcenixvilie. He accepted a clerkship in the cotton factory of Mr. L. H. Richards in Phcenixvilie. He remained here until 1869, when he accepted a posi- tion in the National bank of that place. He filled the position of paying teller and book-keeper to the satisfaction of all. On the organization of the Spring City National bank in 1872, he was oft'ered the position of cashier of the bank. He accepted the profler and filled the position with eminent ability until the time of his death. He was a man of the strictest honesty and integrity in his business dealings. To his enterprise and rare financial power much of the suc- cess of the Spring City bank is due. He was a man of large business sagacity. He was one of the four founders of the Spring City Forge Company. Possessed of public spirit, he did much that contributed to the business interests of the town in which he resided. He took a large interest in political and public affairs, though never soliciting or holding public office. He was married in 1879 to Hannah Staufter, of Spring City. Three children were born to them : Mary, Amy, and Clara, all of whom are living. 488 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY The quiet of the home circle was a delight to him after the cares of the day. He was a man of rich devotional life. For many years he had been a member of the Baptist church in Phcenixville. Here he was active in all kinds of church work. He was an effective teacher in the Sunday school. He was an active member of the G. A. R. and of the Masonic fraternity. He died sud- denly, after a shoi't illness, in his forty- seventh year, September 28, 1889. He had accumulated a handsome com- petence. His largest wealth was in his irreproachable character, his unstained name, his gracious influence, his devotional life, his noble manhood. His heart was as tender as a child's. His manner was win- ning. He was a pillar in the church and in the community. ISTone knew him but to respect and to love him. Followed to the grave by a large number of his fellow soldiers, fellow citizens, kindred and friends, he sleeps in the quiet of the cemetery at Phcenixville. Life's fight well fought, Life's work well done, Life's course well run, Kest comes. TTIiFRED MULLEN, a Union veteran of the late civil war, and the proprietor of the Green Tree hotel of Duftryn Mawr, is a son of Robert and Letitia (Barnwell) Mullen, and was born in the city of Phila- delphia, Pennsylvania, April 26,1837. Rob- ert Mullen was born in Lancaster county, and passed nearly all his life at Gulf Mills, Montgomery county, where he was a loom boss in a cotton factory. He was a Jack- sonian democrat in politics, and died in 1846, aged forty-five years. He married Letitia Barnwell and to them were born two children : Alfred, and Isaac, who still resides at Gulf Mills, Montgomery county, where he is engaged in the general mer- cantile business. Mrs. Mullen, who died in 1868, aged seventy-seven years, was a daughter of Henry Barnwell, who was born in Montgomery county in December, 1754, and after serving in the revolutionary war, part of the time as a privateersman under Paul Jones, married and had seven children, six daughters and a son, among them being 'Ann Patterson, who lived to be ninety- seven years old, and Mrs. Mullen. Alfred Mullen spent his boyhood days at Gulf Mills, and received his education in the common schools of Montgomery county, after which he served for a short time as a clerk in a store. He then went to Con- shocton, that county, and was a clerk in a store at that place until 1862, when he enlisted for nine months in the 124th Pennsylvania infantry. He partici- pated in the battles of Antietam and Chan- cellorsville, and at the end of his term of service enlisted in an independent company of cavalry, in which he served for three months. In a short time after being mus- tered out of the cavalry service he enlisted in the Keystone battery of Philadelphia, and served in it Until the close of the war. Returning home, he was employed for one year as a bar-tender by William Evans of Conshocton, and then served for five yeai'S iu the same capacity at the Eagle house of West Chester. He then purchased the Eagle house, which he conducted for three and a half years, and, after selling it to Alfred Kenny, went to Newton Square, Delaware county, where he was in the hotel business until 1888, when he became pro- prietor of the Green Tree hotel at Duftryn Mawr, which he has conducted most sue- OF {CHESTER COUNTY. 489 cessfully evel" since. He is well suited for the business in which he is engaged, and always gives close attention to every want and in providing for the comfort of his numerous guests. He is a republican in politics, and a member of Thompson Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons. On December 21, 1870, Mr. Mullen mar- ried Fannie Foster, a daughter of Spencer and Miriam Foster, of West Chester. Mr. and Mrs. Mullen have three children : George H., who is in the car record office of the Broad Street steam railroad station ; Miriam and Bessie, who live at home with their parents. TSAAC K. SIGMAN, the well known coal and lumber merchant of Springlield, this county, is the eldest son of John and Margaret (Kurtz) Sigman, and was born at Springfield, West E^antmeal township, this county, March 21, 1851. His paternal great-grandfather was a native of Germany, who emigrated to the United States at an early day, and settled in Chester county, Pennsylvania, where his sou, John Sigman (grandfather), was born, and lived all his life, dying in East Nantmeal township in 1864, at the advanced age of seventy-nine years. He was a farmer by occupation, a member of the Episcopal church, and in politics an old-line whig. He married a Miss Smith, by whom he had a family of seven children, four sons and three daugh- ters: George, Thomas, Joseph, John, Mary, Eliza and Sarah, all now deceased except George, Joseph and Eliza. John Sigman (father) was born in East JSTantmeal town- ship, this county, August 18, 1818, received his education in the common schools of his native township, and resided there until 1847, when he removed to West ]S"antmeal, and passed the remainder of his life in that township, dying there October 5, 1891, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. In early life he learned the trade of plasterer, and worked at that business in connection with farming for many years, being very successful and prosperous. Politically he was an ardent republican, and a strong abolitionist during the anti-slavery agita- tion. After the war began was active in securing soldiers for the Federal ai-my. He was a man of ardent nature and quick im- pulse, never doing anything by halves, and after the issues of the civil war were set- tled, he became a stanch prohibitionist, and worked earnestly for the success of that party. Possessing more than ordinary in- telligence, and an earnestness of disposition not common, he became a kind of local leader in his community, and was widely known and greatly esteemed. In early life he became a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, but after some years changed his church membership to the United Brethren, whose doctrines and methods he came to like better, and among whom he served as class leader and Sunday school superintendent for many years. In 1849 he married Margaret Kurtz, a daughter of Christian Kurtz, of West ISTantmeal town- ship, and to them was born a family of five children, two sons and three daughters : Lizzie, who married Stephen W. Handwork ; Isaac K., the subject of this sketch; George W., single; Emma, who became the wife of William Filmen ; Warrick, and Fannie, who married Elmer E. Beam, of Honey- brook, Chester county. Isaac K. Sigman was reared on his fath- er's farm in West ISTantmeal township, and received a good practical education in the 490 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY public schools, after which he learned the plasterer's trade, and worked at that occu- pation nearly five years, first at Potts ville and later in the city of Reading. In 1874 he engaged in the coal and lumber business at Springfield, this county, and has success- fully conducted this enterprise ever since, being now in control of a prosperous and paying trade. In his political affiliations Mr. Sigraan is a republican, of broad and liberal views, and while entertaining no po- litical ambitions for himself, is always loyal in support of his party and its general policy. . On Christmas eve, 1873, Mr. Sigraan was united in marriage to Sophia Leggett, a daughter of John and Margaret Leggett, of East Nantmeal township, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Sigman have been born two children, one son and a daughter: Walter E. and Ida M., both living at home with their parents. ^OHN W. REAVEY, an efficient fun- eral director and proprietor of a well- stocked furniture establishment near Straf- ford, is a son of Alexander and Jane Reavey, and was born in New York city, September 20, 1861. Alexander Reavey was in all probability a native of Scotland, and a machinist by occupation. He came to ITew York city, where he died when the subject of this sketch was quite young. John W. Reavey by the sudden death of his father was left at a very early age to do for himself, and came to Chester county, where he lived for several years with his uncle, a farmer of Tredyftrin township. He attended school during the winters and worked on his uncle's farm in the summer seasons, until he was seventeen years of age. He then learned the trade of carpenter, | after which he went to New York city and worked one year at cabinet making. Leav- ing New York he returned to Chester county and was engaged for two years in house carpentering. At the end of that time, in 1886, he established a furniture and undertaking establishment in Tredyffrin township, near the village of Straffijrd, and two years later removed to his present loca- tion, on the old Lancaster pike, one-fourth of a mile from Straftbrd station. He car- ries a choice line of useful and fine furni- ture, including chairs, tables, stands, sofas, and chamber suits, while in the line of un- dertaking he is able to furnish all kinds of burial caskets, robes and trimmings. He is a good workman and business man, and en- joys a large trade in the section of the county where he resides. In politics Mr. Reavey is a democrat of the Jeftersonian school, and believes in an economical administration of the govern- ment. He is a member of Berwyn Lodge, No. 998, Independent Order of Odd Pel- lows; and of Council, No. 200, Junior Order of United .American Mechanics, of Strafibrd; and also of a Funeral Directors' association. JDEV. JAMES WADDEIi, D. D., a T son of Thomas Waddel, was born in Newry, in the north of Ireland, in July, 1739, and died in Virginia, September 17, 1805. In the fall of 1739 he was brought, an infant in his mother's arms, to this coun- try. His parents settled on the White Clay creek, Chester county, Pennsj'lvania, where he grew to manhood. Having been dis- abled by an accident when a boy in the use of his left hand, his parents resolved to seek for him a liberal education. He was ac- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 491 cordingly sent to the school of Dr. Samuel Finley, at Nottingham, where he made rapid progress. After a time he migrated southward, and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Hanover, Virginia, April 2, 1761, and was pastor at different times of various churches in Virginia. Some time after he had been in the ministry he became incurably blind. He was dignified in Sis general deportment, but remarkable for politeness and gentlemanly manners — a finished gentleman, in the old Virginia acceptation of the term. To great learning he added an eloquence 80 remarkable that the traditionary accounts of it seem almost fabulous. It was of that sort that electrifies whole assemblies, trans- ferring to them the speaker's passion at his will. Under his preaching audiences were moved simultaneously and irresistibly, as the trees of a forest are shaken b.y a tem- pest. It was to delineate the character of his eloquence that "William Wirt wrote that' inimitable piece of composition in his " Brit- ish Spy," entitled "The Blind Preacher "—a desci'iption which is indelibly impressed on the pages of Vii-ginia "history, and which immortalized the writer as well as his hero. PDWARD GALLAGHER, a success- ful fai-mer of Easttown township, and a director of Berwyn bank, is a son of An- drew and Catherine (McCafferty) Gallagher, and was born in county Donegal, province of Ulster, Ireland, April 20, 1834. The Gallagher family has been resident of north- ern Ireland for many generations, and Ed- ward Gallagher, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native and life-long resident of county Donegal, where he was a farmer by occupation. He was a member of the Catholic church, and reared a family of seven children : Patrick, Owen, Charles, Dennis, ISTeal, Andrew, and John. Andrew Gallagher (father) was reared in his native county, where he fol- lowed farming until his death, at seventy years of age. He was a Catholic, and mar- ried Catherine McCafferty ,who was a native of Ireland. They reared a family of five chil- dren, three sons and two daughters: Han- nah, Patrick, Edward, Neal, and Margaret. Edward Gallagher was reared and edu- cated in his native county in Ireland, which he left in 1855, to come to the United States, landing at Philadelphia on June 7th of that year. After a few days spent in the city he became a resident of Lpwer Merion town- ship, Montgomery county, which he left six years later to go to Overbrook, near Phila- delphia, where he was engaged in farming for seventeen years. At the end of that time, in 1881, he purchased his present farm in Easttown township, which he has cultivated ever since. Besides this home farm of two hundred and thirty-one acres, he owns one of ninety acres on the Lan- caster pike, near "Wayne or Stafford station. Both farms are rich and productive, while the one near Stafford station is considered to be a very valuable piece of property. On July 4, 1858, Mr. Gallagher married Isabella, daughter of John and Margaret (Gallagher) McGady. To Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher have been born eight children, five sons and three daughters : John, who married Cathei'ine Martin, and is engaged in the milk business; Catharine, died in childhood ; Andrew, married Mary O'Keefe, and is in the milk business in Philadelphia with his brother John ; Mary, who is a sis- ter in Chestnut Hill convent, where she is known in religion as "Sister Monica;" 493 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY Edward; William; Joseph,who is attending Jesuits' college ; and Isabella R. Edward G-allagher is a democrat in poli- tics, and a consistent member of Berwyn Catholic church. He takes a warm interest in the education of the J'oung and rising genei'ation. Mr. Gallagher has been suc- cessful in life by his own efforts, and has won a competency by earning it. He is in- terested in financial affairs, and has been a director of the Berwyn bank ever since its organization. HUGH J. STEEIN", one of the older citizens and a prosperous farmer of Tredyffrin township, is a son of Hugh and Susan (Burns) Steen, and was born in JSTew- lin township, near Doe run, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 27, 1818. He grew to manhood on his father's farm, received his education in the schools of his neigh- borhood, and then engaged in farming and dealing in horses and lumber. For many years he was an extensive contractor in the lumber business, but he now gives his at- tention mainly to farming. In political sentiment he has been for many years a re- publican, while in religious belief and church membership he is a Presbyterian. He is a member of Paoli Lodge, ISTo. 290, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows; and Thomp- son Lodge, ISTo. 340, Free and Accepted Masons, in which he has served as treasurer for three years. While ever active in po- litical and religious affairs, yet he has never been an aspirant for office or endeavored to give himself undue prominence in anything relating to the progress or welfare of his church or community. In 1842 Mr. Steen married Maria Guest, who was a daughter of James Guest, and died in 1873, leaving three children : How- ard, who died in 1873 ; Annie, wife of John Beitler, a merchant of Houltown ; and Sarah Emma, who died in 1849. For his second wife Mr. Steen, in May, 1878, wedded Mrs. Mary Fritz. By his second marriage he has one child, Emma May. His paternal grandfather, James Steen, was born in 1743, in Scotland, from which country he came to Chester county. Where he settled on the waters of Doe run in what is now iSTewlin township. He purchased a farm, and in addition to tilling it he fol- lowed teaming for many years on the old Lancaster pike, which was then a very de- sirable part of the road from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. He was an elder in the Doe Bun Presbyterian church for over half a century, and died in 1820 at an advanced age. He married and reared a family of ■six children, three sons and three daughters : Hugh J., Stewart, James, Sarah, Margaret, and Katie. Hugh J. Steen (father), was born near Doe ru'n in 1791. He was afarmer by occupation, a democrat in politics, and a strict Presbyterian in religion. He was an industrious and r6spected man, and died March 10, 1818. He married Sarah Burns, and to them were born three children : James, married, and is a farmer of IsTewlin township ; Jordan, married Phcsbe Harris, and has followed coach-making for the last forty years ; and Hugh, whose name appears at the head of this sketch. Mrs. Susan Steen was a daughter of John Burns, and died in 1831, at seventy-two years of age. HUGH DE HAVEN was for many years in the banking business in the city of Philadelphia, where he accumulated a handsome fortune. He has a very pretty OF CHESTER COUNTY. 493 house and grounds, with all modern im- provements, in Thornbury township, near Westtown, where he and his family reside. Hugh De Haven is a direct descendant of Evert InHofl', who came from Holland in the year 1698, and settled in Berks county, Pennsylvania. Hugh De Haven married Clara Brinton, who is descended in a direct line from Wil- liam Briuton, who came from England in 1684. HENRY J. MENKINS, a well known citizen of East Whiteland township, and who has always been successful in all agricultural pursuits in which he was ever engaged, is a son of Henry and Sarah (Mc- Minn) Menkins, and was born in East Whiteland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, July 6, 1836. The coming of Henry Menkins to the United States is con- nected with that great event of history — the burning of Moscow, which made Water- loo possible, and led to the downfall of JSTapoleon Bonaparte, who shook the world in his passage from his island home in the Mediterranean to his prison grave in the Atlantic. Henry Menkins was the nephew of the mayor of Moscow, who, after the evacuation of that city, secured him a pass out of Russia. He came to Philadelphia, but had no money, and worked six months to obtain means sufficient to bring him to East Whiteland township, where he followed burning lime for some time. He then mar- ried and went to farming on "the shares," by which he saved money enough to buy a farm of eighty acres near Frazer. He after- ward purchased two other farms, and was quite wealthy at the time of his death, which occurred August 10, 1871, when he was in the seventy-eight year of his age. He was a strong democrat, and held several town- ship offices, but always refused to allow his name to be used for a county nomination. He married Sarah McMinn, who passed away February 25, 1840, aged forty-eight years. They were the parents of four chil- dren, two sons and two daughters: Mary aud Margaretta, who reside at West Ches- ter; Joseph, whose sketch appears in this volume ; and Henry J. Mrs. Menkins was a daughter of Thomas McMinn, who was a resident of East Whiteland township, this county. Henry J. Menkins received his education in the common schools, Rockville seminary and Trappe academy of Montgomery county, then under the charge of Eeverend Hon- saker, a leading educator of that day. Leav- ing school he followed agricultural pursuits on his father's farm until March 20, 1875, when he purchased his present farm of ninety-three acres of land, which is on the old Swedesford road, and along which the Chester Valley railroad passes. This farm was formerly known as the John Bartholo- mew farm, and is in East Whiteland town- ship. It is well improved and gives un- mistakable evidence in its productiveness of the care and skill with which it is cultivated. On January 24, 1877, Mr. Menkins wedded Elizabeth D. Gilbert, a daughter of Jacob Grilbert, of East Whiteland township, who is now living a retired life. Mr. and Mrs. Menkins have three children : Joseph, David McFarland, and Jacob H. In political matters Mr. Menkins has al- ways supported the cardinal principles of the Democratic party. He has held several township offices, and as a public official has always acquitted himself with credit and honor. 494 BIOORAPHY AND HISIORY QHARLES H. HOWELL, now serving his second term as justice of the peace at Phoenixville, is one of the enterprising, industrious and useful citizens of this county, who have fought their way up to positions of influence and honor, and are what is popularly termed self-made men. He is a son of Walter J. and Maria (Miller) How- ell, and was born August 9, 1860, at Phoe- nixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The family is of Welsh descent and was among the earliest settlers of Gwynedd township, Montgomery county, this State. There Walter Howell, paternal great-grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1734, he being the second child of George and Margaret Howell. He was a farmer by occupation and lived all his life in that county, dying at an advanced age. Plis remains lay in the Montgomery Baptist churchyard, in Montgomery township, said county. His son, also named Walter How- ell (grandfather), was a native of the same county, but while yet a young man removed to Chester county, where he died after a long and useful life. He was a farmer and passed all his days in agricultural pursuits. He married and reared a large family, among his sons being Walter J. Howell (father), who was born at Mount Vernon, this county, in 1827, and in 1830 removed to Phoenixville, where he still resides. For many years he has been in the employ of the Phcenix Iron Company, first as a nailor and later as a heater and puddler, being still actively employed though now in his sixty-sixth year. He is a stanch republican in politics, and served for a year and a half during the civil war as a soldier in Co. K, 71st Pennsylvania infantry, under Col. E. S. Baker. In 1849 he married Maria Miller, a native of East Vincent township, this county, and to their union was born a family of six children. She is a daughter of John Miller, who came to Chester county at an early day and lived all his life in East Vin- cent township. Mrs. Howell is now in the sixty-fourth year of her age. Charles H. Howell grew to manhood in his native town of Phoenixville, attending the public schools until his thirteenth year, wh en he entered the Phcenix Iron Company's works. He began at the very bottom and gradually worked his way up to posi- tions of trust and responsibility. In 1870 he entered the machine shops as a skilled mechanic, and was employed there until 1878, when he was transferred to the roll- ing mill and given charge of the machinery and belting. This position he held for six years, giving entire satisfaction 'and fully demonstrating the remarkable mastery of complicated machinery which his mechan- ical genius and practical training had given him. In 1884, after maintaining his con- nection with the Phoenix iron works for twenty-one years, he resigned his position to accept the office of justice of the peace, to which he had been elected on February 19th of that year. His administration of the ofiice of justice was so satisfactory to the people that he was re-elected to the same po- sition in February, 1889, and is now serving his second term. In addition to his duties as a magistrate he is also engaged in the fire insurance business, and represents sev- eral steamship lines and deals in foreign exchange, issuing money orders payable in nearly all parts of Europe. He is also serving as coroner for the northeastern part of Chester county. Mr. Howell is, in fact, a very busy man, and in giving personal at- tention to the various departments of his flourishing business, he finds ample room l/ai/ed (^. (^ome^. OF GHESIEB COUNTY. 497 for the exercise of his fine business talent and large executive ability. On April 4, 1877, Squire Howell'united in marriage with Mary A. Hill, a daughter of Abraham D. Hill, of Pricetown, Berks county, Pennsylvania, and to them have been born five children, three sons and two daughters : Carrie H., Harry M., Maude H., Walter A., and Charles S. Politically Squire Howell is a stanch re- publican, and with his accustomed energy engages in active work for the success of his party. He is gifted with considerable musical talent, and has been connected with the Phcenix Military band for two decades. His tastes are artistic in other directions also, and he has acquired great skill in pen- drawing and executes many elaborate de- signs, of marked originality and great beauty. His daughter, Carrie, is also an expert penman, and does some excellent pen-drawing. Squire Howell is a member of the Junior Order United American Me- chanics, and of the Sons of Veterans. He is a very pleasant gentleman and extremely popular in Phoenixville and wherever he is known. />-HAKI.ES T. THOMAS, a life long resident and a successful business man of West Whiteland township, is a son of Dr. George and Anna Mary (Townsend) Thomas, and was born October 27, 1847, in the house built before the revolutionary war by his great-grandfather, George Thomas, in West Whiteland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He received his edu- cation at Westtown Boarding school, and entered Professor Wyers' military academy, which he afterwards left to assume charge of his father's farm, which then contained nearly one thousand acres of land. In con- nection with his brothers he was engaged in ore mining, and also extensively engaged in quarrying a marble which was used at Girard college, and in the construction of some of the finest buildings in Philadelphia. His farm, consisting of two hundred and thirty acres of land, of which seventy-five acres is woodland, lies on the slope of the North Valley hill. He is now engaged in general farming and in operating a first- class dairy, whose products find a ready market in Philadelphia. He is a republican in politics, a Friend in religious belief, and has held various township offices, and was a director of the Downingtown National bank for some years. On May 16, 1878, Mr. Thomas married Isabel L. Gibbons, a daughter of Abraham Gibbons, of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and to their union have been born four children : Elizabeth (dead), John R., Marion G. and Laura G. Charles T. Thomas has descended from a long line of honourable and worthy ances- tors, whose American progenitor was Rich- ard ap Thomas, a gentleman of wealth and standing, of Whitford Game, in Wales. He purchased five thousand aci'es of land of William Penn, but died at Philadelphia be- fore having it surveyed. His son. Dr. Rich- ard, was the father of Richard, whose son, George, was the father of John R., who left one sou, Dr. George Thomas, the father of Charles T. Thomas. The old house built by George Thomas (great-grandfather) in 1772, was used at one time during the revo- lutionary war as a commissary and hospital, and an old house on the farm of Richard Ashbridge is supposed to have been the site of his first house. Some additional history of the old and highly respected Thomas family appears in the sketch of George 498 BIOGHAPHY AND HISIORY Thomas, and full and extensire mention of its eight generations in Chester county will be found in the sketch of J. Preston Thomas, which is given in this volume. •J3RESTON W. LOBB, a successful busi- ness man of Berwyn, and a veteran soldier of the Army of the Potomac, is a son of William C. and Elizabeth G. (Levis) Lobb, and was born in Darby township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, March 1, 1844. He attended the common schools of Easttown township, and after obtaining a good practical English education therein, he learned the trade of machinist, at which he worked until 1870, excepting three years spent in the army, during the late civil war, from 1861 to 1864. In 1870 he embarked at Berwyn in the lumber, coal and feed business, which he followed until 1886, when he disposed of it to W. H. Fritz, and was variously employed up to the spring of 1892. He then purchased P. J. Trego's plumbing, stove, tinware and roofing busi- ness, which he is conducting very success- fully at the present time. He has not only retained his predecessor's patrons, but has gained many new ones, and has a large and remunerative trade. Mr. Lobb is a repub- lican in politics, and has held several town- ship ofl&ces. He is a member of Berwyn Baptist church ; Cassia Lodge, No. 273, Free and Accepted Masons; Montgomery Chapter, No. 262, Eoyal Arch Masons; St. Alban Commandery, N"o. 43, Knights Templar; and Baker Post, ~So. 8, Grand Army of the Republic. He has a very line war record, of which he may feci justly proud. On August 9, IKHI, he enlisted in an independent battery of Hying artillery, that by an act of Congress became Battery F of the 6th United States artillery. He participated in the battle of Ball's Bluff, took part in the Peninsular campaign, and was at Antietam and Gettysburg. He also participated in seventeen general engage- ments during his term of service, and was honorably discharged at Petersburg, Vir- ginia, on August 9, 1864. His battery, originally two hundred and ninety-five strong,wa8 so reduced by killed and wounded that when it went into the thick of the fight at Gettysburg on the first day, under General Reynolds, it did not number one hundred men ; and when Longstreet's great charge was over on the second day, the battery had suft'ered the loss of thirty-five men and ninety-three horses. Mr. Lobb was one of five men only in the company that was not killed or wounded, during his three years of service, out. of the original company of two hundred and ninety-five. On February 22, 1876, Mr. Lobb mar- ried Priscilla L., a daughter of Albert G. W. Barton, of Philadelphia, and to their union have been born five children : Carrie R., Arthur B., P. Ole, Morris K, and Corinne B. Asha Lobb (grandfather), the founder of the Lobb family, was born in Scotland, and came to what is now Delaware county, this State, where he became one of the largest real estate and woolen and cotton mill own- ers in that section. He also carried on an extensive mercantile business for that day. He was a whig, and Friend, and died in 1842. He married and reared a family of four children : William C, Horatio, Ethel- bert, and Maria. William C. (father) was born in Darby township, Delaware county, this State, in 1804. He received a good education, and after teaching for several terms, became a farmer of Easttown town- ship, where he was also engaged in real OF CHESTEM COVNIY. 499 estate and broker transactions until his death, which occurred in March, 1882. He was a republican politically, and a promi- nent member of the Friends' church. lie married Elizabeth Gr. Levis, who died in 1889. Their children were: Levis J. W., Clayton A., Mary E. Steen, Preston W., Ethelbert, Margaret W. Taylor, Maria E. Dutton, Henry W., Eliza D. Clegg, Ida A. Jones, and Lewis D. nT. MEREDITH, of near Everhart, a descendant of an old Chester county, family, and a successful contractor on masonry work, is the eldest son of Isaac and Mary S. (Davis) Everhart, and was born in West Whiteland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 21, 1839. He spent his boyhood days on his father's farm, received his education in the common schools of "West Whiteland township, and then learned with John S. Garrett, the trade of stonemason, at which he worked for some years as a journeyman, after finishing his apprenticeship. He then commenced working for himself and soon engaged in contracting, which he has followed for over twenty years. He takes contracts on all kinds of masonry, and has been successful both in giving satisfaction to his patrons and clearing money on his work. In con- nection with contracting he also follows farming in West Whiteland township,where he owns a good farm of eighty-four acres of land and a couple of woodland lots. He is a supporter of the Republican party, has served his township as a supervisor and a school director, and has always taken an interest in local as well as in State or Na- tional politics. He is a member of Thomp- son Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons, and as a man and citizen enjoys the respect of all who know him. On January 28, 1875, Mr. Meredith mar- ried Elizabeth Loomis, daughter of William and Elizabeth Loomis, of West Whiteland. To Mr. and Mrs. Meredith have been born three children, one son and two daughters : Mary, now attending West Chester State Normal school ; Isaac, and Emma. The Meredith family is one of the dis- tinguished families of Wales, and several of its members came at an early day and set- tled in Pennsylvania. One of them was David Meredith, who came to Chester val- ley, where he purchased land of William Penn, and resided until his death, on prop- erty now owned by Walter Cox. His son, Daniel Meredith, was born and reared in West Whiteland township, where he owned and cultivated a large farm. He married and reared a family of six children, four sons and two daughters : John, George, Joseph, Isaac, Bain and Peggy. John Meredith (grandfather), the youngest son, was a native and life long resident of West Whiteland, where he resided on the farm now owned by the subject of this sketch. He was an old line whig in politics, and died in 1856. He married Hannah Neild8,by whom he had eight children : Daniel, Amos, George, John, Isaac (father), Mary Templin, and Sarah A. Dutton. Isaac Meredith was a plasterer by trade, which he followed but a few years. He then engaged in farming, and afterwards purchased his fath- er's farm. He was a democrat until 1856, when he voted for John C. Fremont, and ever afterwards supported the Republican party. He held various township oflaces, and was a useful citizen. Mr. Meredith was a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and died February 30, 500 BIOGRAPHY AND HISIORY 1883, when in tbe eighty-first year of his age. He married Mary S. Davis. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith reared a family of three children : Snyder. R. T., William F., and Hannah Jf PRESTON THOMAS, a descendant in the seventh generation from Rich- ard ap Thomas, who came with Penn in 1683, and was one of the largest landhold- ers of the Quaker colony, is a respected citizen of West Whiteland township, who has been prominently identified for several years with the educational and financial in- stitutions of Chester county. He is a son of Dr. George and Anna Mary (Townsend) Thomas, and was born on the farm on which he now resides in West Whiteland town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 7, 1842, The Thomas family is one of the oldest and most prominent families of Ches- ter county. It was founded by Richard ap Thomas, who was a member of the Ap Thomas family of Whitford Game, in the county of Flint, in north Wales, where they had been landholders for several gen- erations, having a freehold of £800, and thus being within the grade of gentlemen and the game act. He became weary of the life indulged in by the gentlemen of his class, and united with the Friends, whose principles and course of action recommended them to him as being a people who were truly Christians. He was a man of intelli- gence and foresight, and readily perceived the wide field and splendid opportunities which the forest regions of the new-found world afforded for achievement to those who were brave enough to cross the (leep'and settle in the infant English (■dldiiies of the Atlantic seaboard. He purchli^edlivothuu- sand acres of land from William Penn, by deeds of lease and release, dated July 24 and 25, 1681. lie paid £100 for this land, and in 1683 embarked with his son, Dr. Richard, and a number of dependents, for Pennsylvania, his wife and daughter refusing to come with him. In a short time after arriving at Philadelphia he died, and left his new world possessions to his son, Richard, then about ten years of age. Richard Thomas, afterwards a doctor of medicine, was poorly provided for by those who came with his father, and when they had spent everything they could get of his means, cast him oti:' with nothing but his land. He selected Lieutenant-governor Lloyd as his guardian, and the latter, by selling some of the land, raised means to give him an edu- cation, and to study medicine. In 1695 he selected a tract of six hundred acres, on which a part of West Chester now stands. He sold some small farms oft' this so as to have neighbors, and built his house near the wigwams of some Indians, so that their dogs would frighten away the wild animals that were then numerous in the newly settled sections of the county. Visiting Wales in 1699, he brought his sister, Mary, over with him, his mother having died sometime pre- vious. Of his land he located the larger part of it in the Chester valley, and received a patent for one thousand and sixty-five acres in the vicinity of West Chester. He took possession in 1711 of his home farm, on which he died in 1744, aged seventy-two years. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and married Grace Atherton, by whom he had six children, one son and five daughters: Richard, Hannah (deceased), Mrs. Hannah Mendenhall, Mrs. Mary Har- rison, Mrs. Grace Stalker, and Mrs. Eliza- beth Howell. The son, Richard Thomas, OF CHESIER COUNTY. 501 was born February 22, 1713, and died Sep- tember 22, 1754. On February 10, 1739, he was married at Goshen meeting to Phoebe Ashbridge, daughter of George and Mary Ashbridge, who was born August 26, 1717, and died June 14, 1784, having married in 1754, William Trimble for her second hus- band. Richard and Phoebe Thomas had five children, two sons and three daughters : Mrs. Lydia Trimble, Mrs. Grace Trimble, Richard, jr., George, and Mrs. Hannah Trimble. The second son, George Thomas, was born December 21, 1746, and died August 17, 1793. He married Sarah Rob- erts, daughter of John and Jane Roberts, born January 1, 1750, and died February 20, 1840, aged ninety years. To George and Sarah Thomas were born nine children, two sons and seven daughters : Mrs. Jane Pres- ton, Phoebe, Hannah, Lydia, John R., Eliza- beth, George, Mrs. Sarah Thomas, wife of Richard Thomas (6), and Anna. The eldest son, John R. Thomas (grandfather), was born August 29, 1781, and died April, 1856, aged seventy-five years. On IS'ovember 19, 1806, at Downingtown meeting, he married Elizabeth Downing, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Downing, of East Cain, who was born October 10, 1783, and died Octo- ber 18, 1810, leaving one child, Dr. George. After his first wife's death John R. Thomas married Martha Newbold, who died No- vember 30, 1816. Dr. George Thomas (father) was born September 9, 1808, and grew to manhood on his father's farm. He received his edu- cation at the Westtown and the Jonathan Gause's boarding schools, and Stroud's and Gerraantown academies. After pursuing a preparatory course in medicine he entered the university of Pennsylvania, from whose medical department he was graduated in the class of 1829. He then traveled through- outEurope and perfected hismedical studies. After returning home his strong preference for horticulture led him to engage in horti- cultural pursuits to the exclusion of the practice of his profession. He was a whig, and succeeded his father as a director of the Bank of Chester county, and in turn was succeeded by his son, J. Preston. He was an intelligent and well educated man, of fine tastes and pleasing address. He died Sep- tember 26, 1887, when in the eightieth year of his age, and his remains were entombed in Downingtown Friends' burying ground. On October 20, 1841, he married Anna Mary Townsend, daughter of John "W. and Sibbilla K. (Price) Townsend. She was born October 23, 1815, and is still living. To their union were born five children : J. Preston, born August 7, 1842 ; George, August 5, 1845 ; Charles, October 27, 1848 ; John R., who died at two years of age ; and Elizabeth D., who died at four years of age. J. Preston Thomas grew to manhood on the paternal farm, which has descended from his ancestor, Richard ap Thomas, down through heirs for seven generations without deed or title. He received his academical education in a private classical school taught by a graduate of Dickenson college, and then attended Haverford col- lege. Leaving College he engaged in farm- ing on a part of the original tract of land taken up by Dr. Richard Thomas. He still resides there and owns one hundred and eighty-three acres of land, which is fertile and productive, and is engaged to some ex- tent in raising fine stock. During the civil war he served at different times in the State militia and the Union army. On December 13, 1866, Mr. Thomas mar- ried Hannah J. Gibbons, daughter of Abra- 502 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY ham and Martha P. Gribbons, of Coatesville. To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have been born three children : Martha G., George (3), and Anna M. J. Preston Thomas is a repubUcan in politics. He was elected in 1887 as a di- rector of the poor of Chester county, and discharged the duties of his position so ac- ceptably that he was renominated and re- elected in 1890 for a second term of three years. He has also served his township as a member and secretary of its school board for twenty years. In financial and educa- tional matters he has been called to serve as well as in political affairs. He has been a director of the National bank of Chester county since 1872 ; treasurer of the Chester county Agricultural society ; is a manager of the Preston Retreat, a hospital in Phila- delphia, and of Haverford college, and has served for several years as a trustee of the West Chester State IsTormal school. Mr. Thomas is a birthright member of the Or- thodox Society of Friends, and is. a man of intelligence, integrity and usefulness. CAMUEL WYNNE, one of the most prominent and successful educators of the county, and who is the proprietor of one of the largest general mercantile estab- lishments of Phcenixville, is a son of Sam- uel, sr., and Margaret (Brindley) Wynne, and was born in Caernarvon township,]3erks county, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1846. He received his education in the common schools of his native township, Mt. Pleasant seminary and Keystone i^ormal school. Leaving school in 1867, he taught during that winter a school in Exeter township, Berks county. The next year he taught Hause's school in East Nantmeal township, Ches- ter county, and the two following years he taught in Charlestown township — the first year at the Union school, and the second at Amity school. Having been so successful in this short time he was called to the prin- cipalship of the E^orth Ward Grammar school of Phcenixville, where he labored assiduously and efficiently for nineteen years. In 1884 he embarked in the general mercantile business on Gay street, Phcenix- ville. His quarters soon became too small for his trade, and he removed across the street, and in 1889 built his present busi- ness house on the southeast corne*r of Gay street and Washington avenue. It is a three story brick, with mansard roof, 40x40 feet in dimensions, and is one of the finest buildings on the street, the front being built of white pressed brick — the only one of the kind in the town. His salesroom, 20x40 feet in dirnensions, is handsomely equipped with every convenience, and the stock dis- played includes all kinds of dress goods, woolens, cottons, shawls, gloves, notions, fancy and staple groceries, provisions, pro- duce, tobacco, cigars, and a general line of household supplies. The goods handled are first-class in quality, fashionable and dura- ble, and are uniform in excellence. Mr. Wynne employs two experienced salesmen, and delivers goods free to all parts of the borough. He commands a large trade, and his establishment is known as one of the reliable and progressive mercantile houses of the county. On November 14, 1872, Mr. Wynne was united in marriage with JSTettie N., daughter of Lewis and Mary Free, of Charlestown township. Mr. and Mrs. Wynne have five children : Alvin L., born JSTovember 2, 1874, who is now local editor of the Daily Repub- lican, of Phcenixville ; Paul S., born June 8, OF CHEST EB COUNTY. 503 1878; S. 01ave,bom July 10, 1881; Harry 'S., born September 11, 1885 ; andEarle R., bom July 1, 1888. Tbe first member of the Wynne family who came to America was Dr. Thomas Wynne, of Ccerwys, Flintshire, JSTorth Wales, who accompanied William Penn in his first trip to Philadelphia, in the ship Welcome, in 1682. He served as surgeon of the ves- sel which brought him over, and settled near Philadelphia, in Lower Merion town- ship, Montgomery county, where he bought a tract of five thousand acres of land. He took an active part in the early history of Pennsylvania, and was speaker of the first provincial assembly held in Pennsylvania. He was also a preacher among the Friends, and he died January 6, 1692, and was buried in Friends' burying ground, in Philadelphia. Wynnewood, a station and village on the Pennsylvania railroad, located on the orig- inal purchase, has been named after him. Some of his descendants and other mem- bers of the family settled in Chester county at an early day. From one of his grand- sons was descended David Wynne, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. David Wynne was born about 1765, near St. Mary's, where he died in 1840, aged seventy -five years. He was a farmer, and a Presbyterian, and married Mary Myer8,who died in 1860, at seventy-five years of age. They were the parents of ten children : Samuel, sr.> James, John, David, Kate, Rebecca, Margaret, Harriet, Annie, and Mary. Samuel Wynne, sr. (father), was born in 1806, in Berks county, near the Chester county line, and died near his birth- place in 1880, at seventy-four years of age. He was a miner by occupation, a Baptist in religious belief, and a democrat in politics. In 1832 he married Margaret Brindley, who passed away in 1884, when in the seventy- second year of her age. To Mr. and Mrs. Wynne were born eight children : Dr. Wil- liam B., Evaline (dead), Amanda, George B., Mary A. (dead), Samuel, jr., Eliza and one that died in infancy. Ill politics Samuel Wynne is a republican. He is chancellor commander of Sankanac Lodge, No. 58, Knights of Pythias; past chief of Stratford Castle, No. 67, Knights of the Golden Eagle ; and secretary of Ivan- hoe Keep, No. 1, Knights of Brotherhood, of Phoenixville, of which he is one of the founders. Mr. Wynne closely adheres to legitimate business methods, and well merits the success which has attended his eftbrts, while as a man and a citizen he is highly regarded by the community in which he resides. TA/ ATLEE POTTER, a prominent cit- izen and farmer of Easttown town- ship, and a stonemason and contractor in stone work, is a son of Atlee and Ann (Ivester) Potter, and was born on the farm on which he now resides, in Easttown town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Novem- ber 29, 1839. He was reared on the farm, received his education in the common schools, and then learned the trade of stone- mason under Peter Burns, which he has followed ever since in different parts of the county. He is a good workman and has worked successfully upon the construction of several public and a large number of private buildings. Mr. Potter supports the principles of the Democratic party, and held the office of supervisor of his town- ship for seven years. He is a member of Thompson Lodge, No. 330, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, and is a popular man in his community. 504 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY W. Atlee Potter traces his American an- cestors on the paternal side back to Martin Potter, who came from Germany to Chester county, and in 1793 purchased the farm near Berwyn, which has been in the pos- session of his descendants ever since. Mar- tin Potter was an old-line whig in politics, and an Episcopalian in religion. He mar- ried Mary Epright, and had six children : Philip, Martin, jr., Joseph, Samuel, Atlee, and Betsey Morris. His third son, Atlee Potter (father), was horn about 1792 on the General Wayne farm in Easttown township. He received a good practical English edu- cation, and followed his trade of stone- mason in Chester, Delaware and Schuylkill counties. In the war of 1812 he enlisted in Capt. James Lackey's company (5th), of the 65th Pennsylvania militia, commanded by Col. John Pearson, and his company was stationed at Camp Marcus Hook, until all danger of a British attack on Philadelphia had passed away. He was a member and secretary for several years of Paoli Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons. He resided on the homestead farm after attaining his majority, and, like his father before him, was a whig, and an Episcopalian. He died in 1860, aged sixty-nine years. In 1836 he married Ann Ivester, and to their union were born two children, one son and one daughter: "W. Atlee and Sarah A. Mrs. Potter, who died in 1876, at seventy-nine years of age, was a daughter of George Ivester, who was born in 1750, in Scotland, and came to this country on account of his political opinions having made him unpop- ular with the English authorities. He settled near "Wayne's Place" in Easttown township. He was born October 12, 1750, served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and died in 1832. He married Jane Meredith, and had a family of eleven chil- dren : Thomas, Mary, William, Elizabeth, George, Rebecca, Sarah, Rachel, Jesse, Ann (mother), and John. Mrs. Ann (Ivester) Potter was an intelligent woman and took an active part in the afl'airs of the Protest- ant Episcopal church, of which she had been a consistent member for many years before her death. QAMUEIi K. PARKE, president of the Parkesburg ^STational bank, treasurer of the Parkesburg Iron Company, director and vice-president of the Parkesburg Water Company, and a director in the Parkesburg Building and Loan association, is a fine type of the American gentleman and successful business man. He is also an earnest Sun- day school worker, and prominently identi- fied with the growth and prosperity of his borough. He is a son of Arthur and Mary (Reynolds) Parke, and was born in High- land township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, October 9, 1833. The name was orginally spelled Park, but the later gener- ations spell it Parke. The family is of re- mote Scotch-Irish origin, and they trace their American ancestry back to Arthur Parke, (great-great-grandfather), a native of Bally- bagly, county Donegal, in the north of Ire- land, who came with his wife, Mary, and four children — Joseph, John, Samuel, and a daughter, who married William J^oblett — and settled in Chester county, Pennsylvania, prior to 1724. He took up by warrant a large tract of land lying along the lime- stone road in West Fallowfield township, near where Parkesburg now stands, and embracing what is now divided into seven farms. He resided in the house formerly occupied by J. Wilson Hershberger, a short W'Muef •'t-^^e. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 507 distauce west of the limestone road, until his death in February, 1740. He was a Presbyterian in religion, and was instru- mental in establishing the Octoraro Presby- terian church, which is now one of the old- est churches in this county, and there his remains lie entombed. His real estate was divided by devise between his two sons, Joseph and John, subject to the payment of legacies to the other heirs. These sons divided the land between themselves, Joseph taking the southern and John the northern portion. Joseph lived for some years on his tract, which included the homestead, and then sold out and removed to Georgia. This property is still in the possession of members of the Parke family. John Parke (great-grandfather) erected buildings on the part taken by him, and continued to reside thereon until his death, July 28, 1787, aged eighty-one years. His wife, Elizabeth, sur- vived him seven years, dying May 21, 1794, at the age of eighty-two. Their children were : Arthur, Joseph, John,William, Mary, Elizabeth, Jane, David and Samuel. The entire Parke family in the western part of the county, together with many families bearing other honored surnames, are their descendants. John Parke (grandfather) was born on the old homestead near Parkes- burg in 1739, and became an extensive and prosperous farmer. He was a federalist in politics, and a member of the Octoraro Presbyterian church. His death occurred JSTovember 15, 1823, at the advanced age of eighty-fouryears. He married Ann Denny, and their children were : Elizabeth, Mary, Arthur, Jane and John. Elizabeth mar- ried Thomas McClellan; Mary wedded Samuel Thompson, and was the mother of the wife of Hon. Walter H. Lowrie, some- time chief justice of Pennsylvania, whose 30 son, liev. Samuel Thompson Lowrie, was a professor in the Western Theological semi- nary at Allegheny, and later became pastor of a church in New Jersey ; Arthur was the father of the subject of this sketch ; and John was the father of John Andrew Parke, who has for many years owned and resided on the old homestead in Highland town- ship. Arthur Parke (father) was born in Highland township in 1785, and resided in that township all his life. After attaining manhood he devoted himself to agricultural pursuits and became prosperous and wealthy. He was a member of the Octoraro Presby- terian church, a democrat in politics, and was honored by election to a number of official positions in the township. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and always took a deep interest in questions affecting the public welfare. His death occurred October 30, 1858, after an active life of seventy-six years. He married Mary Rey- nolds, of the Society of Friends, who later became a member of the Presbyterian church. She was a native of Wilmington, Delaware, and died in 1868, aged seventy- five years. She possessed great intellect and considerable culture, was an afl'ection- ate wife and mother, a steadfast friend, and exemplified in her life a high type of Chris- tian womanhood. Samuel R. Parke was reared on his fath- er's farm in Highland township, this county, and received his early education in the pub- lic schools. He afterward attended Blair Hall at Fagg's Manor, this county, gradu- ating in 1852. After completing his edu- cation he remained on the farm until his twenty-eighth year, when he came to Parkesburg and engaged in the grain, coal and lumber business. This he successfully conducted until 1869, when he organized 508 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY the private banking firm of Parke, Smith & Co., and began a general banking business at Parkesburg. Iq 1880 this bank became the Parkesburg ITational bank, and Mr. Parke was made president, which position he has held [ever] since. He has now been in the banking business continuously for twenty-three years, and owns some valua- ble real estate in the borough, beside being financially interested in several other busi- ness enterprises of Parkesburg. In 1858 Mr. Parke was united in mar- riage to Annie E. Martin, a daughter of Thomas Martin, of London Grove, this county. She died in 1862, leaving two sons: Arthur T., now a 'practicing lawyer of West Chester ; and William E., who is engaged in the practice of medicine in the city of Philadelphia. On October 26, 1882, Mr. Parke was again married, wedding Ida S. Wilson. She is a daughter of Amos G. Wilson, of Parkesburg, whose sketch ap- pears elsewhere in this volume. By this second union Mr. Parke has two children: Mary R. and Samuel R., jr. Politically Mr. Parke is a stanch repub- lican, and has been honored by his party with an election to the ofiice of county sur- veyor, in which position he served for three years, and also as burgess and justice of the peace in Parkesburg borough. He is a member and deacon of the Octoraro Pres- byterian church, founded so many years ago by his ancestoi's, and is also trustee and superintendent of the Sunday school in this church. In personal appearance Mr. Parke is large and commanding, and possesses strong will power. He is, however, of a courteous disposition and immensely popu- lar. He is a worthy representative of a worthy family, and has long ranked with the representative citizens of this county. vJOHN P. THOMAS, a prosperous and comfortably situated farmer of East Whiteland township, is a son of Jonathan R. and Sarah D. (Cornog) Thomas, and was born in East Whiteland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 21, 1851. He was reared on his father's farm, and re- ceived his education in the common schools of his native township and the late J. Hun- ter Worrell's boarding school of West Ches- ter, and then engaged in farming and stock raising, which he has followed successfully up to the present time. In politics Mr. Thomas is a republican. The Thomas family has been resident in Chester county since the first decade of the present centur}'. John Thomas, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Canada, and came to East Whiteland township, near Paoli, where he purchased a farm and resided until his death at an advanced age. He was in- clined in religious belief to the Society of Friends, and married, in Canada, Sarah Radclifiie, who was a native of that country. He reared a family of three sons and four daughters : Sarah, who married Jes.se Brook and went to Hollidaysburg, Blair county, where they both died ; Rachel ; Elizabeth ; Gaynor; Jonathan R. ; and Jesse, a black- smith by trade, and now ninety years of age, who has resided for over half a cen- tury at Woodland, on the West Chester branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. Jona- than R. Thomas (father), one of the three sons, was born on December 9, 1805, in Canada, from which he was brought, when but a mere child, by his parents to Chester county. A part of the trip was made on a canal boat, as it then was before the days of steam engines and railroads. He learned the trade of wheelwright, at which he OF CHESTER GO UNI Y. 509 worked until his marriage, when he en- gaged in farming and followed it until his death, February 11, 1875, when he was in the seventieth year of his age. He was a whig and republican in politics, and became a member of Great ValleyjBaptist church, from which he afterwards withdrew by let- ter to unite with "Willistown Baptist church, at Malvern. Jonathan K. Thomas was a man of standing and influence in his com- munity. On March 24, 1836, he married Sarah D. Cornog, and to their union were born six children : Margaret, wife of Charles C. Entriken, of Malvern ; Davis, who en- listed in Co. C, 97th Pennsylvania infantry, and was killed near the close of the war at Green Plain, Virginia; Martha J., wife of Judson Ruth, a farmer of East Whiteland township ; J. Wilber, who married Lilly Bell ; John P., and Sarah E. Mrs. Sarah D. Thomas, who died September 9, 1865, aged fifty-two years, was a daughter of Abner Cornog, a prosperous farmer of Tredyftrin township, where he owned three farms, besides a farm in Goshen and an- other in Charlestown township. HOMER EACHUS, since 1876 a resi- dent of Tanquy, this county, and an intelligent, enterprising, progressive and popular citizen, is a son of Homer and Lydia M. (Green) Eachus, and a native of Edgmont township, Delaware county, Penn- sylvania, where he was born JSTovember 23, 1821. The family is of German extraction, and have been resident in this county since 1715, at which time Robert Eachus was a landowner and tax payer in Goshen town- ship, owning four hundred acres of land near West Chester, on part of which the northeast section of that borough now stands. He married Elizabeth Harry, daughter of Hugh and Elizabeth (Brinton) Harry, and had eight children : John, mar- ried Hannah Haines, a daughter of Isaac Haines, of Goshen, and died January 19, 1779 ; William, married Sarah Peirce ; Robert, Enoch, Daniel, Elizabeth, Ann and Alice. Robert Eachus, sr., died in 1727, leaving his lands to his two oldest sons, John and William. His widow afterward married John Gleave, of Springfield, and died at Marlborough, March 8, 1758, being buried at Kenuett. John and Hannah (Haines) Eachus were the parents of Phin- eas Eachus (great-grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch), who was married No- vember 23, 1757, at Goshen meeting, to Sarah Trego, a daughter of William and Margaret Trego, of Goshen township. At one time he owned considerable land, com- prising much of the present site of West Chester, and was the first proprietor of the Turk's Head tavei-n. Becoming surety for friends, he lost his property, the land pass- ing into possession of Isaac Matlack, and the hotel being purchased by John Hoopes. He was a fine classical scholar, and named two of his sons Virgil and Paris. After losing his property he established a school, which gave promise of being a great suc- cess, when its proprietor was suddenly stricken and died from disease contracted from one of his pupils. Virgil Eachus (grandfather) was born in Chester county about 1763, died in Haverford, Delaware county, in 1838, and was buried in Friends' burying groiand there. He was a farmer by occupation, a Friend or Quaker in re- ligion, and an old-line whig in politics. In his religious life he was noted for zeal and activity, and was a man of spotless integrity of character, who won and held the highest 610 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY regard of all wlio became acquainted with him. Inl79l he married BathshehaWebb, by whom he had nine children: Homer, Joseph, Obed, Hiram, Edna, Betsy, Ma- hala,''-'Abner and Preston. After the death of his first wife he wedded, in 1808, Mary Starr, and by his second mar- riage had six children : Vanleer, Bath- sheba, Minshall, Sarah, Rebecca and Vii-gil Trego. Soon after his first marriage he removed to Middletown township, Dela- ware county, and lived there for a number of years. He then moved to Baltimore county, Maryland, where he farmed for a short time. He then returned, locating in Haverfordtown8hip,Delawarecounty,where he continued to live the balance of his life. His oldest son. Homer Eachus (father), was born in Middletown township, Delaware county, in 1792, and died at his home in the city of Philadelphia in 1869, aged seventy- seven years. After attaining manhood he engaged in merchandising at Providence, being the first merchant of that place, and later removed to Howellville, Delaware county, where he erected a store building and did business for some time. In 1821 he engaged in farming, and followed that occupation most of his active life. About 1855 he retired from business and removed to Philadelphia, which city continued to be his home during the remainder of his life. Politically he was a life-long democrat, but during the war heartily supported Lincoln and the Union cause. He was a member of the Society of Eriends, and took a promi- nent part in church aft'airs. In 1814 he mar- ried Lydia M. Green, 'a, daughter of Robert Green, the first superintendent of West- town boarding school, who was a native of Delaware county. To this union was born a family of thirteen children, nine sons and four daughters : Joseph, Hannah, Robert, Samuel, Elizabeth, Homer, Obid, Lydia, Virgil, Jane, James, George Washington and Edward. Homer Eachus, the subject of this sketch, was reared principally in Edgemont town- ship, Delaware county, and received his ed- ucation in the public schools there, and at Josiah Hoopes' academy, in West Chester, this county. Leaving school he embarked in the produce business in. Cincinnati, Ohio, whei'e he remained three years, and then re- turning to Delaware county, this State, en- gaged in farming in Edgemont township. He continued to devote his time to agricul- tural pursuits in Edgemont township, Dela- ware county, until 1876, when he purchased the farm in Westtown township, Chester county, where he now resides, and continued to farm until 1885, when he relinquished farming and was succeeded by his sons, though he continued to reside in the man- sion house. The i'arm contains one hundred acres of choice land, all well improved and supplied with excellent buildings. In pol- itics Mr. Eachus is a "JSTational" demo- crat, and at one time received the nomina- tion for county commissioner of Delaware county, but on account of the large repub- lican majority in the county, he was de- feated at the polls. For twenty-one years he served as president of the school board of his township, and for a number of yeiars has been connected with the Farmer's In- surance Company, of Chester county, Penn- sylvania. On October 7, 1848, Mr. Eachus was married to Lydia Baker, a daughter of Anthony Baker, of Edgemont, Delaware county, and they were the parents of twelve children, eight of whom lived to reach maturity. These were : William, who mar- OF CITESTEIi COUNIY. 511 ried Matilda Lodge, and is now a prosper- ous farmer of Westtown township, this county ; Hannah Mary, who married Enimor Lodge; Lydia Elizabeth,who married John B. Grill, of Edgemont ; Mahala, became the wife of William Pinkerton, a farmer of East Goshen township ; Sarah, wedded John Brown, who resides on and manages his father-in-law's farm in Westtown township, this county ; Emma, living at home ; Ed- ward, married Mary Russell, and is engaged in farming in Thornbury township, Dela- ware county ; and Lena, at home with her parents. * The deceased were : Margaret, "Walter, George and Elwyn. lUriLLARD F. SUPPLEE, a prominent ■^ farmer of Westtown township, residing near Cheyney postoffice, is the youngest son of Peter and Elizabeth (Kennedy) Supplee, and a native of Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he was born August 27, 1850. The family to which he belongs is of French extraction, but has been resident in Pennsylvania since early times. His paternal grandfather, Peter Supplee, was born in Chester county, and spent most of his life in Schuylkill town- ship, finally removing to Norristown, Mont- gomery county, were he died in 1859, at the ripe old age of four score years. lie was a farmer and a progressive one in his day, accumulating considerable property. Po- litically he was a whig, and on account of his high standing and good judgment he was made a justice of the peace, and held that office for many years in Schuylkill township. He was a member of the Baptist church, and took an active part in support of the various interests of his denomination. Soon after reaching his majority he married Hannah Eastburn, and they reared a family of eight children : Samuel, Horatio, Cad- walader, Silas, Peter, Margaret, who married Joseph Rapp ; Hannah, became the wife of a Mr. Reiss; and Eliza, who wedded Robin- son Kennedy. They are all now deceased except Silas and Mrs. Kennedy. Peter Supplee (father) was born in Schuyl- kill township, this county, in 1817, where he grew to manhood and received a com- mon school education. Soon after marriage he removed to Easttown township, and from there to Westtown township, where he died April 10, 1890, in the seventy-third year of his age. He devoted his entire life to agri- cultural pursuits, in which he was very suc- cessful. In politics he was an ardent whig and republican, while in religion he was an active and influential member of the Baptist church, serving as Sunday school superintendent for a number of years. Li 1845 he married Elizabeth Kennedy, a daughter of William Kennedy, of Easttown, and by this union had a family of four chil- dren, two sons and two daughters : William ; Louisa, who married W. H. Wells; Millard F., the subject of this sketch ; and Anna, who became the wife of S. D. Cornoar. Mrs. Elizabeth Supplee died in 1864, aged forty-two years, and some time later Mr. Supplee wedded Elizabeth Yerkes, but had no children by his second man'iage. Milliard F. Supplee was reared princi- pally in this county, and obtained his edu- cation in the common schools of his neigh- borhood and at ITorristown high school. After quitting the school room he engaged in farming, which has been his principal business ever since. In 1879 he removed from Easttown to Westtown township, where he purchased and still owns a fine farm, consisting of one hundred and twenty 513 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY acres of choice land, all finely improved and abundantly supplied with water, fruit, and excellent farm buildings. He has been quite successful in agricultural pursuits, and for some years has given considerable at- tention to market produce of various kinds. Politically he follows the traditions of his family and is an ardent republican, while he also adheres to the religious faith of his boyhood, and for a number of years has been a member of the Goshen Baptist church, in which he is serving as a deacon, and in whose interest he is at all times active. On March 11, 1874, Mr. Supplee married Maggie Cornog, a daughter of Abner and Jane Cornog, of Charlestown township, this county. To their union has been born a family of eight children, seven sons and a daughter: Edwin, Howard, Millard, Lizzie, Samuel, Walter, Chester, and Joseph, all living at home with their parents on the farm. QEORGE KHOADS, a well known and highly respected citizen of Westtown, who for several years was engaged in the dry goods business in Philadelphia, is the eldest son of William and Anna P. (Levis) Rhoads, and a native of IS'ewtown township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, where he was born February 20, 1823. The Rhoads family is descended from English Quaker stock, and traces its ancestral history back to "John and Elizabeth Rhoads, of Win- greages, county of Darby" (Derbyshire), England, whose son Adam, born June 30, 1660, emigrated to America in 1684, and settled in Darby (now Upper Darby) town- ship, in what is now Delaware county. In 1691 he was married at Darby meeting to Katharine Blunston, a daughter of John Blunston, by whom he had six children: John, Hannah, Sarah, Elizabeth, Joseph, and Adam. Katharine died in 1738, and Adam in 1744. Adam was followed to America in 1692 by his brother John, who came from Whitlow, in Derbyshire, and settled in Philadelphia, where he soon after- ward married Hanna Wilcox. About 1696, their father, the John Rhoads first men- tioned, also came to America, accompanied by his youngest son, Joseph, and, it is thought, another son named Jacob. He at first settled in Philadelphia, but subsequently removed to Darby township, then Chester, now Delaware county, where he died in 1701. It is supposed his wife, Elizabeth, died before he left England. He left land to his son Joseph in Marple, and to his son Job n i n W hitem arsh town ship , Montgomery county. This Joseph Rhoads, great-great- grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was married in 1702 to Abigail Bonsall, a daughter of Richard Bonsall, of what is now Upper Darby township, Delaware county. Their children were : John, Mary, Elizabeth, Abigail, Rebecca, Joseph, Jane, Benjamin, and James. He lived in Marple, on the land devised to him by his father, which is still in possession of his descendants, and died in 1732, his widow surviving him until 1760. His youngest son, James Rhoads (great-grandfather), was married June 22, 1745, to Elizabeth Owen, a daughter of John Owen, of Springfield, this county, by whom he had a son, Joseph Rhoads (grand- father). The latter became a tanner and farmer by occupation, as his ancestors had been, and also followed the religious tradi- tions of his family in being a strict Quaker. In politics he was an old-line whig, and died at his home in Marple about 1809, aged nearly sixty years. On May 27, 1779, OP CHESTEB COUNTY. 513 he wedded Mary Ashbridge, a daughter of George Ashbridge, of Goshen, and they were the parents of seven children : James, George, Joseph, Elizebeth, Rebecca, Phebe and William. "William Rhoads (father) was born at Marple, April 2, 1797, where he grew to manhood and received his early education, finishing his studies at John Gammere's school, Burlington, I^Tew Jersey. About 1822 he removed to Newtown township, where he passed the remainder of his life, dying there in 1863, at the age of sixty-six years. He devote^ his life almost entirely to agricultural pursuits, owning two hun- dred acres of productive land, and conduct- ing his operations on an extensive scale. In 1822 he was united in marriage with Anna P. Levis, a daughter of William Levis, of Upper Darby, and to them was born a fam- ily of seven children, two sons and five daughters : George, whose name heads this sketch ; William, a citizen of JS'ewtown ; Esther, deceased, who married Hon.N'athan Garrett, deceased, of Garrettford, Delaware county, Pennsylvania ; Phebe, who resides at Media, Delaware county; Mary Ash- bridge, deceased, who married Hibberd Yarnall, of Philadelphia; Anna, who re- sides at Media, Delaware county ; and Eliza- beth, who died in infancy. George Rhoads was reared principally on his father's farm in ISTewtown township, Delaware county, and received a good com- mon school education in the public schools of his neighborhood and at Westtown boarding school. At the age of about twenty years he left his father's farm in Newtown township, and went to Philadel- phia as young man of all work in the dry goods commission house of Wood & Er- ringer. He became a partner in that firm. and finally succeeded them as Cadbury, Rhoads & Thomas. Withdrawing from the latter firm, he purchased the farm on which he now resides, and has since been known as a farmer. On October 20, 1853, Mr. Jlhoads married Elizabeth Letchworth, who was born No- vember 3. 1^26, and died at their home in Philadelphia, June 13, 1866. Two years later, June 17, 1868, at Camden, New Jer- sey, Mr. Rhoads married Abigail Ann Brad- dock, a daughter of WilliamR. and Sarah S. Braddock. She was born at Medford, New Jersey, April 1, 1834. By his first wife Mr. Rhoads had one son, Robert L., who was born in Philadelphia, August 24, 1854, and died September 14, 1861. By his second marriage he has had five children, two sons and three daughters: Anna P., born in Philadelphia; William, George Elwood, Gertrude and Helen Elizabeth — the four latter born in Westtown, where the family has resided since 1871. QARON J. BOYER, now serving as justice of the peace at Valley Eorge, and a well known telegraph operator and cigar manufacturer, is a son of Aaron S. and Sarah A. (Kern) Boyer, and was born at Leesport, Berks county, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1862. His paternal grandfather, Jacob Boyer, was born at Leesport, where he is still living, being now in the seventy- ninth year of his age, and still hale and hearty. In his early years he was a farmer, and maintained a kind of connection with that occupation nearly all his life, though his main business was that of a hotel keeper, in which he became well known and quite popular. He maintained his connection with the hotel business for a period of forty- 514 BIOORAPRY AND HISTORY two years, during part of which time he was also engaged in dealing in real estate; and loaned large sums of money to busi- ness men and others engaged in different enterprises. About 1875 he practically re- tired from acti^ve business, and has since been leading a quiet and comfortable life, enjoying the fruits of a somewhat extended, busy and successful career. Politically he is a democrat of the old school, and while always active in the various interests of his party, has never cherished political ambi- tion for himself nor allowed the use of his name for any office. In religion he is a member of the German Reformed church of Leesport. His wife was Matilda Brown- miller, a daughter of Dr. Brownmiller, a prominent physician in his day, and by her Mr. Boyer had two children. The eldest was a daughter named Catharine, who is now deceased, while the younger was Aaron S. Boyer (father). The latter was born at Leesport, Berks county, this State, in 1840, and died there in Ifovember, 1869, at the early age of twenty-nine years. After being educated in the public schools of his native place he was employed with his father in the hotel business for a time, but when the civil war broke out, he went to the city of Reading and enlisted as a private in the Pennsylvania infantry, in which he served faithfully until the war ended. He actively participated in twenty-nine engagements fought by the army of the Potomac, during one of which he was captured by the enemy, and was afterward incarcerated in Ander- sonville prison for a time. There he per- sonally underwent all the hardships and privations which have rendered thatmilitary prison infamous in the annals of civilized warfare, and his death resulted a few years later from disease brought on by the ex- posure and semi-starvation endured while an inmate of that prison pen. In 1859 he married Sarah A. Kern, a daughter of Josiah and Susanna Kern, and by this union had a family of three children, two sons and one daughter: Aaron J., the subject of this sketch ; Heister J., now engaged in the slating and roofing business at Pottsville, Schuylkill county ; and Kate, still single, and also residing there. Aaron J. Boyer grew to manhood at Leesport, Berks county, and obtained a superior English education in the public schools of that villa^. After leaving school he entered the telegraph office and soon became a skillful operator, being in the employ of the Reading Railroad Com- pany for a period of nearly thirteen years, during ten of which he was operator at va- rious places along the line, and for three years station agent at Valley Forge, to which place he removed in 1883. In 1887 he began the manufacture of cigars in the city of Philadelphia, and three years later, in September, 1890, transferred his opera- tions to Valley Forge, where he opened the factory since known as No. 39, and has built up a prosperous- and paying business in that line. In politics he is a democrat, but broad and liberal in his views, and is well known for his sound judgment and correct business principle^. In February, 1891, he was elected by his fellow citizens to the position of justice of the peace, the duties of which office he has ever since creditably discharged. In religion he is a strict member of the German Reformed church, and ranks among the most substan- tial and useful citizens of Chester county. On November 15, 1883, Squire Boyer was united in marriage to Ella Evans, a daughter of Josiah and Esther A. Evans, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 515 of Linfield, Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, and their union has been blessed by the birth of one child, a son named Jacob E., who is now (1892) in his fourth year. vJACOB GILBERT, an active and useful member of the Lutheran church, and a highly respected resident of Zermatt, is a son of Daniel and Sarah (Haas) Gilbert, and was born in Whitemarsh township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, April 23, 1819. His paternal great-grandfather, Jacob Gilbert, sr., was a native of Germany, and came to Germantown, Philadelphia county, where he followed distilling mint. His son, Jacob Gilbert (grandfather), was born in 1754 in Germantown, Philadelphia, and died in Upper Dublin township, Feb- ruary 26, 1828, at seventy-three years of age. He served in the revolutionary war and took part in some of the hardest bat- tles of that great struggle, being one of the Pennsylvania soldiers who fought under Morgan, and was with him at the battle of Cowpens. He commenced life as a farmer, buf afterward engaged in distilling. He was a democrat, and was instrumental in organizing "Whitemarsh Evangelical Luth- eran church, of which he was an honored member until his death. He married Anna M. Braus, and they had five children : Jacob, Susan, Maiy, Christiana, and Daniel. The youngest son, Daniel (father), was born August 20, 1790. He served in a cavalry regiment during the war of 1812, and after- ward became a farmer. He was a member of the Lutheran church, and died March 16, 1876, aged eighty-five years. He married Sarah Haas, who was born October 2, 1796, and passed away December 15, 1886. They had six children : Peter H., Jacob, Daniel, Sarah Thompson, Anna M. Danehower, and Villy Ann Danehower. Jacob Gilbert received his education in the common schools of his neighborhood, and then learned the trade of stonemason, at which he worked for two years. At the end of that time, in 1838, he engaged in farming for his father, which he quit in 1855 to remove to a farm near Zermatt station, this county, where he remained for twenty- six years. He then (1881) retired from active life and removed to his present prop- erty near that station, on which he is mak- ing considerable improvements. He is a democrat in politics and a Lutheran in re- ligious belief, and has served for twenty-one years as g. school director of his township, and for twenty-two years as an elder of his church. On December 21, 1847, Mr. Gilbert mar- ried Catherine A. Danehower, who is a daughter of Jacob Danehower, a native and farmer of Montgomery county, who was a democrat and Presbyterian. Jacob Danehower married Catharine Hallman, and had five children : Charles, Mary Fleck, George, Rowland, and Mrs. Gilbert. To Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert have been born six children: Elizabeth, wife of Henry Menkins, a farmer of East Whiteland township ; Catherine, wife of Wesley M. White, a farmer of West Bradford township ; Jacob, jr., who married Maude Miller, and is en- gaged in the milk business in Philadelphia ; Sarah H., married Edwin J. Scott, a farmer of East Bradford township ; Mary Emma, who married Frank Fisher, a resident and farmer of Upper Uwchlan township ; and Clara Irene, wife of John Temple, now en- gaged in the general mercantile business at West Chester. 516 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY i3lERRE BIZALLION, one of the most noted Indian traders in the prov- ince of Pennsylvania, established himself at various points, and penetrated the dis- tant wilderness to barter with the natives for their furs. About the year 1724 he set- tled down on a farm in the valley, a short distance east of Coatesville, where he died in 1742. He names eight slaves in his will, and his personal property was appraised at five hundred and seventy-three pounds. His widow, Martha, gave the land, one hundred and fifty-eight acres (which had been patented to them in 1740), to her nephew, John Hart, by deed of December 22, 1762. QEORGE R. STITEI.ER, an active Baptist, and a prominent citizen of West Pikeland township, is a son of Henry and Penina (Benner) Stiteler, and was born in West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, ITovember 6, 1830. He was reared on the farm, received his education at Fremont academy, and, after teaching one term in the common schools, was engaged with his father in farming for fourteen years. He then (1867) removed to West Pikeland township, where he purchased his present farm of one hundred and twenty- three acres of improved land. His farm is well cultivated and very productive and ranks as one of the best farms of the town- ship. In addition to farming he raises some stock and during the last few years has given some attention to dairying, in which he has met with good success. While actively engaged in the management of his farm, and the supervision of iiis dairy, lie is ever alive to every measure or enterprise that is of interest to his feilow-eiti/.ens, or of benefit to his township. He is a repub- lican in politics, has held the offices of as- sessor and school director, and served, in 1890, as census enumerator of West Pike- land township, and is at present (1892) sec- retary and treasurer of Pikeland Creamery (limited). Mr. Stiteler is a useful and in- fluential citizen of his conmiunity, and has been frequently employed to settle up es- tates and act as assignee and guardian. He is a member and deacon of Vincent Baptist church, of whose choir he has been a mem- ber for forty and the leader for thirty years. In every position which he has held in pub- lic life, and in every capacity in which he has served his fellow citizens, he has so acted as to be in the best interests of all concerned and to reflect credit on himself. On March 4, 1858, Mr. Stiteler married Catherine D. Miles, and to their union have been born three children, one son and two daughters : Edwin M., who died at two years of age; Frances Middletou, and Emma Miles. Frances Middleton Stiteler was graduated fromWest Chester Normal school in the class of 1878 ; taught for some time as principal of a private school at Hillside, and in 1890 entered the National school of elocution and oratory, Philadelphia, from which she was graduated in the class of 1892, and is now pursuing a special course in the Neft" school of oratory, Philadelphia, to qualify herself for a chair in a high school or college. Emma Miles Stiteler re- ceived a good education, taught at Hillside, and married E. Jones Acker, a prominent surveyor and civil engineer ot Norfolk, Virginia. The Stiteler family traces its ancestry to Germany, and has been resident' of this country for five generations. George Stit- eler (grandfather), a son of the founder of OF CMESIEB COUNTY. 517 the family in this country, was a native of Chester county, where he married and reared a family. His son, Henry Stiteler (father), was born in 1811 in Uwchlan township, where he died March 11,1886. He was an industrious, useful and prominent man in the community where he resided, and married Penina Benner, who passed away in 1890, at seventy-eight years of age. They had ten children. The Stiteler family is noted for its industry and thrift, and its ancestral history will be given in detail in the sketch of I. Newton Stiteler (brother), which appears in this volume. I^AVIS KLEELiEY, now living a retired life at Phcenixville, was for over half a century one of the most active and ener- getic citizens of the county. He is a son of Jacob and Sophia (Shuler) Keeley, and was born in West Cain township, Chester county ,Penn8ylvania,December 17,1820. He was reared in his native county, received a good business education in private and select schools, and then learnedthe trade of carpen- ter, which he quit three years later to learn millwrighting. After learning his second trade, he entered the employ of the Phcenix Iron Company, as superintendent of the erection of all buildings and machinery, with whom he remained for thirty-six years. During that time he had charge of building the blast furnaces and keeping them in running order. He raised the large iron mill in 1874 in five months, which is 960 x 480 feet in dimensions, and set up part of the machinery for running, and then was stopped for a period. During the last ten years he was with the company he had charge of the running of the three blast- furnaces. He resigned his position in 1876 and three years later went to Morris county, New Jersey, and engaged with George H. Brown, of ISTew York, president of the Port Oram Iron Company, to remodel their blast furnace and superintend the running of it for nearly two years. From New Jersey he went to Albany, the capital of the Empire State. Here he engaged with the Albany City Iron Company to superintend the remodeling of one furnace to run on Bessemer iron and one on foundry iron and mill, and ran the two blast furnaces for nearly two years. At the end of that time he engaged with the Merion Iron Com- pany, at Con8hohoeken,Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, to superintend the remodel- ing of one furnace and the running of the two for nearly two years — J. B. Moorhead, president, of Philadelphia. Next removed to Norristown, November 1, 1886, and en- gaged with Isaac McHose, of Reading, Berks county, Pennsylvania, to superintend the remodeling of the Norristown furnace to run on Bessemer iron, and superintend the running for six months; and then, on the first of October, 1887, engaged with Charles Richardson, of Philadelphia, to su- perintend the remodeling of the Edge Hill furnace in Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, and to instruct his two sons to run the furnace, for nearly two years, and on March 1, 1889, he returned to his native place, Phoenixville,where he has been living a retired life ever since. In political opinion Davis Keeley is a republican, regularly attends the Methodist Episcopal church, and is a member of Phoe- nix Lodge, No. 212, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having been initiated April 7, 1847. On January 12, 1843, Davis Keeley mar- ried Barbara Landis, who was a daughter 518 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY of Peter Landis, and died June 16, 1889, at the age of sixty-eight years. To their union were born two children, one son and a daughter : Jerome, a prominent iron com- mission merchant of Philadelphia; and Sophia E.,now the wife of Richard Griffith, a prosperous farmer of this county. His grandfather, Jacob Keeley, sr., was born in Montgomery county in 1738, and died in East Vincent township in 1810, at sev.enty-two years of age. He followed farming for many years and afterward kept hotel at Sheeder's paper mill, on French creek, in East Vincent township. He was a Presbyterian, married, and was the father of five children. His son, Jacob Keeley (father), was born in Montgomery county in 1772, and died in this county in 1828, aged sixty years. He learned harness mak- ing, at which he worked imtil his death. He married Sophia Shuler, a daughter of William Shuler, a Presbyterian and dem- ocrat, who was born in Montgomery county about 1762, and removed to Chester county, settling on French creek, in East Vincent township. He owned a large flouring mill and linseed oil mill, and in his community was a prominent man and an influential citizen. -yj^ILLIAM RALSTON, a prosperous farmer and mill owner of Matthews, this county, who is now practically retired from active business, is the fourth son of Eobert and Catharine (Christman) Ralston, and a native of West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he was born August 20, 1820. The Ralstons came originally from the north of Ireland, the family being planted on the American con- tinent by John Ralston, a native of north Ireland, who was in the battle of Boyne Water, under King William, July 1, 1690, and emigrated to America in August, 1728, settling in Pikeland (now West Pikeland) township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. With him came his son, Robert Ralston, who was born in Ireland, October 3, 1722. The latter became prominent in this county and served several years as a member of the State legislature, dying at his home in Pike- land township, February 19, 1814. His son, Hon. John Ralston (grandfather), was born in Vincent (now West Vincent) township, this county, November 4, 1744. When the war of the Revolution burst on the col- onies he took an active part in defense of American rights, serving in the Continen- tal army, first as captain and later as colonel of a I'egiment. When General Washington removed his headquarters from Yellow Springs to Reading he sent for Captain Ralston, who was then at home on a fur- lough putting in his crops, and requested him to pilot the command part of the way. The captain consented and escorted Wash- ington as far as the falls of French creek, where another pilot was procured and Cap- tain Ralston returned home. During the war his house was burned by the British scouts, and he was three times compelled to secrete himself in a barn to avoid being captured by the enemy. He was a farmer by occupation, and a democrat in politics. After the revolutionary struggle ended he was appointed justice of the peace, and for forty-one years discharged the complicated duties of that office in an able, intelligent and successful manner. He became a mem- ber of the county court in ISTovember, 1784, and occupied that position continuously until the constitution of 1790 went into efl:ect, and on August 26, 1791, was again commissioned a justice of the peace by OF CHESIER COUNTY. 519 Governor Mifflin. April 7,1802, he was ap- pointed by Governor McKean an associate judge of the courts of this county, the du- ties of which office he performed with sin- gular fidelity during the last twenty-three years of his life. He died at his home, on the property now occupied by John Ralston in West Vincent township, September 1, 1825, in the eighty-first year of his age, and his remains were entombed at St. Peter's church in Chester valley. He married Catharine Miller, and had five sons and two daughters: Robert, father; William, mar- ried Mary Heffelfinger in 1805, and died in 1825 ; John, James ; Mary, married John Bingaman, and, after his decease, wedded Henry Rimby ; Catharine, became the wife of Samson Davis ; and George. Robert Ralston (father) was born on the old Ralston homestead, in West Vincent township, this county, April 19, 1778, where he grew to maturity and received an ordinary English education. After attaining his majority he engaged in farming, which continued to be his principal occupation through life, though he was also engaged in distilling for a time, and in various other enterprises. Politically he was a democrat and took an active in- terest in the success of his party. He mar- ried Catharine' Christman, a daughter of George Christman, of Pikeland, and to them was born a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters : George, de- ceased; John, also dead; Robert; William, whose name heads this sketch ; Elizabeth, deceased; Mariah, married Henry Buck- waiter ; Sophia, now dead ; and Catharine, who became the wife of Isaac Evans. William Ralston grew to manhood in West Vincent township, this county, re- ceiving a good English education in the public schools of his vicinity, and has spent all his life here, engaged principally in agri- cultural pursuits. He owns a large farm containing two hundred and fifty acres, two hundred of which are well improved, the balance being valuable woodland. His farm buildings are substantial and commodious, and he is a fine type of the independent American farmer. In political sentiment Mr. Ralston has always been a democrat, believing firmly in equal rights and exact justice to all, and special privileges to none. On January 16, 1857, the subject of this sketch was united in marriags with Sarah Mosteller, a daughter of Henry Mosteller, a prosperous farmer of West Vincent town- ship, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Ralston was born a family of three children, two sons and a daughter: H. F. Ralston, who married Ella Paul, a daughter of Jacob Paul, of West Vincent township, and now resides with his father and operates the home farm ; Annie, who became the wife of Cliflbrd Emery, a farmer of this township ; and William E., living at home with his parents and running a feed and saw mill owned by his father. Mrs. Sarah Ralston was born January 18, 1826, grew to womanhood and was educated in her native township, and is a member of the Lutheran church. J'ONATHAN L,EABY, one of the most prosperous and comfortably situated farmers of N^orth Coventry township, is a son of George and Sarah (Murphy), Leary, and was born in Warwick township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, January 16, 1844. The Leary family is of English descent, and George Leary, the father of Jonathan Leary, was born April 23, 1808, and died May 19, 1862, aged fifty-four years. He was reared to agricultural pursuits, and passed the 520 BIOOEAPHY AND HISIORY larger part of his life in Warwick town- ship, where he was engaged in farming and huckstering. He was successful in his vari- ous business ventures. He was a strong democrat in politics, and married Sarah Murphy, who was a daughter of Edward Murphy, of Warwick township, and who died May 21, 1879, at sixty-eight years of age. George and Sarah Leary had six children, two sons and four daughters : Maria, wife of Liborn Amole, a farmer of Warwick township ; Elizabeth, who married John Grraham, and is now dead; Faithful, who became the wife of Jacob Schlipf, a resident of Pottstown, Montgomery county ; Jonathan ; Sarah, married Porter Fries, of South Coventry township; and Addison, who went to Iowa and there married a Miss Savage, and still continues to reside in that State. Jonathan Leary grew to manhood on the farm, received his education in the early common schools of Pennsylvania, and then engaged in farming, which he has followed successfully ever since. On September 30, 1866, Mr. Leary mar- ried Maria Dampman, of St Mary's, War- wick township, and to their union have been born nine children, four sons and five daughters : Anna, now. dead ; William Har- ris, who married Zena Bevens, and is a fore- man in the great Baldwin Locomotive works of Philadelphia ; Emma and Charles, now dead; Frankliq, Mabel, Ada, Alice, and Raymond. Li politics Mr. Leary supports the Re- publican party and believes that the practice of its cardinal principles would bring wealth and prosperity to the country. He gives the most of his time to farming and stock raising, and owns one of the finest farms in North Coventry township. His farm con- tains one hundred and three acres — all of which is easy tillable and highly product-ive. He is an excellent farmer, a reliable citizen, and a man who is respected in his com- munity. TA/lIiLAM H. EACHUS, a native and life long resident of the " Great Val- ley" of Chester county, and the accommo- dating proprietor of the Malvern livery stables for the last twelve years, is a son of James and Sarah (Hutchinson) Eachus,and was born in East Whiteland town8hip,Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, June 2, 1838. The name of Eachus appears in the records of the county as early as 1715. Abner Eachus, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a cattle dealer of Willistown township, and wedded Mary Barber, by whom he had twelve children. Their son, James Eachus (father), was born in 1797 in Willistown township, and died in East Whiteland, February 26, 1866, at sixty-nine years of age. He was a lime burner by occupation, and a Jacksonian democrat in political opinion. He married Sarah Hutchinson, who was a daughter of Thomas Hutchinson, of Scotch descent, and died September 13, 1880, aged eighty years. They reared a family of six children, four sons and two daughters: Abner, Mary, Thomas, Sarah Jane, William H., and Stephen, who served four years as a Union soldier in the late civil war. William H. Eachus was reared in his na- tive township and carefully trained to habits of industry, economy and honesty. He re- ceived his education in the common schools, and, after attaining his majority, purchased a grain threshing machine, which he ran successfully for eighteen years. At the end OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 531 of that time, in 1880, he removed to Mal- vern, where he purchased his present livery stable. He keeps a good stock of saddle and driving horses and buggies and car- riages, and has built up a first class and very remunerative patronage. On January 8, 1868, Mr. Eachus was united in marriage with Mary Garrett, a daughter of John S. Garrett, of East Goshen township, and their union has been blessed with three children, one son and two daughters : Sara, John and Margaret. In politics Mr. Eachus is a republican, and believes in the principles of the party of Lincoln, Grant and Harrison. Since coming to Malvern he has served as street commissioner of that place, but has never been eager or anxious for any political of- fice within the gift of his fellow citizens. His livery business and other enterprises in which he is interested take the most of his time. He is a member of the Baptist church of Malvern, and ranks as one of the reliable and active citizens of his town. HARVEY S. GARRETT, a prominent farmer and paper manufacturer, is a worthy representative of one of the old English Quaker families of this county. He is the third son of William and Eliza (Sharpless) Garrett, and a native of Willis- town township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, where he was born June 16, 1834, in the house where he now resides. Here he grew to manhood, receiving his primary education in the public schools and later attending the Westtown boarding school and Professor Olslop's academy at Wilming- ton, Delaware. Upon finishing his studies and returning home he took charge of a farm containing sixty-five acres, and a little later, in 1863, also assumed the manage- ment of the paper mill formerly owned by his father, which he has successfully con- ducted ever since. The mill is located on Ridley creek, in Willistown township, and is devoted entirely to the manufacture of tissue manilla paper. Its weekly output is between two and three tons of .fine tissue manilla paper, and its product finds a ready sale and is used in wrapping fruit, butter, and other articles, in all parts of the country. The mill building is fifty by one hundred feet in dimensious, and furnishes employ- ment to five skilled workmen the year round. Politically Mr. Garrett is a stanch republican, and in religion adheres to the faith held by his ancestors for many gener- ations, being a prominent member of the Society of Eriends. On May 5, i860, Mr. Garrett was united by marriage to Mary Worrell, a daughter of Elisha and Mary Worrell, of Upper Providence township, Delaware county. To this union was born a family of four chil- dren, two sons and two daughters: Edwin, who married Belle Hoopes, and is now a successful paper manufacturer of Delaware county; Philena, died July 15, 1882; Jos- eph H., living at home and employed in the paper mill here ; and Phoebe, also living with her parents on the farm near Cheyney. The Garrett family is of English descent, and its founders in America were among the early Quaker settlers of Pennsylvania. Isaac Garrett, paternal grandfather of Har- vey S., was a farmer residing on Ridley creek, in Willistown township, this county, where he died in 1837, aged eighty-two years. He was a member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends, and had a family of three sons and a daughter: Isaac, Amos, William, and Mary, all now 532 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY deceased. William Garrett (father) was born in this county in 1800, and died here in 1854, from the effects of being accident- ally hit by a lever while prying up a large rock near his paper mill. He owned and operated a farm here, and for many years was engaged in manufacturing edged tools on the present site of the paper mill. After tools began to be made so extensively by machinery, and the price became too low for hand-made tools, Mr. G-arrett converted his tool works into a paper mill, which he ran successfully until his accidental death. He was a whig and republican in politics, and in religion a strict member of the Society of Friends. In 1826 he married Eliza Sharpless, a daughter of Jesse Sharpless, of East Goshen township, Chester county, and was the father of five sons, all of whom grew to maturity and are now active and useful citizens of this State. They are : Edward T., who married Alice Priest, and is now a paper manufacturer of Darby town- ship, Delaware county; Casper S., also a paper manufacturer, who married Elizabeth Williamson, and now resides in West Phil- adelphia ; Harvey S., the subject of this sketch ; William H., a liveryman at Swath- more, Delaware county; and Sylvester,who, while residing at the last named place, is engaged in Philadelphia, in the sale of pa- per at that point. For additional facts con- cerning the early history of the Garrett family, see sketch of Jesse H. Garrett, on another page. I SAAC L. DUTTON, one of the repre- sentative farmers of West Goshen town- ship, was born at Middletown, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, March 22, 1838. His occupation has always been that of farming, which he continued to' follow in West Brandywine township until 1867, when he removed to West Goshen, where he has since resided on the Wilmington, and West Chester turnpike. Isaac L. Dutton is a son of Joseph and Sarah (Thatcher) Dutton. Joseph Dutton was born August 4, 1810, in Delaware county. He was reared and educated in Delaware county, and moved to Westtown township, this county, where he continued to reside several years, subsequently remov- ing to East Goshen township, where he held several local offices, and was a member of the Society of Friends or Quakers. Later he removed to West Chester, where he died on Ifovember 9, 1888. His wife, Sarah Thatcher, was a daughter of William Thatcher, a native of Delaware county. He died in Aston township, Delaware county, August 8, 1812. Mrs. Sarah (Thatcher) Dutton is still living. To the marriage of Joseph and Sarah (Thatcher) Dutton were born eleven children : William, Isaac L., Henry S., Beulah T., Rebecca, Edward, Lydia, Ann, Sallie, Richard, and Emma (dead). Isaac L. Dutton was married to Caroline Hickman, daughter of Thomas and Ruth H. (Rodabaugh) Hickman, of Delaware county, and had seven children: Joseph Hickman Dutton, born December 12, 1863, is now engaged in farming in Elk township ; Howard, born August 25, 1866, was a prom- ising young man, attended the E"ormal school at West Chester, after which he was graduated from the Pierce Business eoUege, Philadelphia, in the class of 1884, and at the age of eighteen he accepted a position as clerk of a meat-packing establishment at Philadelphia, afterward he took the position of auditor with John Wannamaker, which OF CHESTER COUNTY. 523 he held until 1886, when he went to Chi- cago and became foreman in the store of C. M. Lemmington A; Co., having under his supervision many clerks, and died in Chicago of typhoid fever, June 29, 1890 ; Arthur Pratt, living at home, was horn February 7, 1870 ; Harry Sharpless, born September 22, 1872 ; Carrie Anita, born August 12, 1875 ; Isaac Lowell, born June 9, 1878 ; and Bertha May, born January 24, 1881. Thomas Button (great-grandfather) mar- ried Hannah Routh, and had a family of children, among whom was Richard But- ton (grandfather), who married Margaret Larkin. Richard Button was a whig and republican in politics. TSAAC PASCHAL, a representative farmer of Easttown township, and who served as a soldier in the army of the James and the department of the South, is a son of Abraham and Anna (Lincoln) Paschal, and was born on the present site of Media, in Belaware county, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1836. He received his education in the common schools of Belaware county, and was engaged in farming until September, 1861, when he enlisted in Co. C, 97th Penn- sylvania infantry, and served along the coast line of Virginia, and IsTorth and South Carolina, where his regiment was engaged in siege service around several of the south- ern seaboard cities. His health became im- paired by exposure and fatigue, and he was discharged for disability at Hilton Head, South Carolina, in October, 1863. Return- ing home he followed farming in Belaware county until 1888, when he purchased and removed to his present farm of one hundred and fifty-one and a quarter acres of land in Easttown township, near Berwyn. His fine 31 farm is well improved and carefully culti- vated. It is all cleared and under tillage except twelve acres of woodland. He has always been a republican in politics, and is one of the members of the present school board of his township. Mr. Paschal is a good example of a self-made man, having acquired what he possesses by industry, economy and honesty. He is well respected by his neighbors, who esteem him for his many good qualities. Mr. Paschal married Amelia Acker, daughter of Conrad and Leah Acker. Isaac Paschal is a lineal descendant of Rev. Blaise Paschal, who was a prominent preacher of the Society of Friends. Abra- ham Paschal (father) served as a soldier in the American army during the war of 1812. He was a blacksmith by trade, and in connection with blacksmithing gave considerable attention to farming. He re- sided for many years near Media, in Bela- ware county, where he died in 1868, at eighty years of age. He was a Jacksonian democrat, and a consistent member of the Society of Friends. He married Anna Lincoln, and to their union were born eleven children, six sons and five daughters : Benjamin, Jesse, Abraham, jr., Isaac, John (dead), Elizabeth, Malin, Mary, Martha, Sarah, and Anna. Mrs. Paschal, who died in 1868, aged seventy-seven years, was a daughter of Jacob Lincoln, who was a lin- eal descendant of the Lincoln family from which was descended Abraham Lincoln, the "Martyr President." J'ONATHAN P. YERKES, one of the leading farmers and successful business men of Easttown township, is a son of John and Elizabeth (Stump) Yerkes, and was 524 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTOBY horn on the farm adjoining the one upon which he now resides, in Easttown town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 16, 1833. His paternal grandfather, John Yerkes, was a native of Wales, and came with his parents to Montgomery county. He owned a farm of two hundred and fifty acres of land, was a member of the Society of Friends, and reared a family of eight children : William, John, Andrew, Harman, George, Rachel Jones, Nancy Righter, and Emmeline. John Yerkes (father) was born in Montgomery county, this State, in 1785, and in 1818 came to Chester county, where he first settled in Charlestown township. He soon afterward removed to Easttown township, where he rented a farm on which he resided until his death, May 16,1847, at sixty-two years of age. He was a repub- lican, and a Friend. He married for his first wife Emmeline CoflTman, who died and left four children: William, Emmeline, Charles, and Sarah H. After her death Mr. Yerkes married Elizabeth Stump, who died June 16, 1864, when in the seventy- eighth year of her age. By his second marriage he had eight children, four sons and four daughters : Mary, Job, Morris, John, Elizabeth Supplee, Hannah Colbert, Jonathan P., and Martha E. Jonathan P. Yerkes received his educa- tion in the common schools of his native township and in Professor Koaken's aca- demic school at Norristown, this State, and assisted his father in farming until the death of the latter in 1847, when he and his brother John assumed the management of the home farm, which they conducted suc- cessfully for several years. Jonathan P. was next engaged in buying and butchering cattle for the Philadelphia market for some time, and then purchased Ijis present fartn of one hundred and thirty-five acres of good .farming and grazing land, located near Leopard, close to the main line of the Penn- sylvania railroad. At the present time he is extensively engaged in farming, market gardening and cattle dealing. He does a large business in the Philadelphia markets, where he is known as a reliable and active business man. In politics Mr. Yerkes is a republican. He has always been interested in educational affairs and is now serving his twenty-fourth year as a school director of Easttown township. On February 5, 1863, Mr. Yerkes mar- ried Matilda Barr, daughter of Charles and Mary A. Barr, of .Delaware county. To Mr. and Mrs. Yerkes have been born five chil- dren, two sons and three daughters : Lizzie A., who died at eighteen years of age ; Charles Rush, who died in infancy; John, deceased; Edna, who died j'oung; and Martha E., at home with her parents. T NEWTON STITELER, a man of en- ergy and thorough business experience, and the proprietor in Pikeland township of one of the popular summer resorts of Ches- ter county, is a son of Henry and Penina (Benner) Stiteler, and was born in West Vincent township, Chester - countj-, Penn- sylvania, April 11, 1850. The immigrant ancestor of the Stiteler family of Pennsyl- vania was a native of Cermany, and came to what is now Upper Uwchlan. township at some time during the latter part of the last century. His son, George Siteler (grand- father), was born and reared in Upper Uwchlan, where he was a successful farmer and where he died at an advanced age. He was a democrat in the early days of Jeffer- son's Jjrst administration, when his party OF CHESTER COUNTY. 535 was being organized. He owned a large farm, and was a member of the Seventh- Day Baptist church. He married and had nine children : Henry, Eebecca Pinkerton, Isaac, Elizabeth Ploffman, George, Susan, John R., Catharine Barber, and one other. Of these children all are dead except Ee- becca and Elizabeth. Henry Stiteler (father), the eldest son, was born August 25, 1807, and died March 25, 1886, aged seventy- nine years and seven months. He was a carpenter by trade, but soon abandoned carpentering and removed to West Vincent township, where he purchased a farm of two hundred and thirteen acres of land, upon which he resided until his death. He was a republican in politics. He was a member and trustee in Vincent Baptist church, where he had served continuously in the office of deacon for half a century. Mr. Stiteler was a man of clear perception, solid judgment and unswerving integrity. He was alike prominent and useful in his community, where he was active in relig- ious affairs, and wielded considerable influ- ence. He was highly respected and es- teemed by his neighbors, who often sought him for advice and assistance. In his long years of useful life Henry Stiteler was al- ways prompt in the discharge of duty, and never wearied in his efforts for the good of his fellow men and the prosperity of his community and township. His life was straightforward and earnest, and is a worthy example for imitation by those who desire to live right and win that success which is real and lasting. He married Penina Ben- ner, who was born April 9, 1810, and passed away June 5, 1887. They had ten children, six sons and four daughters : Greorge,whose sketch appears in this volume; Anna, wife of Jesse Orr; John, who died young; Ben- ner, died in childhood ; Mary, wife of Wil- liam Mock ; Sallie, who married Jacob Dewees; William H., (see his sketch); Lizzie; I. Newton, subject of this sketch; and A. F. M., whose biography appears elsewhere in this volume. I. i^ewton Stiteler was reared on the farm, received a good English education, and then learned the trade of carpenter, at which he worked in various parts of Chester county from 1875 to 1887, when he engaged in farming for his father. After twelve years spent in the management and cultivation of the home farm, he purchased his present farm of ninety-five acres of improved land in Pikeland township. This farm is well watered, contains no untillable land, and has become very productive under the intelli- gent and successful management of Mr. Stiteler, who, in addition to grain and stock raising, has established a first class dairy. He also operates a custom flouring mill, which is on his farm. During the summer seasons the beauty and healthfulness of Mr. Stiteler's pleasant place so recommend it that his house is always crowded from June to September with guests from Philadelphia. At the present time he is doing a consider- able amount of contracting on carpenter work in addition to the management of the various lines of business in which he is en- gaged. He is a republican in politics, and a consistent and active member of Vincent Baptist church, in which he succeeded his father, at the death of the latter, as a dea- con, and has been superintendent of the Sunday school since 1882. He is prompt, accurate and reliable, and has shown him- self to be an intelligent man of good busi- ness ability and energy. On October 1, 1874, Mr. Stiteler was united in marriage with Kate Latshaw, 526 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY daughter of Jacob and Ann Latshaw, of Pikeland township, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Stiteler have been born two chil- dren: J. Harry, who is attending the West Chester State j^ormal school ; and Charles I., a student of the Chester Springs prepara- tory school. l^EWTON EVANS, who for several "^ years was cashier of the Farmers' and Mechanics' National bank of Phoenixville, and is now a director of the National bank at Royer's Ford, and treasurer of the Phoe- nix Storm Insurance Company, is also a leading farmer and well-known surveyor of this county. He is the oldest of the two sons of Ezra and Eliza (King) Evans, and was born March 2, 1823, in Uwchlan town- ship, now Upper Uwchlan township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, on the farm where he now resides. The name Evans is fre- quently met with in this county, and is borne by several families in no wise related to the subject of this sketch, who is de- scended from Lewis Evans (great-grand- father), a native of Caernarvonshire, "Wales, who came to America accompanied by his wife, Sarah, and their six children : Daniel, John, Barbara, Jeremiah, Sarah and Abel, the latfer of whom was born at sea during the voyage. He settled in Vincent (now WestVincent) township, near what is known as the "Tilt Mills," where he followed his trade of shoemaker until his death. May 19, 1762, when in the forty-sixth year of his age. His remains were interred at Charles- town Presbyterian church, where his wid- ow, who survived him until March 11,1805, was also laid to rest by his side. After the father's death the family removed to Uwch- lan township, now Upper Uwchlan, where they purchased and settled on sixty-two and a half acres of land, whereon, in 1766, they erected a house which was enlarged in 1801, and is still standing. It is said to have been the headquarters of Gen. Anthony Wayne while his forces were encamped on the farm. The farm was increased from time to time by the purchase of other land until they owned three hundred and fifty acres, comprising two fine farms, nearly all of which is now owned by the subject of this sketch. Daniel Evans (gi'andfather) was born in Carnarvonshire, Wales, Sep- tember 27, 1743, came with his father to America, and, after attaining manhood, married Esther Benner, who was born in 1759. He died October 1, 1820, and his widow passed away August 10, 1840. Their children were : Lewis, who married Sarah Evans ; Isaac ; Elizabeth, became the wife of Joshua Evans; Sarah, married Samuel Neiler; Ezra, father of Newton; Mary, wedded Robert McClure; Jesse, Daniel, Abel, married Ann Wilson ; and Henry T., the latter of whom married Elizabeth Thatcher. They are all now deceased. In politics Daniel Evans was a democrat of the Old school, and in his religious faith a strict Baptist. Ezra Evans (father) was born in 1788, on the homestead now owned by his son Newton, where he was reared and edu- cated, and where he continued to live until 1850, when he removed to Schuylkill town- ship. Five years later he returned to Uwch- lan, now Upper Uwchlan, township, where he continued to follow the vocation of a farmer until his death in 1874. lie also was a democrat in politics, and a member of the Baptist church. In 1822 he married Eliza King, a daughter of Conrad King, of Uwchlan, now Upper Uwchlan, township, and to their union was born a family of two sons: Newton, whose name heads this / OF OHESTKR COUNTY. 537 sketch, and J. Beuner, who is a prosperous farmer of Upper Uwclilaii township. Newton Evans was principally reared on the old homestead, where he now lives, and received his early training in the common schools. He finished his education in a boarding school at West Chester, and soon afterward engaged in farming on the home place, where he has ever since resided. The old homestead passed into his posses- sion in 1874, and in its management he has been very successful. He has also been en- gaged in surveying more or less all his life. For three years Mr. Evans was cashier of the Farmers' and Mechanics' N"ational bank of Phoenixville,and is now a director of the National bank of Royer's Ford, Montgom- ery county. He is also a director and the treasurer of the Phoenix Storm Insurance Company, of Phcenixville, this county. In politics he followed the traditions of his family, and has been a life-long democrat. In 1855 he was the candidate of his party for the ofiice of county treasurer, and so great was his personal popularity that he came within seventy-nine votes of being elected, although the opposition was then as now largely in the majority. Mr. Evans is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and for a number of years was trustee of St. Paul's church of that denom- ination at Lionville. On February 11, 1847, Mr. Evans was married to Hannah Acker, a daughter of Peter Acker, a prosperous farmer residing in Uwchlan township. To Mr. and Mrs. Evans was born a family of seven children, five sons and two daughters : Mary, married William H. Stiteler, a farmer of West Pike- land township; Ezra; Isaac, wedded Mary Ellen Smedley and resides in West \'incent on a farm adjoining his father, engaged in managing the farm whereon he resides; Acker, at hom4, unmarried; William; George, married Ada J. Moore, now a ticket agent of the Baltimore Central railroad at Angora station ; and Carrie. Mrs. Hannah Evans was born in 1824, and is still living, hale and hearty. Newton Evans has held several township otfices, among them being inspector and school director of Uwchlan ; and judge, inspector, assistant assessor, school director, and township auditor sev- eral terms in Upper Uwchlan township. He was also a director of the Coventry Mu- tual Live Stock Insurance association, of Chester county several years, during part of which time he was president of the associa- ciation, and was a member of the first board of directors of the Farmers' and Mechanics' National bank of Phcenixville. QEORGE THOMAS, a member of one of the oldest families of the county, and a leading farmer and horticulturist of West Whiteland township, is a son of Dr. George and Anna Mary (Townsend) Thomas, and was born, on August 5, 1845, in the house built one hundred and twenty years ago on the homestead farm by his great- great-grandfather, George Thomas, in West Whiteland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania. He I'eceived his elementary and academic education at Westtown Boarding school, and then entered the Philadelphia Polytechnic institute, on the corner of Mar- ket and Penn streets, that city, where lie took a full scientific course. Leaving school he settled on the farm where he now re- sides. He has given his time principally to agricultural and horticultural pursuits, and has made a specialty of hothouse fruits, in- cluding the very finest varieties of grapes. 528 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY He is a republican in politics, and a mem- ber of the Society of Friends. On October 17, 1883, George Thomas was united in marriage with Elizabeth Eicholtz Baugh, daughter of David and Georgiana Baugh, of Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have three children : Grace A., Georgiana B. and Elizabeth E. The honored and honorable Thomas fam- ily, of which George Thomas is a member, traces its American history bacic through seven genei'ations to its transatlantic founder, Eichard ap Thomas, a gentleman and land- owner, of Whitford Game, Wales. He purchased a princely tract of land of Penn, and died soon after landing at Philadelphia. His only son. Dr. Richard Thomas, married Grace Atherton, and their son, Richard, married Phoebe Ashbridge, and was the father of George Thomas, who married Sarah Roberts. The eldest son of George Thomas was John R. Thomas, who married Elizabeth Downing, and left one son. Dr. George Thomas, father of the subject of this sketch . One of the most distinguished members of this old family was Col. Richard Thomas, who was a son of Richard and Phcebe Thomas, and was born October 30, 1744. The colonial records of Pennsylvania from 1774 to 1783 are full of accounts of his ac- tive civil and military services. He was a member of different county associations and Provincial conventions held in the cause of independence, commanded militia troops at home and in the field under Washington, and was ever prominent and ever active as the patriot and the soldier. He served four years in the assembly, two in the State sen- ate, and was a member of the fourth, fifth and sixth congresses of the United States. On October 20, 1774, he married Thoma- zine Downing. He died January 19, 1832, aged eighty-eight years, and left "a repu- tation as a citizen of the Republic which he aided to establish, of which every Chester county man may well be proud." A fuller and more extended history of the Thomas family_wil] be found in the sketch of J. Preston Thomas, which appears in this volume. HARRY R. WILSON, a prominent young farmer residing near New Cen- treville, is the only surviving son of Edward S. and Sarah A. (Ritter) Wilson, and was born October 18, 1851, in Tredyfirin town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Wilsons have resided in Chester county for several generations. Edward S. Wilson (father) was a son of David and Eliza (Siter) Wilson, and was born near Strafibrd, Dela- ware county, this State, April 5, 1818. When quite young he came with his fath- er's family to Chester county, where he passed most of his life, dying in Tredyffrin township June 18, 1888, at the advanced age of seventy years. He was a farmer by occupation, and was engaged in the culti- vation of the soil during all his active life, except two years — 1850 and 1851 — when he was in the leather business in the city of Philadelphia. Politically he was a whig and republican, and served as school director and auditor of his township for a number of years. In religion he was a Presbyte- rian, being a prominent member and treas- urer of the Great Valley church of that denomination for many years. In 1845 he married Sarah A. Ritter, a daughter of William Ritter, of Tredyffrin township, and was the father of three children, two sons and a daughter: William R., born June 13, 1846, who went to Wyoming OF CHESTER COUNT Y. 539 in .the spring of 1869, where he was en- gaged for a short time in quartz crushing, but died there in November of the same year; Harry R., the subject of this sketch; and Mollie L., who was born December 14, -1858. For additional facts concerning the Wilsons, see biography of WiuQeld Scott Wilson, uncle of the subject of this sketch, which appears elsewhere in this volume. William liitter, maternal grandfather, was born in the city of Philadelphia, but removed to Tredyftrin township, this county, in 1839, where he purchased a farm of one hundred and fifty acres, on which he resi- ded until his death. May 29, 1866, when in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He was a bricklayer in his earlier years, but confined himself to farming after coming to this county. In politics he was a whig and re- publican, and was a member of the Great Valley Presbyterian church. He married Dorothea Allberger, and had seven children : Sarah A., born August 2, 1817; Mary, now the widow of Jacob S. Wonderly, residing in Philadelphia; Henry B., a retired mer- chant of Philadelphia; Harriet, living in the same city; Wi]liam,diedinl864; Emily, married John W. Davis, of Philadelphia, and they now reside in Alabama ; and Cath- arine, who became the wife of Samuel Piper, and now lives in the city of Sacra- mento, California. Harry R. Wilson was principally reared on his father's farm in Tredyflrin township, and received his education in the Tremont seminary, at Norristown, Montgomery county. After leaving school he engaged in farming, and has made that the chief business of his life, being very successful from the first in his agricultural pursuits. He follows the political and religious tra- ditions of his ancesters, and is a stanch re- publican in politics, and a prominent mem- ber of the GreatValley Presbyterian church, in which he is now serving as elder and treasurer, and is also a menil)er of its board of trustees. Since January, 1891, he has been a director of the Malvern E'ational bank. On October 5, 1882, Mr. Wilson was mar- ried to Belle Esler, a daughter of John and Anna Esler, of Malvern, this county. Their union has been crowned by the birth of five children, three sons and two daughters : William R., born February 26, 1884, and died July 1, 1891 ; John E., born December 12, 1886 ; Edward S., born August 9, 1888 ; Marion D., born June 17, 1890 ; and Alice, born November 25, 1891. J'ACOB ROBERTS, a self-made man and a resident of Willistown township, who has been successful in fai'miug and other agricultural pursuits, is a son of Isaac and Alice (Comfort) Roberts, and was born in Whitemarsh township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1810. He received a good practical English education in the subscription schools of his neighbor- hood, and then assisted his father on the home farm until he married, wher^ be en- gaged in farming for himself. In 1844 he came to Willistown township, where he purchased ninety-six acres, to which he has added by additional purchases until he now has a fine and well cultivated farm of one hundred and thirty-three acres of choice land. He borrowed the n:ioney to pay for his first purchase, but by hard work and strict economy he cleared himself of debt, and to-day is one of the most substantial and prosperous farmers of his neighbor- hood. In connection with farming and 530 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY stock raising Mr. Roberts runs a dairy and lias met with his usual success in that line of business. He is a republican in polit- ical aflairs, and has held several township offices since coming to Chester county. He is a member of the Society of Friends, and enjoys the respect and good will of his neighbors. On March 16, 1837, Mr. Roberts married Phebe Williams, a daughter of Jesse and Hannah Williams, of Plymouth, and a na- tive of Whitemarsh township, Montgomery county. They had five children, two sons and three daughters: Josiah A., nursery- man at Malvern ; Joseph, who is engaged in farming with his father; Hannah W. ; Alice, deceased, and Sarah W. Jesse Wil- liams, father of Mrs. Roberts, was a native of North Carolina, and an approved minis- ter of the Society of Friends. He died aged thirty-four years, after which his widow, Hannah Williams, opened a board- ing school for girls, which was attended by many, and on which a blessing rested. Robert Roberts, the paternal great-grand- father of Jacob Roberts, was of Welsh de- scent, and followed farming in Montgomery county, where he resided until his death. His son, Joseph Roberts' (grandfather), was a native and a farmer of Montgomery county, and married and reared a family of nine children, seven sons and two daughters : Jonathan, Isaac, Hugh, George, Charles, Septimus, Joseph, Sarah Walker, and Mer- cey. Isaac Roberts (father) was born in 1775, in Montgomery township, Montgom- ery county, and afterward removed to White- marsh township, that county, in which lie died August 13, 18.il, aged nearly seventy- six years. He was a republican in political opinion, and a Friend in religious belief He married Alice Comfort, who was u daughter of Ezra and Alice Comfort, and passed away February 22, 1841, when in the sixty-second year of her age. They were the parents of nine children, six sons and three daughters: Mercey, Elizabeth, Han- nah, Ezra, Charles, Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, jr., and Hiram. ^JONATHAN H. KEIM, an enterpris- ing and prosperous farmer of Smedley, who has also been engaged in other lines of business to some extent, is the youngest son of Samuel and Eliza (Hamilton) Keim, and was born February 23, 1840, in Warwick township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Keim family is of German descent, and was transplanted to the new world and set- tled in this State many years ago. George Keim, paternal great-grandfather of Jona- than H. Keim, passed his life in Wai-wick township, this county, engaged in agricul- tural pursuits, and died here. His sou, Jacob Keim (grandfathei-), was born in this township March 3, 1776, on the farm now owned by the subject of this sketch. He was a farmer by vocation, and, receiving the farm from a man by the name of Shuister, who had brought his mother from Germany, spent his entire life here, erecting the barn still in use about 1796, and otherwise im- proving the property. In political faith he was an old-line whig, and in religious belief and church membership a German Baptist. He married Hannah Switzer, by whom he had a family of four sons and two daugh- ters : David, a carpenter and farmer, who is 8till living, at the age of ninety years, near Knauertown, this county ; Jonathan, a nur- seryman near Pottstown ; George, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work; Hettie, married Joseph Wells; and Keziah, who became the wife of David Wells of OF CHESTER COUNTY. 531 l^orth Coventry township, tiiid is still living, being now in her eighty-third year, while her husband is in the ninety-first year of his age. Samuel Keim (father) was born in Warwick township, this county, August 26, 1805, where he grew up, was educated, and spent nearly all of his long and useful life. He owned and operated the farm now in possession of his son, Jonathan H., and died here March 12, 1888, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. It was he who discovei-ed the iron ore in Warwick town- ship, and was instrumental in developing the mines now known as the "Brooks ore mines." As contractor he built many of the most important roads in the township, and was a man who always stood well in the community, being greatly esteemed for his probity and honesty. He was always a stout and active man, and a great pedestrian, pre- ferring to walk wherever he went. In re- ligious faith he was a German Baptist, and a member of that church for many years. In 1827 he united in marriage with Eliza Hamilton, who was born January 31, 1807, aud died at her home here September 14, 1864. Their family consisted of seven chil- dren, five sons and two daughters : Josiah, a carpenter and contractor, who married Asenith Knauer, and now resides at Potts- town, Montgomery county; Hannah, who became the wife of Isaac Ilalderman, a farmer and miller by occupation ; Cyrus II., who learned the carpenter trade, married Leah Miller, and about 1858 removed to Carroll county, Illinois, where he engaged in the nursery business and farming, in which he has been remarkably successful ; Daniel H., married Alice Brown, and is now a prosperous merchant of Pottstown ; Jona- than H., whose name heads this sketch ; and Keziah, who married James K. Bran- nan, once a successful puddler in the rolling mill at Pottstown, but now engaged in ag- riculture in North Coventry township, this county. Jonathan H. Keim grew to manhood on the old homestead where he now resides, and received a good practical education in the public schools of the neighborhood and at Mount Carroll seminary, Illinois. Upon finishing his studies he engaged in teaching, and taught one term in Carroll county, Illi- nois, and nine terms in his native township, after which he took charge of the old homestead, and has ever since given his principal attention to agricultural pursuits. In addition to his farm operations, which are all conducted on modern methods, Mr. Keim has of late years been handling large quantities of commercial fertilizers, and also served as a director and agent of the Phoenix Mutual Fire Insurance Company for a number of years. In politics he is a republican, has served three terms as school director, and is a member of the German Baptist church. On February 17, 1865, Mr. Keim united in marriage with Maggie Crossley, a daugh- ter of Samuel Crossley, of Warwick town- ship, and to them was born a family of eight children, five sons and three daugh- ters : William P., who married Ella Kulp, a daughter of David Kulp, of North Cov- entry township, and now resides in the city of Reading; Sylvania, is a seamstress, liv- ing at home; Lewis M., now a pupil in the Huntingdon Normal school ; Hervey C, at home ; and Lena and Leonard, twins, born August 26, 1878. Mary V. and Harvey died young. Samuel Crossley, Mrs. Keini's father, was born in Roxborough township, Philadelphia county, September 30, 1808, and is a son of 533 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY Edward and Margaret (Knouse) Crossley. He was educated in the common schools and afterward learned the cooper's trade, at which he worked until his twenty-first year, when he began stage driving on the Read- ing turnpike, between Eeading and Phila- delphia. He followed that occupation for seven years, after which he spent three years as proprietor of a hotel at TJnionville, Berks county, and then purchased a farm near the falls of French creek, this county, where he was engaged in agricultural pur- suits for a period of forty years. He then, in 1879, removed to Phoenixville, where he resided for two years, after which he was a citizen of Harmonyville for six years, and since 1887 has resided with his son-in-law, J. H. Keim, at Smedley. In politics he is a republican, and served as school director of his township for six years. He married Mary Ann Hesser, a daughter of Abram Hesser, and was the father of a family of thirteen children, of whom Mrs. Keim was the fourth. ^ILIilAM H. FRITZ, a prominent young business man of Berwyn, who has already won high standing in the social, religious and business circles of that section, is the eldest son of Henry and Mary E. (Lobb) Fritz, and was born December 21, 1864, at what was then known as lieese- ville, but is now Berwyn, Chester county, Pennsylvania. There he grew to manhood, receiving a superior education in the public and private schools of his native village, and completing his studies by a course taken in an educational institution in the city of Philadelphia. Soon after leaving school, in 1886, he purchased an established hardware and lumber business in Berwyn, and has devoted his time and attention to handling lumber, hardware, coal, flour and feed ever since. Being naturally of a quick, energetic disposition, he carefully looked after every detail of his growing business, and was soon at the head of a large and lucrative trade, covering Berwyn and all parts of the surrounding country. He keeps all articles in his several lines, takes a pride in pleasing his customers, and in many respects is what may be justly termed a model business man. Although devoting his time mainly to the business in which he has been so successful, he takes an active and intelligent interest in all public ques- tions, and keeps well posted on the march of progress and improvement which dis- tinguishes the present above all past times. In politics he is a republican, active and in- fluential in the local councils of his party, and in religion is a prominent member of the Presbyterian church at Berwyn, and president of its board of trustees. On November 23, 1886, Mr. Fritz was married to Mabel M. Thompson, a daughter of William C. Thompson, formerly a pros- perous farmer of Tredyftrin township, but now a leading veterinary surgeon of Berwyn. To Mr. and Mrs. Fritz have been born two sons: Henry Percival and William H.,jr. The family to which Mr. Fritz belongs is of German descent, and has long been resi- dent in this State. His paternal grand- father, G-otlieb Fritz, lived most of his life in this county, and died at Strafford about 1835, at the early age of twenty-eight years. Henry Fritz (father) was born in Chester county, near what is now Strafford, and died at Berwyn October 30, 1870, in the thirty- flfth year of his age. He was a carpenter and contractor by occupation, and also en- gaged in the lumber, coal, flour and fged business very successfully for a number of' OF GHESIEB COVNTY. 583 years previous to his death. Politically he was a republican, and iu religious faith was a strict member of the Presbyterian church. In 1863 he married Mary E.Lobb, a daugh- ter of William Lobb, who was for many years a resident of Philadelphia, in which city he died about 1884, at an advanced age. By this union Mr. Fritz had a family of three children, the eldest of whom is the subject of this sketch. The second son is Henry Fritz, now a resident of Berwyn, and the third died in infancy. Mrs. Mary E. Fritz is still living. TTDDISOIV MAY, the youngest son of Robert and Ruth (Potts) May, was born in South Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, December 18, 1811. His father, Robert May, was of English ancestry, an ironmaster of large means, of fine business qualificationSj and extensively engaged in business. He was owner of sev- eral iron works. He was highly esteemed by all who knew him, a man of fine presence, and great dignity of character. He was an Episcopalian, and was accidentally killed by a fall from his horse, JTovember 21, 1812. He was twice married, first to Rebecca Grace Potts, who died July 30, 1789. His second wife was Ruth Potts, a younger sis- ter of Rebecca, and, after this marriage, he removed to Coventry village. Ruth (Potts) May, the mother of Addison May, was a woman of refined and lovely character, an earnest Christian, and devoted to the interests of her family. She was the daughter of Col. Thomas and Anna (JS'utt) Potts. Her father. Col. Thomas Potls, was one of the first men to develop the iron in- terests of Pennsylvania; and in 1757 mar- ried Anna, the only child of Rebecca Sav- age and Sir Samuel Nutt, jr., an English baronet. He was a man of much intelli- gence and culture, was one of the original members of the American Philosophical society, had entertained Washington at his Pottstown residence, was elected a member of the assembly from Philadelphia county, in 1775, and was active in the cause of lib- erty. In 1776 he raised a battalion, of which he was commissioned colonel by con- gress, expending liberally of his large means to fill up his companies. He was a member of the convention assembled at the State house in Philadelphia, July 9, 1776, for the purpose of forming a new government. His devotion to the cause of colonial inde- pendence greatly impaired his fortune, and he died March 22, 1785, while attending the session of the legislature, of which he was a member. This zealous and able patriot Avas the grandfather of Addison May, and from him and from his parents he inherited an abiding love of country and its highest good, and an intense aversion to injustice and wrong. Addison May was born in the beautiful little valley of the French creek, in an old ancestral mansion, built, it is supposed, by Robert Grace, who had married the young and beautiful widow of Sir Samuel ITutt — for Thomas Potts, upon his marriage with Anna ISTutt, the daughter of Mrs. l^utt, about the year 1757. He had the misfor- tune to lose his father, Robert May, when only a year old, and at seven years of age he lost his mother, and the home was broken up. His eldest sister, Eliza May, daughter of Robert May and his first wife, Rebecca Grace Potts, was married to Gov. Samuel Stevens, of Maryland. She was a woman of finely cultivated mind and heart, and 634 BIOGHAPHY AND HISTOBY took her young brothers to her home. Ad- dison May attended a private school until he entered Jefferson college, Cannonsburg, in western Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated. He held a high rank at college as a student of the classics. One year after his graduation he entered the of- fice of William H. Dillingham, of West Chester, and studied law. After being ad- mitted to the bar he settled in Erie, Penn- sylvania, and began the practice of his profes- sion. He married Elizabeth Shafer, youngest daughter of Hon. Samuel and Martha Bull Shafer, and then removed to N'orristown, Pennsylvania, devoting himself to his pro- fession and becoming a most successful law- yer. While in Norristowu he interested himself in the cause of education, and served on the board of school directors. He early sympathized with the anti-slavery move- ment. In politics he was first a whig and afterward a republican. His health became broken down in Norristown, and at the same time Judge Shafer — his father-in-law — lost liis wife, and at his solicitation Mr. and Mrs. May left I^orristown and lived with Judge Shafer until his death, which occurred in 1856. He spent much time among his books and the study of botany. The peo- ple in the neighborhood came to him for legal advice, which was always willingly and gratuitously given. After Judge Shaf- er's death, Mr. May removed to West Ches- ter in 1859. Here he remained during the rest of his life, interesting himself in public and philanthropic matters. He was school director for some years, then served for sev- eral years on the board of trustees of the State JSTormal school. He was appointed as a trustee of the State hospital for the in- sane at Norristown, and strongly advocated the choice of a woman physician, to be put in charge of female patients, and Dr. Alice Bennett was chosen. He resigned this po- sition at the solicitation of his family, in 1887. He was one of the organizers of the West Chester Trust and Relief society, and was president of the board until Avithin two years of his death, when he resigned the office. He was for several years one of the inspectors of the Chester county prison. In addition to these public trusts, so well known was his character for strict integrity and kindness, that he was frequently asked to accept private trusts as a guardian of orphans and the property of widows. He was very social in his nature, his friends were always sure of a courteous welcome ; and the youngest child who came to the house was as sure of courteous attention as the oldest of his guests. He was a man of broad culture and of extensive reading. He rarely read a translation of a Latin author, preferring to read the works in the original. He was for many years a vestryman of the Church of the Holy Trinity, West Chester, and when the new church was built he was treasurer of the building fund, and contribu- ted generously to its erection. In April, 1878, he had the great misfor- tune to lose his wife. Mrs. May was a woman of benevolent character. She was very retiring in disposition, devotedly at- tached to her family and her home. Mr. and Mrs. May had only one child, a daughter, Martha E., who was married, in 1869, to Dr. Joseph Trimble Rothrock, of whom notice will be found in this volume. Mr. May was the last survivor of the eight children of liobert May. His oldest sister, Eliza May, wife of Gov. Samuel Stevens, of Maryland, died at Compton, Talbot county, Maryland, December 8, 1834. His second sister, Anna Xntt May, was mar- OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 535 ried to the Hon. David Potts. She died at Coventry, March 17, 1823. His oldest brother, Thomas Potts May, was rector of St. John's church, Nori'istown, and St. Thomas' church, Montgomery county. He died of yellow fever in 1819. Dr. Robert May was the second brother of Addison May, was graduated from the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania in 1822, and died in 1866. The Rev. James May, D. D., was the fourth son of Robert May — the third son having died in infancy. He was born in 1805, and was graduated from Jefterson college, Can- nonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1823. He en- tered the Theological seminary in Alexan- dria, Virginia, in October, 1825, but soon found it necessary to remove to Philadelphia to study more immediately under the di- rection of the ecclesiastical authorities. He was called to St. Stephen's church, Wilkes- barre, and two years afterward married Ellen Stuart Bowman, daughter of Captain Samuel Bowman, and a sister of the right reverend Samuel Bowman, of this State. In 1836 Mr. May accepted a call to the rectorship of St. Paul's church, Philadel- phia, and in February, 1837, "added to his arduous pastoral labors the editorship of the Episcopal Recorder." His health failed, and he made a trip to Europe and Africa. In 1840 he accepted the professorship of church history in the Theological seminary at Al- exandria, Virginia, where he remained until 1861, when he came to Philadelphia, and accepted the same position in the Divinity school of that city, but refused to succeed his brother-in-law, right reverend Samuel Bowman, as assistant Bishop of Pennsylvania. In 1863 he published a re- ply to Bishop Hopkins' "Bible View of Slavery." It was a clear, calm, forcible re- view, and went more deeply into the heart of the whole matter than anything else then published. On December 18, 1863, he en- tered into life eternal. "Dear Mr. May," was the testimony of one who knew him well, "seemed to me more holy than any one I ever knew." Mr. May's fifth brother was JSTewton May, M. D., born December 26, 1807. He was a graduate of Jefterson college and the uni- versity of Pennsylvania. In 1837 he set- tled in Holmesburg, and practiced until his death in 1889. He was a thoroughly edu- cated allopathic physician, but afterward took up homeopathy. Mr. Addison May's brothers all attained to eminence in the professions they followed. His last illness was an' extremely painful one, but all suft'ering was borne with that beautiful patience and resignation which were such marked traits of his character. After intense suffering he entered into rest on January 8, 1892. T/OSBURG NEWTON SHAFFER is a retired civil and mechanical engineer, of Phoenixville, who has also distinguished himself as a journalist and iron manufac- turer. He has attained an eminence in Masonic circles equaled by few men of his generation, having passed the thirty-third or highest degree in Masonry, and received the honorarium as Sovereign Grand In- spector General Thirty-third degree North- ern Masonic jurisdiction of the United States of America, at Chicago, Illinois, Sep- tember 14, 1886. He is the only son of Thomas and Jane (Vosburgh) Shaft'er, and was born in Saugei'ties, New York, July 17, 1842. The Shaft'er family emigrated from Germany prior to the revolutionary war and 536 BIOGMAPHY AND HISTORY settled in Westchester county, New York, where Thomas Shafter (father) was born May 22, 1815. His father and grandfather were both large manufacturers of paper, and the latter built and operated a paper mill at what is now known as Five Points, in New York city. This mill was designated by congress, during the revolution, as one of the two mills to furnish the government with paper on which to print 'the conti- nental money. After peace was declared this mill was moved to Spottsvvood, New Jersey. Thomas Shaft'er's father died while he was yet a boy, and by a series of unex- ampled misfortunes, including the destruc- tion of a will by interested parties and the subsequent burning of the land records in the capitol at Washinton, by the British soldiery in 1814, the rightful owners of this property were defrauded and the true heirs dispossessed, leaving Thomas dependent on his own exertions for an education and a career in life. His first employment was as errand boy in a paper mill, and at the age of twelve years he entered the Ulster iron works at SaUgerties, New York, where he became a general favorite with employers and managers, and rapidly worked his way through all branches of the trade. Under the efficient instruction of a skilled work- man from abroad he gained a complete mastery of the best processes then known or used, and was known as the first finished American workman. He remained with that firm for eighteen years, having entered its employ as a boy and rose to the position of manager, having charge of three trains of rolls, and the reputation of a thoroughly educated mechanic. After leaving New York he was engaged as master-workman and mill manager successively at the works of Thomas Hunt, of Philadelphia, the Fair- mount Iron works, and of the Iron Eail mills of Safe Harbor, this State. In 1866 he received the appointment of mill man- ager in the extensive works of the Phoenix Iron Company, at Plioenixville, Pennsyl- vania, and held that responsible position for more than a quarter of a century, and until his death. In politics he was first a whig and then a republican, always taking an active interest in public afl[airs, but never allowing his name to be used as a candidate for any office. During the civil war he ma- terially aided the Union cause, freely using his entire income for that purpose, except- ting what was necessary for the support of his family. He was especially liberal in caring for the families of the old soldiers in the field, and continued his benefactions during his life, to the dependent relatives of many who laid down their lives at their country's call. He died July 9, 1888, at the advanced age of seventy-four years, leaving behind him a record which is a shining example of what may be accom- plished by superior ability backed by in- domitable energy, in the face of even the most adverse circumstances — a record of which Ms descendants may well feel proud. For nearly fifcy years he was an acceptable member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and duringthat entire period served the con- gregation with which he was connected in some official capacity. He was also con- nected with the fraternity of Odd Fellows during the last thirty-six years of his life. In 1836 he married Jane Vosburgh, of Ulster county. New York, by whom he had a family of three children, of whom the son, subject of this sketch, and one daughter now survives. Mrs. Shafter died January 4, 1891, aged seventy-four years. Vosburgh N. Shafter came to Phoenix- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 537 ville,thi8 county, with his father's family in 1856, where he has since resided. He was liberally educated, finishing his academic course at Lititz, Lancaster county, and then entering Dickenson college, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1863, with high honors. He chose the profession of a civil and mechanical en- gineer, and soon after leaving college ac- cepted a position as assistant mechanical engineer witli the Phoenix Iron Company, at Phcenixville, where he had served his time as a machinist before graduation. He held this position until 1868, when he re- moved to Elizabethport, New Jersey, as secretary and treasurer of the Elizabeth Iron Company, then erecting a rolling mill at that place. After one year in that posi- tion he spent a year as general superinten- dent of the Lochiel Iron works, Harrisburg, this State, but in 1870 returned to Phcenix- ville and purchased the plant of the Inde- pendent Phfrnlx newspaper. He continued its publication under that name for some years, and then changed it to Ph'oenixville Inde- pendent, put in a steam press, and issued a daily edition as well as the weekly. This was the first daily paper ever printed in the town, and the first number was issued Jan- uary 3, 1881. Mr. Shafl'er continued to publish these papers until 1890, when he sold out to the Republican Publishing Com- pany, the present proprietors. Since that time he has given his attention principally to his real estate interests in and near Phcenixville. His residence, located on Main street, and erected by him in 1886, is one of the handsomest and best arrange'd brick and stone structures in the borough. It was built after plans made by himself and fitly displays his architectural ability and taste. Vosburgh IST. Shaffer has been twice mar- ried, first to Elizabeth T. Rengier, daughter of Charles F. Rengier, of Lancaster city, Pennsylvania, who died in 1867, leaving one son, Charles R., who passed away at the early age* of five years. On November 13, 1870, Mr. Shaffer was wedded to Irene Dis- mant, youngest daughter of Amos Dismant, of Mingo, Montgomery county, this State. The Dismants were among the earliest set- tlers of Pennsylvania, and the orignal homestead estate at Mingo remains in the family to-day. By this marriage Mr. Shaf- fer has a family of three children, two sons and a daughter: Jennie V., Thomas N". and Robert G. In religion Mr. Shaffer and his family, unitedly, are members of the Methodist Episcopal- church, of Phcenixville. During the time of the civil war he left college for a season and volunteered with a Carlisle company for the emergency, and participa- ted in the battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862. Later he enlisted for three months, as corporal in Co. B, 34th Penn- sylvania militia, and served during the Gettysburg epoch. He was honorably dis- charged with his company August 10, 1863. In the Masonic circles of this country Mr. Shaffer has long been prominent. He was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons, Phcenixville, April 28, 1866, and was installed Worshipful Master of his Lodge December 27, 1873. He is also a Past High Priest of Phoenix Chapter, No. 198, Royal Arch Masons; a Past T. I. G. M. of Palestine Council, No. 8, Royal and Select Masters, and a Past E. C. of Jerusalem Commandery, N. 15, Knights Templar, all of Phcenixville. He is a Past Commander-in-Chief of Caldwell Consis- 538 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY tory, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, in the Valley of Bloomsburg, and has taken all the intermediate degrees and chairs. He received the Honorarium as Sovereign Grand Inspector-General, 33°, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the TJnitted States of America, at Chicago, in 1886. He is a Past Sovereign of Orient Conclave, No. 2, Knights of the Eed Cross of Constantine, and Very Illustrious Grand Junior General of the Grand Council of this Order for the State of Pennsylvania. He served as Grand Master of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Pennsylvania in 1883-4, and as a Deputy of the Grand Council. The number of Masons who have reached the thirty-third degree is very limited. There are less than five hundred of them in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States, among whom are Gen. B. F. Butler, Rev. Minot J. Savage, ex-Governor George Hoadley, J. H. McVicker, and other eminent men. 'pHOMAS W. MARSHALL,, the sen- ior member of the banking firm of T. W. Marshall & Co., of "West Chester, and a well known and successful financier of Chester county, is a son of John "W. and Edna (Webb) Marshall, and was born in East Marlborough township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 26, 1843. He is descended from Abram Marshall, who came from Nottingham, England, and settled in what is now East Bradford township. He married and reared a family,' and one of his descendants was John W. Marshall, who was born in 1804 in West Bradford town- ship, and upon arriving at maturity pur- chased a farm in East Marlborough town- ship and resided there up to the time of his death, which occurred June 17, 1863. He was an old-line whig in politics, and married Edna Webb, who died August 13, 1884, aged seventy-eight years. They reared a family of eight children, four of whom still survive. Thomas W. Marshall was reared on the farm, received his education at Kennett Square academy, and at eighteen years of age commenced life for himself as a clerk in a store at Wilmington, Delaware. Upon attaining his majority he removed to West Chester, where he entered the First National bank as a clerk, and was promoted from position to position until in three years and six months he became cashier, in which capacity he served up to 1872. He then resigned to form a partnership with Smed- ley Darlington, and they did a private bank- ing business in Philadelphia until 1875, when Mr. Marshall returned to West Ches- ter, where he conducted a private bank with Mr. Darlington for one year. At the end of that time the partnership was dissolved and Mr. Marshall commenced business on his own account, which he continued by himself until 1887, when he admitted his nephew, William Chalfant, jr., into part- nership, under the present firm name of T. W. Marshall & Co. He does a general investment business, and his bank is known throughout eastern Pennsylvania as a sub- stantial and safely managed financial insti- tution. He is a director of the National bank of Chester county, the oldest and largest bank in the county, and has always taken a deep interest in any enterprise that is intended to promote the material and business prosperity of his borough. He is also a directorandfirst vice-president of the McKinley-Lanning Loan & Trust Company, of Philadelphia, and holds several other ■t^^me^A ^ai-^^a; OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 541 positions of responsibility and trust. He is an independent republican in politics. On May 11, 1869, Mr. Marshall was uni- ted in marriage with Kate D. "Worthington, daughter of Dr. Wilmer Worthington (see his sketch), a distinguished physician and politician of Pennsylvania. J[OSHUA Li. GARRETT, a' prominent ^farmer residing near Sugartown, who is also treasurer of the Mutual Security Fire Company, of Chester county, is the eldest son of Isaac and Lydia L. (Garrett) Garrett, and was born on the old homestead, in the southern part of Willistown township, this county, August 19, 1825. His ancestors were English Quakers who came to America and settled in Pennsylvania at an early day. The paternal grandfather, Isaac Garrett, was also a native of Willistown township, born June 11, 1755, and died here January 12, 1837, aged eighty-two years. He was a farmer by occupation, owning one hundred and forty acres of land, and in religion a Friend or Quaker. In politics he was a whig, and he married Elizabeth Thatcher, of South Carolina, by whom he had a fam- ily of eight children : Isaac, "William, Mary, Sarah, Edith and Amos, and after the house was destroyed by fire and the two boys, Isaac and "William, were burned, two more were born, whom they named Isaac and "William. Amos never married. Sarah married Brinton Darlington, Mary married a man by the name of Sheward, and, after his death, wedded Isaac Fred, while Edith married a man named Hoopes. All are now deceased. Isaac Garrett (father) was born at the Garrett homestead on Ridley creek, "Willistown township, October 9, 1797, and died thei'e February 7, 1870, in the 32 seventy-third year of his age. He was a farmer all his life, owning a fine farm of one hundred and twenty acres of excellent and productive land. Like his father he ad- hered to the Quaker faith, and served_as overseer of his meeting for many years. In politics he was first a whig, and later a re- publican, and on November 4, 1824, married Lydia L. Garrett, a daughter of Abner Gar- rett, of Willistown township. By this union he had a family of four children: Joshua L., whose name introduces this sketch ; Elizabeth, born in 1827, married Thomas G. Smedley, on iN'ovember 29, 1849, and died April 10, 1891, aged sixty -four; Wil- mer, died when one year old ; and Amos, born May 21, 1833, married Anna M. Chand- ler, April 25, 1861, by whom he has three children, and now resides in Willistown. Abner Garrett, maternal grandfather of Joshua L., was a son of Thomas Garrett, and was born March 19,1776, in Willistown township, where his father had been born April 12, 1736, on the property where Thomas Cox now lives. He was a farmer by vocation, a Quaker in religion, and mar- ried Rebecca Maris, by whom he had a fam- ily of eight children : Rebecca Ann, Lydia, Abigail, George, Thomas, Jane, Abner and Hannah. He died October 14, 1849, aged eighty years, and his widow, Rebecca, died January 6, 1856, aged eighty-one. Joshua L. Garrett was reared principally on the farm, where he early became accus- tomed to the varied and exacting duties connected with successful farm manage- ment. He pursued his primary studies in the public schools of his neighborhood, and later attended Professor Griskem's boarding school, near Morestown, N'ew Jersey, and finished his education at Professor Price's school, near West Chester. After leaving 542 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY school be engaged in farming, and has made that the leading business of bis life, now owning a good farm of one hundred and sixty acres near Sugartown, and also one hundred and thirty-five acres in the north part of East Bradford township, near Brad- ford hills, in the cultivation of which he has been remarkably successful. Ever since its organization in 1885, he has been treasurer of the Mutual Security Fire Insurance Com- pany of Chester county, and is recognized as a gentleman of standing and ability in his community. In financial management he is particularly careful, avoiding all specula- tion and adhering closely to legitimate methods in business. Politically he is a stanch republican, and takes an active part in local politics. He served as supervisor one year and auditor of his township for four years, and has frequently been elected judge and inspector of elections. In re- ligion he is a member of the Society of Friends, and has all his life been connected with the Willistown meeting of that relig- ious organization. On September 18, 1856, Mr. Garrett was united in marriage to Caro- line Hoopes, a daughter of Ezra and Re- becca Hoopes, of West Chester, this county. HENRY RENHARD, the subject. of this sketch, was the son of Jacob and Mary Rennard, and was born in Schuylkill township, near Valley Forge, August 25, 1805. His early life. was spent in farming on his father's farm. On ISTovember 10, 1830, he married Prudence, daughter of James and Elizabeth Miller, of West Vin- cent township, Chester county. He still continued farming at dift'erent places near Paoli, until 1858, when he purchased a fine farm of one hundred and twenty acres in Chester Valley, about two and one-half miles from Paoli. On this farm he lived until his death, September 18, 1882. The property is still in possession of his heirs. Henry Rennard was a stanch republican all his life, and took an active part in poli- tics. He was a strong supporter of the Union cause during the civil war, in which three of his sons took part. He was a Presbyterian in his religious belief, being a member of the Great Valley Presbyterian church, the oldest Presbyterian churcE in Pennsylvania. He was the father of eleven children, ten of whom are still living: Mary E., William M., who married Sarah Little, March 6, 1877; Amanda, who married Joseph Roberts, March 18, 1863; HarryC, , who died June 8, 1887; J. Harrison, who married Margaret Portens, January 11,1870 ; Emma J.; Tamzine A.; Hilborn D., who married Sarah Rees, March 27, 1883 ; Win- field S., who married Debora Groff, March 25, 1886 ; Louis W., who married Fannie Stockton, September 20, 1887; and Teresa M., who married David Morgan, May 14, 1884. Prudence, the wife of Henry Ren- nard, died March 4, 1885. TklNCOLN WASHINGTON WEID- AL, who for more than four years has been assistant superintendentof the French Creek mines, is a mining engineer of con- siderable skill and reputation, and as a citi- zen is characterized by the well-known thrift and industry of the German race, from which he is descended. He is a son of Amos and Susanna (Piatt) Weidal, and was born at Myerstown, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, March 31, 1860. There he grew to manhood, receiving a superior edu- cation in the public schools of his native OF CHESTER COUNTY. 543 town, and afterward learned the trade or business of a stationary engineer. He fol- lowed that occupation for a period of nine years, and then turned his attention to the profession of mining engineer, and soon afterward entered the employ of William l^oble, locating in the Warwick iron region, where he has resided ever since. In 1888 he became assistant superintendent of Mr. Noble's iron mines at St. Peter's, and still occupies that responsible position. To his ability and faithfulness is largely due the success of these mines. Politically he is a I'epubliean, but has seldom taken any active part in politics, and in religious faith and church membership is a Lutheran. He is also a member of the Patriotic Order Sons of America, and of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. On May 22, 1886, Mr. Weidal was mar- ried to Annie Noble, a daughter of William Noble (see his sketch), and to them have been born two children, both daughters : Blanche and Erma. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Jacob Weidal, was a native of Lebanon county, where he passed a long and useful life, dying about 1875. He was a teacher by occupation, engaged princi- pally in teaching the German language, in which he w^as very proficient. He married Mary Kreitzer, by whom he had a family of three children, the eldest of whom was Amos Weidal (father), who was born in Lebanon county, this State, where he lived all his life, dying at Myerstown, that county, in 1863, at an advanced age. In politics he was a stanch republican, and by occupa- tion a laborer. He married Susanna Piatt, a daughter of Simon and Susanna Piatt, of Lebanon county, and to them was born a family of eleven chil^dren, JOHN L. HOY, a Union soldier of the late war, and the proprietor of the well known Mansion house of Valley Forge, is a son of Bernard and Sarah (Curry) Hoy, and was born at Norristown, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, November 4, 1837. He received his education in the common schools of Valley Forge and Norristown, and then was engaged in farming and in the hotel business until 1861, when he en- listed in Co. H, 82d Pennsylvania infantry. He participated in the battles of the army of the Potomac on the Peninsula up to the last of the Seven days' fight, soon after which he contracted rheumatism and was sent to the hospital, where he remained some time. Returning to his company he was promoted to orderly sergeant, but was so afilicted with rheumatic trouble that on April 28, 1863, he was discharged from the service on account of disability. Returning from the army he was engaged for a short time in the hotel business at Mt. Claire, Montgomery county, and then went to Philadelphia, where he served as a conduc- tor on a street car line for three years and a half. At the end of that time he re- turned to Norristown, Montgomery county, and was in the hotel business there until 1880, when he came to Valley Forge, where he opened his present hotel. Mr. Hoy is a popular landlord and a successful business man. He owns and tills the home farm of seventy-six acres of land. He is a democrat in politics, and formerly took an active part in political afiairs. , In August, 1858, Mr. Hoy married Maria Morgan, who died in 1875, and left three children : Bernard, Elizabeth Hallowell, and Peter V., (proprietor of the Montgomery house at Norristown, Pennsylvania). For his second wife he married Elizabeth Coats, 544 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY by whom he had one child, Annie. After his second wife's death (1887), he wedded Tillie, daughter of Chalkley Coats. Bernard Hoy, sr. (paternal grandfather), was a native of county Antrim, Ireland, where he passed his life. lie left two chil- dren to survive him, a son and a daughter: Bernard (father), and Bridget. Bernard Hoy was horn in Ireland in 1802, where he became a "loom boss," and after following that occupation for a short time in the fac- tories of his native country, went in 1821 to England, where he married, and from which country he came, in 1835, to the United States. After spending some time in New York city he removed to Norris- town, this State, which he left in 1851 to settle at Valley Forge, where he purchased a good farm and engaged in farming and in the hotel business. Bernard Hoy was a democrat in politics, and a Catholic in re- ligion, and died in December, 1858, aged fifty-six years. He married Sarah Curry, and reared a family of six children, three sons and three daughters : James F. ; Peter ; John L. (subject) ; Elizabeth, a sister of charity at St. Patrick's church in Philadel- phia; Mary, who married • Stanly Ogden, a cotton and woolen manufacturer of Valley Forge and JSTorristown ; and Annie, who died in 1861. Mrs. Hoy was born and reared in England, and died at Valley Forge in March, 1879, when in the seventy- fifth year of her age. V TESSE HAUSE, a retired merchant and farmer of Marsh, is a man who boldly maintained his place in the ranks of the business men of this county during the time of an entire generation. He is the only surviving son of Jacob and Ann (Evans) Hause, and was born March 8, 1818, near Ealston's store. West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The family is of German extraction, and was planted in America by the great-grandfather of Jesse Hause, at an early day. John Hause, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Vincent township, this county, about 1750. He was a farmer by occupation, industrious and economical, and became fairly prosperous and well-to-do. He was a member of the German Reformed church, married in this county, and reared a large family, among whom was Jacob Hause (father), who was born in East Vin- cent township in 1783, and lived there un- til 1818, when he removed to East ITant- meal township, where he resided until his death in 1862, aged seventy-nine years. He received a good education and soon after attaining his majority he learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed for a short time and then commenced merchan- dising, in which business he was engaged during most of his life — for a time in East Vincent, later in West Vincent, and then at Marsh, until 1854, when he retired and was succeeded by his son Jesse. In his political convictions he was a stanch demo- crat, and in religious faith and church membership a strict Lutheran. He married Ann Evans, a daughter of Capt. John Evans, of West Vincent township, this county, and to them was born a family of four children, of whom Jesse Hause is the youngest. The eldest was John Hause, who after attaining manhood was employed for some time as clerk in a large business house in Philadelphia,- where he died in 1886, aged seventy-two years. The next child was a daughter, named Elizabeth, who married Thomas B. Douese (now deceased), OF CHESTER COVNTY. 545 and resides in "West Vincent township. The fourth was Margaret Hause, who died quite young. Jesse Hause was reared principally in East ]!fantmea.l township, and received his education in the public schools. After leaving school he engaged in school teach- ing, and was variously employed until 1854, when he succeeded to his father's business at .Marsh, and successfully conducted a gen- eral store at that place for a period of thirty-six years. In 1890, at the age of seventy-two, he retired from active busi- ness, being succeeded in his turn by his only son, Harry Hause, who has since man- aged the establishment, which for many years has enjoyed a steady patronage from the substantial citizens of this section. Since his retirement Mr. Hause has been taking life easy, and .enjoying the comforts and luxuries that are the appropriate re- ward of a long life of unwearied activity and successful labor. He owjis a tine farm, containing one hundred and two acres of valuable land, which he formerly operated in connection with the store. Politically he is a democrat of the old school, and has served one term as school director of East ITautmeal township. For many years he has been a member.of St. Mary's Episcopal church, and is widely known and most highly esteemed as a man of upright con- duct and true Christian character. In 1864 Jesse Hause was married to Han- nah Evans, a daughter of Griffith and Martha Evans, of East Nantmeal township, this county, and to this union was born an only son, Harry Hause, who ife now about twenty-three years "of age. Inheriting the leading characteristics of his father, Harry early displayed an aptitude for business, and, as has been stated, came into the man- agement of his father's store in 1890, since which time he has devoted such careful at- tention to his large and growing trade as promises to give him rank with the best business men in the county. In 1891 Harry Hause was wedded to Ella Penny- packer, a daughter of Silas and Hannah A. Pennypacker, of East Ifantmeal township. Tk W. G-HEEN, a well known journalist of Chester county and editor and pro- prietor of the daily evening Republican of Phoenixville, is a sou of Jonathan and Martha J. (Chamberlain) Gheen, and was born in Goshen township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, July 28, 1846. He received his education in Ihe public schools and learned the trade of printer, which he fol- lowed for over twenty-nine years at various places in the State. In 1890 he came to Phoenixville and took charge of the daily evening Republican, which he has edited ever since. The paper, as its name indi- cates, is republican in politics and earnestly advocates the cardinal principles of the Republican party. It is carefully edited, contains everything that is of general im- portance, and never fails in promptly pre- senting to the public the local events of the borough and county. Mr. Gheen has labored hard to build up a first class daily paper, and an ample measure of success has re- warded his efibrts. His paper is a six col- umn folio, and now has a circulation of thirteen hundred in the borough and county, and in the western part of Montgomery county. He is a stanch republican and an earnest supporter of the principles of his party. He is well qualified for the position which he holds by years of practical expe- rience as a printer, and by the considerable 546 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY length of time spent iu an editorial capacity upon various papers which -he has owned. On October 9, 1873, Mr. Gheen married Rowena, daughter of Solomon Russell, of Ashland, this State. To their union was born one child, which died in infancy. The Grheen family in Chester county was founded by Joseph Gheen, who married December 7, 1768, Elizabeth Ingram, at Christ's church, Philadelphia. He resided in Chester county and reared a family of six sons: Thomas, John, "William, Joseph, Jonathan and Levi. Levi Gheen (grand- father), the youngest son, was born March 3, 1783, and died September 12, 1839, at lifty-six years of age. He was a farmer by occupation, a whig in politics, and a Friend in religion. He was a resident of Goshen township, and married Mary Taylor, by whom he had seven children : Titus W., Elizabeth, Jacob, Palmer, Taylor, Jonathan, and Lydia, wife of John McCauley. Jona- than (father), the youngest son, was born in 1815, on the home farm, where he resided until within two years of his death, IS'ovem- ber 9, 1861, at forty-six years of age. He was a whig, and Methodist, and married Martha J. Chamberlain. They had three children : Mary, who died in infancy ; L.W., and Arthur P., now engaged in the saddlery business at West Chester. Mrs. Gheen, who now resides at West Chester, is a daughter of Jacob Chamberlain, and was born in 1822. QIMEON BUZZERD, one of the old and highly respected citizens of Schuyl- kill township, is a son of John and Mary (High) Buzzerd, and was born in Hamp- shire county, Virginia (now West Virginia), February 18, 1806. He was educated in the primary and subscription schools of his native county, and learned the trade of hatter, at which he worked but a short time on account of the founding of establishments to manufacture hats by machinery. He then engaged in farming, which he has since followed. In 1840 he came to Schuylkill township and purchased his present farm of one hundred and twenty-two acres. His farm is well improved, and in addition to it he owns thii-ty-three acres of land in West Pikeland township, and a house and some valuable property at Phoenixville. During the last few years Mr. Buzzerd has been turning his attention to the dairying busi- ness. He is a democrat in politics, and a member of the Presbyterian church, in which he has served as an elder for over forty years. Mr. Buzzard has served his town- ship as collector, assessor and school director, and discharged faithfully and efficiently every duty of each of these offices. He is recognized as .a useful and valuable citizen, and has met with encouraging success in life. In April, 1833, Mr. Buzzerd married Elizabeth High, daughter of Daniel High, and to their union were born six children, four sons and two daughters: John, who was a Union soldier, and fell at the battle of Cold Harbor ; Thoriiton, who served in the army of the Potomac ; Simeon, married Susan Stuart, and is in the employ of the Phoenix Iron Company ; Francis, a farmer, who married Anna L. Farmv; Margaret Sowers, and Mary L. Pierce. The birthland of Frederick Buzzerd, the founder of the American branch of the family, was 'Hesse Cassell, Germany, from which he came to Schu/lkill township prior to the revolutionary war. He was a well read and thoroughly posted bible student, and died in 1811, at the ripe old age of OF CHESIBR COUNTY. 547 ninety-two ye^rs. His children were : John, Frederick, Jacob, Esther Kiter, and Eliza- beth Mauzzy. John Buzzerd (father) was born in Germany, and came with his father to Schuylkill township, which he afterward left to settle in Hampshire county ,Virginia. He resided near Winchester, in the famous Shenandoah valley, where his father had purchased farms for him and his two broth- ers. John Buzzerd died in 1810. He mar- ried Mary High, who was a daughter of Daniel High, and they reared a family of nine children, six sons and three daughters : Jacob, John, David, Henry, Jonas, Simeon (subject), Susan Grove, Mary Buckwalter, and Elizabeth Lane. llJflCHENER FAMILY. John and * Sarah Michener were the American progenitors of the family, and in 1715 re- moved to Abington. They had six children, and their descendants are quite numerous to-day in Chester county. Their son, "Wil- liam Michener, was the father of Mordecai Michener, who married Sarah Fisher, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Scarbor- ough) Fisher, of Bucks county, Pennsyl- vania, and a granddaughter of John and Sarah (Hutchinson) Fisher, of Yorkshire, England. Mrs. Sarah Michener's brother, Barak Fisher, married Mary Butler, daugh- ter of Thomas and Rebecca (Gilbert) Butler, of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, who, in 1763, removed from Bucks count}', Pennsyl- vania, to Frederick county, Virginia, where they reared a large family, one of whom (Elizabeth), was the mother of Rachel (Brownfield) Searight. Rachel married William Searight, a prominent democrat and leading citizen of Fayette county, Penn- sylvania, and now, in tVie eighty-eighth year of her age, is living with her sou, James A. Searight, president of the Peoples' bank of Fayette county, at Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Mordecai and Sarah Mich- ener had eleven children, and their son, Mordecai Michener,jr., married AliceDunn, and reared a family of four children, of whom the youngest was Dr. Ezra Michener, a prominent physician, and the author of several valuable works in relation to the geography and conchology of Chester county. jrOSEPH JACOBS, one of the success- ful business men of the great Chester valley, and postmaster of Aldham since 1888, is a son of George and Mary Anna (McCool) Jacobs, and was born in Ply- mouth township, Montgomery county, Penn- sylvania, December 29, 1839. He grew to manhood on the farm, received his educa- tion in the public schools of East White- land township, and was engaged success- ively in farming in Charlestown and East Whiteland townships until 1886. In that year he came to Aldham and established his present general mercantile business. He has a good store building and a heavy stock of goods, and enjoys a large trade. On his East Whiteland farm of ninety-live acres is situated one of the finest flint quarries in the county. This quarry is now opera- ted by Breeder, Adamson & Co., of Phila- delphia. Mr. Jacobs is a democrat in poli- tics, has served as postmaster at Aldham since 1888, and is now tax-collector of Charlestown township. He served in a regiment of Pennsylvania militia during Lee's invasion of the State in 1863. He is kind and courteous, has become justly pop- ular, and has achieved well merited success in his line of business. 548 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY On February 24, 1862, Mr. Jacobs was united in marriage with Sarah K. Detwiler, daughter of Henry and Catherine Detwiler. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs have six children, two sons and four daughters : George, Katie B., H. H., Blanche, Jennie and Lulu. The two sons are managing their father's farm in East Whiteland township. Joseph Jacobs is of German descent. His paternal grandfather came from one of the provinces of Germany, and settled in Montgomery county, where his occupa- tion was that of lime burner until his death at an advanced age. He married and reared a family of three sons and two daughters : George, Robert, Joseph, Katharine and Ann. Joseph Jacobs (father) was born September 15, 1810, and died April 11, 1889. He fol- lowed lime burning and farming, and a few years before his death engaged in the gen- eral mercantile business at Aldham. He was a democrat in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and was also a inember of Sugartown Lodge, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. George Jacobs was a man of influence and high standing in his comnmnity, and served as supervisor of East "Whiteland township, and after removing into Oharlestown, as tax collector of that township. He married Mary Anna McCool, and to their union were born eight sons : Samuel, Charles, Robert, George, William, John, Morgan and Joseph. Mrs. Jacobs was a daughter of Samuel and Hesther McCool, and died in September, 1876, when in the sixty- fourth year of her age. J^AVID OFPEKMAN, a well known general merchant of Anselma, and one of the successful and substantial citizens of that place, is the third child of David and Elizabeth (Acker) Oppermau, and a native of West Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he was born Novem- ber 3, 1830. He grew to manhood on his father's farm in that township, attending the public schools of his neighborhood, where he acquired a good practical educa- tion, and later learned the trades of dish moulder and cigar maker, at each of which he worked for a time. Li 1870 he embarked in general merchandising at Anselma, erect- ing the commodious store building he now occupies, and has been continuously en- gaged in that business ever since. Having fine business abilily and a disposition to ac- commodate and please his patrons, he was soon in the enjoyment of a good trade, which has continued to increase in volume and importance every year. He now car- ries a complete stock of general merchan- dise, aggregating between two and three thousand dollars in value, and all his goods are sold at reasonable prices and are of reliable manufacture. Mr. Opperman is a member of Pilgrim Lodge, 'S.o. 455, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and of Washington Camp, No. 275, Patriotic Order Sons of America. On August 16, 1869, the subject of this sketch was united in marriage to Martha March, a daughter of Israel March, of West Pikeland township, this county, and to Mr. and Mrs. Opperman have been born five children, four sons and a daughter: George, Elizabeth, Harvey, Clarence and William, the latter now deceased. The Opperman family is of German ex- traction, and was planted on these shores by Henry Oppermau, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, who was a native of Hanover, Germany, and came to OF CHESTER COUNTY. 549 the United States while yet a young man, settling in Charlestown township, this county. He was a man of fine education, obtained in the schools of his native land, and after coming to this county conducted a school in Charlestown township for some years. He owned a large farm in that township, and engaged in stock raising to some extent. Although in independent circumstances, it is related of him that he personally attended to all his marketing, frequently riding into the city of Philadel- phia with a pair of old saddle-bags, con- taining butter in one end and eggs in the other, which he always disposed of "at the highest market price." He was twice mar- ried, and reared a I'amily of four sons and a daughter. One of these sons was David Opperman (father), who was born, reared and educated in Charlestown township, but in 1842, after his marriage, removed to West Pikeland township, where he died March 23,1880, atthe advanced age of ninety- one years, havinsj been born March 30,1789. When a young man he learned the trade of wheelwright, and worked at that business to some extent, though his principal occu- pation was that of farming, in which he was very industrious and extremely suc- cessful. He owned a large farm in West Pikeland township, which being cultivated and managed with great care, became very productive and valuable. In politics the elder David Opperman was an old-line whig, and Hater a republican ; while in re- ligious faith he was a Lutheran, being for many years a member of St. Paul's Evan- gelical Lutheran church at Lionville. In 1826 he married Elizabeth Acker, a daugh- ter of Henry Acker, of Uwchlan township, and was the father of ten children, five sons and five daughters: Henry, John, David (whose name heads this sketch), Jesse, Levi, Phcebe, Mary, Eebecca, Elizabeth and Jane, of whom John, David, Jesse, Phoebe and Rebecca still survive. 'THOMAS WARRINGTON, deceased, was for more than twenty years a well known and highly esteemed citizen of West Chester, where he was engaged in mer- chandising and farming. He was a son of Thomas and Hannah (Lippincott) War- rington, and a native of Westtield, Bur- lington county, New Jersey, where he was born August 16,1824. Hegrew to manhood in his native county, and received his pri- mary education there, finishing his studies at Westtown boarding school in Chester county. After leaving school he found em- ployment as clerk in a store for some time, and then engaged in teaching until his mar- riage in 1849, when he began farming in Burlington county, New Jersey. He fol- lowed this occupation for several years, until failing health compelled him to relin- quisli it, and in 1854 he removed to West Chester, this county, and embarked in the dry goods business. After a few years spent in merchandising he disposed of his stock of goods and purchased a farm in West Goshen township, which he operated for many years, though he continued to reside in the borough of West Chester until his death, whicli occurred February 6, 1875, in the fifty-first year of his age. Politically he was a republican, and in religion a strict member of the Society of Friends. On April 12, 1849, Thomas Warrington was united in marriage to AnnaM. Hoopes, a daughter of Curtis Hoopes, of West Goshen township. To their union was born a family of four children, three sons and a. 550 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY daughter. The elder of these is Curtis H., born October 23, 1851, who married Helen A. Smith (now deceased), by whom he had three children — Carrie E., born November 19, 1877 ; Ellen S., born April 5, 1880 ; and Hannah M., born October 23, 1885. The second was Alfred F., born June 18, 1854, and died June 7, 1855. The third son, T. Francis, w.as born October 11, 1856, and married Josephine L. Smith, by whom he had two children, twins, both of whom died in infancy. She died April 18, 1881, and in 1885 he wedded Ellen S. Parvin, and their union has been blessed by the birth of one child, Anna L., born April 10, 1889. They live in Philadelphia, where Mr. War- rington is employed in the drawing depart- ment of a large machine shop. The only daughter of Thomas and Anna M. War- rington, Carrie P., was born November 25, 1861, and died September 20, 1863. The Warringtons are descended from old English Quaker stock, the first of the name to come to America being Henry Warring- ton, whose father's name was John, and who was born in England about 1687. He came to this country in 1700 with his mother, Hannah, who had been left a widow, and who settled in Philadelphia, where she and a daughter resided for a number of years. Henry went to New Jersey to learn farm- ing, and after attaining manhood, in May, 1719, purchased a tract of four hundred acres of land in Chester township, Burling- ton county. New Jersey, and began farming on his own account. He first married Elizabeth Austin, by whom he had four children: Ruth, John, Mary and Thomas. She died in 1728, and he then married Elizabeth Bishop, by which union he had a family of eight children. From this Henry Warrington, by his first marriage, was de- scended Thomas Warrington, father of the subject of this sketch. The elder Thomas was born and reared in New Jersey, and died at his home in Mborestown, Burlington county, that State, September 21, 1857, at an advanced age. He was a farmer by oc- cupation, and married Hannah Lippincott, a daughter of Josiah Lippincott, of West- field, New Jersey, by whom he had a family of four children. The Hoopes family, of which Mrs. Anna M. Warrington is a member, is descended from Joshua Hoopes, a native of Yorkshire, England, who came to America with his son, Daniel, in 1682, and settled, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where they lived for some time. In 1696 Daniel Hoopes mar- ried Jane Worrelow and removed to Chester county, purchasing and settling on a tract of land in Westtovvn township, which is still in possession of his descendants. He had a family of seventeen children : Grace, born July 17, 1697, died March 6, 1721; Ann, born October 23, 1698, died March 13, 1704; Mary, born September 22, 1700, died in 1765; Hannah, born May 21, 1702, died in 1750 ; Joshua (great-grandfather of Mrs. Warrington), born April 19, 1704, died October 9, 1769; Jane, born May 14, 1706, died in 1789 ; Ann, born December 3, 1707, died in 1730 ; Daniel, born October 27, 1709, died in 1790; John, born August 17, 1711, died in 1795; Abram, born April 12, 1713, died in 1795 ; Thomas, born October 22,1714, died in 1803; Elizabeth and Stephen, twins, born January 13, 1716— Elizabeth died in 1804, and Stephen in 1762; Nathan, born January 16, 1718, died in 1803; Walter, born January 11, 1719, died in 1720; Sarah, born May 25, 1720, died in 1794; and Chris- tian, born in 1723, and died December 31, 1815. As will be seen by a comparison of OF CHESTER COVNIY. 551 dates, several of this large family lived to a good old age, and it is related that some of the older children were born in a cave, which was the first home of the family — in those primitive times, not an exceptional case by any means. Joshua Hoopes (great- grandfather) was a native of Westtown township, where he spent his life on the old homestead. He married Hannah Ashbridge, and was the father of nine children: Jane,born July 12,1732, died May 16, 1812; George, born August 5, 1734, died February 23, 1805; Joshua, born July 15, 1836, died March 21, 1825 ; Mary, born April 4, 1739, died in 1812 ; Phoebe,born October 15, 1741, died February 19, 1819 ; Amos, born June 9, 1745, died in 1805; Joseph, born March 10, 1748, died March 17, 1795 ; Israel, born June 1, 1750, died young; and Ezra (grand- father), who was born October 1, 1751, and died October 14, 1811, at the Westtown liomestead. He lived all his earlier life on the old homestead, and a part of his married life in East Goshen township. In politics he was an old-line whig, and in religion a Friend or Quaker. He married Ann Hick- man, and to them were born eleven chil- dren : Moses, born February 6, 1774, died December 7, 1818; Lydia, born July 12, 1775, who being an energetic girl, and the eldest girl of a large family, upon whom fell much of the responsibilities of life, used to attend the Philadelphia market with the produce of the farm, dairy and poultry, on horseback, as was the custom of those early days, and lived to be an aged woman, over eighty when she died ; Caleb, born Novem- ber 29,1777, died April 25, 1863; Sarah, born May 4, 1780 ; Ann, born May 14, 1782, died October 17, 1833 ; PlicEbe, born March 11, 1784, died B"ovember 22, 1862; Curtis (father of Mrs. Warrington), born February 20, 1786, died October 7, 1872; Ezra, born April 16, 1788 ; Hannah, born February 22, 1790; Lavina, born April 10, 1792, died October 13, 1867; and Elizabeth, born December 6, 1794, died August 2, 1876. Curtis Hoopes was reared on the old home- stead, and after attaining manhood removed to West Goshen township, where he mar- ried and remained until 1853, when he came to West Chester, and soon afterward built the large residence now occupied by his daughter, on the corner of Walnut and Biddle streets. He was a whig and repub- lican in politics, and married Sarah Roberts, by whom he had a family of seven children. The eldest was a daughter, bowi May 9, 1822, who died in infancy. The others were: Elizabeth, born April 7, 1823, died April 20, 1825; Harriet, born October 20, 1824, died July 18, 1825; Lavina R. and Caroline E., twins, born April 8, 1826, of whom Lavina R, married Samuel Hannum, father of Curtis Hannum, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume, and Caro- line E., married Charles P. Hewes Septem- ber 12, 1850, and died childless on August 17, 1858; and Anna M., born January 1, 1829, who, on April 12, 1849, married Thomas Warrington, whose name heads this lengthy genealogy of two important and numerous families, descendants of Eng- lish and Welsh ancestry. TA/lLLIAM EVANS, deceased, was a • worthy member of a prominent Welsh family, descended from the early immigrant of the same name, and long ranked with the most substantial and useful citizens of the county. He was a son of Joshua and Mary (Maliii) Evans, and was born at Paoli, Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the year 552 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 1769. There he grew to manhood and re- ceived the limited education afforded by the country schools of that day. liis mind was of a superior cast, howevei', and he read ex- tensively and thought earnestly on all questions then engaging public attention, insomuch that he became a man of wide in- telligence. Upon reaching his majority he engaged in farming, and followed that vo- cation nearly all his life. He was noted for thrift and energy, and all the qualities that go toward making the patriotic and useful citizen. In politics he was a democrat, and earnestly supported the principles of that political organization, while in religious belief he was a Quaker, and regular in his attendance at Willistown meeting most of his life. About 1796 he removed to Willistown, this county, where he contin- ued to live until his death in October, 1843, at the age of nearly seventy-five years. In 1794 he married Anne M. Hibberd, a daugh- ter of Samuel and Mary Hibberd, and by this union had a family of seven children, two sons and five daughters ; Hibberd and Joshua, wh o both becam e prosperous farmers of this county, but are now deceased ; Mary, deceased; Eliza E., married Enos Hibberd, and both are now deceased ; Sarah "W -, who resides at West Chester; Ann M., married Judge Thomas L. Smith, now deceased, and lives at ISTew Albany, Indiana; and Lydia T., became the wife of Levi Lewis, now de- ceased, of Radnor, Delaware county. T&> ALTER R. HIBBERD, one of East Whiteland township's reliable citizens and farmers, and a decendant of the old Hibberd family that was resident of the county before the commencement of the last century, is a son of Josiah and Lydia A. (Malin) Hibberd, and was born iu East Whiteland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, January 21, 1865. The Hibberd family is one of the old families of East Whiteland township, where it has been prominent for nearly two centuries. Josiah Hibbei'd (great-grandfather) owned four hundred acres of land in East Whiteland, where he carried on farming extensive!}' for that day. He was a Eriend, and married and reared a family of three children: Josiah, Owen and Susanna. Josiah Hib- bei'd (grandfather) was born on the home farm, where he always resided and where he died in January, 1834, at sixty -five years of age. He was a whig, and a Friend, and married Alice Hunter. They had seven children who grew to maturity: William P., a stock dealer and resident of Philadel- phia, where he served as alderman for thirty years before his death ; Rebecca, now dead; Edward H., served one term as recorder of Chester county, aud died at West Chester; Jehu R., was a farmer in Ohio, but died in East Whiteland township, where he had been engaged for several years in farming ; Susan, still living; Josiah (father); andGeorgeO., who was born July 11, 1825, in East White- land township, M'here he was engaged iu agricultural pursuits until 1886, in which year he removed to his present home at West Chester. Josiah Hibberd, the fourth son and father of Walter R. Hibberd, was born in 1822, and after receiving a good English education, he went to Philadelphia and studied surveying. He afterward served as city surveyor for twenty years, and was active and useful in various ways until his death, which occurred January 31, 1887. He was a republican, and a Friend, and wedded Lydia A. Malin, who was a daugh- ter of Joseph aud Amy Malin, and who OF CHESTER COUNTY. 553 died in 1866, aged thirty-five years. To Mr. and Mrs. Hibberd were born four chil- dren, one son and three daughters : Alice, deceased ; Carrie, also deceased ; "Walter R., and Mary, who married George 0. Hibberd, jr., a. prosperous farmer of East Goshentown- ship. Walter E. Hibberd grew to manhood on the home farm and received his education in the celebrated William Penn Charter school of Philadelphia. Leaving school he engaged in agricultural pursuits in his na- tive township, where he now owns a good farm of ninety-five acres of farming and grazing land. In politics Mr. Hibberd is a republican, and while ever active to yield- ing his party an active and energetic sup- port, yet is no politician or aspirant for of- fice. He is a member of Thompson Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons. On December 27, 1887, Mr. Hibberd was united in marriage with Natalie, daughter of Davis and Margaret (Brown) Gill, of Green Tree. To Mr. and Mrs. Hibberd have been born two children : Walter E.., jr., and Edward N. TTDDISON WIIiSON, a substantial and prosperous farmer residing near Kim- berton, who has served his township for many years as a school director, and is a highly esteemed and useful citizen, was born December 5, 1840, in West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and is the oldest son of Thomas and Rebecca (Hale) Wilson. He was reared on the farm where he now resides, and received a good common school education in his native town- ship, after which he engaged in farming on the old homestead, and has devotfed all his life to agricultural pursuits. He is energetic and industrious, and being a man of good business judgment, has been very successful in life. In his political affiliations he has always been a democrat, and for eight years has served as a school director of his town- ship, being also the present treasurer of the school board. On January 14, 1875, Mr. Wilson was united by marriage to Rebecca Shick, a daughter of John Shick, a prosperous farmer of West ATncent township, and they have had four children, all sons: John, born January 18, 1876 ; Raymond, born April 21, 1877, died August 27, 1877 ; Edwin, born November 7, 1878 ; and Clarence, born Feb- ruary 12, 1886. Mrs. Wilson was born No- vember 4, 1841, in this township, where she grew to womanhood, and was educated in the public schools. The Wilson family is of English descent and are old residents of Chester county. Here Thomas Wilson, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born and passed his life, dying in West Vincent town- ship, aged nearly ninety years. His voca- tion was that of a farmer, and politically he was a Jacksonian democrat. He married Elizabeth Wills, by whom he had one child, a son, named Thomas Wilson (father), who was born in West Vincent township in November, 1802, and died on the farm now owned by his son, Addison Wilson, on No- vember 7, 1884, aged eighty-two years. Reared on the farm, Thomas Wilson im- bibed a love for agricultural pursuits, and purchasing a tract of one hundred acres of choice land, he devoted much of his life to the cultivation of the soil. He also owned and for a number of years operated a mill at Birchrunville, this township. In his political convictions he was a stanch dem- ocrat, doing what he could to advance the 554 BIOGRAPHY AND IIISTOR Y principles he held so dear. He was an earn- est friend of popular education, and held the office of school director in West Vincent township for a period of thirty-nine years, during which time he beheld a generation of school boys grow to manhood, assume the active and responsible duties of life, and most of them pass away to make room for the generation that followed. Mr. Wilson married Rebecca Hale, daughter of an En- glishman named Lawrence Hale, and by this union had a family of nine children, five of whom — two sons and three daugh- ters — are still living. They were: Lydia, long since deceased ; Margaret, who mar- ried Levi Emery, and is now deceased; Mary, the wife of Edwin Williams, of West Pikelaud; Sophia, married Levi Eettew, a resident of Spring City ; Ellen, the wife of George Chrisman, of Schuylkill township; Addison, the subject of this sketch ; Sarah, deceased; John, who resides at Columliia, Lancaster county, being employed as train- master on the Reading & Columbia railroad ; and Matilda, deceased. XTERSEY SHOEMAKER, a successful V farmer of West Whiteland township, and who has been engaged for many years in the coal and lime business, is a son of Thomas and Mary (Evans) Shoemaker, and was born in Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, December 16, 1815. His paternal grandfather, Peter Shoemaker, was a native and life-long resident of Montgomery county, where he followed his trade of stone mason in connection with farming. He was an old-line whig, and a member of the So- ciety of Friends, and married and reared a family of ten children, among whom were John, Charles, Nathan, Peter, Hannah Moore, Eachel Meredith, and Thomas. Thomas Shoemaker, the fourth son, and father of Kersey Shoemaker, was born in Whitemarsh township, Montgomery county, where he passed his life as a farmer, and where he died in 1856, aged seventy-two years. He was a whig, and a Friend, and married Mary Evans, who died January 3, 1876, when in the ninety-first year of her age. They were the parents of six children, two sons and four daughters : Kersey; Har- rison, who died in 1862; Emma Paxson, now dead; Myra S. Moore, of Hlinois; Mary and Sarah. Kersey Shoemaker was reared on the farm, and received his education in the old subscription schools of Montgomery and Chester counties. Leaving school he turned his attention to farming, and some years later engaged in his present coal and lime business. He burns large quantities of lime, which he ships to various parts of this State and ITew Jersey. He purchased his pres- ent farm of ninety acres in this county, which is fertile and well improved, has good buildings and fences, and lies conven- ient to market, church and school. Mr. Shoemaker has always resided within three miles of where he now lives, and is one of the substantial citizens of his township. He is a republican in political opinion, and a Friend in religious belief and church mem- bership. On February 18, 1858, Mr. Shoemaker was united in marriage with Ann Eliza Ayars, and to their union have been born three children: Mary, who died in child- hood ; Emma, wife of Dr. Patrick, of West Chester; and Margaret. Mrs. Shoemaker is a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and received her educa- tion in Thomas' boarding school at Down- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 555 ingtown. She was born in Chester county, February 9, 1825, and is a granddaughter of Hamilton Ayars, who was a native of Bridgeton, itfew Jersey, and a resident and business man for many years of Philadel- phia, where he died in 1833, at an advanced age. He was a democrat in politics, mar- ried and reared three children : Lemuel, Shepherd, and Mary McConaghy. Shep- herd Ayars, father of Mrs. Shoemaker, was born at Bridgeton, N"ew Jersey, June 19, 1789, and followed his trade of cabinet maker in Philadelphia and at Sadsbui'y ville. He died at Downingtown in August, 1857. He was a democrat, an exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal church, and served as a soldier in the war of 1812. He married Mary Murray, and their children were : Preston, Hamilton, Addis, Mrs. Ann Eliza Shoe- maker, Wesley, and Mrs. Sarah P. Mullen. IjEWIS C. BROWNBACK, a highly esteemed farmer residing in the vicin- ity of Stonaker, this county, is a represen- tative of an old and honored German family that has become numerous in Chester county. He is a son of Jesse and Elizabeth (Christ- man) Brownback, and was born January 29, 1837, in East Coventry township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on his father's farm in that township, and attended the public schools of his neigh- borhood, where he received a good practical education. He married at the age of thirty- one, and farmed for his father on shares for six years, when at his father-in-law's re- quest. May 12, 1874, he removed to the farm of the latter in East Vincent township. His father-in-law died August 31st of that year, and the fine farm of eighty-one acres of valuable land on which they now reside. became the property of Mrs. Brownback. This farm is now all highly improved and in a splendid state of cultivation. He also owns ten acres of timber land in South Coventry township, and ranks among the substantial and prosperous farmers of this section. In politics he is a republican, but in religious faith he follows the traditions of his family and is a strict member of the German Reformed church. On April 30, 1867, Mr. Brownback was united in marriage with Mira Grubb, a daughter of George and Mariah Grubb, of Frederick township, Montgomery county, this State. To their union has been born a family of four children, two sons and two daughters: George G., Emma E., Jennie M. (deceased), and Lewis Marvin. Lewis C. Brownback is a lineal descend- ant of Garret Brownback, (originally writ- ten Gerhard Brumbach), a native of Wur- temburg, in southeastern Germany, who immigrated to America in 1683 on the vessel Concord from Amsterdam, October 6, and settled in Germantown, near Philadelphia, and helped to build the first house in that place. In 1734 he removed to Chester county and settled near Bethel church, where La- zetta Garber now lives. He was the founder of Brownback's German Reformed church, which was built by him of logs in 1741, of which there is a drawing, and kept the first tavern on the north side of the Lancaster pike in Chester county, and took out the first license in Chester county, in the year 1736, where he became a large landowner, taking up one thousand acres partly in Vin- cent and partly in Coventry townships. It was on part of this land that the church which bore his name was afterward built. He married Mary Pepen, the youngest daughter of Howard Pepen and Elizabeth 556 BIOGRAPHY AND HIST Oil Y Rittenhouse, the daughter of William Rit- tenhouse, a brother of David Rittenhouse, the famous American astronomer, and reared a family of two sons — Benjamin and Henry - — and daughters, who became the wives of Richard Custard, John Benner, Frederick Bingaman, and John Munshower. "When Garret Brownback settled here there was an Indian village, two hundred yards back of his house, which contained three hundred persons ; he taught them to help him to work in the vicinity of his dwelling, the inhabi- tants of which frequently rendered him ser- vices in return for favors shown to them. For this work he gave them milk, potatoes and vegetables. He was born in 1662 and died about 1758, aged ninety-six years, and his remains lie entombed at. the cemetery connected with the church he founded. He was succeeded at the tavern by his son, Benjamin, whose tirst wife was Mary Paul, the daughter of John Paul, and they had three sons: Henry, John and Edward. He continued the business nearly thirty years. The latter served as a soldier — first lieuten- ant, August 21, 1776 — during the revolu- tionary war, and after his death his widow, Rachel Parker, his second wife, was robbed and murdered, but no clue to the assassin was ever obtained. He died April 15, 1837, aged eighty-five years and two months. HenryBrownback(paternal great-grandfath- er) was born in East Coventry township, this county, about 1733, and received such edu- cation as wasaftbrded by the schools of that early day. He lived all his life in that town- ship, dying July 30, 1804, at the age of sev- enty-one year8,five months and twelve days. By occupation he was a farmer, in religion a member of the German Reformed church, and married Magdalena Paul, the daughter of John Paul, who died in 1766, aged thirty-five years and ten months. They reared a fam- ily of five children — three sons and two daughters — John, Peter, Benjamin, Annie Snyder and Susanna Prizer. Peter Brown- back (grandfather) was born October 3, 1764, in East Coventry township, where he passed his life quietly engaged in agricultural pur- suits, dying July 9, 1834, aged sixty-nine years, nine months and six days. He was a member of the State militia for many years and served actively during the great "whisky insurrection" in western Pennsyl- vania. His wife who died December 12, 1853, aged eighty-eight years, was Susannah DeFrane, the daughter of Peter DeFrane, and they had a family of three sons: Peter, Jesse and John, the first and last now de- ceased. Jesse Brownback (father) was also a native of East Coventry township, born March 18, 1807, where he still lives at the advanced age of eighty five years. Polit- ically he is a democrat, as were all his an- cestors, and a member of the German Re- formed church. On December 27, 1832, he married Elizabeth Christman, a daughter of Jacob Christman, of this county^and to them was born a family of eleven children, of whom one, Theodore, diedDecember 7, 1842. Those surviving are : Penrose, Edith, Mar- garet, Jacob, Clementine, Anna, Garret, Martha, Frederick and Lewis C, the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Elizabeth Brownback died June 21, 1853, aged forty-one years, having been born October 23, 1812. For much of the information given above we are indebted to L. C. Brownback. p^ON. WILMER WORTHINGTON, ' M. D., a well known physician and philanthropist of southeastern Pennsylvania, was one of the most distinguished men in OF CHESTEM COVNIY. 557 political life that Chester county ever pro- duced. He was a son of Amos and Jane (Taylor) Worthington,andwasbornin "West Groshen township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, January 22, 1804. He received his education at West Chester academy, read medicine with Dr. William Darlington, and was graduated from the university of Penn- sylvania in 1825. After a few month's prac- tice near Philadelphia he came to West Chester, where he practiced continuously and successfully for nearly half a century. The Worthington family in its transat- lantic ancestry is traced back to Lancaster county, England, where it was in high re- pute for bravery and heroic action from the time of the Plantagenets. John Worthing- ton ca^me about 1700 from England to near Philadelphia, where he married Mary Wams- ley. His son, Isaac Worthington, paternal grandfather of Dr. Worthington, married Martha Carver, and reared a family of five sons and two daughters. One of the sons, Amos Worthington (father), was born Sep- tember 9, 1773, and died January 3, '1834. He married Jane Taylor on October 10, 1799, and reared a family of six sons and one daughter. Mrs. Worthington died Sep- tember 26, 1873, at the advanced age of ninety-three years, having survived all her children. Dr. Wilrher Worthington occupied a high place in his profession, and was a pioneer in the work of medical organization in the State, being one of the founders of the Ches- ter County and State Medical societies and the American Medical association, and serv- ing as an editor of the Medical Eeporter from 1863 to 1866. He took a deep interest in the affairs of his borough, and served as president of the board of managers of Oak- land cemetery, and as a director of the bank 33 of Chester county and the West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad Company for some years before Viis death. On September 28, 1826, Dr. Worthington married Elizabeth, daughter of William Hemphill, esq. Mrs. Worthington died May 10, 1875, aged sixty-five years. To their union were born eight children, of whom three are still living. Dr. Worthington was a Douglas democrat, and after the commencement of the late war became a republican in politics. In 1833 he was elected to the Pennsylvania house of representatives, and was influential in se- curing the passage of the common school law. He was elected as a member of the State senate in 1863 and again in 1866, and was chosen speaker at the session of 1866. While in the senate he prevented the pro- vision for the Soldiers' Orphan schools from being stricken from the appropriation bill, and secured the establishment of the pres- ent board of public charities, one of the in- stitutions that do honor to Pennsylvania. Dr. Worthington was an elder of the Pres- byterian church from 1834 until his death. He passed peacefully and quietly to rest on September 11, 1873, when in the sixty- ninth year of his age, and his remains were interred in Oakland cemetery. He was of portly form, and his benign genial face can- not soon pass from the memories of those who knew him. Dr. Jacob Price, in speak- ing of his death before the medical society of Pennsylvania, said: "The life and char- acter of Dr. Worthington are worthy of our careful study. We find him without pre- tension to genius, or the insatiate reachings of ambition, steadily doing the work he found for his hands to do, and doing it so well that the world is wiser, better and hap- pier for his having lived." 558 BIOOBAPHY AND BISTOBY TkEVI CUTLER, an enterprising and successful business man of Paoli, and who served in tlie army of the Potomac from the Wilderness iights to Appomattox courthouse, is a sou of William and Mary (Shenaman) Cutler, and was horn in War- wick township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, June 14, 1842. He received his education principally in the public schools of Norristown, this State, but his father's death caused him to leave school at an early age to do for himself. He has, however, largely supplemented his early education by reading and self study. After serving in the Federal army and being engaged in various lines of business until 1874, he then embarked in butchering at Straftbrd, which he followed up to 1883, when he conducted a grocery store at what is now Chester Valley, where he remained until 1891. On April 1st of that year he came to Paoli, and established his present general mercan- tile store. He carries a full and carefully selected stock of dry goods, staple and fancy groceries, hardware and everything to be found in a first-class general mercan- tile establishment outside of the larger towns of the county. Mr. Cutler has pros- pered in his business, commands a large trade, and enjoys the respect and confidence of his patrons. He is a republican in politics, an attendant of the Baptist church, and a member of Col. Owen Jones Post, No. 591, Grand Army of the Republic, of Bryn Mawr. On August 21, 1862, he en- listed in Co. C, 138th Pennsylvania infan- try, and was in the battles of the Wilder- ness, Spottsylvania courthouse, Petersburg, and in the skirmishing that led to Lee's surrender at Appomattox courthouse, at which he was present. He was slightly wounded in one of the Wilderness battles, and was honorably discharged in June, 1865, at Harrisburg, this State. In 1869, Mr. Cutler married Mary P. Dannaker, who died in April, 1881, and left two children : Girdon D. and Mollie B. On December 6, 1882, Mr. Cutler wedded Matilda B., daughter of Joseph Peterman, of Philadelphia. Levi Cutler is of German lineage. His grandfather, James Cutler, died at St. Mary's, Warwick township, at an advanced age. He was a farmer, a democrat, and a member of St. Mary's' Presbyterian church. He married Susan Cake, and their children were : Levi, James. George, Jane, Margaret, Eebecca, Caroline and William. The young- est child, William Cutler (father), was born in Warwick township, and died at Bridge- port, Montgomery county, in 1856, aged forty years. He was a farmer, and a mem- ber of St. Mary's Presbyterian church, like his father, but differed from him in politi- cal opinion, being an old-line whig. He married Mary, daughter of Benjamin Shen- aman, who was of German descent and kept the old "Stage tavern," near Berwyn, on the old Lancaster pike, for many years, after which he followed farming. William and Mary Cutler were the parents of four sons and two daughters: James, Benjamin, Margaret, Susanna, Levi (subject), and Wil- liam, a carpenter, who married Jennie Smith and resides in Philadelphia. Of these children only the last two named are living. JU ARRY D. FUNK, one of East Pike- * land township's representative farmers, is a son of John and Elizabeth (Detwiler) Funk, and was born in East Vincent town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 14, 1859. He grew to manhood on his father's OF CHESTEB OOVNTY. 559 farm, where as a boy he was noted for his skill in breaking and training unmanage- able horses. He received a good common school education, and since leaving school has been continuously engaged in farming in East Vincent and East Pikeland town- ships. In 1889 he purchased his present farm in East Pikeland township, where he has resided ever since. He is a careful and successful farmer, and conducts all of his agricultural operations scientiiically and by systematized methods. His farm of one hundred and three acres is well improved and very productive. Mr. Funk also oper- ates a dairy. He has achieved success by his Qwn original and independent business methods, and is now situated to enjoy the fruits of his past labors while yet in the very prime of life. He is a republican in politics. On December 19, 1879, Mr. Funk mar- ried H. Kate Latchaw, and their union has been blessed with five children, three sons and two daughters : Sallie E., Elsie, Horace, John and Clarence. Mrs. Funk is a grand- daughter of Jacob Latchaw, a native of East Pikeland township, where he was a farmer. Jacob Latchaw married and reared a family of seven children : Daniel, David, John, Elizabeth Bechtel, Mary Ebert, Catharine Buckwalter and Anna Stauffer. Rev. John Latchaw, the father of Mrs. Funk, was born in East Pikeland township, and is now an active minister of the Mennonite church. He was largely instrumental in the establish- ment of Spring City, and did much to build it up during its growth as a village and be- fore it developed into a town. He is a re- publican in politics, and married Sarah Stauft'er, and has had ten children : William F., Mary S., wife of Davis K. Loomis, ex- prothonotary of Chester county ; Harriet S., married Joseph I. Mowry, who is in the coal and feed business at Spring City; H. Kate Funk, wife of the subject of this sketch ; Henry S. ; Ella E., now dead; Sallie, wife of Evan J. Yeager, a member of the stove manufacturing firm of Yeager & Hunter, of Spring City ; John E. ; Hosea E. ; and Har- vey J. Harry D. Funk is a grandson of Jacob Funk, -who was born and lived during the early part of his life on Stony run, in East Vincent township. He was a wheelwright by trade, and after working at various places purchased a farm of one hundred and ten acres in his native township. There he lived until his death iii 1885 at eighty-seven years of age. He married Anna Heistand, and had a family of six children : David, Elizabeth Culp, John, Anna Mowry, Sarah Frances Wissimer, and Henry. John Funk (father) was born in 1824, in East Vincent township, where he always lived the life of a farmer until his retirement two years pre- vious to his death, which occurred June 12, 1890, at the age of sixty-six years. He died from heart failure. John Funk was a re- publican, and a member of East Vincent Mennonite church. His widow, Elizabeth Funk, is a daughter of Henry and Kate (Latchaw) Detwiler. To John and Eliza- beth Funk were born seven children, three sons and four daughters : Elizabeth, Cath- erine Buckwalter, Anna, Harry D. (subject), Susie, Jacob and David. Of these children, Elizabeth and Susie died in childhood. HUMPHRY MARSHALL, one of the most distinguished botanists of the new world, was a son of Abraham and Mary (Hunt) Marshall, and was born in West Bradford township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, October 10, 1722. At twelve 560 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY years of age he left school and leai'iied the trade of stonemason, which he followed for a few years. He built the walls of his own house at Marshaliton in 1773, and in the same year comiuenced there the first botan- ical garden in America. He was the author of several valuable botanical works, and died November 5, 1801, at seventy-nine years of age. As a botanist Humphry Mar- shall was as well known in Europe as in America, and Marshall park at West Ches- ter was named in honor of him. TSAAC G. DARLINGTON, now de ceased, was a son of Brinton Darlington, and was born in 1808, in East Bradford towuship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He died in "West Chester, October 28, 1879, aged seventy-one years. The paternal grand- father of the subject of this sketch, Thomas Darlington, married Hannah Brinton, and was the father of a large family, one of his sons being Brinton Darlington, father of the subject of this sketch. Isaac Gr. Darlington was educated princi- pally in the common schools of East Brad- ford towuship, and afterward spent one year at Westtown boarding school. Leaving school he followed farming in East Bradford township until about 1872, when he retired and removed to the borough of "West Ches- ter, where he resided during the remainder of his life. In politics he was a stanch re- publican, but tooklittle partiu public affairs. In 1830 he married Sarah Mercer, a daughter of Jesse Mercer, of what is now known as Oakbourne,"Westtown township, this county. Jesse Mercer was a large land owner and extensive farmer. By this marriage Mr. Darlington had a family of five children, only two of whom lived to reach maturity. The youngest of these, a daughter named Irene, died November 19, 1879, aged forty- five years, so that the only surviving child of Isaac and Sarah Darlington is Hannah Mer- cer Darlington, who still resides in the bor- ough of West Chester. For the early his- tory of this numerous and distinguished family, reference is made to the sketches of Frank P., John N., and other members of the Darlington family, which appear else- where in this volume. HON. TOWNSEND HAINES, an em- inentlawyer and a distinguished man in public life, whose efibrts — although able — were never equal to his abilities, was a son of Caleb and Hannah (Ryant) Haines, and was born at West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylyania, January 7, 1792. He received his education at Enoch Lewis' Boarding school, and after teaching for several years, read law with Isaac Darlington, and was admitted to the bar on February 7, 1818. He soon gained a good practice and while he made no effort to be a leader at the West Chester bar, yet he was engaged in all the important cases and excelled as a jury pleader. He was a democrat in early life, served as a member of the Pennsylvania house of representatives in 1826 and again in 1827, and eleven years later became a "Monday Whig," editing the county organ of that political organization. In 1840 he became a whig, and eight years later ac- cepted the position of secretary of the Com- monwealth, in which capacity he served until 1850, when he was appointed as treas- urer of the United States by President Taylor. One year later he was elected president judge of the district composed of the counties of Chester and Delaware, and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 561 resigned the treasurership to take his seat on the bench, where he served very satis- factorily until the end of his term. He then returned to. the practice of his profes- sion, in vi'hich he vpas engaged until his death in October, 1865, at seventy-two years of age. Judge Haines liad a talent for poetry, which he never would exert himself to im- prove. He was handsome, dignified and imposing in appearance, possessed a strong musical voice, and had there been more energy in his make up, he would undoubt- edly have achieved the splendid career for which his abilities and talents fitted hiin. n KRAHAM GOOD, a son of John and Barbara (Bruner ) Good, was born Octo- ber 9, 1823, in Honeybrook township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, where he still lives. He has been a farmer all his life, as were both his paternal ^ji maternal grandfathers, who were among^roe early settlers of the coun- ties in which they lived. The former was a resident of Juniata township, Lancaster county, and besides engaging in farming dealt in stock to some extent. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in politics a republican. He had five children, two sons and three daughters: Prudence, who married Samuel Hornish ; Katie, Agnes, John and Abraham. John Good, father of the subject of this sketch, continued in his father's occupation of farm- ing in Lancaster county, where he was born and lived many years. His early religious training and surroundings fitted him to take the prominent place v/hich he long occupied in the Methodist Episcopal church, as he filled various positions and held offices in his own local church, where he was succes- sively a class leader, exhorter and steward. His political affiliations, as w^ll as his re- ligious beliefs, were those of his father, he beingamemberof the Federalist party. On March 5, 1811, he was married to Barbara Bruner, a daughter of Owen and Elizabeth Bruner, and to them were born eight chil- dren, four sons and four daughters, in point of age as follows: Elizabeth Hethery, Owen, Jesse, John, Prudence Kurtz, Abra- ham, Mary Glimenson and Barbara Ben- num. Owen Bruner, father of Barbara (Bruner) Good, was a farmer and miller of Berks county, of which place he was a life- long resident. He was also a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and a stanch whig. He was the father of a large family, of whom Barbara was the oldest. Others were Abraham, Owen, Jacob, John, Isaac, Elizabeth, Daniel and Frances. Abraham Good comes of a line of farm- ers on the part of both parents, and is still so occupied, living on the old homestead — : the farm held so long in his family — con- sisting of one hundred and eighty acres. Mr. Good makes the dairy business some- thing of a specialty. He is a republican, and has held the position of school, director of Honeybrook township. He continues in the religious faith of his immediate ances- tors, being a member in excellent standing and trustee of his church. In 1851 he was married to Elizabeth Rettew, daughter of Charles and Sarah Rettew. They have had five children, two of whom — Howard and Emma — still live at home with their parents. Frank, married Annie Rettew and is engaged in farming in the neighborhood of his old home ; Fannie, married Samuel Jones, a miller of Cedar Knoll ; and Min- nie, became the wife of Elmer Byler, a blacksmith of Honeybrook. 5«2 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY TSAAC TRIPP, one of the young and progressivfe farmers of Schuylkill town- ship, and a desendant of one of the oldest families of the United States, is a son of Isaac, sr., and Hanuah (Rogers) Tripp, and was born in Kingston township, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, December 29, 1866. The immigrant ancestor of the Tripp family came over in the Mayflower, and was one of the Pilgrim band that landed on Plymouth rock in 1620, when the snowsof winter hung heavy on the ice bound shores of New England. One of his descendants, Isaac Tripp, came from Connecticut to northeast- ern Pennsylvania, and was one of the ill- fated victims inthe" Massacre ofWyoming," which Campbell has immortalized in song. His son, Isaac Tripp, was a Friend, and fol- lowed farming and distilling. He left a family of eight children, four sous and four daughters, among whom were Benjamin, Isaac, sr., Ira, Holden, and Catherine Silk- man. Isaac Tripp, sr. (father), was born in 1817, at Providence, now Scranton, this State, and has always. followed farming. After being a resident of one of the agri- cultural districts of Luzerne county for many years he removed to near Wilkesbarre, the county seat, where he now owns a fine farm of two hundred acres of land. He is a re- publican in politics, and married Hannah, daughter of Nelson Rogers. They have six children, two sons and four daughters: Flora Bronson, Maude Space, Isaac, Edwin, Cath- erine and Bertha. Isaac Tripp attended the public schools of Luzerne county uutil he was ten years of age, when he was sent to Nazareth Military academy, where he remained for some time, and then entered the Factoryville iuademy, at which he completed the required college preparatory course. Leaving school he I chose farming as a life pursuit, and propos- ing to fully qualify himself for the proper transaction of all the business connected , with agriculture, he entered Eastman's Busi- ness college of Poughkeepsie, New York, from which he was graduated in 1888. After graduation he came to his present farm near Phoenixville, where he has been engaged in farming and stock-rising up to the present time. His farm is well adapted to grain growing and grazing, and contains ninety acres of land. He is a republican in politics. On June 27, 1889, Mr. Tripp married Nettie Thomas, a daughter of John and Eliza Thomas, of Shamokin, Pennsylvania. To Mr. and Mrs. Tripp have been born two children, a son and a daughter: Helen M. and Isaac,jr. These children are the sev- enth generation in unbroken line, from the original founders of the family in America. FRANK W. KEECH,^^ progressive young business man, and% member of the house furnishing and agricultural im- plement firm of Hunt & Keech, of Down- ingtown, is a son of Milton and Martha (Jones) Keech, and was born in Fairfield, Iowa, in 1868. He was reared on his fath- er's farm, received his educatiou in the Union High school of Lancaster, this State, and, after attaining his majority, remained one year at home, where he assisted in the labor of the farm. Having more desire for a busi- ness than an agricultural life, he left the farm when in his twenty-second year and came to Downingtown, where he opened an agricultural implement house, which he con- ducted up to September 23, 18U1. On that date he formed a partnership with E. H. Hunt, and established the successful busi- ness house of Hunt ct Keech, who conducted OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 563 the business until January 1, 189B, when Mr. Keecli purchased his pai'tner's interest, and now conti'ols the entire enterprise. He keeps in stock and handles general house- furnishing goods, agricultural implements and fertilizers, and carries full lines of every article in which he deals, but makes special- ties of hardware, tinware and agricultural implements. His establishment is on Center square, and he holds constantly in stock large quantities of everything which he sells. Mr. Keech although young in years, and without special training or much expe- rience before coming to Downingtown, has made a success of his business, and has a large and lucrative trade. He is a stanch republican in politics, and has been a church member for several years. His paternal grandfather, Hannaniah Keech, was a native of Chester county, and spent the latter part of his life on a farm near Bradford Hills, where he died in 1852, aged fifty years. His widow died in 1881, aged eighty-one years. He was a repub- lican, a member of Grove church, and reared a family of four children, three sons and one daughter : Baldwin, James, Hannah and Milton K. Milton Keech, the third son, and father of Frank W. Keech, was born at Bradford Hills in 1841. In 1870 he went to near Oxford, in Colerain township, Lan- caster county, and six years later removed to Spruce Grove, that county, where he has continued to reside ever since. He is en- gaged in farming and operating a creamery, and is a man of observation and experience, having traveled extensively in many differ- ent sections of the American Union. He is a republican in politics, and a member of Union church, where he isalwaystobefound in his place at every service. Mr. Keech married Martha Jones, daughter of Frank Jones, who was a farmer, and republican, and who had seven children : George, Maris, Chess, Benjamin, Martha Keech, Lydia Dar- lington and Mary Whiteside. To Mr. and Mrs. Keech have been born seven children : Sallie, Linda, Eber, Frank W., Walter, a clerk in the office of the Hudson River Rail- road Company ; Clifibrd, and Milton, the latter now deceased. Prof. Clifford Keech, the fourth son, received his education in the Union schools and then entered Pierce's Business college, Philadelphia, from which he was graduated. After graduation he was appointed as a professor in that institution, where he has been engaged in teaching ever since. QNTOINE BOLMAK,who has been for a number of years in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at Phila- delphia, is a son of the distinguished French scholar and educator, Jean Claude Antoine Brunin de Bolmar, and was born at West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Se[>- tember 1, 1842. His boyhood was spent in West Chester, and his education was ob- tained in his father's academy at that place. On December 21, I860, Mr. Bolmar was united in marriage to Antoinette R. Worth- ington, a daughter of Carver Worthington, of that borough, and to them were born three children, two sons and one daughter : Eugene A., who resides at St. Paul, Minne- sota; Carver Worthington, deceased; and Anne S., who became the wife of Robert Hamill Newlin, of West Chester. Jean Claude Antoine Brunin de Bolmar, or Anthony Bolmar, as he came to be called at West Chester, was born in 1797, at Bour- bon Lancy, a small town in the department of 8aone-et-Loi re. Lower Burgundy, France. •In 1810 he entered the Imperial lyceum of 564 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Clermout-Ferraiid, where lie remained until after the downfall of Napoleon I. in 1815, and the following year went to the city of Lyons, where he began learning the silk business as an apprentice with the famous firm of Cordier & Co. There he remained until nearly twenty-one years of age, and as at that time he would have to draw his lot in the class of conscripts for 1819, he quit the silk business and enlisted in the French army, in order to secure the privilege of choosing the regiment with which he would serve. He selected the 6th Hussars, then commanded by Compte de Pernollet, of Lyons, served in the war of 1822 between France and Spain, and after six years in the army, again entered civil life. About 1826 he went to Switzerland, and from there to England and Scotland, and early in 1828 came to the United States and settled in Philadelphia. There he engaged in teach- ing the French language, and in the prepa- ration of text books adapted to that pur- pose, not less than six or eight of which were published and widely used. When the Asiatic cholera made its appearance in Phil- adelphia in 1832, Mr. Bolmar retired to the borough of West Chester to continue his work on his school books, and was so pleased with the place that he remained a resident ever afterward. In 1834 he was prevailed on to take charge of the West Chester acad- emy, which sprung at once into wide popu- larity, and in 1840 he purchased the elegant building in which Mrs. AlmiraH. Lincoln's boarding school for young ladies had been conducted, and opened therein a boarding- school for young men and boys. This school speedily became one of the most popular and flourishing educational institutions in the State, securing almost a world-Made celebrity and attracting students from many- distant points, especially from the Southern States, the West Indies and South America. The energetic principal was regarded as the ISTapoleon of teachers, and educated many thousand of boys and young men, numbers of whom afterward distinguished them- selves in different walks of life. He was noted for the strict discipline he maintained, and the semi-military exactness which char- acterized all his methods. He continued to conduct the establishment until 1859, when some business concerns requiredhis presence in France, and the seminary was closed to allow him to visit his native land. On his return he attempted to re-open his school, but his shattered health, which had been sensibly declining for some time, prevented the accomplishment of his purpose, and he died February 27, 1861, aged sixty-four years. Before he settled in West Chester he had married Adelaide Williams, and by that union had a family of ten children, two of whom died in infancy. Those who at- tained maturity were: Charles H., a resi- dent of Topeka, Kansas, who has been elected and served one term as a member of the legislature of that State; Antoinette, E. M. C, S. P., Antoine, Henry C, now connected with the World's fair manage- ment in Chicago ; Sophie Picot, married Jacob Heffeltinger, now deceased ; and Lucy, who became the wife of Eufus T. Ohaney, now connected with the navy department at Washington. L^ON. WILLIAM MOORE, of Moore ' Hall, who was a prominent character of Chester county for over half a century, was a son of John Moore, and was born in Philadelphia, May 6, 1 699. He was gradu- ated from Oxford university, England, and built Moore Hall, in Charlestown township, ana^g' (si^^i OF CHESTER COUNTY. 567 this county, where he died May 30, 1783. He .was a member of the legislature from 1733 to 1740, and served as a justice of the peace and judge of the county court from 1741 to 1776. He was opposed, to the peace policy of the Quakers, supported the .pro- prietaries against the people, and upheld the cause of the crown against that of the colonies. He was a bitter antagonist of Isaac Wayne, the father of Gen. Anthony "Wayne, but to- day their remains rest in the same grave- yard. QAPT. ABRAHAM FETTERS, who served with distinction during the civil war, is perhaps best known by his connec- tion with the educational work of this county. He was born September 17, 1828, in Uwchlan township, and is the older of two surviving sons of Samuel and Mary (Acker) Fetters. At the age of four years he became a member of the family of his maternal grandfather, John Acker, in .East Whiteland township, where he remained until his sixteenth year, when he returned to his father's house in Uwchlan township. His early education was received in the Valley creek common school in East White- land, and later he attended Prof. Benjamin Price's Prospect Hill academy in EastBradr ford tow'uship. He early gave indications of possessing an active mind and studious disposition, showing a special fondness for mathematical and historical studies. His first earnings were devoted to the purchase of books, the study of which still further enlarged his mental horizon and increased his ambition to secure an education and thus prepare himself for usefulness and success in life. In 1846, when only eighteen years of age, he began his career as a teachei', at Hopewell school in Charlestown township, and won immediate success by displaying that ability to maintain discipline and the aptitude for teaching which soon became his distinguished characteristic. His first suc- cess was followed by others equally marked, among which was three terms at Hopewell, Charlestown township; nine at the White school in Uwchlan township ; three atFrank- lin Hall, in West Pikeland; and three at school No. 1, in Birmingham. He then ac- cepted a position in the West Chester acad- emy, under Professor Wyers, where for two years he had charge of the primary depart- ment of that institution. Mr. Fetters has always been an enthusiast on the subject of education, and has given the best part of his life, covering a period of forty years, to this noble work. Perhaps no teacher in the county has exerted a wider or more health- ful influence over the rising generation. In 1868 he opened a school at his residence in Upper Uwchlan township, which became widely known as "Edgefield institute," and which he successfully conducted until 1886. He has taught forty terms in all, and not less than eighteen hundred pupils have come under his care, many of whom have already distinguished themselves in the various walks, of life and reflected honor on their instructor. One instance is that of a gen- tleman who became a popular and widely know journalist of Cincinnati, Ohio, and who unhesitatingly attributed his ambition and success to the training and inspiration received from Mr. Fetters while teaching in Uwchlan township. And although he has prospered in worldly affairs, and has many reasons to be satisfied with life, it is doubt- less true that nothing affords this conscien- tious and faithful teacher more satisfaction than to hear of the success and watch the growing prosperity of the men and women 588 BIOQBAPHY AND HISTOMY who were his pupils in early life. To Mr. Fetters also belongs the proud distinction of introducing the public school library into Chester county, and it is believed he was the first to use vocal music as a school ex- ercise. The first library was established at White school, Uwchlan township, in 1856, and it is unnecessary to say how popular and important this feature has now^jecome. In 1861, when the secession of the south- ern States precipitated the "irrepressible conflict" between freedom and slavery, the educator became a citizen-soldier, and in the autumn of 1862 Mr. Fetters served in the field as captain of Co. G, 12th Pennsylvania militia, and iu 1863 as first sergeant of Co. A, 43d regiment of the same force. He proved to be a good soldier when necessity required such service, and has ever since worthily borne the title by which he was commissioned iu the early days of the civil war. While the glad chimes were ringing on Christmas day, 1866, Mr. Fetters was united iu holy matrimony with Rebecca K. Brown- back, youngest daughter of John and Han- nah Brownback, of Fpper Uwchlan town- ship. This union was blessed by the birth of two children, both sons. The eldest, John B., died iu 1885, aged eighteen years. The other, Horace Acker Fetters, was born in 1871, received a liberal^ education atUr- sinus college, from which institution he was graduated in June, 1892, and is now living at home with his parents. In the spring of 1866 Captain Fetters set- tled on the farm where he now resides, near CTwchland postofiice, and has eversince been connected more or less with agricultural pursuits, in addition to his educational work. His farm is well improved and his buildings are handsome and commodious. presenting a pleasing appearance of neat- ness, thrift and elegance. He and Mrs. Fet- ters now own about five hundred and fifty acres of choice land in this county, and are in entirely independent circumstances. Po- litically Captain Fetters is a stanch demo- crat, and has always taken an active part in local politics. He served as a jury com- missioner for three years, and has been fre- quently solicited to become a candidate for county commissioner and other oflices, but has as frequently declined to permit the use of his name. Many times he has been called on to serve as executor and adminis- trator in the settlement of estates, and is now trustee and guardian in a number of cases, but so high is his pei'sonal integrity and character that in none of these matters has he ever been requested to give a bond or security. Captain Fetters is a member of St. Matthews Reformed church, in which he has served as trustee for a quarter of a century. He is also a director of Ursinus college, and one of the trustees of the Phil- adelphia classes of the Reformed church of the United States. From his earliest years the Captain has evinced special interest in history and biography, and is the author of a "History of the Reformed churches of Chester county." He has also contributed many valuable papers to the local press, on various subjects of interest. He is a mem- ber and the present master of Upper Uwchlan Grange, No. 58. Patrons of Husbandry, and is also a director of the National biank of Phoenixville,and holds a like relation to the Dime Savings bank of West Chester. Taken all in all, the career of Capt. Abra- ham Fetters has been exceptionally happy and successful. Perhaps the greatest secret of this success — if secret there be — lies in the fact that he has been strictly temperate OF CHESTER COUNTY. 569 in all things and at all times. Beside hav- ing married a very superior woman, he in- lierited a vigorous constitution, and never permitted excesses of any kind to sap its vitality, but devoted his strength and talents to the reasonable requirements made by the honest duties of a pure, useful and indus- trious life. In this respect, as in others, his career furnishes an example worthy of the emulation of every high minded and aspir- ing young man. The family of which Captain Fetters is a member isof German descent,and was planted in Pennsylvania in Colonial days. George Fetters, paternal grandfather of the Captain, was a native of the city of Philadelphia, born about 1760. His parents died when he was quite young, and he lived with relatives in Germantown until the revolutionary war, when he enlisted in the Continental army and served with credit as a private soldier. After the war closed, in 1784, he married Margaret Smith, a daughter of John and Sarah Smith, and to them was born a family of twelve children, eight of whom married and reared families: Mai'y, married James Pennypacker ; Margaret, wedded Peter Hartmau ; Susan, became the wife of Mat- thias Pennypacker ; Sarah, married Henry Hartzel; John, married Mary Sloyer; Ab- raham, who served as a soldier in the war of 1812, married Elizabeth Acker, daughter of John and Catharine Acker, and became one of the most successful farmers of his day, being also the father of Capt. Levi Fetters, who served during the civil war as captain of Co. C, 175th Pennsylvania in- fantry; Samuel, father of Capt. Abraham Fetters; and George, who married Cath- arine Laubaugb. The sons were all six feet in height, and fine specimens of physical manhood. The father, George Fetters, sr.. died on Christmas day, 1836, and his widow in February, 1847. Both died on theirfarm in Pikeland township, this county, and both lie buried at Pikeland Reformed church. Samuel Fetters (father) was born in Charles- town township, this county, about 1798, and died at his farm in Uwchlan township in 1867. He was a farmer by occupation, and inarried Mary Acker, a daughter of John and Catharine Acker, and sister to his brother Abraham's wife. To this union was born a family of six children: John, Abra- ham (subject of the foregoing sketch), Isaac, Mary, Elizabeth and Samuel. HARRY BENNER SCHOFIELD,who for a number of years was engaged in the dry goods business in the cities of Phil- adelphia and New York, and since- 1867 has been a prosperous general merchant at Paoli, this county, is the eldest of the six sons of George and Elizabeth (Benner) Schofield, and was born in Schuylkill town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Janu- ary 20, 1831. He grew to manhood in this countj' and received a superior English edu- cation in the public schools and Prof. An- thony Bol mar's select school at "West Ches- ter. In 1843 he began life on his own ac- count as clerk, in a country store near where he now resides and does business. He was successively employed as clerk at several places in this county, following that occu- pation until his eighteenth year, when he wentto Philadelphia, and, one after another, held several prominent positions in the business houses of that city,. In 1861 he formed a partnership with friends, and un- der the firm name of Hemsley, Schofield & Co., embarked in the dry goods business at IS'o. 104 Chestnut street, Philadelphia. This 57i) BIO OBAPHY AND HISTOB Y enterprise prospered under his careful man- agement and became a flourishing business. After being successfully conducted for about four years, the firm was dissolved and Mr. Schofield removed to the city of Nevp York, and organized the dry goods firm of Leon- ard, Schofield & Co., which began business at No. 44 White street, that city, in 1866. After one year spent in that metropolis Mr. Schofield retired from the firm, and biicame agent for a large auction house in that city, with which he remained for a number of years. In 1867 he came to Paoli, Chester county, purchased property of H. G. Malin, and embarked in the general merchandise business at this place, in which he has ever since continued with constantly increasing success. He owns a fine large building, his store room being twenty-eight by forty- eight feet in dimensions, with an annex of twenty by thirty-three feet, and well filled at all times by a choice stock of superior general merchandise. His trade has grown with each passing year, and he now does a big business. On June 13, 1859, Mr. Schofield was mar- ried to Helen Sartain, a daughter of the distinguished artist and steel engraver, John Sartain, of the city of Philadelphia. Mr. Sartain, whose name is now familiar in art circles all over the world, was born in Lon- don, England, in 1808, and educated there and in other art centers of Europe. In July, 1830, he came to America as a por- trait painter, and settled in Philadelphia, where he has ever since resided. It was he who inti-oduced mezzotint engraving into this country, and lie became one of the fin- est engravers on steel that has ever lived, standing at tlie liciid of his profession for many years, and producing some work which has never yet been surpassed. By his marriage to Miss Sartain Mr. Schofield had a family of five children, four sons and a daughter : Frank S., who married Mar- garet Hartman, and is now engaged as a salesman and bookkeeper in his father's store ; Emily, who died in infancy ; Percy S., who learned the trade of carpenter, stud- ied architecture, and is now employed as a designer and builder in the city of Phila- delphia; Louis S., who studied engraving under his grandfather's instructions, and is now employed by the United States govern- ment in the bureau of engraving and print- ing at Washington, being appointed under Cleveland's first administration; and Irwin S., still living at home and attending school. Politically Mr. Schofield is an ardent democrat, and has always taken an active part in local politics, though never enter- taining political ambition for himself nor allowing the use of his name for any office. He was a member of the National Demo- cratic convention at Cincinnati in 1856, that nominated James Buchanan for the presi- dency, and has several times represented his county in the State conventions of his party. He once received the democratic nomination for sherift' of Chester county, and although running ahead of his ticket was defeated at the polls, on account of the large republican majority in the county. He is a member of Franklin Lodge, No. 134, Free and Accepted Masons, and of Phila- delphia Chapter, No. 169, Royal Arch Ma- sons. The Schofields are of English extraction, hut have been natives of Chester county for four or five generations. George Schofield, paternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in England, but came to the United States while comparatively a young man, and settled at Diamond Rock, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 571 this county. He was a fanner by occupa- tion, and reared a family in this county, among whom was William S. Schofield (grandfather), who was born in Schuylkill township, Chester county, where he grew up and was educated. During the revolution- ary war he was an ardent patriot, and served in the Continental army as a first lieuten- ant, under the command of Gen. Anthony Wayne. He was at the massacre of Paoli, and died in Chester valley. In early life he learned the trade of tailor, and that was his principal occupation. He married Eliza- beth Lane, a daughter of Edward Lane, a wealthy landowner in the Chester valley, and Avas the father of seven children : Wil- liam, Samuel, Lane, Edward, Hannah, Sally and George. George Schofield (father) was born in Chester valley in 1803, and died at his homein the city of Philadelphia, in 1855, aged fifty-two years. He was a manufac- turer of boots and shoes, and politically a Jacksonian democrat. In 1839 he had charge of the construction, under David R. Porter, of a section of the Pennsylvania railroad, consisting of fourteen miles. He also served at the same time as a member of the corps of civil engineers, in charge of Gen. Edward Evans and others, engaged in relaying the railroad from Columbia to Philadelphia. He was a temperate man, and universally esteemed for his honesty and personal integrity. He married Eliza Ben- uer, a daughter of Matthias Benner, a brick- maker, of Philadelphia, and by this union had a family of six children, all sons : Harry Benner, whose name heads this sketch ; Edward, who was killed at West Chester by a boiler explosion at the Electric Light works; Samuel T., deceased in infancy; -Andrew B. and Laue (twins); and Samuel T. (2.) Andrew B. is now in the depart- ment of engraving and printing, at Wash- ington, Lane is a contractor and builder in the city of Philadelphia, while Samuel T. is employed in the bureau of engraving and printing at Washington, and has. the repu- tation of being the fastest printer in the de- partment. TTHEODORE BEAUMONT, a success- ful contractor and business man of De- von, is a descendant of Peregrine White, the first English child born in New England. He is a son'of-Eber and Margaret (White) Beaumont, and was born in ]!f ewtown town- ship, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, De- cember 3, 1848. He was reared on the farm, received, his education in the common schools, and was then engaged in farming with his father until 1889, when he formed a co-partnership with his brother Rush, in road building, quarrying and crushing stone for roads and buildingpurposes. They own a valuable tract of land at Devon, in Easttown township, on the Pennsylvania railroad, a part of which has been surveyed in lots in a neighborhood which is being rapidly taken by Philadelphians, who build fine summer residences. Mr. Beaumont has an extensive stone crushing, pi ant at Valley Creek, near Do wningtown, where he employs fifty men, and crushes a large amount of stone which is used for railroad ballast. He employs first class machinery, turns out an excellent article of crushed stone, and keeps his plant running to its full capacity in order to fill the orders which he is constantly re- ceiving. Mr. Beaumont is a republican in politics, and a member of the Baptist church. He is energetic, active and prompt as a business man, and well respected as a citizen. In his jiresent enterprise, he has met with good success. 572 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY On May 20, 1870, Mr. Beaumont married Mary E. Supplee, daughter of Zimmerman Supplee, of Easttown township. To their union have been born two children : Mar- garet and Rhinewalt. The Beaumont family is of French Hu- guenot origin, and some of its members set- tled at an early day in the southern part of Chester county, in what is now Delaware county, where Thomas Beaumont, the pater- nal grandfather of Theodore Beaumont, was born and reared, near the Brandywine battle ground. He was at school on the day when the battle of Brandywine was fought, and the Americans took possession of the school house, which they converted into a hospital for a part of their wounded that were removed from the fight at Chad's Ford. Thomas Beaumont was a farmer, and married Ruth Patterson. They had eight children : Eber, dead ; Thomas,ofnearMilltown ; Mifflin, who died in Maryland; Jabez, who died some years ago ; Emmor, now dead ; Eliza, who died young; Hannah and Esther, who are now both dead. Eber Beaumont (father) was born September 9, 1809, in Delaware county, where he remained until 1850, when he removed to Easttown township, where he died December 18, 1878. In that town- ship he purchased fifteen acres of land on the old Lancaster pike. On this land was one of those old famous hostelries or inns of that day. This inn was known as the " Stage Tavern," and Mr. Beaumont kept it as an inn but a short time until the railroads took the traflic and travel from the pikes. He added to his fifteen acres by successive purchases until he had a farm of one hundred and twenty acres of land. He was a repub- lican in politics, and in religious belief rather inclined to the faith of the Friends or Qua- kers. He married Margaret White, and to their union were born five children. Three died in infancy, leaving Theodore, the sub- ject of this sketch, and Rush, now living on a part of the home farm. Rush mar- ried Martha A. Gamble, and has five chil- dren : Laura, Eber, Howard, Robert and Edith. Mrs. Margaret Beaument (mother) is a daughter of Samuel White, a native of Chester county and a soldier of the war of 1812, who was a descendant of Peregrine White, the first English child born in New England. FRANK H. STAUFFER, the well- known journalist and Hteratus of Ber- wyn, who is also an active, enterprising and successful business man, is the eldest son of Col. Jacob and Sarah (Bireh) Stauft'er, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania, October 3, 1832. He was liberally educated, and after leaving the school room entered the printing oflSce and graduated in that great modern university, the practical school of daily journalism. Long before attaining his majority he began writing for the press, and when only sixteen years of age wrote a poem entitled " To the Stars," which was so meritorious that for a time it was attributed to George D. Prentice. About the time he reached his twentieth birthday he established the Mount Joy (Pennsylvania) iaTeraM, which is now in its fortieth year of successful publication, and afterward held editorial positions on the Lancaster Inland Daily, the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, Woonsocket Patriot, Philadelphia Saturday Night, and Philadelphia Evening Call. Some years ago he engaged in what might be called literary journalism, becoming a contributor to many of the leading magazines and other periodicals of this country. Among others, he is now writing sketches, poems, stories. OF CUESTEE COUNTY. 573 and short articles of various kinds for St. Nicholas, Harper s Bazar, Harper's Young People, Youth's Companion, Our Litflr Ones, Christian-at-ioork, Epoch, Life, Detroit Free Press, Golden Days, Ladies' Home Journal, The Interior, Wide Awake, Our Little Men and Women, and Kate Fields' Washington. Mr. Staufterhas a well defined streak of humor in his composition, and nota few of the clear cut squibs that sparkle in the columns of Har- per's Bazar, Life, TidBits and the Detroit Free Press are from his pen. His witticisms have a distinguishing pungency of their own, and are readily recognized by those acquainted with his style. Among his longer stories and novelettes that have appeared in print we may mention "Dorian the Scout," "Fan- chett the Fawn," " Nameless Man," " Mis- sionary Madge," and " Sacrificing her For- tune." He has also published two volumes. One of these was a volume of poems, in 1876, from the press of J. B. Lippencott & Co., Philadelphia, entitled " Toward Sunset, and Other Poems. Mere Amber Beads at Random Strung." It was received with great favor. The other was published in 1882, and is a compilation called " The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical." In political faith Mr. Stauffer has been a life long republican, having cast his first vote for John C. Fremont in 1856, although he lived only seven miles from the residence of James Buchanan, the democratic candidate. He served as assistant assessor of internal revenue for Lancaster county during Presi- dent Lincoln's administration, and in April, 1892, took out his commission as a justice of the peace for Easttown township, Chester county, having been previously elected to that office three times and as often refused to receive the commission. He is also en- gaged to some extent in the real estate and insurance business. Mr. Stauffer was one of the organizers of the Berwyn Buil- ding and Loan association, incorporated November 9, 1877, and was elected its first president, in which position he is still serv- ing. He is a prominent member and elder of the Presbyterian church at Berwyn, and superintendent of its Sunday school ; and is also well known and popular in secret orders, being a member of William B. Schneider Lodge, No. 419, Free and Accepted Masons, of Philadelphia, and a member and past grand in good standing of Mount Joy Lodge, No. 297, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Mount Joy, Lancaster county. On September 26, 1861, Mr. Stauffer was united in marriage to Etta D. Marshall, a daughter of Julius P. Marshall, a grand- niece of the noted scientist, Humphry Mar- shall, and a descendant of the English Qua- ker preacher, Abraham Marshall, who came to America from England about 1685. To Mr. and Mrs. Stauffer were born two chil- dren, one son and a daughter. The son, Frank M., is now an employee in the Pull- man Palace Car works at Jersey City, New Jersey, where he resides. He married Anna L. Cobourn, by whom he has two children, Raymond and Lila. The daughter, Etta M., is living with her parents in their beautiful home at Berwyn. The Stauffers are of original Swiss stock, the paternal great-grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch having been born among the blue mountains of that ancient republic, which he left at an early age to find a home in the new world. His son. Christian Stauf- fer (grandfather), was born in this State about 1786, and resided during most of his life in Lancaster county, where he died at an advanced age. Jacob Stauffer (father) was a native of Lancaster county ; bornNovem- 574 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ber 30, 1808, and died at Lancaster city, March 22,1880. He was a man of consider- able scientific attainments, widely known on this continent and to some extent in Europe, on account of his erudition and discoveries in entomology, botany and ichthyology. His investigations in these various fields of sci- entific research brought him into communi- cation with some of the most learned men of his time, and his name is permanently linked with ichthyology by having a species of fish named for him, the Stavfferania. He was a man of such versatile ability as to be able to write, set up, illustrate and print his own works on scientific subjects. There was also a military side to his nature, and he served as major, lieutenant-colonel and colo- nel in the State militia of Lancaster county. When a lad he received an appointment as cadet to the military academy at West Point, but his father refused to let him ac- cept it. In 1830 he married Sarah Birch, a daughter of Francis and Mary Birch, of Eastwood, near Nottingham, England. To this union was born a family of three chil- dren, all sons, the eldest of whom is Frank H., the subject of this sketch. The second son, Alfred F. Stauff'er, resides in New York city, where he is engaged in the printing business. David M. Stauffer, the youngest of these three brothers, is now one of the editors and proprietors of the Engineering News, a prominent trade paper of New York city, where he resides. He received a fine classical education and then studied me- chanical and civil engineering, graduating from Franklin and Marshall college. He afterward served in the United States navy under Commodore Porter, having command of an ironclad vessel for some. time during the civil war. . He is a member of the Royal Society of Engineers, and. is a man of high standing in his profession. The mother of these sons, Mrs. Sarah StaUffer, was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England, and was a direct descendant of the Earl of More- land. ShediedMay27,1848,andwasgreatly esteen>ed for her many rare qualities of heart and mind. ♦ > » HENRY li. EVANS, a prominent farmer residing near Valley Forge, is a son of Henry T. and Elizabeth M. (Thatcher) Ev- ans, and was born near Howellville, Tredy- ffrin township, Chester county ,Peunsylvania, February 14, 1855. He is a cousin of New- ton Evans, whose sketch appears on page 526 of this volume (which see for additional history of the family), and a lineal descend- ant of Lewis Evans, who came from Caer- narvonshire, Wales, and settled in what is now West Vincent township, this county, at an early day. A son of the latter was Daniel Evans (grandfather), who married Esther Benner, by whom he had a family of nine children, the youngest of whom was Henry T. Evans (father), who was born in Upper IJwchlan township in 1793, and, after attaining manhood, married Elizabeth M. Thatcher. He became a member of the firm of Evans Brothers, of Philadelphia, and for a number of years was engaged in importing hardware and cutlery in that city. Aftex retiring from that firm he embarked in the general mercantile business at Spread Eagle, now Straflibrd, this county, and after con- tinuing that for some time, engaged in the manufacture of lime at Howellville, where he died February 7, 1870, aged seventy- seven years. He was very successful in busi- ness and accumulated considerable property. Politically he was a deWiocrat, and for maiiy years was prominent and influential in local politics. He was elected to the legislature 'edd-e ^^t?pe ^ieen. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 575 and I'epresented Chester county in that body about 1848, and at one time or another filled nearly all the local offices of his township, discharging his public and private duties in an upright and honorable manner, which gave him high standing in the community. By his marriage to Elizabeth M. Thatcher he had a family of eight children, three sons and five daughters: Mary E. Rush, Sallie M. Porter, Esther B. Evans, Charles T., Henry L. (subject of this sketch), Jennie McFarlan, Elizabeth M. and Robert Emmet Monaghan Evans. Mrs. Elizabeth M.Evans died December 26, 1891, aged sixty-nine years. Henry L. Evans was reared principally in Tredyfl:'rin township, this county, and re- ceived a superior English education in the public schools. Following his own inclina- tions he engaged in farming soon after his school days were ended, and he has devoted his life mainly to agricultural pursuits. He now owns a fine farm containing one hun- dred and sixty-three acres of choice land, all but thirty acres being well improved, and supplied with excellent farm buildings. Politically Mr. Evans is a stanch democrat, though betakes no active part in public af- fairs, contenting himself with discharging all the duties of good citizenship. On March 27, 1890, Mr. Evans was united in marriage to Mary Shaw, a daughter of Joseph and Sarah Shaw, of Valley Forge. To Mr. and Mrs. Evans has been born one child, a son named Chauncy B. .JESSE COPE GREEN was born De- cember 13, 1817, in Birmingham town- ship, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, about six miles from Wilmington, Delaware, and resided there until he removed to West 34 Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1841. His early education was received at the schools of his neighborhood. He subsequently attended the boarding schools of Joshua Hoopes, in West Chester, and Samuel Smith, in Wil- • mington, Delaware. The vigoi'ous discip- line of farm life, in boyhood, was no draw- back to mental cultivation. The leisure moment was not abandoned to leisure. The noon sun and the tallow dip lit the pages of such literature as was within reach. Knowledge was hard-earned, but it was striven for because the young lad knew that knowledge is power, and is worth its price. For more' than two hundred years the paternal and maternal ancestors of our sub- ject have been members of the Society of Friends ; some of them suffered persecution for conscience' sake. This is a record of character. Could this youthful descendant rest on that? The only way in which we can prove a family name to be an honor to us is by proving ourselves worthy of its honors. Immediately on leaving school the young man set out to earn a livelihood, and to in- terest himself- actively in the cause of edu- cation. He wasoneof thefirsttoteachschool under the " Common School Law" of Penn- sylvania, and taught in Concord, Delaware county, 1836-41. He afterward taught for about a year in the Friends' school in West Chester. Under the professional tutelage of a prom- inent dentist in West Chester, in 1842-8, he turned his attention to the study of den- tistry^ He began to practise in April, 1843, and in August established himself profes- sionally in West Chester, where he has re- mained continuously in practice ever since. He received the degree, subsequently, of D. D. S., from the Pennsylvania college of 576 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY dental surgery, of Philadelphia. In the prosecution of his life profession Dr. Green has been markedly successful, and this suc- cess has arisen mainly from four causes. First, a rare aptness in mechanics; second, ■A studious habit, keeping him abreast of the times; third, an unflagging energy ; fourth, an aim to succeed in life without parleying with evil or making compromises with the spirit of unfairness, deceit or untruth in any guise. The first of these qualities has shown it- self not merely in his success in mechanical andotherdepartments of dentistry, but in his attainments in many forms of applied me- chanics, whether in wood or metal work. His microscopes received the praise of the world-renowned Zentmayer, and his slide mounts have been pronounced by experts singularly beautiful in their finish. Much of his meterological apparatus is the product of his mechanical laboratory, and includes the first electrical registering anemonemeter of its kind that was ever made, as well as a very fine mercurial barometer. On the second point it may be said that Dr. Green was elected a member of the Pennsylvania association of dental surgeons in 1855 ; he took an active part in effect- ing the organization of the State dental society, in 1868, of which he was treasurer in 1880 and president in 1883 ; he held a membership in the American dental asso- ciation. He was active in the formation of the first National convention of dentists, which began its existence in Philadelphia in 1855. In 1876, upon the passage of a law re- quiring the organization of a Pennsylvania State dental examining board, he was elected to serve upon that board, and was made its secretary. He has continued to serve the profession and the public in this responsible and somewhat arduous position without emoluments, from the first meeting of this board up to the present time. His third mentioned characteristic is suf- ficiently demonstrated in the life work pic- tured all through this sketch. Upon the fourth of the foregoing points, the moral standard, it is a delicate matter to dilate with reference to a living subject. But as an example to young men it may be pardonable to point with one hand to Dr. Green's attainments in his profession, as well as in his studies and acquirements aside, and with the other hand to his reputation for a high sense of honor in all his dealings. It is not out of place to illustrate this point by recalling his rigorous adherence to his principle never to deceive an innocent pa- tient, and particularly a little child. N otwithstanding his first devotion to busi- ness — his determination to drive it, rather than to let it drive him — Dr. Green long ago found and still finds time to serve the community in many forms of gratuitous activity. He was a member of the West Chester school board for many years, and some time its treasurer and president. In 1857 he originated a movement to establish district school libraries for which the State law made no provision. To this end he devoted, for three years, a part of his personal commis- sions as district treasurer for the purchase of books for the public welfare. He has been a volunteer observer for the Smithsonian Institution and the weather bureau at Washington since 1855, and also for the Pennsylvania State weather service since its organization. He was deeply and actively interested in th'e anti-slavery move- ment from 1841. He is president of the OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 577 Trust and Eelief society of West Chester, holds the responsible position of overseer in Friends meeting, and treasurer of the latter since 1864. His connection with the Oakland Cemetery Company, of which he has been a manager for many years, dates from its organization, in 1852. He was one of the organizers of the "West Chester Mi- croscopical society, and has served both as its treasurer and president. For forty-four years he has been an active member and treasurer of the First West Chester Fire Company. Dr. Green's interests have been broad and catholic, as well as special and particular. He has a fine miscellaneous library, including a number of "large paper" and "de-luxe" editions; and an extensive collection of auto- graph letters, containing a number of rari- ties. Probably the finest collection of Con- tinental, Colonial, Confederate- and other rare paper money in Chester county is in his possession, as a result of long and intelligent gathering. Not the least interesting anti- quarian feature of his library is the fine col- lection of almanacs, some of them dating' back to the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury. For more than a score of years Dr. Green has been making a collection of walk- ing sticks, which now number over one hun- dred and thirty pieces. Some of these are made from historic timber, some are rare woods from distant parts of the earth, some are made of various woods exquisitely fitted and finely finished. Altogether the collec- tion is valuable from whatever point of view it may be considered. Dr. Green is the only son of William Green, who was born in Birmingham, Del- aware county, Pennsylvania, December 18, 1791, removed to West Chester, Pennsyl- vania, in 1845, and lived there until his death, April 19, 1881. William married, March 5, 1817, Phebe Hatton, who was born in Birmingham, Delaware county, Pennsyl- vania, June 25, 1797, and at this writing is still living in full possession of her faculties, active in mind and body. Dr. Green's pa- ternal great-great-great-great-grandfather was Thomas Green, a native of England, who emigrated in 1686, settled at Concord, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, and died there about 1713. His maternal ancestry also is English, the first emigrant coming to this country about 1682 and settling in Providence, Delaware county, Pennsylvania. The genealogy in several branches has been published with some fulness of detail in Munsell's American Ancestry, Vol. VI. Dr. Green was married September 30, 1845, to Alice W., daughter of Edward and Tabitha Shields, of West Chester, Pennsyl- vania. They have had four children, Clara, Mary, Edith, and William Hatton. Edith died in her fourth year, February 8, 1859. Mary died in her thirty-fourth year, Octo- ber 1, 1886. The other two are still living. Clara, the eldest, was married October 28, 1875, to Patterson DuBois, of Philadelphia. They have had four children, the youngest of whom, Constance, alone survives. P. D. B. HON. THOMAS S. BELL, a distin- guished citizen of Chester county, who served as a judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, was a son of William and Jane (Sloan) Bell, and was born in Philadelphia, October 22, 1800. In May, 1821, he re- moved to West Chester, where he spent the larger part of his life. He soon became eminent in his profession of the law, and served successively as district attorney, a member of the State senate, and at different 578 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY times as president judge of his own and an adjoining judicial district. On Xovember 18, 1846, lie was appointed an associate jus- tice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, and served with ability and efficiency until December 1, 1851, when the tenure of office was changed by the constitution. Judge Bell died in Philadelphia, June 6, 1861. His third son, Lt.-Col. Thomas S. Bell,was born May 12, 1838, and, after being admit- ted to the bar, gave brilliant indications of genius and success. His career of future promise never came, as he was one of the iirst in 1861 to respond to the call of his country for help, and two years later fell fighting on the bloody field of Antietam. nEV. FREDERICK WILLIAM RANDALL, the popular pastor of the Baptist church of Downingtown, and an able and efficient minister, is a son of "William and Emma (Bourne) Randall, and was born at Cornwall, in Cornwall county, England, ISTovember 9, 1857. His paternal grandfather Randall was a native of Eng- land, and married and reared a family of four children: John, William, Isaac and Thomas. William, the second son, and father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Worcestershire, England, in 1828. He was a very fine botanist and linguist, and spoke the German, French and Spanish languages with remarkable fluency. In early life he followed market gardening and afterward became superintendent of a large estate. He died in 1864, when in the thirty-sixth year of his age. He married Emma Bourne, who was born in 1833. They were the parents of five children, two sons and three daughters : Emma E., wife of Richard Gaskill, a painter of Ches- ter county ; Rev. Frederick William ; Mary, who died in childhood; Sarah, wife of Horace Rogers, of Limerick Square, Mont- gomery county ; Albert E., of Royer's Ford, ' Montgomery county, who married Minnie Robinson, and is a moulder by trade, and Sarah J., who died in infancy. Mrs. Ran- dall is the only survivor of sixteen chil- dren born to Rev. Jacob Bourne, a native of England and a minister of the Baptist church. Of his children were Rev. William Frederick, an able minister; Clement; Hat- tie and Elizabeth, the latter married Rev. Jabez Ferris, pastor of Roxborough Baptist church ; and Oeorge, who fell at the battle of Bull Run. Mrs. Randall received a good education, and in early life was preceptress of a large educational institution in England for young ladies. She has been active and prominent as a leader in educational and religious movements in the various locali- ties in which she has resided. She has contributed many poems to various papers. Frederick William Randall was brought by his mother to Connecticut, and after- ward came to Pennsylvania when he was only eleven years of age. He received a good literary education, and then com- menced his preparation for the Baptist ministry under Rev. George C. Hand, of Hatboro,and others, of Montgomery county. After completing his studies he entered Crozer Theological seminary, of Upland, Chester county, from which well known institution he was graduated with high standing in the class of 1889. He was licensed to preach in 1883, by the Royer's Ford Baptist church, and ordained to the ministry on January 2, 1889, at the Heph- zibah Baptist church. His first pastorate was Hephzibah Baptist church, of Mc- Williamstown, this county, which he left OP CSESTEB aOtJNTY. hn May 1, 1892, after thi-ee and one-half years of faithful and well appreciated service, to become pastor of the Baptist church of Downingtown, where his labors have been blessed with abundant success. The Bap- tist church at Downingtown was organized in 1883, and increased in membership and prosperity under the charge of Revs. Mc- Curdy, Bruster and Randall. Mr. Bruster was instrumental in securing the ei'ection of the present neat and handsome church edifice, which cost over eight thonsand dollars. On the 4th day of April, 1878, Rev. Ran- dall was united in marriage with Emma Davis, daughter of James D. Davis, of "Fox Chase,"' Philadelphia. To their union have been born four children : Julia, now de- ceased; Sadie L., Hattie, and Ethel L., who died in infancy. In political sentiment Rev. Randall is a prohibitionist, and believes that the supremacy of the Prohibition party would be for the best interests and greatest pros- perity of 'the country. Rev. Frederick William Randall is a close student, a care- ful and accurate thinker, and an earnest and eloquent speaker. He is a man of thought, of pleasing address and courteous bearing, and is a fine musician, having taken a four years' course in vocal music in Philadel- phia, under Professor William Thomas. He possesses a good voice, and attended Shoemaker !N^ational school of elocution and oratory for two and one-half years before entering upon the ministry. He has ob- tained popularity upon merit, and bis well thought out, logically arranged and eloquent sermons, while winning attention by his fine delivery, yet make a deep impression by the earnest truths and sound doctrines which they contain. The old Brandywine Baptist church, long closed, has been opened for a Sunday school in the afternoon, followed by a sermon by Rev. Mr. Randall, and in four weeks the enrolled membership of the school has grown to one hundred and thirty-five, with a large congregation coming in at the close of the Sunday school to attend the preach- ing service. This interest is now conducted by Mr. Randall and his co-workers as a mission of the Downingtown Baptist church. FRANCIS DONIiEAVY LONG, A.M., now proprietor of the "Hotel Heilbronn," of Downingtown, and who was for over a quarter of a century one of the foremost and most successful educators of eastern Pennsylvania, is a son of Samuel S. and Elizabeth (Worman) Long, and was born in DurViam township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1834. He re- ceived his diploma fronj Lafayette college, and read theology under Rev. Dr. John McDowell, of Philadelphia, but never took orders, and devoted most of his life to teach- ing. He established a classical and mercan- tile academy in Philadelphia, of which he was proprietor and principal for nearly ten years. At the end of that time he became principal of the West Branch High school, of Jersey Shore, this State, which position he held for several years. Professor Long, ill 1870, came to Downingtown, where he established Chester Valley academy, a clas- sical day and boarding school, which he conducted most successfully for fifteen years. He then disposed of the school, but within two years he found it necessary to return and resume possession of the building and property. Not caring again to assume edu- cational work, he fitted up the " Hotel Heil- 580 JBtOGBAPHY AND HiStOli Y bronn" for a party who died soon after opening the house, and Mr. Long was com- pelled to take charge of the hotel, which has been conducted most successfully under his management ever since. He has also de- voted a part of his time to the real estate business, in which he has developed not only his own financial interests, but even more, the best welfare of his borough. Mr. Long is a zealous member of the Downingtown Presbyterian church, was superintendent of the Sunday school for a number of years, and an active worker. While in Philadel- phia he was ordained an elder. In political opinion he has always been a republican, and while no aspirant for office yet served as a member of the Downingtown borough council for six years and as borough treas- urer for several terms. Mr. Long has well performed and faithfully discharged every duty of intelligent citizenship. His paternal great-grandparents, Thomas and Eachel Long, were residents of Ireland. Thomas Long was born in 1740 in that country, while his wife, whose maiden name was Rachel Morgan, was born in England in 1748. Their son. Judge "William Long, was born in 1775, and in early life came to Bucks county, this State, where he soon be- came prominent in civil and political aiiairs. He was an active and influential man and served for several years as associate judge of his county. He was originally a whig, but afterward became a democrat in politics, and died when well up in years at his home at Durham, Bucks county. He married Jane 8niith, November 13, 1798, and had twelve children, eight sons and four daugh- ters : Samuel Smith, Thomas, James Mor- gan, "William McKeen, Justus Kooker, Madison, Eobert Dean, Char! cm, Ivuchel, Martha, Jane and Mary. Samuel Smith Long, father of Professor Long, was born July 30, 1801, and died April 10, 1878. He was a democrat in poli- tics, and married Elizabeth "Worman, Octo- ber 14, 1825. They had five children : Rev. Edwin Mc. Long, D. D., Sidney "Worman (deceased), Francis Donleavy, and Rev. Abram "Worman and Rev. "William Stokes. The two latter were twins. The Long family is of Irish and English descent, and is known as one of the reliable and substantial families of eastern Pennsyl- vania. For several generations none of its members have ever been known to use pro- fane language, intoxicating liquor, or to in- dulge in tobacco in any form. Moral, up- right, active and straightforward, its hon- orable record is one that is worthy of imita- tion. 1r\R. JOHN COCHRAN, who was ap- pointed director general of the hospi- tals of the Thirteen Colonies in 1781, was born in Chester county, September 1,1730. The Cochran family was of Scotch descent. Dr. John Cochran received agrammar school education, read medicine with a Dr. Thomp- son, and served as a surgeon's mate during the French and Indian war. In 1777 "Wash- ington recommended hini to congress, and he was appointed as physician and surgeon- general of the army of the middle depart- ment. Dr. Cochran discharged the duties of that position so well that in 1781 con- gress made him director-general of the hos- pitals of the Thirteen Colonies. Dr. Cochran was on terms of intimacy with Washington, Wayne, Lafayette, Paul Jones, and others. He was a njember of the Society of Cincin- nati, served as commissioner of loans for the State of ISTew York,and died April 6, 1807. OP chpstMb covjstfy. 58l n LEXANDER P. TUTTON, ex col- lector of the port of Philadelphia, and chairman of the well known Downiugtown Manufacturing C!ompany, was born in Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, in 1823. He re- ceived his education in subscription and private schools and New London academy, and engaged in teaching in Berks county, which he followed for some time, the last five years of which he was principal of a boarding school. He was then elected principal of Morgantown academy, and after a short term of very successful work he was compelled to resign on account of ill-health and look for a more healthy calling. This he found in the lumber business in Schuyl- kill county, where he remained for five years. At the end of that time his health had so far improved that he went to Read- ing, in Berks county, and was engaged in teaching for two years as principal of a grammar school, which position he resigned in July, 1862, to become assessor of Ignited States revenue for the Eighth district of Pennsylvania. He served until October 1, 1866, when he was removed by President Johnson, not for ineflicieucy, but for politi- cal reasons, as his management of his office had been very efficient and satisfactory to the public. After his removal he was en- gaged for some time in building railroad and other bridges, and in 1869 was ap- pointed by President Grant as supervisor of internal revenue for western Pennsylvania, with headquai'ters at Pittsburg, but was soon transferi'ed to the eastern district of Pennsylvania, with headquarters at Phila- delphia. On September 1, 1872, the rev- enue districts of the United States were reduced in number from twenty-five to ten, and Mr. Tutton was one of the ten super- visors who were retained. He was placed in charge of the internal revenue district comprised of the States of Pennsylvania, 'New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, and the District of Columbia. He remained in charge of this important district from Sep- tember 1, 1872, to June 1, 1876. During that time Mr. Tutton was tendered the commissionership'of Indian affairs by Pres- ident Grant and the then secretary of the interior, C. Delano, which he declined, pre- ferring the position he then held. Subse- quently he was offered his choice between the commissionership of internal revenue and the position of collector of the port of Philadelphia, and chose the latter, and on June 1, 1876, was appointed collector of the port of Philadelphia by President Grant. The duties of the office when Mr. Tutton took charge were more numerous and diffi- cult than they have ever since been, on account of the vast quantity of centennial exhibit matter coming from all quarters of the globe. Much of this material was new, and the law and regulations thereunder were unknown to the custom officials, and consequently Mr. Tutton had no precedents or decisions for his guidance, and in order to rule correctly it cost him much close study and hard labor. His term of office expired in July, 1880, when he was suc- ceeded by ex-Governor John F. Hartranft, and i-etired with a good record for integ- rity, efficiency and industry. After a rest of a few months Mr. Tutton became a partner, in the spring of 1881, with his son-in-law, Guyon Miller, in the manufacture of paper mill machinery, under the firm name of Guyon Miller & Co. In a short time the business was incorporated as the Downingtown Manufacturing Company (limited), of which Mr. Tutton is chair- man, and Mr. Miller secretary and treas- 583 BtOGRAPHY AND HISTORY urer. This company manufactures all kinds of paper mill machinery, and of such su- perior quality that they receive orders from all parts of the United States and Canada. They have built engines and special ma- chinery for nearly all of the largest paper manufactories in the country, and are now building two of their patent engines for the paper manufacturers' exhibit in the Colum- bian exhibition at Chicago in 1893. Their extensive plant is situated on Washington avenue, and they employ a regular force of about fifty hands. On jSTovember 8, 1854, Mr. Tutton mar- ried E. J. Mitchel, of Chester county, Penn- sylvania, arid they have two children. Alexander P. Tutton is a republican in politics, and a member of and ruling elder in the Presbyterian church, and has resided at Downingtown since 1870. His record as a public official and his life as a private citizen are without blot or stain, and he is recognized as a progressive business man and a Christian gentleman. ^ FRANKLIN JONES, a well known and industrious citizen of Tredyffrin township, is a son of Jonathan and Agnes (Happersett) Jones, and was born in the old jail building at West Chester,Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 5, 1827, while his father was serving as sheriff" of this county. He received his education in the common and select schools of Chester county, and since leaving school has been engaged in farming. He is a republican in politics, and now resides inTredyft'riu township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. T. Franklin Jones is of Welsh descent, and his paternal grandfather, John Jones, was a native of the nortliwestern part of Chester county, where he died, January 14, 1816, at fifty-three years of age. He was a prominent contractor on the construction of the old Lancaster turnpike, and afterward followed farming and merchandising at Churchtown. He married Mary Darlington, by whom he had one child, Jonathan, and after her death, in 1789, he wedded Eliza- beth Graham, who died January 13, 1814, and whose remains were interred at St. Mary's church. By his second marriage John Jones had eleven children : Mary, born February 22, 1791 ; Hannah, born October 16, 1793; George W., born Feb- ruary 11, 1796 ; John D., born June 25, 1797; Thomas, born January 12, 1800; Michael, born February 27, 1802; Caleb, born January 29, 1804; David and Levi (twins), born February 7, 1807 ; Margaretta, born September 16, 1809 ; and Elizabeth, born November 24, 1813. Jonathan Jones (father), who was the only child by the first . marriage, became quite prominent in Chester county. He was born near Churchtown, January 17, 1785, and died near Valley Forge, in Tredyffrin township, November 17, 1867, when well advanced in the eighty- third year of his age. He resided succes- sively in Willistown, East Whiteland, and Tredyffrin townships. He always followed farming, and in 1832 purchased the "Green Tree" hotel, which he conducted for a num- ber of years. Mr. Jones was a whig and republican in politics, and served as sheriff" of Chester county from 1825 to 1828, dur- ing which time he occupied the residence part of the old jail. He was a member and vestryman of the Protestant Episcopal church, and married Agnes Happersett, who was a daughter of Jacob Happersett, and wiio died January 5, 1859, aged eighty-two years. They reared a family of five chil- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 583 dren : Mary, born May 14, 1810 ; Jacob H., who was born February 16, 1812, and died February 18, 1858, was in the hotel business in Philadelphia, and married Mary Wilson, by whom he had six children, of whom five are living — Agnes H., Eliza S., Jacob H., Mary E., and T. Franklin, whose name ap- pears at the head of this sketch. J[OSEPH R. WAIiKER, a very highly respected citizen of Tredyft'rin town- ship, is a son of Joseph and Priscilla (Rob- inson) "Walker, and was born in Tredyflrin township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 30, 1826. The American branch of the Walker family is over two centuries in age, and was founded by Lewis Walker, a native of Meiouethshire, Wales, which' he left in 1686 to come to Philadelphia, where he remained but one year. He then re- moved to Radnor township, Delaware county, but soon came to Tredyflrin town- ship, where he resided on his home tract of three hundred and eighty acres (bought direct from Penn) until his death, on De- cember 20, 1728, at an advanced age. On February 22, 1693, he married Mary Mor- ris, who came over to America on the same ship with him, and who died in 1748, aged eighty years. They were Friends, and had five children. One son removed to Virginia, and another was Isaac Walker (great-great- grandfather), who died February 23, 1755. He was a farmer and Friend, and on Sep- tember 11, 1780, married Sarah Jarniain, who died August 25, 1743. Their son, Joseph Walker (great-grandfather), was born July 25, 1731, on the old homestead, where he died Ifovember 2, 1802. He was a farmer, a Friend, and wedded Sarah Thomas, by whom he had thirteen children : Zilla, Isaac, Priscilla, Thomas, Joseph, Sarah, Mary, Naomi, Lewis, Joseph (2), Enoch, William, and Jesse. Isaac Walker (grandfather), the eldest son, was born August 21, 1754, and died on the homestead in 1823. He was a farmer, a Friend, and an old-line whig. He married Mary Pugh, a daughter of Ilananiah and Mary Pugh, and after her death wedded Sarah Conord, by whom he had one child, Dr. Isaac R., who died at West Chester. By his first marriage he had ten children : Sarah, born December 16, 1775; Ann, April 10, 1778; Joseph, August 24, 1780; Hananiah, Feb- ruary 2, 1782 ; Asahel, September 25, 1783 ; Mary, June 22, 1785 ; Priscilla, June 5, 1788; Zilla, April 28, 1790; Jane, May 10, 1792 ; and Rachel, March 3, 1794. Joseph Walker (father), the eldest son, always re- sided upon the old homestead, where he died September 1, 1858, aged seventy-eight years. He was a Friend or Quaker, like his father before him, and on May 15, 1812, wedded Priscilla Robinson, who was a daughter of Thomas Robinson, of Charles- town, this county, and who died in 1822. Joseph and Priscilla Walker had eight children : Lewis, born June 6, 1813, and died in infancy; Isaac, born July 16, 1814, and died August 9, 1839; Thomas R.,born August 11, 1816, and died in 1875 ; Moses, born December 9, 1817, and died in Feb- ruary, 1869; Mary, born April 13, 1820; Sarah R., born August 12, 1821, and died July 31, 1849; Hananiah, born September 22, 1823, and died April 16, 1872; and Joseph R., born April 30, 1826. Joseph R. Walker was reared on the old farm of Lewis Walker, the founder of the family, where he has always resided. He received his education in the schools of his neighborhood and at Elijah F. Pennypack- 584 BlOORAPltY AND HIStORY er's boarding school, and has always been engaged in farming. He owns one hun- dred and thirty acres of land. He is a Friend iu religion and a republican in poli- tics, and is now seiwing Valley church as an elder and overseer, while he has served his township as a supervisor. On June 11, 1863, Mr. Walker married Ellen L. Wells, daughter of Charles Wells. They have two children : Charles W., born December 27, 1867, who is engaged in the lumber business at Downingtown ; and Joseph J., born November 4, 1871, who was graduated in the civil engineering course of Swarthmore college in May, 1891, and is now in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He graduated from Friends' Central school of Philadelphia in 1887, and afterward from Pierce's Business college of Philadelphia. TA>ILLIAM BALDWIN, M.D., whose botanical zeal and knowledge have raf.ely been excelled in America, was a son of Eev. Thomas and Klizabeth (Garretson) Baldwin, and was born iu Newlin township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 29, 1878. He obtained a good English educa- tion, was a physician by profession and served as surgeon in the United States navy in Georgia from 1 812 to 1875. Dr. Baldwin liada taste for the study of plants and pushed his researches into Florida and among the southern Indians. After a trip to South America, he was appointed surgeon and botanist of Major Long's exploring expedi- tion up the Missouri river, but his strength was not sufficient for the task, and he died at Franklin, on the Missouri river, Septem- ber 1, 1819. TSAIAH FETTERS, jr., postmaster at Matthews, where he is also engaged in the mercantile business, is a descendant of an old Pennsylvania family, some of whose members have been prominent in the mili- tary and educational history of this county. He is the eldest son of George and Mary (Moses) Fetters, and a native of West Vin- cent township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, where he was born August 25,1851. His boyhood was passed on his father's farm near the German Reformed and Lutheran church in that township, and his education was obtained principally in the public schools there. After leaving school he was employed in farming for a time, and at the age of thirty-seven embarked in general merchandising at Matthews, where he has been successfully engaged in business ever since. He carries a full line of dry goods, groce>ies, and everything pertaining to a first-class general store, and sells at correct prices. From the first he has always taken great care to please his patrons, and by en- terprise and good management has built up a tine trade and become prosperous. In political faith he is a democrat, and in 1888 was appointed postmaster at Matthews, in which capacity he has eversince served with great acceptability. He is a member of St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran church, in which he is serving as a deacon, and as a citi- zen is prominent and influential. Mr. Fet- ters never married. The Fetters family is of Swiss-German origin, and settled in Pennsylvania at an early day. John Fetters, paternal grand- father of Isaiah, was horn and reared in this county, where he passed his life as a farmer, and died at a good old age. He married and was the father of a family of eight chil- dren, among whom was George Fetters Of CHESTER COUNTY. 585 (father), who was born in West Pikeland township in 1817, and died at his home near the German Reformed and.Lutheran church, in West Vincent township, on January 9, 1876, aged fifty-eight years. He was a farmer by vocation, and owned a fine farm in West Vincent township. Politically he was a stanch democrat, and for a number of years took an active part in local politics. In religion he was a Lutheran and for many years a prominent member of St. Matthew's Lutheran church, which he served as deacon and trustee. He was also superintendent of the Sunday school at that place for along time. In 1849 he married Mary Moses, a daughter of Adam Moses, of West Vincent township, and by this union had a family of three children, two sons and a daughter: Isaiah, whose name heads this sketch ; Harry M., who was born and reared on the home farm in West Vincent, received his education in the common schools, married Emma Swinehart, and is now a prosperous farmer of his native township ; and Minerva J., who became the wife of Joseph Ander- son, now deceased, and lives in Upper Uvvc^- lan township. For additional facts con- cerning the history of the Fetters family, see sketch of Capt. Abraham Fetters on page 567 of this work. TDA VIRGINIA REEL,, M. D,, a grad uate of the Women's Medical college of Pennsylvania, and a physician in active and successful practice at Coatesville, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 24, 1857, and is a daughter of Jacob S. and Sarah A. (Carnthers) Heel. The Reels are of Gerniiin descent and the American branch of the family was founded by two Reel brothers, who came to Pennsvlvania some time during the last century, and settled respectively in Philadelphia and at Reading. A lineal descendant of the Philadelphia brother was Michael Reel, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Michael Reel was a native of the "Quaker City," where he followed cabinet making until his death. His- son, Jacob S. Reel (father), was reared and received his educa- tion in his native city of Philadelphia, where he resided until 1863. In that year he re- moved to Cheltenham, Montgomery county, this State, where he died in April, 1883, when in the seventy-third year of his age. He was a manufacturer, -and was in business in Philadelphia for over a quarter of a cen- tury. Jacob S. Reel was a republican in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and married Sarah A. Caruthers, of Philadelphia, who was of English descent, and who died July 12, 1881, aged sixty-four years. Ida Virginia Reel was principally reared at Cheltenham, Montgomery county, received her education in the public schools of Chel- tenham and the graded schools of Phila- delphia, and then taught one term. But not liking teaching, she resolved upon a professional life, and in 1878 entered the Women's Medical college of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, from which institution she was graduated in the class of 1882. Imme- diately after graduation she went to Boston, Massachusetts, where she entered the New England hospital for women and children, and spent a year in the careful and practical study of diseases and the best and most suc- cessful methods of their treatment. Leaving Boston she returned to Pennsyl- vania, where she became assistant patholo- gist under Dr. Robert H. Chase, in the State hospital for the Insane at Norristown. In 586 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY connection with Dr. Chase she really helped to organize the pathological department of the hospital, in which she labored faithfully and successfully for six years. At the end of that time she came to Coatesville, where she soon built up an excellent practice, which she has constantly enlarged ever since. Dr. Reel is one of the progressive and successful physicians of the county. She keeps abreast of the medical thought and advancement of the age. She is a member of the Chester County and the Pennsylvania State Medical societies, and studies closely the difficult and complicated cases that are reported in the leading medical journals of the country. She is a member of the Pro- testant Episcopal church, a pleasant, cour- teous and accomplished woman, and stands in the front rank of her profession in south- eastern Pennsylvania. JAMES FITZPATRICK, commonly known as Captain Fitz, the daring rob- ber chief of Chester county, was of Irish lineage. He was a blacksmith by trade, and led an honest life until the Revolutionai-y war. He then enlisted in a militia company from which he soon deserted and returned home. He was apprehended and secured inununity from punishment by returning to the Continental army, from which he again deserted. Returning Louk.' a second time he was again captured, but succeeded in escaping, and then commenced his wonder- ful career of robbing and plundering the whigs of Chester county. Fitzpatrick aided the British in their nuircli through the county, and during their occupation of Phil- adelphia captured several whigs and a large number of horses, which lie took to the "Quaker City." After the British left Phil- adelphia Fitzpatrick resolved to carry on the war on his own account, and made Chester county the field of his depredations. He had various hiding places, among which were Hand's J'ass and the high hill near Marshall's Station. Assisted by one Mor- decai Dougherty, whom he styled his lieu- tenant, he became the terror of the whigs. By a series of the most daring robberies and hair-breadth escapes he became noted throughout the State and Nation. His law- less career ended on August 22, 1778, when he attempted to rob William McAfl'ee or McFee, of Delaware county, who by strategy and the assistance of Rachel "Walker, grasped him in an unguarded moment and succeeded in binding him. After trial he was execu- ted at West Chester on the 15th of Septem- ber, 1778, and the county was relieved from his terrorism, as Dougherty fled and all oth- ers who had aided him remained quiet. James Fitzpatrick had red hair and a florid complexion, and was an uncommonly fine looking man, being very strong, athletic and swift of foot. "He possessed abilities which, had he pursued an honorable career, might have won for him a distinguished name in the annals of his country." jjEVI WAGONER, an industrious farmer and a lineal descendant of the old and highly respectable Wagoner family of East Pikeland township, is a son of Joseph and Sarah (Sheeleigh) Wagoner, and was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September ], l%o-l. Levi Wagoner was reared in his native township, attended the common schools, in which he received a good English education, and then made choice of farming us a life pursuit. Ho has given his time OF CHESTER COUNTY. 587 and attention mainly to grain and stock raising, and has met with good success in his chosen occupation. lie is a democrat in politics, like his father and grandfather before him, and always gives his pai'ty an earnest and active support on county and State issues as well as on questions of Na- tional policy. He now resides in Charles- town township. The "Wagoner family of Chester county, of which the subject of this sketch is a member, is of German descent, and traces its American ancestry back three genera- tions to Christian Wagoner, ^ resident of East Pikeland township. He was a son of Sebastian "Wagoner, and in all probability a grandson of- the original immigrant ances- tor of the family. Christian Wagoner fol- lowed his trade of stone mason, in connec- tion with farming, until his days of life were numbered. He passed from time to eternity in 1853, when in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He owned a farm of one hundred and twenty-seven acres, comprising three improvements. He was a democrat in political belief, and for many years before his death had been a strict member of East Vincent Reformed church. Mr. Wagoner was twice married, and by his first wife had one child, a sou, named Jacob. His second wife, whose maiden name was Bar- bara Shutt, bore him two children, a son and a daughter: Joseph and Mary Brown. Joseph Wagoner (father) was born in East Pikeland township. May 4, 1815, and is a blacksmith by trade. He never worked at blacksmithing to any extent, and has given the active j'Cars of his life to farming. In 1880 he removed to his present farm in Charlestown township. This farm contains ninety acres of land, and is well watered and very productive. He is a democrat in politics and a member of East Vincent Re- formed church, in which he has held the office of deacon for two terms. Mr. Wag- oner married Sarah Sheeleigh, who is a daughter of Jesse and Mary(Orner) vSheel- eigh,-of East Pikeland township. Joseph and Sarah Wagoner have three children, two sons and a daughter : Levi, whose name appears at the head of this sketch; John, and Barbara Anna, wife of B. Frank Row- land, who is engaged in farming. ^THOMAS U. WALKER, a substantial farmer of Tredyffrin township, and a lineal descendent of one of the early settled families of the county, is a son of William and Sarah (Pennypacker) Walker, and was born in Tredyft'rin township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, E^ovember 6, 1817. The Walker family of Chester county is of Welsh descent, and was founded by Lewis Walker, who came from Wales in 1686 or 1687 and settled in Radnor township, in what is now Delaware county. He soon came into the great Ch ester val ley and discovered Rehoboth spring, in Tredyffrin township, where he took up a thousand acre tract of land, and received his deed for the same in 1707, from a Mr. Powell, who was Penn's agent at that time. He was a Friend, and some additional history of him will be found in the sketch of Joseph R.Walker. His grandson, Thomas Walker, was the grandfather of Thomas TJ. Walker,and followed farmingand lime burn- ing. He was a whig and a Friend, and married Mary, a granddaughter of Rev. William Curry, by whom he had ten chil- dren : Richard, William, Joseph, Isaac, Sarah, Ann, Mary, Zilla, Jane and Hannah. William Walker (father) was born in 1795, in Tredyft'rin township, this county, where 588 BIOORAPHY AND HISTOBY he died March 10, 1873. He \Va8 a farmer and a whig, and married Sarah Pennypacker, who was a daughter of Matthias Penny- packer, and who died January 17, 1878, aged eighty-one years. William and Sarah Walker were the parents of three sons and seven daughters: Mary, Margaret, Ann, Emma, Sallie, Rebecca, Sadie, Thomas IT., Matthias P. and William IS. Thomas U. Walker grew to manhood on the home farm, received his education in tlie subscription schools of his neighbor- hood and at Joseph C. Strode's excellent boarding school, and then engaged in farm- ing, which he has foUovi'ed ever since. In 1841 he purchased and removed to his present farm, which is well improved and contains one hundred and thirty-three acres of good grain and grass land. Mr. Walker is a re- publican in politics, and has served his town- ship as auditor and school director for over a quarter of a century. He is an intelligent and industrious farmer, who has witnessed during his busy and useful life a wonderful progress in agriculture and a great develop- ment of his township. On January 26, 1841, Mr. Walker mar- ried Ellen Massey, daughter of Jacob Mas- sey, of Tredyft'rin township. They have four children : Colkett, married Mary E. Jones, and is a farmer ; Clara, wife of Ifa- than Rambo, of Bridgeport, this State; Harry, who married Ada Stewart and re- sides in Ohio, where he is engaged in rail- road contracting ; and Ellie, married Comly Williams and lives near the Kingof Prusia. QOL. THOMAS BULL, a brave revo- lutionary oiScer and respected citizen of Warwick township, was born June 9, 1744, and died July 13, 1837, at ninety- three years of age. He served under Wash- ington, was held a prisoner in the "Jersey Prison Ships," and after the war became the manager of Warwick furnace. He was a member of St. Peter's Episcopal church, and sei'ved as a member of the assembly from 1793 to 1801. Colonel Bull was twice married, and his eldest son, Levi Bull, D.D., was born No- vember 14, 1780. Levi B.ull served as a minister of the Episcopal church for over half a century, and was held in the highest estimation by all who knew him. He died August 2, 1859. l«r AXWELL CLOWER, an active and ■^ intelligent citizen of East Brandy- wine township, and a member of the Bea- ver Mills Company (limited), is a son of Samuel and Evaline (Thompson) Clower, and was born in East Brandywine town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 12, 1849. His paternal grandfather, Daniel Clower, was a native of eastern Pennsyl- vania, and passed the larger part of his life as a farmer in Chester county, where he died in 1872, aged ninety-three years. He was a democrat and a Methodist, and served as a soldier in the war of 1812. He mar- ried and reared a family of four sons and four daughters : Louzetta Lightfoot, Sarah Long, Samuel, Elmira Lightfoot, Kerlin, Harriet Bond and James. Samuel Clower (father) was born in 1818, and learned, with his brother John, the trade of millwright, which he followed for a number of years. He then engaged as a machinist with Wil- son & Green, of Wilmington, Delaware, in whose employ he renmined for twenty years. At the end of that time he went to Bondsville, where he has remained ever OF CHESTER COUNTY. 589 since. While in Delaware he enlisted in the Delaware infantry, and served until the regi- ment was mustered out oftheFederal service. He is a republican in politics, and a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal church, and married Evaline Thompson. To their union were born three sons and five daughters: Anna ; Sarah ; Clara, who died in childhood ; Henrietta, married James Mullen, and after his death wedded Richard Guie; Maxwell; Clara Lewis; Thompson and Daniel. Mrs. Evaline Glower, who died February 7, 1888, aged seventy-one years, was a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, and always took an active interest in the welfare of the Methodist Episcopal church, of which she was an honored and useful member. She was a descendant of William Penn, and her father. Prof. Thomas Thompson, served as principal of KTorristown academy for several terms. He was a native of Montgomery county, married Clara Edwards, and died at the early age of thirty-one years, leaving two chil- dren: Mrs. Evaline Glower, and Thomas. Maxwell Glower received his education jn the public schools of Brandywine Hun- dred and New Castle county, Delaware, and then became an apprentice to the trade of tinsmith, which he did not complete. He afterward (1866) returned to East Brandy- wine township, where he has been engaged ever since in the manufacture of woolen goods for the Beaver Mills Company (limited). He holds the position of superintendent with his company, and has discharged his duties with alacrity and eiBciency. On July 20, 1870, Mr. Glower was united in marriage with Mary P. Williams, of Har- ford county, Maryland. To their union have been born seven children : John L. ; Samuel, who died in infancy; M.Lillian; Maxwell, jr. ; Frank; Gertie, and Edward. Maxwell Glower is a republican in poli- tics, was township auditor for several terms, has served as a member of the school board for twelve years, and takes an active interest in local political affairs. He was elected presidential elector for the Sixth Pennsyl- vania district, November 8, 1892. He is a member of Brandywine Biiptist church ; Brandywine Lodge, ISTo. 388, Lidependent Order of Odd Fellows; Wayne Lodge, No. 266, Knights of Pythias, and Windsor Castle, No. 92, Knights of the Golden Eagle. vJOHN YOUNG, a well known citizen of West Pikeland township, who has been successfully engaged in agricultural pur- suits for over half a century, is a son of John, sr., and Anna M. (Harmen) Young, and was born in Schuylkill township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, August 7, 1820. He grew to manhood on his father's farm, received a good practical business educa- tion in the old subscription schools, and then engaged in farming, which he has fol- lowed in Gharlestown and West Pikeland townships with good success up to the present time. His home farm in West Pikeland township contains seventy-six acres of rich and finely improved land. Adjoining it he owns a sixty-six acre tract on which his son resides, and besides these two good farms he has some valuable wood- land lots. He has passed his life in agri- cultural pursuits, in which he has pros- pered. He is a democrat in politics, and has held all the more important and most of the minor offices of his township, and was especially popular as a school director, a supervisor, and a tax collector. On October 6, 1845, Mr. Young married Margaret Wagonseller, and to them were 590 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY born six children ; William, a farmer, who married Abbie McWilliams; John, married Rebecca Moses, and is engaged in farming; Joseph A., a merchant of Phcenixville, who married Catherine Melon ; George, married Annie Bourne, and is a farmer of Newton, Kansas; Ella, wife of J. Wesley Penny- packer, manager of a plumbago mill at Pikeland station ; and Anna, who married Henry Dewees, a farmer of West Vincent township. Mrs. Margaret Young was born October 28, 1819, and is the only living child of William Wagonseller, who was born in 1779, in Montgomery county, and purchased the farm where Mrs. Young re- sides, and on which he died July 22, 1868, when in the ninetieth year of his age. He was a Lutheran, and married Rebecca, daughter of John IS'eilor, by whom he had five children : James, George, Anna Hol- man, John, and Mrs. Margaret Young. William Wagonseller was a son of John Wagonseller, who came from Germany to near Shannonville, Montgomery county. John Wagonseller was a farmer, a demo- crat, and a Lutheran. He married Mar- garet Honeter, and had eight children : John, Susan Rhinehart, Jacob, Catherine King, Mary Rogers, Peter, William, and Margaret Walters. John Young is of German descent, and his grandfather, Peter Young, who was a shoemaker by trade, came from Germany to Charlestown township, where he died in 1826, on his farm near Charlestown village. He was a whig, and a member of St. Peter's Reformed church, and married Catherine Snyder, by whom he had seven children : Elizabeth Rickabaugh, George, Peter, John, Catherine Wells, Maria Sloyer, and Bar- bara Sailor. John Young, sr. (father), was the second son, and owned the John Shoff- ner farm,in Charlestown township, where he died in 1848, aged sixty-eight years. He was a whig, and a member of St. Peter's Reformed church, and served as a soldier in the war of 1812, l?eing stationed at Camp Marcus Hook. He married Anna M. Har- men,who was a daughter of John Harmen. They reared a family of eight children : George, Sarah Auld, John (subject), Cath- erine Rixstine, Mary Peck, David, Susan Reese, and Elizabeth Rhodes, QEORGE D. ASHBKIDGE, an old and highly respected citizen of West Chester, who is a representative of an early- settled and prominent family of this sec- tion, several membei's of which have occu- pied important positions and woven their names with the history of the county, is the only son and sole surviving child of Daniel and Sarah (Davis) Ashbridge. He was born in Goshen (now East Goshen) township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 1, 1818, and grew to manhood on his father's farm. His education was ob. tained in the schools of West Chester, and after leaving school he engaged in agricul- ture in his native township, and success- fully followed the occupation of a farmer until 1851, when he removed to West Ches- ter and retired from active business. He has been a resident of the county capital ever since, and is widely known among the people of Chester county. In his political affiliations Mr. Ashbridge was a whig until the organization of the Republican party in Pennsylvania, since which time he has adhered to the latter, strongly supporting its policy during the war, and as firmly be- lieving in the principles of protection and reciprocity which it has advocated since. '^^ui'^^ (©^ (^^mi^nuf/f. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 593 The family to which Mr. Ashbridge be- longs is of English-Welsh extraction, and is among the oldest in Pennsylvania, having been planted here as early as 1698, by George Ashbridge, who came from England to Philadelphia in that year, and shortly afterward settled at Edgemont, then Ches- ter, now Delaware county. Here he pur- chased property, and August 23, 1701, at Providence meeting, married Mary Malin, by whom he had a family of ten children : John, George, Jonathan, Mary, Elizabeth, Aaron, Hannah, Phebe, Lydia and Joseph. The mother of these children died February 15, 1728, aud George Ashbridge (1) married Mrs. Margaret Paschall January 6, 1730, and died at Chester in 1748. His son, George Ashbridge (2) was born December 19, 1704, elected to the- assembly in 1743, and continued to be re-elected each year until his death, which occurred March 6, 1773. He married Jane Hoopes in 1730, and his children were : Mary, George, Wil- liam, Susanna, Phebe, Jane, Daniel, Joshua and Lydia. In 1732 he came to Goshen township, this county, where his father had purchased a large tract of land. Here he built a house which is still standing. His son, Joshua, was born in that house, Sep- tember 17, 1746, and died there September 4, 1820. He married Mary Davis, Novem- ber 4, 1773, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. He was one of the viewers who located the present almshouse of Ches- ter county. His son, Daniel Ashbridge (father), was- born in East Goshen town- ship, this county, in 1774, and died here in 1838, in his sixty-fourth year. He was a farmer by occupation, as his ancestors had been, and in politics adhered to the old whig party nearly all his life. His brother, Thomas Ashbridge, was elected and served 35 for some time as a member of the State assembly. In 1817 Daniel Ashbridge mar- ried Sarah Davis, a daughter of Amos and Eleanor Davis, of Thornbury, Delaware county, and to their union was born a family of two children, one son and a daughter; George D., the subject of this sketch, and Lydia, who became the wife of John R. Warey, of this county, and died November 27, 1887. Mrs. Sarah (Davis) Ashbridge was born in 1795, and passed peacefully away at her home in this county, August 12, 1872, greatly respected and be- loved by a wide circle of friends. r^URTIS H. HANNUM received his ed- ucation in the public schools of West Goshen, the West Chester academy when J. Hunter Worrall and Eugene Paulin were principals, and the law department of Yale university, from which he graduated June 26, 1873, and was on the same day admit- ted in the Superior court at New Haven to practice before the courts of law and chan- cery for the State of Connecticut. The fol- lowing fall he entered the office of the late Judge Futhey and read law until the fall of 1874, and on September 16 of that year was admitted to the bar of Chester county, and later to the bar of Delaware county, and the Supreme court of Pennsylvania. In the month of April, 1884, he quit the practice of the law to escape the confinement of an office, and in 1885 became a stockholder and director in the Edison Electric Illumin- ating Company of West Chester, organized in the early part of that year ; is identified with other organizations of the borough, and is a member of Lodge No. 322, Free and Accepted Masons. A republican in politics, he takes pride in the industries and 594 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY material welfare of our countr}'^, encouraged and sustained by protection. John Hannum, with his wife Margery, were settled in (]!oncord township, then in Chester, but now in Delaware county, Penn- sylvania, as early as 1682. John died in the latter part of the year 1730, and Margery in 1742. Their children were: James, who died in 1717 ; Robert, died February 26, 1759; George; John, married first, Mary Gibbons, second, Jane N'eal, and died in Concord, March 25, 1773; Mary, married Thomas Smith ; Elizabeth, married Thomas Broom; Margery, mari'ied Anthony Bald- win; Ann, married John Way; and Sarah, married Jacob Way. John Hannum, jr., was married August 8, 1741, to his second wife, Jane Ifeal, by whom he had five children : Margery, mar- ried Joseph Gibbons, jr.; John, married Alice Park, and was the Col. John Hannum so famous in the local history of the revolu- tion, and of Chester county ; Mary, married Richard Cheyney ; William, born Pebrliary 1, 1748, married September 29, 1772, to Ruth Evans, daughter of Philip and Eliza- beth Evans, and died August 24, 1816 ; and James, married three times, died September 28, 1809. William and Ruth Hannum had eleven children : Elizabeth, born August 8, 1773, married Samuel Grubb, and died July 2,1860; John, born l^ovember 15, 1777, died June 15, 1777 ; William, born April 5, 1776, died January 13, 1852, married first Elizabeth Dutton, and second, Lydia T. Swymelar; Samuel, born October 6, 1777, died April 14, 1845, married Susannah Pen- nell; John, born June 28, 1779, died ISTo- vember 22, 1848 ; Jane, born May 20, 1781, died May 1, 1864; Joseph, born November 8, 1782, died September 15, 1859, married Ann Fairlamb ; Evan P., born July 30, 1784, died July 16, 1862, married Elizabeth Y. Gibbons; Philip E., born June 13, 1786, died November 15, 1790 ; Aaron, born May 13, 1788, died March 30, 1868, married first, Sarah Mercer, and secopd, Eliza New- lin; ISTorris, born March 11, 1790, died May 16, 1847, married Sarah H. Young. Samuel Hannum and Susannah Pennell were married in 1798, she being the daugh- ter of Joseph and Sarah Pennell, and at the time of her marriage the widow of William Cloud. They had eight children : Mary Ann, born February 25, 1799, died April 4, 1882, married Isaac M. Trimble; Joseph Pennell, born March 29, 1801, died Septem- ber 6, 1860, married Esther P. Dutton; Edwin, born September 17,1803, died April 10, 1874, married Maria Miller; Robert Evans, born December 10, 1805, married Georgianna Maria Bartram; Eliza, born December 17, 1808, died March 7, 1879; Ruth, born January 5, 1810, died July 26, 1885, married John D. Pierce; Susannah, born September 7, 1812, died July 29, 1844 ; Samuel, born December 12, 1814, died Sep- tember 8, 1892, married Lavina R. Hoopes, daughter of Curtis Hoopes and Sarah (Rob- erts) Hoopes, September 27, 1848. Samuel and Lavina R. Hannum had two children born to them : Curtis Hoopes Han- num, born June 16, 1850, who married Mary Elizabeth Hughes, daughter of Jack- son and Lydia Ann Hughes, of West Ches- ter, Pennsylvania, June 24, 1879; and Arabella, born July 28, 1860, died Septem- ber 23, 1860. Curtis Hoopes Hannum and Mary his wife, have two children : Caroline H., born August 4, 1880; Robert Ellis, born June 19, 1886. In 1686 John Hannum purchased of Jeremiah Collett a farm of about two hun- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 595 dred acres in the township of Concord, and on or near this property were born all his descendants in the line to and including Curtis Hoopes Hannum, w^hose father, Sam- uel Hannum, having purchased a large farm in "West Groshen township in 1853, moved there in the spring of that year; here for several years he lived, serving the people as school director, and being often sent by his republican neighbors to represent them in their party cQuvention. In the spring of 1873 he moved with his family to West Chester, where showing a deep interest in the welfare and progress of the town, he was first elected in February, 1875, a mem- ber of council, and returned for seven con- secutive terms, enjoying the confidence and respect of the community until the day of his death. T^HOMAS W. STEM, a well known teacher of K'orth Coventry township prior to the late civil war, and an intelligent and useful citizen of Chester county, was a son of John and Elizabeth (Bun) Stem, and was born on December 3, 1824, in N'antmeal township, near the village of I^antmeal, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grandfather, Jacob Stem, was of German lineage, and first saw the light of day in N^antmeal township, where he was reared and passed his life as a farmer. He mar- ried and reared a family, and of the sons born to him one was John Stem, the father of the subject of this sketch. Late in life (1840) John Stem removed to Cedarville, in l^orth Coventry township, and afterward went to Iowa, where he died. He married Elizabeth Bun, and to them were born eleven children r Elizabeth, married Samuel Goug- ler and is dead ; Mary ; Caroline, widow of Jacob Sisler, .of Manyunk, Philadelphia; Thomas W. ; Rachel, wife of Albert Long- aker, a contracter and builder of Norris- town, this State ; Emma, who married Dan- iel Getty, a farmer, of near Norristown : Jacob, who went to Missouri and died there ; Amanda, wife of Davies Valentine, a farmer, of Iowa; Louisa, who married Dr. "W. A. Chandler, of-Philadelphia ; Adaline, wife of James De Hart, of Germantowu, Philadel- phia; Jane and James, who died in infancy. Thomas W. Stem was reared on the farm, and attended the schools of his neighbor- hood, after which, at an early age, he learned the trade of carpenter, and worked for a few years at carpentering and farming. He then entered Jonathan Gauze's school, of 'West Chester, and after taking a thorough course, was engaged in teaching for fourteen years. At the end of that time, in 1850, he purchased a farm of thirty -three acres in North Coventry township, on which he re- sided until his death. He added ten acres to his farm by purchase, and was known as a very industrious man and an intelligent citizen. He was a member of the German Baptist church, and in political matters acted with the Republican party until about 1890, when he became an ardent and radi- cal prohibitionist. At the end of a busy and useful life Thomas W. Stem passed away on March 20, 1892, when in the sixty-eighth year of his age. His remains were entombed in East Coven- try Menonite cemetery, and he left a vacant place in his community that was hard to fill. On September 24, 1850, Mr. Stem mar- ried Elizabeth Harley, a daughter of Jacob Harley, of East Coventry, who survives him. They had two children, a son and a daughter : Katie, born November 28, 1853, and Nathan, born November 28, 1858. Nathan Stem, only son of Thomas W. 596 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY and Elizabeth (Harley) Stem, was reared on the farm, received a good English education, and then engaged in farming, Avhich he has followed successfully ever since. He is a republican in politics, and a member of the German Baptist church. On January 30, 1 890, he was united in marriage with Emma Reifsnyder, and their union has been blessed with one child, a daughter named Helen, who was born March 11, 1892. TjM ILIilAM P. TOWNSEND, one of the organizers and the first presi- dent of the Penn Mutual Fire Insurance Company, is a gentleman of wide business experience, and has also been connected to some extent with literature. He is the eldest son of John W. and Sibbilla Kirk (Price) Townsend, and was born August 5, 1813, in the house, corner of Gay and Church street. West Chester, where La- fayette slept on one occasion. The Town- sends are of English Quaker ancestry, the family having been planted in America by Joseph Townsend, who was born ]S"ovem- ber 18, 1684, and came over from Berk- shire, England, previous to 1711, and pur- chased a tract of eight hundred acres of land adjoining the present borough of West Chester, where he devoted the remainder of his life to agricultural pursuits and died at an advanced age. Hisson, John Townsend (great-grandfather), was born December 2, 1716, and reared here, and in 1746 erected the house which is still standing. He also was a farmer and married Joanna Eng- land and reared a large family, among whom was William Townsend (grandfather), who, after reaching manhood, purchased the square extending from High street to Wal- nut, along Gay, for the sum of |1,425, one of the most valuable squares in the borough. He married Grace Loller and reared a family of four children, one of his sons being John W. Townsend (father), who was born on the old homestead adjoining West Chester, March 22, 1782. He i-eceived a good edu/jation, and upon completing his studies accepted a position as clerk in a book store in the city of Philadelphia. At about the time of his marriage, October 22, 1812, he embarked in the general mercantile business at the corner of Gay and High streets. West Chester, and devoted the remainder of his life to that enterprise. Some time previous to his death, which occurred March 2, 1874, he retired from the active duties of his long business career, and spent his closing years in quiet and comfort at his home in West Chester. In politics he was first a federalist and then a whig and republican. He served as postmaster at West Chester from 1813 to 1830, and was honored and esteemed for his many virtues and fine traits of character. In religion he was a Quaker. In 1812 he married Sibbilla Kirk Price, a daughter of Philip and Rachel Price, and by this union had seven children : William P., the subject of this sketch ; Anna M., married Dr. George Thomas, who died in 1887, and she now lives on the old homestead in West White- land township, this county; Rachel P., now the widow of J. Lacy Darlington, lives in New York city ; Charles M., died in infancy ; Henry C, a prominent lawyer of Philadel- phia, who is a man of more than ordinary ability, and the author of a life of Thomas Buchanan Read and numerous published addresses and other literary work; Edward G., who died in 1891, was for many years president of the Cambria Iron Company, and greatly beloved by all who knew him, OP GtiESfER COUNT V^. 5&t being widely known for his charitable dis- position and kindness to the poor ; and Philip P., now deceased, who did honorable ser- vice in the civil war. The mother of these children, Mrs. Sibbilla Kirk Townsend, died in 1853, aged sixty-three years. Her father, Philip Price, was born January 8, 1764, and died in 1837. He was descended from the early immigrant of the same name, who set- tled in Philadelphia county in the early part of the last century. William P. Townsend was educated in the common schools of "West Chester, where he spent his boyhood days. After reaching man's estate he embarked in general mer- chandising, succeeding his father in the store on Gay street, and continued in busi- ness for a period of nineteen years, when failing health compelled him to relinquish that enterprise. He then purchased the farm now owned by Samuel R. Shipley, and . in 1857 erected the house which Mr. Ship- ley uses as a summer residence. There Mr. Townsend lived until 1864, when he re- mo ved to the borough of West Chester,which has ever since been his place of residence. In 1864 he was one of the promoters of the Penn Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Chester county, and upon its organization was elected president of the company, and held that position for a number of years, when he resigned. In his domestic life Mr. Townsend has been very fortunate and correspondingly happy. On November 21, 1855, he was wedded to Anna Mary Kirk, a daughter of Samuel E,. Kirk, of East Whiteland township, who has proved to be an ideal helpmeet, taking an active interest in all his plans and pursuits, and being his untiring colaborer in many enterprises. She was a pupil at Westtown boarding school, and she and Mr. Townsend have long been members of the management committee of that institution. Both have likewise worked together in literature, among their productions being a compila- tion known as "Piety Promoted; a collec- tion of the dying sayings of many of the people called Quakers," published by the Society of Friends. In politics Mr. Town- send is now a prohibitionist, though for many years a republican. In religion he and his wife are the strictest kind of (Quak- ers, both being life-long members of the Society of Friends. The father of Mrs. Townsend, Samuel R. Kirk, was born June 6, 1788, on the Kirk homestead in East Nantmeal township, this county, where he spent most of his life en- gaged in agricultural pursuits. In later life he purchased a farm atKirkland station, on the Frazer branch of the Pennsylvania rail- road, and resided there for a number of years, but removed to West Chester a short time before his death, which occurred May 7, 1877. He was a descendant of Alphonso Kirk, who came from the north of Ireland in 1682, and settled on Brandywine creek, in the State of Delaware, where he married Abigail Sharpley. Later he came to Ches- ter county, "Pennsylvania, and settled in West Nantnieal township. He had a son named William Kirk (great-grandfather of Mrs. Townsend), who purchased from the Peuns a lai'ge farm in the same township, which farm became the homestead of the family for several generations. There Isaiah Kirk (grandfather) was born and lived all his life. He married Elizabeth Richards, of Philadelphia, and had a family of six chil- dren, among whom was William Kirk, who secured a tine education and became known as a man of more than ordinary ability, and Samuel R., the father of Mrs. Townsend. 598 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY TA/- ALTER H. LEWIS, the present offi- cial Bteuographer of the fifteenth judi- cial district of Pennsylvania, comprising the courts of Chester county, and a member of the active and well known stenographic firm of Clift & Lewis, of Philadelphia, is a son of Christopher and Louisa K. (Hallowell) Lewis, and was born in Highland county, Ohio, November 17, 1862. His paternal grandfather, Daniel Lewis, was a native and life-long resident of Highland county, Ohio. He was afarmerby occupation, andamember of the Society of Friends, and died in 1847, aged about fifty years. He married Priscilla Hussey, by whom he had five children, three sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Chistopher Lewis (father), was born Sep- tember 22, 1831, and upon arriving at man- hood's years engaged in farming, which he still follows. He is a republican in politics, and a member of the Society of Friends. He married Louisa K. Hallowell, of Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1859, and they have three children : Eugene C, Walter H. and Marion, all of whom now reside in Pennsylvania, the latter being married and living in Montgomery county. Walter H.Lewis was reared in southwest- ern Ohio, near Cincinnati. He -received his early education in the public schools of that State, and afterward at Miami Valley col- lege, at Springboro, Ohio. After coming to Pennsylvania he took a special course at the West Chester State Normal school. He studied stenography with Elias Longley, at that time the official stenographer of the courts of common pleas of Cincinnati, and publisher of shorthand books and period- icals. After doing considerable work with Mr. Longley he became book-keeper in a mercantile establishment at Springboro, Ohio, which he resigned in about one year to come to Pennsylvania. After spending about one year in Philadelphia, with Mr. Francis H. Hemperly, at that time one of the leading reporters in that city and private secretary to the postmaster, he located per- manently in Chester county, first acting as reporter on the Morning Rcpablican, and doing general shorthand work. In 1886 he was appointed official stenographer of the courts of Chester county by Judge Futhey, which position he has held ever since. In addition to his court work in Chester county he is actively engaged in the same line of work in all the counties in eastern Pennsyl- vania, Philadelphia and New Jersey, with headquarters in Philadelphia, where he is a member of the stenographic firm of Clift & Lewis, whose offices are at No. 441 Chestnut street, in that city. On April 19, 1888, he was united in mar- riage with Maude Ker Smith, daughter of I. Milton Smith, formerly of Unionville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and now of Philadelphia. Their union has been blessed with two children, Walter Hallowell and Ralph Milton. In politics Mr. Lewis is a republican, is an active member and secretary of the county committee, and always gives his party an earnest and hearty support. He is a mem- ber of the Society of i'riends, and stands high as an honorable and upright citizen. JOSEPH T. PRICE, a thorough and practical machinist of West Chester, is a son of Lucius D. and Anna M. (Haines) Price, and was born in that borough on April 23, 1859. His paternal grandfather, James B. Price, was a native of Pennsyl- vania, and died in Baltimore county, Mary- land, about 1847, aged fifty-three years. OF CHMStEB COUNfy. 599 His profession was that of a physician. Lucius B. Price (father) was born in Balti- niore county, Maryland, and came to "West Chester in 1848, where he now lives, en- gaged in the harness business. He is a stanch republican, giving his party an earn- est support, but entertaining no political ambitions for himself. In 1852 Mr. Price was married to Knxnx, M. Haines, a daughter of John T. and Hannah W. Haines, of West Chester. She passed away to her final rest on March 13, 1865. They had three child- ren, one daughter and two sons : Anna, Joseph and Jacob. His maternal grandfather, John T. Haines, was a native of Pennsylvania, and lived all his life — with the exception of thirteen years, which he spent in California — in the borough of "West Chester, where he was en- gaged in the business of a contractor and builder. In politics he was an old-line whig, and after the birth of the Republican party, gave it his support. In 1829 he was mar- ried to Hannah W. Williams, by whom he had a family of six children, four of whom grew to maturity and became useful and re- spected members of society. Joseph T. Price received his education in the public schools of his native borough, being graduated from the High school in the class of 1877, and began fitting himself for his chosen occupation — that of machin- ist — serving as an apprentice in the shop of Speakman & Miles from 1877 to 1881. On October 14, 1886, Mr. Price was uni- ted in marriage with Jeannetta Bailey, a daughter of Jesse Bailey, of West Chester. To Mr. and Mrs. Price have been born three children: Walter E., deceased; Joseph H., and George T. Having worked as a jour- neyman for nine years, Mr. Price was well qualified and capable of going into business on his own account, which he did in Feb- ruary, 1890 — first locating on Bernard street and afterward moving to his present site, on the corner of Chestnut and Walnut streets. He does a general jobbing busi- ness, makes working models and experi- mental machines, and in connection with this, makes a specialty of creamery sup- plies of all kinds. In politics he adheres to the principles of the Republican party, and is a member of West Chester Lodge, N"o. 42, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. Price is a thorough mechanic and a prac- tical business man of wide experience, who has met with unusual success. He has a shop well supplied with the best of machin- ery, and his work gives entire satisfaction to his patrons and is rapidly building up a lucrative business and creating an enviable reputation for Mr. Price among the manu- facturers and business men of Chester county. nOBERT W. PECHIN, a prosperous farmer residing near Straftbrd, this county, is a son of William andEliza(Bew- ley) Pechin, alid was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1831. The Pechins are of French Huguenot stock, and the family was founded in Amer- ica by Christopher Pechin, who was driven by religious persecution from his native country, with many others of like faith, and emigrating to America, finally settled in Philadelphia. He was a merchant and for many years did' a thriving business in the city of his adoption, actively supporting the cause of the colonies in their confiict with England, and contributing liberally of his means toward carrying on the revolutionary war. Among his children was John Pechin (grandfather), who was born in Philadel- 600 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY pliia, where he passed his entire life, dying there in 1860 at the good old age of ninety- four years. He was a carpenter by trade, and served as tax collector in that city for a number of years. In religion he was an Episcopalian, always liberal in his contribu- tions for religious or benevolent purposes, and his remains sleep in front of St. Paul's Episcopal church — the third church of Philadelphia in point of -age. Politically he was a whig', and took an active interest in the success of his party. He married a Miss Wallace, and reared a family of four children, three sons and a daughter, named respectively Robert, William, John and Almira. Peter Pechiu, a brother of John, was a prominent citizen of Montgomery county in his day, and noted for his liberal contributions in aid of church work and I'eligious and benevolent objects generally. William Pechin (father) was born in the city of Philadelphia about 1794, where he grew to manhood and was educated. He continued to reside there until 1867, when he removed to Montgomery county, and died near King of Prussia, that county, in 1875, aged nearly eighty-one years. He was a tanner by trade and followed that occu- pation successfully for half a century. Po- litically he was a democrat, though never taking any prominent part in politics. He was twice married, first wedding a Miss Adams, by whom he had one child, a son named John, who is now a farmer of West Whiteland township. After his first wife's death Mr. Pechin married Eliza Bewley, and to this union was born a family of eight children, seven sons and a daughter: John, William, Albert, Robert W., the subject of this sketch ; Edward T., deceased ; George ; Charles J., dead; and Anna, also deceased. Robert W. Pechin was reared in Phila- delphia and received his education in the public schools of that city. In 1843 he re- moved to Tredyftrin township, Chester county, where he has since resided, engaged in agricultural pursuits. He owns a good farm consisting of sixty-eight acres of ex- cellent land, all well improved and supplied with good fences and handsome farm build- ings. In his political affiliations Mr. Pechin is a stanch democrat, and while taking no very active part in practical politics is at all times loyal in his support of democratic . principles and policy. On October 1,1852, Mr. Pechin was mar- ried to Mary Henderson, a daughter of John Henderson, of the city of Philadelphia. Mrs. Pechin died May 26, 1872, aged thirty- six years, and leaving behind her a family of seven children, four sons and thi'ee daugh- ters, all of whom are still living : Mary E., who married John W. Pechin, a prosperous farmer of Montgomery county; Robert W. jr., who wedded Anna Parks, and resides in the State of Iowa ; Eliza, the wife of John Andrews, a butcher and farmer of Mont- gomery county, this State ; Warren R., now residing at Valley Store, East Whiteland, engaged in farming; Anna, engaged in teaching; John R., who married Lilian Lewis, and lives on the old homestead with his father; and Lorenzo P., who married Ida K. Axe, and is a farmer of Valley Store, in East Whiteland township. QEOKGE G. CARD WELL, a success- ful dental surgeon of West Chester,was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Septem- ber 10, 1841. He attended West Chester academy,from which he graduated, and after- ward studied dentistry under Dr. Clayton. After fourteen years of continuous practice. mUe^f ^-^/m-oot/^ OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 60B he entered Philadelphia Dental college, from which he was graduated in the class of the Centennial year, and after graduation he re- turned to West Chester, where he has been ever since, actively and successfully engaged in the practice of dental surgery. His com- modious and well fitted up parlors, at No. 1 19 West Market street, are fully equipped with all the necessary modern appliances of dentistry, and special care and attention are given to all his patrons, and to every detail of his office work. Dr. Cardwell is a good workman in his profession and stands well with the public as a man and a citizen. QARRETT ELWOOD BKOWN- BACK, the largest retailer in the but- ter business in the United States,"and prob- ably the largest in the world, is a native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and was born December 27, 1846, near Bethel church. East Vincent township, on land originally settled by his great-great-grandfather, Ger- herd'Brownbaugh, about 1716. He is a son of Jesse and Elizabeth (Christman) Brown- back. Gerherd Brownbaugh was a native of Wurtemburg, Germany, who came to America in 1685, and settled where Ger- mantown now stands. He died in 1757. On coming to Chester county he purchased and settled on the land now occupied by Lazetta Garber, near Bethel church. He was the founder of Brownback's German Reformed church, was an extensive farmer, owning one thousand acres of land, and also kept the first hotel in that locality. His wife was Mary Papen, a granddaughter of William Riteuhouse, and by her he had two sons, Benjamin and Henry, and five daugh- ters. The sons both became Ciiester county farmers, and Benjamin succeeded his father in the hotel business, and served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Henry Brown- back (great-grandfather) was born, lived and died in East Coventry township, this county, and among his children was Peter Brown- back (grandfather), who on March 29, 1803, married Susannah DefraneBrownback, wid- ow of Edward Brownback, by whom he had a family of two sons : Jesse and John, only one of whom now sui'vives. Jesse Brown- back (father) was born in East Coventry township on March 18, 1807, where he still lives at the age of eighty-five years. He married Elizabeth Christman, of Chester county, and was the father of eleven chil- dren, ten of whom still survive : Penrose W., Clemantine, Anna, Garrett Elwood, subject of this sketch ; Martha, Frederick, Jacob C, Edith, Margaret, and Lewis C, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere on these pages — which see for additional ancestral history of the Brownback family. Garrett Elwood Brownback was educated in the State iN'ormal school at Millersville, being graduated in 1865, and subsequently took a course in pharmacy under Professor Kimble, studying the analysis of milk. He then became a clerk for Jesse Rinehart at Brownback's store in Chester county, where he remained one year. In 1867 he formed a partnership with his brother, Penrose W., and embarked in the mercantile business on his own account, in the storeroom owned by George Davis, at Linfield. There they conducted the business successfully for a pe- riod of three years, at the end of which time they erected and removed to a store build- ing of their own. The firm continued to prosper, and Garrett Elwood Brownback re- mained a member thereof until 1876, when he withdrew to engage in his present bnsi- 604 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY iiess, of which a writer in the "Industrial and Commercial Growth of Montgomery County," published in 1891, speaks as fol- lows: "In referring to the vast commercial in- terests of Montgomery county the creamery industry is one of importance, and prom- inent among the largest representatives in this line is Mr. G. E. Brownback, a native of Chester county, and a gentleman named after old Garrett Brownback, one of the first settlers in Pennsylvania. The name of Brownback extends back several genera- tions, and is substantially well known throughout this section of the State. Mr. Brownback originally established his enter- prise here in October, 1877. He also oper- ates two other creameries — one known as the Elgin and the other as the Limerick Square creamery. An extensive business is prosecuted and thousands of quarts of cream is weekly worked up into 'Famous Golden Butter,' which is believed to be un- surpassed in firmness of texture, flavor and general excellence. The output at present is from nine hundred to one thousand pounds of butter daily, besides some twenty- five hundred pounds purchased weekly from other reliable sources to supply an extensive trade which is all over Philadelphia. Mr. Brownback, to facilitate the demands of the business, has four stalls, two wholesale and two retail, in Ridge-avenuc farmers' mar- ket, and from here are supplied icn thousand pounds of butter, besides a large amou^it of eggs, poultry, and other produce. Mr. Brownback now offers to liis patrons and others the purest creamery products of the market, and delivers orders to any part of the cit}', and without a doubt sells more but- ter than any other retail dealer in Philadel- phia. To cater to the demands of so vast a trade fifteen skilled men are employed in the creameries and four teams utilized. The creameries are fitted out with the De- Lavalve separators, the finest in the market ; Blanchard churns, and Babcock milk test- ters. The machinery is operated by four fif- teen-horse-power engines in all. Mr.Brown- back is a thorough dairyman in every sense of the term. In 1888 he attended a course of lectures under Professor Trimble at Phil- adelphia, on the analysis of milk, and is a practical analyst himself. He operates also an ice plant for his own use, and can make ten thousand pounds of ice a month. In the successful conduct of such an establish- ment every known trade improvement is enjoyed. Hamm-ond typewriter, telephone, fine large safe, and the ofiice generally is fitted out in an attractive and perfect man- ner. Socially, the subject of this extensive review is well known for his personal worth, energy and thrift. He owns about one- third of Linfield and is the most extensive real estate owner here. He is a director of the Industrial Savings bank and' vice-presi- dent of the Home National bank of Royer's Ford, and commands the esteem of all witli whom he comes in contact." Since the above was written Mr. Brown- back's business has largely increased, so that his weekly sales amount to from ten to twelve thousand pounds of butter per week. He is now proprietor of the Elgin cream- ery, at East Coventry, Chester county; the Linfield creamery, at Linfield, Montgomery county; the Limerick Square creamery, at Limerick Square, same county ; and the Bio- Spring creamery, at Big Spring, Lebanon county. Beside selling the entire product of these four creameries, he buj's for his trade about twenty-five hundred pounds of butter every week from the Excelsior cream- OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 605 ery. Mr. Brownback has about twenty thousand dollars invested in the creamery business, and the aggregate of milk con- sumed every day is about thirty thousand pounds, producing nearly fourteen hundred pounds of butter. He resides at Linfield, Montgomery county, where he owns one- third of the real estate in that beautifully situated and thriving village, which contains about five hundred inhabitants, and is situ- ated on the lieading railroad, about thirty- four miles from the city of Philadelphia. Mr. Brownback is noted for his business tact and the urbanity of his manners, and is said to be one of the best salesmen that ever stood behind a counter or in a market stall. His trade extends west to Chicago and east to New York city, and the reputation of his "golden butter" is unsurpassed by that of any other on the face of the globe. He is I'egarded not only as a leader in his line of business, but as authority on all questions connected with creameries or butter making. On January 20, 1874, Mr. Brownback was united in marriage to Emma Evans, a daugh- ter of Thomas B. Evans, an aged and prom- inent citizen of Linfield,Montgomery county, this State. To their union has been born a family of six children, three sons and three daughters: Mary Elizabeth, Carrie Grace, Lottie Evans, Garrett Arthur, Jesse Evans, and John Kenneth, all living at home with their parents, except the two oldest, who are (1893) at the Moravian school, Lititz, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Mary Elizabeth Brownback graduated in 1892. T^HOMAS D. GROVER, an active re- publican leader of Chester county, and iiu extensive contractor and builder of Phoe- nixville, is one who has lived a busy and useful life and has promptly and honorably discharged the duties of every position in which he has served. He is a son of Thomas J. and Eliza (Miles) Grover, and was born in Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, December 10, 1840. He at- tended the common schools of his native township and after receiving a good English education, he learned the trade of carriage maker, which he followed for seven years. At the end of that time he learned the trade of carpenter, and entered the shops of the Phoenix Iron Company, where he was soon made foreman of the riveting shop, in which, under his supervision, was constructed the greater part of Second and Third avenue N'ew York city elevated railroad. After ten years of continuous service in the em- ploy of that well known company, he re- signed his position in 1880 and engaged in his present prosperous contracting and build- ing business. The founder of the Grover family in America was Christian Grover, who married and came from Germany to Chester county, where he cleared out a large farm in Tredy- ftrin township, on which he resided until his death. He reared a family of eight children : John, born April 16, 1759 ; Hugh, November 28, 1760; George, October 27, 1762; Mary, December 1, 1765; Robert, June 1, 1767; Elizabeth, May 21, 1770; Margaret, April 15, 1773; and Sarah, No- vember 10, 1775. Robert Grover, the fourth son, and grandfather of Thomas D. Grover, was reared in Tredyft'rin township, where he spent his life as a farmer, was born Juno 1, 1767. He was a democrat, and a mem- ber of the Protestant Episcopal church, and on May 2, 1793,wedded Ann Reed, by whom he had ten children : Elizabeth, born May 1, 1794; Margaret, Junuary 29, 1796; John 606 BIOGBAPHY AND mSTORY R., December 10, 1796; Eleanor J., March 10, 1798; Mary, June 25, 1799; Margaret, August 30, 1800 ; Ann, July 1, 1803 ; Sarah, May 29, 1804 ; Thomas J., January 3, 1806 ; and Eleanor, August 11, 1807. Thomas J. (father), the youngest son, was reared oh the farm, and died in his native township; on August 25, 1891, aged eighty-five years, six months and twenty-two days. On Oc- tober 2, 1834, he married Eliza Miles, who was born October 16, 1809, and passed away August 30, 1872, at sixty -five years of age. They were the parents of six children : Rob- ert, a farmer of Montgomery county, born February, 1835; Angeline, born March, 1837; Mary A., born January 10, 1839, and the wife of William Werstler ; Thomas D. ; Charles F., ,born October, 1842, and now resident of Phcenixville ; and Leonard F., a farmer, who was born March 29, 1846. Thomas D. Grover is a republican, and has always been active and influential in the political affairs of his county. He was a can- didate for recorder of deeds at the repub- lican pi'imaries of Chester county, which were held on September 3, 1892. No man takes a greater interest in the prosperity of Phcenixville than Mr. Grover. He is a mem- ber of Phcenixville Baptist church. Phoenix Lodge, ISTo. 212, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Saiikanoc Lodge, No. 58, Knights of Pythias; Washington Castle, No. 45, Knights of the Golden Eagle; and Josiah White Post, No. 45, Grand Army of the Republic. When Pennsylvania was invaded by Lee in 1863, Mr. Grover was one who patriotically responded to the call of the State and Nation for help, and enlisted in Co. 15, 134th Pennsylvania militia, in which he served until the Confederates were driven from the State. On March :i3, 1864, Mr. Grover was uni- ted in marriage with Mary E. Pennypacker, a daughter of Mathias and Elizabeth Penny- packer, of Phcenixville. To Mr. and Mrs. Grover have been born three children, two sons and one daughter: Eliza OliYJa, born November 15, 1866, and married to Harry S. Priest, of Phcenixville; J. Harry, born October 5, 1871, living at home with his parents; and Robert P., born November 15, 1875, and also at home. JOHN F. KAUFFMAN, an intelligent and respected citizen and a well known surveyor and conveyancer of Berwyn, is a son of Henry and Sarah (Campbell) Kauft- man, and was born in Easttown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 7, 1831. His paternal grandfather, John Kauftman, was a son of one of three broth- ers who came from Germany to Pennsyl- vania, one of whom settled in East White- land township, the other two going farther west. One located in Lancaster county, and the other made his home on the Juniata river, in Center county. John Kauftman was a miller, and soon removed from East Whiteland to Easttown township, where he exchanged the occupation of milling for that of farming. He was a whig in politics, and died in 1846, leaving three surviving chil- dren : Jacob, Isaac and Henry ; David and Mary having been dead for a number of years. Henry Kauftman (father) was born near Berwyn in 1805, and died in the same house in which he was born in 1864, aged fifty-nine years. He was a copper by trade, and carried on tlic business, making nail kegs for the Phojuix Nail Company, and flour barrels, for a number of years, in con- nection with farming. Me gave up cooper- ing about twenty years i^rior to his death. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 607 and gave his time solely to farming. He was an old-line whig and republican in political matters, vfhile in religious thought he was a Baptist. He married Sarah Camp- bell, daughter of William Campbell, and who died in 1887, at eighty-seven years of age. By this marriage he had seven chil- dren : ElizaBowman, John F., David, Mary Cleaver, Henry, Sarah Downing and Martha Fennemore. Of these children, Eliza, David and John F. attended Lewisburg university, and Mary was a student at Leititz academy. John F. Kauflman received his elementa- ry education in the public schools, and then took a special course at Lewisburg (now Bueknell) university. Leaving school he was employed in farming for his father un- til 1857, when he engaged in his present business of conveyancing and surveying, which he has followed ever since, except a short time spent in mining in the gold fields of Colorado, and six weeks spent in 1863 as an emergency man in defense of this State against the Confederate invasion of that year, during which alarming period he served as a private in the Pennsylvania militia. Mr. Kauffman has always sup- ported the Republican party, and is a mem- ber of Great Valley Baptist church, and of Thompson Lodge, No. 340, Free and Ac- cepted Masons. He has given such evidence of his ability and qualifications as a surveyor . that his services as such are constantly in demand, while as a conveyancer he does a large amount of work. In 1856 Mr. Kauffman married Hannah M. Evans, who was a daughter of Thonias B. and Jane Evans, and died in 1869, leav- ing one child, Rena, who is now engaged in teaching in Delaware county. On July 2, 1876, Mr. Kauftman wedded Mary R. Beau- mont, daughter of Emmor and Susan Beau- mont, and to this second union have been born three children : Frank, who died in childhood; Bessie, and H. Allen. lUTALACHI HARRIS, an energetic and * prosperous farmer of Willistown town- ship, is a son of John and Hannah (Hoskins) Harris, and was born January 28, 1830, in Chester county, Pennsylvania. His pa- ternal grandfather. Col. John Harris, was a native of Chester Valley, this county, and made, his home in that immediate neigh- borhood all his life. He was engaged in farming. In politics he upheld democratic principles, while in religion he was a de- voted member of the Great Valley Presby- terian church for nearly half a century, serving as an elder for a portion of the time. He was a colonel in the revolutionary war, and was at Valley Forge during the winter that such terrible suffering was experienced there. He was married to a Miss Bowen. To them were born six children, three sons and three daughters : John, Thomas, Mal- achi, Esther, Martha and Mary. John (father) was born in Willistown township. He died in East Whiteland township about 1837.. Like his father he followed farming. At one time he studied for the ministry, but was never licensed to preach. He married Hannah Hoskins, and to them were born five children : John, who lives in Kent county, Maryland, is a large farmer and fruit grower ; Theresa (deceased) ; Martha (also dead) ; Malachi, and Bowen, now dead. Malachi Harris received his education in the common schools of his native township. He commenced his chosen occupation of farming in Willistown township, and has been continuously engaged therein in the same locality. He owns a fine farm, of 608 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY thirty-five acres, which lies within the bor- ough limits of Malvern, and deals to some extent in hay. On November 6, 1851, Mr. Harris was united in marriage with Elizabeth G. Mc- Cluen, a daughter of John MeCluen, of West Whiteland township. In politics Mr. Harris is a strong demo- crat, and is a member of the Willistown Baptist church at Malvern, having been on the board pf trustees for thirty years. He is an industrious farmer and a useful citizen in the community in which he resides. TTDAM A. CATANACH, a highly re- spected citizen of Devault, and a dealer in lime, coal and building material in Phil- adelphia, is a son of Archibald and Margaret (Notman) Catanach, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, July 23, 1836. His paternal granfather, Adam Catanach, jr., was a son of Adam Catanach, who was a na- tive of the highlands of Scotland, where he lived and died. During his life time he en- gaged in agricultural pursuits near the cap- ital city, Edinburgh. He was married to Janet Duncan, and had a family of six chil- dren, of whom Alexander, who died in Mex- ico, and Archibald (father) came to America. Archibald Catanach was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1808. He received his edu- cation in the schools of his native city. In 1828 he emigrated to America and located at Philadelphia, where he died in 1872. He made his home there, with the exception of ten years which he spent in the west. His vocation was that of carpentering and build- ing. Politically he was a republican. His religious preference was the Presbyterian church. He was united in mai-riage with Margaret Notman, a daughter of David Not- man, who was a native of Scotland. To Mr. and Mrs. Catanach were born seven children : Mary ; Janet, who married Thomas Turnball, present secretary of the famous Hartford Fire Insurance Company, and re- sides in the city of Hartford ; Adam ; Agnes, married and lives in Glasgow, Scotland; John, who lives a i-etired life in the city of Philadelphia, having served in the Penn- sylvania reserves three years during the late civil war, and again re-enlisted and served until the close of that struggle ; David, who also served during most of the war, and is now engaged in the real estate business iu Philadelphia; and James, special agent of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. Adam A. Catanach received his education in the grammar schools of Philadelphia, and then learned the trade of a carpenter, and, after serving for a while, entered into a larger and more profitable business — that of a contractor and builder, which he car- ried on extensively for eighteen years in and around Philadelphia. On November 29, 1859, Mr. Catanach was united in marriage with Margaret Carrick, a daughter of John Carrick, of Philadelphia. To Mr. and Mrs. Catanach have been born seven children : John, who is engaged with his father in business; Archie, married to Clara Wersler, and is also engaged with his father ; Adam A., married Pauline Werner, and is the superintendent of his father's yards in Philadelphia; Notman; Madge; Mary, and Jessie. In 1882 Mr. Catanach commenced his present business, that of lime burning, in East Whiteland township. He is a director and treasurer of a company known as the Pennsylvania Lime & Fluxion Stone Company. This company has a quarry of twenty-nine acres and employs thirty men, Mr* Catanach does an extensive busi- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 609 iiess in Philadelphia, handling coal, lime and building material. In politics he is stanch republican, and has served as a councilman and port warden of that city. He is a mem- ber of Philadelphia Lodge, No. 82, Free and Accepted Masons ; Jerusalem Chapter, No. 3, Royal Arch Masons ; and Philadel- phia Commandery, No. 2, Knights Templar. He is a man of influence in his community, and enjoys the respect and good will of all who know him and have business relations with him. TA/lLIilAM W. COLKET, president of the Chestnut Hill Eailroad Company, by the influence which he has had upon the railway interests of his section, his energy and dilligence, and his marked individuality and business success, has made himself one of the leading men of his county. He is a son of Cofiin and Mary P. (Walker) Colket, and was born November 11, 1841, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He re- ceived his education at Elmwood institute and Haverford college, and then took a special course atLawrencevilleHigh school. Leaving school his ambition led him toward railway business, for which he seemed nat- urally fitted. In 1857 he became superin- tendent's clerk and general ticket agent for the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad Company, which position he held until 1861, when he became secretary and treasurer of the Philadelphia City Passen- ger Railway Company, and had the general , management of that enterprise. "William W. Colket was united in mar- riage with Jane F., daughter of Solomon and Eunice G. Hoxsie, of the city of Phila- delphia, and to them have been born eight children, seven sons and one daughter: S. Hoxsie, who died in boyhood ; Mary E., who passed away in infancy; William C, now dead ; Herbert, also deceased ; Edward Burton, James Hamilton, Meredith Bright and Percy Currie. On his paternal side Mr. Colket traces his ancestry, to northern New England, where his grandfather, Peter Colket, was born in 1758, in New Hampshire, where he died in 1836. He was a ship-builder, and carried on ship building extensively in the harbors of Maine and New Hampshire. He mai-ried and had three children, one son and two daughters ; Coffin, Priscilla and Mary. Cof- fin Colket (father) was born at Epping, New Hampshire, in 1809. At an early age he turned his attention and his energy to rail- road building, in which he was actively en- gaged for many years. He came to Phila- delphia, became a large contractor on the old Columbia railroad, and was largely in- strumental in securing the construction of the Chester Valley railroad. He was prom- inently identified with the building of sev- eral of the early railways in southeastern Pennsylvania. He lived and labored in a season not only of railroad speculation and excitement, but one of useful experience and practical results ; and the later flinging of iron pathways over the mountains, and across the continent, was possibly largely and successful really from the experience gleaned in that important decade of early railway building in which Mr. Colket was so remarkably active in Chester county. He was a republican in politics, and died April 5, 1883, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He married Mary P. Walker, and to their union were born four sons and five daughters : Sarah, died in infancy ; William W. ; George H. ; Mary J. Audehried ; Anna Dehaven ; Harry C. ; Ida French ; Enima, who died young; and Charles, Mrs. Cofiin 610 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Colket was a daughter of William and Sarah Walker, and was born in 1820. On his maternal side William W. Colket is a descendant of Lewis Walker, of Monmouth- shire, Wales, who in 1687 came to Philadel- phia, where on February 22, 1693, he mar- ried Mary Morris, who came on the same ship with him. They afterward settled in Tredyffrin township, where he died Decem- ber 20, 1728, and his widow passed away twenty years later. In addition to being president of the Chestnut Hill Railroad Company, William W. Colket is president of the Philadelphia City Passenger Eailroad Company, and sec- retary of the Philadelphia & Darby Rail- way Company. He owns a fine farm, and makes a specialty of raising blooded stock. He is a republican in politics, and never loses interest in the great political issues of the day. President Colket is essentially a man of action, and has never been fettered by the prejudices that have injured the career of 80 many able business men. His trained business judgment and quick perception give him successful mastery over all the difierent situations that naturally arise in the management of a great railway system. 1r\R' JUSTIN E. HARLAN, D. D. S., a rising young dentist of West Chester, is a graduate of the university of Pennsylva- nia and has been in practice here since 1884, where he has won a deservedly proud stand- ing in his profession, and is also a represen- tative of one of the Commonwealth's oldest and most highly respected families. He is the second of the three sons of Hon. Abram D. and Lizzie B. (Scott) Harlan, and a native of Coatesville, this county, where he was born September 27, 1860. There he grew to manhood, receiving a good English edu- cation in the public and private schools. of that borough, after which he entered the university of Pennsylvania, and was grad- uated from the dental department of that institution in 1881, with the degree of D. D. S. He immediately opened a dental oflice in the city of Philadelphia, where he remained in practice for a period of three years, and then removed to West Chester, this county, where he has ever since resided and given his unremitting attention to the duties connected with his profession, having built up a fine practice. Li his political convictions Dr. Harlan is a pronounced re- publican, giving his party a loyal support on all leading questions. On January 8, 1885, Dr. Harlan was vy^edded to Martie E. Sample, a daughter of M. R. Sample, of Glen Moore, this county, and to the Doctor and Mrs. Hai'lan has been given one child, a daughter, named Chris- tine S., who was born October 9, 1885. The Harlan family ranks among the old- est in Pennsylvania, and traces its transat- lantic ancestry back to the Harlans of Monk- wearmouth, England, from whence came George Harlan, a son of James Harlan, with his wife, Elizabeth, and four children — Ezekiel, Hannah, Moses and Aaron — some time between 1685 and 1688, and settled first in IfTew Castle county, near where Centreville now stands, but in later life re- moved farther up the Brandywine and pur- chased four hundred and seventy acres of land in Kennett(now Pennsbury) township. In addition to the four who came with him, five other children were born to George Harlan in his Pennsylvania home : Rebekah, Deborah, James, Elizabeth and Joshua. While living in Kennett township he had for neighborp a settlement of Indians, and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 611 after they left, in 1701, he obtained a grant of two hundred acres additional land, to compensate him for "the great trouble and charge he has bore in fencing and maintain- ing the same for the Indians while living thereon," as the records have it. He died in 1714, and was buried by the side of his wife at Centre meeting house. His eldest son, Ezekiel Harlan, was born in England, July 16, 1679, married first Mary Bezerand afterward Ruth Bufflngton. He was an en- terprising citizen and a land speculator. His children were: "William, Ezekiel, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Ruth and Benjamin. Ezekiel Harlan (grandfather) married Hannah M. BuUu, by whom he had a family of children. He was a farmer, and resided most of his life in "West Marlborough town- ship. One of his sons was Hon. Abram Douglas Harlan (father), who was born in that township, September 3, 18-33, and when eleven years of age removed with his par- ents to Coatesville. He was educated in the public and private schools of this county, learned the business of a merchant, became a dealer in real estate, and in the eai-ly spring of 1862 entered the employ of the Christian commission, and did good service in caring for the sick and wounded soldiers at Fort- ress Monroe, Harrison Landing,Washington and Antictam. In October of that year, urged by a sense of duty, he entered the army as a private soldier in an independent company of cavalry, and later became first lieutenant of a company connected with the 157th Pennsylvania infantry, which organ- ization he afterward served as regimental quartermaster. Politically he is an ardent republican, and has been frequently honored by appointment and election to official posi- tion. He was transcribing clerk of the Pennsylvania house of representatives dur- 36 . ing the sessionsof 1864, and message clerk of the same body in 1865, 1866 and 1867. In 1872 he represented Chester county in the Republican State convention, and was one of the assistant clerks of the Pennsylvania constitutional convention of 1872-73. He served under Hon. A. P. Tutton, supervisor of internal revenue, as a special clerk for nearly two years, and when that gentleman was appointed collector of customs of the port of Philadelphia, he gave Mr. Harlan the responsible position of assistant cashier, a position to which he was re-appointed under Genei'al Ilartranft. He was elected State senator to fill the unexpired term of Senator Everhart, March 31, 1883, re-elected to the State senate in ,1884, and in Novem- ber, 1888, again elected for a term of four years. He is at present United States mar- shal for the eastern district. In 1873 he edited and ].>ubli8hed a small volume enti- tled " Constitutional Convention of Pennsyl- vania, 1872 and 1873, its Members and Offi- cers." He has served as school director at Coatesville for twenty years, and been iden- tified with all the educational and material interests of that borough. He was the first to suggest the introduction of gas, and in 1868 secured a charter for the Coatesville Gas Company, and originated and organized the Coatesville Building association. It was he who conceived the idea of the Fairview cemetery, and was instrumental in obtaining the charter and organizing the company. While dealing in real estate in that borough he was largely interested and very active in laying out additional town lots, erecting houses and opening, grading and paving new streets. Since his eighteenth year he has been a member of the Presbyterian church, in which he has served as Sunday school superintendent, trustee, treasurer and 613 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ruling elder. He represented the Presby- tery of Chester in the Presbyterian General assembly of 1880. On ISqw Year's day, 1857, Hon. A. D. Harlan was united in mar- riage to Lizzie B. Soott, a daughter of Sam- uel W. and Jane B. Scott, of Coatesville. By this union he had a family of three chil- dren, all sons: Walter L., died in infancy; Justin E., whose name heads this sketch; and Wallace Scott, who was graduated from Lafayette college in 1882, studied law, and is now practicing his profession at Coates- ville. The mother, Mrs. Lizzie B. Harlan, died at her home in Coatesville, November 18, 1883, sincerely mourned by a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. QEORGE W. RAPP, who has been engaged in the milling business for over a quarter of a century, is the senior member of the enterprising firm of G. W. Eapp & 8ons,i proprietors of the Snyder flouring mills, of East Pikeland township. He is a son of Joseph H. and Margaret (Supplee) Rapp, and was born on the present site of Phcenixville, Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 31, 1887. His paternal grandfather, Barney Rapp, was born near Valley Forge, in Schuylkill town- ship, and followed his trade of blacksmith in connection with farming, and was a well- to-do man for his day. He married and reared a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters: Barney, John, Joseph H., Hannah Bane, Esther, Rachel Boyer and Benjamin, the latter now eighty-five years of age, and the only one of the family liv- ing. George H. Rapp (father) was born in January, 1801, and died in March, 1888, aged eighty-two years. He was a coach- maker by trade, and followed coach making successively at Phcenixville and Kimberton, and then near the former place. He worked most actively at his trade during the early part of his life. He was an old-line whig in political opinion, and a consistent mem- ber of Phoenix Baptist church, in which he had served as a deacon for many years be- fore his death. He married Margaret Sup- plee, a daughter of Peter and Hannah (Easton) Supplee. Mr. and Mrs. Rapp were the parents of six children, five sons and one daughter : B. F., Joseph E., George W., Silas 8., Peter, and Eliza J. Townsend, now dead. George W. Rapp, after receiving a good English education, left home and learned the trade of miller with Benjamin Prizer. He then worked at milling in various places until 1867, when he rented the Thomas Snyder mill for twelve years, and at the end of that time, in 1879, he purchased the mill and the farm on w^hich it stood. He immediately refitted and enlarged the mill, and has since remodeled it at a cost of about seven thousand dollars. The mill is sit- uated on French creek, and has excel- lent water power. It is four stories high, forty by fifty-five feet in dimensions, and fully equipped throughout with first- class machinery. The capacity of the mill is fifty barrels per day. He uses the roller process, and is a wholesale and retail dealer in and a manufacturer of roller flour and all kinds of feed. He has a large amount of custom, runs a flour wagon to Spring City and Phcenixville, and ships constantly to Philadelphia, where his brands are well known and in good demand. His farm con- tains seventy-five acres of fertile and well- watered land, which is productive. He has erected on it two tine brick residence8,which are occupied by his sons, Joseph P. and U. 07'' CHESTER COUNTY. 613 S. Grant. Adjoining his mill he has hnilt a wheelwright shop, which has a water motor, whose base of supply is French creek, which passes through his farm. On December 28, 1862, Mr. Rapp married Andora Yeager, daughter of Peter Yeager, of East Pikeland. To their union have been born three children, two sons and one daughter : Joseph P., U. 8. Grant and Anna Margaretta. Joseph P. Rapp married Mary, daughter of John Brower, of Pottstown, Montgomery county, is a miller by trade, and has been for some time a member of the milling firm of G. W. Rapp & Sons. U. S. Grant Rapp married Mary Detwiler, and is also a member of the above named milling firm. Anna Margaretta Rapp married Irvin Moyer, a farmer of East Vincent townfehip. G. W. Rapp is a republican in politics. He is a man of great business ability and enterprise, and has made such valuable im- provements on his farm as to make it one of the most desirable properties in the town- ship. He is regarded as oije of the fore- most citizens of his community. QAPT. JAMES C. BROOKS, a man of fine business ability and the president of the Southwort Foundry and Machine Company of Philadelphia, is recognized as an example of what a man can accomplish who relies upon his own energy and persist- ent labor for success. He is a son of James and Phoebe (Paxson) Brooks, and was born in New Albany, Indiana, March 26, 1843. The Brooks family is of English lineage and is one of the oldest families of the State of Maine and northern New England. William Brooks, the paternal grandfather of Captain Brooks, was a native of Maine and a ship builder by occupation. In early life he re- moved to Ohio, where he died at Cincinnati. His son, Capt. James Brooks (father), was born in Bangor, Maine, and removed, when a boy, with his parents, from the Pine Tree State toCincinnati, Ohio, where he remained until he attained his majority. He then went to New Albany and engaged in the wholesale hardware business, which he fol- lowed for many years at that place, where he died in 1867, aged fifty-seven years. During the late war he was appointed by Secretary Stanton to purchase and fit up a ram fleet and to organize a marine briga,de for service on the waters of the Mississippi river. He moved with rapidity in the mat- ter and in a short time a very tine fleet was moving down the Father of Waters. He was a remarkably successful business man, and one of the largest enterprises in which he ever engaged was the building of the New Albany & Salem railroad, of which he was president for many years. This road is now known as the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago railroad, being an important link in the railways of the North Central States. Mr. Brooks was a republican in politics, and a member and ruling elder of the Presbyte- rian church, and married Phoebe Paxson, a native of the city of Philadelphia, and a member of the Presbyterian church, who died at West Chester in January, 1892, when in the eighty -first year of her age. James C. Brooks was reared in his native city until he was fourteen years of age, when he entered an academic school in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from which he was graduated just before the commence- ment of the late war. In 1863 he enlisted in the United States commissary department in the west, with the rank of captain, and was assigned to duty in the marine brigade on the Mississippi river. He took part in 614 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY several encounters, and was at the siege and capture of Vicksburg. He returned home after the war closed, and in the latter part of 1865 went to New York city, where he was engaged in the wool business for three years. At the end of that time, in 1868, he removed to Philadelphia, where he was connected for nearly twenty years with the .heavy maeVunery manufacturing firm of William Sellers & Company, of which he was a partner during the larger part of the time. In 1886 Captain Brooks retired from the firm, but eight months later, upon pressing solicitation, accepted his present position of president of the Southwort Foundry and Machine Company, of Phila- delphia. He is now serving as a member of the executive council of the board of trade of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Man- ufacturing and Mutual Insurance companies, and as a trustee of the Williamson free school of mechanical trades. On January 25, 1872, Mr. Brooks was united in marriage with Mary C, a daughter of James and Hannah Murtagh, of West Chester. Mr. and Mrs. Brooks have two children, a son and a daughter: Massey and Fannie A. Captain Brooks is a republican m polities, and has been for many years a regular at- tendant of the Protestant Episcopal church. He is a member of the Pennsylvania His- torical society of Philadelphia, and the Union League and the Manufacturing clubs of the same city. He is a pleasant and courteous gentleman, and owns a beautiful home on the corner of Church street and Virginia avenue, where he resides during the summer, while he spends the winter in Philadelphia. Mr. Brooks has been inter- ested in many business enterprises of the leading eastern cities during the last twenty years, and has often made his influence and capital felt for the material improvement of the places where he does business, in meas- ures with which he has not been personally connected. His name, however, is most closely identified with and best known in re- gard to the manufacturing interests of Phil- adelphia than with any other city of the United States in which he has been inter- ested in business enterprises. James C. Brooks is a man of clear and vigorous in- tellect. He is energetic, resolute and mas- terful in the prosecution of his enterprises. He possesses to a high degree those charac- teristics which inspire confidence in all with whom he comes in contact, and gives the assurance of success ere it is won. Like every American citizen who has risen to distinction, he has achieved success by earn- est and persistent eftbrt. nOBERT THOMPSON CORN- WEIiLi, commonly known as Captain Cornwell, is a prominent lawyer of West Chester, residing on the northwest corner of Virginia avenue and Darlington street. He was born in Orange county, iN^ew York, January 29, 1835. His father, Daniel Corn- well, died May 29, 1883, aged eighty years. His mother, Elizabeth (Thompson) Cornwell, is still living and resides at Port Jervis, Orange county, New York. He received his education at public and private schools, at the Monticello academy in Sullivan county. New York, and at "The University of Northern Pennsylvania," an academy situ- ated at Bethany, Wayne county. His early occupation was teaching. He was, in 1853 and 1854, an instructor in both the above mentioned academies. In Api-il, 1855, he was called from the Monticello <^Ki^/ei/^ (Q/4tw^Mn '^t^inme^. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 615 acadmy to AlillersviUe, Lancaster county, ^^nnsylvania, to teach gi-aniniav and niatlie- matics in a three months' Noniua institute, held under the auspices of the late Dr. James P. Wickersham.then superintendent of com- mon schools in that county. This institute was so successful in its results as to lead to the establishment in the fall of that year of "The Lancaster county Normal school," in the same place; and Mr. Cornwell became a member of its faculty. He occupied this position until the fall of 1858, when he and J. Willis Westlake, A. M., from the same fac- ulty, resignad to accept an invitation to open what proved to be a very useful and success- ful academy and normal school at Indiana, Indiana county, Pennsylvania. In April, 1861, at the breaking out of the civil war, he raised a company, under the first call of President Lincoln for troops, many of his students joining it. But the company was not accepted, as a great many more troops were offered by Pennsylvania than were necessary to till her quota ofthe call; and Mr. Cornwell disbanded his com- pany and again resumed his school work, lu August, 1862, he I'aised another com- pany, which joined the 67th Pennsylvania infantry. This regiment organized at Phil- adelphia in October, 1861. A part of his men joined company I, and the remainder company K of that regiment, filling both to a maximum; and Captain Cornwell was mustered as the commanding officer of the former. He shared the services of his com- pany and regiment in 1862, guarding the navy yard and railroads at Annapolis, Mary- land- in 1863 as a part of the Eighth corps in Vest Virginia; and in 1864 as part of the Sixth corps in front of Petersburg, Vir- • •. at Monocacy, Maryland, and with General Sheridan in his great campaign in the Shenandoah valley. On the 13th of June, 1864, at the time of Ceneral Mih'oy's disaster in the Valley, Captain Cornwell was captured while sick with typhoid fever in the hospital, and remained a prisoner of war (most of the time in Libby prison, at Richmond,) until May 2, 1864, when he was specially exchanged. Early in July, 1864, while in front of Petersburg, he was de- tailed as provost marshal of the Third di- vision of the Sixth army corps, on the staff' of Gen. James B. Rickets, commanding that division, where he served until the expira- tion of his company's term of service, Oc- tober 25, 1864, when he was honorably dis- charged. Upon quitting the service he came to Westchester, where his wife and child were, and at once entered upon the studj' of the law in the office of Hon. William B. Wad- dell, now president judge of the courts of Chester county. He was admitted to prac- tice on the 10th of December, 1866, since which time he has devoted himself continu- ously to his professional work. He was for tenj'Cars (1868—1878) associated in the prac- tice of the law with the late Hon. William Darlington, under the firm name of Darling- ton & Cornwell. Captain Cornwell for five years (1873- 1878) held a commission in the National guard of the State, commanding the Wayne Fencibies of West Chester, an organization which always enjoyed a superior record. During the fierce railroad riots of 1877, he with his command guarded the engines and train which took Governor Hartranft and staff" over the mountains to Pittsburg, and almost immediately upon arriving there Captain Cornwell, in command of a battal- ion consisting of the Wayne Fencibies and Co. H, of Chester, Pennsylvania, was en- 616 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY trusted with the responsible duty of guard- ing one of the first two freight trains started east from Pittsburg on the Pennsylvania railroad. Mr. Cornwell was married May 9, 1859, to Lydia Ann Jackson, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, a daughter of Joseph and Mary Jackson, and a granddaughter of the late Gibbons Gray, of the same place. They have five children : Gibbons Gray, Martha Jackson, Mary Elizabeth, Ada Westlake, and William Darlington Cornwell. Gibbons Gray, the eldest sou, is a graduate of Yale university, class of 1886. He read law with his father, was admitted to the bar on the 10th of June, 1889, and since that date the father and son have been associated in prac- tice under the firm name of Cornwell & Cornwell. In adopting the law as a profession Cap- tain Cornwell did not lose his interest in educational work. He served as school di- rector in West Chester about twenty-five years, during the greater portion of which time he was president of the board; and he has been one of the trustees of the West Chester State Normal school almost contin- uously since its organization in 1871. He has moreover taken a leading part in other enterprises and charities of his vicinage. He has been president of the Electric Light Company of West Chester from the date of its organization in 1885 ; is president of the West Chester hospital ; chairman of the executive committee of the Dime's Saving )>ank of Chester county ; and is in the man- agement of the Assembly association of West Chester, the West Chester Street rail- way and Oaklands cemetery. Of the latter he has been secretary and treasurer for twenty-five years. He is a republican in politics. Attain- ing his majority with the birth of that party in 1856, he cast his first vote for its then candidate for president, John C. Fremont. He is a member of McCall Post, No. 31, Grand Army of the Republic, and also of the Union Veteran Legion. /^HAKLES L. COOK, a retired manu- facturer residing at Coatesville,is a man who has led a busy life, seen much of the world and been almost uniformly successful in whatever he has undei'taken. He was born April 15, 1818, in London, Grove town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, his par- ents being Thomas and Hannah (Edwards) Cook. The Cooks are of English antece- dents. John Cook (grandfather) was born in Chester county, where he passed his en- tire life engaged in agricultural pursuits. He owned a farm in London Grove town- ship, was a member of the Society of Friends, married Elizabeth Davis and reared a family of two sons and two daughters: Caleb, Thomas, Hannah and Sarah Cook. He died about 1825, aged eighty-nine years. Thomas Cook (father) was born in London Grove township, this county,' October 30, 1785, and after attaining manhood engaged in farming, and followed that occupation all his life. He died July 3, 1868, at the ad- vanced age of eighty-two years and seven months. In politics he was first a whig, but on the advent of the Republican party he identified himself with that po- litical organization. Following the relig- ious traditions of his family he early be- came a Quaker, and lived a useful and con- sistent life. He was active and industrious, possessed sound judgment and strict integ- rity of character, and became one of the most prosperous and progressive farmers of OF CHESTES COUNTY. M his township. He married Hannah Ed- wards in 1807, and to them was born a fam- ily of eight children. She was a native of London GTrove township, and a member of the orthodox Society of Friends, and died in 1866, aged eighty-one years and two months. Her father, John Edwards (ma- ternal grandfather), married Lydia Roberts, owned a fine farm, and in olden times ran a distillery. He was of English antecedents, the family coming to this country in 1600. Charles L. Cook grew to manhood on his father's farm in London Grove township, and acquired his educacion in the common schools of that early day, which found their home in the "little log school house" so familiarto early generations, but now known to our young men and women principally through literature and tradition. After leaving school he engaged in teaming and soon became familiar with all parts of the surrounding country, having driven over all the roads in this section. He was energetic and aspiring, and it was not long until he was engaged in running three threshing machines among the farmers, to him belong- ing the honor of having introduced the first threshing machine ever seen or used by the farmers of his neighborhood. About the same time he began to deal in live stock, purchasing cattle, sheep and horses in the west, and driving them through to markets in Philadelphia and among the farmers in .eastern Pennsylvania. While engaged in this business he made twenty-six trips over the Allegheny mountains. In 1851 he lo- cated in Philadelphia and embarked in the mercantile business, conducting two large re- tail stores in that city with P. E. Jefteris until 1852, when he bought a farm above the fork of Brandywine, in Pocopson township, and removed to CoateBville,this county, where he has ever since resided. After coming to this place he began the manufacture of phos- phate, and successfully carried on that en- terprise for a period of sixteen years. In 1878 he retired from active business with a handsome competency, and has since lived a quiet life, finding recreation and pleasure in superintending the operations of the two finefarms which he still owns in this county. On November 11, 1841, Mr. Cook was married to Hannah E. Jeffries, a daughter of James Jeft'ries, a farmer of Newlin town- ship, this county. They have no children. In politics Mr; Cook is an independent re- publican, but has never taken a prominent part in political contests, preferring to de- vote his time and attention to matters of business during his more active life, and in later years to the enjoyment of that rest and relaxation which is earned by a busy and successful career. FRANCIS ALLISON, D.D., a fine classical scholar and noted Presbyterian divine of Chester county, was born in County Donegal, Ireland, in 1705, and in 1735 came to this county, where he was pastor of New London Presbyterian church for fifteen years, and principal of New London acad- emy from 1743 to 1752. He then removed to Philadelphia, where he had charge of Philadelphia academy until 1755, in which year he was appointed professor of moral philosophy in the university of Pennsyl- vania, and became assistant pastor of the Eirst Presbyterian church of that city. He died November 29, 1779, and of him it is said that " to his zeal for the diffusion of knowledge Pennsylvania owes much of that taste for solid learning and classical liter- ature for which many of her principal char- acters have been distinguished." 618 BIOOBAPHY AND llISrORY CAMUEL KHOADS DOWNING is the only son of Sandvvith and Lydia (Smedley) Downing, and a native of Chester county, being born in East Fallowfield town- ship, September 3, 1833. He, was educated principally in Anthony Bolmar's private school at West Chester, and after complet- ing his studies spent some four years in the real estate and conveyancing business-with his guardian, Thomas Williamson, of Phil- adelphia. Mr. Downing subsequently be- came proprietor and editor of the Chester County Times, a weekly republican news- paper published at West Chester, which he conducted until 1863, when he disposed of his journal and retired to a farm in East Goshen township, to the management of which he has ever since devoted most of his time. lie now controls two iine farms in that township, aggregating two hundred and fifty acres of very valuable land. These farms mainly descended from the ancestry of Mrs. Downing, and have been in posses- sion of the family during nearly one hun- dred and fifty years. Mr. Downing is a member-at-large of the State board of agri- culture, having been appointed by Governor Beaver and re-appointed by Governor Patti- son. He was a member of the road com- mission, appointed by Governor Beaver in 1890 to formulate plans for macadamized roads in this State. Politically he is and has been an ardent republican. He has also taken an active interest in the cause of pop- ular education, and has served for thirteen years as school director in this county. In religion he and his family are Friends. On April 25, 1861, Mr. Downing was wedded to Mary Miller Goodwin, a daughter of Thomas and Phoebe (Miller) Goodwin. To Mr. and Mrs. Downing were born three sons, all of whom grew to maturity. The eldest is Dr. Henry Miller Downing, who was educated at Swarthmore; read medicine with Dr. T. D. Dunn, of West Chester, and later matriculated in the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania, from which institution he was graduated May 1, 1886, with the degree of M. D. He subse- quently took special courses in diseases of the eye, ear, nerves and throat, at the Phil- adelphia Polyclinic hospital, in which he was graduated in the spring of 1887, and is now engaged in successful practice in East Goshen township. Charles T. Downing, the second son, was educated principally at the Pennsylvania State college in Centre county, Pennsylvania, and is now engaged in farm- ing in East Goshen township, this county. The youngest son. Prof. George M. Down- ing, was graduated in June, 1888, from the Pennsylvania State college with the degree of bachelor of science, after which he en- gaged as assistant professor of physics and electrical engineering at the Pennsylvania State college, but resigned that place, and is now taking a post graduate course at the Brooklyn Polytechnic institute, !N^ew York. The great-grandfather of Mrs. Samuel R. Downing, Thomas Goodwin, was a native of Wales, and resided in Llandewy, Meri- onethshire, from which place he emigrated to the United States during the early settle- ment of Pennsylvania, and settled at Edgc- mont, in what is now Delaware county, Pennsylvania, on property since occupied by Everard Passmore, becoming the founder of the Goodwin family of this section. He was originally a minister of the church of England, but became a Friend and was un- frocked about the time of his settlement here. liis son, Thomas Goodwin, married Ann Jones, also of Welsh descent, and a daughter of Richard Jones, of Goshen town- t?l mmn^^. OF Gil ESTER COUNTY. 631 ship, this county, and had a son, also named Thomas Goodwin, who married Phoebe Mili.er in 1838, and had one child, a daugh- ter named Mary Miller Goodwin, who be- came the wife of Mr. I^owning. She was born iu East Goshen township, January 8, 1839. Her grandfather, liichard Jones, pur- chased the property now occupied by Mr. Downing, and settled here about 1749. Thomas Downing, the founder of the Downing family in America, and great- great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born at Bradninch, Devonshire, England, December 14, 1691, but after mar- riage emigrated to this country and became a resident of Concord township, in what is now Delaware county, Pennsylvania, asearly as 1718. There he resided until 1733, when he removed to Sadsbury township, this county, and two or three years later settled where Downingtown now stands. This place he founded, and it was so named in his honor. He was thrice married, and had eleven children, from whom have descended one of the most numerous and prominent families in the State. In religion he was a Friend, being received, together with his wife, by Concord monthly meeting on June 3, 1730. He died January 1, 1772, aged eighty-one years. His third son, Richard Downing (great-grandfather), was born in Concord township, Delaware county, Feb- ruary 27, 1719, and died July. 8, 1804. On March 21, 1741, he married Mary Edge, who was a daughter of John and Mary Edge, of Providence, and was born July 2, 1721, and died December 13, 1795. Richard Down- ing was a mill owner and maltster, being assessed in 1787 with a gristmill, fulling mill, two saw mills and a malt house. He was the father of twelve children, his eighth child and fourth son being Jacob Downing (grandfather). The latter was born at Down- ingtown October 2o, 1756, and passed from earth October 2, 1823, aged sixty-seven years. In early life he removed to Phila- delphia, and resided in that city most of his life. He was engaged in the iron business at Atsion, Ifew Jersey, where he owned a forge and rolling mills. In politics a whig and in religion a Friend, he lived an active and useful life, and became widely known in the business circles of this country. .He married Sarah Drinker, a daughter of Henry and Elizalictl) Drinker, of Philadelphia', by whom he had a family of six children : Henry, died in inCaucy; Elizabeth, married Robert Sbarpless ; Mary, wedded George Valentine; Sarah, who became the wife of Reuben Valentine; Henry, and Sandwith. Sandwith Downing (father) was Iwrn in the city of Philadelphia October 24, 1799, lived most of his life at Downingtown, Chester county, and died September 4, 1847, in Susquelianna county, at the home of his brothel", Henry Downing. He was a miller by occupation, and in political faith a stanch whig. He married Lydia Smedley, a daugh- ter of Peter and Phcebe Smedley, of TJwch- lan township, this county (whose ancestors came from Derbyshire, England about 1682, and were Friends), and to their union was born an only son, Samuel R. Downing, the subject of this sketch. Henry Drinker, father-in-law of Jacob Downing (grandfather); was a member of the ship-owning firm of Drinker & James, of Philadelphia, aiid resided on Second street, that city, during the revolutionary war and at the time of the yellow fever plague in 1792. He was a strict Friend, and refusing to take up arms during the war, he was incarcerated in prison at Win- chester, Virginia, together with many others 632 BIOGKAPHY AND HISTORY of like faith. After his release he returned to Philadelphia, where he died. Of Samuel R. Downing a writer says : " He has been a pioneer in the advocacy of per- manent roads, both through the public press and from the platform, and not only in his native county, but throughout the Stat-e of Pennsylvania. As a member of the road commission he assumed his full share of the duties thereof, with the zeal jof ;one whose heart was in the cause, esteeming that good roads would in their measure bring com- fort, health, and profit in dollars and cents, to the people, young or old, weak or strong, rich or poor. As a result in full part of his earnest advocacy, his resident township of East Goshen has built and is now construct- ing smooth, solid highways and permanent waterways." HON. ISAAC ANDERSON, a promi- nent Jeft'ersonian democrat, and mem- ber of Congress from 1803 to 1807, was a son of Cnpt. Patrick and Elizabeth (Morris) Anderson, and was born in Chester county, November 23, 1760. His father was the first child born of European pai-ents in Charlestown township, and served with dis- tinction in the revoliitionai-y war. He op- posed the abolition of slavery, and served as a member of the legislature from 1778 to 1781. Isaac Anderson took part in the revolu- tionary war, served as a justice of the peace, and was one of the iirst ^lethodists of Penn- sylvania. In 1802 he was elected to the iisscmbly, and the next yeai- was sent to Congress, in which he served until 1807. He was a presidential elector in 1816, and (lied October 27, 1838. Ik- was six feet four inches high, and married Mary Lane, by whom he had eleven children. J'OHN Y. LATTA, a representative farmer and stock dealer of Parkesburg, is a member of a family which has acquired considerable distinction in the religious an- nals of this sectimi. He is a son of Rev. James and Jane (Sutton) Latta, and was born on the farm where he now resides, in Sadsbury township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, January 31, 1827. His paternal grandfather, James Latta, was born in the north of Ireland, of Scotch-Irish parentage, and while yet a boy made his way to Amer- ica and settled in the southern part of Lan- caster county, Pennsylvania. He became a Presbyterian minister, and for many years preached regularly at Chestnut Level, that county. At his home there he died about 1800, aged sixty years, and his remains rest in the cemetery connected with the church he so faithfully served, at Chestnut Level. He mai-ried Mary McCalla, of Bucks county, and reared a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters. The daughters were Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth and Sarah. Sarah was the only one of the four who married, and she wedded a Presbyterian minister named Thomas Love, who preaclied during a number of years at Red Clay creek, near Wilmington, Delaware, and had one daughter, Mary, who married Stephen Springer, and now resides near Wilmington, on the old homestead. The sons were Francis A., William, John, and James, and one after another they all entered the pulpit, and became eloquent and successful minis- tersinthe church of theirfather. Rev.Fran- cis A. Latta, the eldest son, was born April 27, 1766. He was oi-daincd as a Presbyter- ian clergyman November 23, 1796, and was pastor successively of Presbyterian churches in Wilmington, Delaware, and at Lancaster and Chestnut Level, Pennsylvania, in which OF CHESTER COUSTY. 623 latter place he also niaintahied a classical school for many years. In the year 1826 he removed to Sadshury township, Chester county, and established the Moscow acad- emy, a classical and literary institution, which flourished for some years. He was a man of remarkably well cultivated mind, a poet of no mean order, a very superior clas- sical and Hebrew scholar, and one of the greatest instructors of his day. He was able in debate, discriminating and decided in judgment, and a model in the pulpit. In his manners he was social, and in his de- portment humble and unostentatious. He died April 21, 1834. Eev. William Latta, the second son, was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in May, 1768. He graduated at the university of Pennsylvania in 1794, was licensed by the Presbytery of New Castle, and became pastor of the congrega- tions at Great Valley and Charlestown, Ches- ter county, October 1, 1799, in which rela- tion he continued until his death, February 19, 1847, a period of over forty^seven years. He was created a doctor of divinity by La- fayette college, Easton, Pennsylvania. He was a student and a scholar, and his prepa- rations for the pulpit were made with close study and care. In the church he was highly esteemed, and by appointmentof the general assembly held the office of trustee of that body for many years. He was also i\ direc- tor in the Princeton Theological seminary. The general assembly of 1847, in noticing his death, spoke of him as "one of the ven- erable fathers of the Presbyterian church."' On occasiqn of the reception of General Lafayette at West Chester, in July, 1825, the Key. William Latta made a pfayer very remarkable for its touching sentiments, fervid eloquence, and patriotic spirit. James Latta (father) was the youngest son of theimmigrant, James Latta, and was born in Lancaster county, this State, about 1789. He was graduated from Princeton college at the age of twenty, and shortly afterward from Princeton Theological sem- inary. While yet a young man, about the beginning of the present century, he left his native place and came to Chester county ; and a few years after his arrival here he purchased and settled on the farm now owned by the subject of this sketch. Here he continued to reside until his death in 1862, when in the seventy-second year of his age. His secular employment was that of a farmer, and in its prosecution he was alike energetic and successful. But he also continued his labors for the church, and for more than forty years preached regularly in the Octoraro Presbyterian church. He was chiefly instrumental in the erection of the Presliyterian churches at Atglen and Chris- tiana, this county, and preached at those churches i'or eight or ten years. He had scarcely reached his majority when he was given charge of a church, and he remained an active worker in the cause of Christ all his life, almost literally "dying in the har- ness." During his long ministry in the Oc- toraro church he beheld the birth, growth and death of a generation, assisting contin- uously in the baptismal, tmirriage and fun- eral rites made necessary by the changing phases of the deep current of actual life among his people. His name became a household word in all the surrounding coun- try, and he stood high both as a citizen and a preacher. Politically he was an old-line whig, but neyer took any active part in politics, preferring to And a flekl for his ac- tivity in the line of his religious work. He married Jane Sutton, a daughter of John Sutton, of Delaware, by whom he had a 624 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY family of live children, two sons and three daughters: Dr. William, who was for many years a practicing phys'ician of Sadshury township, and died in 1872, aged forty-iive years, leaving a family of eight children — Dr. Samuel, Willian), John, Thomas, Jane, Mary, Margaret, and Helen ; John Y., whose name heads this sketch ; Mary, married William Armstrong, and died about 1867, leaving six children; Margaret, deceased at the age of twenty-one ; and Eliza, who wedded John A. Parke, a farmer of High- land township, this county. Mrs. Jane Latta was a native of Delaware, a strict member of the^'Presbyterian church, and died in 184^, at the age of forty-live years. John Y. Latta was reared on the home farm and received a liberal education in the Chester county academy and similar institu- tions of learning at Strasburg and Wilming- ton. On leaving school he engaged in farm- ing on the old homestead, and agricultural pursuits were so agreeable to his disposition that he has devoted his entire life to culti- vating the farm on which he was born, and which passed into his possession in 1862. The farm consists of one hundred and lift}'- sevcn acres of valuable land, well improved, and conveniently located on the Philadel- phia aiul Lancaster turnpike, two miles from Parkesburg. In addition to this farm Mr. Latta also owns one hundred and eighty acres of land in this county. Beside his farm operations he has, since I860, been a large live stock dealer, being for more than twenty years a member of the well known stock lirm of Latta & Phipps, who were en- gaged in shiiping cattle from the west to the Philadelphia markets. Mr. Phipps died in 1880, and since that time Mr. Latta has continued the stock business by himself, but nut so extensively as before. For a time he dealt in sheep and cattle, but now handles cattle exclusively, and has been remarkably successful in this business. On April 6, 1876, Mr. Latta was united in marriage with Martha Rupert, a daughter of William Rupert, of this county. She died in 1880, in the Ihirty-first year of her age, leaving two sons : James and William, In politics Mr. Latta is a democrat, and has served for a number of years as school di- rector of his township. He is one of the directors of the Parkesburg National bank, and occupies the same position in the Parkesburg Building and Loan association. Being affable in manner, prompt and ener- getic in business, and thoroughly reliable in every relation of life, it is doubtful if there is a better known or more popular man in the-entire township. nEV. BENJAMIN C. NEEDHAM, a graduate of East London college, and the pastor of the First Baptist church of Goatesville, is one of the most successful evangelistic pastors of Pennsylvania.' He is a son of Capt. George and Susan (Carter) Needham, and was born in County Kerry, province of Munster, Ireland, in the year 1853. He received his elementary educa- tion in the schools of his neighborhood, and at fifteen years of age, in 1868, came to Bos- ton, Massachusetts, where he entered the lithographing establishment ofW. H.Forbes & Co. After working for some time he was made foreman of the office, but soon left to accept a position in the Boston postoffice, then under the charge ol' lion. E. H. Toby. In a short time he resigned, and after spend- ing a few months with his brother William in Portland, Maine, he went to London, England, where he took a three years' OF CHESTEIt COUNTY. 635 course in the East London college, from which he was graduated in the class of 1880. After graduation he and his three brothers came to Chicago, where they spent a whole winter in evangelical work in Moody's tab- ernacle, of whicii the eldest brother, Rev. G. C. JSTeedhani, was pastor. From Chicago he went to the Indian reservation in Ontario, Canada, and was engaged very successfully for five years in preaching to the different Indian tribes, and in establishing and con- ducting Indian schools. His next field of missionary and evangelical labor was in Philadelphia, where he spent a short time among the sailors on the docks. His evan- gelical labors were so remarkably successful that he was called as pastor of the Brandy- wine Baptist church, where his work during his three years' pastorate was instrumental in raising the congregation from weakness and apathy to strength, life, and prosperity. From Brandywine he went to the Baptist church at Reading, where his ministry was abundantly rewarded with success in build- ing up a strong and prosperous congrega- tion. He remained at Reading until 1890, when he assumed his present pastoral charge of the Coatesville Baptist church, where he has won respect, confidence, and esteem. Hisjudiciouscourse of action and impressive preaching has added largely to the member- ship of Coatesville Baptist church, which numbered one hundred and eighty members when he came, but under the two years of his administration has increased to three hundred. On September 14, 1880, Mr. Needham wedded Mary li. Pardee, a daughter of Rich- ard R. and Rebecca Pardee, of Jfew York city. Mr. Pardee was a great Sunday-school worker, the friend of D. L. Moody,, Ralph Wells, and other prominent religious labor- ers. To Mr. and Mrs. Needham have been born three children, two sons and one daugh- ter: Benjamin, Lillian, and Leroy. Mrs. Needham, is a whole-souled Christian wo- man, a capable teacher of the bible, and a cultivated musician. • She uses her splendid talents for the glory of h6r Savior. The Needham family is of English de- scent, and Rev. Mr. Needham's paternal grandfather, James, was born in England, but settled in Ireland, where he resided until his death. He lived to a good age, having reared a family of five children, three sons and two daughters. One of- the sons, Capt. George Needham, the father, of Benjamin, was born in County Kerry, Ire- land. He served for many years under the British government as an officer in the coastguard service, and for many years held the post of poor-law relieving oflieer and collector of i-evenues. His death to6k place in 1862^ at the age of sixty years. He was a prominent, active, and infiuential meriiber of the Protestant Episcopal church. Ben- jamin's mother, whose maiden name was Susan Carter, passed away in her thirty- eighth year, having left a previous testi- mony to her exalted Christian charactei-. She was the mother of ten children, five of whom were daughters and five sons. The youngestdaughter,Belinda, of sainted mem- ory, and the oldest son, James, have been with their parents in the better land for many years. The surviving children are: Mary, the wife of William C. Hickson, of Australia ; Sarah, of Boston, Massachusetts ; Elizabeth, wife of Gideon Hevenor, of St. John's, New Brunswick ; Susan, wife of Rev. J). M. Stearns; Rev. George C, of Philadelphia, -evangelist, and editor of the Defense; Rev. Benjamin, the subject of this sketch ; Rev. Thomas, the sailor-evangelist. 026 KIOORAPHY AND HISTORY connected witli the Pennsylvania Baptist societ}'; and Rev. William E., "the artist preacher," who is pastor of Trinity Baptist church at Camden, 'Sew Jersey. Rev. Benjamin iJieedham as a republican is interested in the great political issues of the day, but is not a political demagogue. He gives his time to the cause of his Divine Master, in whose service he has met with such abundant and enduring success. jCDWARD DONALDSON BING- HAM, district attorney for Chester county, and a young lawyer of fine intellect and superior legal attainments, who has al- ready won higVi standing and substantial suc- cess in his profession, is the second son and only surviving child of Rev. Dr. William R. and Nannie (Allison) Bingham, and was born in East Whiteland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 10, 1854. His boy- hood was passed in this county, and he at- tended a private school at Oxford until his seventeenth year, when he entered the sophomore class of Princeton college, from which well known institution he was grad- uated in the class of 1874, at the age of twenty. He soon afterward accepted a po- sition as tutor in Lincoln university, where he remained two years, meeting with great success as a teacher and winning golden opinions from the faculty. In the autumn of 1876 he resigned his position in the uni- versity and went to Pittsburg, where he be- gan the study of law in the office of the well known attorneys, Bruce & Negley, of that city. After two years spent in sound- ing the depths of legal knowledge as ex- pounded by Blackstone, Kent, and other fathers in -the science of law, he was admit- ted to the bar in the fall of 1878, and im- mediately opened a law office at West Ches- ter, this county, where he has ever since been successfully engaged in a practice that has constantly increased and is now quite lucrative. This result has not been attained by accident or chance, but is the outcome of thorough preparation for the duties of his profession and intelligent and painstak- ing attention to the interests of his clients. Mr. Bingham is a republican in politics, and so popular in his party and so competent as a lawyer, that he was nominated and elected to the office of district attorney in the fall of 1890. He has been discharging the du- ties of that position in a manner which re- flects credit on himself and pleases his con- stituents. In religion he is a Presbyterian, being a member of the First Presbyterian church of West Chester. On Sptember 25, 1888, Mr. Bingham wedded Mary Louise Johnston, a daughter of the late S. Reed Johnston, of the city of Pittsburg. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Hugh Bingham, was a native of Adams county, Pennsylvania, where the family was planted at an early day, and where he grew to manhood and received an ordinary English education. In early life he removed to York county and engaged in farming, which was his main business in life, though he engaged in other enterprises to some ejctent. He became quite prosper- ous, and was a stockholder and director in a banking house in that county for a num- ber of years. In politics he was an old-line whig, and in religious faith a Presbyterian, in which church he served as an elder for a quarter of a century. He married Margaret Kelley, a daughter of Col. John Kelley, of York county, this State, and reared a family of five children, two sons and three daugh- ters; John, now deceased, who studied law OF CHESTER COVNTY. 637 and died shortly after being admitted to the bar; Margaret, Eliza, William R. and Eze- miah. Mrs. Margaret (Kelley) Bingham was born during Washington's second ad- ministration and lived to see the adminis- tration of Benjamin Harrison. William R. Bingham (father) was born in Adams county, this State, in 1822, received his education at Jefferson college, Cannonsburg,Washington county, and studied theology at the We8.tern Theological seminary, Allegheny City, from which he was graduated in 1847. He at once entered the ministry of the Presbyte- rian church, and came to Chester Valley as pastor of the Great Valley church of that denomination. Here he remained engaged in active and successful labor, until the au- tumn of 1859, when he retired, and one year later assumed charge of the church at Oxford, where he continued to preach for about a year and a half, when failing health compelled him to abandon all active work. HiJ^early a decade passed before he resumed the duties of a regular pastorate, but in 1878 he- took charge of Avondale Presby- terian church, with which he was connected for a period of ten years. He has always been an earnest student and a deep thinker, and is widely known for his extensive knowledge on Biblical subjects. The degree of D. D. was conferred ujion Rev. Mr. Bing- ham by Westminster college. In 1888 he was appointed protempore to the chair of theology in Lincoln university, and has con- tinued to occupy that position ever since. He has also been president of the board of trustees of that institusion for a number of years, and is a director of the National bank at Oxford. In all matters that pertain to the development df his town or the im- provement of his county, Rev. Dr. Bingham takes an active interest, and believes that the best preparation for the future life is se- cured by properly rounding out all the du- ties and possibilities of "the life that now is." Politically he is a republican, With an abiding faith in the humanitarian princi- ples on which the party was originally founded, and an earnest desire to see thefn applied in our government. Rev. Dr. Bing- ham was united in holy wedlock with Nan- nie Allison, a daughter of Hon. Robert Allison, of Huntingdon county, this State. Their union was blessed by the birth of three children, of whom only the subject of this sketch now survives. The youngest was Hugh W., who died in infancy, and the second was a daughter named Mary Allison, who died in her twenty-sixth year. She was the first 'graduate of Wellesley college (1879), and president of its alumni' associa- tion until her death. Mrs. Bingham died in 1863, and in 1886 Dr. Bingham married Jennie Gardner, a daughter of Thomas Gardner, late of this county. Hon. Robert Allison (maternal grandfather), long since deceased, was a prominent and influential citizen of Huntingdon county, an ardent whig in pblitics, and represented his district in the congress of the United States. His father, John Allison, was one of theoldest settlers of Franklin county, and served as a member of the State constitutional couven- tion of 1787, which ratified the constitution of the United States, in which convention also sat Jacob Elliott, the maternal grand- father of Mrs. Nannie Bingham. HON. JAMES BOWEN EVER- HART, an orator, a statesman, and a patriot, whose di'stinguished public services stamped him as a man of rare ability, high resolve and noble purpose, was the third 028 BIOGRAPHY AND HJSTOIiY son of Hon. William and Hannah (Matlack) Everhart, and was -born in West Whitelaiid township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1821. Two and a half centuries ago the Everhart family came from the king- dom of Wurtemberg to the State of New York, from which the great-grandfather of Mr. Everhart came to Chester cOunty, where his son, James Everhart (grandfather), was born and reared. James Everhart served in the revolutionary war, and his son, Hon. William Everhart (father) was born in 1785. William Everhart was a surveyor by pro- fession, and in 1824 removed tO West Ches- ter, where lie was engaged extensively for over forty years in ttie mercantile business. He was a whig, and a member of the Thirty-third Congress, in which he delivered a very able speech on the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He died October 30, 1868, lamented by all who knew him. James Bowen Everhart received his edu- cation in Bolmar's academy and Princeton college, from which he was graduated in 1842. •' He read law, was admitted to the bar in 1845, visited Europe to take special law courses in the universities of Edinburgh and Berlin, and then practiced until 1861. In 1862 he raised and commanded Co. B, 10th regiment Pennsylvania militia, during the war, and displayed great courage at Antietam. When Lee invaded the State in 1863, Mr. Everhart was among the first to respond to his country's call, and served as major of the 29th emergency regiment. He was a popular republican leader and served from 1876 to 1882 as a member of the State senate, in which he delivered eulo- gies on Bayard Taylor, William Penn and Anthony Wayne, that have been pronounced the finest memorials ever delivered in Penn- sylvania. In 1882 he resigned as State sen- ator to accept the seat to which he had been elected in the Forty-eighth Congi'ess of the United States. He was re-elected in 1884, and served through both of his congres- sional terms with ability and usefulness, while his speech on the "River and Harbor" bill wag read with interest throughout the country. He was an- entertaining author, and his "Miscellanies," "Poems," "The Fox- Chase," and "Speeches," are volumes of interest and usefulness. On August 23, 1888, James Bowen Ever- hart was stricken down by the hand of death and 'his spirit passed away from time to eternity. His remains were appropri- atelj' entombed, and the press of the State did ample justice to his "memory, which will always be held sacred in the cotinty of his birth." JJeNRY mercer, the leading grain ' merchant of Phcenixville, and a rep- resentative of one of the old and honored families of* the county, is the youngest child of Hatton and Elizabeth (Thompson) Mercer, and a native of London Britain township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he was born October 30, 1848. He grew to manhood in this county, and was educated in the common schools of London Britain township and at Kennett Square. Leaving school he learned the trade of mil- ler, and was engaged in that occupation for six years. In 1875 he embarked in the general grain business at Phcenixville, and by his euergy and enterprise soon built up a good trade, which has increased with the passing years until he now does an immense wholesale business, handling from a hundred and fifty to two hundred car loads of grain per week. He is a member of the commer- cial exchange of Philadelphia, and has the OF CHESTER COUNTY. 629 deserved. reputation of being — in his par- ticular line — one of the best judges and best posted men in the State of Pennsylvania. In politics Mr. Mercer is a stanch republi- can, and in religion a strict adherent of the Society of Friends, in whose faith he was reared. He is a member of Ivennett Square Lodge, No. 475, Free and Accepted Masons. On January 29, 1873, Mr. Mercer was united in marriage with Emma L. Palmer, a daughter of Samuel li. and Rebecca B. Palmer, of Chester, Delaware county, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Mercer have been born one child, a daughter, Rebecca C. P., who was educated in the Friends' Central school in Philadelphia, graduating in June, 1892, and is living at home with her parents. The Mercers are decended from oldEnglish Quaker stock, and trace their American an- cestry back to Thomas Mercer, great-great- great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, who came from " Ayno-on-the-Hill," Northampton county, in the west of Eng- land, with his wife, Mary, and settled in what is now Westtown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, near the close of the seventeentli century. There he died about 1716, and his widow survived him some seven years, dying in 1723. Their children were: Thomas, born in 1694, and married Hannah Taylor in 1710; Mary, man-ied William Pennell, August 26, 1710; Eliza- beth, wedded Joseph Woodward, in 1712; Ann, became the wife of Joshua Peirce, August 28, 1713; and Joseph, who settled in East Marlborough, and in 1719 married Ann Wickersham, by whom he had six chil- dren — Mary, Ann, Richard, Hannah, Rachel and Joseph. Thomas Mercer (great-great- grandfather), and his wife, Hannah Taylor, were the parents of eleven children : Rachel, bom June 2, 1712; Daniel, born Septem- 37 her 14, 1714; Robert, born September 28, 1716; Thomas, born August 26, 1718; Ann, born August 8, 1720 ; Hannah, born March 28, 1724 ; Phebe, born May 20, 1726 ; Mary, born Ajiril 16, 1728 ; Patience, born January 31, 1731 ; Thomas, born January 18, 1734; and David, born March 3, 1737. The eldest son, Daniel Mercer, married Rebecca Town- send, and died June 25, 1807, aged ninety- three years. His wife died October 13, 1792, at the age of eighty-two. Their children were: Solomon, born October 30, 1736; Rebecca, born October 1, 1738 ; Jesse, born July 23, 1740, and died June 3, 1763 ; David, born June 23, 1742; Daniel, born March 20, 1747; and Phebe, born "August 11, 1750. Thomas Mercer (greatgrandfather), was a farmer, and passed all his life in this county, dying about 1816, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. He married Jane Hunt, by whom he had a family of seven children : Joseph,Hannah, Thomas, Jesse, Mary,David (grandfather), and Jane. He married a sec- ond wife at the age of seventy, and had four children: John, Thomas, Harlan and Ann. David Mercer (grandfather) was born Jan- uary 23, 1771, and died March 8, 1846, aged seventy-five years. He was a farmer by oc- cupation, and a whig in politics. He mar- ried Elizabeth Hatton, and was the father of a family of four children, one son and three daughters : Hatton, father of the sub- ject of this sketch ; Ann, Celia and Hannah, all of whom are now deceased. Hatton Mer- cer (father) was born in Westtown township, Chester county, June 20, 1802, and passed away from earth in 1872, at the age of sev- enty years. He was a farmer in early life, and a miller during his later years. Polit- ically he was a whig and republican, and in religion followed the traditions of his an- cestors, being a strict member of the Society 630 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY of Friends all his life. March 17, 1831, he married Elizabeth Thompson, a daughter of David Thompson, of the State of Dela- ware, and to their union was born a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters : Thomas, born January 11, 1832 ; Charles, born May 31, 1834; David, born November 16, 1836 ; Mary Jane, born No- vember 8, 1838; Elizabeth, born September 9, 1841 ; Sarah, born August 11, 1846; and Henry, the subject of this sketch. The mother of this family, Elizabeth Mercer, passed to her linal rest February 28, 1888, aged eeveuty-seven years, five months and fifteen days. The Thompsons came over from England in the seventeenth century. rrllLLIAM SMITH HARRIS, a member of the Chester county bar in active practice, and secretary of the West Chester Street Railway Company, is a son of William and Sarah A. (Smith) Harris, and was born in Chanceford township, York county, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1855. He received his elementary education in the public schools of Londonderry township, pursued his classical studies at Unionville academy and under Dr. W. B. Noble, D. D., of Fagg's Manor, and entered Lafayette col- lege o f Easto n , this ' State . Leavi ng col lege the latter part of the junior year, 1879, (being a member of the class of 1880,) he read law with Groome & McCuUough, of Elkton, Cecil county, Maryland, of which, firm the senior member had served as gov- ernor of Maryland and represented his State in the United States senate. After a two years' course with that firm he was admit- ted to the Cecil county bar on January 4, 1882, and after practicing for a short time in Maryland, he went to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he followed his profession until 1884. In that year he returned. to West Chester, where he has been success- fully engaged ever since in the active prac- tice of his chosen profession. Mr. Harris is a democrat in politics, and in religious belief has been a Presbyterian for several years, being a member and the treasurer of the Westminster Presbyterian cliurch, of West Chester. He is secretary of the board of directors of the West Chester Street Rail- way Company ; and a member and past- grand of Pocahontas Lodge, No. 316, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. On December 16, 1886, Mr. Harris wed- ded A. Maggie Smith, daughter of Joseph Smith, a prominent citizen of the vicinity of Oxford, in this county, and their union has been blessed with one child, a son named William Clyde, who was born October 3, 1887. William Smith Harris is of English and Scotch descent, and his paternal grandfather, William Harris, sr., was a native of Chester county, where he followed farming, hotel keeping and general merchandising in West Fallowfield and Londonderry townships. He married Jane Criswell, and one of their sons was William Harris (father), who set- tled in early life in York county, which he afterward left to become a resident of Lon- donderry township, where he died March 1, 1873, aged forty-eight years. William Harris was a democrat in politics, held the office of justice of the peace for fifteen years, and was continually engaged in settling estates, writ- ing wills, drawing deeds, and other legal work for several years before his death. He served his township as a school director, and was recognized as one of the leading and useful citizens of his community and township. He was an active member of Fagg's Manor OF CHESTEB CO UNTY. 631 Presbyterian church, and married Sarah A. Smith, who was a daughter of William and Maria (Laird) Smith, of Chanceford town- ship, York county, and who died in 1886, at sixty-four years of age. To Mr. and Mrs. Harris were born seven children, who lived to maturity : William Smith (subject) ; A. Clarkson, of Londonderry township; Maria J., James C, Mary A., John K. and Walter. Mrs.Harris' mother, Maria (Laird) Smith, was a member of the old and dis- tinguished Laird family of Pennsylvania. Her father, Dr. William Smith, was a grad- uate of Washington and Jefferson college, of western Pennsylvania. He received his medical education in a Baltimore, Maryland, institution, and located in Chanceford town- ship, York county, this State, where he practiced his profession with great success until his death. n^THONY WAYNE EMERY, one of the old and highly respected citizens of West Pikeland township, is the third son and only living child of John and Anna M. (Yeager) Emery, and was born in West Pikeland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, February 25, 1817. His paternal grandfather, John Emery, was a native of WestPikelandtownship,wherehe owned and tilled a farm of one hundred and thirty-one acres of land. He was a democrat politically, and had been for many years before his death a strict member of Pikeland Evangelical Lutheran church. He married Christena Lawbaugh,and reared a family of eleven chil- dren, six sons and five daughters: Elizabeth March, John, Mary, Catherine Hartman, Nancy Sloyer, William, Peter, Edward, George, Henry, and Sallie. John Emery (father), was born in 1783, and died in 1828, aged forty-five years. He was a farmer, a democrat, and a member of St. Peter's Evan- gelical Lutheran church. He served as a soldier of the war of 1812, and was in a com- pany that was stationed at Marcus Hook, where a considerable force was gathered to check a threatened expedition of the Brit- ish up the Delaware river to Philadelphia. He married Anna M. Yeager, who passed away in March, 1835, at forty-eight years of age. They had a family of eight children : Moses, Elizabeth, William, Anthony Wayne, Levi, Isaac, John and Samuel. Anthony W. Emery was reared on his father's farm, and after receiving a practical education in the old subscription schools of that day, learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed for a short time at Kim- berton. He then purchased a farm of sixty acres upon which he has resided ever since. He is a democrat in politics, has held vari- ous township offices, and believes implicitly in the cardinal principles of his party. He has quietly, pursued the even tenor of his way in life, and now enjoys the substantial comforts of a pleasant home secured by his own labor. On September 1, 1840, the subject of this sketch married Mary A. Emery, a daughter of William and Mary Brownback Emery. By this union Anthony W. Emery had four children, two sons and two daughters. The eldest is William U. Emery, now a prosper- ous farmer of W est Pikeland township, who was born April 22, 1841, and married Cath- arine Yeager, by whom he had four sons : Anthony Wayne, jr., a farmer of West Pike- land township, who married Laura Emery, July 13, 1886, and has two children — Neva and Lottie ; Wesley Y., who married Carrie Coulter, November 18, 1892, and resides in Charlestown township ; David F. and Elmer 630 BIOQBAPHY AND HISTORY of Friends all his life. March 17, 1831, he married Elizabeth Thompson, a daughter of David Thompson, of the State of Dela- ware, and to their union was born a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters : Thomas, born January 11, 1832 ; Charles, born May 31, 1834; David, born November 16, 183i6; Mary Jane, born No- vember 8, 1838 ; Elizabeth, born September 9, 1841 ; Sarah, born August 11, 1846 ; and Henry, the subject of this sketch. The mother of this family, Elizabeth Mercer, passed to her final rest February 28, 1888, aged seventy-seven years, five months and fifteen days. The Thompsons came over from England in the seventeenth century. ZjQlLLIAM SMITH HARRIS, a member of the Chester county bar in active practice, and secretary of the West Chester Street Railway Company, is a son of William and Sarah A. (Smith) Harris, and was born in Chanceford township,York county, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1855. He received his elementary education in the public schools of Londonderry township, pursued his classical studies at Unionville academy and under Dr. W. B. Noble, D.D., of Fagg's Manor, and entered Lafayette col- lege of Easton, this State. Leaving college the latter part of the junior year, 1879, (being a member of the class of 1880,) he read law with Groome & McCullough, of Elkton, Cecil county, Maryland, of which, firm the senior member had served as gov- ernor of Maryland and represented his State in the United States senate. After a two years' course with that firm he was admit- ted to the Cecil county bar on January 4, 1882, and after practicing for a short time in Maryland, he went to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he followed his profession until 1884. In that year he returned. to West Chester, where he has been success- fully engaged ever since in the active prac- tice of his chosen profession. Mr. Harris is a democrat in politics, and in religious belief has been a Presbyterian for several years, being a member and the treasurer of the Westminster Presbyterian cliurch, of West Chester. He is secretary of the board of directors of the West Chester Street Rail- way Company; and a member and past- grand of Pocahontas Lodge, No. 316, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. On December 16, 1886, Mr. Harris wed- ded A. Maggie Smith, daughter of Joseph Smith, a prominent citizen of the vicinity of Oxford, in this county, and their union has been blessed with one child, a son named William Clyde, who was born October 3, 1887. William Smith Harris is of English and Scotch descent, and his paternal grandfather, William Harris, sr., was a native of Chester county, where he followed farming, hotel keeping and general merchandising in West Fallowfield and Londonderry townships. He married Jane Criswell, and one of their sons was William Harris (father), who set- tled in early life in York county, which he afterward left to become a resident of Lon- donderry township, where he died March 1, 1873, aged forty-eight years. William Harris was a democrat in politics, held the office of justice of the peace for fifteen years, and was continually engaged in settling estates, writ- ing wills, drawing deeds, and other legal work for several years before his death. He served his township as a school director, and was recognized as one of the leading and useful citizens of his community and township. He was an active member of Fagg's Manor OF CHESTER COUNTY. 631 Presbyterian church, and married Sarah A. Smith, who was a daughter of William and Maria (Laird) Smith, of Chanceford town- ship, York county, and who died in 1886, at sixty-four years of age. To Mr. and Mrs. Harris were born seven children, who lived to maturity : William Smith (subject) ; A. Clarkson, of Londonderry township ; Maria J., James C, Mary A., John K. and Walter. Mrs. Harris' mother, Maria (Lai rd) Smith, was a member of the old and dis- tinguished Laird family of Pennsylvania. Her father, Dr. William Smith, was a grad- uate of Washington and Jefferson college, of western Pennsylvania. He received his medical education in a Baltimore, Maryland, institution, and located in Chanceford town- ship, York county, this State, where he practiced his profession with great success until his death. TTNTHONY WAYNE EMERY, one of the old and highly respected citizens of West Pikeland township, is the third son and only living child of John and Anna M. (Yeager) Emery, and was born in West Pikeland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, February 25, 1817. His paternal grandfather, John Emery, was a native of We8tPikelandtownship,wherehe owned and tilled a farm of one hundred and thirty-one acres of laud. He was a democrat politically, and had been for many years before his death a strict member of Pikeland Evangelical Lutheran church. He married Christena Lawbaugh-,and reared a family of eleven chil- dren, six sons and five daughters: Elizabeth March, John, Mary, Catherine Hartman, Nancy Sloyer, William, Peter, Edward, George, Henry, and Sallie. John Emery (father), was born in 1783, and died in 1828, aged forty-five years. He was a farmer, a democrat, and a member of St. Peter's Evan- gelical Lutheran church. He served as a soldier of the war of 1812, and was in a com- pany that was stationed at Marcus Hook, where a considerable force was gathered to check a threatened expedition of the Brit- ish up the Delaware river to Philadelphia. He married Anna M. Yeager, who passed away in March, 1835, at forty-eight years of age. They had a family of eight children : Moses, Elizabeth, William, Anthony Wayne, Levi, Isaac, John and Samuel. Anthony W. Emery was reared on his father's farm, and after receiving a practical education in the old subscription schools of that day, learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed for a short time at Kim- berton. He then purchased a farm of sixty acres upon which he has resided ever since. He is a democrat in politics, has held vari- ous township ofiices, and believes implicitly in the cardinal principles of his party. He has quietly, pursued the even tenor of his way in life, and now enjoys the substantial comforts of a pleasant home secured by his own labor. On September 1, 1840, the subject of this sketch married Mary A. Emery, a daughter of William and Mary Brownback Emery. By this union Anthony W. Emery had four children, two sons and two daughters. The eldest is William U. Emery, now a prosper- ous farmer of West Pikeland township, who was born April 22, 1841, and married Cath- arine Yeager, by whom he had four sons : Anthony Wayne, jr., a farmer of West Pike- land township, who married Laura Emery, July 13, 1886, and has two children — Neva and Lottie ; Wesley Y., who married Carrie Coulter, November 18, 1892, and resides in Charlestown township ; David F. and Elmer 632 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY C. The second son of the senior Anthony "Wayne Emery is John P., who was born January 23, 1844, and married Elizabeth Sloyer, January 27, 1881. He owns a valu- able farm of one hundred and thirty acres of land. Sarah Emery, the eldest daughter, was born September 4, 1849, married George Fetters March 27, 1869, and they have eight children: Lizzie, William, Samuel, Wayne, Orlando, Lewis, Frank and Roger. Mr. Fetters is now a foreman of carpenter work for the Pennsylvania railroad. The fourth child and youngest daughter of An- thony Wayne Emery, sr., is Edith A., born October 10, 1857, and married Matthias A. Pennypacker, on January 27, 1886. They reside on a farm in WestPikeland township. "CNOS P. IvATSHAW, an intelligent citizen and successful farmer of West Pikeland township, and who owns one of the best iron ore farms in the county, is a son of Jacob B. and Anna (Pennypacker) Latshaw, and was born January 26, 1850, on the farm on which he now resides in West Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grandfather, John Latshaw, was of German descent, and purchased a tract of two hundred and sev- enty-six acres of land, a part of which is now the farm of the subject of this sketch. He was a whig in politics, and a member of the Phoenixville Mennonite church, and died in 1857, aged seventy-five years. He mar- ried Susanna High, and reared a family of eight children, two sons and six daughters : Catherine Reiff, Elizabeth Heistand, Susan Harley, Magdalene McCurdy, Mary Beitler, Jacob B., John H. and Sallie Adams. Jacob B. Latshaw (father), was born on the home farm, where he passed his life, and died l^ovember 21, 1886, when in the sixty- ninth year of his age. He was a farmer by occupation, and in religious faith and church membership was a Baptist, having served for twenty years as a deacon in Vincent Baptist church. He was a whig and re- publican in politics, and married Anna Pennypacker, who is a daughter of Harmon Pennypacker, of West Pikeland township, who wedded Ann Showalter. To Mr. and Mrs. Latshaw were born eight children, three sons and five daughters: Enos P., Catherine Stiteler, Horace, Susan Moses, John H., Mary Dickinson, and Anna and Ida, who both died in childhood. Enos P. Latshaw was reared on the farm, received his education in the common schools of West Pikeland township and Edgefield institute, Uwchlan township, and afterward engaged in farming, which has been his life pursuit. He has always re- sided within the limits of West Pikeland township, and in 1888 pftrchased his pres- ent farm of one hundred and thirty acres. His land is well improved, fertile and pro- ductive, and contains several veins of rich iron ore, which were worked successfully for a number of years by the Phcenix L'on Company. Mr. Latshaw raises some stock in addition to grain and grass growing, and now owns and conducts a successful dairy. He is a republican in political opinion, and has served for several years as a deacon of Vincent Baptist church. He is quiet and unassuming in manner, has considerable will power, and is a well read and well informed man, who commands the respect of all who know him. On January 16, 1873, Mr. Latshaw was united in marriage with Sarah J., daughter of William Henderson, of West Pikeland township. Their union has been blessed OF CHESTER COUNTY. 63;5 with three children, two 80(is and one daughter: W. Warren, Annie Elizabeth, aud Horace E. J^AVID H. HEISTAND, a young man of good business qualifications and a successful farmer and dairyman of East Pikeland township, is a son of David and Catherine (Detwiler)Heistand, and was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1860. His paternal great-grandfather, David Heistand, was of German descent, and came from Montgom- ery county to what is now East Pikeland township, where he improved the farm now owned by his great-grandson, Harry Heis- tand. Two of his children were : John and Kittie Senseuig. John Heistand (grand- father) was born in 1785, and was a cabinet- maker by trade. He resided on the home farm until his death in 1880. His son, David Heistand (father), was born in 1815, and died in 1878, at sixty-three years of age. David Heistand followed farming on the tract of laud formerly his father's farm. He was a republican in politics, and on Decem- ber 31, 1844, married Catherine Detwiler, daughter of Henry aud Catharine (Latshaw) Detwiler, of Tredyffrin township. Mr. and Mrs. Heistand bad seven children : Kate Good (dead), Harry, John, Elizabeth Funk, David H., Moses, and Horace, who died in infancy. David H. Heistand spent his boyhood days on the farm, received a good English edu- cation in the common schools of his native township, and at an early age became a clerk in the hardware store of N. II. Benjamin, of Phcenixville, where he remained until 1885. In that year he purchased his pres- ent well improved and highly desirable farm in East Pikeland township. This farm of forty-seven acres is well watered and speci- ally adapted to truck faimiing and dairying. Mr. Heistand has made many valuable im- provements to his property and does a very successful business in market gardening and truck farming. He makes a specialty of raising the finer varieties of potatoes and has established a well paying dairy on his land. He is a republican in politics, and believes thoroughly in the fundamental principles of his party. He gives his party an active and earnest support, but is not a partisan in any sense of the word. On February 19, 1885. Mr. Heistand mar- ried Lottie M. Jones, who was a daughter of Josiah P. Jones, of Reading, and died August 18, 1888, at twenty-four years of age, leaving two children : Jones, who died in childhood, and Amanda. For his second wife Mr. Heistand, on June 17, 1891, wed- ded Lizzie A. Shantz, a daughter of Amos and Sallie (Reigner) Shantz, of Kenilworth. By his second marriage he has one child, a daughter named Edith Pauline. vjAMES J. WATSON, the popular sta- tion agent at Frazer, this county, is the youngest son of Joshua and Alice B. ( Joy- ner) Watson, and was born in Hilliardston, Nash county, IS'orth Carolina, June 12, 1840. The ancestors of Mr. Watson were native's of England,who came over at an early day and settled first in Florida, but afterward drifted into the Carolinas, where the family has be- come quite numerous and some of its mem- bers prominent. Joshua Watson (father) was born near Palmyra, Martin county, North Carolina, where he was reared and lived for a number of years. He removed, however, to Nash county, and died there in October, 1861, aged about sixty-eight years. 634 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY He was a planter, business man and broker, and at one time owned, four large planta- tions in that State, aggregating over a thous- and acres of valuable land. At the time of his death he owned two plantations. He was energetic and successful in business, and became widely known in his native State. In 1828 he married Alice B. Joyner, eldest daughter of Blunt Joyner, a prominent and wealthy French Huguenot who emigrated from his native France and settled in North Carolina, where he died. By this marriage Mr. Watson had a family of five children: Sarah E., who married Col. S. S. Cooper, inherited the famous "Nine Oaks" planta- tion in Granville county, North Carolina, and is now deceased, though her husband is still living; Mary B., became the wife of Hon. H. G. Williams, who was formerly a member of the State legislature of North Carolina, but is now chief of a bureau in the Pension department at Washington, though his family reside at Wilson, North Carolina ; Thomas B., a prosperous farmer residing at Elm City, that State, on the Atlantic coast- line; Dr. William H., now deceased, who was for many years a practicing physician at Robinsonville, North Carolina ; and James J., the subject of this sketch. James J. Watson grew to manhood in the South, receiving his education principally at Emory and Henry college,Virginia,which failing health compelled him to leave a short time before completing the regular course. Later he began the study of medi- cine, and was a student in the medical de- partment of the university of Pennsylvania when the civil war occurred. Mr. Watson at once-returned to his native State of North Carolina, and for a time was engaged in the detached service of the Southern Confed- eracy. After the close of the war, in Sep- tember, 1865, he came back to Philadelphia, whei-e he remained until 1867, when he came to Chester county, seeking employment, as he had lost all his property in the South. He was employed at various places and in diflerent capacities until 1874, when he en- gaged with the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany as a repair man, and was successively promoted from one position to another un- til 1881, when he was made agent at Frazer, which position he still occupies, rendering entire satisfaction alike to his official super- iors and to the general public. In connection with his duties as station agent he owns and operates a small market farm of fifteen acres in East Whiteland township. Politic- ally he is a republican, notwithstanding his southern birth and education, and is a mem- ber of the Fraternal Guardians, of the city of Philadelphia. On September 19, 1888, Mr. Watson \¥as united in marriage with Mrs. Sallie A. Gray, nee Hoskins, a daughter of John Hoskins, of Chester county, Pennsylvania. By this union he has one child, a daughter, named Florence. Mrs. Watson had two children by her former marriage : William J. and Elwood E. Gray. Mr. Watson has recently purchased prop- erty at West Chester, and will remove there to educate his children, going back and forth on the train to his work at Frazer. QAMUEL C. MACKELDUFF, a de- scendant of the well known and worthy old Scotch-Irish Mackelduft" family, and an industrious farmer of West Brandy wine township, is a son of Joseph and Jane (Cal- braith) Mackelduft", and was born in West Brandy wine township, Chester county,Penn- sylvania, March 4, 1841. The Mackelduft" OF CHESTER COVNTY. 635 family is of Scotch -Irish origin and the an- cestors of the Chester county branch left the north of Ireland about 1735 on account of religious persecution and became early- settlers in Honey Brook township, where they took up large tracts of land, on some of which several of their descendants still reside. Joseph Mackelduft" (grandfather) was born in West Ifantmeal and removed to Honey Brook (now West Brandy wine) township, where he died. He was a farmer and miller, and married Elizabeth Harris on May 9, 1787, by whom he had three chil- dren: Joseph, Mary Long, and Eliza, who became the wife of John McClure. Joseph Mackelduft" (father) was born ISTovember 14, 1788, in WestBrandywine township, where he died on the home farm, in 1872. He was a farmer and miller by occupation, and had been a faithful member of the Brandy wine Manor Presbyterian church for many years before his death. He was a democrat in politics, and married Jane Calbraith. Their children were : Joseph, born April 9, 1830 ; George, August 16, 1832 ; Hannah E., July 28, 1833; Mrs. Eliza J. McClure, Novem- ber 3, 1835; Harriet C, June 28, 1838; Samuel C. ; William H., June 4, 1843, and Emma M., born March 7, 1846. Mrs. Jane Mackelduft", an intelligent and amiable wo- man, received her education at Kimberton Friends' school, was a consistent member of the Presbyterian church, and died Septem- ber 5, 1891, when in the eighty-seventh year of her age. She was a daughter of George and Hannah (Harris) Calbraith. Her father was a successful farmer and hotel keeper, of McVeytown, this State, where he died. Their children were: Elizabeth Haniand, Nancy Wakefield, Julia Swansey, Hannah Creswell, George, Mrs. Jane Mack- elduft", and Harriet Calbraith. Samuel C. Mackelduft" was reared on the home farm, received his education in How- ard academy and Professor Wyer's boarding school, of West Chester, and assisted his father in farming from 1859 until the death of the latter in 1872. He then purchased his present farm of eighty-one acres of good farming land, which he has improved until it ranks as one of the best farms in that sec- tion of the county. He is a democrat in politics, but has never been an extremist in political aft"air8. QAMUEIi HIG-H, a prosperous, well- known and highly esteemed farmer of North Coventry township, who is also a wheelwright by trade, is the eldest son of Henry and Anna (East) High, and was born in Colebrook, Dale township, Berks county, Pennsylvania, November 28, 1826. His paternal grandfather, Jacob High, was a na- tive of Chester county, born on the farm now owned by Samuel Stauft"er, in North Coventry township. He was a farmer by vocation and removed to Cumberland county, this State, where he purchased a farm of three hundred and forty-nine acres, on which he lived until his death, about 1845, when he had attained the ripe old age of seventy years. In politics he was an old-line whig, and in religion a Mennonite. He was twice married. By his first wife he had two sons and a daughter. One of his sons, Henry High (father), was born in Chester county, near Phoeuixville, in 1796, and was taken by his father to Cumberland county when about ten years of age. In 1820 or 1821 he re- turned to North Coventry, Chester county, andlived fortwoorthreeyearswith hisuncle, Rev. Christian Beary, a farmer and preacher in the Mennonite church, who resided on the 636 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY farm now owned Ly the canal company. He then married Anna East, a daughter of Sam- uel East, a prosperous farmer of Colebrook, Dale townsliip, Berks county, this State, and for some years engaged in farming in that county. In 1829 he returned to Chester county and purchased the farm of eighty- one acres now occupied by Edwin E. Johns, in ISTorth Coventry township. Here he re- sided until about 1857, when he once more removed to Berks county, and died there in the year 1858, aged sixty-two years. In his political affiliations he was a whig and re- publican, and in religion was a strictjnem- ber of the Mennonite church, in which he served as trustee for many years. By his marriage to Anija East, he had a family of nine children, three sons and six daughters: Samuel, the subject of this sketch; Jacob, a resident of East Vincent township, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume; Mary, deceased; Sarah, also dead; Eliza- beth, married Adam Mench, a prosperous farmer of Upper Providence township, Montgomery county ; Henry, now deceased ; Leah, likewise dead; Catharine, married John Mench, a tailor of Pottstown, this county; and Anna, now living with her sis- ter in Pottstown. Samuel High came to Is'orth Coventry township, Chester county, Avith his father, when only three years of age, and was reared and educated in this township, his educa- tion being obtained in the public schools of his neighborhood. After leaving school he learned the trade of wheelwright and has worked at that business to some extent, though his principal occupation has been farming.. He owns two fine farms, one con- taining seventy-eight acres of choice land, nearly all of which is well improved and in a good state of cultivation, and the other con- sisting of sixty-six acres, almost equally val- uable. Politically Mr. High follows the traditions of his ancestors, and has been a republican ever since the organization of that party in Pennsylvania. In religion he likewise adheres to the faith in which he was reared, and for many years has been a devoted member of the Mennonite church. On March 16, 1854, Mr. High was united in marriage to Sarah Kulp, a daughter ot Samuel Kulp, of IS'orth Coventry township, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. High was born a family of six children, three of whom died in infancy. The three who lived to reach maturity are : Milton K., who married Catharine Tyson, and is now a prosperous farmer of North Coventry township; Allen K., wedded Martha Tyson, and is now en- gaged in managing his father's farm ; and Emma K., who became the wife of Milton Prizer, a farmer residing in East Coventry township. Mrs. Sarah High, was born in Lower Providence township, Montgomery county, in 1827, and is still living, hale and hearty for a woman of her age. nOBERT JONES MONAGHAN is one of the leading members of the Chester county bar, and has taken an active part in the politics and business of this county. He is the eldest son of Jonathan J. and Rebecca (Murdagh) Monaghan, and was born in Parkesburgh, Chester county, Pennsylvania, July 2, 1852. When quite young his parents removed to Pettis county, Missouri, where he grew to manhood, at- tending the common schools of that county and the high school in the city of Sedalia, Missouri. At the age of seventeen he re- turned to Pennsylvania and began the study of the law in the office of his uncle, E. E. 'ned ^onaa^an. OF CHESTER COUNTV. 639 Monagliaii (see liis sketcli), at West Chester, Pennsylvania. While reading law he prose- cuted his studies of Latin and Greek for a short time under the well-known teacher, William F. Wyers, and afterward by. pri- vate study, without an instructor, reading the full Yale college course in the classics. Mr. Monaghan is not the graduate of any college, but has always had a lively interest in literature, and until he became absorbed in business, his reading embraced poetry, iiistory, political and social economy, and several other lines, and was, as he says, en- tirely too extensive to be very thorough. He was admitted to the Chester county bar July 3, 1873, and has practised the law continuously since that date. His greatest strength is probably in jury trials and argu- ments of legal questions to the court. His practice has been an active one, and he has probably tried as nianj-, and as important, cases, as any member of the bar since his admission. A few of the leading cases which he has argued before the Supreme court of Pennsylvania are: Beale v. Peuna. R. R. Co., land damages, 86 Pa. 513, 6 W. N. 137; Bradley's Appeal, liability of trus- tees, 89 Pa., 514 ; Ash v. Guie, liability of members of a Masonic lodge, 97 Pa., 498 ; Cross' Appeal, resulting trust. Ibid, 474; Coatesviile Gas Company's case, taxation. Ibid, 476; Miller v. Penua. R. R, Co., ripa- rian rights, 112 Pa. 34; Morrison v. Bach- ert, constitutional law. Ibid, 322 ; K"eely's Appeal, ante-nuptial contract, 124 Pa. 406; the Sharpless will case, 134 Pa. 250; Ster- rett v. James, water right arbitration, 137 Pa. 234. Since he was a boy Mr. Monaghan has been an active political speaker. He is a forcible and effective orator, who has spoken in the most prominent places in the State, and in other States under the National com- mittee. In 1875 he was the nominee of the Democratic party for district attorney, hi 1877 was nominated for State senator, but declined, because he was not old enough to be eligible under the constitution. In 1880 was nominated for congress for the Sixth Pennsylvania distiict, composed of the coun- ties of Chester and Delaware. In 1887 he was nominated ibr judge of the district court against the present incumbent, Hon. William B. Waddell. He is not a practical politician, and, al- though accepting these compliments, has uniformly refused any nomination which indicated the possibility of an election which would withdraw him from business to pub- lic office. He refused the nomination for congress in 1886, when there was a split in the Republican party, and declined to allow his name to be considered for the nomina- tion for judge in 1889, when Hon. Joseph Hemphill, a democrat, was elected, and in 1891 for auditor general of the State. He has positive views against the wisdom of office-seeking. In 1889 Mr. Monaghan and his brother- in-law, the late H. T. Pairhunb, organized thePennsylvaniaMortgagelnvestmentCom- pany, a Chester county institution, the busi- ness of which is the loaning of money on mortgages in Washington and Idaho. Mr. Monaghan was eastern manager of the com- pany for more than two years, and has since been, and still is, its general counsel. The company has a full paid capital of |100,000 ; has been the most successful concern of the kind in this section, and embraces among its stockholders the most substantial and conservative capitalists of the county. Mr. Monaghan is now one of the editors of the well-known and successful Philadel- 640 BIOGMAPHY AND HIST OB Y phia Legal Intelligencer, the oldest law jour- nal in the United States, which has its edi- torial offices in the Drexel building, on Chestnut street. Mr. Monaghan is a member of the Young Men's Democratic association of Philadel- phia, of the Pennsylvania State Historical society, the Lawyers' club of Philadelphia, one of the executive committee of the Phil- adelphia Tariff" Reform association, and an active member of the Masonic fraternity. In his domestic relations Mr. Monaghan has been even more fortunate than in his professional career. On]Srovemberl3,1879, he married Cornelia T. Wilson, eldest daugh- ter of Joseph P. Wilson, one of the most prominent members of the Chester county bar, and for many years president of the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central Railroad Company. Mr. and Mrs. Monaghan have two children living, Frances E. and Walter. Blessed with a vigorous constitution, Mr. Monaghan did not appreciate the necessity of the gospel of rest, and as a result, in the fall of 1891, broke down in health. A voy- age around the world, incl uding some months of rest in Australia, effected a restoration of his health, and he has, at this writing, re- sumed his former place in this community. His business and tastes have occasioned more than the usual amount of travel over the United States in the last ten years. In- deed, there are but five States or territories of the Union which he has not visited. The Monaghans are of Irish descent, the family being planted in America about 1799, by James Monaghan (grandfather), a native of County Fermanagh, who located first in Delaware, and later removed to Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he died in October, 18-11. (See sketch of Robert Em- met Monaghan elsewhere in this work.) Jonathan J. Monaghan (father) was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1813, where he grew to manhood on his father's farm, and received afair English education. In 1850 he married Rebecca Murdagh, of Oxford, this county, and hy this union had a family of five children, three of whom are still living: Robert Jones, the subject of this sketch ; James, a graduate of Lafayette college (1876), who read law with hisbrother, R. Jones, with whom he afterward formed a law partnership, pi-actising in this county, and in May, 1892, was appointed by Gov- ernor Pattison as State reporter for the Su- preme court of Pennsylvania for a term of five years ; and Margaret, wife of Rev. Wil- liam F. Gibbons, a minister of the Presby- terian church, who is located near Wilkes- barre, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania. About 1854 Jonathan Monaghan removed from Chester county to Pettis county, Missouri, where he resided until 1878, when he re- turned to his native county and settled at West Chestei', where he resides at this time. He was a farmer, and in politics a stanch democrat, entertaining very positive views. His wife is still living. Her father, Robert Murdagh, was of Scotch-Irish stock, and was for many years a merchant of Oxford, in this county. lUTATTHIAS J. PENNYP ACKER, ^ M. D., who is a graduate from the medical department of the Pennsylvania university, and has served as a member of the legislature of this State, is the youngest and only surviving son of Matthias and Sarah (Anderson) Pennypacker, and was born at Penny packer's mill, Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September 10, 1819. There he was prin- cipally reared, receiving a superior English OF CHESTER COUNTY. 641 and classical education in the famous school conducted by Joshua Hoopes at West Ches- ter. On leaving school he began the study of medicine, and later entered the Pennsyl- vania university at Philadelphia, from the medical department of which he was grad- uated with honors in the class of 1841. For a time he was engaged in the Philadelphia hospitals, and later located in his native county, where he practiced for a short pe- riod, and was then oft'ered and accepted a position as assistant superintendent and man- ager of the Phoenixville Iron works. Here he remained two years, and at the end of that time, in 1849, he became superintend- ent of Durham Iron works, at Durham, Bucks county, this State, which position he was forced to resign one year later on ac- count of failing health. He then returned to Chester county, and purchasing thehome- stead farm engaged in agriculture, in hope that out door life would restore his waning strength and former vigor of constitution — a hope in which he was not disappointed. So well did farm life agree with him that he has ever since maintained his connection with agricultural pursuits, owning a fine farm of one hundred and twenty-seven acres of improved land, and also a grist mill. Dr. Pennypacker was one of the original republicans of Chester county, and has kept his political faith alike in victory or defeat down to the present hour. In 1854 he was elected to the Pennsylvania house of repre- sentatives, and served one term (1855) as a member of that honorable body. He has always taken a deep and abiding interest in general politics, and in every movement calculated to advance the public welfare, or benefit the people of his county, and is a prominent member of the Methodist Epis- copal church at Phoenixville. On April 27, 1848, Dr. Pennypacker was married to Annie E. Walker, a daughter of William and Sarah Walker, of Tredyfirin township, and by this union had a family of nine children, five sons and four daughters, six of whom arrived at maturity: William H., who married Mary Anna Wetherill, and now resides in Schuylkill township, where he is engaged in farming; Matthias A., now deceased, who married Ella Garrison, of the city of Philadelphia, and was employed as superintendent of the Baldwin Locomotive works in Philadelphia; Sarah, MaryAthalia, Isaac A. and Annie W., the four latter liv- ing at home with their father. Mrs. Annie R. Pennypacker died in 1868, and in 1878 Dr. Pennypacker wedded Kate A. Cook:, an intelligent and cultivated lady of Parkers- burg, West Virginia, and a daughter of Til- linghast J. Cook, of that city. By his second marriage the Doctor has one child, a son, named James C, who is living at home with his parents. The family of which Dr. Pennypacker is a member was spoken of sixty years ago by Hon. Isaac Anderson, in his history of Charlestown township, as "rich, respectable and numerous," and has lost none of these characteristics in the years which have elapsed since then. It originated in Hol- land, where its representatives may yet be found, and about 1650 was transplanted to Germany, where the original name Panne- bakker (tile-maker) was Germanized to Pfannebecker. In 1699 Heinrich Pfanne- becker, born in Germany in 1674, came to Germantown, near Philadelphia, and from there removed to Skippack, now in Mont- gomery county, where he died in 1754. He was the first German surveyor in Pennsyl- vania, and a large land owner. Several of his grandsons crossed the Schuylkill into 64'3 BIOaiiAPHY AND HISTORY Chester county. One, Jacob Pennypacker (as the name soon came to be spelled in America), came to Perkiomen Junction in 1772. Matthias (grandfather) came in 1774, and settled at tlie point now known as Pennypacker's mill, in Schuylkill township; and Harman, John and Benjamin came to Chester Springs in 1792, 1794 and 1796, respectively; while Henry settled in Vin- cent in 1794. Matthias Pennypacker, paternal grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was Iwrn Octol)cr 14, 1742, and died in Schulkill township, this county, February 8, 1808, at the age of sixty-six years. He wasawoalthy farmer and miller, carrying on an extensive business, and running a line of boats on the Schuylkill river to carry his flour to Phila- delpliia. Part of the product of his mill ■was also sent to that city in wagons, a num- ber of which he kept constantly employed. He was a member and bishop of the Mcn- nonite church, was the first preacher in the old church at Phoenixvillc, and spoke both the English and Oorman languages fluently. While the Continental army lay at Valley 1^'orgc, a number of American ofticcrs were quartered at his house, and in 1777 the British destroyed much [iropert^- at his mill. He was a man of large heart and clear head, and was universally acknowledged as a leader in his community. In 1784 he was ap- pointed by the assembly one of the com- missioners to provide for tlie navigation of the Schuylkill river, and in 1793, when Philadelpliia was ravaged by the yellow fever, he sent two hundred and forty dollars in cash to be distributed among the poor uf that city. He married Mary Custer, of Montgomery county, by whom he had a family oF sixchildren : John, James, Joseph, Matthias (father), Elizabeth and Margaret. His first wife dying in 1798, he afterward married Mary, widow of Christian Mairys, by whom lie had a daughter named Sarah. All his children are now deceased. Matthias Pennypacker (father) was born on the old homstead, August 16, 1786, where he was reared, and obtained his edu- cation in the subscription schools of that early day. After attaining manhood he en- gaged in farming and milling, both of which he conducted on a large scale. He also operated a saw mill and dealt in lumber for a number of years. In religious faith he was a Mennouite, and a prominent member of that church for many years. He died at his home on Pickering creek, April 4, 1862, aged sixty-six years. Politically he was an old line whig, and ardently espoused the cause of Henry Clay, and was a great ad- mirer of Gen. William Henry Harrison. In 1826 and again in 1827 he was elected a member of the State assembly, in which he served three terms with distinction, and in 1837 was a member of the Constitutional convention, in which he took an active part. In 1831 he was chairman of the organiza- tion of the leading men of Chester county which made the first move toward the con- struction of the Philadelphia & Reading railroad, and was one of the incorporators of that road. He ranked with the first citi- zens of Chester county, and was regarded as authority on questions of political economy. In 1807 he married Sarah Anderson, a daughter of Hon. Isaac Anderson, of Schuyl- kill township, and by this union had a fam- ily of five children, four sons and a daugh- ter, the youngest of whom is the subject of this sketch. The eldest son was James A., born December 12, 1808, and died Decem.- ber 23, 1851, aged forty-two years. He married Ann Pennypacker, by whom he had OF CHESTER COUNTY. 643 three children : S-arah Frances, wlio died in •childhood ; Dr. Nathan A., who tuarried Eliza Davis; and Mary Elizabeth, who mar- I'ied Ayill.iam Williamson, of Pottstown. The second child was Mary A., born Aug- ust 12, 1810, and died August 29, 1887, at the old homestead where she had always lived. The third was Dr. Isaac A., born July 9, 1812, and died February 13, 1856, in his forty-fourth year. Tie married Anna Maria Whitaker, and was the father of six children: John C, died in e&Y\j youth; SaTHuel W., now a judge in the Philadelphia court of common pleas, who niaiTied Vir- ginia Broomall ; Harry C, married Clara Karnes, and resides at Moore Hall, this county; Josephine, died in infancy; Isaac R., married Charlotte Whitaker, of Havre- de-Grasse, Maryland, and now lives at Mount Holly, 'Egw Jersey ; and James L., who wedded Grace Coolidge, of Boston, and re- sides at Iladdonfield, New Jersey. The next child of Matthias and Sarah Pennypacker was Washington, born September 20, 1814^ and died August 20, 1867. He married Eliza Wright, of Safe Harbor, this State, by wbom he had five children: Matthias, who died at Harper's Ferry, in 1862, while serving in the Union army ; Susannah, mar- ried L. Wesley Free ; Mary A. ; Jennie, mar- ried George Kirk, and now resides in the State of Washington ; and Benjamin B., who wedded Annie Lamar, and lives in the same State. J'ESSE B. DAVIS, a leading citizen of WilHstown township, who for nine years has been a justice of the peace at White Horse, and is favorably known in all parts of the county, js the younger of the two surviving sons of George and Ellen (Baugh) Davis, and was born at "White Horse," Willistown township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, March 31, 1831. There he re- mained until his ninth year, when he went to reside with his grandfather in West Goshen township. After two years passed in that township he removed to East Brad- ford, and two years later went to Delaware county, where he lived during the next eight years. His, education was obtained principally in the public schools, and in 1852 he returned to Willistown township, where he engaged in milling and has ever since resided. For a period of seven yeai's he conducted the old Thomas mill on Crum creek, after which he began farming, and now owns a splendid farm containing one hundred and ten acres of choice and very valuable land, all well improved. On April 9, 1881, he was commissioned by Governor Beaver as a justice of the peace for Willis- town township, and has been acceptably filling that office ever since, being now in the ninth year of consecutive service. In politics Squire Davis is independent, sup- porting such men and measures as in his judgment are best calculated to advance the interests of the people and subserve the public good. He is a member of the Patrons of Husbandry, and for eight years was a member and officer — steward — of the Penn- sylvania State Grange of that organization. On the 5th day of May, 1855, Squire Davis was united in marriage to Lydia Palmer, a daughter of James P. and Jane (Temple) Palmer, of the city of Philadelphia. To them was born a family of four children, one son and three daughters: Ella V., edu- cated at the Friends' Central school in Phil- adelpbia, and is now engaged as a teacher of music; William, living at home and as- sisting his. father in the management of the farm ; Jennie, deceased ; and Anna, who re- 644 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY ceived her education at the Friends' Central school in Philadelphia, and is an elocution- ist, teaching privately, and living at home with her parents. The Davis family is of Welsh descent, and are among the older families of this State. Joseph Davis, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Willistown township, this county, where he owned the property now occupied by Algernon Lukens, consisting of two hun- dred acres of fine land. He was a noted dairyman in his day, and it is said his butter always brought the highest, price in the market and was in constant demand. In politics he was a whig, and in religion a Quaker, being a member of the Willistown meeting at the time of his death, which oc- curred at Edgemont in 1848, after an active life of three quarters of a century. He married Sarah Bishop, by whom he had a family of nine children, six sons and three daughters : Joseph,William, James, Samuel, Jesse, Sarah, (who married Jacob Huey, of Kennett township), Mary, (wedded Freder- ick Fairlamb, of Delaware county,) Martha (became the wife of Pierce Taylor, of Ken- nett Square), and George, father of Jesse B. They are all now deceased. George Davis (father) was born on the old homestead in Willistown township, as was all the family, and he pafesed most of his life there. He was reared on the farm, obtained his education in the common schools, and after attaining his majority engaged in farming, stock deal- ing and hotel keeping. He owned a farm of forty acres, was proprietor of the old White Horse hotel for many years, and be- came noted as a large cattle buyer, drover and butcher. On one occasion he slaugh- tered the largest ox ever killed in the county, it is believed, which weighed two thousand two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, dressed. In politics he was a whig and re-' publican, and was always active in the pub- lic movements of his community. He was prominent in the celebration of November 20th, the anniversary of the Paoli massacre. In religion he was a Quaker, and a life long member of that Society. He died at Wil- liam Hugh's hotel in West Philadelphia in 1838, while on a visit to friends there, and his remains repose in the cemetery at Willis- town. In 1837 he married Ellen Baugh, a daughter of Daniel Baugh, of Tredyftrin, and to their union was born a family of eight children, five sons and three daughters : Elizabeth, Alfred, Milton, John, Jesse, Jos- eph, Sarah and Hannah. Alfred died from disease contracted while serving as a soldier during the civil war; Milton served under General Scott in the Mexican war as a member of the 68th United States infantry, and at the first call for troops in 1861 en- listed in the 68th Pennsylvania infantry, as captain of Co. I, under Colonel Tipton, and was in fourteen regular engagements, had charge of his regiment as senior captain in the battle of Gettysburg, and was killed soon afterward on the Eappahannoek, in Virginia, by a stray shot fired by a Confed- erate picket ; Joseph served as lieutenant of Co. I, 68th Pennsylvania infantry, and was killed at the battle of Fredericksburg. JACOB H. DEWEES, a prosperous and well known farmer and dairyman, re- siding in Uwchlan township, near Uwchlan postoffice, is one of the largest landowners in this vicinity. He is the eldest son of Thomas D. and Elizabeth (Hause) Dewees, and was born February 5, 1859, in East Nantmeal township, Chester county, Penn- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 645 sylvania. The family is of "Welsh descent, and has been resident in this State since early times. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Waters De- wees, a native of this county, who passed his early life near Doe run, but later re- moved to West N^antmeal township, where he died at an advanced age. For many years he was engaged in the hotel business, but the latter part of his life was devoted to agricultural pursuits, on the farm now known as the Marsh property. Politically he was an old-line whig. He married Ann Bull, and reared a family of eight children, three sons and five daughters : George, Ed- ward, Thomas D., Sallie Clingan, Ann Wood, Rachel Roberts, Elizabeth Fries and Mary McLain. Mrs. Dewees (grandmother) lived to be eighty-two years of age. Thomas D. Dewees (father) was born in West Nantmeal township in 1813, and spent his boyhood principally at Marsh, where he was edu- cated and resided until after his marriage. He then engaged in farming and marketing in West Vincent township, and followed that occupation during the remainder of his life, owning a farm of eighty acres of choice land. He died March 5, 1876, aged sixty- three years. Politically he was first a whig and later a republican, and for a number of years took an active interest in local poli- tics. In 1836 he married Elizabeth Hause, a daughter of Jacob Hause, of East Infant- meal township, and by this union he had a family of twelve children, seven sons and five daughters: John, deceased; Howard, also dead ; Harry, Thomas, William, Jesse, Jacob H., the subject of this sketch ; Elmira, who married John Davis ; Ida, wedded William Yeager; Sallie, became the wife of PrestoH Mosteller; Anna, who married William Leonard ; and Hannah, deceased. Jacob H. Dewees was reared principally in West Vincent township, and received his education in the public schools adjacent to his home. Leaving school he engaged in farming, and has made that the leading business of his life. For four years he re- sided in West Vincent township, but in 1871 he purchased his present farm of one hun- dred and twenty-five acres inUwchlan town- ship, and has since lived upon and cultivated this splendidly improved and well watered tract of land. He also owns four acres of wood-land on Mill hill, and a farm of one hundred and fifty-six acres in West Vincent township. The latter is also well improved and carefully cultivated, and Mr. Dewees is justly regarded as one of the leading farm- ers of his township. In addition to his other operations he owns and manages a dairy, supplied by nearly fifty cows, and for more than twenty years has been engaged in ship- ping milk to Philadelphia. In politics Mr. Dewees is a stanch republican, and in relig- ion a strict member of the Vincent Baptist church, in which he is serving as trustee. In 1863 he served for a time in an emer- gency regiment, assisting to repel Lee's in- vasion of northern territory. On December 13, 1866, Mr. Dewees was united by marriage to Sarah Stiteler, a daughter of Henry and Peninah Stiteler, of West Vincent township. To Mr. and Mrs. Dewees was born a family of three children, two sons and a daughter: Howard, living at home and assisting his father in the man- agement of the farm; George S., now a student in the West Chester Normal school, where he is preparing himself for a teacher ; and Rosalind, living at home with her par- ents. Mrs. Sarah Dewees was born January 20, 1842, and educated in the public schools of West Vincent township. 646 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY QEORGE WERSLER, a prominent farmer of Tredytfriu townsliip, and a representative of one of the oldest families in this State, is the eldest surviving son of Major John G. and Mariah (Davis) Wersler, and a native ofCharlestown township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, where he was born February 2, 1816. As the name would indicate, the Werslers arc of German de- scent, but have been residents of this State since early colonial times, and were settled in Chester county prior to the revolutionary war. In 1775 George Wersler (paternal grandfather), who was the sou of a Lutheran minister, came from his native county of Bucks and purchased a tract of twenty acres of land in Charlestown (now Schuylkill) township, this county, whereon he erected a large saw mill and workshop. He was a carpenter and farmer, and beside his saw mill tract also purchased two others, each containing one hundred acres. During the revolution he served as captain for a time, and also manufactured buttons for the uni- forms of the Continental army, being the iirst to use shanks on such buttons; and later made a large number of spinning wheels — large and small — which found a ready sale among the people, nearly all of whom manufactured their own clothing in those early days. He was also a practical surveyor, and surveyed much of the land in this section and in the coal regions around Wilkesbarre. He lived an active and use- ful life, and died in Charleston township about 1832, at the advanced age of eighty- four years. Politically he was a democrat, and in religion a strict member of the Epis- copal church, in which he became prominent and iniiuential. He married Anna Mariah Golden, of Bucks county, and was the father of one son and two daughters who grew to maturity: John G. (father), Eebecca, who married William Bones, and Elizabeth, who wedded Abraham Zook — all now deceased. Major John G. Wtersler (father) was born in Chariestown township, this county, in 1781, and spent most of his life here, dying at his home in this township November 20, 1876, in the ninety -fifth year of his age. By occupation he was a farmer and surveyor, a democrat in politics, and a leading man in his community all his life; holding at one time or another all the offices in his town- ship, and being connected with the settle- ment of a vast number of estates. He served with distinction in the war of 1812, first as captain of a company bearing the name of Great Valley Light infantry, which he was instrumental in organizing, and later as cap- tain of the Chester County blues — so named on account of their blue uniform. Some time after forming this company, Captain Wersler was advanced to the rank of major of volunteers in his brigade. He was a strict disciplinarian, and his efficiency as an officer was frequently spoken of in the most flatter- ing terms by his superiors. He was also captain of a company of State militia for many years. In 1810 he served as deputy sheriff under George Hartman, and a few years later was a prominent candidate for the sheriffalty himself, but was defeated by two weaker candidates combining against him. In 1818 he was appointed by Gov. William Findlay to the office of prothono- tary and clerk of the courts of Chester county, a position he held from March 2.5th of that year to February 29, 1821, discharg- ing its duties with credit to himself and sat- isfaction to all who were brought in official contact with him. He was a gentleman of the old school, courteous and unobtrusive in speech and manner, and possessed of the OF CHESTER COUNTY. 647 very soul of honor and truthfulness. These qualities attracted many iirra friends who yielded him their implicit confidence and remained loyal to the end. In religion he was an Episcopalian, and perhaps the fore- most member of St. Peter's church of that denomination, in which he served for many years as deacon and trustee, and as superin- tendent of the Sunday school. In 1810 he married Mariah Davis, a daughter of Heze- kiah Davis, and by this union had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters: Milton, deceased; Anna M., who married B. G. Rapp, and is also dead ; George, the principal subject of this sketch ; Harriet, wedded Thomas Hampton, and is now deceased; Anna, Albert H. and Wil- liam L. Hezekiah Davis (maternal grandfather) was born in Charlestown township, this county, where he lived nearly all his life and died December 27, 1837, when lacking only six years of being a centenarian. He was a saddler by trade, and also owned and operated a farm of one hundred and twenty- five acres. In religious faith he was a Pres^ byterian, and politically a stanch democrat, becoming prominent in local politics and holding all his township offices. He was elected a member of the State legislature, and represented Chester county one term in that honorable body. During the revolu- tionary struggle he served as quartermaster, when that position was a difficult and try- ing one, and by no means the sinecure it came to be during the civil war. At the battle of Long Island he was captured by the British and held a prisoner for, some time, during which he formed the acquaint- ance of Anna Schenck (a descendant of Gen- eral Schenqk), of Brooklyn, New York, whom he afterward married, and by whom 38 he had a family of nine children : Willemina, born May 8, 1782, married John Shriver; Harriet, born July 3, 1784, married Julius Anderson ; Maria (mother), born August 4, 1786; Julia, born June 7, 1788; Adriana, born November 2,1790, married John Irven ; Nicholas, born September 26, 1796 ; Nathan, born April 12, 1794; Hannah, born Sep- tember 24, 1796, married Henry T. Henion ; and Thomas L., born September 11, 1799. George Wersler was reared on his fath- er's farm in Charlestown township," and re- ceived a good common school education in the schools of his neighborhood. Leaving school he engaged in farming and resided in his native township for thirty years. Pie then removed to West Tredyffrin township, where he lived for eight years, after which he removed to the General Wayne farm, where he was engaged in agricultural pur- suits for eight years. He afterward pur- chased his father-in-law's farm of one hun- dred and seventeen acres, where he now re- sides. The farm is well improved, the soil exceedingly fertile, and in every respect a desirable property and home. In his polit- ical affiliations Mr. Wersler has always been democratic, while in religion he is a Presbyterian, and all his family are mem- bers of the Great Valley church of that de- nomination. On February 17, 1838, Mr. Wersler was wedded to Ann E. Beaver, a daughter of George and Anna Beaver, of Tredyftrin township, this county, and by this union had a family of nine children: Louisa, now the widow of David Clemmens, and residing in Kansas ; Anna, married David Detwiler, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume ; Maria E. ; Ida, wedded Sylvester Tyson, a teacher, residing at Townsend, Delaware; Elizabeth, became the wife of 648 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY William Swearer, a prbsperous farmer of Tredyftrin township; George P., married Alice Finch (who is now deceased) and lives with his father; Clara T., married Archie Catanach; Emma W., living at home; and John G., deceased. IV^ATHAN E. REINHART, V. S., of * Pottstown Landing, whose indomitable energy and acquired skill has won him de- served success and an enviable rank in his chosen profession, is the eldest child and only son of Daniel and Lydia (Evans) Rein- hart, and was born in East Coventry town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Septem- ber 16, 1836. He was educated at a board- ing school, and commenced the study of medicine in 1860 with his uncle, John F. Evans, who was a domestic practitioner, and had been graduated from Jefferson Medical college in 1844. The civil war followed and he turned his attention to veterinary surgery, purchasing horses at government sale that were unfit for army service, and after bringing them up to good condition, selling them again. This afforded him ex- tensive practice and valuable experience, and also proved a source of considerable profit. Later Mr. Reinhart took a course of training under Dr. James McCoart, V. S., of the Pennsylvania college of veterinary surgeons, and after passing the required ex- amination, received a certificate of member- ship in that college. Dr. Reinhart has been in active practice ever since, engaged also in stock raising much of the time. In 1873 he located at Steelton, Dauphin county, near Harrisburg, where for thirteen years he was successfully engaged in the line of his calling, and built up a large and lucrative practice in Harrisburg, Steelton and surrounding country. In 1881 he was elected burgess of Steelton, being the sec- ond to occupy that office. In 1887 he re- turned to this county and settled at Potts- town Landing, where he has since resided and practiced. His business has steadily grown in importance and his reputation ex- tended among horsemen in every direction. During his whole career he has been active, energetic and successful, having taken great pains to thoroughly fit himself for his duties and afterward -kept well posted on all ad- vances or improvements made in his line. He uses the best and most approved appli- ances known to the profession, and owing to his great skill and uniform success has attained high standing in his chosen voca- tion. Dr. Reinhart' is a member of the Pennsylvania State Veterinary society, and has been ever since its organization August 23, 1883. He has been especially active in its interests since the society was incorpor- ated, June 31, 1885, and was one of the ear- liest to favor its incorporation. In politics Dr. Reinhart is a republican, and has been elected and served two terms as school di- rector in his township. He is also a mem- ber of Pottstown Lodge, ISo. 851, Royal Arcanum. In his twenty-fifth year, January 30, 1861, Dr. Reinhai-t wedded Emma G. Reitf, a daughter of Jacob Reiff, of North Coventry township, this county, and by this marriage had two children, both daughters. The eldest, Elizabeth, married M. P. Bernard, a jeweler of Kennett Square, and the other, Mary E., is living at home with her parents. Mrs. Reinhart was born March 9, 1835, and was reared and educated in North Coventry township. Her father, Jacob Reiff, is also a native of that township, where he has al- ways resided. He was born February 14, OF CHESTER COVNTY. 649 1814, is a blacksmith and farmer by occupa- tion, in politics a republican with whig an- tecedents, and has served as a school director for nine years. In religion he is a member and deacon of the German Reformed church. HemarriedElizabethGeist on St. Valentine's day, 1835, and to them was born a family of six children, five of whom ai-e yet living: Henry, now a clerk in the German lieformed Publishing house at Philadelphia; Emma G., now Mrs. Reinhart; Rebecca, married W. E. Rhodes, and resides in Berks county, this State; Allen, a carpenter and wheel- wright of Pottstown ; and Taylor, a carpen- ter residing at Conshohocken, Montgomery county. The deceased was a daughter, named Lizzie. The paternal grandfather of Dr. ISTathau E. Reinhart was Abraham Reinhart, a native of East Coventry township, this county, where he lived all his life, and died in 1843, at the advanced age of seventy-nine years. 13y occupation he was a farmer, and ranked among the most progressive and successful men of his neighborhood. He was an old- lino whig in politics, and in religion a strict member of the German Baptist church. His wife was Mary Price, and they reared a large family of ten children, seven sons and three daughters, all of whom are now deceased, except one son, Joshua, and Rebecca, the widow of John Halderman. Daniel Rein- hart (father) was 'born in East Coventry township in 1804, and died in South Cov- entry in 1865, aged sixty-one years. He also was a farmer, and passed an active and useful life in the cultivation of the soil and in stock raising. In his earlier years he was a whig in politics, but on the dissolution of that organization he identified himself with the Republican party, and actively supported the latter until his death in 1865, when in the sixtieth year of his age. He always ad- hered to the German Baptistchurch, in which faith he had been reared, and for many years was an active and influential member of that denomination. In February, 1833, he mar- ried Lydia Evans, a daughter of Mark Ev- ans, who was born in Limerick township, Montgomery county, this State, and died in East Coventry township, Chester county, in 1844, at the age of fifty-three years. ~ He was a farmer by vocation, an ardent whig in politics, and married Susannah Frick, by whom he had a family of two sons and three daughters, the youngest of whom became Mrs. Reinhart. By this marriage Mr. Rein- hart had a family of two children, one son. Dr. N'athan E., and a daughter named Mary, who married Joseph Meredith, and resides in the city of Philadelphia, where her hus- band is engaged in the grocery and feed business, and is also president of the Vulcan Road Machine Company of Charleston, West A'irginia. ■ Mrs. Lydia Reinhart, mother of Dr. Reinhart and Mrs. Meredith, is living in Philadelphia with her daughter, Mrs. Mere- dith. She is now in her eighty-second year. I^AVID M. TAYLOR, a veteran Union soldier and an able financier of south- eastern Pennsylvania, who has been promi- nently identified with the prosperity and progress of Oxford for over a quarter of a century, is a son of Joseph C. and Jane M. (White) Tayloi-, and was born in Little Britain township, Lancaster county, Penn- sylvania, December 8, 1841. The Taylor family traces its transatlantic ancestry to England, and the American branch of the family was founded by Joseph Taylor, who married Mary Maris in 1709, and settled in Xewlin township, Chester county. His 650 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY son, Jesse Taylor, was born in 1726, and re- moved to Kentucky, where he followed sur- veying. He reared a family, and one of his sons, David Taylor (grandfather), was born, near Unionville, Chester county, in 1775. He was drowned while assisting in seining Laurel dam, in 1810, when in the thirty-fifth year of his age. He was a prosperous and successful farmer, and a federalist and whig in polities. He married Hannah Craig, by whom he had three children : Joseh C, Anna W. Woodrow and Lydia Pierce. Joseph C. Taylor (father) was born in 1804, at Unionville, and after serving an appren- ticeship to the tanning business under Jesse Hills of Chatham, removed to Oak Hill, Lancaster county, where he and Jonathan Pierce built and operated for several years what is now known as Harlan's tannery. Shortly after quitting the tanning business he went to Little Britain township, that county, and purcViased a farm, which he afterwards left to engage in the general mercantile business at Ashville, the same county, where he died April 26, 1876, in the seventy-first year of his age. He was a prominent and influential man in his com- munity, and ranked as one of the leading abolitionists of Pennsylvania. He was a man of great determination, and when con- vinced that a course of action was just or right he pursued it regardless of conse- quences. On one occasion a colored woman and her two children who lived at "Wolf Hollow" near hie farm, were kidnapped by two slave drivers from Maryland, and were driven almost to the Maryland State line before Mr. Taylor succeeded in overtaking them. He had borrowed a shotgun when starting, and with this single weapon com- pelled the slave drivers, although heavily armed, to give up their captives. He was a man of good legal knowledge, and married for his first wife, Susan, daughter of John Twaddle, by whom he had two children : Anna and David, who are both dead. After her death he married, on January 17, 1837, Jane M. White, who was born in County Armagh, Ireland, and died in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1890, at seventy-seven years of age. By his sec- ond marriage Mr. Taylor had five children : B.Frank,justice of the peace and real estate agent at Oxford; John T., who enlisted in Co. A, 97th Pennsylvania infantry, on Aug- ust 22, 1861, and was killed at the mine ex- plosion in front of Petersburg, while gal- lantly bearing the colors of his regiment; David M. ; Dr. Edward C. ; and Howard J., born October 28, 1857, and died January 11, 1878. Dr. Edward C. Taylor is a re- publican, and Presbyterian, who was born February 21, 1844, was graduated from the university of Pennsylvania in 1867, and after practicing for eleven years at Marlton, Burlington county, New Jersey, came to Oxford, where he has practiced ever since, and where, on June 4, 1890, he was united in marriage to Mercy A., daughter of E. H. Kirk.' David M. Taylor received his education in the common schools and the Millersville State Normal school, and was then engaged in the mercantile business until August 22, 1861, when he enlisted in Co. A, 97th Pennsylvania infantry, in which he served for three years, being honorably discharged at Bermuda Hundred on August 22, 1864. He participated in the siege of Charleston, and the attack on Ft. Wagner, then was on detached service in Florida, and at the end of that time his regiment was sent to liichmond, where he took part in the bat- tle of Cold Harbor and the siege of Peters- OF GHESTER COUNTY. 651 burg. Returning home from the army of the Potomac he was variously engaged until 1866, when he became teller of the IsTational bank of Oxford, and served in that capacity for two years. He then became cashier of the newly organized bank of Kirk, Mc- Veigh & Co., and held that position up to 1872, in which year he helped organize the Oxford Banking Company, with which he remained until 1883, when it was reorgan- ized as the Farmers' National bank of Ox- ford, of which he has been cashier ever since. This bank is situated on the corner of Third and Locust streets. It has a cap- ital of seventy-five thousand dollars, with a surplus of twenty thousand dollars, and de- posits amounting to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. On December 16, 1868, Mr. Taylor was united in marriage with Violet H., daughter of Azariah Rittenhouse, of Rising Sun, Maryland. ^David M. Taylor is a republican in politics, and has been for several years a member of the Presbyterian church of Ox- ford, of which he is now trustee. He is a member of Oxford Lodge, Ifo. 353, Free and Accepted Masons, and W. S. Thompson Post, 1^0. 363, Grand Army of the Republic. Mr. Taylor is largely identified with the in- terests of Oxford. He is treasurer of the Oxford Milling Company, secretary of the Building and Loan association, and presi- dent of the Electric Light Company, and the Land Improvement Company of Oxford, which has an incorporated capital of one million dollars. He is also interested in financial and business afliairs outside of his county, and is a director of the First 'S&- tional bank of Delta, York county, and of the Steel Company, of N'orristown, Mont- gomery count}'. Mr. Taylor is active, court- eous and energetic. He is thoroughly ac- quainted with the correct principles of gen- eral business. He has had twenty-five years of successful bank experience as a teller, cashier, and director, and is recognized in business circles as an excellent financier. QEOEG-E S. ROBB, now resident of Berwyn, and who was engaged actively for several years in the produce and com- mission business in Philadelphia, is a son of Thomas and Melina (South) Robb, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, July 2, 1842. Thomas Robb was born inPhiladelphia, where he was engaged extensively in the lumber business until his death, which occurred at Burlington, New Jersey, in 1874. He was an active republican in political matters, and married Melina South, by whom he had three children : George S. ; Charles C, who died in infancy ; and Charles S., who onjy lived to reach his sixth year. George S. Robb received his education in the private schools of ML Holly and Bur- lington, N"ev' Jersey, and Friends' school of Philadelphia. Leaving school he was en- gaged for a while in farming with Elisha Newbold, in Bucks county, and then tried farming on his own account for three years in that county. At the end of that time he became a bookkeeper for William R. Bish- op, which position he afterward resigned to become an employee of the produce and com- mission firm of Hunter & Reall, with whom he remained for several years. Withdraw- ing from the produce and commission busi- ness in 1880, he was variously employed until 1890, when he removed to where he now resides, at Berwyn. He has a neat and tasteful home and has retired from active business. He is a republican in politics, 652 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY and takes an active part in supporting the party of his choice. On March 1, 1888, Mr. Eobb married Mrs. Lottie K,. Bitler, who was the widow of Joseph Bitler, who had two sons, William F., who is in business in Philadelphia, and J. Clarence, now in the employ of the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company. Mrs. Lottie R. Robb, who was born JS^ovember 10, 1849, is a daughter of William G. Nagel, who was born August 7, 1824, in Philadelphia, where he was a chemist by profession. He was a son of George ISTagel, a native and prom- inent city officer of Philadelphia, who served in the Union naval service during the late war, and at his death left four children: Mary Fulir, Susan Waters, William G. and John. William G. Nagel married Annie DeNunneville, daughter of Charles DeNun- neville, and a grand-daughter of Charles and Sarah (Umphrey) DeNunneviile. To Wil- liam G. and Annie ]!Tagel were born five children: William H., Clara, Annie G. Woods, Edmon and Lottie R., wife of the subject of this sketch. TA>II.LIAM R. BRANSON is a son of James G. Branson, and was born in Westtown township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, October 28, 18-30. After com- pleting his eduction he engaged for a time in teaching, and later graduated from a commercial college and served in several responsible positions in the revenue service, and as bookkeeper, until he became finan- cial manager of the woolen mills of Jarvis Ellis, a position he has acceptably filled for some fifteen years. Mr. Branson has always been an ardent republican, and has taken an active interest in political affairs, both local and national. iJON. ABRAM DOUGLAS HAR- ^ LAN, ex-State senator and present marshal of the United States circuit court of appeals for the Third circuit, is one of the active public-spirited and influential men of the county and State, who is hon- ored for the usefulness of his public services and the integrity of his private life. lie is a son of Ezekiel and Hannah M. (Buller) Harlan, and was born in West Marlborough township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September 3, 1833. He received his educa- tion in the public and private schools of his county, and then engaged at an early age in the mercantile business at Coatesville, which he followed until 1862. In the spring of that year he entered the service of tlie Christian commission and labored diligently and successfully in caring for the sick and wounded soldiers at Fortress Monroe, Har- rison Landing, Washington city and Anti.e- tam. After Lee's retreat from Antietam he was so impressed with the necessity of his country for soldiers that he felt it to be his duty to take up arms in defense of the Union, and at considerable financial loss he left his business and voluntarily entered the army, October 16, 1862. He" served as a private soldier in an independent company of cav- alry, and was first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster of the 167th Pennsylvania volunteers, and was honorably discharged, July 31, 1863, at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Returning from the army to Coatesville, he became an extensive dealer in real estate, and through his efforts much of the farm land at that time within and adjoining the borough limits was laid out into lots on which houses have been erected and along which streets have been opened. Li order to carry out this building up of his borough he organized the Coatesville Building asso- OF CHESTER COVNTY. 653 ciation, and to-day a large number of houses and several beautiful streets are evidences of his successful efforts for the progress and prosperity of Coatesville. He was the first to suggest gas works and to conceive the idea of Fairview cemetery, while in the edu- cational interests of the borough he was as active as in its material progress and devel- opment. He served for twenty-one years as a member and officer of the school board and in many ways was instrumental in se- curing advancement in the schools and in- creased efficiency in their management. Since eighteen years of age Mr. Harlan has been a member of the Coatesville Presbyte- rian church, of which he was elected.a rul- ing elder in 1871, and of whose Sunday school he has served as superintendent for nearly forty years. In 1880 he was sent as a commissioner to the Presbyterian general assembly by the Presbytery of Chester. On January 1, 1857, Mr. Harlan married Elizabeth Boyd Scott, who was a daughter of Samuel W. and Jane (Boyd) Scott, who died November 21, 1883. They had three children: Walter L., who died in infancy; Justin Edwards, born September 27, 1860, and now practicing dentistry at "West Ches- ter; and Wallace Scott, who was born March 28, 1862, and is a member of the Chester county bar. On June 18, 1885, Mr. Harlan wedded for his second wife, Mrs. Ella Whyte, daughter of Abner and Hannah E. Baldwin, of this county. Abrani D. Harlan is a lineal descendant in the sixth generation from Michael Har- lan, who with his brother, George, was the founder of the Harlan family in the United States, which has been prominently identi- fied with the history of Chester county al- most from its origin. Michael Harlan was born in England about 1655, and in 1687 came to Kennett township. His son, George Harlan, was the father of the George Harlan who was born in 1725, and whose son, Silas Harlan (grandfather), was born March 26, 1754. He was a farmer by occupation, and a member of the Society of Friends. He married Hannah M. Buller, and died Aug- ust 1, 1837, at eighty-four years of age. His son, Ezekiel Harlan (father), was born June 11, 1804, in West Marlborough town- ship, and followed agricultural pursuits un- til within a few years of his death, which occurred at Coatesville, February 8, 1868. Ezekiel liarlan was an old-line whig and republican in politics, and had been a mem- ber and trustee of the Presbyterian church for many years before his death. He was an industrious and useful citizen, and on January 8, 1828, married Hannah M. Buller, by whom he had three children : Mary A., wife of E. S. Koons ; Susan A., wife of Col. W. B. Mendenhall, president of the Ameri- can Sewing Machine Company, at Philadel- phia; and Hon. Abram D. Mrs. Harlan was born February 23, 1806, and is a daugh- ter of William Buller, who wedded Mary (Brenneman) Buller, and whose father, John Buller, married Hannah Harlan, a daughter of Ezekiel and Mary (Bezer) Harlan, who was a granddaughter of George Harlan, brother of Michael Harlan, who was married in 1687 in Ireland, and who was among the first white settlers on the Brandy wine in this county. Abram D. Harlan is a stanch republican, and his political career commenced in 1864 when he became transcribing clerk of the Pennsylvania house of representatives. He served as clerk of the same body during the sessions of 1865, 1866 and 1867, and five years later served as a representative dele- gate from his county in the Republican State 654 BIOGRAPHY AND HIST OB Y convention of 1872. He was one of the assistant clerks of the constitutional con- vention of Pennsylvania during its entire session of 1872-73. He next served for two years as a special clerk in the internal reve- nue department under Hon. A. P. Tutton, and at the end of that time became assistant cashier of customs at the port of Philadel- phia, where he served for six and one-half years under Hon. A. P. Tutton and Maj.- Gen. John F. Hartranft. He resigned as cashier on December 31, 1882, and return- ing to his native county, was elected on March 31, 1883, as State senator, to till the unexpired term of Hon. James B. Everhart, from the Nineteenth senatorial district, composed of Chester county. In Novem- ber, 1884, he was re-elected by a majority of thirty-six hundred and thirty-six, for the full senatorial term of four years, and his course in the State senate was such as to win him the commendation of the republi- cans, while it secured him the respect of all parties. In 1888 he was renominated and elected by a majority of four thousand and twenty-one, but resigned on June 16, 1891, to became marshal of the United States (>ir- euit court of appeals for the third circuit, which position he has held ever since. Senator Harlan worthily ranks with the prominent and useful men of his county, and his repeated election to the State senate by popular suft'rage is cunmlative evidence of merit and distinction. nOBEKT FUTHEY was born on the old homestead farm in West Fallow- field (now Highland) township, March 13, 1833. This farm was purchased by his grandfather, Samuel Futh^y, in 1763. His pai'ents were Robert and Margaret (Parkin- son) Futhey. His education was obtained in the schools of the neighborhood, in one of which his brother, Judge J. Smith Futhey, was at one time a teacher. At the outbreak of the late war he en- listed as a private in Co. A, 1st Pennsylvania volunteers, Colonel Roberts commanding, and served with the regiment until October, 1862, taking part in the various movements of the regiment, the campaign before Rich- mond, and the second Bull Run. In Octo- ber, 1862, he was promoted to first lieuten- ant of Co. I, 175th Pennsylvania infantry,' and served in Virginia and North Carolina, and was mustered out near the close of the war. In 1869, with Gleorge G. Wilson as partner, he embarked in the mercantile business; afterward purchased from Mr. Wilson his entire interest. Robert Futhey is a member and elder of the Atglen Pres- byterian church, and a director of the Parkes- burg National bank. JOHN H. DARLINGTON, a represen- tative farmer of this county, who was educated at Professor Weyer's military school and Professor Worrall's academy, in West Chester, is the eldest of the two sons of Job and Lydia (Huey) Darlington, and was born February 11, 1850, on the farm where he now lives, in East Bradford town- ship, near West Chester, this county. The old, numerous and distinguished Darlington family of Chester county was founded in the early years of the eighteenth century by Abraham Darlington, an English Quaker, who came over with his brother John from Darnhall, Cheshire, and settled in Aston township, Chester (now Delaware) county, Pennsylvania. John removed to Maryland and all trace of him has been lost. Abra- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 655 ham married Elizabeth Hillborn (see sketch of Frank P.. Darlington in this volume), and from their union comes the large family connection, estimated at nearly two thou- sand in all, now scattered throughout Ches- ter and adjoining counties. Several of the name have occupied important positions in this county, and others have distinguished themselves in various lines of industry and effort, including the law, journalism, litera- ture, legislation and military achievements. The children of Abraham and Elizabeth Darlington were : Mary, Deborah, Elizabeth, Abraham, Thomas, John (great-grandfath- er), Hannah, Eachel, Job and Rebecca. John Darlington, great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born at the old homestead (now owned by Clement Biddle), on Brandy wine creek, this county, and on March 17, 1751, married Esther Dicks, daughter of Peter and Sarah Dicks, of Prov- idence, and settled on a farm of one hun- dred acres in East Bradford township, this county, where in 1761 he built the house now occupied by his great-grandson, John H. Darlington, whose name heads this sketch. Here he lived, engaged in agricul- tural pursuits, until his death, February 3, 1813. His children were: Sarah, born March 1, 1752; Job, born December 20, 1753; Joseph, born December 12, 1755; Elizabeth, born August 15, 1757; Esther, born July 7, 1759; Deborah, born May 1, 1761; Leah and Rachel, twins, born Aug- ust 29, 1763; John, born March 17, 1766; and Zillah, born September 5, 1769. Job Darlington (grandfather) was born on this old homestead, and purchasingthefarmfrom the heirs, passed all his days here, engaged in farming and stock raising. He married Rebecca Hoopes, and reared a family of five children, among whom was Job Darlington (father), who was born here October 8, 1808. After attaining manhood he succeeded his father in the management of the old home- stead, and in turn spent his life here, in the cultivation of the ancestral acres, dying July 30, 1882, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He owned one hundred and fifty acres of land, and the farm on which John H. resides is a part of the old homestead tract. Politically Job Darlington was a whig and republican, and in religion a strict member of the Society of Friends. In 1849 he married Lydia Huey, a daughter of John Huey, and by this union had a family of two children, both sons: John H., subject of this sketch, and A. Martin, now residing near Knoxville, Tennessee. John Huey (maternal grandfather) was a native of Chester county, but removed to the State of Delaware, where he died in 1848. He was a teacher in his younger days, and a farmer in later life, and by his marriage with Phebey Martin, had a family of six children, of whom Mrs. Darlington was the eldest. John H. Darlington was reared on the old homestead previously mentioned, and re- ceived his primary instruction iii the com- mon schools. He afterward attended Pro-' ' fessorWeyer's military school at "West Ches- ter, and still later took a course of training in the academy conducted by Prof. Hunter Worrall in the same borough. Following the example of his ancestors, and his own inclinations, he has devoted his life princi- pally to agricultural pursuits, and with the exception of a couple of years spent in West Goshen township, has always resided on the old farm where he was born, in East Brad- ford township, which property passed into his possession in 1882. He has been very successful in his farm operations and is in very comfortable circumstances. Being a 656 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY man of souud judgment and careful busi- ness habits, he has been called on to serve as executor of a number of estates, and has always given entire satisfaction in his per- formance of these duties. In politics he is an ardent republican, but while loyally sup- porting his party at all times, has never en- tertained any political ambition for himself nor allowed the use of his name for any office. On November 3, 1880, Mr. Darling- ton was united in marriage with Sarah H. Marshall, a daughter of William P. Marshall, of West Chester. FRED HERON, general superintendent of the Phoenix Iron works, to whom belongs the distinction of having made the lirst steel beams ever rolled in this country, is a son of James and Elizabeth (Furness) Heron. He was born June 26, 1856, at Bradford, Yorkshire, England, and is of S(;otch-English descent. His father is a na- tive of Scotland who emigrated to England when a young man, where he married and was for many years engaged in the dry goods business, but is now living a retired life at Bradford, in Yorkshire. He is a rep- resentative of a very old Scotch family, has long been a prominent member of the Pres- byterian church of Bradford, and is now in the seventy-fifth year of his age. His wife, Elizabeth Furness, mother of Fred Heron, was a native of Yorkshire, England, and died in 1889, at the advanced age of seventy- two years. Fred Heron was reared in his native town of Bradford, and received his early educa- tion in the private and select schools of that place. He finished his education at Edin- burgh, where he passed his examinations, and then became an apprentice to the business of mechanicaj engineering at Bradford. After completing his apprenticeship he en- gaged in business for himself at Leeds, Eng- land, as an engineer and contractor, and re- mained there for a period of four years. At the end of that time, yielding to an inclina- tion which had become too strong to be re- sisted, he left his engineering business and went on the theatrical stage, where he met with considerable success, and where he re- mained for a year and a half. In Septem- ber, 1880, he came to the United States and spent some time traveling in different parts of this country, but finally settled in Pitts- burg, Pennsylvania, where he became con- nected with the Bessimer steel works in that city, which were afterward purchased by Andrew Carnegie. There Mr. Heron made the first structural steel and the first steel beams ever rolled in the United States. He was connected with these works for five years, when the management was changed and he came to Phoenixville, in I^fovember, 1886, and erected the steel works for the Phoenix Iron Company. In November, 1891, he was appointed general superinten- dent of the Phoenix Iron works, which posi- tion he still holds. The iron interest is one of the most important industries of Phoenix- ville, the first establishment of this kind dating back to 1790, and among the exten- sive rolling mills and furnaces, employing thousands of people, none is larger or more important than the plant over which Mr. Heron exercises superintendence. In February, 1882, Mr. Heron was united in marriage to Carrie Hahn, of the city of Pittsburg. To Mr. and Mrs. Heron have been born two children, both daughters: Eugene and Madge. In politics Mr. Heron is independent, and in manner very affable and engaging. The family reside in one of OF CHESTER COUNTY. 657 the most pleasant and tasteful homes in Phcenixville, surrounded by everything cal- culated to make life enjoyable. nEV. A. L. WILSON, who for the past four years has officiated as the popular pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church at Downingtown, and is an earnest and success- ful minister and cultured and intelligent Christian gentleman, is the second and oldest surviving son of James M. and Maria (Len- hart)Wilson,audwasborn December 5,1839, in Porter township, Jefferson county, Penn- sylvania. His early years were spent on his father's farm. At the age of fifteen he was by death deprived of his father and mother. Poor, homeless and friendless, he started out to make his way in the world. He was educated principally at Glade Run academy, Dayton, Armstrong county, this State, teach- ing school occasionally to replenish his de- pleted pocket book. On August 18, 1862, he enlisted in the service of his country as a member of Co. K, 155th Pennsylvania in- fantry, and in one capacity or another served until June 29, 1865, when he was discharged at Washington, District of Columbia. Dur- ing his army service he took part in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg, and afterward had a severe attack of typhoid fever, which unfitted him for active duty in the field, and he then became a member of the brass band connected with the military organization. He was playing with that band at the head of a military procession on the streets of Washington city on the eventful night of President Lincoln's assas- sination. He also did a large amount of evangelistic work among the soldiers during his enlistment, and in this way acquired that conversational style of speaking which has contributed so largely to his success in the ministry. Politically he has always been a republican. In 1866 Mr. Wilson was admitted to the Philadelphia conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, and became an itinerant preacher of that denomination, having served during part of the preceding year as junior preacher on the Perkiomen circuit, Montgomery county. His first appointment as a member of the conference was to the Pottstown circuit, in Chester county, where he remained one year. In 1867 he was sent to Haddington, Philadelphia, -and preached there two years, after which he served suc- cessively at Bryn Mawr three years; Cro- zierville, Delaware county, two years; Springfield,^ Chester county, three years; St. James' church, in the city of Philadel- phia, three years; Bryn Mawr again three years ; Coatesville, Chester county, three years; and Summerfield church in Phila- delphia, three years. From the latter church he came to Downingtown, this county, in March, 1889, and is now serving his fourth year as pastor of this church. He is an earnest and able preacher, has spent most of his pastoral life in Chester county, and is widely known as a successful revivalist. Since coming to Downingtown he has suc- ceeded in erecting a handsome new stone church, of modern design and elegant ap- pointments, and while at Coatesville he was instrumental in having a fine church built at that place, and also in securing the erec- tion of a church atBetheBda,Delaware county. The present Methodist Episcopal church at Downingtown was begun in 1889, and dedi- cated on May 25, 1890. The present mem- bership of this church numbers one hun- dred and eighty. While at CoatesvilleRev. . Mr. Wilson held a very successful revival 658 BioanAPaY AND history meeting, resulting in the conversion of over two hundred persons, and also held another remarkable revival meeting at Sprin^gfield, this county, at which more than one hun- dred were converted aud joined the church, and at other churches which he served re- vivals of interest have occurred. On January 29, 1868, Rev. Mr. Wilson was united in holy matrimony to Isabella Michener, youngest daughter of Dr. Nathan MJchener, then the oldest practicing phy- sician in Chester county. To Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson was born one child, a daughter, whom they named I^aomi, and who is now the wife of Parke Bicking, a well known paper manufacturer of Downingtown. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Thomas? M._ Wilson, a native of Venango county, this State, where he was a farmer for many years, but in later life removed to Armstrong county. There he purchased a farm and settled near She- locta, where he resided until his death at an advanced age. He was an active and influ- ential member of the Presbyterian church, in which he served as elder for a number of years, and in politics was a stanch democrat. He married Mary Mitchell, and was the fatfier of six children, three sons and three daughters: Thomas, who became a Baptist minister and died at Punxsutawney, Penn- sylvania, October 31, 1856; Mary, married Joseph Marshall, and died in 1882; James M., father of Rev. A. L. ; Robert (the young- est, who (Jied in 1892), and two who died in infancy. James M. Wilson (father) was born near Frai:(klin, Venango county, this State, in 1804, and resided there for a number of years, but removed with his father to Arm- strong county, and lived with him until the death of the latter. James M. Wilson was a farmer )jy occupation, and a stanch dem- ocrat in politics. He was elected justice of the peace in Porter township, Jefferson county, and served continuously for fourteen years, and resigned the office on leaving the county. He also served as county commis- sioner of that county about 1846. In relig- ious faith he was a Presbyterian, taking an active part in church matters, and serving as a ruling elder for many years. He was also an active Sunday school worker, and a strong temperance advocate. In 1836 he married Maria Lenhart, a daughter of Adam Lenhart, of Westmoreland county, and to their union was born a family of eight chil- dren, three of whom were sons: Thomas M.,who became a Presbyterian minister and at the time of his death, February 22, 1874, was serving as pastor of the First Presby- terian church of Rochelle, Illinois; Rev. A. L., the subject of this sketch ; Mary E., married Robert Whittaker, and died in 1887; Sarah, wedded James Hays; Hanna J., be- came the wife of LeRoy Wells, and died in 1876 ; Margaret, deceased JsTovember 28, 1853, at the age of five years; Viola, died in infancy ; and James K., who is still living at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Adam Lenhart (maternal grandfather) was a native of Westmoreland county, and lived at Pine' Creek, where he was a distiller by occupation. He was a democrat politically, married and was the father of one son and five daughters: Harmon, Susan, who mar- ried a Mr. Hennigan; Margaret, wedded John ITeville, and after his death a Mr. Koons; Sarah, became the wife of William Bernard; Hannaii, married Lewis Young; and Maria, who wedded James M. Wilson, and became the mother of Rev. A. L. Wil- son, the subject of this sketch. Dr. Nathan Michener, father of Mrs. Isabella Wilson, was a prominent physician OF CHESTER COUNTi. 659 of Ooveutryville, this comity, practicing his profession for sixty-live years. He studied medicine and graduated from the Philadel- phia Medical college under Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Dr. Michener was an original, thinker, and his.experiments and in- vestigations added much to medical science. He was a contributor to various medical journals in this country, and was one of the most prominent physicians of eastern Penn- sylvania. He was also an astronomer of considerable note, and prepared the manu- script for an almanac published at Phila- delphia, beside being a thorough classical scholar, at home in belles lettrcs, and master of the French, German, Greek and Latin languages. As a public speaker and debater he ranked high, and was, in short, a gentle- man of versatile talent and many rare accom- plishments. He married Sophia Christman, a daughter of George Christman, and a de- scendant of an old family, of sturdy German stcfck, who were among the first settlers in Chester county. By this union he had a family of ten children, four sons and six daughters : Sarah Holdzkom, George, James B., Mary Stubblebine, Phoebe Livezey, Re- becca Griffith, Nathan, John, Clara Morrow, and Isabella, the wife of Rev. A. L. Wilson, whose name heads this sketch. Dr. Michener was a whig and republican in politics, and served as a justice of the peace for twenty- eight years. He voted for every president from Washington's second administration to Abraham Lincoln in 1860. FRANKLIN JONES, who resided near iN'e.w Centreville, was a representative of an old and prominent Pennsylvania fam- ily, and enjoyed the reputation of being the best farmer in the Chester valley. He was related to Col. John Moore, of revolutionary fame, and was the youngest child and only son of Hon. John M. and Mary (Heller) Jones, and a native of Upper Dublin town- ship, Montgomery county, Permsylvania, where he was born July 10, 1836. The family to which Mr. Jones belonged is of original Welsh descent, and was planted in America by Malichi Jones (great-great- grandfather), as early as 1714. In that year he came from Wales and settled at Abing- ton, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He was a Presbyterian minister, and founded theAbington (Montgomery county) church of that faith in 1714. During the first fif- teen years of its existence he served' as its pastor, and on August 15, 1719, he trans- ferred a half acre of land to the church. He was a man of remarkable energy and great decision of character, and his life was active and useful. His death occurred Jan- uary 28, 1729! George Jones (grandfather) was born in Montgomery county, and lived in that county all his life, dying June 14, 1796, at an ad- vanced age. He was a farmer by occupa- tion, married Elizabeth Stevens (who was born June 14, 1797, and died January 23, 1847), and had two sons: George, who died in Montgomery county, and John M., father of the subject of this sketch. John M. Jones (father) was born in Montgomery county, June 14, 1796, where he grew to maturity and received the best training afforded by the schoolsof thatday — finishinghis school- days by a course under Josiah Hoopes at the West Chester academy — which he afterward improved by wide reading and continued study. He started in life as an accountant in the counting room of a large importing firm, iu Philadelphia, where he remained 660 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY one year. He then engaged in teaching, and followed that occupation near Fort "Washington and at Lower Merion academy until 1844, when he purchased and removed to a farm in Abington township, Montgom- ery county, where he engaged in agricul- tural pursuits until 1854, when he was elected to the position of register of wills for that county for a term of three years. In 1833 he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, and re-elected the following year, serving tw.o terms while Simon Cameron and Thaddeus Stevens were members of that body. In 1857 he wasajj- pointed by Judge Cadwallader as clerk of the United States court in the city of Phil- adelphia, and served acceptably in that po- sition until 1859, when he returned to Mont- gomery county, and in 1862 removed to Tredylirin township, Chester county, where he purchased a fine farm containing one hundred and twenty-eight acres of the best land in this valley — the farm which his son, Franklin Jones, resided upon during most of his life. Here he lived until re- moved from the scenes of his earthly activ- ity by death, June 12, 1872, when in the seventy-sixth j'ear of his age. He was elected school director of his township in 1870, and served continuously as such until his death. He was a stanch democrat all his life, and noted for his strong will-power, strict veracity, and unswerving integrity. It was frequently remarked that " his word was law," and it was always as good as his bond. In religion he was a member of the German Reformed church all his life, and served as deacon for many years. Mr. Jones was twice married. His first wife was Mary Heller, a daughter of Daniel Heller, of Montgomery county, whom he married February 24, 1825, and by whom he had four children: Mai-garet, Hannah, Eliza- beth, who married Peter Hartman, and re- sides in Philadelphia; and Franklin, the principal subject of this sketch. Mrs. Jones died December 30, 1838, aged thirty-three years; and on May 21,1840, John M.Jones wedded Hannah M. Stadlernan, nee Trasel, and by this second marriage had two chil- dren: Mary, deceased, and Samuel, who is now employed as a clerk at Norristown. Franklin Jones was reared principally in Montgomery county, and received his edu- cation in the common schools there and at the Elwood academy. After quitting school he learned the trade of cabinet maker with Samuel Nice, of Germantown, and fol- lowed that occupation until 1861. In the following year he came to Chester county and engaged in farming, which was his principal business during the renjainder of his life, and in whicli he was remarkably successful. Inheriting his father's energy andaptitude for management, he applied his ability to the cultivation of the soil, and by introducing improved methods and carefully attending to all the details of his farm opei'- atioiis, won a place in the front rank of Chester county farmers and became an au- thority on agricultural matters in this entire section. , In politics Mr. Jones followed the tradi- tions of his family and was always an ardent democrat, though taking little part in prac- tical politics. He was elected some years ago as school director, and served six or seven terms in that position. He had in his possession a number of papers and docu- ments of historic interest, including official commissions, which once belonged to his relative. Col. John Moore, who won de- served fame during the revolutionary war. Franklin Jones died January 20, 1893, aged OF CHESTER COUNTY. 661 fifty-seven years, and greatly respected for his many excellent qualities of heart and mind. \A/ASHINGTON FRIDAY, an auditor of Chester county, and one of the lead- ing citizens of Schuylkill township, who served for three years in the army of the Potomac, from the Peninsula to Spottsyl- vania courthouse, is a son of Christian and Mary (Snyder) Friday, and was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, February 27, 1843. His paternal grandfather. Christian Friday, was of Ger- man descent, and owned a farm of one hun- dred acres of land in West Vincent township, where he followed distilliiig and iron ore mining during the early part of his life. He died at the age of eight^'-two years. He was a democrat, and a Lutheran, and had a family of six children, two sons and four daughters: John, Christian, Sarah Snj'der, Anna Bush, Catharine Bush and Mary Wunder. Christian Friday (father) was born in West Vincent township, where he died September 17, 1868, at the age of sev- enty-two years. He owned three good farms in West Vincent and East Pikeland town- ships, aggregating two hundred and four- teen acres of land. He carried oti farmins: extensively, was a democrat in politics, and lived a quiet and industrious life. He was a Lutheran, and married Mary Snyder, a daughter of Casper Snyder, of Chester county. She is now deceased, having at- tained the age of seventy-nine years. Chris- tian and Mary Friday were the parents of ten children, four sons and six daughters: John, Elizabeth Fry, Susanna Naylor, Anna Wagoner, Christian, Catherine Walters, Casper, Mary Walters, Washington, and Kosanna Moses. Washington Friday received his educa- tion in the common schools of West Vincent and East Pikeland townships, and at Pugh- town Boarding school, and at sixteen years of age became a clerk for Samuel Kramer, of Phoenixville, with whom he remained un- til June 6, 1861, when he enlisted in Co. G, 30th Pennsylvania infantry (1st reserves), for three years. He served until June 13, 1864, when he was honorably discharged at Philadelphia. He participated in the bat- tles of Drainsvllle, Tunstall Station, Me- chanicsville, Beaver Dam creek, Gaines' Mill, Savage Station, Malvern Hill, Grove- ton, second Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Get- tysburg,Williamsport, Bristow Station, N'ew Hope church, the Wilderness, Parker's Store, Spottsylvania courthouse, Po River, Guinea Station, North Ann river, Pototop- ony creek and Bethesda church. At South Mountain Mr. Friday and another soldier of his company, J. T. Hunter, in a charge, found themselves iu advance of the regiment, and Mr. Friday, whose gun was emi3ty,'was confronted by three Confederates, whom he made prisoners and sent them to the rear. Hunter being wounded in a few moments afterward, he carried him back to the regi- ment. Returning from the army Mr. Fri- day was engaged in mercantile pursuits at Wilson's Corners and Phoenixville until 1870. He then purchased a store at Spring- field, Chester county, where he remained until 1873, when he sold out and went to Philadelphia to engage in the fancy grocery and market business. In a short time he disposed of his business in the Quaker City and purchased the property upon which he now resides, adjoining Phoenix- ville. He is now extensively and success- fully engaged in the trucking business. 663 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY and ill raising and selling fruit trees and nursery stock. On November 19, 1864, Mr. Friday liiar- ried Martha, daughter of George Moses, of Kiniberton, and to their union have been born eight children, six of whom are living, three sons and three daughters: G. E. Lee, a law student with Judge Willis Bland, of Reading, this State; Mary, Reynolds, War- ren, Mabel, now engaged in teaching; and May Friday. In politics Washington Friday is a dem- ocrat. He is a member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons, and has been honored with several offices by the people of his township. In 1880 he was elected as school director, which office he still holds, being his own successor. One year later he was elected justice of the peace, to which office he was reelected in 1885, and again in 1890. He served as postmaster of Springfield under Grant's ad- ministration, and in 1890 was elected as an auditor of Chester county, which position he is filling in a very erSditable manner. .JOHN S. MULLIN, a prominent citi- zen of West Chester and for many years a leading business man of this county, who has lately retired and is now enjoying the comforts and luxuries which so fittingly wait on an active and successful business career, is a son of John M. and Sarah (Guthrie) Mullin, and was born in East Brandywine township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Oc- tober 9, 1830. The Mullin family is of Scotch-Irish origin, but has been settled in this country since the revolutionary pei'iod. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch was a native of Ireland, but crossed the seas in early manhood to serve in the struggle for independence then being waged against the mother country by the American colonies. After the war ended he located in Delaware county, Pennsyl- vania, becoming one of the early settlers of that section, and continued to live there un- til his death at an advanced age. Among his children was John M. Mullin (father), who was born in Delaware county during the initial year of this century. He received a good practical education in the schools of that day, and for some years engaged in teaching. While yet a young man he re- moved to Chester county, where he became one of the best known and most prosperous farmers of East Brandywine townshijj, and where he resided until his death in 1852, after a busy life covering two years more than the first half of the nineteenth century, lie was a member for many years of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in politics a democrat of the old school. On Novem- ber 10, 1829, he was appointed a justice of the peace for the eleventh district by Gov. John A. Shulze, and held this office contin- uously to the time of his death. He married Sarah Guthrie, a daughter of William Guth- rie, of Chester county, by whom he had a family of four children. She was also of Scotch-Irish descent, and a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal church. She died in 1880 at the advanced age of seventy- eight years. John S. Mullin was reared on the farm until his fourteenth year, and educated in the high schools of the city of Philadelphia. After completing his education he was em- ployed by the great dry goods house then known as Samuel Hood & Co., but now Hood, Foulkrod & (Jo., of which firm his elder brother, William Mullin, was a mem- ber. He remained with this company for a OF CHESTER COUNTY. period of seven years, becoming familiar with the business in all its details, and at the end of that time, in 1854, removed to Downingtown, this county, and embarked in general merchandising on his own ac- count. This business he continued success- fully until 1877, when he withdrew and in the following year located in West Chester and opened a merchant tailoring and cloth- ing establishment, which he conducted until January, 1892, when he disposed of his in- terests and retired from active business. On January 5, 1857, Mr. Mullen was uni- ted in marriage to Sarah P. Ayars, a daugh- ter of Shepard Ayars, of this county, and to them was born a family of five children, two sons andthree daughters: Shepard A., now a practicing physician in the borough of West Chester ; Kate, married Dr. J. W. Pratt, of Coatesville, this county ; J.Wesley, a prominent physician of Wilmington, Del- aware;. Isabella, married J. M. Burns, a carpenter residing in "West Chester; and Mabel; living at home with her parents. Politically Mr. Mullen is a democrat, giv- ing that party an intelligent, active and loyal support on all general questions, and has been honored by election to many offi- cial positions of trust and responsibility. While at Downingtown he served as chief burgess of that borough, and was council- man and school director for a period of eighteen years. Since coming to West Chester he has served as chairman of the Democratic County committee, and in 1892 was sent as a delegate from this county to the Democratic State convention. He has always been an active and influential worker in his party. He has served for four years as a trustee of the Iformal school here, and is a director in the Farmer's National bank of West Chester. For many years 39 he has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and is now serving as trustee and treasurer of his church in this borough. He is also a member of William- son Lodge, N'o. 309, Free and Accepted Masons, of Downingtown. TA>IL,LIAM BRINTON SMITH, an in- telligent and prosperous farmer, resid- ing in the suburbs of the borough of West Chester, was born in Parkesburg, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 4, 1816. He is a son of James Smith, who was a farmer by occupation, and a native of Salisbury township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, born in 1788. He was a man of great en- ergy, strong, will power, and a stanch tem- perance man and an active politician in the whig party. He died at West Chester in 1872. His wife was a daughter of William Brinton, a descendant of one of the oldest families of Chester county. By this mar- riage he had a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters: Lydia A. (dead), was the wife of Ephraim Penrose, of Berks county ; Charles, was a farmer in Lan- caster county, where he died; William B. ; Mary P., now deceased, who was the wife of John Forsythe, of this county; Par- vin, deceased, whose family resides on the old homestead at Parkesburg; Thornton, now of Washington city, who entered the civil war near the beginning of that strug- gle and served for over three years.. William Brinton Smith married Ellen Starr, a daughter of Jeremiah Starr. She is of one of the oldest families of Berks county, and is of Irish lineage. To this marriage have been born a family of four children : Sibil la, wife of Joseph Cope, re- siding near West Chester; Elizabeth, wife 664 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY of Samuel L. Brinton, residing near West Chester — who has five children — Clement, Francis D., Willard, Ellen and Eobert; Helen Augusta (deceased), who married Curtis H.Warrington and had three chil- dren — Carrie, Ellen Starr and Hannah; Josephine Loraine (deceased), married to Francis Warrington, and had two children (both now dead), William and Henry. William Brinton Smith was educated in the Penn Charter school of Philadelphia, receiving a fair education for that day. On leaving Philadelphia he came to Parkes- burg, and resided on his father's farm until his marriage, in 1848, when he removed to Berks county, where he continued to farm until 1869, when he came back to West Chester, and was there until 1880, when he came to the present farm of eighty acres. In early life he was a whig in politics, hav- ing voted for William Henry Harrison, and on the death of that political organization he joined the Republican party, and has since been inclined to be independent. He is hospitable, well read, and an interesting conversationalist, and a member of the So- ciety of Friends. John Smith (grandfather), a tanner by trade, was a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. He came to Chester county in 1794, and bought a farm in the vicinity of Parkesburg, where he died at an ad- vanced age. TSAAC M. PEARSON, a prominent member of the Warren Manufacturing Company of Virginia, and the proprietor of the Toughkenanion spoke and wheel fac- tory, is known as one of the useful men and highly respected citizens of the county. He is a son of Isaac and Eleanor (Mason) Pear- son, and was born near Chandlerville, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, April 1, 1826. He received his education in the common schools of N^ew Garden township, and later learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed until he was twenty years of age. He then cast about him for a line of business in which there would be more room for ex- pansion, and less numerous competitors than there were in blaoksmithing. Spoke making seemed to be nearest to what he desired, and a favorable opportunity presented itself to him in the spoke factory at Laurel, in N'ew Garden township, which he rented and ran successfully from 1859 to 1861. He then entered into partnership with Samuel Strahon, under the firm name of Strahon & Pearson, and they operated a spoke factory on White Clay creek, near Chandlerville, until 1862, when they admitted James M. Carliss into partnership with them, and added to their business the manufacture of wheels. Two years later their factory w^as burned, and Mr. Carliss withdrew from the firm and was succeeded by John C. Chandler, the firm name then changing from Strahon, Pearson & Carliss to Strahon, Pearson & Co. The new firm rebuilt the factory in 1864, and in 1865 removed their spoke machinery and stock to Toughkenamon, where they placed them in Isaac Slack's sash and door factory building, which they had rented. The next year they brought their wheel making ma- chinery to Toughkenamon, and purchased the rented factory building, admitting Isaac Slack into partnership with them, under the firm name of Strahon, Pearson & Co. In 1866 Mr. Strahon transferred his interest to his sons, Joseph and Milton, and the follow- ing year the firm established a general car- penter furnishing business at Riverton,War- ren county, Virginia. Some time after this OF CHESTER COUNTY. 665 Isaac Slack died, and was succeeded by his son, Julius, who in 1886, with Mr. Pearson and others, bought the interests at Hivcrton of the Strahons, and organized the Warren Manufacturing Company. The wheel and spoke firm continued in existence until Au- gust 1, 1890, when Mr. Pearson became sole proprietor. His large plant has first-class railroad shipping facilities. His manufac- tory building is a three story brick struc- ture, twenty-eight by one hundred feet in dimensions, with a two-story frame annex, nineteen by one hundred and forty feet. Mr. Pearson makes a specialty of wheels, and puts an article on the market that is highly appreciated and extensively used on account of durability and fii'st-class work- manship. He has won success because he has deserved it and worked for it. He em- ploys twenty men and has an extensive trade. On August 7, 1851, Mr. Pearson was united in marriage with Anna M., daughter of Joseph Kimble, of New London, Chester county. Isaac M. Pearson is of Irish-English de- scent. His paternal grandfather, Thomas Pearson, was born in 1761, and lived in the State of Delaware, where he died in 1848, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years. He owned a farm which he tilled with fair returns, and when General Jackson was elected in 1828, changed in politics from the Federal to the Democratic party. He married Sarah Cloud, and reared a family of eleven children : John, Susan Gamljle, Isaac, William, Joseph, Thomas, Ruth Moore, Mary Wilson, Laban, Hiram and Amos. Of the sons, Isaac (father), was born in 1791, in Chester county, and learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed for many years at Chandlerville. He was a democrat. held several local oflices, and was an attend- ant at Friends' meeting. He died in 1862, aged seventy-one years. He married Eleanor Mason, who was a daughter of William and Sarah Mason, and who died atthe ripe old age of ninety-three years. To their union were born five children, one son and four daugh- ters : Isaac M., Ruth Anna, Sarah, Lydia, and Mary, wife of David Brown, a retired miller of London Grove township. In politics Isaac M. Pearson is a Jeffer- sonian democrat, and served his borough for one term as a member of the school board. He is a man of energy and great industry, and stands prominent among his fellow townsmen in the leading characteristics that make the successful and honorable business man. Q AMUEL PENNOCK, one of the lead- ing inventors of agricultural machinery in the United States, and a respected citizen of Kennett Square, with whose prosperity he has been prominently identified for nearly half a century, is a son of Moses and Mary J. (Lamborn) Pennock, and was born in East Marlborough township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 8, 1816. The ances- tor of the Pennock family in Pennsylvania was ' Christopher Pennock, who married Mary, daughter of George Collett, of Ireland. He came in 1685 to Philadelphia, where he died in 1701. His son, Joseph Pennock, was born in 1677, in Ireland, and came with his father to Philadelphia, where he was en- gaged in the mercantile business until 1714, when he settled in West Marlborough town- ship. He married Mary Levis, and their son, William Pennock (great-grandfather), was born in 1707. He married Alice Men- denhall, and of the nine children born to them, one was Samuel Pennock (grand- 666 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY father), who was born November 23, 1754. He was a chair, reel and "little wheel" manufacturer, and married Mary Hadley,by whom he had nine children : Margaret, Simon,Phebe, Moses, Elizabeth, John, Amy, Hannah and Mary. Moses Pennock (father), the second son, was born November 14, 1 786, in East Marlborough township, near Ken- nett Square. He became interested at an early age in agricultural inventions, and in 1822 invented and patented the first prac- tical revolving horse rake. In 1824 he se- cured a patent on a discharging rake, and six years later invented and patented a vi- brating grain thresher. He was a democrat and a Friend, and married Mary Jones Lam- born, who was a daughter of Robert and Martha (Townsend) Lamborn, and who died aged seventy-four years. They had nine children: Thomazine, Jesse, Samuel, Han- nah, Barclay, Morton, Edith, Joanna and Sarah. Of these children Morton and Sam- uel Pennock established a warehouse at Wilmington, Delaware. He died at Ken- nett Square in 1864. Barclay Pennock, who died March 9,1858, was one of Bayard Tay- lor's companions in his travels through Eu- rope, that are recorded in "Views Afoot." Barclay Pennock was a scholar and a man of literary ability, and his "Folk Lore" of ancient Scandinavia, and his description of his travels through northern Europe, are in- teresting and entertaining. Samuel Pennock was reared on his fath- er's farm, received his education in the schools ofhis neighborhood, and then learned the trade of carriage maker. Later he went to Wilmington and for one year was en- gaged with the firm of Harlan & Hollings- worth. Leaving Delaware he returned to the farm to study the agricultural machinery then in use, and soon made improvements on a rude grain drill which his father had patented. This improved drill, which ho patented, contained the idea upon which all the modern grain drills are constructed. In 1859 Mr. Pennock invented and patented the "Iron Harvester," the first mowing machine in America that was equipped with a cutter-bar that could be raised and low- ered without the driver leaving his seat. Fifteen years later, in 1873, he invented, patented and introduced into use, the "Pen- nock Road Machine," the first practical machine in this country for the construction and repair of roads. Mr. Pennock came in 1844 to Kennett Square, when it contained but thirty houses, and during his residence here, has seen it grow from a place of one hundred and fifty population to a borough with fifteen hundred inhabitants. He was originally a republican, but is now rather independent in politics. He is a Friend in religion, and a member of the Masonic fra- ternity, and has been a strict temperance man for over fifty years. He has never used tobacco, and has always opposed the use of tobacco and intoxicating drinks. In September, 1853, Mr. Pennock married Deborah A. Yerkes, a daughter of John Yerkes. They have three children : Fred- erick M., Charles J. and Theodore. Fred- erick M. Pennock was graduated from Cor- nell university in 1877, married Cora W. Webster, of New York, and is now engaged in the manufacture of road machines and steel bridges in Charleston, West Virginia. Charles J. Pennock received his education at Cornell university, was assistant curator of the museum at Princeton college for some time, and with his wife Mary, nee Scarlet, lives near Kennett Square, where he is now a fiorist. Theodore Pennock received his education at Cornell university, married M. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 667 Louisa Sharp, and is the general eastern agent for the Western Wheel Scraper Com- pany. J" AMES McCLURE, of Glen Moore, is a substantial farmer, a good business man and highly respected citizen. He is a son of Silas and Margaret (Moore) McClure, and was born on the farm on which he now re- sides in Wallace township, near Glen Moore, Chester county, Pennsyl vania,March 8, 1824. He was reared on the home farm, which has been in the family for three generations, and received his education in the common and se- lect schools of his neighborhood. Leaving school he engaged in farming, which he has followed successfully ever since. Within the last few years he embarked in the dairy business, in which he has met with good success. He keeps thirty-five cows and ships his milk to the Philadelphia market, where it is in good demand on account of its purity and excellence. Mr. McClure is prompt and courteous, of honorable busi- ness methods, and by his straightforward course in life has won confidence and friend- ship on every hand. Under his manage- ment his present dairy business has grown to considerable propoi'tions, rests on a firm basis, and its future prospects are of a favor- able and encouraging character. He is a republican in political sentiment, and has been for many years a member of Fairview Presbyterian church, of which he is a ruling elder. When Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1862 he was one of those who responded to Governor Curtin's call for men to aid in the defenseofthe State,and was elected first lieu- tenant of a company of infantry, returned as the "Union Guards." He served until September 22, 1862, when he was honorably discharged, and then returned home to re- sume the management and cultivation of his farm. On December 12, 1861, Mr. McClure mar- ried Mary L. Kutherford, daughter of John B. and Keziah (Park) Eutherford, of Har- risburg. To Mr. and Mrs. McClure have been born eight children, two sons and six daughters : James (deceased), Marion (de- ceased), Margaret M., Florence, Jennie R., J. B. Rutherford, Mary P. and Gertrude. In the first half of the last century John McClure, the great-grandfather of James McClure, with four of his brothers, left Ire- land and came to North Carolina, from which State John removed, about 1746, to Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he settled on the farm now owned by William H. Pals- grove, in Uwchlau township. He died here March 25, 1777, aged seventy-two years. In 1743 he married Jane Ahll, who passed away February 15, 1762. They had eight children, three sons and five daughters. The sous were Capt. James, Joseph and Benjamin, all of whom resided on the home farm. Capt. James McClure (grandfather), was born January 11, 1746, and commanded a company under Washington in his cam- paigns around New York city, during the revolutionary war. After the close of that great contest. Captain McClure removed to the farm in Wallace township, now owned b^' his grandson, the subject of this sketch. The farm then consisted of six hundred acres of land, and he resided upon it until his death, at an advanced age. He was a Fed- eralist in politics, and a consistent member of Brandywine Manor church. He married Esther McClure, and reared a family of four children : Jane, Mary, Rachel and Silas. The only son, Silas McClure (father), was born June 4, 1783, on the home farm, where he resided until his death, November 13, 668 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 1837, at fifty-four years of age. He was a Federalist in politics, and married Margaret Moore, by whom he had five children: Esther, wife of S. M. Krauser; Rachel, wife of Dr. Matthew A. Long; Mary A., James, and William M. Mrs. Margaret McClare, who died August 9, 1861, aged seventy- three years, was a granddaughter of Judge James Moore, who was one of the first asso- , ciate judges of Chester county, being ap- pointed in 1791, and serving until his death in 1802. He resided on a farm near Glen Moore, now owned by Mrs. Martha Fleming, and married Elizabeth Whitehill, by whom he had four sons : William, James, John and David. William Moore (maternal grand- father) resided on a farm in Wallace town- ship, now owned by David Brunuer, and married Mary Henderson, by whom he had six children : Elizabeth, Eachel, James, Margaret (mother), Sarah and Daniel. The McClure and Moore families have both been long resident in Chester county, and their descendants are noted for energy, enterprise and intelligence. J'OHN TEMPLETON, one the older and most highly respected and worthy citi- zens of Chester county, residing on the old Templeton homestead near the village of Frazer, is the youngest and only surviving son of John and Margaret (Davis) Temple- ton, and was born on the farm where he now lives, in East Whiteland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 3, 1832. The Templetons are one of those old fam- ilies whose residence here antedates the revolutionary period. Some time near the middle of the eighteenth century three brothers of the name left their home in Ireland, and emigrating to America settled in Chester county, Pennsylvania. Two of these brothers located in West Brandywine township, and the other, John Templeton, great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, took up a large tract of land in what is now East Whiteland township, in 1752. He was a maltster and farmer by occupation, owning and operating the first brewery in Chester county. He died on his farm in East Whiteland township about 1792, at an advanced age. Among his children was John Templeton (grandfather), who was born on the homstead farm, where his family lived during the revolutionary war. After the battle of Brandywine, the English army passed through that section, and a number of Cornwallis's soldiers stopped at his place, where they destroyed nearly all his house- hold goods and fed up all the oats and other grain in the barn. He served during that war as a private in the Continental forces, and endured many hardships and privations in common with his compatriots. In re- ligion he was an Irish Presbyterian, and politically a stanch democrat from the ear- liest days of that party. He married Eliza- beth Long, by whom he had three sons : John ; Alexander, who died in Maryland ; and James, who died in Genesee county, New York. John Templeton (father) was born in East Whiteland township, this county, in 1783, and died there in 1852. He cultivated the home farm until 1819, when he became proprietor of the " General Wayne" hotel, on the Lancaster pike, near Frazer, which he conducted until 1822, at which time he purchased and removed to u farm situated one-fourth of a mile south of Frazer, in East Whiteland township. There he resided, engaged in agricultural pursuits, until called away by death, March 13, 1852, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. In poli- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 669 tics he was a stanch democrat, and served as school director and assessor for a number of years. He was a raan of sound judgment, had the confidence of all who knew him, and was frequently called on to settle up estates and handle trusts of various kinds. Although his educational opportunities had been somewhat meagre in early life, he gave such attention to questions of learning, busi- ness, politics, religion and every-day life, that he became well informed, and could talk in- telligently and in an entertaining manner on a wide range of topics. In religious faith and church membership he was a Presbyterian, and in 1814 he married Mar- garet Davis, a daughter of William Davis, of East Whiteland township, this county. To their union was born a family of seven chil- dren, two sons and five daughters : "William, Elizabeth, Martha Ann, Henrietta, Cath- arine, Margaret and John, all now deceased except Margaret and the subject of this sketch. John Templeton was reared and has al- ways resided on the old homestead in East Whiteland township. His education was obtained in the common schools of Frazer, and after leaving school he devoted his time to cultivating and managing the home farm, which he now owns. It consists of one hun- dred acres of valuable land, and is all finely improved. In his farm operations Mr. Templeton has always been industrious, en- ergetic and progressive, and his labors have been crowned with success, -insomuch that he is now in independent circumstances. Politically he has adhered to the faith of his father, and is an ardent democrat, taking a prominent part in local politics and fre- quently representing his township in the county conventions of his party. He has served as assessor and as supervisor, and held other positions of trust and importance, including the settlement of a number of es- tates. In all these responsible places he has shown an ability and integrity of character that reflects honor on himself and has given great satisfaction to the general public and all concerned. On January 11, 1865, Mr. Templeton was united in marriage to Anna C. Jackson, a daughter of Hezekiah and Sarah Jackson, of West Goshen township. To Mr. and Mrs. Templeton have been born five chil- dren, three sons and two daughters: Katie J.; Bessie, deceased; John H., also dead; William and Oliver J. Mr. Templeton is a member of Academy Lodge, No. 502, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, since 1853, of which he is a past noble grand. ^HOMAS H. MONTGOMERY, pres- ident of the American Fire Insurance Company, of Philadelphia, who has aided so materially in establishing and guiding the aft'airs of this substantial organization to its present prestige and great prosperity, is a gentleman well known in insurance circles throughout the United States, and since 1882 has resided near West Chester, at his beautiful home, "Ardrossan." He is esteemed for his many generous qualities and fine business ability. President Mont- gomery was born in Philadelphia^ February 23, 1830, and is a son of Rev. Dr. James and Mary Harrison (White) Montgomery. His father was the first rector of St. Steph- en's church ,in Philadelphia, and died in 1884. His mother was a granddaughter of Bishop White, the first Bishop of Pennsyl- vania, in whose house, 309 Walnut street, she was born and married. She died Aug- ust 2, 1875, aged sixty-nine years. They 670 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTOBY had a family of four children, ouly one of whom now survives. President Montgomery received a superior English education at the old academy con- nected with the Pennsylvania university, but ill health prevented the completion of his pro- jected college course. At seventeen he en- tered the well-known drug house of Charles Ellis & Co., and in 1851 graduated from the Philadelphia college of pharmacy. The same year he commenced his fire insurance career in the agency of Mr. Richard 8. itfewbold, formerly secretary of the Delaware Mutual Safety Insurance Company. He remained in this agency for a year, and then became engaged in the drug trade, but ill health again interrupted his plans and caused a change in his business connections. After a short respite from business he became in- terested in the organization of the Entei*- prise Insurance Company in'1859, and was appointed successively assistant secretary, secretary and vice-president. In October, 1871, by the advice of his physicians, his health being seriously impaired, he sailed for the West Indies, a few days before the Chicago fire, which brought ruin to many fire insurance companies, as well as to the Enterprise. News of this disaster did not reach Mr. Montgomery until more than six weeks after its occurrence. Returning to the United States in April, 1872, within a fortnight. of his arrival he was elected gen- eral agent of the National board of fire un- derwriters. His services in this position were such as required great discretion, good temper, sound judgment and superior exec- utive ability, and in the conflict of rival in- terests among executive officers, and the irri- tation to local agents by the enforcement of the decisions of the executive committee, Mr. Montgomery never lost the confidence of his superiors or the respect of the local agents of the country. It is no post merely of honor to be the executive officer of such a great concern as the American Fire Insurance Company, transacting business all over the United States and outside of this country, and Mr. Montgomery is a busy man. But he has always had a capacity for work and a strong mastery of details. The reports of Mr. Montgomery as general agent of the Na- tional board are a part of the literature of fire underwriting. Above the mere report of detail work, they take a wide view from an exalted plane, and present what is possi- ble in the profession of fire underwriting. In the practical discontinuance of the eft'ect- ive operations of the National board, at the annual meeting, in April, 1877, Mr. Mont- gomery presented his resignation as general agent, which was not at that time accepted. His resignation was received in February, 1878, and took effect on May 1st of that year. He shortly afterward accepted a po- sition with the old North America, and in 1879 returned to Philadelphia, and was in November, 1880, elected treasurer of that company, but in the same month he was elected to the vice-presidency of the Amer- ican Fire Insurance Company, which he ac- cepted and entered on its duties early in December following. On the retirement of President Maris, on account of age and in- firmities, Mr. Montgomery succeeded to the position of president, April 25, 1882, which position he now holds. He married in Oc- tober, 1860, Anna, daughter of Samuel George Morton, M. D., the distinguished ethnologist, and president of the academy of Natural sciences. President Montgomery is an experienced, thorough and practical insurance man, who OF CHESTER COUNTY. 673 grew up with the insurance business and is thoroughly conversant with all its ins and outs, has studied it and knows it well. This is how the Underwriter described him not long ago: "It is something to be the exec- utive officer of a corporation bearing the name 'American.' The competitions in fire underwriting have become international, and the corporation that enters the lists as distinctively 'American' in its name, aspira- tions and in its traditions, appeals to patri- otic sentiment and awakens a pride and cor- dial interest in its success on the part of every true son of Columbia. The worthy president of the 'American' of Philadelphia is a true I'epresentative of the very best type of Americans, and in sentiment is in har- mony with the true American spirit. He is the candle in the candlestick — a true American at the head of a strong American corporation. The career of Mr. Montgom- ery is one worthy of emulation on the part of younger underwriters. He has achieved success by honest Avork, not by mere smai't- ness, as this term is generally used. His life is pure, his methods clean, and in the management of his company there are dis- played the abilities of an experienced un- derwriter, the courtesies of a gentleman, and the principles of a Christian. The American Fire Insurance Company occupies its own building on Walnut street, Philadelphia, and is one of the few American companies which has secured a European connection, and is a worthy representative in England of the solvency and honorable methods of American fire underwriting." Mr. Montgomery is a member of both the Pennsylvania and New York Historical so- cieties, and having stronggenealogicaltastefe, he hasproduced genealogical histories of the Montgomery and "White families, beside contributing special articles to historical literature. He is accounting warden of Christ church, Philadelphia, and senior warden of the church of the Holy Trinity, West Chester, and is also a manager of the old Philadelphia Saving Fund society. Three of the managers of this society, by the way, are in the board of directors of the American Fire Insurance Company. HENRY J. DIEHL, a native of Bead- ing and a resident of Spring City, is one of the largest and most successful brick manufacturers of eastern Pennsylvania. He was born June 21, 1850, at Reading, in Berks county, this State, and is a son of Henry S. and Elizabeth (Kline) Diehl, both natives of Pennsylvania. His father, Henry S. Diehl, was a son of Henry Diehl, of Berks county, and in early life went to Eeading where he died August 3, 1883, at sixty-four years of age. He was born in Exodus township, Berks county, and followed his trade of Carpenter for nearly half a century. He was a democrat, and a member of the Eeformed church, and married Elizabeth Kline, who was born in 1824, and died Oc- tober 6, 1887. To them was born a family of thirteen children : William, now dead ; Henry J. ; John (deceased) ; Elizabeth ; Sal- lie (dead); James K., engaged in the brick business at Spring City ; Mary, of Eeading ; Daniel (deceased) ; Katie, now dead ; Albert, of Eeading; Eosa, who resides in the same place; Adam, likewise a resident of Eead- ing, and Amanda. Henry J. Diehl made good use of the op- portunities which presented themselves to him in early life and learned the trade of brick maker with his uncle, Simon Kline, of Eeading. He commenced as a day laborer 674 BIOGRAPHY AND HIST OB Y at the brickworks, and in three years had worked up to foreman of the yard. This position he resigned after holding it a few months, to learn the trade of hardwood moulder, at which he worked for fourteen years at Reading. At the end of that time, in the early part of 1879, he came to Spring City, where he was engaged as a workman in the stove foundry of Shantz & Keelcy un- til it burned down on July 5, 1885. For the next two years he worked iu different stove foundries at Spring City and Royer's Ford, Montgomery county, and then per- ceiving a good opportunity for brick manu- facturing at Spring City, he leased the brick yard of Henry Francis, which he has opera- ted ever since. Being a practical brick- maker, he had no experience to acquire by faulty work or bad management, and moved along smoothly and rapidly. His brick were first-class, orders increased daily and he soon found himself unable to supply the de- mand of his patrons. This led him in the spring of 1888 to purchase fourteen acres of choice clay land and open a large yard of his own. He now operates both jards, has forty-two men on his pay roll, and turns out over two million fine hand made brick per year. In addition to his brick business he does some contracting and building, and is a stockholder and director of the Spring City Ice Company and the Spring City Build- ing and Loan association. Mr. Diehl is a member of Lodge ITo. 553, Free and Ac- cepted Masons; and Spring City Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a member of the First Reformed church, hasalways been a pronounced democrat, and served one term as a member of the borough t'ouncil. Henry J. Diehl in boyhood en- joyed poor educational advantages and only received a limited but practical common school education, which he has largely sup- plemented since by reading, observation and self study. In the great school of experi- ence he learned the cardinal principles of that remarkable success which has crowned his business career. On December 6, 1871, Mr. Diehl wedded Sarah, daughter of Isaac Faber of Reading. To their union have been born seven chil- dren : George W., Annie, Sadie, Mary, Harry, Bertha and Tilley,the latter now de- ceased. HON. JOSHUA HARTSHOKNE,now deceased, who served in the State as- sembly in 1839, and afterward became a wealthy iron master, was a native of Cecil county, Maryland, wliere he was born June 17, 1808. His parents were Jonathan and Mary (Gillispie) Hartshorne, the former of English and the latter of Scotch-Irish de- scent. The founders of the Hartshorne fam- ily in America came over from England and settled in Cecil county, Maryland, about the beginning of the eighteenth century. They secured a large grant of land, engaged in agricultural pursuits and took an active part in the affairs of the colony and in the war of the revolution. John Hartshorne, uncle to the subject of this sketch, entered the colonial service as a member of the 3d regi- ment of the Maryland line, and served through the entire contest, being discharged as colonel of his regiment at the close of the war, November, 1783. The sword which Colonel Hartshorne used during that strug- gle is still in possession of the family, and is cherished as a priceless heirloom. Joshua Hartshorne was the third son and fourth child of his parents, and had the mis- fortune to lose his father while yet a child. He received his education under the in- OF CHESTER COVSTY. 675 struction of the learned Rev. Dr. Magraw, of West Nottingham academy in Cecil county, Maryland, and subsequently re- moved with his brother James to Chester county, Pennsylvania, vi'here he engaged in merchandising. He located first at Chat- ham, but shortly afterward removed to Cochranville, where he remained until 1846. In 1839 he was elected on the Democratic ticket as a member of the lower house of the Pennsylvania legislature, although the opposition was largely in the majority in the county, and served one term with distin- guished ability. In 1844, at the election suc- ceeding the exciting presidential campaign between Polk and Clay , he was chosen a mem- ber of the State board of railroad and canal commissioners by the democrats, and served as such for three years, being president of the board. On retiring from the office, in 1848, he removed to Baltimore, Maryland, and engaged in the iron business, which he suc- cessfully conducted in that city until 1870, though he removed his family to West Ches- ter, this county, in 1865. He owned a fine farm at Cochranville, and continued to be a resident of this county until his death, August 9, 1884, when in the eighty-first year of his age. On November 4, 1846, Mr. Hartshorne married Martha Rogers, youngest daughter of Isaac Rogers, an ironmaster of Harford county, Maryland. To Mr. and Mrs. Harts- horne was born a family of five children, two sons and three daughters: Walter Rog- ers, the youngest, is now a resident of Fair- field, Connecticut. One of the daughters, Caroline, married Hollingsworth Whyte, of the city of Baltimore ; and another, Mary Rogers Hartshorne, is now living with her mother in West Chester. The others are : Mrs. McGraw and Allen Stanley Hartshorne. Hon Joshua Hartshorne was a Presbyterian in religious faith, and a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity nearly all his life. Isaac Rogers, father of Mrs. Martha Harts- horne, was a native of Chester county, born April 9, 1797, and reared and educated here. His father, William Rogers, was a son of Joseph Rogers, who came over from Eng- land with Lord Vincent. William was a member of the Society of Friends, and set- tled in Chester county. His son, Isaac Rog- ers, father of Mrs. Hartshorne, was reared in this county, from which he afterward re- moved to Maryland, where he engaged in the manufacture of iron, and finally became a wealthy ironmaster of that State. On the grandmother's side the family was of old revolutionary stock. Mrs. Martha (Rog- ers) Hartshorne was born and educated in Chester county. She is a member of the Presbyterian church, and now resides in her elegant home at West Chester. ^LWOOD W. FISHER, the largest landholder and a prominent and influ- ential citizen of Charlestown township, and who was a foreman for two years on the construction of the Centennial buildings at Philadelphia, is a son of Abraham and Anna (McDowell) Fisher, and was born in Upper Dublin township, Montgomery county,Penn- sylvania, August 3, 1851. His paternal grandfather, William Fisher, was a native of Wales, who came to America and, dur- ing the latter part of the of the eighteenth century, settled in Bucks county, this State, where he purchased and tilled a farm. He was an old-line whig, and a member of Ab- ington meeting of the Society of Friends. He married and reared a family of five chil- dren : Daniel, William, Gen. John, Abra- 676 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ham and Ann Divine. Abraham Fisher (fatter), was born in Bucks county, July 29, 1804, and died April 15, 1889. He fol- lowed farming during the early part of his life in Bucks and Montgomery counties, and then came to TredyfFrin township, this county, where he purchased two farms — one of one hundred and the other of ten acres of land. He was an active republican in politics, and a prominent member of the Society of Friends. In 1835 he married Anna McDowell, and to their union were born four sons and five daughters : MaryE. Sperry (dead), Malachi (deceased), Rebecca Nice, Susanna (dead), Daniel, Saliie Haupt, Amanda, Elwood "W. and William. . Mrs. Fisher was a daughter of William and Mar- garet McDowell, and died March 19, 1884, when in the seventy-fifthyear of her age. Elwood W. Fisher was reared on the home farm, received his education in the common and select schools of his neighbor- hood, and then learned with H. C. Cook, of Philadelphia, the trade of carpenter, which he followed for five years in the Quaker City, where he was foreman for twenty-six months on the construction of the Centen- nial buildings. Returning from Philadel- phia toTredyffrin township, he was engaged in farming, and in butchering and attending the city market until 1886, when he re- moved to Charlestown township, where he resided on a farm adjoining the one he now owns until 1890. In that year he purchased his present home farm of one hundred and sixty-three acres of choice and well im- proved land. He also owns an adjoining farm of one hundred and eighteen acres of fertile and productive land. In his barn Mr. Fisher has an engine and machinery with which he grinds all his feed, saws wood, does his threshing, and cuts fodder and steams feed for all the cattle on both farms. Beside farming he operates a large dairy, and owns a first-class creamery at Williams' Corner. He is a republican in politics, has been serving for some time as a school director, and always takes an active part in political matters. He is also a trus- tee of the Presbyterian church, of which he and his wife are members. During the late war in 1861, when only nine years of age, he served as drummer for Co. I, 51st Penn- sylvania infantry, while it was being drilled on his father's farm. On October 19, 1882, at Webster City, Iowa, Mr. Fisher wedded Mary Funk, a daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Davis) Funk. Mr. and Mrs. Fisher have three children, one son and two daughters : Har- vey, Saliie and Amanda. 'ITHOMAS S. COX, a well-to-do farmer of Malvern, now practically retired from active business, and a gentleman who ranks with the best and most highly respected citi- zens ofthe county, is the eldestson of Thomas and Mary (Smedley) Cox, and was born Sep- tember 3, 1821, near Warren Tavern, in East Whiteland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania. The family is of English descent, and its earliest representative in America is supposed to have been John Cox, who set- tled in Bucks county, this State, about 1708. Richard Cox, supposed to have been a son of the original emigrant, was the great- great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, and on March 26, 1712, married Margaret Potts, of Abington monthly meet- ing. Their children were Anna, Sarah, Richard, Jonathan, Joseph and Benjamin (twins), and John. In 1728 they removed near the Schuylkill river, and Richard died OF CHESTER COUNTY. 677 in Vincent township about 1760. His son, Benjamin Cox (great-grandfatlier), was born February 18, 1723, and he and his wife, Margaret, were the parents of ten children : Richard, Margaret, Jonathan, William, Jos- eph, Hannah, Mary, Sarah, Benjamin and John. William Cox (grandfather) was born in Bucks county, this State, December 21, 1751. On June 15, 1780, at Goshen meet- ing, he married Lydia Garrett, a daughter of Thomas and Hannah Garrett, of Willis- town, Chester county, where he soon after- ward settled. His children were : Hannah, Benjamin, John, Abner, Thomas, Elizabeth, Levi, Jonathan, Lydia Garrett and William. In early life he learned the trade of shoe- maker, and followed that occupation for many years, but became a farmer in later life. He was an active and influential mem- ber of the Society of Friends, which he served as elder for many years at Willis- town. Politically he was an old- line whig, and was called on to fill many of the local offices of his township. He died at his home in Willistown township at an ad- vanced age. Thomas Cox (father) wasborn in Willis- town township, this county, July 26, 1790, and removed to East Whiteland township in 1820, but in 1826 returned to his native township, and died near Sugartown, October 13, 1867, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He secured a good education and after leaving school learned the trade of tailor, which occupation he followed for a number of years, doing an extensive and profitable business, especially while in East Whiteland township, where he had a number of men in his employ. In later life he purchased a farm and devoted his last years to agricul- tural pursuits, toward which he had always felt inclined. On September 11, 1817, he married Mary Smedley, and by this union had a family of eight children: Lydia, born July 10, 1818, and died in infancy; Susan, born January 1, 1820, also dead ; Thomas 8., whose name heads this sketch ; William, born August 1, 1823; Mary, born April 7, 1826, now deceased ; Bennett, born April 8, 1828 ; Abbie, born April 5, 1830 ; and Lydia H., born May 7, 1832. Thomas S. Cox was reared principally in Willistown township, and received a good practical education in the common schools. After attaining manhood he engaged in farming, and has devoted about all his life to agricultural pursuits in Willistown town- ship, Tvhere he owns a fine farm containing one hundred and seventy acres of choice land, all well improved and supplied with the necessary farm buildings, among which is a handsome and commodious residence. In religion he is a strict member of the Willistown meeting of the Society of Friends, and in political faith an ardent republican. He has frequently been elected to official positions in this township, having served for nine years as school director and as super- visor for some time. In 1843 Mr. Cox was wedded to Mary Williams, a daughter of Jesse and Sarah Williams, of Willistown township, and to them was born a family of five children, three sons and two daughters: Jesse W., now a manufacturer and lumber dealer in South Dakota ; Sarah, married Elias Jones, a prosperous farmer of Willistown township, this county; Wilmer B., who married Sallie Roberts, and is now engaged in operating his father's farm ; Edwin T., who wedded Anna Hall, resides near Sugartown, where he is engaged in partnership with Joaquin Matlack, in the manufacture of platinum, under the firm name of J. Bishop & Co., 678 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Mr. Bishop, formerly senior partner iu the firm, being now deceased; and Lydia J., now the wife of Edwin Gilbert, a well known farmer and miller, residing near West Grove, this county. QHARLES J. ROBERTS, M. D., a descendant of the old pioneer Roberts family of eastern Pennsylvania, and a phy- sician of ten years successful practice, is a son of WiUiam and Susanna M. (Havard) Roberts, and was born in Tredyfl'rin town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, July 14, 1857. He was reared on the farm, received his education in the common schools and Philadelphia high school, and after being engaged for a short time in farming and contracting, resolved upon making medicine his life vocation. He read with Dr. Charles iN". Frederick, and then entered the medical department of the university of Pennsyl- vania, from which he was graduated March 15, 1882. After graduation he formed a partnership with Dr. Jacob Rickabaugh, of Tredyffrin township, and they practiced to- gether for four years. He then purchased property at Valley Store, in East Whiteland township, one mile north of Malvern, and has been engaged there ever since in the successful practice of his profession. Dr. Roberts traces his ancestry on the paternal side to John Roberts, who came from "Wales at an early day and settled near Quakertown, in Richland township, Bucks county, where his son, William Roberts, was born and reared. William Roberts came to Schuylkill township, this county, where he settled on Pickering creek and operated a fulling mill, He owned a farm of two hun- dred acres, which he tilled until his death, which occurred about the year 1844, when he was in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was a whig and a Friend, and married Rebecca Pennington, by whom he had six children: Sarah, Maria, Rebecca, Martha, Joseph and John. Joseph Roberts, the grandfather of Dr. Roberts, was born in 1786, and at twenty-one years of age came to Schuylkill township, where he died on his farm in 1857. He was a whig in poli- tics, and a Friend in religious belief. He married Mary Walker, and their children were : Sarah,William (dead), Lewis, Stephen, Isaac (dead), Rebecca, Anna (dead), and Mary. The eldest son, William Roberts (father), was born January 3, 1812, and died October 21, 1889. He received his educa- tion at Professor Faulk's boarding school, in Montgomery county, and learned civil engineering, but gave most of his time to the management and cultivation of his farm of one hundred and twelve acres of land, in Tredyffrin township, on which his widow and some of his children still reside. He was a republican, had served as supervisor and school director of his township, and married, on February 16, 1841, Susanna Havard, who is a daughter of Benjamin Havard, who was born in 1781, and whose father, David Havard, was a son of John and Sarah (Evans) Havard,who came from Wales to Tredyffrin township, where they pur- chased a tract of one thousand acres of land from Penn's agent. To William and Su- sanna M. Roberts were born nine children : Benjamin, who enlisted June 6, 1861, in Co. K, 4th Pennsylvania reserves, and after the war was engaged in farming until his death ; Isaac W., who served in an emer- gency regiment in 1863, and is now dead ; Anna Daniel, who has two children — Alan and Burton ; Mary E., widow of Isaac Walker, who has one child — Benjamin H., now postniaster, and manager of his moth- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 679 ei-'s store, at New. Centreville ; David H., married Margaret Rodney, and has one child, — Iforman ; William M., married Kate Errett, and lives near Pittsburg, this State, w^here he is a contractor on the Pennsylvania railroad; Anna N., now dead; George W., a dealer in builder's supplies at l^orristown, Montgomery county ; Dr. Charles J. ; Clar- ence B. ; and Sue R., who married Elliott J. Thomas, of Philadelphia. On June 23, 1886, Dr. Roberts was united in marriage with Mary, daughter of Dr. Jacob Rickabaugh. To their union have been born two. children : Jacob Alan, born June 17, 1887, and died July 16, 1890 ; and Charles W., born June 29, 1891. In politics Dr. Charles J. Roberts is a stanch republican, and has been serving for some time as president of the school board of his township. He enjoys a good prac- tice, and aside from his professional duties gives some attention to dealing in coal and wood. He is a member of Washington Camp, No. 548, Patriotic Order Sons of' America; DeVault Lodge, ISTo. 486, Order of Tonti ; and Thompson Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is a past master. jpr M. F. STITELER is a son of Henry and Penninah (Benner) Stiteler, and was born in West Vincent township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, April 9, 1853. He was reared on the farm, received his education in the public schools of his native township and at a private school in the city of Reading. After teaching one term in the public schools of Lower Heidelberg township, Berks county, he returned to Chester county, where he taught one term in Upper Uwchlan, and for four years in West Vincent township. He then retired from the profession of teaching, and engaged in farming in his native township from 1875 to 1882. In the latter year he sought for a wider field of active employment than was aftbrded him by agricultural pursuits, and engaged in the lumber, coal and feed busi- ness at Byers' station on the PickeringVal- ley railroad. He went into the general mer- cantile business one year later. He now has two establishments, connected by tele- phone. The establishment at the old stand is used for the storage of grain, flour, coal, feed, seeds, salt, fertilizers and hardware, and has attached to it large coal and lumber yards; while the new store near the railroad station is heavily stocked with dry goods, fancy and staple groceries, notions, clothing and everything to be found in a first-class general mercantile establishment. His trade is extensive and he is always on the alert, that his business does not diminish. Mr. Stiteler is a stanch republican, has taken considerable interest in politics, and was commissioned as postmaster of Uwchland in May, 1889. He is a member and deacon of Windsor Baptist church, of whose Sunday school he has been superintendent for fif- teen years. He is also a member of Mt. Pickering Lodge, No. 446, Free and Ac- cepted Masons ; and Washington Camp, No. 298, Patriotic Order Sons of America. On September 2, 1875, Mr. Stiteler wed- ded Clara V. Keeley, daughter of Daniel Keeley, of Upper Uwchlan township. To their union have been born seven children, live sons and two daughters: Alma B. (de- ceased); Jesse 0.; Elsie M. ; A. M. F., jr. ; Chester A. ; Daniel K. ; and Henry B., now dead. The Stiteler family is of German descent and its immigrant ancestor was the great- 680 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY grandfather of the subject of this sketch. George Stiteler (grandfather) was a demo- crat and farmer of ITpper Uwchlan town- ship, and reared a family of eight children. One of the sons, Henry Stiteler (father), was born in 1807, and died in March, 1887, in his eightieth year. He was a man of influence in his community, and married Penninah Banner, who died in 1888, at seventy-eight years of age. To their union were born ten children, of whom eight are living. Three of the sons are "William H., George and I. Newton, whose sketches appear in this vol- ume, and in the biography of the latter will be found an extended account of the ances- tral history of the Stiteler family. fZl ILLIAM H. HODGSON, the able, well-known and popular proprietor of the progressive Daily Local News and Weekly Jeffersonian, of West Chester, has had a remarkably successful career in the field of journalism, where he has been active and prominent for a quarter of a century. He is a son of Hon. John and Elizabeth (Hall) Hodgson , an d was born at Doj'l estown , Bucks county, Pennsylvania, October 15, 1830. William H. Hodgson received a good Eng- lish education, and on October 3, 1842, the day that his father assumed charge of the Jeffersonian, he entered the office of that pa- per to learn the art of printing. He was advanced from position to position, and in a few years was sufficiently qualified to be placed on the editorial force. In 1865 he became editor of the Jeffersonian, and on November 19, 1872, established the Daily Local News, the first daily paper of Chester county. It is an evening paper, and has been issued every day, Sundays excepted, since its establishment. It is independent in politics. On November 19, 1872, Mr. Hodgson was united in marriage with Wilhelmina Den- nison, of Philadelphia. They have one child, a son, Walter D. William H.Hodgson is of English descent. His grandfather, Rev. William Hodgson, was a minister of the Protestant Episcopal church, and in 1818 came to West Chestej*, where he was actively engaged in preaching until his death. He brought with him to this country his son, Hon. John Hodgson (father), who was born in 1808, and died in 1881, aged seventy-three years. He learned the "art preservative of all arts" in the office of the Village Record, at West Chester, and subsequently published for some time the Norristown Herald, vfYnch. was a whig paper. From Norristown he went to Philadelphia, where he was engaged in the mercantile business until 1842, when he returned to West Chester, and on October 3, 1842, com- menced the publication of the Jeffersonian, which remained in his hands up to 1865. In that year he was succeeded by his son, William H. Hodgson. He was a democrat in politics, and in 1857 served in the house of representatives as a member from Ches- ter county. Major Hodgson married Eliza- beth Hall, who was a daughter of a promi- nent citizen of Bucks county. They had five children, three sous and two daughters, all of whom are dead except William II. and Mrs. J. Atwood Pyle, who resides in the southern part of the county. William H. Hodgson is a democrat in politics, but has always refused to accept any political position, and gives his entire attention to his newspapers. His printing house is at No. 12 South High street. It is a handsome and commodious two-story "f'^mm (§^. (^^t7e/a OF CHESTER CO UNI Y. 683 brick building, thirty-two by one Ijundred and ten feet in dimensions, and thoroughly and elegantly fitted up in every department, from the tasteful editoral offices on the sec- ond floor to the composing and press rooms in other parts of the building. He employs a regular force of thirty-five men. A tele- graph office is located in the building, and his fine Hoe perfecting press, which cost $17,000, is the first of its kind that was ever used in an inland daily or weekly newspa- per establishment in the State of Pennsyl- vania. The machinery throughout the build- ing, although very fine and expensive, and placed in at a cost of $37,000, is to be re- placed to a large extent with that which is larger and more modern and costly, in order to secure more rapid work, a necessity aris- ing from the constantly increasing circula- tion of the Local News. The Jeffersonian, as its name would indicate, is and has al- ways been thoroughly democratic,and is fully in accord with the great cardinal principles of the Democratic party. The Local News is the most successful inland daily in the Keystone State, and has not its superior in the Union. It h^s a circulation of twelve thousand, and is read in every part of Ches- ter county and throughout southeastern Pennsylvania. It is a crisp and entertain- ing home paper that exactly meets the wants of the people, and has always been one of the best advertising mediums in the State. The Local News has persistently been the firm and feai'less advocate of measures for the best interests of the people, and the progress and prosperity of the county. It has always been a leader in every reform and progres- sive movement. Both papers are handsome and well printed sheets, containing State and N'ational intelligence, as well as county af- fairs, the latter being a specialty. 40 In the field of modern and progressive journalism William H. Hodgson has aimed to establish a representative weekly and a model daily inland newspaper, and his long years of persistent labor in that direction have been crowned with ultimate and abund- ant success. n P. RINGWAIiT, a respected citi- zen and a successful business man of Downingtown, is a member of the old and worthy Ringwalt family of eastern Penn- sylvania. He is a son of Col. Samuel and Anna (Parke) Ringwalt, and was born at Downingtown, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, January 5, 1851. Jacob Ring- wait, the immigrant ancestor of the Ring- wait family of Chester county, was a native of Wurtemburg, Germany, and landed at Philadelphia, September 28, 1753. He settled at New Holland, Lancaster county, where he owned a large tract of land and filled many local positions of trust and re- sponsibility. He married Barbara Wagner, and had three sons, Jacob, Martin and George. Jacob, the eldest of these sons, married Catharine, daughter of Adam Dil- ler, and was a thoroughgoing, progressive and public-spirited man. He was instru- mental in the introduction of the English language among the German residents of his community, which step led to his sun- dering his connection with the Lutheran and becoming a member of the Episcopal church. One of his sons. Col. Samuel Ring- wait, father of the subject of this sketch, was born at New Holland, July 14, 1799. In early life he became active and promi- nent in the public affairs of his native county, where he filled many positions of trust and responsibility, and also served as deputy sheriff and brigade inspector. He 684 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY was thus brought prominently before the public, who highly esteemed him for his genial courtesy and integrity of character. In 1840 Colonel Ringwalt removed to Downingtown, where he resided until his death, except when his duties as brigade- quartermaster under the gallant Meade called him to the field in defense of his country, where he served acceptably with the vigor of a young man, although sixty- two years of age. He, with Hon. John Hickman and other distinguished men of Chester county, protested against the pas- sage of the Leeompton bill, and he presided over an indignation meeting, whose ex- pression of condemnation voiced the senti- ments of many democrats, whom the results ■of that bill drove into the Republican party. He was a patriot, a respected citizen, and a successful practical farmer, to whom Col. John W. Forney referred in eloquent terms when writing of his interest in scientific agriculture and his devotion to his county. State and country. He died May 13, 1875, when in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and his remains were interred in E'orth- wood cemetery. He was fond of books and society, held advanced views on agricul- ture, and ranked as a typical farmer. His first wife was Sarah McCausland, after whose death he married Louisa Luther, who died and left four children, and for his third wife he wedded Anna Parke, a daughter of Thomas Parke, a native and the owner of a large part of Downing- town, of which he built many of the first houses, and who was a whig and a member of the Society of Friends, and reared a fam- ily of seven children : John E., Thomas, Anna (Eingwalt), Abiah, Jacob, Jonathan and Mary. Mrs. Ringwalt,who died March 14, 1875-, at sixty-three years of age, was well educated, and was a woman of far more than ordinary attainments. J3y his third marriage Colonel Eingwalt had six children: Thomas P., who died in infancy; Anna Mary, Jacob, Ella Virginia, Jane Edge and Abiah. Parke. By his second marriage (with Louisa Luther) Colonel Ringwalt had four chil- dren: John Luther, Geo. B. Porter, Louisa C. and Samuel. John L. and George B. P. became quite distinguished. John Luther Eingwalt was prominently identified for many years with the leading papers of Philadelphia, as a writer, manager and as- sistant editor, and was editor of the Bail- way World at the time of his death. He was the author of the "American Encyclo- pedia of Printing," and " The History of the Development of Transportation Sys- tems in the United States." He was a Lu- theran, held positions in the mint and custom house, and was quite an orator. He was originally a Douglas democrat, but after 1860 supported the Eepublican party, except in 1880, when he spoke and worked for Hancock. He died from the effects of the la grippe, July 29, 1891, aged sixty- two years. His brother, George Bryan Porter Eingwalt, was associated with Col. J. "W". Forney in editing the Philadel- phia Press and Washington Chronicle, and was part owner of the Washington Critic. He held important positions in the custom house at Philadelphia until 1888, when he resigned on account of ill health. He was a man of rare talent, great ability, and gentle manners, and being a fine conversa- tionalist, was always surrounded by a clus- ter of cultured friends. He had artistic tastes, and his letters describing the Cen- tennial exhibits covered the widest rane-e of subjects, showed his genius to be truly OF CHESTEE COUNTY. 685 versatile, and won him a National reputa- tion as a newspaper writer. He died in the prime of life. Dr. Samuel Ringwalt was a distinguished physician of Lancaster county at the time of his death in 1864. Dr. Ringwalt leaves one son, John L. Ringwalt, of Philadelphia. Abiah P. Ringwalt, the subject of this sketch, received his education in Heins' academy, at Downingtown, Chester county, learned the trade of printer, and was en- gaged with his brothers, John L. and George B. P., in the printing and publish- ing business on the corner of Seventh and Chestnut, streets, Philadelphia, from 1868 to 1872. In the last named year he re- turned to Dowingtown and became a flor- ist, his brother, George B. P., being in partnership with him until his death. Since then A. P. Ringwalt has conducted the business by himself, making specialties of carnations and roses. He also owns a farm of iifty-two acres in the west ward of the town, and a flouring mill which he operates. In politics Abiah Park Ringwalt is a re- publican. He is a member of St. James' church of Downingtown, in which he is an active worker, a vestryman, and of whose Sunday school he has been superintendent for many years. Mr. Ringwalt is indus- trious, energetic and reliable, and has won confidence and friendship in Downingtown by his courtesy, promptitude and straight- forward course in business. HON. JESSE MATLACK, postmaster of Milltown, Pennsylvania, since 1849, is an ex-member of the Pennsylvania house of representatives, and a highly respected and honored citizen of Chester county. He is a son of Isaiah and Phoebe (Hoopes) Mat- lack, and was born at Milltown, East Goshen township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 21, 1821. He received his education in the common schools and at Hoopes' board- ing school of West Chester, and some years after his father's death came into possession of the home farm and the Milltown hotel, formerly known as the " Sheaf of Wheat." His farm contains two hundred and thirty- four acres of choice land and is very pro- ductive, while the hotel, which he afterward changed into a dwelling house, was very popular under his administration. Mr. Mat- lack has served as a tax collector, assessor, auditor, school director, and justice of the peace of his township ; and in 1849 was ap- pointed postmaster of Milltown, the duties of which office he has discharged ever since, excepting the time he was one of the repre- sentatives of the county in the Pennsylvania legislature. He is a member of Goshen Baptist church, in which he has served as deacon, trustee, and clerk, and of whose Sunday school he has been superintendent for a quarter of a century. The Matlack family is of English origin, and was founded in the new world about 1638, by three brothers, one of whom be- came a resident of New Jersey, while the other two settled in that part of Chester which is now Delaware county. From one of these two brothers was descended Jesse Matlack, sr., the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Jesse Mat- lack, sr., was born in East Goshen township, where he was a large land holder and pros- perous business man. He also had consid- erable property in West Chester, and owned the old Green Tree hotel, and the site of the North ward of West Chester. He was one of the noted sportsmen of his day, went out on the chase in English fashion, and as a 686 BIO QSAPIl Y AND HIST OR Y fox hunter was hard to excel. He was a whig and a Friend, and held during his life- time most of the local offices of his town- ship. He died in 1830, at sixty-six years of age. He married Sarah Phillips, of Mill- town, Delaware, and left a family of ten children, four sons and six daughters : Anna Way, Mary Phipps-, Sarah Massey, Cather- ine Worrell, Lucina Muse, Susan Osborne, Isaiah, Washington, Robert and Jesse. Isaiah Matlack (father), the eldest son, was born in 1790, and died in 1833, at the early age of forty-three years. He followed farm- ing, and kept the "Sheaf of Wheat," after- ward known as the Milltown hotel. In 1818 he married Phoebe Hoopes, a daughter of John Hoopes, of Goshen township. Their family consisted of three sons and five daughters: Rebecca; Hon. Jesse; Sallie,wife of John C. Mercer; Margaret; Phoebe, who married J. M. Baker, of Chad's Ford, and is now dead; Anna, wife of T. W. Hemphill, of Delaware county; J. Hoopes, of West Chester; and Isaiah F., a merchant of Parkesburg, who married Sallie McClellan. Jesse Matlack is a stanch republican, and has always taken an active part in politics. In 1876 he was elected by his party as a member of the Pennsylvania house of rep- resentatives, and his services in that honor- able body were of such a satisfactory char- acter to the republicans and his constituents of all parties, that he was re-nominated and re-elected by a very handsome majority. During his second term he was placed on several important committees of the house, and by his good judgment and the conserva- tive course of action which he advocated on several important measures, won the respect and good opinion of his fellow members of the legislature. On March 4, 1854, Mr, Matlack married Phoebe Bishop, of Delware county, who died ill March, 1861, aged twenty-eight j'^ears, and left four children: Rebecca, wife of R. H. Pierce, a clerk in the auditor's depart- ment of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany, in Philadelphia; Phoebe, who married S. A. McMaster, a jeweler of Avondale; Anna, wife of S. L. Dicks, a merchant of Goshenville ; and Mary. On June 16, 1866, Mr. Matlack wedded Martha A. Steele, a daughter of Peter Steele, and by his second marriage has two children : Joseph E., a clerk at Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Emma W. In all positions of life Jesse Matlack has discharged his duties with promptness and fidelity. He is well known for his enter- prise and honesty and for his devotion to his church and the best interests of his fellow citizens. QAPT. LEWIS H. EVANS, who made a good army record during the civil war, and has since served as register of wills in this county, and also represented old Chester in the State legislature, is a pros- perous farmer residing near Font. He is a worthy representative of a worthy Welsh family, whose members have been natives of this county since 1722, and several of whom have been prominent in her history. Captain Evans is the fourth son of Ezekiel and Eleanor (Beitler) Evans, and a native of Upper Uwchlan township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he was born July 1, 1832. He grew to manhood on his father's farm in that township, and acquired a fair education in the common schools of his neighborhood, which was supplemented by a course of study in Professor Gause's sem- inary at Marshallton, this county. After leaving school he engaged in farming until OF CHESTER COUNTY. 687 1861, when, on June 6th, he enlisted as a non-commissioned officer in Co. K, 4th Penn- sylvania reserves, and served three years, being mustered out of the service July 17, 1864, as a first lieutenant of his company, to which office he had been promoted in 1862. His command was attached to the army of the Potomac, and he personally participated in all the historic contests of that army previous to the battle of the Wilderness, just before which his regimeiit with others was detached and sent into western Virginia. There he took part in the battle of Cloyd Mountain, during which he was shot and seriously wounded in the arm. After the war closed Lieutenant Ev- ans was commissioned captain by Governor Geary, which title he has ever since borne. He was a brave soldier and made a fine rec- ord in the army. After returning from the war. Captain Evans purchased a farm in Lancaster county, where he was engaged in farming for three years, but in 1870 he re- turned to his native county and settled again in Tipper Uwchlan township. Here he pur- chased Ms present fine farm of one hundred and forty-five acres of very choice land, and has since given his time and attention to its cultivation. He has been quite successful in his business, and ranks among the most industrious, enterprising and prosperous farmers of his section. Politicall}' Captain Evans is a stanch republican, and in the fall of 1872 was elected to the position of reg- ister of wills for Chester county, the duties of which office he faithfully discha;rged for a period of three years. In 1887 he was nominated and elected as a member of the house of representatives of Pennsylvania, and served in the sessions of the State legis- lature for 1887 and 1889, being active in the interests of his constituents, and both useful and influential in the important sessions of those years. He is a member of the Eor- restry commission of the State of Pennsyl- vania, and has been seci'etary of the Fair- mount Creamery association of Uwchlan township, of which latter he was one of the organizers and charter members. They are successfully manufacturing gilt edge butter and milk sugar. Captain Evans is also alead- ing member of Gen. Geo. A. McCall Post, ISTo. 31, Grand Army of the Republic. The family to which Captain Evans be- longs was planted in America by Evan Ev- ans, of the parish of Treeglws, Montgom- eryshire, Wales, who came to this country in 1722, and on November 17th of that year purchased two hundred and fifty acres of land adjoining Uwchlan Friends' meeting house, near where Lionville now stands. Here he engaged in farming, though in the old country he had been a "felt maker," and here he lived until his death in 1731. His widow married Charles Gatlive, of Uwchlan, July 21, 1735. The children of Evan Evans were : Martha, married Stephen Hoopes; Mary, wedded William Clayton, and after his death married Isaac Marshall ; Margaret, became the wife of John Tod- hunter; Evan, died unmarried; Susanna, married Isaac Serrell, and afterward Robert Carter; Thomas, Ann, Edward and Richard. Ann and Edward died young, and Evan took the real estate after he became of age, but dying in 1748, bequeathed all except forty acres to his brother Thomas, and the remainder to Richard, the latter of whom married Phebe Whelan in 1763, became a member of Uwchlan meeting December 4, 1777, and with their children — Thomas, Sarah, Margaret, Mary and Catharine — re- moved to Hopewell, Virginia, some years later. Thomas Evans (great-grandfather of 688 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY Capt. Lewie H. Evans), was born near Lion- ville, this county, and spent his entire life on the homestead there, dying about 1807. On August 17, 1748, he married Eleanor Reese, a daughter of James Reese, of Uwch- lan, by whom he had six children : Evan, Ezekiel, Jesse, Isaac, Thomas, and Eleanor, who married Henry Lewis, of dwchlan. The eldest son, Evan Evans (grandfather), was born in Upper TJwchlan township, in September, 1749, on a farm near the Eagle hotel property. He devoted his life mainly to agriculture^ was a federalist in politics, and served as a member of the State assem- bly in 1782 and 1783. He died July 16, 1823, aged seventy-four. On February 16, 1780, he married Jane Owen, a daughter of William and Jane Owen, of the same town- ship. She was boi'n March 19, 1762, and died August 5, 1841. Their children were : Rebecca; Owen, who with his family re- moved to, Illinois; Elinor, died young; Thomas, died in 1823, leaving one son — Boon ; Sarah, married William Dunwoody ; Ezekiel, father of Capt. Lewis H. Evans ; Margaret, married Benjamin Harley ; Wil- liam, died young; Richard, born June 15, 1798, and died September 5, 1856 ; Hannah, married David Beitler; and Jane, who be- came the wife of Lewis Hurford. Ezekiel Evans (father), was born June 24, 1791, in Upper Uwchlan township, this county, where he passed a long and useful life, en- gaged principally in the cultivation of the soil and in stock raising. He died May 29, 1870, aged nearly eighty years. In politics he was first a whig and later a republican. He served as justice of the peace in his township for several years, and in religious conviction was a Quaker. About 1818 he married Eleanor Beitler, a daughter of John Beitler, of East Pikeland township, and by this union had a family often children, five sons and five daughters: Thomas B., Han- nah, John B., Jane E., Mary Ann, Evan B., Lewis H. (subject of this sketch), Rebecca, Anna and D. Webster. Mrs. Eleanor Ev- ans died in September, 1870, in the seventy- sixth year of her age. jrOSHUA P. HAKRY, a well respected citizen of West Pikeland township, who has been for several years actively and successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits; is a son of William and Anna(Pusey) Harry, and was born in East Cain township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, June 5, 1842. He re- ceived his education in the common schools of West Pikeland township and West Chester State N^ormal school, which latter he attended for one term. Leaving school, he has been engaged ever since in farming on the home farm, which he now owns. His farm con- tains one hundred and twenty acres of rich, tillable and well improved land. In con- nection with farming and stock raising, Mr. Harry operates a first class dairy, and has steady demand in Philadelphia for his products. He is a republican in politics, and a member and deacon of Lion ville Evan- gelical Lutheran church. He is methodical and prompt in whatever he does, and by in- dustry and good management has secured a competency. He was united in marriage with Martha Shafer, daughter of John and Martha Shafer, and to them has been born one child, a daughter, Florence, who- is now attending Professor Darlington's seminary, of West Chester. The Harry family is of English Quaker stock, and Jesse Harry, sr., the paternal grandfather of Joshua P. Harry, was a resi- dent of Columbia, Lancaster county, during OF CHESTER COUNTY. 689 a part of his life. He was a blacksmith by trade, a whig in politics, and a consistent and useful member of the Orthodox Society of Friends. He married Catharine Mears, of Delaware, and reared a family of seven children, four sous and three daughters: David, Jesse, Robert, William, Deborah Foreman, Mary C, and Sarah Davis. Wil- liam Harry (father) was the eldest of the four sons, and during the early part of his life, resided in East Cain township. He afterward renioved to Uwchlan township, which he left to settle in West Pikeland, where he purchased the farm now owned by his son, the subject of. this sketch. Wil- liam Harry was a farmer by occupation, a republican in politics, and had been an ac- tive member of the Orthodox Society of Friends for many years before his death, which occurred April 1, 1873, when he was in the eighty-first year of his age. He married Anna Pusey, who was a daughter of Joseph Pusey, and who died in 1876, aged seventy-two years. They reared a family of four sons and six daughters: Maria, Sarah, Sophia, Deborah, Edward, Lizzie, Hannah, Joshua (subject), William and Frank. QHARLES C. HIGHLEY, a good finan- cier and a popular business man, who has served as cashier of the National bank of Malvern ever since its organization, is a son of Felix F. and Susan R. (Corson) High- ley, and was born in Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1862. He received his education in select schools and Norristown High school, from which insti- tution he was graduated in the class of 1880. After graduation he read law with his uncle, Hon. George IS". Corson, for two years, and then dropped his legal studies to accept a position in the Peoples' National bank of Norristown, where he remained for two years. At the end of that time, in 1884, he was appointed to his present position of cashier of the National bank of Malvern, which was organized in the above named year. His paternal great-grandfather, Henry Highley, is a descendant of one of two Highley brothers who came from Germany to Pennsylvania. One wrote his name Heilig, and became a resident of German- town, while the other, who wrote the name Highley, came to Chester county, and was the immigrant ancestor of Henry Highley, whose son, George Highley (grandfather), was born in Schuylkill township, and aftier his marriage with Ann Francis, removed to Lower Providence township, Montgomery county, where he followed farming until his death, and left seven children : Henry, Thomas, Felix, Mrs. Hannah Corson (dead), Eliza (deceased), Mary P., and Deborah. The eldest son, Henry Highley (father), was born August 1, 1832. He received his edu-. cation at the old J^'reniont seminary of Nor- ristown, Montgomery county, and was en- gaged in tilling the Jiome farm until 1875, when he sold it to the. Reading Railroad Company. He then purchased a farm near Norristown, which he cultivated for twelve years, and at the eud of that time removed to Norristown, where he has resided ever since. He is a republican in politics, sei-ved as school director for several years, and mar- ried Susan R. Corson, who is a member of the old Corson family noted for the many professional, men which it has furnished,, and is a daughter of Charles Corson, a noted abolitionist of slavery times, and whose brother, Dr. Hirani Corson, although eighty- eight years of age, is still practicing at Ply- 690 BIOGBAPHY AND HIST OH Y mouth, Montgomery county, and was the first exponent of the idea of women physi- cians practicing in hospitals. Mrs. Highley has six brothers and sisters : William E., an editor ; Kichard and John, real estate agents ; Hon. George N., a prominent lawyer and a member of the constitutional convention of 1872; Adelaide; and Mary F. To Mr. and Mrs. Highley have been born five children : Dr. George E^., a graduate of the university of Pennsylvania, who married Mary W. Wilson and is practicing in Conshocton, this State ; lone, wife of H. L. Everett, a publisher of Philadelphia; Charles C. ; Sarah C, wife of George M. Holstein, treasurer and manager of the Berther Zinc Company of Pulaski, Virginia, which employs eight hundred men at that place ; and Ifannie P. In politics Charles C. Highley has always been a republican, and was one of the first justices of the peace elected for Malvern, and is still in commission. Mr. Highley is popular as a business man. He is treasurer of the Malvern Water Company, and was the originator of the Malvern & Duff'ryn Mawr Building and Loan association, which was formed on January 1, 1888, and is in a prospei'ous condition. He is well acquainted with the principles of safe banking, and has been very successful in every position that he has ever held in connection with finan- cial and business institutions. yjrJiLLIAM p. MARSHALL, a well known conveyancer and active busi- ness man of West Chester, and a public spirited and progressive citizen of the county, is a son of Samuel and Philena (Pusey) Marshall, and was born in Concord town- ship, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, De- cember 21, 1826. The Marshall family of Chester county, from which William P. Marshall is descended, was founded by John Marshall, who emigrated about 1684 from Elton, in Derbyshire, England, and settled in Upper Darby township, Delaware county, and within the bounds of Darby Friends' Meeting, of which he was a useful member. He died September 13, 1729. In 1688 he married Sarah Smith, of Darby, and their marriage was the first that was solemnized at the first meeting house built at that place. Their children were : John, William, and Thomas. Thomas, the youngest, was born December 10, 1694, and settled in Concord township, Delaware county, where, in 1727, he built a brick house, which is still stand- ing, and now in posession of the brother of the subject of this sketch. On February 24, 1718, he married Hannah Mendenhall, a sister to the wife of John Bartram, the eminent botanist. Their son, Thomas Mar- shall (great-grandfather), was born July 26, 1727, and married Edith I^J'ewlin, by whom he had four children, one son and three daughters. The son, Thomas Marshall, jr. (grandfather), was born December 12, 1756, and died August 13, 1844, when in the eighty- eighth year of his age. He was a tanner by trade, and followed farming to some extent on the old Concord homestead, which he had inherited from his father. On April 21, 1779, he married Mary Grubb, by whom he had several children, of whom the youngest was Samuel (father), who was born March 24, 1789. Samuel Marshall followed tan- ning and farming until his death, which occurred on August 27, 1832. He was an intelligent and active business man, and married Philena Pusey, a daughter of Ellis Pusey. She was a preacher in the Society of Friends, and passed away in 1842. Mr. and Mrs. Marshall reared a family of seven ^aidn-a-i 690 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY mouth, Montgomery county, and was the first exponent of the idea of women physi- cians practicing in hospitals. Mrs. Highley has six brothers and sisters : William E., an editor ; Richard and John, real estate agents ; Hon. George N., a prominent lawyer and a member of the constitutional convention of 1872; Adelaide; and Mary F. To Mr. and Mrs. Highley have been born five children : Dr. George N"., a graduate of the university of Pennsylvania, who married Mary W. Wilson and is practicing in Conshocton, this State ; lone, wife of H. L. Everett, a publisher of Philadelphia ; Charles C. ; Sarah C, wife of George M. Holstein, treasurer and manager of the Berther Zinc Company of Pulaski, Virginia, which employs eight hundred men at that place ; and If aunie P. In politics Charles C. Highley has always been a republican, and was one of the first justices of the peace elected for Malvern, and is still in commission. Mr. Highley is popular as a business man. He is treasurer of the Malvern Water Company, and was the originator of the Malvern & Dutfryn Mawr Building and Loan association, which was formed on January 1, 1888, and is in a prosperous condition. He is well acquainted with the principles of safe banking, and has been very successful in every position that he has ever held in connection with finan- cial and business institutions. rrJlIililAM p. MARSHALL,, a well ^■^^-^ known conveyancer and active busi- ness man of West Chester, and a public spirited and progressive citizen of the county, is a son of Samuel and Philena (Pusey) Marshall, and was born in Concord town- ship, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, De- cember 21, 1826. The Marshall family of Chester county, from which William P. Marshall is descended, was founded by John Marshall, who emigrated about 1684 from Elton, in Derbyshire, England, and settled in Upper Darby township, Delaware county, and within the bounds of Darby Friends' Meeting, of which he was a useful member. He died September 13, 1729. In 1688 he married Sarah Smith, of Darby, and their marriage was the first that was solemnized at the first meeting house built at that place. Their children were : John, William, and Thomas. Thomas, the youngest, was born December 10, 1694, and settled in Concord township, Delaware county, where, in 1727, he built a brick house, which is still stand- ing, and now in posession of the brother of the subject of this sketch. On February 24, 1718, he married Hannah Mendenhall, a sister to the wife of John Bartram, the eminent botanist. Their son, Thomas Mar- shall (great-grandfather), was born July 26, 1727, and married Edith Ifewlin, by whom he had four children, one son and three daughters. The son, Thomas Marshall, jr. (grandfather), was born December 12, 1756, and died August 13, 1844, when in the eighty- eighth year of his age. He was a tanner by trade, and followed farming to some extent on the old Concord homestead, which he had inherited from his father. On April 21, 1779, he married Mary Grubb, by whom he had several children, of whom the youngest was Samuel (father), who was born March 24, 1789. Samuel Marshall followed tan- ning and farming until his death, which occurred on August 27, 1832. He was an intelligent and active business man, and married Philena Pusey, a daughter of Ellis Pusey. She was a preacher in the Society of Friends, and passed away in 1842. Mr. and Mrs. Marshall reared a family of seven uuam aidna\ OF CHESTER COUNTY. 693 children, six sons and one daughter: Ellis P., now deceased, was a farmer and resided at the old homestead; Thomas, also dead, was a farmer of Delaware county ; Samuel, a remarkably successful business man and head of the well known banking firm of Marshall & Ilsley,of Milwaukee, Wisconsin ; William P.; Edward S., now engaged in farming at London Grove ; Henry, who died young ; and Margaret, widow of Morris Pal- mer, who was a farmer in the State of Delaware. William P. Marshall was reared on the farm, received his education at "Westtown boarding school, and then followed teaching for ten years, most of the time as principal of a Friend's school at Darby, and the last three years at London Grove. After his marriage, in 1851, he purchased a farm ad- joining the borough of West Chester, upon which he has since resided. In 1872 he leased the most of the land to Hoopes, Brother & Thomas, nurserymen, and opened an office in West Chester, where he has been actively and successfully engaged in the conveyancing business ever since. He also loans money on mortgages, and looks after real estate interests, renting and sell- ing desirable properties". He has been for several years a director in the National bank of Chester county, of which old institution he is vice-president. On April 4, 1851, Mr. Marshall married Frances A., daughter of Hon. James An- drews, who was an associate judge of the courts of Delaware county for a number of years. To Mr. and Mrs. Marshall have been born seven children, one son and six daugh- ters. Samuel, the son, is a surveyor by profession. One of the daughters is mar- ried to John H. Darlington, who resides near West Chester, and another to Dr. George G. Groff, a professor in Bucknell university. Li politics Mr. Marshall was an old-line whig until that political organization went down, and since then has been identified with the Kepublican party. He is a mem- ber of the Society of Friends, as have been his ancestors before him. He has always taken a deep interest in educational matters, and in addition to his labors for the progress of the academies and private institutions of learning, he has served for a number of years as a trustee of the West Chester State Nor- mal school. The unfortunate and criminal classes of human society have received his attention and thought, with a view to their improvement and reclamation, and he has served for seventeen years as an inspector of the Chester county prison. William P. Marshall has achieved success by deserving it. He is firm but courteous, kind and hos- pitable, and is a man of well known integ- rity, both in public and private life. J'ESSE HAWLEY, deceased, belonged to that class of men who leave the world something better for their having lived in it. He was energetic, intelligent and use- ful to himself and others. Not only his friends and neighbors but the interests of humanity in general held a place in his large heart, and received such aid as his circum- stances allowed and opportunity permitted. His industry and ability gave him success in business, while other qualities of head and heart won him prominence in the commun- ity and left a name and memory which con- stitute a better monument than can be fash- ioned from marble. He was a son of Joseph and Rebecca (Meredith) Hawley, and was born iu Uwchlan township, Chester county. 694 EIOQItAPHY AND HIST OUT Penusylvaiiiti, February 14, 1806. His early education was obtained in the common schools of his neighborhood, and his train- ing completed by a course of stildy in one of the leading boarding schools in this county. Leaving school he learned the trade of tanner, and in 1831 purchased the tannery at Pughtown, which he successfully conducted for a period of thirty-seven years, retiring from the business in 1868. He was a man of great energy and fine business ability, and during the time he operated the tannery built up a lucrative trade and ac- cumulated a handsome competency. He also owned and managed a good farm, which was well improved and highly productive. His death occurred at his home in Pugh- town, October 7, 1887, at which time he was in the eightj'-second year of his age. In politics he was originally a whig, but after the advent of the Republican party in this county he adhered to that organiza- tion, and was active and influential in its support. He took a deep interest in popu- lar education, and served as school director for many years. During the anti-slavery agitation he was particularly active, and served as a delegate to a number of conven- tions held by those who opposed slavery, and were deVising ways and means to assist fugitive shives on their way to freedom in the British dominions of the north. In re- ligious faith he was a Quaker, and a strict member of the Society of Friends all his life. JESSE H. (BARRETT, the present superintendent of the Westtown school farm, is the oldest son of Aaron and Sidney (Hawlcy) (Jari-ett, and was born February 26, 1838, in Willistown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was principally reared on the farm owned by his father in that township, and received a good Englisii education in the public schools and at West- town boarding school. After completing his studies he engaged in farming in his native township, where he successfully fol- lowed that occupation for a period of fifteen years. He was energetic and enterpriaug, with enough of that rare quality called com- mon sense to enable him to strike a happy medium between the antique methods that served in former times and the wild vagar- ies of modern agricultural cranks, who im- agine that in every new and untested scheme lies the solution of the old problem of "how to make the farm pay." He demonstrated by practical experience that the road to suc- cess runs along the middle ground, some distance from either extreme. About 1881 he removed to Birmingham township, and for four years conducted a farm there. In 1885 he came to Westtown and assumed the duties of superintendent of the Westtown school farm, to which position he had been appointed by a committee in charge of that institution. He still occupies that post,.and has given entire satisfaction in his adminis- tration of the affairs of this farm, which comprises six hundred acres and practically deals with all phases of diversified agricul- ture. In politics Mr. Garrett is a republican, and in religion a leading member of the Society of Friends, being connected with Birmingham meeting, which he is now serv- ing as overseer. On January 5, 1865, Mr. Garrett was united in marriage to Susan Cope, youngest daughter of Darlington and Sallie (Thomas) Cope, of West Chester, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Garrett has been born a fam- ily of ten children, three sons and seven daughters : William S., a carpenter by occu- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 695 pation, who married Lillie White, and now resides in the city of Portland, Oregon; Saliie C, Elizabeth, Alice M., Anna C, Howard T. (deceased), Bertha S., Lillian J., Abigail H. and Charles C. The latter and all the daughters are living at home with their parents. The Garretts are descended from English Quaker stock, and have been residents in Pennsylvania since 1684, when William, sou of John Grarrett, came from Leicester, Eng- land, with his wife, Ann, and settled at Darby. Their children were Ann, Mary, Samuel, Hannah, Sarah, Alice, Willianh Thomas and John. William, sr., died at Philadelphia in 1724, and his wife in 1722. The eldest son, Samuel, married Jane Pen- nell, of Middletown, in 1698, and they had nine children : Mary, born April 7, 1699, married first Thomas Gldman and second Obadiah Eldridge; Joseph, born February 25, 1701, married Mary Sharpless in 1822; Hannah, born July 18, 1704, married Wil- liam Lewis in 1728; Samuel, born October 20, 1706, died January 19, 1707; Samuel (2), born August 22, 1708, married Sarah Hibberd in 1731, and settled in Willistovvii, where he died January 29, 1747, leaving four children — Josiah, Jesse, Samuel and Aaron; Nathan, born December 13,1711; James, born April 17, 1714; Thomas, born October 26, 1717; and Jane, born April 20, 1719. Aaron Garrett, son of Samuel, was born December 27, 1746, married Rachel Cox in 1769, and died March 18, 1815. His wife died February 4th of the same year. Their children were: Levi, Amos, Aaron, Sarah, Kobert and. Mary. This Aaron Gar- rett, jr., was the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Ches- ter county, and lived most of his life in Wil- listown township, where he died in 1808. He was a farmer by occupation, a whig in politics, and a (Quaker in religious belief. He married Jane Hoopes, a daughter of Jesse and Pachel Hoopes, and by this union had a family of six children: David, born November 28, 1803, and died October 17, 1868; Rachel Y., Betsy, Jesse H., Aaron and Jane. Aaron Garrett (father)' was born in Wil- listown township, this county, in 1811, where he grew to manhood, was educated and spent most of his life. Li 1872 he removed to Edge- mont township, Delaware county, where he passed the closing years of his life, dying there in 1877, at the advanced age of sixty- four years. While yet a young man he learned the trade of tanner and followed that occupation for a time, but his chief business was farming. He was a man of deeply re- ligious character and a life-long member of the Society of Friends. Politically he was a whig until about 1866, when he identified himself with the Republican party and ever afterward yielded it a loyal support. In 1833 he married Sidney Hawley, a daughter of Benjamin Hawley, of Goshen tovs'nship, and by this union had a family of four chil- dren, two sons and two daughters: Eliza- beth, now deceased; Jane, wlio married William P. Smedley, and resides in Media, this State ; Jesse H., whose name heads this sketch; and Robert, who married Sarah H. Cope, and is now a prosperous farmer of East Goshen township, this county. J3ROF. WILLIAM H. WALKER, who taught with well merited success for nearly a quarter of a century in Friends' Central school of Philadelphia, and who is now engaged in the management of his farm in Tredytirin township, is the eldest son of 696 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY T. Ivius and Isabella B. (Henry) Walker, and was born in Tredyftrin township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, March 3, 1853. He received liis education in the public schools of Tredyftrin township, and Friends' Central school, of. Philadelphia, from which excellent institution he was graduated in the class of 1869. Leaving school he was variously employed until 1872, when he be- came principal of the Friends' High school of "West Chester. . At the end of one year he resigned that position to become an in- structor in the Friends' Central school of Philadelphia, in. which he taught consecu- tively and successfully from 1878 to 1892. In the last named year he resigned, and since then has been engaged in the manage- ment of his farm and other agricultural pursuits. His farm of one hundred and forty-four acres of tine farming and twelve acres of good woodland, in Tredyftrin town- ship, is. a desirable piece of property on ac- count of its fertility and improvements, and alsobecause it is convenient to school, church and market. He is a republican in politics, but has never desired or sought prominence in political aft'airs, although he is a close observer of men and parties, and keeps himself well informed on the current issues of the day. On May 13,1885, Mr. Walker was united in marriage with Charlotte A., daughter of William Weber, of Jeftersonville, Mont- gomery county. Their union has been blessed with two children : Isabella and William W. The Walker family is one of the old and highly respected families of Chester county, and its immigrant ancestor is said to have been.Lewis Wa]ker,who came from Wales to Chester county in 1686. Joseph Walker,tlie great-great-grandfather of ProfessorWalker, was a prominent farmer and Friend . of Tredyftrin township, where he died in 1818, at ninety years of age. His son, Thomas Walker (great-grandfather), married Mar- garet Curry, and had a family of ten chil- dren : Sarah, married Benjamin Moore, of Philadelphia; Eichard C. ; William, married Sarah Pennypacker; Joseph, who married Hannah Stevens, and after her death wedded Eliza Roberts ; Ann, wife of John Richards ; Jane, married Joseph Pennypacker; Zilla, wife of Evans Kendall ; Mary, who married Benjamin Rowland ; Hannah, wife of Stephen Stevens; and Isaac, who married Elizabeth Beidler. Richard C. Walker (grandfather), the eldest son, was born in 1791, and died in 1870, aged seventy-nine years. He was a farmer, whig and Friend. He married Sarah Cleaver, who died and left two chil- dren: Jonathan, who mai-ried Caroline Blanchard; and T. Ivins. For his second wife Mr. Walker married Rebecca Jones, by whom he had one son, Richard,who married Martha Wood. After the death of his sec- ond wife Richard C. Walker wedded Sarah A. Jones, and by this third marriage had four children : Mary, wife of William Vogdes, Mai'garet, now dead; John, who married Emma Stephens; and Sarah, wifp of Edward Bonsall. The second, son by the first mar- riage, T. Ivins Walker (.father), was born September 23, 1823, in Tredyftrin town- ship, where he died August 17, 1869, aged forty-six years. He was a farmer and re- publican, and married Isabella B. Henry, eldest daughter of Hon. William Henry, of Montgomery county. They had two chil- dren : Prof. William H. and Ivins C, who was born January 1, 1864, and is engaged in the livery business at Norristown, Mont- gomery councy, where he married Mary R. Thomas, by whom he has one child, Anna- OF CHESTER COUNT y. 697 bel. Mrs. Isabella B. AValker died July 1, 1892, at sixty-two years of age. Hon. Wil- liam Henry (tJiaternal grandfather) lived at Port Kennedy, Montgomery county, and died at Phcenixville about 1880, aged sev- enty-eight years. He was a democrat and a Presbyterian, and represented Montgom- ery county in the legislature about 1850. He married Elizabeth Bull, and their chil- dren were : Mrs. Isabella B.Walker (mother), William, Sallie B., Mrs. Anna L. Tyson, Mrs. Emma B. Loucks, Mrs. Sophiallamp- ton, Mrs. Florence Kendall, Mrs. Ijizzie Saylor, Mrs. Ellen Kendall, Mrs. Frances Patrick, Ida M., and John and Charles, who both died in infancy. ^ BECHTEL MINTZER, M. D., of ' Anselma, a graduate of two leading medical colleges of the United States, and a prominent and successful physician, is a son of Henry and Rebecca (Bechtel) Mint- zer, and was born at Pottstowu, Montgom- ery county, Pennsylvania, January 29, 1855. He received his elementary education in the public schools at Pottstown, and at eleven years of age commenced life for himself by going to work in a brickyard, which he left four months later to become a messenger boy for the Reading Railroad Company. Here his aptness and close attention to his duties recommended him to his superioi-s, and at fourteen years of age he had so im- proved his opportunities in the telegraph offices where he was employed, that he was appointed telegraph operator at Pottstown, which position he held but a short time, when he was promoted to night operator in the depot. In this last position he so well performed his duties that he was soon ap- pointed train dispatcher, although but seven- teen years of age, and was undoubtedly the youngest train dispatcher ever appointed in the United States. From train dispatcher he was transferred to the passenger service, which he left to engage in the insurance business in Philadelphia, where he took steps to secure a better education. He studied under Rev. ]!Toble Frame, who ad- vised him to take a theological course and enter the ministry of the Methodist Epis- copal church, but he soon gave up the idea, although he had been licensed and had de- livered several sernionsin different churches. He then turned his attention to medicine, and to a three years'-course in homeopathy he added a four years' allopathic course at the Medico-Chirurgical college, from which he was graduated in 1890. After gradua- tion from this college he served as anatomi- cal director in the Philadelphia school of anatomy, and as chief of clinics for nervous diseases in the Medico-Chirurgical college, and also practiced in Philadelphia for two years, and then, on July 16, 1892, came to near Anselma, in West Pikeland township, where he has been in continuous active and successful practice ever since. On February 29, 1876, Dr. Mintzer mar- ried Chrissie Stone, a daughter of George W. Stone, of Pottstown, this State. To their union have been born four children : Oliver Bland, Charles Craven (deceased), Frank Kellar, and one that died in infancy. Dr. Mintzer is a republican in politics. He is a member of the association of the Medico-Chirurgical college and the Phila- delphia Medical society. He is skilled and successful as a physician, well read in every- thing connected with medicine, and is build- ing up a fine and extensive practice. Dr. Mintzer's grandfather, William Mint- zer, was a stage line owner prior to the 698 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY building of the Eeading railroad, and after its construction engaged in niercliandising at Pottstowii, this State. He was a Luth- eran and a federalist, and had five sons : Joseph, William, Henry, Frederick and Al- bert. Henry Mintzer (father) was a farmer and merchant, a Lutheran and a republican. He was engaged in the mercantile business for some time, and was postmaster of Potts- town for eight years, being succeeded by his son, Gen. William Mintzer, who also held the ofiice for eight years. He died in 1884, aged seventy-one years. He married Re- becca Bechtel, daughter of Peter Bechtel, of Barren Hill. They had nine children: Gen. William, who commanded the 53d Pennsylvania volunteers during the late war; Catherine Wells, of Kenilworth; Elizabeth E.eeser; Henry, now dead; Rebecca Town- send; Irvin, deceased, who served ten years in the regular army; Warren, a telegraph operator of the Reading Railroad Company for the last twenty-five years; Sallie H. Culp ; and Dr. J. Bechtel, whose name ap- pears at. the head of this sketch. QHARLES D. MASSEY, a prominent and progressive farmer of Frazer, and a representative of one of the older families of this Commonwealth, is the youngest son of Jacob and Rebecca (Richardson) Massey, and a native of Tredyffrin township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, where he was born May 9, 1828. He was educated at New London boarding school and Jforristown boarding school, under the care of Samuel Aaron, and leaving school, at once engaged in farming, to which occupation he has given all the active years of his life. He resided in Tredyfl:'rin township until April 5, 1882, when he removed to East Goshen, where he owns a farm of seventy-seven acres of valu- able land, all improved. In the manage- ment of his farm he is practical and progres- sive, and has met with remai'kable success. He is what might well be termed a model farmer, and his broad acres attest what can be accomplished by intelligent culture and improved methods. Among his farm build- ings is a very handsome residence, erected by himself in 1882, which is well planned and convenient in all its arrangements. In political faith Mr. Massey is a stanch re- publican, and was elected and sei-ved three years as supervisor of Tredyffrin township. On January 9, 1851, Mr. Massey was uni- ted in marriage with Rebecca A.J.Walker, a daughter of William and Sarah P.Walker, of Tredyfi'rin township. To this union was born a family of three sons: William W., who died in January, 1862, at the age of ten years ; Jacob P., who married Emma M. Mullin, of Philadelphia, and is a prosperous farmer of East Goshen township, where he is now serving his second term as school director, being treasurer of the board, and has also been a member of the Republican county committee from his township forfive years; and Charles M., who died in March, 1855, at the age of six months. The Masseys are of English extraction, but have been native Pennsylvanians since colonial days. Israel Massey, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born near White Horse, in Willistown township, but removed to Valley Forge in 1845. He died near Port Kennedy, on the Valley Forge camp ground, in the winter of 1847. He was a blacksmith in early life but later became a farmer, and owned the land on which Washington's headquarters were located during the memorable winter the Continental army lay quartered at Val- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 699 ley Forge. He was a whig in politics, and held a number of local offices. In religion he was a member of the Friends' meeting. He married Rachel Vogdes (see sketch of Dr. Isaac Massey in this volnme), and to them was born a family of nine children : Isaac, Jacob, Israel, John, Eli, William, Ann, Aaron, and one that died in infancy. These are all now deceased except John, who resides in West Chester. The second sou, Jacob Massey (father), was born in Willistowu township about 1795, and died at his home in Tredyffrin township in April, 1870, after an active life of three quarters of a century. He was a farmer and market gardener, and became prosperous and influential in his community. Politically be was a whig and republican, and in religion adhered strictly to the Quaker faith, in which he had been reared. For many years he was a prominent member of the Willistown meeting of the Society of Friends. In 1812 he married Rebecca Rich- ardson, a daughter of Joseph and Eleanor Richardson, near Port Kennedy, and was the father of six children, three sons and three daughters : Isaac, deceased ; Ellen ; Racliel, deceased; Jacob; Rebecca, also de- ceased; and Charles D., the subject of this sketch. HON. DAVID L. SMITH, of Pome- roy, an ex-member of the Pennsylvania house of representatives, and who served meritoriously as an officer on General Meade's staff during the late civil war, is one of that class of men whose industry and integrity have won them honor and success in life. He is the fourth son of Daniel and Eleanora (Shrom) Smith, and was born at .Carlisle, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, February 4, 1827. David L. Smith was reared in Cumberland and Alleghany coun- ties, received a good English education, and after following farming for a few years, and serving one term in the State legislature, was appointed chief clerk in the commis- sioner's office of Alleghany county. He resigned that position when the late war commenced, in 1861, and enlisted in Co. A, 2d Virginia volunteers, of which he was elected first lieutenant. In February, 1862, he was appointed assistant commissary of volunteers, and on September 7th of the same year was assigned as chief commissary of the Twelfth army corps, which position he held up to March 16, 1863, when he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and aide-de- camp, and assigned to duty on the staff of General Meade, commandingthe Fifth army corps, where he served until the close of the war. Colonel Smith was honorably dis- charged from the United States service on March 16, 1866, after a continuous service of four years and ten months. He returned to Allegheny county, where he was again elected, in November, 1867, by the Republi- can party, a member of the Pennsylvania house of representatives, in which body he served very creditably. In 1870 he was elected alderman in Allegheny city, which position he held until 1881, when he came to Sadsbury township, this county, where he has resided ever since, upon his farm at Pomeroy. On September 7, 1852, Colonel Smith married Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of Rob- ert Gordon of Pittsburg. She died ISTovem- ber 2, 1877, leaving three children, one son and two daughters : Frank C, now a resi- dent of Chicago; Eleanora, widow of the late Quincy C. Burkhart, of Chicago; and Mary E., wife of Archibald Russell, who is 700 BIOQRAPHY AND HISTORY engaged in farming in this county. On March 7, 1880, Colonel Smith married for his second wife, Mrs. Helen M. Armstrong, widow of the late Charles C. Armstrong, M. D., of Allegheny city, and a daughter of Arthur Wallace, of Highland township, Chester county. David L. Smith comes of German lineage, and in the revolutionarj- struggle his pater- nal grandfather, George Smith, and four of his brothers, left their Chester county homes to fight for Americanindependence. George Smith was born in 1753, and after serving in the Continental army, returned home to engage in agricultural pursuits, wherein he continued until the weight of years rendered him unable for active exertion. After his marriage in 1783, to Susan "Wondulich, he removed to Cumberland county, becoming one of the early settlers. He was a Lu- theran in religion, and passed away from earth in 1837, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. His son, Daniel Smith (father), was born at Carlisle, June 3, 1800, and served as a drummer boy in the American army during the last year of the war of 1812. After attaining his majority, he fol- lowed farming and blacksmithing until 1836, in which year he removed to Allegheny county, near Pittsburg, where he purchased a farm, and in addition to farming operated a blacksmith shop for some years. Daniel Smith was a whig and republican in poli- tics, and a consistent member of the Evan- gelical Lutheran church, and died July 23, 1874. His wife, whose maiden name was Eleanora Shrom, died September 17, 1845, at the age of forty-four years. She was a daughter of Joseph Shrom, of Carlisle, and a native of Lancaster county. Mr. and Mrs. Smith reared a family of eight children, seven sons and one daughter, all of whom are still living, the youngest being over sixty years of age. In politics David L. Smith has always been an active republican, who has given his party efficient service. While in the State legislature he served upon several important committees, was safe and con- servative in his views upon public affairs, and never neglected the interests of his con- stituents. In educational as well as civil and political matters Mr. Smith has taken great interest and done good service. He served several terms in the city council, and for twelve years as a member of the school board- of Allegheny city, and was active in many important measures that tended largely to build up and increase the efficiency of the schools of that city. David L. Smith is a pleasant and agreeable gentleman, of energy and intelligence, whose integrity of purpose cannot be questioned, and who in his adherence to what he considers right, is firm and decided. JACOB RICKABAUGH, M. D., has practiced medicine in Chester county for half a century, and is also largely inter- ested in agricultural pursuits, being the owner of several fine farms and a pleasant home with beautiful surroundings, situated near Warren tavern. He is the third son and only surving child of David and Eliza- beth (Young) Rickabaugh, and is a native of Tredyffrin township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, being born on the old Rieka- baugh homestead in that township, Febru- ary 6, 1815. He was reared principally on the home farm, where he now resides, and received his early education in the common schools of that neighborhood. Later he at- tended the classical school at Great Valley, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 701 conducted by that eminent educator, Prof. Joshua Jones, who, among other contribu- tions to the cause of learning, was the au- thor of a standard work on English gram- mar. Leaving school young Eickabaugh read medicine for a time with Dr. James Francis Latta, of Tredyft'rin, and afterward took a course in the medical department of the Pennsylvania college at Philadelphia, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of M. D. on March 4, 1842. He immediately located at his old home, near Tredyffrin, and, succeeding Dr. Latta, who had just died, began the practice of a profession which has had the best of his thought and attention for a period now comprising a little more than one-half of this wonderful nineteenth century. During the greater part of these fifty years his prac- tice has been large and remunerative. In that time astonishing progress has been made along nearly every line of human en- deavor, and the science of medicine has kept pace with the advancing thought of the age. Although engaged to some extent in farming and in looking after his real es- tate interests. Dr. Eickabaugh has kept him- self well posted in these improved methods of practice, and has not hesitated to avail himself of their use where they were com- mended by his judgment or founded on greater scientific knowledge of disease and its cure. He has been very successful in his practice, and for years his name has been a household word in all parts of the sur- rounding country. Of late he has been gradually retiring from his arduous work, and is desirous of spending his remaining years in quietude. Among the real estate now owned by the doctor is a farm of seven- ty-five acres and a large tract of timber land in TredyfiTrin township, a farm containing 41 one hundred acres in Charlestown township, another of thirty-five acres in East White- land township, and one in Charlestown town- ship, consisting of eighty -five acres of val- uable land. In politics Dr. Eickabaugh was a democrat up to the Buchanan campaign, when he became a republican and has ever since supported that party. H^isa regular attendant of the Great Valley Presbyterian church, to tlie support of which he contrib- utes liberally. Dr. Eickabaugh was married April 23, 1861, to Anna S. Pound, a daughter of Jediah S. and Edith (Laing) Pound, of Wal- worth, Wayne county, ITew York. To this union was born a family of four children, three of whom lived to reach maturity: David Walter, unmarried, who is engaged in conducting the operations of his father's home farm; Mary E, now the wife of Dr. Charles J. Eoberts, a sketch of whom ap- pears elsewhere in this volume; and Sarah Emma, living at home with her parents. The deceased was a daughter named Anna Catharine, who died in her second year. The Eickabaugh family had its origin in the valleys that lie among the blue mount- ains of Switzerland, centuries ago. Near the historic Bhine, winding its way through the beautiful cantons of the Swiss republic, was born Adam Eickabaugh, paternal grand- father of the subject of this sketch, about 1745. In early manhood he left his native land to seek a home in the newer and greater republic of the western world. Arriving in America he settled in Chester county, Penn- sylvania, and in 1767, as the colonial rec- ords show, purchased one hundred and seventy-five acres of land from John Penn, representing the proprietary. Later he bought one hundred and twenty-five acres in what is now Tredyffrin township from 703 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY David Jones, and in 1771, in connection witli Christian Zook, purchased two hundred acres in Charlestown township, from John Beaton. In 1804 he bought fifty-three acres of John and Richard Penn, and ultimately became possessed of several other tracts in different parts of the county, taking rank with the largest land owners of his neigh- borhood. During Washington's retreat after the battle of Brandywine, the Continental armypassed thehomc of AdamRickabaugh, and many of the hungry soldiers were fed at his house. By occupation he was prin- cipally a farmer, but "erected an oil mill and for a time manufactured linseed oil, be- side engaging extensively in the manufac- ture of lumber. He died at his home in Tredytirin township, this countj'^, but his remains sleep in a cemetery in Montgomery county. In religion he was a Mennonite, and always active and liberal in his support of that church, in which he was a speaker for many years and otherwise prominent. He married and reared a family of fourteen children, ofwhom David Rickabaugh (father) was the youngest. The latter was born in Tredyifrin township, this county, on a farm adjoining that now owned by Dr. Ricka- baugh, and passed his entire life here, dying in 1848, at the age of seventy-five years. He was a farmer and a man of splendid physical development. When a young man he was engaged with his lather in the man- ufacture of linseed oil and oil cake, but alter marriage devoted his time exclusively to agricultural pursuits. Politically he was first a federalist, but in later life became a whig. In religious faith he was a Mennon- ite, and a strict member of that church nearly all bis life. He married Elizabeth Young, a daughter of Peter Young, of Charlestown township, an4 \yas the father of sij^ children, four sons and two daughters: Catharine, married George Clemens and is now de- ceased; Adam, also dead; Mary, married G. Rpbinson Beaver, both of whom are de- ceased; George Y., also dead; Dr. Jacob, the subject of this sketch ; and David, de- ceased. The mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Rick- abaugh, was a member of the German Re- formed church, and died in 1860, aged eighty- two years. Her father, Peter Young (the name being originally written Yohng) was a native of Germany, who came to this country about the time Adam Rickabaugh arrived, and settled in Charlestown town- ship, where he died at an advanced age. lie was a shoemaker by trade and also en- gaged in farming to some extent, being suc- cessful in both directions and acquiring a handsome competence. At the time of his death he owned a fine farm containing one hundred and fifty acres of valuable laud, and was surrounded by everything calculated to make life comfortable. In religion he was a strict member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and married a Miss Snyder, by whom he had a family of seven children, three sons and four daughters. T^HOMAS BUCHANAN READ, one of America's distinguished poets and painters, was born in what is now East Brandywine township,Chester county, Penn- sylvania, March 12, 1822. He was appren- ticed by his widowed mother to a tailor, but ran away and learned the trade of cigar- maker in Philadelphia, which city he left in 1837 to go to Cincinnati, where he made his home with Clevenger,the Bculi>tor, while he studied sign and portrait painting. He successively resided in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and in Florence and Rome, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 703 Italy. He died May 11, 1872, in New York city, while on a visit to the United States. T. Buchanan Read's only work as a sculptor was a bust of General Sheridan that attracted much attention. "His paintings are full of poetic and graceful fancies, but show somewhat careless technical treatment. His poems are marked by a fervent spirit of patriotism, and by artistic power and fidel- ity in the description of American scenery and rural life." His friend, Henry C. Town- send, in speaking of him, says: "The dis- tinguishing characteristics of Read's nature were purity of thought, refinement of feel- ing, gentleness of manner, generosity of disposition, geniality and unselfish devotion to others." "CNOS D. MILIiEB, who is successfully engaged in the fruit growing and truck- ing business in East Coventry township, and who has served as justice of the peace since 1885, is a son of David and Eliza (Kendall) Miller, and was born in East Coventry town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Sep- tember 14, 1840. His paternal grandfather, Charles Miller, was a native of Lancaster county, and came to Chester during the last decade of the last century. He went into the marine service in the war of 1812, and died at Baltimore in 1817, shortly after bis discharge. He married Catharine Houpt, a daughter of Henry Houpt, who was one of the Revolutionary patriots of Valley Forge, and their son, David Miller (father), was born in this county, March 10, 1809, and died in East Coventry township, March 23, 1879, when he had attained to man's allot- ted three score and ten years. At six years of age he went to live with Leonard Walker, and before reaching his majority learned the trade of wheelwright, which he followed for a few years. He then engaged in the fruit tree nursery business in East Coventry township, and gave to it his entire attention during the remainder of his life. He was a strong democrat and an ardent anti-slavery man. He married Eliza Kendall, and to their union were born four children : Joseph K., Enos L., Anna L. and Eddie. Mrs. Miller was a daughter of Joseph and Anna Kendall, of Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania. Enos D. Miller received his education in the common schools, Frederick academy of Montgomery county, and Millersville State Normal school, and then took a full com- mercial business course of Eastman's Na- tional Business college of Poughkeepsie, New York, from which he was graduated in 1862. Leaving the business college, he taught school for eight years, and then em- barked in his present prosperous fruit grow- ing and trucking business. He removed to his present location in 1881.. Beside his fruit and truck business he gives consider- able attention to the cultivation of his farm. On April 1, 1871, Mr. Miller was united in marriage with Hannah B., daughter of Samuel and Harriet B. Isett, of Montgomery county. Their union has been blessed with two children : Hattie L. and Samuel D. In politics Mr. Miller is a stanch repub- lican and held a position in the custom house at Philadelphia for some time. He is now serving on his second term as justice of the peace for East Coventry township, having been first elected to that ofiice in 1885. Prior to that year he had held the offices of constable and assessor. Squire Miller has rendered good satisfaction as a magistrate, and is well known as an intelli- gent citizen and an active and successful 704 BIOORAPHY AND IIJSTOItY business man. He and family are members of Parker Ford Baptist church. He is a member of Keystone Grange, No. 2, Patrons of Husbandry. He has been a prominent Mason for many years, and is a member of Stichtler Lodge, No. 254, Free and Ac- cepted Masons; Phoenix Chapter, No. 198, Royal Arch Masons; Palestine Council, No. 8, Royal and Select Masters ; and Jerusalem Commandery, No. 15, Knights Templar. TkEWIS PIERSOL, an aged and hon- ored citizen of the county, residing near Port Kenedy in Tredyffrin township, is the third child and eldest son of Daniel and Eliza (Lewis) Piersol, and was born Decem- ber 20, 1818, in Honeybrook township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on the paternal acres and educated in the common schools of the neighborhood. He inherited a home-loving disposition, and believing that his native county afforded as many advantages as could be found in any one place on earth, he has passed his entire life — excepting two years spent in the dry goods business in Philadelphia — content- edly within her borders, uuattracted by glowing accounts of fortunes to be won or honors acquired in other sections of our common country. For the last seventeen years he has been a resident of Tredyffrin township, where he owns a splendid little farm consisting of thirty acres of choice land, all well improved and very productive. In his political affiliations he is a stanch re- publican, and while earnestly supporting his party during his more active years, has of late taken no prominent part in politics. He is a strict adherent of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which hehas served as class leader for a long time, ^,nd strange as it may seem has also served for fifteen years as trustee of the Presbyterian church at Port Kenedy. On October 5, 1843, Mr. Piersol was mar- ried to Elizabeth Manger, a daughter of John and Elizabeth Manger, of Honeybrook township, this county, and to them was born three children, two sons and a daughter: John M., now deceased; Mary R., the wife of William Falwell, a prominent dry goods merchant of Philadelphia, who is also en- gaged in the manufacture of woolen goods in that city ; and Geo ge H., who married Sidney Potter, a daughter of John and Re- becca Potter, of West Philadelphia, and was a partner of Mr. Falwell in the dry goods business for some years, but is now deceased. Mrs. Elizabeth (Manger) Piersol died April 24, 1881, and on October 5, 1882, Mr. Piersol wedded Elizabeth Parker, of the city of Reading, this State. The Piersol family originally came from Wales, bdt have been natives of Pennsyl- vania for many generations. Jeremiah Piersol,' paternal grandfather of Lewis Pier- sol, was born in Honeybrook township, this county, on the old homestead, -where he passed his life and died. He was a federal- ist in politics, and engaged exclusively in farming and stock raising. He married and reared a large family of sons and daughters who became useful and respected members of society. On the home farm in Honey- brook township Daniel Piersol (father) was born in 1788, and reared and educated there. Some years after attaining manhood he re- moved to West Nantmeal township, where he died in 1832, aged forty-four years. He was a farmer and stockman by occupation, an old-line whig in politics, and married Eliza Lewis, a daughter of Edward Lewis, of Honeybrook. To their union was born a family of ten children, one-half of whom OF CHESTER COUNTY. 706 were sons : Ann, Elizabeth, Lewis, Sarah, Mariah, Hannah, Jeremiah, Samuel, Daniel and Dr. Jesse K., who now resides in Mich- igan, where he is practicing medicine. Of these ten children only two now survive — Dr. J. K. Piersol and Lewis, the subject of this sketch. TA>IL,L,IAM WILLIAMS, Jr., inventor and patentee of the famous "Williams hedge trimmer," and a prosperous, progres- sive farmer residing near Sugartown,is a son of "William and Amy (Hall) Williams, and a native of this county, being born in Wil- listown township, July 7, 1860, on the farm where he now resides. There he was reared and received bis primary education in the public schoolsofhis neighborhood, afterward taking a course in the State Normal school at West Chester. On completing his studies he began life on his own account, as a farmer on the old homestead, in his native township, where he has resided and maintained his con- nection with agriculture ever since. He is a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and possesses an unusual degree of mechan- ical ingenuity, which has been evinced by the invention of a number of practical de- vices, one of which — the Williams hedge trimmer — wa8patentedinl885,inthe United States and Canada, and has made his name familiar throughout the country. This ma- chine has been pronounced cheaper and bet- ter adapted to its purpose than any other now in existence, and is extensively used by hedge growers. It possesses many advan- tages over all other trimmers, having been developed and perfected by practical experi- ence, until it may be termed a perfect suc- cess. It is of light and simple construction, weighing only fifteen pounds, and contains no complicated mechanism to get out of or- der or require expensive repairs. Mr. Wil- liams is also a taxidermist of considerable skill, and his handsome home contains many rare and beautiful specimens of his work. In politics he is a republican and in religion a strict member of the Society of Priends, being connected with the Willistown meet- ing. In October, 1887, he married Elizabeth Florence Marshall, third daughter of John E. and Elnia J. (James) Marshall, and by this union had one child, a son named Edgar Evans, born August 2, 1888, and died Sep- tember 7th of the same year. Jesse Williams,paternal grandfather of the ■ subject of this sketch, was of Welsh-Quaker stock, and was born in Chester county, where his ancestors had settled at an early day. He was a farmer and a member of the So- ciety of Friends, and after an active life, de- voted almost entirely to agricultural pur- suits, he died at his home in East Goshen township, about 1872, at an advanced age. His wife was Sarah Hoopes, a member of the distinguished Chester county family of that name, and by her he had three sons and four daughters : Lydia, married Isaac Thatcher, and is now deceased ; Mary, also dead, who was the wife of Thomas S. Cox, of Willis- town : Chalkley, who married Abbie Cox, a sister of Thomas 8. ; William, the father of the subject of this sketch ; Margaretta H., now living at West Chester; Jane C, the widow of Samuel Speakman, and Jesse, who married Susannah Johnson, and is now a prosperous farmer of Willistown township. William Williams (father) was born in Wil- listown township, December 24, 1824, and passed from earth November 9, 1889, in the house now occupied by his son William, at theadvanced age of sixty-twoyears. He was a farmer all his life, and in politics first a 706 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY whig and later a republican, always taking an active interest in public aftkirs, but enter- taining uo political ambition for hin^iself. Keeping in line with the religious traditions of his family, he was a strict Quaker, being a life-long member of the Society of Friends. In 1851 he married Amy Hall, a daughter of Thomas and Phoebe (Mode) Hall, of Wil- listown township, this county, and was the father of four children. The eldest of these, Thomas H., was born March 22, 1852, mar- ried Mary V. Edwards, by whom he has six children — Charles H., Clara E., Ida M., George E., Elsie and Ralph E — and is now . a well known and prosperous farmer of Wil- listown township. The eldest daughter of William and Amy Williams was Mary H., who wasborn January 2, 1854, and died July 17,1854; the second daughter. Amy Ida, was born September 10, 1857, and became the wife of Elwood Gleason, a farmer residing in Marlborough township. The youngest son was William, the subject of this sketch. David Marshall, paternal grandfather of Mrs. Elizabeth Florence Williams, was a native of Marshallton, and died in West Brandywinetownship,thiscounty. He mar- ried Hannah Hoopes, and after his death she moved to her farm in Westtown town- ship. She departed this life at the advanced age of eighty-five years. She was the only daughter of Ezekiel Hoopes, and reared a family of five, one of whom, John E. Mar- shall (father of Mrs. Williams), was born De- cember 12, 1824, and is now living in West- town township, near the borough of West Chester. His principal occupation in life has been that of a farmer. In politics a re- publican, he married Elma James, daughter of Abram and Piioebe (Hunt) James. She. was born March 7, 1834, and by this union had a family of eight daughters: Hannah M., born May 21, 1854; Lydia Helen, born April 21, 1856; Elizabeth Florence, born December 29, 1858, who became the wife of Mr. Williams; Lettie E., born in West Chester, January 3, 1863 ; Anna Belle, born December 4, 1865 ; Sallie Aneta,born Janu- ary 1, 1869; Laura May, born August 1, 1871 ; and Lenora, who was born January 3, 1875, and died April 15, 1876. Ezekiel Hoopes, great-grandfather of Mrs. William Williams, married Amy Evans, a member of the Society of Friends. Their only daughter, Hannah Hoopes, was born in Westtown, Chester county. She finished hereducatiouatthe Friends' school at West- town, and afterward married David Marshall. They had five children, two sons and three daughters : Amy A., who married Edward Hicks, now deceased ; Marj', who married Hunt James, and both are now deceased; Malinda, married Aaron James, a farmer of Illinois, and a strict member of the Society of Friends, and they departed this life at their home, within a few months of each other; John E., married Elma J., daughter of Abram and Phoebe (Hunt) James, and a sis- ter of Aaron James, before mentioned. 'CUGENECUiVIMISKEY,amanofgreat business ability and one of the most successful book publishers of Philadelphia, was born in County Tyrone, province of Ul- ster, Ireland. He received most of his edu- cation in Ireland, and at seventeen years of age left his home in the far famed north of Ireland to come to Philadelphia, where he joined his eldest brother. Rev. James Cummiskey, who had preceded him to this country, and who served for several years as pastor of St. Mary's Catholic church in the Quaker City. Eight years later he en- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 707 gaged in the publishing business, and by good judgment, attention and industry, built up rapidly in his chosen field of work. His publications were mostly of a religious char- acter, and included Bibles, a twelve-volume edition of Butler's Lives of Saints, and in 1827, the first American, from the last Lon- don, edition of Lingard's History of En- gland, fourteen volumes ; beside many other interesting, profitable and useful works. With each succeeding year he widened the field of his trade, until his business assumed large proportions and he was known as one of the most successful publishers in the State. Specially qualified and well adapted for his lineof business, in winch he merited all the success he achieved, he was wide awake, energetic and honorable. He inau- gurated his business under excellent au- spices, and always kept it under efficient and experienced management, making it a success in every sense of the word. In 1846 he purchased a country residence and a farm of one hundred and sixty-three acres of land, in EastWhitelandtownship, Chester county, where he resided during each summer un- til his death, which occurred June 9, 1860, when in his sixty-ninth year. "With fitting and appropriate services his remains were entombed in the Catholic cemetery at Phila- delphia, to await the morning of the resur- rection. Eugene Cummiskey married Achsah Mid- dleton Cooke,a daughter of Apolloand Abi- gail Cooke, of 'Eevf Jersey, and on her mother's side a granddaughter of John Hird, who fought in the Revolutionary war, was taken prisoner, and died on one of the En- glish prison ships on the Delaware. Her paternal grandfather was Sir William Cooke, an English baronet, who came to America under appointment of King George III., and received for his services a large tract of land situated near Springfield, New Jersey, and known as " Cream Ridge." A part of this land was inherited by his son^ Apollo Cooke, fatherof Mrs. Cummiskey, who was a promi- nent and influential man in his community. Mr. and Mrs. Cummiskey had eight chil- dren : Laura C, Dr. James, who was gradu- ated from Jefi^erson Medical college, and has practiced in Philadelphia for over a quarter of a century ; Eugene, jr., who succeeded to his father's business as a publisher, and died January 25, 1882; Marie Qeraldine; Julia Antoinette, who died at four years of age; Angelina Gertrude, died in infancy: Adcle, who died at an early age; and John Paul, who only lived to be four years of age. 1r\ B. STOUT, one of the veterans of the late civil war, and proprietor of the wagon factory and blacksmith shops at Waterloo mills, near Berwyn, is a son of Charles and Sarah Ann Stout, and was born September 8, 1839, at Unicorn tavern, now known as Straftbrd, Delaware county, Penn- sylvania. He was reared and educated there, and after leaving school served an apprenticeship of three years with William Steele in the milling business, at Waterloo mills, this county. He followed that trade about two years, and shortly after the break- ing out of the civil war enlisted as a mem- ber of Captain Bean's company of the 29th Pennsylvania militia. He served in that company nearly three months, being sta- tioned at Philadelphia and Reading most of the time. After his discharge, August 1, 1863, he re-enlisted in Co. C, 83d Penn- sylvania infantry, and served with the army of the Potomac, taking part in the battles of the Wilderness, Rappahannock, Reams 708 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY station, Hatcher's Run, and numerous other engagements. He was in the detachment that captured and destroyed the Weldon railroad, and during the fight at Hatcher's Run was himself captured by the Confed- erates, but by strategy soon effected his es- cape and rejoined his company. He served until the war ended, and was honorably discharged at Harrisburg, June 29, 1865. Returning from the army, Mr. Stout en- gaged for a time with M. H. Wilds in the wheelwright business, and later conducted it on his own account in his present location at Waterloo mills. In 1867 he opened a shop at ITewtown, where he remained a short time, and in 1868 returned to Waterloo mills, where in connection with wheelwright work he opened a blacksmithiug depart- ment, and has ever since successfully con- ducted this combined business. In his shops, which employ four skilled workmen the year round, are constructed all kinds of heavy farm wagons, in addition to a large amountof work of a miscellaneous character. On January 5, 1868, Mr. Stout married Mrs. Lydia A. Foy, nee Bewley, a daughter of Samuel and Anna (Anderson) Bewley, and to this union was born a family of five children, two sons and three daughters: Charles T., Sallie A., Arabella T., Frank D. and Ella M. Mrs. Stout was born January 2, 1840, educated in the public schools of West Chester, and in 1859 married James Foy, who died in 1861. Her mother, Mrs. Anna Bewley, had been married to William Jones, by whom she had two sons — Benja- min and William A. — and after the death of Mr. Jones, had wedded Samuel Bewley, by whom she had six children, two sons and four daughters: Mary L., Lewis, Jonathan, Matilda Davis, Charles, Sarah Kauftmau and Mrs.L. A. Stout — all married except Charles. Politically Mr. Stout is a. stanch republi- can, and takes considerable interest in pub- lic affairs. He has served as inspector of elections, and is a member of Wyoraissing Tribe, No. 231, Improved Order of Red Men. He is also a member of McCall Post, No. 31, Grand Army of the Republic, at West Chester. Charles Stout (father) was born Septem- ber 30, 1815. He obtained a good education, and was a man of more than ordinary abil- ity. While young he learned the trade of wheelwright, and followed that occupation at various places in Chester and Delaware counties, being located for fifteen years at Waterloo mills. He was an excellent work- man, and became widely known for his in- genuity and ability in his line of work. In politics he was an ardent democrat, taking an active interest in public questions, and in religious faith and church membership was a Baptist. He was a member of the United American Mechanics, and died Jan- uary 17, 1859, aged forty-four years. He married Sarah Ann Bittle, and by her had four. children, two sons and two daughters: Martha J., D. B., the subject of this sketch ; Annie and Isaac N. William Anderson, maternal grandfather of Mrs. D. B. Stout, was a native of Ireland, who left the Emerald Isle in early manhood, crossed the Atlantic and settled at Valley Forge, this county. He was a farmer by occupation, a democrat in politics, and was the father of five children, one son and four daughters. The son was Joseph Anderson, now a retired business man of Philadelphia. Isaac Newtown Stout, a brother of D. B. Stout, was also a war veteran, serving as sergeant of Co. D, 97th Pennsylvania in- fantry, in the first brigade, tenth army corps. He was wounded in the right arm, and -.ei^-^ OF CHESTEH covniy. 711 died from the ettects of that wound after returning from the army. He was a cab- inet maker by trade, and was married three months previous to his death. HON. LEVI B. KALER, ex-member of the house of representatives of Penn- sylvania, a Thirty-second degree Mason, and one of the most substantial and well-known business men of Phoenixville, is a son of John and Elizabeth (Umstead) Kaler, and was born i n Robeson township, Berks county, Pennsylvania, January 26, 1828. His pa- ternal grandfather, Matthias Kaler, was a native of Germany, and settled in the south- ern part of Berks county. He was a mem- ber of a light horse troop that did service for the American cause during the latter part of the revolutionary war. In 1'791 he was appointed by Governor Mifflin to the office of justice of the peace for the townships of Union, Robeson and Canaerron, in Berks county, and served as such until his death, which occurred in 1825, when he was in the seventy -fifth year of his age. His son, John Kaler (father), was born in Robeson town- ship, Berks county, where he always resided and followed farming until his death in May, 1859, aged seventy-five years. He was a member and officer of St. Mary's Protestant Episcopal church, and married Elizabeth Umstead, a daughter of John Umstead, a descendant of He'inrich Umstead, an early settler in Skippack valley, Montgomery county. John Umstead married a Miss Boyer. Mrs. Kaler, who was born at Trappe, in the above named county, was a school pupil of Gov. Francis R. Shunk. She was amemberoftheProtestantEpiscopal church, and died in December, 1851, when in the sixtieth year of her age. Mr. and Mrs. Kaler reared a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters. Levi B. Kaler was reared in Berks county, and received his education in the common schools, and under the private instruction of Rev. Henry Miller, a noted teacher of his day. The school privileges which he enjoyed were confined to the winter seasons, and the summers he spent in work on the farm. At nineteen years of age he com- menced the battle of life for himself in the business world by becoming a salesman with William Nyce, a dry goods and grocery dealer of Phoenixville. By attention and industry he acquainted himself with all the details of the business, and in seven years after entering the store Mr. Nyce retired, and Mr. Kaler and his fellow-clerk, l^athau Wagoner, purchased the store and conducted it most successfully under the firm name of Kaler & Wagoner, until the death of Mr. Wagoner, when his widow succeeded him and the business under the old firm name has been continued until the present time. On September 17, 1860, he married Anne Oliver Nyce, by whom he had four children, of whom the youngest, Anne, only survives, and is now married to H. G. Dreisbach, of Lewisburg, this State. Mrs. Kaler died May 4, 1869, and on July 16, 1874, Mr. Kaler married Anne S. White, a cultured and amiable woman, who is a daughter of Samuel and Susan White, and was for many years a very popular and highly successful teacher of Phoenixville. Levi B. Kaler was originally a whig in politics, but when that party went down he identified himself with the Republican party, which he lias supported ever since. He served as school director from 1856 to 1862, and during his three terms of service all the schools were, graded and new houses built. 712 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY He was elected a membei" of the council in 1872, re-elected in 1873, aiid was in a measure instrumental in securing the erec- tion of the present water works. In 1874 he was elected chief burgess, and ten years later was elected as a member of the house of i-epresentatives of Pennsylvania, in which honorable body he served with credit and dis- tinction. In business affairs Mr. Kaler pos- sesses that rare power of glancing over dif- ferent enterprises and taking in every detail and making due arrangements for the same. He is one of the originators and a present director of the Pboenixville JSTational bank, and has been for over twelve years a direc- tor of the Pickering Valley Railroad Com- pany. He has been president of the Masonic Hall association ever since it was organized in 1868, and is a director of the Fidelity Mutual Life association of Philadelphia, which has now a business of over forty mil- lion dollars. Mr. Kaler is a deacon of the First Baptist church of Phcenixville, of which he has been treasurer almost contin- uously since 1855, and of whose Sunday school he has continuously been the efK- cient superintendent for nearly twenty-seven years. He was one of the incorporators and is now the secretary of the Morris Ceme- tery association, which was incorporated in 1866, and has also served for more than twenty years as the clerk and treasurer of the Central Union association of Baptist churches. He is a member of the Wire Picket Fence Company of Phcenixville, holds an interest in several other business eiiter- prises, and frequently acts as guardian, ex- ecutor and administrator, being selected on account of his business ability, experience and integrity. Mr. Kaler owns valuable real estate in Florida, where he made his iirst purchase of land in 1883. He has twenty-two and a half acres of orange groves which are nearly all now bearing. For the last quarter of a century Mr. Kaler has been one of the leading business men and successful tinanciers of his city. He well deserves, on account of his integrity and honorable business methods, the respect and confidence which he enjoys among a people where he has risen, by his own ef- forts, from obscurity to a favorable position in the community. Levi B. Kaler is a Thirty-second degree Mason. He is a mem- ber of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons ; Phoenix Chapter, l^o. 198, Royal Arch Masons; Palestine Council, No. 8, Royal and Select Masters; Jerusalem Commandery, ISTo. 15, Knights Templar; and Caldwell Consistory of Scottish Rite Masons, located at Bloorasbui'g, Pennsyl- vania. Q\ E. MOSES, a prominent merchant of Anselma, who is interested in other lines of business also, and has been identi- fied with the prosperity of the town for the last decade, is a son of Joseph and Cathe- rine (Stine) Moses, and was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, October 25, 1849. At six years of age be lost his parents and was reared prin- cipally by strangers, living successively with Jacob King, Mrs. Rebecca Pennypacker, and George R. Stiteler.* He received his education in the common schools and then learned the trade of carpenter with Jones Walker. After serving his apprenticeship, he worked at his trade in West Vincent township, and at West Chester, and then went to Philadelphia, where he was en- gaged in superintending carpenter work for eleven years. At the end of that time, in OF CHEST Eli COUNT y. 713 1884, he came to Anselnia, where he fornted a co-partnership with his brother-in-law, Horace Latshaw, under the tirrn name of . Moses & Latshaw, and engaged in the gen- eral mercantile; coal, feed, and lumber busi- ness. This partnership continued up to April 1, 1887, when Mr. Moses purchased his partner's interest, and since then has conducted the business under his own name. His establishment is well fitted up and he carries a heavy and carefully selected stock of groceries, flour, notions and hardware, while his warehouses are well stocked with grain, bran, fertilizers, seeds and baled hay, and his lumber and coal yards always con- tain all kinds of lumber and several grades of coal. He makes a specialty of grain, hay and lumber, and fills large orders for the eastern markets. Mr. Moses has secured a splendid and remunerative trade, whose constantly enlarging proportions augur fu- ture success and prosperity. He owns a farm of thirty acres, and in addition to con- ducting his own business he actsatAnselma as agent for the United States Express Com- pany, and as station agent ibr the Philadel- phia & Reading Railroad Company. He is an active republican in politics, and a dea- con of Vincent Baptist church, in whose Sundaj' school he is a persistent worker. On January 17, 1878, Mr. Moses wedded Hue, daughter of Jacob B. and Anna (Pen- nypacker) Latshaw, of West Pikeland. To Mr. and Mrs. Moses have been born three children : Laura, Emma and Anna. 0. E. Moses is of German descent. His paternal grandfather, Michael Moses, spent the larger part of his life in East Pikeland, where he died in 1853, at about seventy -five years of age. He was a stonemason by trade, and married Hannah Hines, by whom he had six children : James, Esther, John, Jos- eph, Mary and Barbara. The youngest son, Joseph Moses (father), was a farmer and a democrat, and died May 9, 1855, at thirty- eight years of age. He was a member of Pikeland Lutheran church, and married Catherine Stine, who was a daughter of Adam and Elizabeth (Friday) Stine, and who died December 13, 1860, when in the thirt}-- ninth year of her age. To Mr. and Mrs. Moses were born four children: Wilmer W., Mary E., 0. E. (subject), and Addison. TA^IIiLIAM SHARPNESS, one, of the remarkably successful business men of southern Chester county, and the proprie- tor of the Toughkenamon and Kennett Square creameries, is' a son of William, sr., and Sarah A. (Varnall) Sharpless, and was born in Middletowu township, Delaware i:ounty, Pennsylvania, June 10, 1849. He enjoyed the educational privileges of the common schools of Delaware county, which he left at an early age to engage in farming. At the end of ten years he disposed of his farming interests and embarked in his pres- ent creamery business at Toughkenamon. His creamery, which is well fitted up, is op- erated on the latest and most scientific prin- ciples and its products are recognized as first class in every particular. His main build- ing is forty by fifty feet in dimensions, while all other necessary buildings have been fully supplied. The daily products of the cream- ery average five hundred pounds of butter, one thousand quarts of cream and one hun- dred pounds of cottage cheese. The cream- ery business of Mr. Sharpless now aggregates seventy thousand dollars per year, and from its present rapid rate of increase promises to go above one hundred thousand dollars at no far distant day in the^ future. 714 BIOQRAPHY AND HISTORY Being connected directly by rail with Philadelphia and Baltimore, he has constant markets for all of his products. Besides his Toughkenamon creamery be owns a creamery and dwelling house and some choice building lots on Willow street at Kennett Square. By his energy, industry and judicious management he has estab- lished an enterprise that is highly beneficial to his section of the county. On the 13th of November, 1872, Mr. Sharpless was united in marriage with Sarah, daughter of Eber Hurford, and they have one child living, a son, named Warren, who was born August 20, 1879. They had huried a son and a daughter previous to that time. William Sharpless is a grandson of Samuel Sharpless, who was a native of Delaware county, where he owned a large farm. He was a carpenter by trade, and did an exten- sive business iu (iontractiug in addition to managing his farm. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and married and reared a family of .thirteen children, four sons and nine daughters: Joseph, Samuel, William, sr., Beulah, Amy, Thamazine, Han- nah, Euth Anna, Sarah, Lydia, Matilda, Joel and Thomas. William Sharpless, the third son and father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1806. He was a farmer by occupation, and in political affairs always supported the Democratic party. He married Sarah A. Yarnall, and they were the parents of five children : Enos, Emma, wife of Ed- win Scott, who is engaged in the creamery business; William, Pennock, and Sarah, wile of Joseph H. Pyle. Mrs. Sarah A. (Yarnall) Sharpless, was born in 1812, and died November 10, 1876. Her father, James Yarnall, was a native and life-long resident of Delaware county, where he was a farmer. He married and bad three children: Mrs. Sarah A. Sharpless, Margaret and Eber. After his death his widow married James Edwards, and three children — Hannah, Pennock and Milton — were born to them. In politics William Sharpless is a democrat of the Jeffersonian type. His success in life is attributable to his own energy and efforts, and he deservedly ranks in that useful class of men who are known as self-made, and who are the architects of their own good fortunes. wjOHN Li. BROWER, a popular young business man and the leading bookseller and stationer of Phoenixville, is a son of Daniel W. and Eebecca (Miller) Brower, and was born at Phoenixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1864. He received his education in the public schools of Phoe- nixville, commenced life for himself as a draughtsman for the Phoenix Bridge Com- pany, and three years later engaged in the book and stationery business with D. W. Brower & Son, with whom he remained for three years. He then re-entered the service of the Phoenix Bridge Company, and was employed successively for nearly three years iu their Kansas City and home offices, and in the New York city office of the Phoenix Iron Company. At the end of that time, in 1890, he was engaged as engineer-draughts- man in the United States engineer's office. Major Eaymond, United States Army, in charge, at Philadelphia, which position he resigned a year later and purchased his fath- er's mercantile establishment at Phoenixville, this county, and since then has been success- fully engaged in the book and stationery business. He keeps his store always stocked with a full variety of books and periodicals, fancy goods, gold pens and novelties, bric-a- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 715 brae, leather goods, music and instruments, cutlery, fire arms, bicycles and sporting goods, toys, curtains, baskets, coaches, and other articles. The newspaper sales are more than one thousand two hundred daily, and the United States Express Company has its agency in Mr. Brower's charge. The newstore at Main and Bridge streets, opened December, 1892, is the largest and best ar- ranged in the county, and the owner has built up a good trade by attention, industry and a careful study of the wants of his i)at- rons. He is a republican in political opin- ion, and has been a member of the Metho- dist Episcopal church for several years. On June 8, 1888, Mr. Brower was united in marriage with Mary M., daughter of Thomas M. and Margaret ST. Eaton, of "White Hill, Ifew Jersey. Mr. and Mrs. Brower have one child, a daughter, named Margaret. The Brower family is of German extrac- tion, and the first of the name to come to this country was Abraham Brower, from whom was descended John B. Brower, the paternal grandfather of J. L. Brower, of Phoenixville. John B. Brower was born in Berks county in 1805, and died in 1881, at seventy-six years of age. He was a whig and aLutheran,andmarriedElizabeth Scho- tield, who died in 1841, and was born in 1812. They were the parents of four chil- dren : Calvin, Daniel, Mary and Abrani K., who died in 1867. He married in 1849. Lucetta Hevzey, and by this union had two children — Lewis and Charles. Of the sons, Daniel, the father of the subject of this sketch, was horn at Hamburg, Berks county, in 1833. He was an iron worker for sev- eral years, and then became a clerk in a mercantile store, which he lett to accept a position with the Adams Express Company at Phoenixville. He left the service of that company in 1880 to engage in the book and stationery business, in which he continued until 1891, when he disposed of the business to his son, John L., who has conducted it successfully ever since. Daniel Brower is a republican in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He married Rebecca, daughter of Phillip Miller, and to their union were born eight children : Frank, now dead ; Mary, wife of Elwood P. Force ; Harry, connected with the United States Express Company in Harrisburg; John L. ; William, now dead; Ida M., wife of Edwin P. Lowery; Hannah ; and Delia, wife of William Ellis. \A>ILI.IAM M. RENNARD, a well- known farmer of TredyftVin township, residing near ChesterVal ley postoffice, where he has lived since 1876, is the eldest son of Henry and Prudence (Miller) Kennard. He was born at Valley Forge, Schuylkill town- ship, this county, on September 28, 1834, and lived for a time in "Willistown township, and later resided in Charlestown township. On October 16, 1863, he enlisted in Co. K, 175th Pennsylvania infantry, at Philadel- phia, and served in the army until August, 1864, when he was honorably discharged in the same city. He participated in a num- ber of skirmishes and minor engagements in southern Nf)rth Carolina and elsewhere. In 1876 Mr. Kennard removed to Tredytlrin township, where he owns a fine farm of ninety acres of valuable land, eighty acres of which are improved and the other ten covered by timber. In political faith he has always been a republican, and gives his party a loyal support on all leading ques- tions, though taking little part in the excit- 716 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ing contests that so frequently convulse the body politic. On the 6th of March, 1878, he was united in marriage to Sallie Little, a daughter of Major Little, of Charlestown township. The Rennards are of German extraction, and rank among the old families of this sec- tion. Jacob Rennard (paternal grandfather) was a native of Schuylkill township, this county, where he spent a long and active life. He owned one hundred acres of fine land, and was a successful farmer. Politic- ally he was an old-line whig, as his ances- tors had been, and he married Mary Walters, by whom he had a family of eight children ; Joseph, Jacob, Adam, Mary, who married Joseph Gamble; Rachel, wedded Jonathan Major; Susan, who became the wife of Matthew Ross ; Rebecca, who married Rich- ard Joyce; and Henry. They are all now deceased except Rachel and Jacob. Henry Rennard (father) was born in Schuylkill township in 1805, where he grew to man- hood and was educated. He was proprietor of the Valley Forge hotel for three years, and then removed to Tredyffrin township, and later to Willistown township. In the latter he resided for a number of years, but returned to Tredyti'rin townsliip about 1858, and died there in 1882, at the advanced age of seventy-eight years. He was essentially a farmer, though he engaged in other enter- prises occasionally, and was an ardent whig in politics. He served as school director for a number of years, and also for a time as township auditor, beside occupying otiier local offices. He was a prominent member of the Great Valley Presbyterian church, and married Prudence Miller, a daughter of James Miller, of West Vincent towiishi[i. They were the parents of eleven children, six sons and five daughters; Mary, William M., Henry C, deceased ; J. Harrison, served in the army for nine months in 1862, taking part in the battle of Antietam, and is now a resident of West Chester, where he is serv- ingas county commissioner, beingalso school director of Tredytt'rin township one term ; Hilborn D., a farmer of that township ; Winfield S., employed in the office of the Philadelphia Street Railway Company, Phil- adelphia, Pennsylvania; Lewis, a clerk in the office of the Wabash Railroad Company at Chicago, Hlinois ; Amanda, the widow of Joseph Roberts, lives at West Chester, this county; Emma J.; Tamzine A., and Ther- esa, who wedded David Morgan, and resides at Ardmore, Montgomery county, this State. Henry C. Rennard (brother), enlisted in the array at West Chester in E"oveniber, 1861, and after participating in a number of engagements in Virginia and FIorida,was severely wounded in the left thigh at Ber- muda Hundred. He was a member of the 97th regiment, commanded by Colonel Guss. l^ATHAN WILSON, one of the sub- * stantial business men, and a leading merchant and the postmaster of Downing- town, served as a Union soldier before Pe- tersburg and was in the terrific charge on Ft. Fisher. He is a son of Ezra H. and Han- nah M. (Bailey) Wilson, and was born in Brandy wine township,Chester county,Pen.n- sylvania, I^ovember 10, 1844. He attended the common schools and then served an ap- prenticeship o\ three years to the trade of miller. During his apprenticeship, Septem- ber 2,1864, he enlisted in Co. D, 203d Penn- sylvania infantry and served until the close of the war, when he was honorably dis- charged from the Federal service at New- port, Rhode Island, on August 15,1865. He OF CHESTER COUNTY. 717 participated in several figlitsin front of Pe- tersburg, took part in the battles of New Mariiet, Bermuda Hundred and Franklin, and was in the terrific and successful assault on Ft. Fisher, where he was wounded but did not retire out of the storming column. Returning home from the army he spent three years as miller at the Thomas mill, in West Whi teland townslii p, and then o[ierated a mill in West Bradford township until 1873, when he came to Downingtown to engage in his present general mercantile business. His store, located on Bradford and Viaduct avenues, is well stocked with dry goods, fancy and staple groceries, notions, hard- ware and everything ornamental or useful in his line of business, for which there is any demand hy his many patrons. lie se- lects his goods with care, has jin excellent trade, and has won the confidence of his customers by his honesty and honorable busi- ness methods. Beside merchandising, Mr. Wilson is interested in other fields of labor and usefulness. He has dealt to some ex- tent in real estate, and has given consider- able attention to farming. He owns eight houses and lots on Bradford avenue and Church street, in Downingtown ; ten acres of meadow land, adjoining the borough ; and three valuable farms, aggregating two hun- dred and three acres — two of which are in West Bradford township, and the other in West Brandyvvine. He is a republican in politics, has been honored Ijy his party with vai'ious offices of trust and ret^ponsibility, and served six years as treasurer of the bor- ough. He was elected to council four times, serving in all six yiiars, and was appointed postmaster of Downingtown by President Benjiimin Harrison, May 12, 1890. His ca- reer in life has been one of success over all difficulty and discouragements that have come in his way, and his present prosperity and enviable standing in the community where he resides are the result of energy, self- reliance, hard work and sterling integrity. He is a member of the Order Of Tonti ; Fire company, No. 1, of Downingtown ; Yemassee Tribe, No. 134, Improved Order of Red Men ; and General Hancock Post, No. 255, Grand Army of the Republic. On September 4, 1873, Mr. Wilson mar- ried Elizabeth G. Mercer, and their union has been blessed with three children : Cid- ney Mabel, a graduate of the Downingtown High school, and now taking the elemen- tary course in the West Chester State Nor- mal school ; L. Cora, attending the Down- ingtown High school ; and Lizzie D. Mrs. Elizabeth G. Wilson was born April 1, 1852, and received her education at Millersville State Normal school. She is a grand- daughter of William Mercer, a farmer and Friend of East Bradford township, who mar- ried Cidney Wollerton, and whose children were: George, Kersey, Manoah, Angelina Morgan Fairlamb, Susanna Shaw, Eliza Ann Darlington, Malinda and .Tane. Fairlamb Mercer (father of Mrs. Wilson), was the owner of three farms in West Brad- ford, a farmer and republican, but relin- quished farming a few years previous to his death and made his home with his daughter, Elizabeth G. Wilson. He died at Down- ingtown, October9, 1884, aged seventy-three years. He married Drucilla Wollerton, and their children were: Sallie B. Young, who received her education at Jonathan Gause's academy, and is now serving as school di- rector, having served as such for nine years, and taught school for eleven years; Cidney W. Hiddloson, who taught five years; Ma- linda Pennock, William, John, MifHin, and Elizabeth G. Wilson. Cidney W. Hiddle- 718 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY son and Malinda Pennock received their education at Downingtown academy. Nathan Wilson is a member of the Wil- son family of Chester county which has de- scended from David Wilson (grandfather), who was a native of Willistown township, and went west some years before his death. He was a farmer and a whig and married Ann Hoopes, by whom he had four chil- dren : John, David, Ezra H. and Ann Otty. Ezra H. Wilson (father) was born in Willis- town township in 1810, and died January 2, 1888, aged seventy-seven years. He was a shoemaker and farmer and resided for many years before his death near Guthrieville. He was a republican and Friend, held va- rious offices of his township, and married Hannah M. Bailey, who died November 21, 1869, when in the sixty-fifth year of her age. Their children were : Lydia Thomp- son j Curtis, Lavina Friece, Elizabeth Miller, Emma, John, Anna M., Nathan Taylor and Hoopes. Mrs. Hannah M. Wilson was a daughter of John Bailey (maternal grand- father), who was a native of England, and came about 1800 to Parkersville, this county. He married Lydia Way, and their children were: Hannah, Elizabeth, Jabez, and two others, a son and a daughter, whose names are unknown. The daughter, Elizabeth, and her mother, were killed by lightning. The remainder of the family moved west and were never heard from afterward. nEV. ROBERT MAYNE PATTER. SON, D. D., liL. D., whose voice and influence have been for love and justice, and whose life labor has been for the good of men and the glory of his Divine Master, is the highly esteemed pastor of Great Val- ley Presbyterian church, and the able editor of the Presbyterian Journal, which is read with interest throughout the United States. He was born in Philadelphia, and his par- ents were John and Margaret (Mayne) Pat- terson, who were natives of near Belfast, Ireland, and came to this country early in the present century. Robert Mayne Patterson received his edu- cation in the Philadelphia Central High school, from which he was graduated with the first honors of his class. Leaving school he became an official reporter in the United States senate, and during the five years that he held that position he read law. At the termination of his services as a senatorial reporter, he entered Princeton Theological seminary, from which famous institution he was graduated with high standing. After graduation he was called to the Great Val- ley Presbyterian church of this county, and was ordained and installed as its pastor on August 25, 1859, by the Presbytery of Phila- delphia. He served the church with ef- ficiency and success until 1867, when he was called to the South Presbyterian church of Philadelphia, where his pastorate of twelve years was in every way marked by great success, and during that time over five hun- dred new communicants were added to the church. In 1880 he became editor of the Presbyterian Journal and resigned the charge of South church ; but afterward was earn- estly asked by the members of his old church of Great Valley to return and live among them. He accepted their call, and has served continuously as the pastor of Great Valley church ever since, in connec- tion with his editorial work. On May 8, 1890, under his pastoral supervision and in. connection with the one hundred and sev- enty-fifth anniversary of the organization of the church, the present beautiful church OF CHESTER COVNTr. 719 structure was dedicated, and the exercises of the occasion were participated in by Gov- ernor Beaver, and many other prominent men from a distance. On May 9, 1867, Dr. Patterson married Eebecca T. Malin, a daughter of Joseph and Amy Malin, of East Whiteland town- ship, and a descendant of Eandal Malin, who came over in the ""Welcome" with William Penn, and was one of the first En- glish settlers in the Quaker colony. Mrs. Patterson is an amiable and intelligent woman, highly respected and beloved for her good works. In 1875 she accompanied Dr. Patterson in a European tour, and presides with grace and dignity over their home of generous hospitality at Clairmont, a mile north of Malvern. Their circle of friends is very wide in this country and abroad. Dr. Patterson has held some of the most responsible and prominent positions in his denomination. In 1872 he was one of the four speakers at the great ter-centenary cele- bration in Philadelphia, and three years later was appointed by the Presbyterian general assembly as a delegate to the conference in London, which formed the Pan-Presbyter- ian alliance. In 1880 he was a member and the official editor of the council of that al- liance which met in Philadelphia, and gave a paper on "Church Extension in Large Cities." In 1884 he was a member of the council at Belfast, Ireland, and read a paper on " Worship." He has served in ten gen- eral assemblies of his church, in each of which he took a prominent part. In 1879 Dr. Patterson was appointed, on account of his ability, one of the committee of seven which prepared and carried through the great measure for the reconstruction of the synods of the church ; in 1887, a member of the committee of conference with the 42 Southern church, on reunion; and in the same year was appointed and still remains a member of the committee on church unity and federation. Three years ago (1890) he was moderator of the synod of Pennsylvania. Since 1870 he has been a member of the Presbyterian board of publication and Sab- bath school work; and was also for many years a member of the board of education, and of the Historical society, from which, however, he resigned. Dr. Patterson is a widely known ecclesi- astical lawyer, and his opinions are sought for from all parts of the land. He has been a voluminous writer, and his weekly edi- torials are copious. He has also been a writer for the Eeviews. Among the many tracts and books which he has written are : Paradise, Visions of Heaven, Elijah, the Fa- vored Man ; Isaiah and the Higher Critics ; History of Presbyterianism in Philadelphia ; Total Abstinence, and Counsels to Young Converts. He is a tireless worker. On ac- count of his ability and successful work, Princeton college conferred on him the de- gree of D. D., and Lafayette college the degree of LL.D. Robert Mayne Patterson is an able and convincing speaker, and has labored with uniform power and accept- ance in the cause of Presbyterianism and Christianity. HON. WILLIAM EVANS, an ex-mem- ber of the house of representatives of Pennsylvania, a leading and influeutial citi- zen of Willistown township, and president of the Farmer's Market Company of Phil- adelphia, is a son of Joshua and Anna M. (Tucker) Evans, and was born January 31, 1831, on the farm on which he now resides, in Willistown township, Chester county. 720 BIOGRAPHY AND HIST OB Y Pennsylvania. The founder of the Evans family, of which the subject of this sketch is a member, was William Evans, sr.,who was born in Wales, in 1681. He and his wife, Eleanor, emigrated in 1711 from Wales to the province of Penn, where they settled in Tredyflrin township, on a tract of five hun- dred acres which Mr. Evans had received by a deed of transfer from William Penn in 1711. William Evans, senior, was a mem- ber of the old St. David's Protestant Epis- copal church, and died in 1734. He left his family in charge of his brother Richard, with a strong injunction that his children be reared in the faith of the Protestant Epis- copal church. His youngest son, Joshua Evans, married and settled on a part of the homestead tract, where he resided for sev- eral years. He afterward built the Paoli hotel, which his son Joshua, who was elected to congress, inherited, and also purcha.sed a farm in Willistown township, where he died in 1817, when in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He reared a family of five children, the eldest of whom, William Ev- ans, inherited the Willistown property, and died in 1843, at seventy-two years of age. William Evans (grandfather) married, and of his children, one was Joshua Evans (father), who was born in 1801. He settled in Willistown township, where he was a farmer and where he died March 26, 1867, aged sixty-six years. He married Anna M. Tucker, a daughter of Thomas Tucker, and died April 23, 1857, when in the forty-sixth year of her age. They had three children : Hon. William, Margaretta and Joshua. William Evans was reared on the farm where he now resides, received his educa- tion in the public schools and Gause's acad- emy, and has been engaged in farming until the present time, He Is a democrat in poli- tics, was a member and secretary of the township school board for twelve years, served as township auditor six years, was one of the founders and is a director in the Mutual Security Fire Insurance Company of Chester county, and in 1886 was elected as one of the four members of the legisla- ture from Chester county. He served cred- itably in the session of 1887-88, and was a member of committees on accounts, com- parison of bills and ways and means. On February 14, 1867, Mr. Evans married Lydia Thomas, daughter of Isaac Thomas, of Delaware county. They have three chil- dren, one son and two daughters : William, now engaged in agricultural pursuits, was educated at the State college and Pierce's Business college, Philadelphia; Anna, edu- cated at West Chester Friends' school and Darlington's seminary; and Aida T., now at Swathmore college. In his various business enterprises Mr. Evans has been successful. He is one of the founders and at present vice-president of Malvern National bank, and was an active member and president of the late Farmer's Market Company of Philadelphia. He stands high as a man and a citizen, and his popularity in the county was attested in his election, in 1886, to the legislature, when he led the democratic ticket by nearly two thousand votes. j^AVID FINKBINER, an energetic, enterprising and successful business man, who has been engaged in a number of enterprises at Spring City, is the eldest and only surviving son of Jesse Finkbiner, wh©' was also a well-known merchant and busi- ness man of that place for many years. David Finkbiner was born December 16, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 721 1836, at Spring City, where he lived until about four years of age, when upon the death of his mother, whose maiden name was Hannah Rambo, he became a member of the family of his uncle, Casper S. Francis, in East Vincent township, with whom he remained until his seventeenth year. He re- ceived his early education in the public schools and afterward took a course at the Trappe boarding school in Montgomery county. Leaving school at the age of sev- enteen he began learning the milling busi- ness, which he followed for about eight years, and then returning to Spring City he formed a partnership with Christian Wag- oner and embarked in general merchandis- ing. One year afterward Mr. Finkbiner traded his interest in the store for a fire brick works, located in the same town, which he successfully operated for a period of twelve years — part of that time in con- nection with partners. He was elected to the position of justice of the peace in 1877, and acceptably filled that ofiice for ten years, retiring in 1887. In the spring of 1883 he became a member of the firm of Floyd, "Wells & Co., and engaged in the manufacture of stoves at Royer's Ford, Montgomery county, and is a stockholder' in the Royer's Ford National bank. In politics Mr. Finkbiner is a stanch repub- lican, and in addition to his service as jus- tice of the peace has been a member of the school board several terms, and councilman of Spring City two terms. He is a mem- ber of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and takes an active part in supporting the various interests of his denomination. In Masonic circles he is also a prominent fig- ure, being a member of Spring City Lodge, No. 553, Free and Accepted Masons ; Phoe- nix Chapter, No. 198, Royal Arch Masons; and Palestine Council, No. 8, Royal and Select Masters. On June 15, 1859, Mr. Finkbiner was married to Margaret S. Brownback, who was born March 17, 1840, and is a daughter of Edward Brownback, of East Coventry township. To Mr. and Mrs. Finkbiner was born a family of twelve children, five sons and seven daughters : Ida Kate, born March 14, 1860, married Maximilian Eeiser, who is postmaster and station agent for the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad at Riverside, Connecticut; Rosa W"., born Jan- uary 10, 1862, died July 5, 1863; Jesse E. B., born September 11, 1863, died August 4, 1864; U. S. Grant, born September 22, 1865, married Mary Ann Sleighter, and is now cashier of the National bank at Royer's Ford; Lily Cora, born November 3, 1867, became the wife of Webster Sleighter, a prosperous farmer of East Vincent town- ship; David Walton, born June 22, 1869, died December 15, 1874; Clara V., born March 31, 1871, died February 4, 1873; Oliver B., born March 27, 1873, and now living at home with his parents; Minnie Elsie, born March 19, 1875, died October 13, 1876 ; Sadie El ma, born March 31, 1877, and now living at home; Edith Laura, born September 25, 1878, who died April 27, 1880 ; and Edwin Earl, born March 15, 1882, who is also at home with his parents. Jesse Finkbiner, father of the subject of this sketch, was born October 25, 1811, in East Vincent township, this county, and died at Spring City May 25, 1887, in his seventy-sixth year. He was a merchant and farmer, owning a fine farm adjoining the borough of Spring City, and consider- able real estate inside the borough limits. In early life he engaged in the mercantile business at that place, his special lines being 722 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY dry goods and groceries, which he success- fully conducted for a number of years. Po- litically he was a whig and republican, held a number of offices in the borough of Spring City, and for many years was active in sup- port of his party. He had a good common school education, became influential in the community, and for a number of years was a leading member of the Evangelical Luth- eran church of Spring City. In 1835 he married Hannah Rambo, a daughter of Eli Rambo, of Montgomery county, who died in 1843, leaving four children: Mary Ann, who married D. S. Taylor and is now de- ceased; David, whose name heads this sketch ; Margaret, who became the wife of Levi Shengil, a grocer and provision dealer in Philadelphia; and Andora, who died in childhood. rZl ILLIAM ^W. DAVIS, a prosperous and prominent farmer, residing in Tredj'ftnn, who has served as justice of the peace for many years, and ranks among the most respected citizens of Chester county, is the eldest son and only surviving child of John M. and Anna M. (Walley) Davis, and is a native of Tredyffrin township,thi8 county, where he was born Ifovember 19, 1828. The Davis tamily trace their transatlantic ori- gin to Wales, and their American ancestry back to Llewellyn Davis (or David, as the name was then spelled), who was born in Wales but emigrated to America while yot a young man, and in 1705 purchased two hundred and five acres of land in Easttown, Chester county, and on October 16, 1708, bought ah additional tract of three hundred acres of Lewis Walker, in Valleyton (now Tredyffrin) township, where he finally set- tled. On N"ovember 14, 1709, he married Bridget Jones, by whom he had four chil- dren : Elizabeth, Isaac, Sarah and Llewel- lyn. He died in Tredyffnu township, and his widow afterward married James David. Isaac Davis ( great-grandfather ) married Elizabeth Bartholomew, May 30, 1738, and buying the interests of the other heirs, set- tled on the old homestead, where he died in >1778. He was a justice of thepeace'and an active and useful citizen. His children were : Benjamin, Mary (married John Mor- gan), Thomas, John, Sarah (married Daniel Wilson), Elizabeth (wedded Maj. Ezekiel Howell), and Joseph, a physician. His widow survived him one year, dying in July, 1779, and the estate was divided between their sons Benjamin, Thomas and John. John Davis (grandfather) was born in Tredyffrin township, where he grew to manhood and married Ann Morton, a daughter of John Morton, a signer of the Declaration of In- dependence. To them was born a family of seven children: Isaac, John Morton, Mary, Charles Justis, Ann, Benjamin and Albert. He entered the Continental army in 1776, as captain of a company he had raised, and on October 21, 1780, was com- missioned a captain in the regular Penn- sylvania line, serving as such until the close of hostilities, January, 1782, after which he became a member of the Society of the Cin- cinnati. During the war he participated in the battles of Brandywine,Germantown, Pa- oli, Stony Point and Yorktown, and served with General Wayne in South Carolina and Georgia. In April, 1800, he was appointed bngadier-generalofthefirst brigade ol'Ches- ter and Delaware county militia, and on March 31, 1803, was commissioned associate justice of Chester county, a position he filled until disabled by the increasing infirmities of age. He died at his home in this county in 1827. OP CnESTEti COUNTY. •jsa His eldest son, Dr. Isaac Davis, was born in this county, July 27, 1787, educated at ISTorristown, read medicine and graduated from the university of Pennsylvaniain 1810. He began practice at Edgemont, Delaware county, but was soon after appointed sur- geon of the 6th United States infantry by President Madison, and served with that regiment at various points until his death — by the rupture of a blood vessel — at Ft. Jackson, Mississippi, July 21, 1814, in the twenty-seventh year of his age, and unmar- ried. John Morton Davis, second son of Gen. John Davis and father of the subject of this sketch, was born on the old homestead in TredytiVin township, this county, in 1788, and died there in 1848, at the advanced age of sixty years. He was reared on the farm, received a good English education, and de- voted his entire life to agricultural pursuits. In politics he was an ardent whig, and he and his family were all strict members of the Presbyterian church. Mr. Davis was twice married, tirst wedding (1818) Elizabeth Knight, of the city of Philadelphia, by whom he had two children: Mary and Albert K., both now deceased. Some years after her death, in 1827 he married Anna Maria Wal- ley, a daughter of William Walley, of En- gland. To this latter union was born a family of six children, three sons and three daughters: William W., Elizabeth, Henri- etta, John M., Isaac H., and Anna.M., all of whom are now deceased except William W. William W. Davis was reared principally on his father's farm, receiving his early training in the common schools of his neighborhood, and completing his education in a private school at Berwig, this county, under the charge of Prof. Noble Heath. Af- ter leaving school he engaged in farming. and has devoted all his life to that occupa- tion, believing with Washington that " agri- culture is the noblest pursuit of man." He owns a farm of one hundred and sixty-five acres of choice land, nearly all improved and in a good state of cultivation, with com- modious farm buildings and every modern convenience for carrying on his operations. Politically he is a stanch democrat, and has been serving as justice of the peace in Tredj'f- frin township for a number of years, beside having held, at one time or another, nearly all the other township offices. He is a man of good judgment and wide experience in life, and his advice is frequently sought by neighbors and friends on many important subjects, particularly on legal questions and in the settlement of estates. On current topics he is always well posted and can con- verse entertainingly and still takes a lively interest in political matters, though not so active perhaps as in earlier years. On April 18, 1876, Mr. Davis was united in marriage to Cornelia W. Davis, a daughter of Chas. J. Davis, of this county. They have one child, a son named Henry W., who was born March 15, 1877, and is living at home with his parents. vjOHN C. ENTRIKEN, the skillful chem- ist and mechanical genius, who for nearly a quarter of a century has been identified with the manufacture of platinum goods in this country, is the youngest son of John and Annl. (Fitzsimmons) Entriken,and was born October 6, 1849, in Thornbury town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His ancestors on the paternal side were English- Irish, and settled in Pennsylvania at an early day. George Entriken, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Chester county, born about 1755, and 724 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY died near West Chesterin 1830, aged nearly seventy -five years. He was a miller and millwright, and for many years did a flour- ishing business in this section. He was an old-line whig in politics, and it is thought was a member of the Society of Friends. He married Esther Carpenter and was the father of eight children, five sons and three daughters. His youngest son, John Entri- ken (father), was born in Willistown town- ship, this county, in 1806, where he grew to manhood and received the best education furnished by the schools of that day. After leaving school he learned the trade of wheel- wright, which occupation he followed for several years and then became a merchant at Birmingham, this county. In later life he purchased a farm and devoted his last active years to agricultural pursuits. He now lives a retired life at Sugartown, this county. Politically he is a republican, but was form- erly a whig, and has served as school director of his township for a number of years. In 1833 he married Ann I. Fitzsimmons, a daughter of George and Mary (Ingram) Fitz- simmons, of East Whiteland. She was born in 1816, and is still living. To their union was born a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. The eldest son is Charles, who married Margaret Thomas and now resides at Malvern. He is a mil- ler by occupation and has four sons and three daughters : Elsie (deceased), Sallie, M. Davis(deceased), Jonathan,Robert, Anna and William. The eldest daughter, Mary F., married Eobert Everett, one of the foun- ders of the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch, who now lives in retirement at Malvern, this county. They have four children liv- ing — Henry, Eobert, John and William — and two dead. The second daughter, Esther, is now the widow of Jacob Rogers, and lives with her father in Sugartown, Willistown township. The third daughter, Sarah, died at the age of twenty-two, unmarried. George Entrikeu, the second son, married Sallie H. Bishop, by whom he had three children — Essie, Rogers and Nellie — and after her death wedded Annie Haines, to whom was born one daughter — Ann. Caleb, the young- est son, died when only two years of age. John C. Entriken was born in Thornbury, and received his education in the public schools and at a giammar school. Since 1868 has been identified with the manufacture of platinum ware, and the re- fining of that metal, together with gold and silver. He served an apprenticeship of seven years with Joaquin Bishop, a native of Por- tugal, who was the first to introduce the working of platinum into this country, and the first to operate the oxo-hydrogen blow- pipe. In 1884 Mr. Entriken formed a part- nership with William Penn Evans, under the firm name of Evans & Entriken, and be- gan the manufacture of platinum ware at Malvern, where he has ever since continued the business. In 1885 Mr. Evans retired and Mr. Entriken assumed entire control of the business. His establishment is lo- cated on the corner of King street and Sec- ond avenue, and employs four or five men the year round. Here is manufactured plati- num stills, crucibles, dishes, retorts, blow- pipe jets, assaying apparatus, filtering cones, spoons, bottles, triangles, spatulas, wire, and many other articles. Special articles are made to order, and all kinds of platinum goods repaired. The product of these works is pronounced by competent judges to be of a superior order, and some of the work turned out here has never been surpassed in this country. Many large contracts have been filled for the United States govern- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 725 ment. In addition to his platinum works Mr. Entriken also conducts a general plumb- ing business, including steam and gas fit- ting. Part of the first floor of the building is used as the plumbing department, while the second story accommodates the plati- num works. A steam engine supplies am- ple power, and all work in either depart- ment receives the personal supervision of the energetic proprietor, whose name is familiar among scientific people in all parts of the world. In 1874 Mr. Entriken was united in mar- riage with Laura Bishop, youngest daughter of Joaquin Bishop, his old preceptor in the platinum business. To Mr. and Mrs. En- triken were born seven children : Ealph, Clara, James, Bishop, Laura, John and Mary. Clara, Bishop, Laura and John are deceased. Politically Mr. Entriken follows the tra- ditions of his family and is a stanch repub- lican. When the borough government of Malvern was first organized, in 1889, he was elected treasurer of the town and has held that position continuously ever since. J[AMES B. EASTWOOD, who has had over a quarter of a century's experience in the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods, and who is now th^ senior member of the firm of J. an(i J. Eastwood & Co., of Brooklyn, is a son of Edwin and Elizabeth ( Midgley) Eastwood, and was born at Bridge- port, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, September 25, 1856. He received his edu- cation in the common schools and then en- tered Worrall & Taylor's woolen mill, at Bridgeport, in which he worked for twenty- five years. During that time, from 1865 to 1890, he became thoroughly acquainted with all the details of the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods, and in the last named year he came to Brooklyn, where he organ- ized the present firm of J. alid J. Eastwood & Co., to succeed the McClure heirs in the ownership and management of the woolen and cotton mills at that place. Befitting and remodeling the mills, Mr. Eastwood now has first class machinery in every depart- ment, and makes a specialty of jeans and cottonades. He operates fifty-six clipper looms, employs forty-six hands, and pro- duces weekly from nine to fourteen thousand yards of goods, that have quite a reputation in the market for durability and good finish. His trade has rapidly increased to such an extent that the mills are often taxed to their fullest capacity to fill the orders that he re- ceives. He is an active republican in poli- tics, and has been a member of the Baptist church for several years. On May 1, 1874, Mr. Eastwood was uni- ted in marriage with Annie M., daughter of Michael Stetler, of Trappe, Montgomery county, who died April 15, 1891. To their union were born four childred, two sons and two daughters: Thomas, Emma, Sallie and James. The Eastwood family has been resident of England for several centuries, where Enoch Eastwood, the paternal grandfather of James B. Eastwood, was a coal miner by occupation. He died and left two children, John and Edwin. John came to America, and after remaining for some time at Man- ayunk, near Philadelphia, removed to Vir- ginia. Edwin (father) cameto Pennsylvania in 1844, and after serving for some years as a loom boss, removed to Bridgeport, where he occupied the same position in the cotton and woolen mills at that place. Edwin Eastwood was born in 1818, in Manchester, 726 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY one of the great manufacturing centers of England, and died at Bridgeport in April, 1857. He was a democrat in politics, and married Elizabeth Midgley, daughter of Thomas Midgley, and sister to Thomas Midg- ley, jr., who was a soldier in the English army, and fell in an attack on Sevastopol, during the Crimean war. Mrs. Eastwood died May 22, 1872, aged fifty-two years. To Edwin and Elizabeth Eastwood were born six children : James B. (subject) ; Rev. Thomas, pastor of the Baptist church of Albany, ISew York; Sarah A., wife of W. E. Ritter, a builder and contractor of Phil- adelphia; John, who was a partner in the firm of J. and J. Eastwood & Co. until his death, which occurred April 16, 1892; and Elizabeth, wife of James Frith, a carder in the mills at Brooklyn, and also a member of the firm. James B. Eastwood gives personal super- vision to every department of his important and well equipped mills, and his practical experience as a mill hand is very valuable to him in securing the manufacture of first- class and desirable goods. He is an honor- able business man and a good citizen, and is well and favorably known in this county. FREDERICK WILLIAM HECKEL, M. D., who for many years has been one of the most successful physicians in Ches- ter county, is the eldest son of Dr. Freder- ick William and Margaret (Bowers) Heckel, and was born February 24, 1829, on the old Heckel homestead in East Vincent town- ship, where he now resides. He received a thorough academic education, in which he was greatly assisted by his father, and at the age of seventeen began reading medi- cine, first with his father and then with Dr. Charles Fronefield, late of Philadelphia. After studying for some time he matricu- lated at the university of Pennsylvania, from the medical department of which institution he was graduated with the degree of M. D., April 7, 1849. He was the youngest of his class, and his diploma is signed by men who were eminent in the profession and justly regarded as the fathers of medicine in Amei'- ica. Immediately after graduation Dr. F. W. Heckel formed a partnership with his fathei', and practiced one year in connection with the elder Dr. Heckel, after which he opened an office in his native township and began practice by himself. There he remained, carefully attending to the requirements of a constantly growing practice, until 1858, when he removed to a farm which he had recently purchased near Phoenixville, and resided on that farm until after his father's death. In 1861 Dr. Heckel removed to his present residence near Spring City, where he is still engaged in the practice of a pro- fession which he adorns by his learaing and skill. In September, 1862, Dr. Heckel was commissioned as assistant surgeon of the 5th Pennsylvania cavalry, and in December fol- lowing was promoted to be surgeon of the 165th Pennsylvania infantry. He served with this regiment until near the close of the war, part of the time doing brigade service. Returning to Chester county after the war closed, he devoted himself to his chosen pro- fession with renewed energy and increased ability. Being a man of iron constitution, inheriting from his father many of the dis- tinguishing characteristics of the true physi- cian. Dr. Heckel has successfully stood the strain of an active practice extending over nearly half a century. He has met with marked success in the treatment of disease, and his name has long been a household OF CHESTER COUNTY. 729 word throughout this entire section of coun- try. He is now the president of the Inter- County Medical association of Spring City and Koyei-'s Ford. On July 4, 1852, Dr. lieckel was united in marriage with Henrietta H. Christman, a daughter of Isaac and Mary (liott'niau) Christman, of Schuylkill township, this county. She died November 26, 1876, and on February 13, 1878, the doctor was again married, this time wedding Emnieline Tow- ers, youngest daughter of Michael and Ee- becca (Brooke) Towers, of East Vincent township, this county. By this marriage Dr. Heckel has one son, Frederick T., now in his thirteenth year. For many years Dr. Heckel has taken an active part in politics. He was the demo- cratic candidate for State senator in 1880, and received the largest vote of any candi- date on the State or county ticket of his party. He was also the candidate of his party for Congress in 1884. He has been heard on the stump during several presi- dential campaigns, and his political speeches have added largely to his reputation as a man of ability. He is a member of Spring City Lodge,^if o. 553, Free and Accepted Ma- sons. In religious faith the Doctor is a Lu- theran and has been an acceptable member of that church for many years. He is a gentleman of fine education, broad and lib- erable views, and affable manners. He has an elegant home, with pleasant surround- ings, and he and his accomplished wife are noted for their social dispositions and genu- ine hospitality. The Heckels are of German ancestry, the familj' being planted in America in 1823 by Dr. Frederick William Heckel, the distin- guished father of the subject of this sketch. The elder Dr. Heckel was born at Saar- bruck, Germany, during the first month of the first year of this century. When twenty- three years of age he left his native coun- try, against the advice of friends, and came to America to seek a new home under a free government, being a liberalist in opinion and not satisfied with monarchial institu- tions. After traveling extensively in this country, in 1825 he settled in East Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, jiurchasing a farm of one hundred and sixty acres of land, part of whicli is now ov/ned by his son, the subject of this sketch. He had studied medicine in the best schools of Germany, and in his new home at once be- gan its practice, which he continued with unceasing activity until his death, June 30, 1861 — a period of thirty-six years. He was one of the most active physicians and promi- nent men of the northern part of Chester county, a finished German scholar, well ac- quainted with French, and conversant with all the ancient classics. In religion he was a Lutheran, free from sectarian bias, and exemplified in his life all the virtues of true Christianity. He was identified with the Democratic praty, and was frequently hon- ored by nomination to important official po- sition, but his party was too much in the minority ever to secure his election. On May 17,1825, he married Margaret Bowers, a daughter of John Barnard Bowers, of Ft. Washington, JS'ew York, and to their union was born a family of six children, three sous and three daughters: Louisa Rosanna, married Dr. Charles Zellar; Dr. Frederick William, the subject of this sketch; Mary Matilda, deceased; Dr. Charles Augustus, who died in 1877 ; Dr. Edward Bowers ; and Emma, deceased. Mrs. Margaret (Bowers) Heckel survived her husband some eight years, dying in 1869. She was a lady of fine 730 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY education and varied accomplishments, a loving wife and affectionate mother, gifted with a genial nature that not only cheered her husband and children, but shed its light over a wide circle of warm and devoted friends. vTOHN GYGJEK, o«e of the intelligent and progressive farmers of East Pike- land township, and the owner of Maple Spring and Sunnyside creameries, is a son of Daniel C. and Susan (Snyder) Gyger, and was born in Radnor township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, JS'ovember 1, 1846. The Gyger family is of German lineage, and is one of the old and prominent families of what is now Delaware county, while its members are settled tliroughout Delaware, Lancaster and Chester counties, as well as being somewhat numerous in the western States and territories of the Union. George Gyger, the paternal great-grandfather of John Gyger, was a resident of what is now Delaware county, where fie owned a four hundred acre tract of good farming land, and was among the most wealthy men of his section. He married and reared a fam- ily of children, of wliom were three sons, John, Jacob and Jesse. Jacob Gyger (grand- father) was born in 1774, and settled in Rad- nor township of his native county, where he owned a large tract of land. He was a coachmaker by trade, and a whig and re- publican in politics, and in 1794 served as a soldier in one of the Chester county militia companies that were called out to aid in suppressing the whislcyineurrection in west- ern Pennsylvania. He was ap active, thor- oughgoing man, and married Jemima Cor- bett, of French extraction, who died and left three children, two sons and one daughter : George (dead), Daniel C. (father), and Mary A. Hennis. For his second wife Mr. Gyger married Tacie Thomas, by whom he had one son, George. Daniel C. Gyger, father of John Gyger, was born December 14, 1814, on the farm where he grew to man- hood. He received a good Eilglisti educa- tion and learned the trade of blacksmith, at which he worked but a short time. He was then variously engaged in farming and other agricultural pursuits until 1872, when he started a brick yard on the farm which he now owns, and that was once the prop- erty of his uncle, John Gyger. Ten years in the brick business was passed very quickly and with profitable returns from the invest- ment, and then Mr. Gyger retired from the labors and duties of active life. His farm of forty-two acres is on the old Lancaster road, a quarter of a mile south of Villenova college, in Radnor township, Delaware county. He is a republican in politics, and a member of Radnor Metliodist Episcopal church, of which he is a trustee and to whose support he is a liberal contributor. He is a man of influence in his community, where he enjoys the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. In 1839 he married Susan Snyder, who was a daughter of John and Hannah Snyder, and who died in 1879, at sixty-nine years of age, leaving three children : Hannah, John and Mary F., who died in childhood. For his second wife Mr. Gyger married Cora Campbell, by whom he has one child, a daughter named Mary. The eldest child by the first marriage, Hannah Gyger, received a classical educa- tion, and then traveled in France and Ger- many to perfect herself in the languages of those countries. Returning from Europe she was principal of Bryn Mawr High school for some years, which position she OF CHESTER COUNTY. 731 resigned to engage in teaching in New Mex- ico. After some time spent in that territory she went (1887) to the city of Mexico, where she accepted her present position as profes- sor of English in the leading academy of the Mexican capital. She is a woman of fine attainments and ranks high as a linguist. John Gryger, after receiving a good edu- cation in the common schools of liis native township, Village Green academy and the Friends' Central school of Philadelphia, commenced life for himself as a memher of a civil engineering corps that was engaged in making railroad surveys. After three years' experience in that line of work he en- gaged in the brick making business with his father, and five years later removed to a farm of his father's, which he cultivated foi" four years. At the end of that time, in 1876, he came to a farm in Charlestown township, which he tilled until 1882, when he pur- chased his presegit farm of one hundred and six acres in East Pikeland township. This farm lays well, has an abundance of water and is very fertile, being considered one of the finest pieces of property in the north- eastern part of the county. In addition to farming Mr. Gyger is engaged in fruit grow- ing, and has the largest peach orchard in Chester county. He also owns and operates two creameries, one at Maple Spring and the other and the largest at Sunnyside, in Adams county. He attends the Philadel- phia market during four days of each week, and does a large business there in butter, milk and farm products. On March 30, 1871, Mr. Gyger married Lizzie B., daughter of Rev. Thomas Jordan Thomas, of England, and to their union have been born nine children: Daniel W., Susie, Julia D., Lizzie B. (deceased), Helen B., H. Elsie, John T., Ferman H., and Emily S. In religion Mr. Gyger is a Lutheran, and has been for several years an active and use- ful member of Pikeland Evangelical Luth- eran church. In politics he is a republican. He takes considerable interest in popular education, and has served two terms as school director — one term in Charlestown and the other in East Pikeland township. John Gyger has been rerjiarkably successful in life and has accumulated a handsome competency. He'is an energetic and thor- oughgoing man, a desirable neighbor and a well respected citizen. QEN. JOHN RICHESSON DOBSON is a veteran of the civil war, who spent three years in the service of his country and will carry the marks of Confederate bullets to his grave. For a period of fifteen years he served as postmaster at Phcenixville, and for seven years held a commission as major- general in the National guard of Pennsyl- vania. He is a son of John E. and Sarah (Heybizer) Dobson. General Dobson was born and reared in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, his natal day being December 6, 1818. He is descended from old English Quaker stock, received a good common school education, and at the age of sixteen became an apprentice to the iron business. In 1848 he came to Phcenixville, Chester county, and entered on the duties of super- intendent of the puddling department in the Phoenix iron works, which position he occupied until the breaking out of the civil war. In April, 1861, he recruited a com- pany, which afterward became Co. G, 1st Pennsylvania reserve volunteer corps, and was elected and commissioned captain of the company. He served with his company in the army of the Potomac, participating ac- 733 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY tively in all the important battles of that grand military organization until July, 1863. At the battle of Gaines' Mills, in June, 1862, Captain Dobson was injnred by a riderless horse coming with great speed from the lino of battle, while his regiment was moving into position, knocking him down, tramp- ing upon and severely brnising his left side and leg, and in the engagement at Charles City cross roads was struck on the left shoulder by a shell from the enemy's guns and severely wounded. Early in the battle of Gettysburg he was wounded in the left thigh by a spent grape shot, but he contin- ued to actively participate in the great con- test — where victory seemed uncertain, in- clined now to perch on this standard and again to abide with that — until the third day of the fight, when in the charge on Little Round Top, Captain Dobson was so severely wounded by a minnie ball, which struck him in the right leg, three inches above the ankle, as to be unable to resume active duty in the field during the remainder of his term of service. For the heroism displayed by the captain on that occasion he received a major's commission froiii the war department at Washington. At the ex- piration of his three year's term of enlist- ment, June 13, 1864, he was mustered out of service with his regiment and immedi- ately returned to Phoenixville. One year later he again entered the Phoenix iron works as superintendent, and remained in that capacity until 1874, when he resigned his position in order to devote his time more fully to the performance of his duties as postmaster at Phoenixville, to which office he had been appointed in 1869, and in which he served continuously until Cleveland's administration. General Dobson is a stanch republican aiid has always taken an active part in pol- itics. In 1858 he served as burgess of Phoenixville, and in 1860 as school director. In 1866 he was again elected shool director and served as secretary of the board. In March, 1867, he organized Lieut. J. White Post, No. 45, Grand Army of the Republic, and was its first commander. In the same year he took a prominent part in the move- ment to erect a monument in Morris cem- etery to the memory of those who had fallen, in the service of their country, serving as president of the organization effected for that purpose. He was commissioned cap- tain of Reeves Rifle company by Governor Geary in 1870, and the following year was made major-general of the third division, ISTational guard of Pennsylvania, and as such took a conspicuous part in the dedication of the soldiers' monument at Phoenixville. In 1876 he was re-appointed by GovernorHart- ranft as major-general of tl?e tenth division, National guard, and in 1877, at the outbreak of the Pittsburg riots, he assembled his di- vision at Malvern station and moved with the Governor to Pittsburg, where he took an active part in restoring order, protecting property and preserving the peace. He served as major-general until 1878, when by act of legislature the National guard of Pennsylvania was i;eorganized by consolida- ting the existing ten divisions into one divis- ion, thus terminating the commissions of field and staff officers. In 1892 General Dobson was appointed notary public by Governor Pattison,and is now serving in that capacity. He is a past commander of Lieut. J. White Post, No. 45, Grand- Army of the Republic, and is now serving as quartermaster of that post. As a soldier and in civil life. General Dobson has faithfully discharged his duty, and is highly regarded by his fellow citizens. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 733 vJOSEPH K. MILLER. David Miller, son of Charles Miller, raarried Eliza Kendal], from whicti marriage were born three sons and one daughter. Of these children Joseph Kendall Miller was born April 3, 1837, in East Coventry, at the homestead where he now resides. He spent his time at home with his parents, received his education in the common scliools of his native township and Washington Hall, at Trappe; was engaged in raising fruit trees and nursery stock with his father, also small fruits at one time. His father shipped tons of grapes to Philadelphia, when they com- manded much larger prices than now. Many fine orchards were planted from this nursery in Chester, Berks and Montgomery counties. lu 1866 Joseph K. Miller was appointed postmaster of Letzler's Store post- office; it was removed to his home at Mil- ler's Corner; held it for three years; then it was removed back to Lawrenceville; now changed to Parker Ford. He held ditter- eut township offices, and was a mem- ber of Phffinix Lodge, Ifo. 75, A.Y. M., but withdrew and went into Spring City Lodge, iS'o. 553, A. Y. M., in 1878, as a chartcu' member; also with- drew I'roiii Jerusalem Commandery, Knights Tcniiilor, of Phoenixville, and went into Nativity Commandery, at Pottstown, in 1892, as a charter mem- ber. He was married ISTovember 4, 1875, to Sallie P., daughter of George and Sarah Davidheiser, of Amity, Berks county, Pennsylvania. Their union was blessed with one son, Joseph Warren, born May 22, 1877. In 1878 the homestead was purchased of his 4 father. It contained about eighteen " acres; moved in April of the same year; his parents lived in the family; his father, David Miller, died March 23, 1880, and his mother, Eliza K. Miller, died July 23, 1887. Both died at the residence ot their son, Joseph. In the fall of 1883 he bought the JB'rick farm, containing sixty- six acres of ground, adjoining his home; also bought the Royer farm, containing thirty-one acres. He kept oft" four acres for a cemetery, got parties to go in with him and had it incorporated in 1891, as '' Oak Grove Cemetery." He was elected treasurer. It -is beautifully laid out in walks and drives. Later he sold the Royer farm. He is true and deals honest with his fellow men, and asks the same in return. He ofters liberal inducements for industrial works on his farm, along the Pennsylvania railroad — a fine location for public works. He has always been a stanch republican. He is still engaged extensively in the raising of fruit trees. _Hi8 grand- father, Charles Miller, moved to Chester county ; was born in Lancaster county, Penn- 734 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY sylvania. He married Catharine Houpt, of Cliester county, in 1801. They had four children: Elizabeth, Peter, David (father), andCharlesMiller. His grandfather,Char]e8 Miller, enlisted in the war of 1812, on the 17th of July, and went out on the vessel called the "Chesapeake;" served his full time, got his honorable discharge, and on his way home, at Baltimore, took the fever and died, never reaching home. His ma- ternal great-grandfather, Henry Houpt,came from Germany and settled in Chester county, near Kimberton. He was in the Eevolu- tionary army at Valley Forge. He was with. "Washington's army there, while his family were near Kimberton. The subject of this sketch, Joseph K. Miller, served as a mem- ber of Co. D, 21st regiment of emergency men. nEV. JOHN BAKER CLEMSON, D. D., now deceasad, was born in the city of Philadelphia, August 8, 1803. He was the eldest child of Thomas and Eliza- beth (Baker) Clemson, and had the misfor- tune to lose his father when but ten years of age. He was the last survivor of a fam- ily of brothers and sisters, all of whom at- tained a great age. After obtaining his preliminary education, he entered Prince- ton college, and was graduated therefrom in 1822, at the age of nineteen, in a class of thirty-nine members, all of whom are now dead, he being the last to pass awaj'. He studied theology with Dr. Boyd, of Phila- delphia, and in the Divinity school at Alex- andria, Virginia, and entered the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal church at the age of twenty-five, being ordained by Bishop White in St. Stephen's church, Philadelphia. His first work was at Harrisburg, where he remained two years. There he gathered a congregation and built the first Protest- ant Episcopal church in that city. Later he removed to Pequea, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where he became rector of St. John's church. West Cain, and remained there for three years. About the year 1832 he established a school near Wilmington, Delaware, for the practical training of young men for the ministry. Among his pupils at that time were Rev. William I^^ewtou, D. D., now of West Chester,. and his brother. Rev. Richard ISTewton, D. D. There he remained until 1837, whenhe was called to the church of the Ascension, Philadelphia. This was a new parish, and he was the rector during the time of the erection of the chui-ch build- ing. He was in Philadelphia for several years, and then spent several months in charge of a church at Williamsport, this State. In 1843. he accepted a call to West Chester, and became rector of the church of the Holy Trinity, of this borough, where he spent ten years of very successful work, en- dearing himself to many who remained his friends all his life. It was during his rec- torship of this church that the old rectory on West Chestnut street was planned and built. About the year 1853 he removed to Claymont, Delaware. At that time the place was called ISTamon's creek, and Claymont was one of the several new names suggested for it by Dr. Clemson, and adopted by the people. He built the church at that place, and established a school which he carried on successfully for many years. Dr. Clem- son's ministry in the Episcopal church cov- ered a period of sixty-five years, which is one of the longest terms of service, if not the longest, of any clergymen of his denom- ination in this country. He was extremely active as a minister, and frequently preached OF CHESTER COUNTY. 735 six times during the week and twice on Sunday. lie, himself, estimated that he had preached more than six thousand sermons, and his active church work only ended with his life, for during his late residence in "West Chester he always regarded it as his greatest privilege and pleasure to assist in the monthly celebration of the holy com- munion, while he occasionally conducted an entire service. Dr. Clemson's deepest re- gret in his last illness was that he was un- able to assist in the same office. The New Year services of the church of the Holy Trinity, a month before his decease, were conducted by Dr. Clemson, at which time he spoke with vigor and animation. His death occurred on February 3, 1891, from the effects of a cold which he contracted just a week previous. He was born August 8, 1803, at Philadelphia, and was therefore in the eighty-eighth year of his age at the time of his death. In early life he married Margaretta J. Bull, daughter of Rev. Levi Bull, and sister of James H. Bull, Esq., of West Chester, and of Col. Thomas H. Bull, of East Ifantmeal, this county. A family of children were born to them, and after some years of happiness his wife died, dur- ing his ministry at the church of the Ascen- sion, in Philadelphia. Of their children four daughters are living: Elizabeth, who mar- ried Fisher Hazard, of Mauch Chunk, this State; Annie, whose husband was George Washington,a lineal descendant of a brother of the first president of the United States; Mary, who married William Cloud, of Clay- mout, Delaware ; and Mary Martha Sher- wood Clemson, now residing in West Ches- ter. Dr. Clemson's only son, Eev. Thomas Green Clemson, of Waddington, St. Law- rence county, New York, died June 27, 1888. Ludlow Clemson, the only grandson of the name, died soon after Lis father. The prev- ious death of another grandson, John Clem- son Washington, and other bereavements in the family, served to exert a sad influ- ence ujion the doctor. On the 15th of June, 1882, he was married to Hannah Gibbons, youngest daughter of the late Abraham and Mary T. (Pyra) Gibbons, of West Chester, who survives him. Dr. Clemson was an honored member of the Masonic order, which, by the advice of an old friend, he joined in early youth. He stood v6ry high in the order, having taken all, or nearly all, the degrees. He was the oldest living graduate of Princeton. In a recent conversation he stated that he be- came converted to Christianity at the age of sixteen, while attending a revival service at Princeton. Dr. Clemson's life was one of unusual health and vigor, which he thought were' due to his regular habits of life. His activity of body continued up to the time of his illness, a week before his death. When the weather was favorable he took a daily walk which frequently was prolonged to some distance. Only a short time before the Doctor's death a reporter of the News met him returning from a visit to a poor family at considerable distance away, and after greeting the reporter the doctor re- marked, "You are a long distance from home." Dr. Clemson was particularly fond of the society of young people, and always interested in their pleasure. His nature was a very social one. In June, 1889, he, accompanied by Mrs. Clemson, visited his alma mater, and attended the Princeton college commencement. None of his class- mates were alive to enjoy a reunion with him. Dr. Clemson expected and hoped for a long life, and his desires were fulfilled. His 738 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY years, up to the last, were filled witli use- fulness and good deeds, and his active inter- est in ail about liim undoubtedly kept him well and happy. He leaves behind him the record of a life of energy and helpfulness, which is a worthy example to all, and his familiar tigure and well-known voice will not soon be forgotten by the hosts of friends in this and many other places, who felt and expressed the most poignant sorrow at his death. jrOAQUIN B. MATLACK, one of the leading young business men of Chester county, and a member of the great platinum refining and meltiugfirmof J. Bishop &Co., of Sugartown,was born in Willistown town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, jSTovem- ber 19,' 1868, and is a son of Wilson M. and Angelina (Bishop) Matlack. He was reared in his native township, received a good edu- cation and at an early age commenced life for himself in the business world. He was variously employed in connection with the platinum manufacturing business of the firm of J. Bishop & Co. until the death of J. Bishop, his maternal grandfather, when he succeeded him in the business, the firm name remaining unchanged. On May 20, 1891, Mr. Matlack was united in marriage with Kate Dutton, daughter of Henry H. Dutton, of East Goshen township. J. B. Matlack is of English descent. His great-grandfather, Joel Matlack, was, in all probability, a native of East Goshen town- ship. He served as a soldier of the war of 1812, being stationed at Camp Marcus Hook. He married, and his son, John K. Matlack, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in West Goshen town- ship, March 2, 1814. He was a farmer by occupation and removed to West Chester two years before his death, which occurred in 1892. He married Hannah Miles, and reared a family of four sons and three daughters. One of their sons, Wilson M. Matlack (father), was born December 16, 1840. He received his education in the public and in private schools. When the late war commenced he enlisted on June 9, 1861, in Co. A, 1st Pennsylvania reserves, and served in the army of the Potomac until June 13, 1864, when he was honorably dis- charged from the service. He participated in some of the hardest battles of the war. In 1873 he enlisted in the National guard of Pennsylvania and served five years in that organization. He is a republican inpolitics^ has been a member of the Republican county committee frequently, and has served several terms as justice of the peace in Wil- listown township. He married Angelina Bishop, and they have six children, three sons and three daughters. Mrs. Angelina Matlack is one of four daughters born to Joaquin and Susannah (O'Neil) Bishop. Joaquin Bishop (maternal grandfather) was the founder of the platinum working industry in the United States, and through his business became extensively known to scientific people and the leading colleges throughout this country, Canada and some parts of Europe. He was of English de- scent and was born in 1806, in Portugal, where his father was then director of the royal fabrics. The French war drove his father from Portugal, and he settled at Philadelphia, where the son learned the trade of brass finisher. After learning his trade Joaquin Bishop worked as an instru- ment maker at the university of Pennsyl- vania, from 1832 to 1839. In the last named year he commenced to work in platinum, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 737 and ill 1845 drew the first premium at the exhibition of the Franklin institute for platinum work done in this country. In 1858 he removed his business to Radnor, Delaware county, which he left in 1865 to come to the site of the present platinum works of J. Bishop & Co., which he estab- lished in that year. In 1876 he was the only exhibitor of platinum work at the cen- tennial international exhibition, and received the first premium for manufactured platinum vessels and apparatus, and in 1881 associa- ted Edwin T. Cox in partnership with him, under the firm name of J. Bishop & Co. He acquired his education largely by reading and self study, built up a large and flourish- ing industry, and his long life of activity and usefulness was closed on August 4, 1886, when his spirit took its flight from earth. Joaquin B. Matlack is a republican in politics, but his business interests as a mem- ber of the firm of J. Bishop & Co. are such as to leave him little time to give to the consideration of political affairs. The plat- inum plant of the firm is at Sugartown, in Willistown township, six miles from West Chester, and three miles from Malvern sta- tion on the Pennsylvania railroad. The main building or factory proper is a four- story frame structure, thirty by thirty-five feet in dimensions, around which is situated at convenient distances all the other neces- sary buildings for carrying on the large and important manufacturing business of the firm. They are refiners and melters of plat- inum, and manufacture assaying appara- tus, retorts, dishes, capsules, stills, wire, foil, cones, tubes, bottles, and all kinds of experimental instruments. All their work is hammered into shape and ranks with any European work made. They employ six men, and Mr. Matlack finds ready sale and 43 a large demand for the superior products of his works in this country from Maine to Orego.n and from the great lakes to the gulf. vJOSHUA E. HIBBERD, a prosperous farmer of Malvern, and a director in the JTational bank of Chester county, is a repre- sentative of a family whose history is co- extensive with that of Pennsylvania, and that has given the Commonwealth some of her most useful and influential citizens. He* is the fourth child and oldest surviving son of Enos and Eliza E. (Evans) Hibberd, and a native of Chester county, being born in Willistown township, May 10, 1837. The Hibberds are descended from early English- Quaker stock, the first representative in America being Josiah Hibberd, whose pur- chase of land in Pennsylvania, April 5, 1682, antedates by some months the arrival of William Penn in the colony. Josiah Hib- berd resided in Darby township, Delaware county, and on November 9, 1698, married Ann Bonsall, by whom he had eleven chil- dren : John, Joseph, Josiah, Abraham, Mary, Benjamin, Elizabeth, Sarah, Isaac, Ann and Jacob. From these have descended all the Hibberds in the United States, some fami- lies of whom now spell the name Hibbard. The eldest son, John Hibberd, removed to. Chester county and settled in Willistown, having a certificate from Darby to Goshen meeting dated September 6, 1728, and the following year married* Deborah Lewis, of Newtown, by whom he had five children : Abraham, Ann, Phineas, John and Samuel. After her death he married Mary Menden- halland had seven Children : Deborah,Lydia, Mary, Jacob, Martha, Amos and Abraham. Four or five years later, in 1732, the sec- ond son, Benjamin Hibberd (great-great- 738 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY grandfather of the subject of this sketch), who was born in Darby township, Delaware county, in 1700, obtained a certificate from Darby meeting and removed to Willistown, this county, where in the same year he mai'- ried Phoebe Sharpless, and to them was born a family of seven children: Josiah, Jane, Hannah, Joseph, Benjamin, Caleb and Phoebe, The third son, Benjamin (great- grandfather), was born in this county, and was a farmer by occupation. Prior to the ■revolution he took up a tract of one thous- and acres of land from the original Penn purchase, on which he lived the remainder of his life, and a portion of which is still owned by members of the Hibberd family. He married and was the father of a large family of children, among his sons being Amos Hibberd (grandfather), who was born in Willistown township, this county, in 1770, and died here in 1852, in the eighty- second year of his age. He learned the trade of tanner and currier when a young man, and combined that business with farm- ing during the greater part of his life, being very successful. Politically he was an old-" line whig, and in religion a strict member of the Society of Friends. He married Han- nah Garrett, and had a family consisting of one son and two daughters: Philena, Enos and Mary, all now deceased. Enos Hibberd (father) was born near Sugartown, Willis- town township, this county, in 1800, and died at his home here August 29, 1875, after an earnest, useful a»d successful life extend- ing over three quarters of a century. He devoted all his days to agricultural pur- suits, and following the religious traditions of his family, was a member of the Society of Friends. In politics he was a whig un- til the dissolution of that organization, after which he affiliated with the Den^ocratic party, and always was a firm friend of pop- ular sovereignty and such individual liberty as did not infringe on the i-ights of others. He married Eliza E. Evans in 1831, and by this union had a family of six children, three sons and three daughters : Hannah, deceased; Benjamin, also dead; Anna M., Joshua E., Josiah G. and Mary E. Joshua E. Hibberd grew to manhood on the old homestead and attended the public schools of his neighborhood, vi^here he ac- quired the rudiments of a good English edu- cation. Later he took a course of training in the private school conducted by Joseph Foulke at Gwynsdd, Montgomery county. Soon after leaving school he went to Ken- tucky, and accepting a position as salesman in a large dry goods house in the city of Louisville, that State, he remained there for a period of four years. Leaving Kentucky, he returned to Pennsylvania and engaged in farming, which has been his principal occupation ever since, and in which he has been very successful. Li 1887 he became a director in the N"ational bank of Chester county, a position whicli he still occupies. On December 27, 1866, Mr. Hibberd was united in marriage with Anna M. Taylor, only daughter of William and Mary Taylor, of Edgemont, Delaware county, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Hibberd has been born a family of four children, one son and three daughters : Dilworth P., who was educated at Haverford, Delaware county, graduating in the scientific course in June, 1890, with the degree of B. S., held a fellowship there the next year, received the degree of Mas- ter of Arts, and later took a special course in Harvard college, and is now engaged in teaching at the Friends' Central school in the city of Philadelphia ; Mary T., who was educated in Philadelphia, graduating from OF CHESTER COUNT V. 739 the Friends' Central school of that city in June, 1888 ; Eliza E., who was graduated from the same school in the spring of 1889, and is now a successful teacher in the Friends' school at Media, Delaware county ; and Hannah, living at home with her par- ents on the farm near Malvern. i^ROF.JOHN H. SMITH, a successful educator and the manager of Chester Springs Soldiei's' Orphan school of Pennsyl- vania, is a son of John F. and Eve (Miller) Smith, and was born in Juniata county, Pennsylvania, June 6, 1853. He grew to manhood in his native county and received his elementary education in the common and select schools of his county. He pur- sued his academic studies at Airy View academy and Juniata Normal school, and then entered Union seminary of l!few Berlin, from which he was graduated in the class of 1873. Leaving school he was engaged in teaching in different schools until 1879, when he became one of the principals of Airy View academy, which position he re- signed in 1881 to become cashier of the Meredith and Alman bank of Silver City, Kew Mexico, where he remained for three years. At the end of that time he resigned his position in the bank and returned to Pennsylvania, where he served successively from 1884 to 1890 as principal of the Mer- cer and Mount Joy Soldiers' Orphan schools. In 1890 Professor Smith became manager of the Chester Springs Soldiers' Orphan school, which position he has held ever since. When he assumed charge the school was in very bad condition, but under his administration it has attained to a high state of efficiency. He has given hard and earnest labor to bring- ing the school up to its present high stand- ard, and his successful efforts have attracted public attention and won many warm words of commendation from those who are inter- ested in the soldiers' orphans, who are not "mere objects of charity, but wards of the Commonwealth, and have justclaims, earned by the blood of their fathers, upon the State's support and guardianship." For the health and comfort of these children Professor Smith has made the same careful provision that he has for their education and moral in- struction. The Chester Springs home and its grounds are pleasantly and healthfully situated, proper exercise is provided for, and the school rooms are carefully fitted up for convenience, comfort and health. The school now consists of two hundred and seventy- four soldiers' orphans, and employs a corps of one principal and six teachers for their instruction. John H. Smith is of German lineage and the American branch of the Smith family, of which he is a member, was founded in Union county by ancestors who came from the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany. Rev. Philip Smith, a member of this family and the grandfather of John H. Smith, died in 1870 at the advanced age of eighty-four years. John F. Smith (father) died Janu- ary 19, 1887, at seventy-seven years of age. He was a farmer by occupation, an old-line whig and republican in politics, and a con- sistent member of the Evangelical church. His mother. Eve Miller Smith, died in 1875, aged fifty-nine years. In politics Professor Smith is a republican. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, in which he is an active worker for the ad- vancement of the kingdom of his Divine Master. On August 24, 1882, Professor Smith was united in marriage with Anna Koons, who 740 BIOORAPBY AND HISTORY was a daughter of Jacob and Catharine Koons, of Port Royal, this State, and died February 13, 1890, leaving three children : Bessie, Earl and Myra. In educational matters John H. Smith has identified himself with the popular progress of the age, and while not ostentatious or laboring for show, yet his work at Chester Springs is of such a high character as to stamp him as an earnest and successful edu- cator. lyriLLARD F. HAMILIi, cashier of the ^ Parkesburg National bank, at Parkes- burg, and a rising young business man of reputation and ability, is a son of Robert and Eliza (Baldwin) Hamill, and was born in Highland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, September 26, 1850. The Ilamills are of Scotch-Irish ancestry, this branch being planted in America by Robert Hamill, great-grandfather, a native of north Ireland, who left the Emerald Isle about 1750, to seek a home in the United States. Soon after landing in this country he settled in what is now Highland township, this county. He was a farmer by occupation, and died at his home in that township about 1803, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. His grandson, Robert Hamill (father), was born on the farm in Highland township during the initial year of this century, and died in 1876, after a busy life of seventy-five years. He spent all his active life in agricultural pursuits and became quite prosperous, own- ing a considerable quantity of land in High- land township. He was for many years a prominent member of Fagg's Manor Pres- byterian church, a republican in politics, and served a number of terms as justice of the peace. He had a fair knowledge of the law and a fine sense of justice, and his de- cisions were seldom, if ever, reversed. He was a man of sound judgment, whose ad- vice was frequently sought by neighbors and friends. He married Eliza Baldwin, by whom he had eight children. She was a native of Highland township, of German descent, and belonged to one of the old families of this county. She died in 1885, aged seventy-one years, greatly esteemed by all her neighbors. Millard F. Hamill was reared principally on his father's farm, receiving his education at the academy in Cochranville and the old Parkesburg academy. Leaving school and the farm at the age of nineteen, he engaged in clerking and was thus employed in differ- ent mercantile establishments until 1872, when he accepted a position as clerk in the pr'ivate banking house of Parke, Smith & Co., at Parkesburg. In 1883 he became cashier of this institution (it having in the meantime been made a ITational bank), and has occupied that responsible position ever since. He is a man of fine business quali- fications, an accurate accountant, and stands among the foremost young business men of this section, having already won the entire confidence of his associates and met with a fiattering degree of success in life. In October, 1878, Mr. Hamill was united in marriage to Eva Walton, a daughter of Joseph Walton, of Cochranville, this county. To their union has been born a family of two children, one son and a daughter : Mabel E. and A. Carroll. In his political affiliations Mr. Hamill is republican, but has never taken an active part in politics. He is a member of the Upper Octoraro Presbyterian church, and of Keystone Lodge, No. 569, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, of Parkesburg. In addi- tion to his other duties he is now serving as OF CHESTER COUNTY. 741 treasurer of the Parkesburg Water Com- pany, and is also treasurer of tKe borough of Parkesburg. QAPT. ALEXANDER H. INGRAM, who has had an extended army expe- rience and is now a highly respected and useful citizen of Oxford, is the sixth child and second son of Richard and Anna (Irwin) Ingram, and was born in County Donegal, province of Ulster, Ireland, November 1, 1841. Richard Ingram (father) was a native of the same county, but leaving the Emer- ald Isle in 1856, he emigrated to America and settled at Oxford, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, where he died in April, 1887, at the advanced age of seventy-six years. lie was a farmer all his life, a republican in politics, and in religion a strict member of the Presbyterian church. In 1828 he mar- ried Anna Irwin, also a native of Ireland, by whom he had two sons and five daugh- ters, all born in Ireland: Ellen, deceased; Elizabeth, married Richard Scott, and now resides in the city of Philadelphia ; Thomas, a resident of Parkersburg, West Virgina, and employed as an engineer on the Ohio River railroad ; Jane, married Thomas Set- tle, a dyer by occupation, living at Prank- ford, Philadelphia county ; Mary, married Charles Adams, a gardener residing in the city of Philadelphia; Alexander H., the subject of this sketch; and Margaret, de- ceased. Four of these children — Elizabeth, Alexander H., Thomas and Jane — preceded their parents to this country, and Mary came in 1856. Capt. Alexander II. Ingram was reared principally in Ireland and received his edu- cation in the schools of that country. After coming to this county he worked on a farm for six months, and then went to Philadel- phia, where he secured a position in the office of C. Gillou, and remained some eighteen months. He afterward worked for. a time on a farm in Sussex county, Delaware, and then returned to Philadelphia, where he re- mained only a short time before coming to Oxford, this county. There he learned the painting trade with William M. Smith, and followed that occupation continuously until 1857, when he enlisted in the United States army, and the following year took in theMor- mon war. He served during the entire civil war, being a member at that time of Co. D, 3d United States infantry, and participated in the battle of Ft. Craig, New Mexico, and in the siege of Port Hudson, and also the siege and capture of Mobile. Near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he was captured by the Confederates, and spent ten months in the military prisons of Cohoba, Alabama, and Andersonville, Savannah and Millen, Geor- gia. While a prisoner of war he escaped three times, but was as often recaptured. After the civil war closed he accompanied General Merritt's command into western Texas, marching from Shrevesport, Louis- iana, to San Antonio, Texas, as one of the army of observation, watching the move- ments of Maximilian, who was endeavor- ing to found a Mexican empire. After the close of his array service Cap- tain Ingram returned to Oxford, this county, and o.nce more engaged in the painting busi- ness, working one year for William M. Smith, and then setting up for himself. He conducted this business until 1880, owning a neat paint and wall-paper store, and then moved to his farm one mile and a half from Oxford. He has had charge of painting for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company since 1880. 743 BIOGRAPHY AND ITlSTOIiY In politics Captain Ingram is a republican, and in religions faith a Presbyterian, being a member of the First Presbytei-ian church of Oxford. He is also a member of Oxford Lodge, ~Eo. 353, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is past master and chairman of its board of trustees ; Oxford Chapter, No. 223, Royal Arch Masons, of which he is past high priest and treasurer; £yid of Thompson Post, No. 132, Grand Array of the Republic, being now (1893) its post com- mander. On December 6, 1866, Captain Ingram was united in marriage with Anna Clark, who was a daughter of James Clark, of Lower Oxford township, and a native of this county. JTOSEPH M. FRONEFIELD, a pros perous farmer and stock dealer residing near Sugartown, this county, who has spent many years in the milling business and is now connected with the Phoenixville Fire Insurance company as collecting agent and appraiser, is the second son of George D. and Rebecca M. (Sharpley) Fronefield, and was born March 6, 1881, in Lower Provi- dence township, Montgomery county, Penn- sylvania. The family is of German descent, its first representative in America being Henry Fronefield (great-grandfather), who was a native of Frauenfeld, a town of Switz- erland, capital of the canton of Thingau, which was settled in the tenth century. He emigrated to this country in early colonial times and settled in Skippack township, Montgoftiery county, Pennsylvania. The name was originally spelled Frauenfeld, from the town of Frauenfeld, but was changed to the present spelling many years ago. Henry Fronefield was a farmer by occupation and purchased land in Skippack township about 1775, where he passed the remainder of his life and died. His remains lie entombed in the cemetery connected with St. James Episcopal church in Lower Provi- dence, Montgomery county. Among his sons was John Fronefield (grandfather), who was born in Skippacktownship, that county, and spent most of his life there. In 1847 he removed to Schuylkill township, Chester county, where he died in February, 1853, in the eighty-third year of his age. In early life he learned the trade of gunsmith and combined that with farming as a life occu- pation. Many specimens of his handiwork in fire arms are yet in existence. He was a member of the Episcopal church, served as vestryman and trustee for many years, and was always active in behalf of church interests and religious enterprises of all kinds. Politically he was a Jacksonian demo- crat, and ardent in his support of democratic principles. He married Edith Wolmer, a sister of David Wolmer, first cashier of the Montgomery County National bank, and to them was born a family of four children : Jacob, a blacksmith ; Jesse, who became a carpenter; George, father of Joseph M. ; and Joseph, also a carpenter, all of whom are now deceased. George Fronefield (father) was a native of Lower Providence township, Montgomery county, where he was born in 1805. In early manhood he learned the trade of carpenter and worked at that business in connection with farming for a number of years. In 1845 he removed to near Phcsnixville, Chester county. In 1857 he located in Lower Providence town- ship, Montgomery county, where he re- mained until 1863, when he removed to Schuylkill township, this county. Here he was engaged in farming up to 1866, when he went to Hickorytown, Montgomery OF CHESTER COUNTY. 743 county, and conducted the Hickorytown ho- tel for a period of three years. In 1869 he removed to llforristown, where he hecame warden of the State prison and retained that place until his election by the hoard of directors as steward of the Montgomery county almshouse. In the latter position he remained for eight years. He died at Nor- ristown in 1884, in the eightieth year of his age. Politically he was a stanch demo- crat with radical views, and was for many years active and influential in the local coun- cils of his party. He was near death's door when the election of 1884 occurred, and thinking to please him his son, Joseph M., at once informed him of Cleveland's election. He replied, "It is little difference who is elected — the people will not let the govern- ment go far astray." Like his father, he was an Episcopalian, and at the time of his death was serving as a member of the vestry and trustee of his church. In 1827 he mar- ried Rebecca M. Sharpley, a daughter of Joseph Sharpley, of Montgomery county. To them was born a family of ten children, five sons and five daughters : David W., now a resident of Lower Providence township, Montgomery county; Joseph M., the sub- ject of this sketch ; John, deceased ; George, also dead; Jesse, a miller of Reading, but residing at Norristown; Eliza, now dead; Hannah, who died in 1850 ; Samantha, who married George Kerper ; Rebecca, deceased ; and Clara M., now the widow of Frank Conrad. Joseph M. Fronefield was reared partly i n Montgomery and partly in Chester county, and obtained his education in the public schools. In 1849 he left home and learned the milling business at Birdsborough, Berks county. He was employed one year in the mills at Perkiomen near Collegeville, Mont- gomery county, and for a like period at Beaver's mill near Howellville, Chester county, after which he took charge of the mill at Valley Forge for Mr. Beaver, who had rented it from the owners. He re- mained for a year and a half in Mr. Beaver's employ, and at the end of that time, in 1853, purchased the contents of the mill and operated it on his own account until the spring of 1859, when he disposed of the property and removed to Snyder's mills, two miles west of Phcenixville,which he man- aged for a period of eight years. He then removed to the Davis mill, two miles south of Phosnixville, and after operating it for four years, purchased the mill near Howell- ville and conducted a general milling busi- ness there for three years. In 1874 he sold the mill to Harrison Reannard, county commissioner, and removed to Phoenixville, where he engaged in the cattle trade for five or six years. In 1879 he purchased the farm on which he now resides in Willistown township, and has since been engaged in farming and stock dealing. The property consists of one hundred and twenty-eight acres of fine land, splendidly improved and supplied with all necessary farm buildings, including a handsome residence and com- modious barns and stables. In political faith Mr. Fronefield follows the traditions of his ancestors, and has al- ways been a stanch democrat. He was ele^cted and served two terms as justice of the peace in East Pikelandtownship,this county, and also served as school director in that towftship during the civil war. In 1886 he became a director in the Fire Insurance company of Phoenixville, and held that po- sition continuously until 1890. He is now serving as collecting agent and appraiser for that organization. In religion he is a 744 BIO OR API! Y AND HISTORY Baptist, and all his family are member's of that church. On December 31, 1857, Joseph M. Frone- iield wds married to Eliza A. Eogers, a daughter of Joseph and Mary Eogers, of "Willistown township, this county. By this marriage he had a family of four children, all of whom are still living. The eldest is Dr. Harvey Froneiield, now in successful practice at Media, Delaware county. He graduated from the high school at Phcenix- ville, afterward attended Professor Locke's select school at Norristowu, and later took a course in chemistry at the Ann Arbor university of Michigan. For the next three years he was engaged in teaching, and then entered the medical departmewt of the uni- versity of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in the class of 1883. He married Fannie N. Pyle, a daughter of William H. and AnnaT. Pyle, of "West Chester, and now resides at Media. The second son, Joseph M., named for his father, was also educated at the Phcenixville High school, graduating in 1878, after which he learned the drug business with S. K. Hammond at West Chester, and in 1882 graduated from the "Philadelphia college of Pharmacy." He married Lizzie M. Pugh, daughter of Edward H. and Elizabeth P. Pugh, of Ead- nor, Delaware county, and now resides at Wayne, Delaware county, where he owns and conducts a large drug store. The third son, W. Eoger, married Philena M. Lewis, and lives at Media, where he is engaged* in the practice of law. He was educated at the Phcenixville High school and West Chester Iformal school, and in 1885 was graduated from the law depai'tmont of the Penns3'l- vania university, and immediately located at Media, Delaware county, for the practice of his profession. The fourth and youngest child is a daughter named Lelia M., who is now attending the State Iforraal school at West Chester. The mother of these children, Mrs. Eliza A. Fronefield, died April 28, 1892, aged fifty-nine yeai's. She was educated at Pro- fessor Price's private school in West Ches- ter and Jonathan Gause's institute near Marshallton. She taught for a number of years in Willistown, Schuylkill and Goshen townships. Her remains rest in Oakland cemetery, near West Chester. The maternal grandfather of Joseph M. Fronefield, Joseph Sharpley, was a resident of New England, but came to Lower Me- rion township, Montgomery county, in 1820, and lived there until his death in 1850, when he had attained the advanced age of sixty-five years. He was a paper manufac- turer all his life, a Jacksonian democrat in politics, and a Universalist in religious be- lief. His first wife was Elizabeth Mellan, by whom he had four children: Isaac, Wil- liam, Samuel and Eebecca. After the death of Mrs. Sharpley, he married Ann Haley, and to this second marriage was also born four children: Deborah, John, Daniel and Joseph. Mrs. Ann Sharpley died in 1853, and the remains of both rest quietly in the cemetei-y of the Bryn Mawr Baptist church. JONATHAN GAUSE, who adorned and elevated the profession of teaching, in which he was successfully engaged for fifty- eight years, was the third sou of William and Mary Gause, and was born October 23, 1786, in East Marlborough township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania. In boyhood he was accidentally crippJed, and being thus disabled for active work, he sought to pre- pare himself for teaching. He received his (g^; €^n. :r/d^^fe OF CHESTER COUNTY. 747 education principally undei* tlie celebrated Enoch Lewis, and in 1807 entered upon liis remarkable career of teaching. He was pri-ncipal of some of the leading academies and boarding schools of the county, and im- pressed a lasting influence for good upon hundreds of the most intelligent young men and women of Chester county. He married Eliza A. Bailey, daughter of Dr. Abraham Bailey, of "West Bradford township, and died April 9, 1873, aged eighty-seven years. He was a born educator, and "this county never had a teacher whose love and sym- pathy for his scholars was so great, and perfect." HON. D. SMITH TALBOT, a promi- nent lawyer of West Chester, and a member of the house of representatives of Pennsylvania, is one whose integrity, tal- ents and public services have made him emi- nent in civil affairs. He is the eldest son of Caleb P. and Elizabeth (Buchanan) Tal- bot, and was born in Ploneybrook township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, ITovember 19, 1841. He was reared on the farm, received his education in the public schools, Morgan- town, Waynesburg and Parkesburg acad- emies, and then engaged in teaching, which he followed successfylly for eight years in the public schools. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Co. C, 42d Pennsylvania infan- try, and served as a private until, he was honorably discharged from the Federal ser- vice at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Keturn- ing from the army, ho read law in West Ches- ter, and was admitted to the bar of Chester county April 16, 1870. He was afterward admitted to the bar of Delaware, Mifflin, Schuylkill and Philadelphia counties, and has practiced successfully ever since at West Chester and in adjoining counties. On May 25, 1876, Mr. Talbot was united in marriage with Rebecca Wills, of West Chester, a daughter of Dr. Andrew Wills. Mr. Talbot is a stanch republican in ppli- tics and a member of the Holy Trinity Prot- estant Episcopal church of West Chester. He was also superintendent of the Sabbath school for ten years. He is a member of General McCall Post, ISTo. 31, Grand Army of the Republic; Pocahontas Lodge, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows; Kenawa Lodge, Junior Order of United American Mechanics; and Washington Camp, Patri- otic Order Sons of America. The active political career of Mr. Talbot commenced in 1885, when he was elected senatorial delegate to the State convention to nominate a State treasurer. In 1887 he was elected borough solicitor for the bor- ough of West Chester, and was elected as a member of the house of representatives of Pennsylvania in 1888. His services in the house were so satisfactory to his party and his constituents that in 1890 he was re- elected, and while serving his second term was nominated as State senator to till out the unexpired term of Senator A. D. Har- lan, who resigned in 1891, but he was de- feated by a small majority, on account of the general indifference of the party, be- cause the election was but a formal matter, the incumbent being called upon to per- form no public duties, as the senate would not be in session until another election would take place. In 1892 he received his fourth nomination at the hands of the Re- publican party in Chester county for mem- ber of the house of representatives of Penn- sylvania, to which honorable body he was elected attheNovember election. His legis- lative record shows his disinterested course of public action in behalf of his constitu- 748 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY ents, irrespective of party. His successive and consecutive elections are evidence of his strength with his party, and his continued popularity with the people. Mr. Talbot took an active part'iu legislation from his en- trance in the halls of the legislature, and was placed upon some of the most important committees in the house. In the sessions of 1891 and 1893 he was made chairman of the committee on elections. In the latter session a number of contested claims for seats were made, which Mr. Talbot con- ducted with great ability and fairness. One who knows him well, says: "His party has always received active and effective service at his hands, in -every campaign, both upon the stump and by the pen, since he attained his majority." The first mention of the Talbot family in Chester county was in 1718, when John Talbot purchased land in Middletown town- ship, where he died three years later. His son, Benjamin Talbot, married Elizabeth Ball in 1734, and their grandson, Benjamin Perry Talbot (grandfather), was a native of Chester county, and died in Honeybrook township. Benjamin P. Talbot was a farmer and an Episcopalian, and served as justice of the peace for many years. He married and reared a family of six children: Wil- liam; Ruth Ann, wife of Jacob Bruner; Mary, who married Robert Rattem ; Caleb P., father of Hon. D. Smith Talbot; Ann, who married George Bailey, and after his death wedded "William Rogers; and Eliza, who married John Hughes. Caleb P. Tal- bot (father) was born November 19, 1791, and died on his farni in Honeybrook town- ship, September 19, 1870, when well ad- vanced in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He was a whig and republican in politics, had held several township offices, and al- ways took an active part in political affairs. Mr. Talbot was one of the founders of St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal church, Honey- brook township, in which he served as Ves- tryman for half a century. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and was twice married. For his first wife he married Eliza Jones, who died and left four children : John J., Reese H., of Baxter Springs, Kan- sas; Sergeant Benjamin P., who served in the 2d Minnesota infantry and was killed at Missionary Ridge, November 23,1863; and Elizabeth, wife of Jesse H. Layton. For his second wife Caleb P. Talbot mar- ried Elizabeth Buchanan, who is a daughter of John Buchanan. By the last marriage he had eight children : Hon. D. Smith ; Corporal James B. of the 175th Pennsyl- vania infantry, who died with fever at New Berne, North Carolina, in 1863 ; Jacob B., of Warwick township, who served in the 97th Pennsylvania infantry from 1861 to 1865; C. Morgan, who lives on the old homestead; C.Wesley, a lawyer; Franklin L., engaged in farming and teaching; Jo- seph, now in the mercantile business ; War- ren, a lawyer of Philadelphia; and Dr. Ashton B., a practicing physician of the Quaker City. WlNFIELD SCOTT WILSON, pres- ident of the Philadelphia, German- town & Norristown Railroad Company, is a tine example of the successful business men who have done so much toward placing Chester county in the proud position she occupies in the old Commonwealth. He is the youngest son of David and Eliza <(Siter) Wilson, and a native of Delaware county, Pennsylvania, where he was born October 3, 1825. His paternal great-grandfather, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 749 John Wilson, was a farmer who passed nearly or quite all his life in this county, where died at an advanced age. Among his children was David Wilson (grandfather), who was born in Tredyflrin township — in the eastern part of Chester valley — and lived there all his life, principally engaged in agriculture. In that pursuit he was very successful, and at the time of his death owned two hundred acres of very valuable land. He died in his native township dur- ing the summer of 1828, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. His wife was Sarah Davis, by whom he had a family of six children, two sons and four daughters: Elizabeth, Anna, Mary, Sarah, who married Joseph Caskey; John and David — all now deceased. David Wilson (father) was also a native of Tredyfti'in township, where he was born March 23, 1791. In 1817 be removed to Delaware county, where he resided until 1829, when he returned to his native place, and died in the old mansion now occupied by his sou, the subject of this sketch, in March, 1873, aged eighty-two years. He was an extensive farmer, and for many years a prominent live stock dealer of this section. Among his possessions were two fine farms, one of a hundred and one acres, now owned and occupied by Winfield S. Wilson, and the other containing one hun- • dred and twenty-six acres, situated in Tredy- ftrin township, on which the widow of John , M. Wilson now resides. He was also a stock- holder and director in the ITational bank of' Il^orristown, and a director of the Chester Valley railroad, being eminently successful in business. In early life he was a whig, but after the organization of the Republican part^'^ he joined its ranks, though he never took an active part in political contests. In the spring of 1811 he married Eliza Siter, a daughter of Adam Siter, of Delaware county, and they were the parents of seven children, three sons and four daughters : Sarah A., born in 1812; Mary, born 1814; Caroline, born 1816; Edward, born 1818; John M., born 1820 ; Amanda, born 1823 ; and Winfield S. John M., the second son, was born in Ti-edyff'rin township, educated in the public schools and at Prof. Hoopes' private school, engaged in farming, became president of the Malvern ISTational bank, and died August B, 1887, on the old home- stead. In politics he was a republican, and in religion a strict member of the Great Valley Presbyterian church, in which he was active and prominent, serving as trustee and elder. He married Anna Harrar, of Montgomery county. Winfield S. Wilson grew to manhood on his father's farm in Tredyttrin township, receiving his primary instruction in the com- mon schools, afterward attending academies at Reesville and West Chestei-, and taking a course in Professor Stroad's boarding school, near West Chester. Soon after leav- ing school, in 1842, he engaged in manu- facturing and shipping lime in Northampton county, and followed that business until 185'2, when he became secretary and treas- urer of the Chester Valley Railroad Com- pany. He continued in the faithful dis- charge of the duties of that position until the fall of 1859, when he resigned to accept a similar place with the Philadelphia, Ger- m^intown & Norristown Railroad Company. Here Ijis superior business endowments found ample scope for their exercise, and so acceptably did he manage the complicated duties connected with his responsible post that in 1864 he was made general superin- tendent of that road, and continued to act 750 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY as such until 1871. In the latter year he became purchasing agent for the Philadel- phia & Heading railroad, and in 1888 was elected president of the Philadelphia, Ger- mantown & Iforristown Railroad Company, which responsible and exacting position he has since held, discharging its duties with that positive force, perfect system and prompt execution which marks every man born with ability for complicated business. He still owns and cultivates the old homestead farm, one of the best in this section, which is finely improved, with an elegant residence surrounded by a beautiful lawn, the grounds being traversed by gravel paths and studded with luxuriant shrubbery. It is a home to be proud of, and the fact that it has been owned by the family for several generations adds to its charm and value. In personal appearance Mr; Wilson is tall and stately, in manner affable and easily approached, and these, together with the solid founda- tion of an upright character and the perfect integrity of his business career, combine to make him, perhaps, the best liked and most popular man in the Chester valley. Qn January 8, 1855, Mr. "Wilson was united in marriage to Emma J. Walker, a daughter of William and Sarah (Pennypacker) Walker, of Tredyffriu township. (See sketch of William Walker elsewhere in this volume.) To Mr. and Mre. Wilson was born a family of six children: Sallie, married Joseph C. Crawford, a grain and coal merchant of West Coushohocken, Montgomery county ; David, who wedded E. Anna West, and is now a clerk in the employ of the Philadelphia & Keading Coal and Iron Company, residing at Bridgeport, Montgomery cOunty ; C. Coir ket, who married Emily Anderson, and now occupies the position of assistant secretary and treasurer of the Philadelphia, Gorman- town ANorristown Railroad Company, with residence at Bridgeport; William C, who was graduated from the law department of the university of Pennsylvania in 1887, and has since been practicing his profession in the city of Philadelphia; Athalia, who died in 1884, at the age of twenty-one years ; and Eliza S., who passed away in 1868, aged eleven. vTOHN KING EVANS, M.D., of Mal- vern borough, who enjoys the popular distinction of being one of the most pro- gressive and successful young physicians of the county, is a son of Thomas Beidler and Martha Jane (Cheyney) Evans, and was born in Ifewtown township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, January 4, 1860. He was reared on the paternal acres, received his elementary education in the common schools and the select school of Hannah Hepwright, and at seventeen years of age entered Oakdale seminary, at Pughtown, then under charge of Prof. Isaac Guldin, which he left two years later to complete his academic course at Chester Valley acad- emy, of Downingtown, whose principal at that time was Prof. F. Donleavy Long. Leaving school, he read medicine for two years with his brother-in-law. Dr. C. K. Christman, and then entered Bellevue Hos- pital Medical college, New York city, where he was prostrated during the first session with typhoid fever. This sickness com- pelled him to return home ; but he soon re- covered his health and reentered Bellevue Hospital college, from which well known institution he was graduated in the class of 1884. After graduation he spent one year in hospitals and laboratories to thoroughly acquaint himself with diseases in their most OF CHESTER COUNTY. 751 complicated form, and to gain a full and satisfactory knowledge of chemistry ae it relates to or is useful in connection with medicine. Thus specially qualified for his profession, he practiced for a short time in New York city, and then was a partner with Dr. C. K. Christman until 1886. In that year he came to Malvern, where he has been engaged ever since in the active practice of his chosen profession. Dr. Evans is well read, commands a good practice, and has high professional standing. He is an active member and an ex-president of the Chester County Medical society, which he has rep- resented in several State Medical conven- tions, and now represents on the Dr. Eush monumental committee. He is a republi- can politically, and served as a member of the first school board of Malvern borough. He is active and influential in whatever he undertakes, and labors zealously in any cause calculated to benefit his borough or county. The Evans family is one of the oldest families of Chester county, and traces its transatlantic ancestry to Wales, where the name of Evans has figured with honor for several centuries in the history of that country. The first of the family to come to Chester county was Thomas Evans, the great-great-grandfather of Dr. Evans. He was one of forty-four first cousins who were natives of Wales, and came with William Fenn on his second voyage to the colony of Pennsylvania. Thomas Evans was a hatter by trade, but after coming over with Penn^ he settled in Uwchlan township and pur- chased a farm, on a part of which the pres- ent village of Lionville is built. The old Quaker church which was built on this farm did service as a hospital during the revolutionary war. Thomas Evans mar- ried, and his son, Evan Evans, at seventeen years of age, enlisted in the Continental army, and rose from a second lieutenant to the rank of colonel. He was a federalist, served for many years in various positions of public life, a*id died at fifty-eight years of age. He married Jane Owens, whose ancestors came from Wales with the Evans', and their children were: Evan, Owen, Ee- becca, Thomas, Ezekiel, Sarah, Hannah, Margaret, Jane and Bichard. Ezekiel Evans (grandfather) was born June 22, 1793, and passed his life in Upper Uwchlan township, where he died in May, 1874. He was successively a federalist, an old-line whig, and a republican in politics. He was the youngest justice of the peace in Penn- sylvania at the time of his first appointment to that oflSce, and never would accept any political position higher than what was within the gift of the voters of his town- ship. He married Eleanor Bidler, daugh- ter of John Bidler, a German resident of Philadelphia, and to their union were born ten children : Thomas B., Hannah B. (dead), John B. (deceased), Jane H. (dead), Evan, Lewis, Eebecca (dead), Anna, and Web- ster. Thomas B. Evans (father) was born June 2, 1819, received his education in the common schools and Unionville academy, under Jonathan Gause, and then taught for three years. After this he was successively engaged in farming, droving, and hotel keeping at Fox Chase, Delaware county. ' At the commencement of the late war he was appointed by the secretary of war as a recruiting agent, and afterward ordered to the department of West Virginia, where he purchased horses for the Federal service. After the war he was engaged in cattle dealing and farming until 1884, when he retired from active life. He cast his first 752 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY vote for "Tippecanoe," and is a republican. Mr. Evans married Martha Jane Cheyney (now deceased), who was a descendant of Squire Cheyney, of revolutionary fame, and was born August 21, 1825. To their union were born nine children : .Miranda, dead; William Penn ; Martha Ellen, wife of Dr. C.K.Christman, of Reading, Berks county; Ezekiel C, married Ida Stauffer, and is a train dispatcher on the Philadelphia & Read- ing railroad ; Dr. John K. ; Waldron, dead ; Fannie C. ; Mary, now dead ; and Jennie C. Thus descended from honorable and in- dustrious ancestors, Dr. Evans has not only pursued such a course of life as to reflect credit on his family, but has achieved such enduring success as to give additional lustre to the honored name of Evans. QHARLES N. FREDERICK, M. D., a prominent physician of IS'ew Ceutre- ville, and a graduate from the medical de- partment of the university of Pennsylvania, is the third child and eldest son of Jacob and Sarah (Nace) Frederick, and was born September 19, 1838, in Upper Salford town- ship, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He- grew to manhood in his native county, and received a superior education in the Freeland seminary and Washington Hall boarding school, both located at Trappe, that county. After leaving school he taught during the winter season for four years, and in 1859 began reading medicine with Drs. J. K. Cassel and Dicks. Later he matricu- lated in the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania, from which in- stitution he was graduated in the spring of 1864 with the degree of M. D. While pur- suing his studies in Philadelphia he was con- nected with the Haddington hospital, United States army. In April, 1865, he located in Jfew Centreville, this county, where he was continuously engaged in successful practice for five years, after which he removed to Valley Forge, and was there engaged in the Hue of his profession for a period of two years. In 1874 he purchased a farm of fifty- three acres of excellent land, located one half mile north of l^ew Centreville, where he has since resided, attending to the de- mands of a large practice in the village and surrounding country. Dr. Frederick is also engaged in the dairy business to some ex- tent, keeping twenty head of fine cows. Dr. Frederick was united in marriage March 10, 1864, with Anna Shoemaker, a daughter of James and Elizabeth Shoemaker, of I^6rristown, Montgomery county. To the doctor and Mrs. Frederick have been born nine children, three of whom are living, one son and two daughters : Ella, Hannah and Harry, all at home with their parents. In the secret society circles of this sec- tion Dr. Frederick has long been prominent. He is a member and past grand master of Valley i'orge Lodge, No. 459, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he has been trustee for a number of years; and is also a member of Phoenix Lodge, '¥.0. 75, Free and Accepted Masons, of Phcenixville, this county, and of the Masonic Relief associa- tion of Newtown, Bucks county. The doc- tor is likewise president of Camp No. 151, Patriotic Order Sons of America, at Valley Forge, and is a member of the Junior Order United American Mechanics, and Council *No. 200, Ancient Order of United Workman, at Strafford. He is also a member of Sec- tion No. 51, Universal Order of Security, at Valley Forge. Politically Dr. Frederick is an ardent republican, taking an active part in local politics and frequently serving as a OF GIIESTEB COUNT y. 753 delegate to the county conventions of his party. He is a member of the old Goshen- hoppen Lutheran church, his father's family having been connected with the Indian Field- botham Lutheran church in Montgomery county. The ancestors of Dr. Charles N. Frederick have been residents of the old Keystone State since early times. Henry Frederick, paternal grandfather of Dr. Charles Jf. Fred- erick, was born in Montgomery county, where he passed a long and active life. He was a farmer by occupation, and a member of the Mennonite church. Politically he was a stanch whig, and married Catharine Long, by whom he had a family of four sons and one daughter : George (who served as a soldier in the civil war), Charles (who s*ved asjustice of thepeace in Montgomery county for forty-five years), Henry, Jacob and Cath- arine, the latter of whom married Henry God- scholl. They are all deceased except Henry and Catharine. Jacob Frederick (father) was born in Franconia township, Montgom- ery county, in 1808, where he lived for a quarter of a centuiy. He then removed to Upper Salford township, that county, and continued to reside there until 1871, when he came to Tredyft'rin township, Chester county, whei'e he died August 25, 1877, aged sixty-nine years. By occupation he was a shoemaker, but in later life became a farmer and spent a number of years in agricultural pursuits. He was a whig and republican in politics, and a strict member of the Evan- gelical Lutheran church. He married Sarah Nace, a daughter of Peter Nace, of Mont- gomery county, and was the father of ten children, three sous and seven daughters : Catharine, deceased ; Elizabeth, married John Gougler; Charles N., the subject of this sketch; Sarah, deceased; Hannah, mar- ried Henry SchoUe; Daniel, now dead; Mary, wedded Hanna Och Mull; Susanna, deceased; Jacob, married Mary Fillman and lives at Green Lane, Montgomery county; and Malinda, who married a Mr. Bodey, of Pottstown. n NTOINE WINTZER, one of the lead- ing rose growers in the United States, and of the firm of The Diugee & Conard Company, rose growers, at West Grove, Pennsylvania, is the son of Antoine, sr., and Anna M. (Werlain) Wintzer, and was born in the city of Mulhausen, province of Alsace, Germany, then France, April 1, 1847. He was reared at Flushing, New York, received his education in the public schools, and then engaged in the plant and rose growing business. On the 1st of Aug-r ust, 1866, Mr. Wintzer came to West Grove to grow plants and roses for The Dingee & Conard Company. Under Mr. Wintzer's skillful management the wonderful success in rose growing of this great firm has been achieved. In politics he is a democrat, but takes no active part in political aftairs. Preeminently a business man, he gives his tinie and attention principally to the vast rose growing establishment which he has built up at West Grove, and whose roses are sent all over the United States and other parts of the world. His family attend the Presbyterian church of West Grove, in which he has always taken an active inter- est. On the 18th day of September, 1872, Mr. Wintzer married Emma Moon, daugh- ter of John and Jane Moon. They have six children, three sons and three daughters : Louis A. Wintzer, born March 22, 1877, and now attending the West Chester State Nor- mal school ; Antoinette Wintzer, born April 754 BIOQRAPIIY AND HISTORY 1, 1878, also attending the Normal school; Helen, born August 13, 1879 ; Charles, Feb- ruary 21, 1882; Norman Leon, April 26, 1884; Rose, May 11, 1889. AntoineWint- zer is of French lineage, and his paternal grandfather, Antoine Wintzer, was a native and life-long resident of Alsace. He was a farmer by occupation, and reared a family of four children : Martin, Joseph, Antoine, and Martha. Antoine Wintzer, sr. (father), was born in Alsace, France, where he was reared and educated, and followed the busi- ness of market gardening. He served six years in the French army, and came to the United States in 1854, and was engaged in gardening in Westport, Connecticut, and Flushing, New York, to which place he re- moved in 1857. He was a republican in politics, and died June 6, 1873, aged sev- enty-seven years. Mr. Wintzer married Anna Werlain, who was born in June, 1805, and died November 7, 1878, at seventy- three years of age. She was a daughter of Antoine Werlain, a native of Alsace, and merchant tailor by trade. He served in the French army at Waterloo. He reared a family of three children : Eose, Marie, and Mrs. Anna Wintzer. To Mr. and Mrs. Wintzer were born six children, four sons and two daughters. The oldest son, Marc, served two years in the French cavalry, and the second son, Charles, served seven years in the French zouaves, and was awarded the medal of the legion of honor for his bravery in the Crimean war. He came to this country in 1859, and is engaged in farming near Bridgeport, Connecticut. HON. JOSEPH HEMPHILL, addi- tional law judge of Chester county and an able jurist of eastern Pennsylvania, is a son of Joseph and Catharine Elizabeth (Dal- ]ett)Hemphi]l,and was born at West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September 17, 1842. The Hemphills are of Scotch- Irish descent and locate their transatlantic home in County Derry at a place twenty- five mil-es northeast Of Londonderry, L'e- land, whence Alexander, the great-great- grandfather of Hon. Josejjh Hemphill, came in the early part of the last century, to the township of Thornbury, Chester county, Pennsylvania. Alexander's children were: Joseph, who married Ann Wills, December 31, 1760 (Gloria Dei church). Their son Joseph, one of eight children, was an able lawyer, served as a member of the Seventh, Sixteenth, Nineteenth and Twenty-first con- gresses, and presided for fourteen years over the district court for the city and county of Philadelphia. The second son, James, mar- ried Elizabeth Wills, December 26, 1750, (Christ church, Philadelphia) ; and a daugh- ter married a Mr. Fox. The wives of James and Joseph were sisters, and daughters of Thomas Wills, of Middletown, and his wife was Ann Hunter (widow of Christopher Penrose) and daughter of Peter Hunter, of Middletown. James and Elizabeth (Wills) Hemphill's children were : Susannah, who married Dr. Quinn ; Mary, who married a Mr. Rumford ; and William, with others not traced. William, third son of James, was an able lawyer, and was born at West Chester, De- cember 6, 1776, and married, December 5, 1804, Ann McClellan, who was born August 15, 1787. She was the daughter of Col. Jo- seph McClellan (a captain in Wayne's bri- gade), and his wife, Keziah Parke, was a daughter of Joseph Parke and Ann Sinclair (widow of George Sinclair), the latter a daughter of Nathaniel Grubb, of Willistown. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 755 William and Ann (McClellan) Hemphill had five children : James A., Joseph, Eliza- beth, who married Dr. Wilmer Worthing- ton, and Keziah, wife of Judge Bell. Joseph Hemphill (father) was a worthy descendant of an old and honorable family, and a prominent and distingnished member of the Chester county bar, and was a man of whom it was truthfully said that he was one who by a life of unsullied honoi', in- corruptible integrity, and of perseverance in whatever he deemed to be right, had won the highest regards of his fellow-citizens, and set an' example worthy of imitation by the young men of southeastern Pennsyl- vania. He was born in "West Chester, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, December 7, 1807, reared in Chester county,and received a clas- sical education under private tutors, among whom were Jonathan Gause and Joshua Hoopes of West Chester, and James W. Robbins, of Lennox, Massachusetts. He read law with his brother-in-law, Hon. Thomas S. Bell, was admitted to the bar August 3, 1829, and immediately afterward opened an oflSce in West Chester. He studied closely, worked carefully, and in a short time rose to the front rank at the bar and gained an extensive practice. His career as a lawyer extended from his admission to the bar in 1829 to his death in 1870, and was characterized by quiet, resolute bearing, close attention and remarkable fairness to his opponent as well as watchful care of his client's interests. He was devoted to his profession, served as deputy attorney-gen- eral for Chester county from 1839 to 1845, when he declined a re-appointment, and was nominated by the democrats as their candi- date in 1861 for president judge of the ju- dicial district then composed of the counties of Chester and Delaware, but the republican - 44 majority was too large at that time to be overcome by even the popularity of such a man as Joseph Hemphill. He was well qualified for the office, would have made an able, learned and excellent judge, and would have worn the judicial ermine with honor and distinction. Joseph Hemphill was a democrat in poli- tics and held a high place in the confidence of his party, who frequently honored him with nominations for the highest political offices in his county and congressional dis- trict. In financial matters he was promi- nent and active and at difterent times served as a director in the banks of West Chester. As a citizen he was prompt and faithful in the discharge of the duties of life. His loss was felt by all classes of society. He was the strength and pillar of the family circle in which he moved and the sunshine there of warm and loving hearts. He made no claim to mere forensic display, and his chief power lay in a special ability to carefully prepare and arrange his case to the best ad- vantage in all of its details and then pre- sent his arguments in a logical and con- vincing manner. He possessed a voice noted for its remarkable distinctness, and when deeply interested in an important case or a subject of unusual interest, his manner of delivery was forcible, and his language was marked by purity and grammatical accur- acy. He was courteous yet searching in examining witnesses, and commanded the respect of the bench and bar. On the day of his death the Chester county bar met and after deserved tributes of respect were paid his memory by Wayne McVeagh, W. B. Waddell, Robert E. Monaghan and others, Alfred P. Reid offered the following resolu- tions, which were adopted : "Hesolved, That in the death of Mr. Hemp- 756 BIOGBAPHY AND HIST OB Y hill, the bar has lost one whose ability, ac- quirements and integrity adorned the pro- fession ; that in his love for and devotion to the law, and in the scrupulous exactness and cheerfulness with which he accepted all its conclusions, his uniform courtesy and fidelity to the bench and bar, his brethren had an example which they can not follow too closely ; that his social qualities, urban- ity and unselfish nature marked the perfect gentleman, in all the relations of life — that in his death we all feel that we have lost a friend and a brother; that his enlarged views,andthe keen appreciation of the char- acter of the profession, and his unwearying eftbrts, both by precept and example, to keep it up to the standard he had formed of it, have been felt in our midst, where he had for forty-three years been actively engaged in its duties, and are worthy of imitation. "That in his decease, the community has lost a useful member, who did not confine his activities to the sphere o^his profession, but whose heart and hand were ever open to aid and benefit his fellow-citizens and the public interests. "That we extendto his stricken family our sympathy and condolence in their bereave- ment, and as a token of honor for the man, and respect for his memory, will attend his funeral in a body." The directors of the First Ifational bank of West Chester passed resolutions of re- spect to his memory, and the county press spoke in eloquent terms of the upright life and useful labors of Mr. Hemphill, and of his having acquired distinction throughout the State for more than ordinary ability both as a leader in political thought and as a legal practitioner. Joseph Hemphill passed from the scenes of his earthly labors on February 11, 1870, and left a record of which, for its integrity of character, purity of purpose and intellec- tual clearness in the legal arena, Chester county may be justly proud. Oil N'ovember 22, 1841, Mr. Hemphill married Catharine Elizabeth Dallett, daugh- ter of Elijah and Judith Dallett, of Phila- delphia, who came in the early part of the present century from England, where the Dallet family is one of the old families. Elijah Dallett was president of the Penn Township (now Penn IsTational) bank, over which he, his eldest and his youngest sous served in succession as president for over fifty years. Joseph and Catharine Hemp- hill had six children : Hon. Joseph ; Ella, wife of John Dallet; Elijah Dallett; Ann, who married Albin Garrett; Catharine Dal- lett, wife of John S. "Wilson; and William. Judge Hemphill during his boyhood days attended the private schools of West Ches- ter, and then entered Williston seminary at East Hampton, Massachusetts, to prepare for college, but when upon the eve of com- pleting his academic course, was compelled to come home on account of sickness. In 1860 he became a student in his father's ofl[ice, where he read law for three years, after which he spent one year in the law department of Harvard college under the personal instruction of Parsons and Wash- burne, the well-known law writers and au- thors, and then was admitted to the bar on October 31, 1864. Shortly after his admis- sion to the bar he formed a law partner- ship with his father which lasted until the death of the latter, in 1870. Since then he has continued to practice his profession at West Chester, having his office on the site of the office which his grandfather erected and occupied in 1801, and which his father also occupied. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 757 On February 28, 1867, Judge Hemphill married Eliza A. Lytic, a daughter of Ed- ward H. Lytle, a prominent citizen of Blair county. They have three children living: Lily, Joseph, jr., and William H. Li polities Judge Hemphill is a demo- crat. He was elected in 1872 and served as a member of the Constitutional convention of Pennsylvania of 1872-73, and in that able body his services were both conspicu- ous and useful. His valuable services in framing the present State constitution, his high standing as a lawyer and his deserved popularity in the county led the Democratic party, in 1889, to make him its candidate for additional la^ judge of Chester county, and in the fall of that year was elected by a majority of thirty-two votes in a district which the preceding year had given Harri- son four thousand majority over Cleveland. Judge Hemphill took his seat on the bench January 6, 1890, and has dischai'ged the duties of his responsible and important po- sition in an impartial and most acceptable manner. Joseph Hemphill is a man of scholarly attainments and a well-known and leading lawyer in the courts of his own and adjoining counties and in t?ie higher courts to which his practice extended, and is a jur- ist of recognized ability in the grand old Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, whose jur- ists are the peers of those of any State in the Union. TSAAC A. CLEAVER, an enterprising business man, has been identified with the growth and prosperity of Berwyn for more than twenty-five years, and is a useful, public spirited citizen. On the paternal side Mr. Cleaver comes of stanch old German stock. His grandfather, Isaac Cleaver, married Ann Sturgess about 1794, and they settled near King-of-Prussia, Montgomery county, Penn- sylvana, which place they left in 1822, in company with Rev. Thomas Roberts and others, to spend two years as missionaries among the Cherokee Indians of Virginia. At the end of that time they returned to their home in Pennsylvania, where the hus- band died in March, 1828, aged sixty years, the widow following in August, 1836, at sixty-three. Theyhad nine children : Lydia, Ann, Hannah, Hiram, Samuel, Phineas, Catharine, John and Sarah ; all of whom, except John, lived to an advanced age. Hon. Hiram Cleaver, the eldest son, was born August 20, 1801. In his early man- hood he worked at his trade of blacksmith — which his father had followed before him — at the Spread Eagle shops, in Radnor town- ship, Delaware county, but later purchased his father-in-law's farm, which was located about a mile east of hie shops, and left the anvil to follow the plow. A railroad station, named Cleaver in his honor, was afterward located on this farm near the site of the present Wayne station. He sold this prop- erty in 1869 and purchased " Cottage Home " farm, near Leopard, Easttown township, this county, where he resided until his death, on July 17, 1877, at the ripe age of seventy-six! He was a man of strong will and excellent judgment, a republican in politics, took an active part in public afiairs, was a justice of the peace in his township for fifteen years, and served his county in the legislature in 1856-57. He was twice married. Hisfirst wife was Jane Abraham-, a daughter of Enoch Abraham, a prosperous farmer of Chester valley. She died April 15, 1854. His sec- ond wife, who still survives him, was Sarina D., a daughter of John Jones, a lineal de- scendant of that well known Revolutionary chaplain, Rev. David Jones, who served with 758 BIOGBAPHY A^ifD HISTORY Mad Anthony. This marriage was consum- mated April 29, 1856. Of four children born of the first marriage but one lived to manhood — Isaac A., the subject of this sketch. Isaac A. Cleaver was born May 12, 1843, in Radnor township, Delaware county, Penn- sylvania, and was educated in the public schools of the district. On September 11, 1861, when but eighteen years of age, he enlisted as a private in Co. C, 97th Penn- sylvania infantry, and was soon after made a sergeant of his company. This regiment was made up almost entirely of Chester and Delaware county men, and was commanded by Col. Henry E. Guss, of West Chester. Mr. Cleaver followed the fortunes of his regi- ment through its entire term of service, was severely wounded in the left foot in a charge on the Confederate works at Green Plains, Virginia, on May 20, 1864, and was honor- ably discharged September 17th, of the same year. On his return from the army he en- gaged in farming, at which vocation he con- tinued until the spring of 1868, when he came to Berwyn (then Reeseville) and em- barked in the general mercantile business. At that time the village aftbrded bat one storeroom. This Mr. Cleaver leased for a time, but soon found it too small to accom- modate an increasing business, and, in 1870, he built a more commodious warehouse, with residence attached. ^This building was to- tally destroyed by fire in 1888, and he at once erected the present large and handsome structure. It is a two-story stone building, with basement, stands but a few feet west of the old site, fronts forty-four feet on Lan- caster avenue, and runs back seventy-eight feet. It is finished in hard wood, heated with hot water, and is supplied with all mod- ern improvements. The stock, which em- braces a greater diversity of lines and more complete assortments than are ordinarily found in general stores, is systematically ar- ranged in different departments, and twelve polite clerks are employed to see that the wants of the public are promptly and courte- ously attended. Seeking but reasonable pro- fits on legitimate transactions, he continues to enjoy an extensive and highly remunerative patronage, and he is engaged in a business for which he is eminently qualified. Like his father, he has been twice married. His first wife, whom he mai'ried January 21, 1865, was Mary B. Kauff'nian, a daughter of Henry and Sarah Kauff'man. She was the mother of six children : Frank, Eugene, Jane, Mary, Sarah and Eliza, of whom but Eugene and Jane survive. She died July 6, 1874. His present wife was Lizzie Groft", daughter of John and Susan B. Groft", of Tredyftrin township, this county. They were married on February 17, 1876, and four children have been the fruits of this union : Moreau (deceased), Mary K., Horace J. and Gertrude. In religion Mr. Cleaver is an ardent fol- lower of John the Baptist, and he is a use- ful member of the Great Valley Baptist church, of which he is the clerk, a deacon, and the superintendentof the Sunday school. In politics he has always preferred to act with the Eepublican party, but, at present, is inclined to be independent. Though a busy man in his own aftairs, he finds time to devote to public matters, and serves his borough, township, and county in many po- sitions of trust and responsibility. He was postmaster of Berwyn from 1868 to 1884, has been a director and the vice-president of the Berwyn iN'ational bank since its oi'gani- zation, January 1, 1889; is treasurer of the Berwyn Building and Loan Association, OF CHESTER COUNTY. %^ and a director and the vice-president of the Penn Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of Chester county, and also vice-president of the National association of Adamant Wall Plaster companies of the United States of America. He has been a member and the secretary of the school board of Easttown township for twenty -five years, and his eflbrts in educational matters are plainly attested in the advanced condition of the schools of that district. He is president of the Ches- ter County School Director's association, and the credit of introducing manual train- ing into the schools of the rural districts of the country is altogether due to him and his co-worker, Eev. W. L. Bull, of Whitford. Mr. Cleaver is also a prominent Mason, and is deservedly popular with the craft. He is a past master of Cassia Lodge, E"o. 273, Free and Accepted Masons, a past high priest of Montgomery Chapter, No. 262, Royal Arch Masons, and a past eminent commander of St. Alban Coniraandery, JSTo. 47, Knights Templar, of Philadelphia, and of Gen. George G. Meade Post, No. 1, Grand Army of the Republic of Pennsylvania. His private life has been one of industry, integrity and econ- omy, and these same qualities have char- acterized his public career. JOSEPH S. HENDERSON, a book- keeper in the sub-treasurer's office in Philadelphia, and an officer of Co. D, 6th regiment of the National Guard of Penn- sylvania, is a son of James and Mary (Ortlip) Henderson, and was born at Phoenixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 27, 1863. The Henderson family has been long resident in County Derry, Ireland, in whose local history it is frequently mentioned. William Henderson (paternal grandfather) was born and reared in that county and lived there until his death. He was a farmer, and a Presbyterian, and died in 1840 at fifty- eight years of age. He married Isabella Thompson, and had nine children : William, Robert, Anna, Isabella Mary, Catharine, Matilda, Margaret, Jane and James. James Henderson (father) was born November 11, 1830. He came to Chester county in 1847, followed farming and milling until 1850 at Kimberton, and then removed to Phoenix- ville, where he was successively engaged with Joseph S. Buckwalter and Keeley & Rorke in the bakery business. In 1854 he was with Reeves & Cornell, and in 1856 be- came a member of the grocery firm of Henderson & Williams. Two years later he engaged in his present successful flour business. He married a Miss Ortlip, who passed away July 1, 1885, when in the six- tieth year of her age. They had seven children : James A., Samana, William, Isa- bella, Robert J., postmaster of Phoenixville, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this vol- ume ; Joseph S. and A. Kennedy, now dead. Mrs. Henderson was a daughter of Samuel Ortlip, who was born in Chester county, February 8, 1786, and was a millwright by trade. He was a member of the Lutheran church, and married Hannah Fouse, hj whom he had eleven children: William, Ann, Oliver, Samuel, Mai'ia, Mahlon, John, Mrs. Mary Henderson, Isaac, Jeflerson and Sarah, all of whom are dead except the last three named. After receiving a good English education in the public schools of his native town, Joseph S. Henderson entered the machine shops of the Phoenixville Iron Company in May, 1880. One year later (May 2) he was given a position in the company's office as a draughtsman,- in which capacity he served 760 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY until January 16, 1891. He then was ap- pointed by Capt. Louis E. Walters as a book- keeper in the sub-treasurer's office in Phil- adelphia, which position he has held up to the present time. In politics Mr. Henderson is a republican, and has been secretary of the Republican Invincible club for over ten years. He was nominated by his party, in 1886, for auditor, and was elected in the borough, which was then strongly democratic. He is a lieuten- ant of Co. D, 6th regiment of the National Guard of Pennsylvania, having joined in 1880, and served for some time as regimental clerk. Joseph S. Henderson is pleasant and agreeable, the possessor of many of those qualities which insure success, and has won his own way in the battle of life. He is a member of Phoenix Lodge, Wo. 212, and Phoenix Encampment, N"o. 79, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; also a member of Washington Castle, Knights of the Golden Eagle. 'TTHOMPSON DAVIS, now a dairy farmer of Schuylkill township, who had previously been engaged in different lines of business in this county, is a son of Thomas and Mary A. (Wilson) Davis, and was born IS'ovember 13, 1838, in Charlestown town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. There he grew to manhood, and obtained a good practical education in the common schools. Leaving school he served an apprenticeship of three years with Jesse Jarrett at the car- penter business. After finishing his trade he worked as a journeyman for two years, and then engaged in carpentering and con- tracting on his own account in Charlestown township. This he followed for a period of five years, and in 1868 relinquished it and embarked in the hard wood business, run- ning a saw mill and finishing up its products ready for use in various ways. In 1872 he purchased the farm where he now lives, consisting of sixty-six acres of fine land, and after improving it and erecting a handsome stone dwelling house thereon, he engaged in dairy farming, which has been his occu- pation ever since. Politically he is an ar- dent republican, always taking an active interest in local politics, and working ener- getically to get out the vote of his party, and in looking after the registration of care- less voters. He has been elected to and held a number of the township offices, serv- ing as judge of elections six terms, inspector three terms, assistant assessor two terms, school director, supervisor, and township auditor for twelve years. In 1863 he served for six weeks with the emergency men as a member of Co. B, 34th Pennsylvania militia, being discharged at Eeading. Having tired of single blessedness, and concluded that sound philosophy underlaid the maxim that "it is not good for man to dwell alone," on January 1, 1868, Mr. Davis united in marriage with Annie S. Rose, the second daughter of John and Catharine Rose, of Charlestown township. To Mr. and Mrs. Davis were born a family of eight children, six sous and two daughters : John R. W., who is a civil engineer by profession, resides at Port Jervis, ISTew York, and is employed as assistant supervisor of the New York, Lake Erie & Western railroad: Thomas M., a boss builder, now engaged in the construction of creameries in Iowa and Minnesota; Mary P., deceased in infancy; B. Frank, living at home and assisting his father on the farm ; Albert J., now attend- ing West Chester Normal school ; Elsie T., living at home with her parents; and Ar- thur W. and Harvey F., both deceased. OF CHESTER COUNTY. TGI The Davis family is of Welsh descent, and ranks among the oldest in Pennsyl- vania. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Jesse Davis, was a native of Chester county, and lived most of his life in West Whiteland township, on the farm now owned by Wesley Talbot. His occupation was that of a farmer, and he owned a farm of two hundred acres in West Whiteland township, where he died. In politics he was a Jacksonian democrat, and in religion a member of the Society of Friends. He married Sarah Thomson, and was the father of five children, three sons and two daughters : Samuel, Thomas, Sarah (who married Mr. Mercer), Evan, and Mary, who first wedded a Mr. Hoopes, and after his death married a man named Meredith. The second son, Thomas Davis (father), was born in West Whiteland township in 1794, and died in 1871, aged nearly seventy- eight years. He was reai'ed on the old homestead, received an ordinary education, and after attaining his majority engaged in farming, and spent his life principally in that occupation. He settled in Charlestown township, near Schuylkill postoffice, was a democrat in politics, and a strict member of the Pi-esbyterian church. In 1818 he mar- ried Mary A. Wilson, a daughter of John Wilson, of Chester county, and they were the parents of fifteen children, only nine of whom attained maturity. The latter were : Jesse, Phebe, Elizabeth, Carson, Morgan, Mary Ann, Sarah, John and Thompson. John Eose, paternal grandfather of Mrs. Anna S. Davis, was born in West Philadel- phia, and lived all his life in that city. His father, William liose, came over from Eng- land with William Penn, and took up the land on which the greater part of West Philadelphia now stands. William Rose owned and operated a large silk manufac- tory in West Philadelphia, and afterward, in connection with his brothers, engaged in manufacturing swords near Market street, Philadelphia. John Rose, grandfather of Mrs. Davis, was a son of William, and after reaching man's estate engaged in farming on the present site of West Philadelphia. He was also engaged for a time in silk man- ufacture. Politically he was a whig, and in religion a member of the Society of Friends. He married Hannah Sheldrake, and had a family of seven children, six sons and a daughter : William, Albert, John, Thomas, Fannie, Benjamin and Ifathan. John Eose, father of Mrs. Davis, was born in West Philadelphia, where he received a good education, and then, from choice, engaged in agricultural pursuits. He sold his prop- erty in Philadelphia, removed- to Charles- town township, Chester county, and pur- chased a farm of ninety acres in Charles- town township, near Warren tavern, where he spent the remainder of his life, dying in 1881, in the sixty-third year of his age. In politics he was a whig and republican, and married Catharine Sibley, by whom he had a family of three children: Elizabeth,. who died in early womanhood; Frances, and Annie S., who became the wife of Thomp- son Davis, the subject of this sketch. She was educated in the common schools of Charlestown township, and has been a life- long member of the Presbyterian church. QEOKGE W. FLOYD, who died at his home in Spring City, October 13, 1892, was a member and the general superinten- dent of the Floyd, Wells & Co. stove firm, and founded one of the great industrial es- tablishments of Pennsylvania, whose pro- 763 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ducts found their way into every section of the civilized world. He was a sou of George W., sr., and Sarah A. (Mills) Floyd, and was born in the city of "Wilmington, State of Delaware, April 30, 1850. His paternal grandfather was a native of Wales, and came in early life to New York city, which he subsequently left to settle in Chester county, near Fagg's Manor church, in whose cemetery his remains are interred. He was an old-line whig, and his son, George W. Floyd (father), died in Harrisburg, this State, .in November, 1890, at an advanced age. He was a millwright by trade and during the earlier part of his life built many of the old mills in his part of the county. He afterward M^as engaged in farming and in the iron business. He married a Miss Lig- gett, who died and left four children, and after her death he wedded Sarah A. Mills, who died in July, 1885. By his second marriage Mr. Floyd had four children : Sarah Louisa, widow of Morris Thomson, of Philadelphia; George W., Helen T. and Phoebe A. George W. Floyd received his education in the common schools, and at fourteen years of age commenced life for himself as an errand boy at Benjamin Hatfield's Bran- dywine iron works of near Coatesville. He left the iron works two years later, and was a clerk successively for two years for Eachus & Perdue, for five years at Wagontown,for three years at Coatesville, and for some time at Steelton. In 1875 he came to Spring City, where he was a clerk for a short time forDiemer, and then became a partner with Mr. Diemer in the mercantile business, un- der the firm name of Diemer & Floyd, which partnership lasted until 1879. He then be- came bookkeeper foj- the foundry firm of 0. B. Keeley & Co., and upon its dissolution, continued in that position with its successor, the Keeley Stove Company, until 1883. Li February of that year he became a member and the general superintendent of the pres- ent stove manufacturing firm of Floyd, Wells & Co. The plant is located on First avenue, Royer's Ford, Montgomery county, and ranks as one of the large stove found- ries of the United States. It occupies nearly thi'ee acres of ground and consists of a stone moulding and cleaning room, eighty by one hundred and forty feet; a five-story brick warehouse, sixty by two hundred feet ; a two-story frame carpenter shop, seventy by seventy feet; a brick pattern storage house, thirty by fifty feet, two and a half stories high, beside a number of smaller buildings. The plant is well equipped with fine and costly machinery, which is run by a sixty horse-power engine, and the office has telephonic communication. The com- pany employ one hundered skilled work- men, and manufacture all kinds of stoves, which they ship to dift'erent parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as to every part of the United States. The splendid success of the company was largely due to the efltbrts of Mr. Floyd, who made for himself a name as a manufacturer that was held in high es- teem M'herever the products of his establish- ment are used. On April 14, 1886, Mr. Floyd wedded Kate E., daughter of Charles Peters, of Spring City, and their union was blessed with two children : Charles, born May 26, 1887; and MaryA.,born December 18,1889. In politics Mr. Floyd was a republican, and had served as a councilman of Spring City. He was a member of the Lutheran church, of which he was a trustee; Spring City Lodge, No. 553, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he was one of the found- yav-u, l€^fm OF CHESTER COUNTY. 765 ers ; and Pottstown Chapter, No. 271, Royal Arch Masons. His death, which occurred October 13, 1892, has left a gap in the busi- ness life of Spring City, and his memory is deeply cherished by a wide circle of business associates and personal friends, who held him in the highest regard. His remains rest in Zion's cemetery, near Spring City. I^AVID McCONKEY MacFAR- Ij AND, one of the leading and most suc- cessful businessmen of Chester county, and a prominent and public spirited citizen of West Chester, is a representative member of thatdistinguished class of self-made men,who not only deserves success, but who win it. He is a son of James and Mary (McConkey) MacFarland, and was born in Tredyffrin townshp, Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1839. James MacFarland (father) was a native of Montgomery county, was of Scotch- Irish descent, and in early life came to Ches- ter valley, where he engaged in farming, and removed to Pha^nixville in 1840, where he continued farming and kept the celebra- ted "Fountain Inn" for live years. At the end of that time he removed to Mercer county, and invested all of his means in iron enterprises. lie died April 19,1849, when in the forty-fifth year of his age. He mar- ried Mary McConkey, and reared a family of seven children. Mrs. MacFarland, who died February 18, 1891, at eighty-six years of age, was a daughter of John McConkey, a native of the north of Ireland, who mar- ried Elizabeth Rickabaugh, and settled in Tredyffrin township, where he followed his trade of cooper for several years, in con- nection with farming. David M. MacFarland was reared on the farm and received his education in the com- mon schools. At sixteen years of age he went into the great school of life to do for hiiiiself, and commenced his remarkably successful business career as a clerk in the office of his maternal uncle, David Mc- Conkey, a successful broker, and dealer in mortgages. By his natural aptitude for business and close attention to his duties he became indispensable in the office, and in a few years was intrusted with the manage- ment of the business. His uncle died on February 28, 1868, and in the following month of March, Mr. MacFarland succeeded to the large and remunerative business of the office, and which- he has continued to develop until it has reached its present large proportions. On September 11, 1866, Mr. MacFarland married Mary M. liothrock, a sister of Dr. J. T. Rothrock,the great American botanist, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this vol- ume. To Mr. and Mrs. MacFarland have been born sixchildren,threeof whomarestill living, two sons and one daughter: Charles T., who is engaged in business in West Chester; Elizabeth W. and George Kim, the latter now a student at the Pennsylvania State college. In politics Mr. MacFarland is a repub- lican, but his life has been and is preemin- ently a business one. He does a money loaning and private banking business, and has devoted himself to home investments, whereby he furnishes a large amount of cap- ital that is employed in building up and op- erating different enterprises, and in the de- velopment and improvement of many farms. He loans money on mortgages on real es- tate in Chester, Delaware, Lancaster and many other of the best counties of the Key- stone State. Mr. MacFarland is a well- known business man of established integ- 766 BIOQRAPHY AND HISTORY I'ity, and to his well directed and conserva- tive management of his various enterprises may be attributed a part of his remarkable success. His prosperity is also largely the reward of his ability and perseverance. It is justly said that the progress and prosperity of a county depends not so much on the natural advantages and facilities it offers, as upon the character and spirit of its leading men, and David M. MacFarland is among those of that class who have con- tributed largely to the permanent prosper- ity and material development of Chester county. TA> ALTER MacFEAT, a well-known and prosperous citizen of Spring City, who served as postmaster there from 1884 to 1889, is the second son of James and Helen C (Gow) MacFeat, and was born February 9, 1838, in County Perth, Scotland. His paternal grandfather, Walter MacFeat, was a native and life-long resident of that country. He was a farmer by occupation, and reared a family consisting of four sous and a daughter: John H., William, Walter, James and Catharine. He died about 1841, aged nearly seventy-eight years. James MacFeat (father) is a native of Scotland, born in 1816, who emigrated to America in 1849, and coming to Chester county, Penn- sylvania, settled in East Vincent township, at the present site of Spring City, where he has lived ever since. While yet a young man he learned the trade of shoemaker, and Avorked at that business for many years after coming to this country. Since 1889 he has lived practically retired. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, and a democrat in politics. He married lielen G. Gow, a daughter of liobert Gow, of Scot- land, and was the father of six children, four sons and two daughters : Walter, William, John, Elizabeth and Jane (twins), and David E. Elizabeth married Thomas G.Taylor, and Jane married Charles C. Davis, a mer- chant of Phcenixville. William died in 1870, at the age of nineteen. Walter MacFeat was reared partly in Scotland and partly in this country. His earl}' education was received in his native land, and after coming to East Vincent township he also studied in the public schools there. After attaining manhood he engaged in farming in that township, and continued to devote his time to agricultural pursuits until 1881, when he abandoned farming. In that year he was elected com- missioner of Chester county, on the Demo- cratic ticket, for a term of three years, and acceptably discharged* the duties of that po- sition until 1885. In 1884 he was appointed postmaster at Spring City, under Mr. Cleve- land's first administration, and held that oflice for a period of four and a half years. At the same time he was dealing in cattle to some extent, and since leaving the post- office he has been engaged in auctioneering and stock dealing. He is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church at Spring City, in which he served as deacon three years, as elder six years, and has been a trustee for fifteen years. He is also a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, being past master of Spring City Lodge, N"o. 535, Free and Accepted Masons, and past high priest of Palestine Council, ISo. 168, and also a member of Jerusalem Commandery, JSTo. 15, Knights Templar, of Phcenixville. Walter MacFeat has been twice married. His first wife was Mary M. Holman, who died in 1872, leaving five children, one son and four daughters: Helen, married L. B. Vanderslice, leader of the military band at OF ClIESTER COUNTY. 767 Phoenixville ; Catharine, who married Rolliu Cleverstiue, and is now deceased ; Agnes L. ; William "W"., now head bookkeeper for the lirm of MacFeat & Chine, Richmond, Vir- ginia ; and Mary E., deceased. Some time afterward Mr. MacFeat was again married, wedding Mrs. Anna M. (Hofihian) Ellis, a daughter of Jacob Hoffman, of East Vincent township. She was born in 1833, in East Vincent township, this county. HON. J. SMITH FUTHEY, author and jurist, and who served as president judge of the Fifteenth judicial district of Pennsylvania from 1879 until his death in 1888, Ayas a son of Hon. Eobert and Mar- garet (Parkinson) Futhey, and was born in Chester county, this State. He was of Scotch- Irish descent, and an interesting history of the old and honorable Futhey family, of which he was a member, will be found in the biographical sketch of R. Agnew Futhey, which commences on page 313 of this work. J. Smith Futhey was reared in his native county, received a good education, and after reading law was admitted to the bar of Chester county on February 7, 1843. He practiced his profession successfully until February 24, 1879, when he was appointed by Gov. Henry M. Hoyt as judge of the Fifteenth judicial district, to fill out the un- expired time of Judge Butler, who had re- signed. In ]!^ovember, 1879, Judge Futhey was elected by the people for a full term of ten years, there being no opposing candi- date. He died in 1888, while on the bench. He presided with ability and fairness over the courts of his county, and left behind him a record of ability and integrity. Judge Futhey and Gilbert Cope were the authors of the interesting and valuable "History of Chester County" that was published by L. H. Everets in 1881. P ClilFFOBD EMERY, a leading farmer of Birch run ville, who is serv- ing as school director of his township and is a gentlemen highly esteemed by his fel- low-citizens, is the oldest son of Jacob and Annie (Moses) Emery, and was born Jan- uary 8, 1859, in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grandfather, Jacob Emery, was a native of this county, and died in East Pikeland township about 1863, aged nearly seventy years. The latter was a farmer by vocation and became quite prosperous in his day. He was an active democrat in politics and served for a number of years as justice of the peace in his township. In religious faith he was a Lutheran, and a prominent mem- ber of that denomination at Pikeland. He married Abbie Sloyer, and reared a family of six children, three sons and three daugh- ters. One of these sons, Jacob Emery (father), was born in East Pikeland township, this county, in 1830, and now resides in West Pikeland township, where he has followed farming all his life. In politics he is a democrat, and has served as school director for nearly twenty years, and as justice of the peace for four or five terms. He also is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and in 1857 married Annie Moses, a daugh- ter of John Moses, of West Pikeland. She was born in 1840 and is still living. E. Cliftbrd Emery was reared pi'incipally on his father's farm and obtained a good practical education in the public schools of his neighborhood, completing his studies at a private school in Phoenixville. Upon 768 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY leaving school he engaged in farming, and has followed that occupation ever since, meeting with good success and now owning a fine farm of one hundred acres of im- proved and highly productive land. Ad- hering to the political faith of his ancestors, Mr. Emery has been a life long democrat, and is now serving as one of the school di- rectors of his township. He has been some- what prominent in local politics, serving his party as a member of the county executive committee from West Pikeland township. Being a man of broad and liberal views he takes a livelyinterest in all public questions, and is very popular as a citizen and neigh- bor. He is a prominent member of the Evangelical Lutheran church at Pikeland, in which he is serving as an elder. In the year 1881 Mr. Emery was united in marriage to Annie M. Ralston, a daugh- ter of William Ralston, of West Vincent, and to Mr. and Mrs. Emery have been born two children, both daughters: A. May, born May 29, 1882 ; and Florence Edna, born March 7, 1889, and died September 20th of the same year. "CDWIN FKICK, one of the Leading citizens of Matthews, is a fine old gen- tlemen who has spent a long life engaged in agricultural pursuits, and is universally es- teemed by his fellow citizens. He is the only surviving son of John and Sarah (Dunn) Frick, and a native of Chester county, hav- ing been born in East Vincent township, October 12, 1819. The Frick faiiiily is of Swiss origin, though some of its members have been scattered in Germany and Eng- land for several generations. This branch was planted in America by Jacob Frick (great-grandfather), who was born in 1717, and came over from Rotterdam, Germany, in September, 1733, in the merchant ship Pennsylvania, of London, John Stedman, master. He was one of a number of Ger- man Baptist emigrants who came at that time and settled along the Schuylkill river in Chester and Montgomery counties. Jacob Frick was accompanied by a brother named John, and they first settled one mile east of Pottstown,but afterward removed to Chester valley, two miles from Valley Forge, where they lived during the revolutionary war. They were located near the scene of the Paoli massacre, and on their farm the Brit- ish and Hessians encamped after the battle of Brandywine. Jacob married Elizabeth Urner, of this county, who was born in 1724 and died in 1757. He died in 1799, aged eighty-two years. Their son, John Frick (grandfather), was born in Chester Valley, and died in East Coventry townsliip, this county, at an advanced age. He was a farmer by vocation, and married Catharine Grumbacher, by whom he had a family of eight children. Among his sons were Jacob Frick, who married Mary Sower and had a family of eight children; and John Frick (father), who was born in Coventry township, this county, in 1787, and died in West Vin- cent township in 1852, aged sixty-five years. The latter was a farmer by occupation, an old-line whig in politics, and married Sarah Dunn, a daughter of Philip Dunn, then of Crawford county, this State, to which he had removed from New Jersey. By this mar- riage John Frick had a family of eiglit chil- dren, four sons and four daughters: Susan Acker, Edwin, Hazael, David (dead), Chath- erine Bertolett (deceased), John, Sallie Sav- idge (dead), and Lizzie Bertolett. Edwin Frick was reared on the old home- stead in West Vincent township,- and re-. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 769 ceived such education as could be obtained in the country schools of that early day. After attaining his majority he engaged in farming, and has spent all his active life in that occupation. Since 1882 he has prac- tically retired from business and is taking life easy. In politics he was a whig during his early yeai-s, casting, his first vote for William Henry Harrison in 1840, but has been a stanch republican almost from the time that party was first organized in Penn- sylvania. He is a loading member of the Baptist church at Vincent, in which he has served as trustee and deacon for many years. In December, 1853, Mr. Frick was mar- ried to Hannah Laferty,a daughter of Dan- iel Laferty, of WestPikeland township, this county. To them were born two children : Allen, who died October 6, 1889 ; and Mary, who married Irvin Hallman. "CliLIS P. NEWLiIN", the proprietor of the Green Tree Inn, of West Chester, and a wounded Union soldier of the late war, and who enjoys the popular distinction of being one of the most accommodating landlords in Chester county, is a son of Henry and Louisa (Elkins)]Srewlin, and was born in Highland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 10, 1841. The New- lins are of Irish descent and the name was originally written IsTewland. They came in an early day to what is now Delaware county, where James Ifewlin, the paternal grandfather of Ellis Ifewlin, was born and reared to manhood. JamesIlTewlin although a poor 'boy, yet was a typical American boy and such was his energetic career in life that he died quite a wealthy man. He was a niillwright by trade, came to East Fallow- field township, Chester county, in early life and acquired property rapidly. He owned a good farm, and a paper, a clover, and a saw-mill at Newlin's Mills. He died on Duck run in East Fallowfield township in 1877 at eighty-two years of age. He was energetic, thoroughgoing, and a useful man, and married and reared a family. His son, Henry Newlin, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in this county in 1814. He was a farmer and paper manufacturer in Highland township until 1863, when he removed to West Fallowfield township, where he embarked at Cochranville in the hotel business, which he followed up to 1878. He then retired from active business and died in October, 1886, when in the seventy- fourth year of his age. He was a democrat in politics and an active man in business affairs, and while running his paper-mill in Highland township, enjoyed a remarkably good trade, which he had built up by his own eflfbrts. He married Louisa Elkins, who was reared in this county, where she died in April, 1891, at seventy-four years of age. She was a daughter of George W. Elkins, a paper manufacturer of this county, who moved to Philadelphia where he died. Mr. and Mrs. N'ewlin reared a large family of children. Ellis P. N"ewlin was reared on his father's Highland township farm, received his edu- cation in the common schools, and in 1862 enlisted in Co. L, 17th Pennsylvania cav- alry. He was elected first sergeant of his company and served until the close of the war, being honorably- discharged from the Federal service at Little York, this State, in June, 1865. He lost two fingers of his right hand at Chancellorsville, but did not leave the army, and was in all the succeeding battles of the army of the Potomac, until the Southern Confedei-acy went to pieces at 770 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Appomattox Court House. After being dis- charged, he went to Cochran's Mills, where he was engaged in the hotel business for eight years. He then removed to Oxford, ran the Oxford house one year and then assumed management of the Gum Tree ho- tel, which he conducted in connection with farming until 1881. In that year he came to West Chester where he leased the Green Tree hotel for three years, and at the end of that time, returned to his farm on which he remained one year. He then returned to West Chester and purchased the Mansion house, which he sold six years later to its present proprietor. In the winter of 1891, he purchased the Green Tree hotel, whose name he changed to Green Tree inn and which he has conducted most successfully ever since. The Green Tree inn was estab- lished nearly a century ago and is recog- nized as one of the best hotels in the county. The present building is a four-story brick structure, 50x60 feet in dimensions, fur- nished and fitted throughout in modern style. It is heated by hot air, lighted by electricity, and in every respect equals any of the best first-class hotels in the country, excepting those of the larger cities. It contains nearly fifty sleeping rooms, a fine dining room ar- ranged to accommodate one hundred guests, and reading, writing and sample rooms, with a first-class bar. Mr. ]S"ewlin has made an eftbrt to establish a model hotel and has succeeded. He is well prepared to accom- modateboth permanentand trausientguests, and has stabling and shed room sufficient to provide for one hundred head of horses and seventy-five teams. He personally su- pervises every detail of his business and em- ploys none but coudeous and accommodat- ing assistants. In 1870, Mr. Newlin married Bella, daugh- ter of John Keech, of Highland township, and they have three children : Eobert H., Anna and Emily. In politics Mr. J!fewlin is a democrat. He is a member of Skerrett Lodge, N^o. 343, Free and Accepted Masons, of Cochran- ville. Ellis Newlin is an honorable and pro- gressive business man, and ranks as one of Chester county's most enterprising citizens. HON. WASHINGTON TOWNSEND, ex-member of Congress, and the oldest member of the Chester county bar, is the eldest son of David and Kebecca (Sharpless) Townsend, and was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 20, 1813. He re- ceived his education under Jonathan Gause and Joseph Strode, at the West Chester academy, and while serving as teller in the bank of Chester county turned his attention to the study of law. He read with William Darlington, was admitted to the bar. May 7, 1844, and has been successfully engaged in the practice of his profession ever since. He served as cashier of the bank of Chester from 1848 to 1857, and then resigned to give his entire attention to his profession. Mr. Townsend is a republican in politics. He served as prosecuting attorney from October, 1848, to April, 1849, was a dele- gate to the Whig Ifational convention of 1852, and to the Republican National con- vention of 1860, and served with credit and distinction as a member of Congress from 1868 to 1876, during which time he warmly advocated a protective tariff, the present ]S"ational banking system, the ap- propriation of the public land sales to edu- cational purposes, and an improved Indian policy. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 771 JOHN DANIEL BALTZ was born in the city of Philadelphia, December 10, 1845, and is the second son of Daniel Dunn and Elizabeth (Eoche) Baltz, also natives of Philadelphia, of German and French ex- traction. His paternal grandfather arrived in this country from Hesse Cassel in 1802, and served a short time in the war of 1812. His maternal grandfather and great-grand- father (Poche) having arrived much earlier, served under General LaFayette in the war of independence. When the civil war broke out the subject of this sketch, then fifteen years of age, left his studies and was enrolled in the Scott Legion regiment under President Lincoln's first call. By the exercise of parental au- thority, this engagement was cancelled, much to the chagrin of the youthful soldier, who soon again entered the ranks, and was mustered into Co. H, Col. E. D. Baker's First California regiment, so namedin honor of its first colonel, a senator from Oregon who, wishing to tie the then doubtful State of Califoi'nia to the cause of the Union, had his regiment bear thefirst California banner that entered the war. This regiment was organized April 29, 1861, by special author- ity from the war department, and was the first three-years' regiment to complete its organization. After the tragic death of Colonel Baker at Ball's Bluff, the regiment was claimed by its native State, and became the Tlst of the Pennsylvania line. It served under Gen. B. F. Butler, and was moving toward Richmond on the Peninsula when the defeat at first Bull Run occurred, when it was hurried to the defense of our imper- illed capital. It marched over Chain Bridge into Virginia, where it came in contact with the enemy, and recovered lost ground, the regiment suffering heavily in dead and wounded, among the latter being Private Baltz. It thereafter formed part of the corps of observation under General Stone, oppo- site Leesburg, Virginia, and engaged the enemy at Ball's Bluff'. In March, 1862, this corps of observation moved up the Shenandoah vallej', and forced Stonewall Jackson's command to retire from Winchester. When the army of the Poto- mac was organized, the Philadelphia brigade, with the 71st as senior regiment, was as- signed to the second division, second corps of that army, under Generals Sumner and Sedgwick, serving in that gallant corps in its many trying conflicts and brilliant achievements under its several illustrious commanders. Private Baltz was always in the ranks for duty, and never was absent, by furlough or other cause, from any battle, skirmish or movement, in which his company partici- pated, until he was carried off in a litter by two comrades, while the army of the Poto- mac was laying siege to Richmond. Being declared disabled for future service, he was honorably discharged at Fair Oaks, Vir- ginia, but was shortly thereafter in the field again, being commissioned lieutenant of Co. F, 40th regiment Pennsylvania volunteer militia, which served in the Cumberland valley during the Gettysburg campaign un- der Generals Couch and Dana, U. S. A., and was the first regiment to march through Chambersbui-g, in the wake of Longstreet's retreat, while General Meade was moving by the way of Emmettsburg after Lee, who was making for the Potomac in a more di- rect line. When Meade followed Lee across the Potomac this regiment was posted along the Hagerstown pike, in GeneralJennings' brigade, until after Lee had recrossed the Rappahannock. BIOGRAPHY AND HI STORY III the early part of August the 45th was ordered from the border to Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, to quell riots in sympathy with the New York riots. It took posses- sion of Pottsville, which the rioters had held, and served thereafter under General Whipple, U. S. A., who arrived with artil- lery and cavalry, when the rioters, com- posed principally of the "Knights of the Golden Circle," a branch of the Southern organization formed to destroy the repub- lic, were overawed, but not until the 45th had exchanged shots with the rioters. Lieu- tenant Baltz commanded Co. F during the greater part of its service, and was mustered out with his regiment, in the early fall of 1863, before he was eighteen years of age. After leaving the army he entered the office of Joseph S. Siddall, Esq., studied con- veyancing and real estate law, was admitted a member of the "Conveyancers Associa- tion of .Philadelphia," and there entered into active practice. When Hon. Daniel M. Pox was elected mayor of Philadelphia, at his solicitation Mr. Baltz took charge of the convej^ancing department of his extensive business, until his own business demanded the whole of his time. He was registered a law student at the Philadelphia bar, from the office of Robert M. Logan, Esq., with whom he studied, and while busily engaged ill his profession and studies, was compelled by impaired health to give up both, after thirteen years close application to his pro- fession. Under advice of his physician, he gave up his sedentary business and place of residence, then Germantown, for a rural home and an out-door life. During his many trips within a radius of thirty miles from Philadelphia, in quest of a new home, no locality seemed to him so restful as the beautiful valley of Chester, near Downing- town. He purchased in February, 1877, a small farm on the Philadelphia and Lancas- ter turnpike, twenty-seven miles from the city, in the township of West Whiteland, and added thereto a few acres. Tearing out and remodeling the old farm mansion was soon under way, and by mid-summer a comfortable home for his family was estab- lished, in which he has since resided, a citi- zen of Chester county. The house stands on a knoll facing the south,which was christened "Breezy Knoll," and in full view of Whitford station. The ground, sloping away in all directions, af- ford an extensive and beautiful view of the valleys and hills in the distance, enlivened without annoyance by the busy shifting scenes, day and night, on many miles of the Pennsylvania railroad, with the less active Chester Valley railroad nearer to view, at its crossing of the valley creek. It was in the quiet of this home that he wrote and published his Defense of Senator E. D. Baker, with whom he was serving when the latter fell at Ball's Bluff. Among the many favorable reviews of the book, including those at length in the leading Philadelphia and Boston papers, the follow- ing, concise and expressive, appeared in the Grand Army Record, of Boston : " Senator E. D. Baker's defense at Ball's Bluff, writ- ten by John D. Baltz, bears the stamp of a painstaking effort to render justice where it is due. Realizing that many of the best war histories accept the theory that Baker was answerable for the Ball's Bluff" disaster, the author has made a patient examination of the official records, and essays to show the true inwardness of this long mooted question. He has done his work well. To rescue the reputation of this gifted states- man and soldier from the cruel aspersions OF CHESTER COUNTY. 773 cast upon it by General Stone, is its avowed object. The friends of Baiter everywhere will doubtless hail with joy this searching analysis, for it seems to prove, indisputably, that he died like a soldier, obeying to the letter the injunctions of his superior officer, and guiltless of one of the^reat blunders of the war." On December 8, 1874, Mr. Baltz married Annie Augusta, daughter of Henry and Susan B. Sagehorn, and they have two chil- dren, born in Chester Valley: Ellen Dun- can, and William Sagehorn Baltz. Henry Sagehorn, a drug clerk of Bremen, arrived in this country when a young man, and become a successful merchant and manufacturer in the city of ISTew York, and married Susan B.Hancock, a lineal descend- ant of Godfrey Hancock, who came over in the Ship Shield, from Yorkshire, England, "with his wife Mary, four children and servants," an account of which appears on page 109 of Smith's History of New Jersey. In 1676 Godfrey Hancock became a charter member of the new colony at Burlington, New Jersey, where he settled on his plan- tation, which he named "Steetley," and was identified with the new government, in its general assembly and in other positions. As an amateur farmer Mr. Baltz obtained some practical knowledge of animals and crops, and a good dividend in health, from the vitalizing air of the valley, the even tenor of this quiet life being varied by busi- ness engagements in the city, incident to aiding in the organization and incorpora- tion of the "First Title Insurance Com- pany," of Philadelphia, formed by the Con- veyancers' association — likewise of theLand Title and Trust Company, and later a direc- tor of the Massachusetts Title Insurance Company, of Boston. He is also a director 45 of the Algonquin Improvement Company, which improved a large tract of land on the Pennsj'lvania railroad, south of the park front. At the same time he was promi- nently identified with extensive adjoining purchases, along Elm avenue bordering the park, added to the lands of " Park Frontlm- provemcnt Company," all of which property was reclaimed, and transformed into choice locations for residences — almost equal to Boston's public garden, or Central park, New York. Mr. Baltz is chairman of the Citizens' committee, of Philadelphia, which agitated and urged upon the city councils the pas- sage of an ordinance for the " Suppression of the soft coal smoke nuisance" on rail- roads, within the city limits. This move- ment has been and is quietly but steadily opposed by corporate influence, but very appreciable progress is being made, sup- ported by all the city newspapers. He is also a member of the historical committee, of the Survivors' association, of the 71st Pennsylvania volunteers, which is charged with the preparation and publication of its regimental history. While thus engaged he was not neglectful of the slight duties incident to his neighborhood, and served as directorand treasurer of the Oakland cream- ery, auditor of his township, foreman of the grand jury of Chester county, and as a di- rector of the West Whiteland Protective and Insurance Company, which he was in- strumental in re-organizing and having in- corporated. Beared in the Presbyterian faith, he be- came president of the board of trustees of the Central Presbyterian church of Down- ingtown, and gave especial attention to the business methods and temporal aflcairs of the church. After thirteen years of pleas- 774 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ant labor on the board, he and two-thirds of the trustees, including all of the officers, withdrew on account of a bitter, protracted public contest for charter rights, in opposi- tion to the session's encroachment of aflFairs temporal. The latter was thereafter dis- approved by the General assembly of the Presbyterian church. A republican from his youth, but not a partisan, he served in his township, as chairman of the Everhart independent cam- paign committee, and urged Mr. Everhart's re-election to Congress, by speech and deeds. Of the betterment in his neighbor- hood, in which he took a leading part, is the establishment of the post-office at Whit- ford, and the securing of the fine substantial county bridge over valley creek, in sight of his home. William ACKENBACH,of Charles- town township, stands in the front rank of the progressive farmers of Chester county. He is a son of Jacob and Margaret (Blank) Ackenbach,and was born inBeiten, Prussia, February 26, 1842. The Acken- bach family has been resident of Prussia for several generations, where its members have always been accounted quiet and in- dustrious people. Jacob Ackenbach was a shepherd in Beiten, where he spent his life. He was industrious like all of his ancestors, and left a son, Jacob Ackenbach, who mar- ried and was the father of Jacob Ackenbach, whose son William is the subject of this sketch. Jacob Ackenbach was reared to habits of industry and economy, and fol- lowed well in the footsteps of his father be- fore him. He married Margaret Blank, and to their union were born eight children, four sons and four daughters. William Ackenbach received his educa- tion in the excellent public schools of Prussia, and after performing the required military service of his native country, engaged in farming, which he followed in various parts •of the present great German empire until 1867. In that year he left Hesse, one of the most important States of Germany, and on March 24th landed at New York city, which he left a few days later to engage in farming at Germantown, near Philadelphia, this State. Within a year he left Germantown and went to l!^ew Jersey, in which State he remained but a short time, and then came back to Pennsylvania, where he settled in Montgomery county. There he was suc- cessful in farming, and after nine years spent in different townships, he rented a farm near North Wales, that county, which he tilled with very profitable results for nearly four years. At the end of that time, in 1880, he came to the Chester valley in this county, where he rented a farm then owned by John Wilson. On it he spent six years, and by industry, economy and good management, so increased his savings that he was enabled to purchase his present farm of one hundred and twenty-four acres of land, near the village of Charlestown, in Charlestown township. His farm is fertile and well watered, has substantial buildings of all kinds, good fences, and is so carefully and scientifically cultivated as to retain its fertility, while yielding large and remuner- ative crops. Perceiving the want of Phil- adelphia for an increase of its milk and but- ter supply, he established a dairy, which is now one of the largest dairies in the town- ship. On January 3, 1873, Mr. Ackenbach mar- ried Anna Harrah, a daughter of William and Martha (Rogers) Harrah, of Montgom- ery county. To Mr. and Mrs, Ackenbach OF CHESTER COUNTY. 775 have been born three children, two sons and one daughter: Edgar, now attending Chester Springs academy; Leo, a student at the same academy ; and Edith. In politics Mr. Achenbach has always been a strong democrat, and believes in the principles of democracy as taught by Jeffer- son and practiced by Jackson and Cleveland. His family are members of Pikeland Evan- gelical Lutheran church. William Acken- bach possesses those sterling traits of the great German race which have made it fam- ous alike in war and peace. Industrious, honorable and economical, he has risen from the position of a penniless stranger in this county, to that of one of the most prosper- ous farmers and well respected citizens of Charlestown township. TA/ILLIAM A. WEIGEL, the capable and experienced foreman in the factory of the American Wood-paper Company at Spring City, is the second son and third child of Gideon and Mary (Vocht) Weigel, and was born at Spring City, this county, June 3, 1844. He received a good primary education in the public schools at Spring City,which was afterward supplemented by a course of study in a superior night school at Dakota, Stephenson county, Illinois. At the age of fourteen he began life for himself as a driver on the towpath of the old Schuylkill canal, where he remained for three sum- mers, and then entered the employ of Ladd & Georges, at the paper factory in Spring City. He remained with that firm until the works passed into the hands of the Ameri- can Wood-paper Company, in 1865, when he became an employee of the latter firm, and, with the exception of about six years, has been connected with their paper factory ever since. In 1867 he went to Illinois, where he learned the painter's trade and re- mained a couple of years. Returning to Pennsylvania, he worked in the paper fac- tory until 1872, when he accepted a position in the Buckwalter stove works at Royer's Ford, Montgomery county, and spent four years at that place. In 1876 he I'enewed his connection with the American Wood-paper Company, and for a period of twelve years has been foreman of their factory at Spring City. They employ a force of about fifty men, and manufacture all grades of book, envelope, writing and card papers. The product is first-class in every particular, and finds a ready sale in the best markets of this country. Politically Mr. Weigel was form- erly a democrat, but is now inclined to be independent, supporting the men and meas- ures which in his judgment are best calcu- lated to advance the public welfare. He is a member of theMethodistEpiscopal church, and is also prominent in secret society cir- cles, being a member of Spring City Lodge, No. 553, Free and Accepted Masons; Phoe- nix Lodge, ~So. 212, Independent Order of Odd Fellows ; and LaFayette Castle, No. 59, Knights of the Golden Eagle. He is grand trustee of the Grand Castle of Pennsylvania, and has held this position nearly five years. On December 25, 1870, Mr. Weigel was married to Kate Epright, a daughter of James Epright, of Spring City. She died in 1876, leaving no children. In 1878 he was married again, this time wedding Mary Keiter, youngest daughter of Jacob Keiter, also of Spring City. By this union he has a family of four children : Archie H., Lillie, Ida and Merrill. The Weigels are of German descent, but have resided in Pennsylvania since early times. Peter Weigel, paternal grandfather 776 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY of William A., was a native of York county, this State, where he grew up and was edu- cated. In early manhood he removed to Union county, settling near Lewisburg, where he followed his trade of shoemaking for a number of years, dying about 1846, at the age of seventy-two years. He married Christina Hause, and reared a family of eight children, four sous and four daughters : Peter, Elias, Jesse, Gideon, Elizabeth, Lydia, ISarah and Rachel. Gideon "Weigel (father) was born in Union county, this State, l!^o- vember 12, 1813, and now resides in Spring City, this county. He was reared and edu- cated in his native county, but removed to Chester in 1838, settling near Spring City. While yet a young man he learned the trade of carpenter, and followed that occupation all his active life. Since 1890 he has prac- tically retired from business of all kinds and is living a quiet life. In politics he is a democrat,- and in religion a Lutheran, hav- ing been an active member of that church for many years. In 1839 he married Mary Vocht, a daughter of Godfrey Vocht, of Union county. She is still living, be- ing now in the seventy-third year of her age. To them was born four sons and two daughters : Eliza, now the widow of Isaac Palmer, who lives with her parents in Spring City; Charles, living near Springton, New Jersey, where he is employed as "finisher" in a paper factory; William A., the subject of this sketch ; John A., now a resident of Columbia, Lancaster county; Samuel, who died in childhood; and Ellen, living with her parents in Spring City. J'OSEPH YEAGER, of East Pikeland township, who has been successfully en- gaged for the last decade in farming, dairy- ing a,nd trucking, is a son of George and Hannah (Ecker) Yeager, and was born Jan- uary 26, 1842, on the farm on which he now resides, in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grand- father, John Yeager, came about the com- mencement of the nineteenth century to Pikeland township, where he purchased and cleared out the present farm of the subject of this sketch. A part of the improvements which he made still remain in a good state of preservation, and attest the hard toil with which in that early day he cleared out and improved his tract of one hundred and forty- two acres of land. He married and reared a family of six children, two sons and four daughters, among whom were John, George, Rachel and Rixstine. George Yeager(father) was born in 1806, and died in 1883, aged seventy-seven years. He learned the trade of tailor, at which he worked for only a short time, and then was engaged in farm- ing during the rest of his life. He was a democrat and held various township offices, while in religion he was of the Reformed faith, having served for many years as a deacon and elder of St. Peter's Reformed church. His wife, whose maiden name was Hannah Ecker, was a daughter of Christo- pher Ecker. Mr. and Mrs. Yeager were the parents of three children, one son and two daughters : Joseph, Magdalena Rixstine and Mary A. Rixstine. Joseph Yeager was reared on the farm, received his education in the common schools, and then was engaged in farming with his father until the death of the latter, when he purchased sixty-eight acres of the home farm. His land is well improved, well watered and very productive. To farming Mr. Yeager has added dairying and trucking, and in each of these lines of business has met with 01' CHESTER COUNTY. mi good success. He is a democrat in politics aud a member of Vincent Reformed church, in which he has served as a deacon. On October 18, 1862, Mr.-Yeager married Sallie Snyder, a daughter of John and Sarah (Friday) Snyder, of East Vincent township. To Mr. and Mrs. Yeager have been born six children, five sons and one daughter : George A,, who married Ida Shantz, and was suc- cessively engaged in butchering and work- ing in a paper mill until his death in 1890, at the age of twenty-six years and six months; Harry S., married Annie D.Aiken, and is a farmer of Schuylkill township ; Howard, Emma J., J. Willis, and Luther, who is now dead. TA/ILLIAM S, GREEN, a leading and influential citizen of Malvern, and who is largely interested in the marble busi- ness there and at Atglen, is a son of Charles E. and Mary (Jones) Green, and was born at Marion Square, Montgomery county, Penn- sylvania, October 16, 1843. He received his education at Plymouth meeting house in his native county and then learned the trade of marble cutter, which he has followed ever since 1868. He first opened a shop at Waynesburg, now Honeybrook,where he re- mained until 1889, when he came to Malvern. He has a large shop and marble yard at that place and a half interest in another shop and yard at Atglen, which is conducted under the firm name of Green & Miller. He does a good business in all lines of marble, stone and monumental work, which is noted for elegance of design, finish and workmanship. It has ever been the aim of Mr. Green to furnish first-class work,, and he turns out fine head stones, monuments and memori- als of various styles and sizes in polished granite or marble. He likewise attends to all kinds of cemetery work. At the agri- cultural fair which was held at West Ches- ter in September, 1891, he took first pre- mium for the best display of stone and monumental work. In 1869 Mr. Green married Mary C. Kasley, who was a daughter of Samuel Kasley, and died in 1870, leaving one child, a daughter named Mary, who is now dead. On September 10, 1872, Mr. Green wedded Laura, daughter of Cloud B. Batton, and by his second marriage has three children, one son and two daughters: Embury E., Matora A., and Beulah A. His paternal grandfather was a native of Doylestown, Bucks county, and by his wife, Elizabeth,had three children : Beulah, dead; CharlesE., now deceased ; andMartha,widow of William Seitzingler of J^ew York city. Charles E. Green (father) was born August 23, 1820, and died at ISTorristown, this State, June 10, 1892. He was a^ merchant tailor, and a democrat, and married Mary Jones, who is a daughter of John Jones, a drover, of Welsh lineage, and who still resides at ]S"orristown. Their children were : William S., the subject of this sketch ; Beulah, wife of Eev. D. W. Gordon, pastor of Centenary MethodistEpiscopal church of Philadelphia; Martha, who married Rev. D. M. Gordon, a Methodist minister; Charles Edward, jr., a contractor and builder of I^orristown, this State; and Flora, wife of Benjamin F. Whitehead, a grocer of Norristown. In politics William S. Green has always adhered to the Democratic party. In relig- ious belief and church membership he is a Methodist, and is a trustee and steward and the class leader of the church of that de- nomination at Malvern. He is a -member of Thompson Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons. 778 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY lUTAKSHALL S. WAY, who is one of "^ the most popular republicans and suc- cessful business men of eastern Pennsyl- vania, is now serving his eighth consecutive term as chief burgess of West Chester, an office to which he has always been elected without any opposition. He is a son of Samuel and Mary (Scarlett) Way, and was born February 12, 1845, in the house in which he has always lived, on West Miner street, in West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania. Mr. Way traces his ances- try back to Henry Way, who was born in 1583, in England, and in 1630 came to Mas- sachusetts, where he died at Dorchester in 1667. In lineal descent from him was Ja- cob Way, the great-grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch, who settled in this county in 1737. His son, John Way, was born in N"ew Garden township on February 11, 1772, and died August 17, 1848, aged seventy-six years. He was an industrious and prosper- ous farmer and a member of the Society of Friends. On January 22, 1795, he married Hannah, daughter of Jacob and Mary Heald. Of their children, Samuel Way (father), was born in Kennett township, October 5, 1803. He was reared on the farm, and after mar- riage came to West Chester, where he re- sided until his death, which occurred Decem- ber 6, 1871, when he was rapidly nearing his seventieth year. He was a carpenter and contractor, and was one of the first men to manufacture brick in Philadelphia by machinery. He was an energetic and thor- oughgoing business man, and erected the Catholic convent and many other substan- tial buildings in that city. He served for over thirty years as a director and surveyor of the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Chester county, and was recognized as a successful business man, a kind friend and a useful citizen. He was a republican in politics and a member of the Society of Friends, and married Mary Scarlett, a mem- ber of the old Scarlett family of this county, who was born October 26, 1804, in what is now Kennett Square, and died May 13,1883, aged seventy-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Way were the parents of six children, two sons and four daughters. Marshall S. Way was reared in his native city, received his education in the public schools and Wyer's academy, and ther; com- menced life for himself as a clerk in the grocery and hardware store of Wood & Fairlamb. Five years later Mr. Way bor- rowed some money which he added to his own slender earnings and purchased the store, after which he formed a partnership with T. Elwood Townsend, under the firm name of Way & Townsend. This firm lasted one year, when Mr. Way sold out his interest to Hichard Thatcher. He then found himself with a small amount of means which he purposed to invest in some profit- able enterprise. After examining carefully several business openings, he formed a part- nership with E. S. Mendenhall, and on Oc- tober 1, 1867, they purchased the coal and lumber business of Shoemaker & Robison, which they conducted very successfully for seven years. During that time he was one of a company of four who erected a row of houses on Barnard street, also another on south Darlington street. They also erected several fine buildings on West Miner street and a number of good residences in various other parts of the city. After re- tiring from the coal and lumber business, Mr. Way was not actively employed until 1877, when he embarked in his present real estate and loan business. His first office soon became too small and he removed to OF CHESTER COUNTY. 779 another and larger room, but the rapid in- crease of his business in a short time caused him to leave his second office and secure his present commodious rooms in the Everhart building, on Market street, opposite the court house. From his initial effort in real estate transactions until the present time he has met with remarkable success, and now his volume of business i^ such that he keeps a regular force of clerks who are kept con- stantly at woi'k. He makes a specialty of western mortgages, and in some years has loaned over |100,000 in the State of Kansas alone. Beside loaning a large amount of money in his own county, he is also doing an extensive business in fire insurance and reat estate, his rent list being large, and he sells yearly a large number of houses, build- ing sites and farms. Marshall S. Way is an honest, plain and unpretending straight- forward man, of great energy, good judg- ment and remarkable business ability. He is prominently identified with the material development of his native city, of which he has been an important factor for the last decade. Among the different enterprises for the improvement of West Chester with which he is connected isthe Assembly build- ing, and he was also the originator of the electric street Y&Wvf&y. He is a director and surveyor of the Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany of Chester county. He is also a di- rector of the First National bank, a trustee of the West Chester State ITormal school, and president of both the boards of trade and health. On Christmas day, 1867, Mr. Way mar- ried Anna E. Smedley, a daughter of Bar- tholomew and Margaret Smedley, of East Goshen township. Mr. and Mrs. Way have two children : M. Warren and Channing. In politics Mr. Way is a strong republi- can. His political career commenced in 1885 as a councilman, although he was of- fered a seat in the city council as early as 1877, but the old town meetings were then in existence, and despite earnest solicita- tions to accept councilmanic honors he al- ways emphatically declined until the town meetings were abolished in the first named year. He then allowed his name to be used, and was elected as a councilman from the South ward. He served but one term, when he was elected in 1886 as chief burgess and since then he has been yearly elected to succeed himself without opposition in his own party. One who is well acquainted with Marshall S. Way writes of him as follows: "Mr. Way's name has been proposed time and again for legislative honors from this dis- trict, but his foot has been invariably set down upon every offer of the kind, he pre- ferring to remain at home attending to his large and lucrative business, and of serving the people at home with whom he has grown up and become familiar in business and social life. There is, perhaps, no man in the city who labors more industriously and constantlythan the chief burgess. From early in the morning until late at night he is employed at his office or attending to some of the multifarious duties incident to the office. In administering the borough laws he does not believe in severity, but al- ways upholds the dignity and stability of the city's government, and strictly enforces the ordinances to the letter." Marshall S. Way's life has been one of varied and uniform usefulness, in which he has achieved individual success and won the regard and esteem of his fellow-citizens. 780 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY vJOHN PRIZER, a justice of the peace of East Pikeland township, and the founder and proprietor of the well known Prizer roller process flouring mills of Kim- berton, is a son of Benjamin and Catharine (Shantz) Prizer. He was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, September 9, 1842, and grew to manhood at Kimberton,. where he has re- sided ever since. He received his education in the common schools of his native town- ship and Freeland seminary of Montgomery county. Leaving school he assisted his father in his mill until 1867, when the latter retired from the milling business and Mr. Prizer assumed full charge of the mill, which he has conducted very successfully up to the present time. In 1884 he placed the roller process in his mill, which now has a daily capacity of twenty -five barrels. His mill is fully equipped with the latest and best of improved milling facilities. He manufac- tures first-class grades of pure roller flour, and has a trade which extends beyond his own immediate section. Within late years no other branch of industry in this county has made such marked improvement and progress as milling, and Mr. Prizer was one among the first in the county outside of the largest towns to avail himself of the change from the burr to the roller process in the manufacture of flour. His mill is situated close to the Pickering railway, which aftbrds him good shipping facilities. On May 4, 1865,Mr.Prizer married Har- riet Towers, a daughter of Michael and Kebecca Towers, of this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Prizer have been born four chil- dren : Elmer, "Warden (dead), Eondella and Laura L. In politics John Prizer is a stanch repub- lican, who always supports the cardinal principles of his party. He was elected as justice of the peace in 1889, and has sei'ved satisfactorily in that office ever since. He is a careful but public-spirited business man, and his management has been so enterpris- ing and Well directed that the value of his milling and other property has increased largely during the last decade. He owns a valuable farm in addition to his mill. The ancestral home of Henry Prizer, the founder of the Prizer family, of which the subject of this sketch is a descendant, was in Germany, which he left to settle in Montgomery county during the last century. His son, John Prizer (grandfather), was born in Upper Providence township, that county, where he died in 1848, at seventy -five years of age. He was a stonemason by trade, an old-line whig in politics, and an Episcopalian in religious belief and church membership. His widow, Margaret Prizer, whose maiden name was Place, died in 1858, at seventy- five years of age. They were the parents of ten children: Josiah, Henry, Elizabeth, Benjamin, Frederick, John, Levi, Isaac, William andNancy. Benjamin Prizer (fath- er), the third son, was born in Skippack township, Montgomery county, November 14, 1806. He learned the milling business, and in 1829 came to East Coventry town- ship, where he operated a grist and saw mill for six years. He then came to Kimberton and purchased an old mill, which he ran until 1867, when he erected the present sub- stantial Prizer flouring mill. In the same year he erected one of the finest residences in the county, for that day, after which he retired from active business life. He was an attendant of the Lutheran church, and an old-line whig and republican in politics, and died December 18, 1880, when in the seventy-fifth year of his age. Benjamin OF CHESTER COUNTY. 781 Prizer was a man of prominence and useful- ness in his community. He had served as a director in two National banks, was often called on to lay out roads, assess lands and act as an administrator, and besides acquir- ing a competency had gained a respected name. His fai-m and lands were a part of the original Penn purchase. On December 8, 1835, he married Catharine Shantz, a daughter of Jacob Shantz, of Lawrencoville. To their union were born five children, one son a*nd four daughters: Franklin, Emeline, Catharine, Elizabeth and John. Of these children all are dead except John Prizer, whose name heads this sketch, and who has followed in thefootsteps of his worthyfather, and done honor to the name of the Prizer family, well known for its integrity, indus- try and usefulness. FRANK B. LUDWICK, a resident of Downingtown and the proprietor of the Dorian paper mill, is one of the self- made and thoroughgoingyoungbusiuess men of the county. He is a son of Samuel and Mary (Benner) Ludwick, and was born in East Cain township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, October 16, 1861. He received his education at Downingtown academy, then under charge of the celebrated Prof. Dun- leavy Long, and at twenty-one years com- menced life for himself as a cattle dealer, which business he followed until 1889. In that year he purchased the paper mill of S. B. Dorian, at Dorian station, four miles north of Downingtown on the East Brandy- wine & "Waynesburg railroad, and success- fully manufactured a good article of hanging paper until 1892, when he enlarged and re- modeled his mill and equipped it with bind- er's board machinery. Although just com- mencing in the manufacture of binder's board, yet the article that he is producing has met with the unqualified approval of experienced binders. His orders are in- creasing from day to day, and his patronage promises to be large and remunerative. Mr. Ludwick is a democrat in politics. He is a thoroughgoing business man, who care- fully studies the details of any enterprise in which he embarks, and allows nothing how- ever small, connected with its operation or management, to escape his attention. Suc- cess has attended him in his various enter- prises and his present field of labor prom- ises to be one of prosperity in the future. The Ludwick family has been resident of Montgomery county for over a century, and Michael Ludwick, the grandfather of Frank B. Ludwick, was a life-long resident of Pottstown, that county, where he followed his trade of blacksmith. He was a member of the Episcopal church, and had five chil- dren : Charles S., Samuel, Harlan, Mary Dowlin and Sallie Vance. Samuel Ludwick (father) was born in 1818, and after follow- ing the occupation of drover for some years, came to Dorian station, in East Cain town- ship, where he still continues to reside. He follows droving and farming to some extent yet. He is a republican and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Samuel Ludwick married Mary Benner, and to their union were born two sons and seven daughters: John, a farnier of TJwchlan township, who married Rebecca Gilbert; Ann, wife of John Rogers, a merchant of Downingtown ; Emma, widow of George Lewis, a farmer of West Brandywiue town- ship, who died in 1888 ; Hannah, married Llewellyn Baldwin, and they are both dead ; Clara Rigg, Thomazine, Allawilda, Frank B. and Laura. Mrs. Mary Ludwick is a 783 BIO GRAPHY AND HISTOR Y daughter of Jonathan and Jennet (HimeR) Benner, who had three children : Hannah Evans, who died in 1886; Anna Chrisman, and Mrs. Mary Ludwick. Jonathan Benner was a son of Jacob and Anna (Hughes) Ben- ner, who were residents of Nantmeal town- ship. Jacob Benner was married three times and had twenty-one children. His first wife, Anna Hughes, died and left seven children, among whom were Jonathan, David, Jacob, Mary and Ann. After her death he married Ellen Smith, and to them were born four children: Philip, Ifathan, Levi and Daniel. His second wife died and he wedded Mary McClain, and by his third marriage had ten children : John, Ezekiel, Jehu, Ella, Jane, Margaret, Anna, Ellen, Elihu and one other. I^AVID DETWlIiER, a leading and useful member of the Methodist Epis- copal church, and an energetic and intelli- gent citizen of Tredyflrin township, is a son of Henry and Catharine (Latshaw) Det- wiler, and was born in Tredyif'rin township, in thegreatChestervalleyof Chestercounty, Pennsylvania, August 22, 1846. He was reared on the farm, received a good busi- ness education, and then engaged in farm- ing, which has been his occupation up to the present time. From 1872 to 1882 he dealt largely in stock. He now owns two good farms, his home farm of one hundred and twenty-eight acres of land and an adjoining farm of ninety-six acres. A republican in politics, he has served his township as su- pervisor for two years, auditor for six years, and as school director for twelve years. He united some years ago with Salem Metho- dist Episcopal church, in which he has been a steward and trustee, and is an exhorter and superintendent of the Sunday school. He has been active and useful in all the political, civil and religious affairs of his community. On February 22, 1871, Mr. Detwiler mar- ried Anna May Wersler, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Beaver) Wersler, of Tredy- ffrin township. To Mr. and Mrs. Detwiler , have been born eight children : George A., Elsie M., Franklin L., Walter D., Lizzie L., Hattie M., Mary L. and Sallie E., the three elder being now members of church. ' David Detwiler is a grandson of Jacob Detwiler, a native of Germany, who came in 1765 or 1770 to near Howellville, where he purchased a large tract of land, which is still known as the "Detwiler Property." He was a farmer, a whig and abolitionist, and died in 1840, at eighty-seven years of age. He was an enthusiastic member and a useful trustee of the Mennonite church. His wife died in 1862, aged ninety years. They had four children, all of whom are dead: Jacob, Sallie Kolb, Henry, and Mary Wismor. Henry Detwiler(father)was born in 1793, near Howellville, where he resided un- til his marriage, after which he removed to Yellow Springs, in East Pikeland township, but soon returned to Howellville. He left the latter place a second time (1832) and settled in the western part of Tredyflrin township, where he died August 1, 1874, aged eighty years. He was an extensive farmer, owning and managing three farms in the last named township. He was a re- publican, and had served as school director and held several other township offices. He was a member, trustee and sacramental steward of the Mennonite church, and a true Christian. Mr. Detwiler married Catharine Latshaw, who was born in 1800, and died in 1879, aged seventy-nine years. She was a OF CHESTER COUSTY. 783 true Christian all her life. Their children were : Jacob, a farmer of Pughtown ; Cath- arine Hustand, now dead ; Isaac, a farmer of Charlestown township; John, who owns two farms in Virginia and two in Chester county ; Elizabeth Funk, of East Vincent township; Mary Funk; Henrj^, dead; Sarah Jacobs; Abraham, a farmer of East Pike- land township; Anna, dead; Susan Jacobs; and David, the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Catharine Detwiler was a daughter of Jacob Latshaw (maternal grandfather), who was born in Germany, and came to East Vincent township, this county, where he resided until his death. QAPT. GEORGE C. M. EICHOLTZ, exaniiner in the United States apprais- er's office at Philadelphia, is a veteran of the civil war and a man of naturally fine mind, whose powers have been carefully trained and cultivated. He is the- youngest son of Henry and Elizabeth (Armstrong) Eicholtz, and was born in the city of Lancaster, Penn- sylvania, January 3, 1835. The faniily is of German origin, its first representative in America, being John J. Eicholtz — formerly spelled Eichholtz — a native of Germany,who emigrated to the United States about 1737, and located in Lancaster, Lancaster county, this State, where he died at an advanced age. His spn, Leonard Eicholtz (grandfather), was born in Lancaster city, where he lived all his life, and died in 1818, at the age of six- ty-six years. He was a leading hotel keeper in Lancaster for many years and a promi- nent member and vestryman of the Luth- eran church of the Holy Trinity in that city. He married Catharine Meyer, of the city of Baltimore, by whom he had a fam- ily of eight children, who lived to maturity : Henry, Jacob, Charles, Leonard, George, John, Catharine and Elizabeth. Jacob Eicholtz became a noted artist, and pic- tures from his brush were recently exhibited in the art galleries of Philadelphia. Henry Eicholtz (father) was also a native of Lan- caster city, born July 26, 1785. He died at Do wningtown, Chester county, April 1,1871, at the age of eighty-six years. In politics he was a democrat, and in religion a strict member of the Lutheran church, which he served for many years in the capacity of vestryman. On May 1, 1823, he married Elizabeth Armstrong, and to them was born a family of seven children : Georgeana, Elizabeth C, Leonard H., Mary P., James A., who enlisted in August,1862,and served nine months as captain of Co. F, 124th Pennsylvania infantry, after which he en- listed for three months, and died April 28, 1888 ; Capt. George C. M., the subject of this sketch, and Cecelia. Capt. George C. M. Eicholtz received his education at private schools and the acad- emy of Prof. William H. Wires, at New Loudon, this county. After leaving school he went to Philadelphia and obtained a sit- uation with Conrad & Roberts, importers of hardware, where he remained nearly four years, becoming familiar with every detail of the business. Leaving Philadelphia he entered the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as agent at Downing- tovvn, and occupied that position until the breaking out of the civil war. August 19, 1861, he enlisted in Co. B, 53d Pennsylvania infantry, as a private, but was promoted to first lieutenant before leaving Harrisburg. Some time later he was commissioned cap- tain, and served as such until his discharge in September, 1863, on account of injuries received in the service. He participated in 784 BIOGRAPHY AND UlSTOMY the sie^e of Yorktown during McOlellan's peninsular campaign, and the battles of Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, second Bull Run, Antietamand JB'redericksburg, beside a num- ber of skirmishes. At the battle of Fair Oaks, March 31,1862, hewas woundedinthe hand, and in the wild struggle at Fredericks- burg, December 13th of the same year, was so severely injured in the right ankle as to be unfit for further duty, and was conse- quently discharged. He then returned to Chester county, and in the fall of 1863 was nominated and elected to the position of register of wills for the county of Chester for a period of three years. After the ex- piration of his term of office he returned to Downiiigtown and embarked in general merchandizing, which business he success- fully conducted until 1876, when he was ap- pointed to a position in the United States appraiser's oflace at Philadelphia, in which he is now serving as examiner. Captain Eicholtz is an ardent republican in politics, and a member of Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock Post, No. 255, Grand Army of the Republic, having been its first com- mander. In the various walks of life Cap- tain Eicholtz has maintained a high char- acter for honesty, integrity and uprightness, and his superior ability is everywhere con- ceded. He is aflable and courteous in man- ner, and popular wherever known. J^AVIS KNAUER, of Saint Peters, this county, enjoys the distinction of being the largest granite paving block producer in the State of Pennsylvania, beside having large businesss connections in other lines of trade. This gentleman, who is the embod- iment, of energy and business enterprise, and has won a wide reputation, not only in his own State but in other parts of America, is the only surviving son of David and Cath- arine (Keim) Knauer. He was born Janu- ary 25, 1826, at Knauertown, Warwick town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he was reared and received such education as could be obtained in the public schools. He inherited an aptitude for business, and when sixteen years of age he built a small shop and made a carriage complete, for the use of which he was paid three dollars by a young neighbor who had just got married and wanted the finest carriage in the coun^ try in which to make his bridal trip. At eighteen he embarked in the lumber trade, purchasing land at Knaurtown on which he erected a saw mill and large stone house, and has been more or less connected with the lumber business all his life. In 1841 he invented the common cider mill, which grinds apples between cylinders, and which is now in use all over the globe. For a num- ber of years he made from five to six thous- and barrels of cider annually, and still has a fine cider mill which runs by water power. In 1868 he built the present forge at St. Peter's falls, and in 1872 erected the forge at Douglasville at a cost of more than thir- teen thousand dollars. In the same year he purchased seventeen hundred acres of tim- ber land of the Warwick estate, paying therefor the sum of thirty thousand dollars. In 1888 he engaged in quarrying granite blocks for use in paving the streets of large towns and cities, and now owns eight hun- dred acres of granite quarry land. Like his other enterprises this business has proved successful under his management, and he now employs one hundred and fifty quarry- men. He now owns, and operates what is perhaps the largest granite quarry in the State of Pennsylvania, having an annual out- OF CHESTER COVNTY. 785 put of one million paving blocks worth sixty dollars per thousand. During the last year he has paid out more than sixty thous- and dollars for making paving blocks, burn- charcoal and purchasing supplies. lie owns some three thousand acres of land, seven- teen hundred of which lie in the vicinity of Douglasville, Berks county; four hundred acres at Hopewell, Chester county ; one hun- dred and fifty in St. Mary's, this county, five hundred in Coventry township; four hundred near tlie falls of French creek, this county; five hundred acres of iron ore land in "West Virginia, and five hundred acres of timber land in the State of Washington. These lands are among the most valuable in the United States, and taken with Mr. Knauer's numerous manufacturing enter- prises, extending their ramifications into various parts of Chester and adjoining coun- ties, form an imposing monument to the ability, enterprise and remarkable success which distinguishes this brilliant man of aflairs. In his political aflaliations Mr. Knauer is a stanch I'epublican, though too much engrossed in business to take an active part in the polities of the State. In his domestic relations Mr. Knauer has been as happy as he has been successful in business life. On December 17, 1857, he married Sarah Amanda Roberts, a daughter of John and Elizabeth Roberts, of War- wick township, this county. To their union was born a family of twelve children, only eight of whom — two sons and six daugh- ters — are now living: Ida, married Jacob Brown, a prosperous farmer of West ISTant- meal township; Anna, living at home with her parents; Mary, now the wife of Horace Latshaw, a farmer residing near Spring City, in East Vincent township ; David, who wed- ded Essie Halderman, and is now engaged in the coal business at St. Peter's; Maurice, living with his parents, and emploj'ed in the management of a large saw mill ; Bertha, Bessie and Ella, residing with their parents. The Knauers are of direct German de- scent, the paternal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Jacob Knaur, having been born in the Fatherland, which he left to seek a new home in the western world during our colonial period. After reach- ing America he came to Chester county and settled in Warwick township, where he became a large land owner, securing five hundred acres from the original Penn grant. He was a hotel keeper,'and also built and operated the first mill at what is now known as Knauertown. This mill was erected be- tween 1780 and 1790, but has since been remodeled and enlarged, and is now owned by John Loch. Jacob Knaur was the father of two sons, Jacob and John, the former of whom inherited the hotel, and property known as "Pig's Eye," and the la.tter the mill and the lands connected with it. John Knaur (grandfather) was a native of Chester county, born in Warwick township about 1720, and lived all his life in this county, dying in 1800, at the age of four score years. He followed the occupation of miller for many years, and was also engaged in farm- ing to some extent. He was very success- ful in business and became well known and prominent in this community, and it was he who founded the little hamlet of Knauer- town, which was so named in his honor. In politics he was an old line whig, and for many years a strict member of the German Reformed church. He married and reared a family of eight children: Stuffle, John, Daniel, David, Tobias, Jonathan, Elizabeth and Barbara, all of whom are now deceased. David Knauer (father) was born in Warwick 786 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY township, this county, December 12, 1778. There he grew to manhood, receiving a good education in tVie public schools, and in that township he resided all his life. After leaving school he learned the trade of mason and followed that occupation many years, but passed the latter part of his life in ag- ricultural pursuits. He died at his home in Warwick township July 28, 1848, in the seventieth year of his age. He married Catharine Keim,adaughterof George Keim, of Warwick village, and to their union was born a family of nine children, four sons and five daughters : Betsie, Jesse, Thomas, Daniel, Ifancy, Catharine, Martha, Davis and Esther A. All this family are now dead except the eldest daughter, Betsie, and Da- vis, the subject of this sketch. The mother, Mrs. Catharine Knauer, died November 14, 1856, aged seventy years, five months and four days. V JOHN REES, a paper manufacturer o^ Aldham, who is also engag'ed in the coal, feed and flour business there, is an- other of that large class of energetic and successful business men to which the county is indebted for much of its prominence and and progress. He is the eldest son of Jon- athan and Susan (Young) Rees, and was born March 6, 1849, in Charlestown town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His education was received in the public schools of his native township and at a private school in Phoenixville. Soon after leaving school he engaged in the lumber and coal business at Phoenixville, which he success- fully conducted for a number of years, and in 1876 embarked in the manufacture of paper at Aldham, his product being princi- pally what is known to the trade as "bind- er's board." In 1885 he added to this busi- ness that of coal, feed, flour and fertilizers, in which he has been successful and now has a good trade. In politics Mr. Eees is one of the stalwart republicans, and has served as school director of his township for more than a dozen years, being secretary of the board for ten years of that time. He is a prominent member of the Presbyterian church at Charlestown, and has served his church in the capacity of elder for a num- ber of years. He has also been a director of the PhcBnix Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany several years. On January 20, 1876, Mr. Rees was mar- ried to Mary Emily Powell, a daughter of the late Moses Powell, of West Pikeland township, who was for many years a mer- chant of this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Rees have been born six children, only three of whom are now living: John Garfield, born July 31, 1883; Sidney Powell, born February 12, 1886 ; and Mary Emma, born August 19, 1887. The deceased were Ferdie, Sue Anna, and Ellen May. The Rees family' is of Welsh descent and has long been resident in Pennsylvania. James Rees, a son of Samuel Rees, of Pike- land township, was the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, and was born in Chester county about 1777. He died on the old homestead in Charlestown township in 1825, aged about forty-eight years. He was afarmerby vocation, and married Sarah Davis, by whom he had a family of three sons: Samuel, died in childhood; Samuel Davis, also died young; and Jonathan. Jonathan Rees (father) was born July 14, 1819, on the old Rees homestead in Charles- town township, where he has lived all his life, except about twenty years spent at Phojnixville, during five of which he was OF CHESTER COUNTY. 787 engaged in the coal and lumber- business. In his earlier years he was a school teacher, and later devoted his attention for a time to agricultural pursuits. In 1875 he assisted in organizing the Phoenixville Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and upon the comple- tion of its organization was elected secre- tary of the company, a position he occupied till his resignation, February 1, 1893, dis- charging its duties with marked ability and in various ways contributing to the great success which has attended that enterprise, lie now owns the old homestead on which he resides, beside being the proprietor of a paper mill, which has been in successful operation since 1845, a coal yard on the home farm, and other enterprises. In the management of all these concerns he has met with success, and for a number of years has been in independent circumstances. In 1856 he voted for John C. Fremont, and was a republican in politics until about 1880, when he became a prohibitionist, having al- ways been a strong temperance advocate. He has held nearly all the offices in his township, and has always been public spir- ited and active in every movement calcula- ted to benefit or build up his community or county. In religion he is a member and firm adherent of the Presbyterian church, and liberal in his support of the various in- terests of that denomination. He married Susan Young, who was born November 2, 1827, and is a daughter of John and Anna Maria (Harmafl) Young, late of Charles- town township. Anna Maria Harman was a daughter of John and Catharine Harman, who came to this country from Wurtemburg, Germany, with the Rapp colony, about the year 1805, and settled for a short time only at Economy, near Pittsburg. By this union Mr. Rees had a family of thirteen children, six sons and seven daughters : John, whose name heads this sketch; James, married Martha Snyder, and died in September, 1891; Kate, died in August, 1877, aged twenty-four; Sallie D., married Hilborn D. Rennard, a prosperous fanner of Tredyft'rin township; Annie M., living at home; Em- ma, died in 1877, at the early age of nine- teen ; Frank, now engaged in the coal and feed business at Oak Station, Montgomery county; David, deceased in 1883, aged twenty-three years; Lizzie, married Charles Walley, of Nantmeal village, and died in 1889, leaving a young daughter, Sarah E. Walley, in the care of her grandparents; Sue, formerly a clerk in the Farmers' and Mechanics' bank at Phoenixville, but now residing in California; Agnes Wells, an ex- pert typewriter in the office of the Ladies' Home Journal in Philadelphia; Grace L., a teacher in an adjoining township; and Harman D., at home with his parents. The subject of this sketch has at various times been overrun with orders for the pro- ductions of his "board" paper mill, and has lately added steam power to increase his facilities for filling orders and to facilitate drying the product. TA/ H. burns, whose record as a progressive business man is one of achievement and remarkable success, is a son of Peter and Ellen J. (Dyson) Burns, and was born at Berwyn,in Easttown town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, iN'ovem- ber 5, 1857. He attended the common schools of Easttown and Tredyffrin town- ships, and after receiving a good English education he learned the trade of a carpen- ter with William H. Webster. In 1878, at the end of his three years' apprenticeship, 788 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY he commenced life for himself, and in a short time engaged in contracting, which he has followed ever since. His ability and industry soon carried him forward from the building of dwelling houses to the erecting of public buildings, and within the last eleven years his career of success has been as steady as it has been remarkable. He has erected sixteen stations on the Pennsylvania rail- road, beside building the fine Berwyn bank structure, the public school buildings of Ber- wyn, and the Berwyn Presbyterian church, and many elegant and tasteful residences in different pai'ts of the county. Mr. Burns owns and operates the Berwyn planing mill, in which he prepares most of his building lumber, and in his business, including his contract help and mill force, he employs forty -five men, whose weekly wages aggre- gate six hundred dollars. He has built up a contract business in his line of work sec- ond to none in the county and equalled by few iu the State. W.H.Burns is of that class of self-made men who have a relish for hard and persistent labor, and possess a genius for overcoming obstacles and making circum- stances the obedient servants of their will. He has won success by system, energy and the ability to read the future effects of present causes in the business world. He is a republican in politics, and a member and trustee of the Presbyterian church. On July 20, 1881, Mr. Burns married Ximena M., daughter of Enoch S. and Mary J. Wells, of Berwyn, Pennsylvania. To Mr. and Mrs. Burns have been born six chil- dren, five sons and one daughter: Austin M., Lotta M., Willie D., Carroll H., Roy W. and Louis W. The Burns family is of Scotch descent, and Isaac Burns, the paternal great-grand- father of -W. H. Burns, was a native of Ches- ter county, where he died in July, 1830. His wife was Margaret Greene, of English descent. Their son, Peter Burns, sr. (grand- father), was born about 1795, and lived at Berwyn, where his occupation was for some time that of farming, and where he died in 1877. He was a soldier in the war of 1812. He was a cabinet maker by trade, and dur- ing the late civil war was engaged at Phil- adelphia in working in the navy yard of the United States. After the war he returned to his farm of seventy-five acres, ou a part of which the present town of Berwyn is built. He was a republican, and a member of Berwj'n Presbyterian church, whose or- iginal house of worship he was largely in- strumental in erecting. He married Eliza- beth Jones, who was of Welsh descent, and had seven children: Benjamin, Isaac, Han- nah, Eliza, Peter, Sallie J. and Henry, who died from the effects of a wound received at the battle of Chattanooga during the civil war. Peter Burns (father) was born May 12, 1827, in Philadelphia, and is a stone mason by trade. He has followed contract- ing on masonry work for a business, and has, until within the last few years, made a specialty of stone bridges. He is an active and well posted republican, and a trustee of Berwyn Presbyterian church. He is also a member of Berwyn Lodge, No. 999, Inde- pendent order of Odd Fellows ; and Thomp- son Lodge, ^0. 340, Free and Accepted Masons, and in the Masonic fraternity has attained a high rank, being a third degree Mason. He married Ellen J. I>7son, daugh- ter of John Dyson, of Millerstown, Perry county, Pennsylvania. Their children are : William Henry, Estella J., Joseph S., John D., Frank L., Anna May, Martie and Bessie. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 789 QEOKGE B. JOHNSON, a member of the Chester county bar since 1880, and a public speaker of considerable repute, is a son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Coale) Johnson, and was born February 8, 1858, near Parkesburg, Sadsbury township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania. The founder of this branch of the family was Robert John- son, who came from England with a party of English and Irish Quakers in 1725, and located inNew Garden township,this county, where he came into possession of four hun- dred acres of land, from one of the original land grants. From him through Benjamin Johnson, the subject of this sketch is de- scended. Benjamin Johnson went to Phila- delphia at an early day and became one of the pioneer book publishers of that city. His mother, Elizabeth Ferree Coale, a daughter of William Coale, of Harford coun- ty, Maryland, and Elizabeth Ferree Brinton, of Paradise township, Lancaster count}', Pennsylvania, is descended from the early set- tlers of Maryland and Pennsylvania ofQua- kerand French Huguenot origin. Thecolo- niallaws of Massachusetts prohibited Qua- kers from coming into the colony. " And if a Quaker was found there not coming by sea, he was to be punished by death." Sewell records that in 1661 Josiah Coale went from England to Virginia, and from thence trav- eled on foot, in winter, through the wilder- ness to Ifew England, to advocate liberty of conscience to the stern followers of John Eiidicott. The history of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, records the annals of the exile, John Ferree, a French Huguenot, who was driven from France, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and took refuge in Lan- dau, Germany, where he died in the cause of Calvin, and his family came to the Pequea valley among the first pioneers. 46 George B. Johnson received a good edu- cation, graduating at the Westtown Friends ' school, and later pursuing a post graduate course equivalent to completing the junior ye.ar at Harvard, under Prof. J. H. Worrall at West Chester. After completing his studiesand leavingschoolhe engaged in civil engineering for a time, being thus employed for nearly three years. In 1876 he was ap- pointed to a position in the bureau of awards of the centennial exposition at Philadelphia, and spent the summer and autumn of that year in discharging the duties connected therewith. He then entered the law office of Oliver Sidwell, Esq., at West Chester, and began preparing himself for the legal profession under the tuition of Hon. Joseph J. Lewis, one of the ablest lawyers in the State. After having completed the pre- scribed course of reading and passed the nec- essary examination, he was, in September, 1880, duly admitted to practice in the courts of Chester county. He soon afterward opened a law office in this city and has ever since been industriously occupied in the le- gal duties connected with his profession. On May 29, 1889, Mr. Johnson was mar- ried to May Cooke, a daughter of Dr. George Cooke, of Oxford, this county. She is an estimable lady of many admirable qualities and very popular among her many friends. In politics Mr. Johnson is a republican and generally takes an active part in political campaigns, frequently doing his party ex- cellent service as a speaker on the stump. Ij MORGAN RUTH, the popular and * * efficient clerk of the court of Chester county, and a man who has done much for the material development and upbuilding of this section of the State, is the second son 790 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY of Davis and Margaret (Griffith) Ruth, aud was born January 25, 1845, at Malvern, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The family is of Welsh extraction, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch being among the early settlers of Chester county, and dy- ing near Green Tree, at an advanced age. He was a mechanic by occupation, married and reared a family, among whom was David Ruth (grandfather). The latter was born in this county, where he married Mar- garet Kitzseling and became a prosperous and well-known citizen. lie was also a me- chanic and resided for many years at Green Tree, aud it was there that he closed his earthly career. His wife lived to be ninety- three years old. Among their children was Davis Ruth (father), born jn Chester county in 1817. After attaining manhood he be- came a carpenter and builder, and being an excellent workman and scrupulously honfest in the execution of contracts, soon found himself with a good business, and his ser- vices in constant demand. Originally adem- ocrat in politics, he espoused the republican cause in the early years of that organiza- tion, and ever after remained a faithful ad- herent of that party. He was a member of the Willistown Baptist church, and served it as trustee for many years, dying at Green Tree in December, 1890, after a busy life spanning three quarters of a century. In early manhood he united in marriage with Margaret Griffith, a daughter of John Grif- fith, of this county, and to them was born a family of eight children, six sons and two daughters : David N"., who enlisted in Co. C, 97th Pennsylvania infantry, early in the civil war, and died of yellow fever at Hilton Head, South Carolina, in 1862 ; H. Morgan, the subject of this sketch; Emma, married Stephen Eachus, of the borough of West Chester; James G., now trainmaster on the central division of the Pennsylvania rail- road, and residing at Media; John A., a passenger conductor on the same division of the Pennsylvania road, with residence in the city of Philadelphia; Margaret K., em- ployed in the clerk of court's office at West Chester; William E., an engineer in the employ of the Pennsylvania railroad; and Elmer E., a carpenter of Malvern, this county. The mother of these children, Mrs. Mar- garet Ruth, is still living, and is now in the seventy-second year of her age. H. Morgan Ruth received a good English education in the common schools of his na- tive county, and after leaving school learned the trade of carpenter with his father. In October, 1871, he began business on his own account as a carpenter, contractor and builder, and his energy and ability soon re- sulted in building up a large and flourishing business. lie continued to give his per- sonal attention to this enterprise until the fall of 1890, when he was elected clerk of the court of Chester county. Since that time the management of this part of his business has been in the hands of his young- est brother, Elmer E. His building opera- tions have been conducted on an extensive scale and have extended to all parts of the county. He has erected not less than four- teen of the handsome churches in which the people of this county worship, and many of the residences of persons of wealth and taste are the embodiment of his handiwork. In the prosecution of this business he has demonstrated the possession of great abil- ity as an architect and designer, as well as the power to translate the plans of other men into finished edifices. On the 9th day of May, 1871, Mr. Ruth was united in marriage to Annie E. Fulton, OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 791 a daughter of Joseph Fulton, of Delaware county, this State. To this union was born a family of five children,, three sons and two daughters : Charles R., born July 30, 1872; Emma B., born Jan- uary 24, 1874; Annie E., born June 10, 1881 ; M. Warren born September 18, 1885 ; and Allen, born July 16, 1890. Two of these children, Annie and Allen, died in infancy. In politics Mr. Ruth has always been a stanch' republican, giving his party a uni- form support on all leading questions. He has served as a school director in the town- ship of Willistown for the extended period of eleven years, during five of which he has been president of the board. In 1890 he became the candidate of his party for the office of clerk of the court of Chester county, and was elected to that responsible position in the autumn of that year. He soon after entered upon the discharge of the duties connected with the office, and with his us- ual comprehension of the situation and care- ful management of details, has succeeded in rendering satisfaction alike to the court and the mass of people who have business with it. He is a prominent member of the Ma- sonic fraternity, being connected with Thom- son Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons; Philadelphia Chapter, No. 169, Royal Arch Masons; and St. Albans Com- maudery, No. 54, Knights Templar. He is also a member of the Patriotic. Order Sons of America. He served as a member of Co. B, 43d Pennsylvania militia, during Lee's invasion of this State in 1863, and is now connected with General McCall Post, No. 31, Grand Army of the Republic, at West Chester. In religion he is a Baptist, being an active supporter of the various in- terests of his denomination. HENRY PAINTER, who died at his home in West Chester, February 5, 1898, was the popular and efficient manager of the Delaware & Atlantic Telephone Com- pany, whose headquarters are at West Ches- ter. He was the seventh of the nine sons of Samuel M. and Ann (Vickers) Painter, and was born in West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, in May, 1849. This family was planted in America previous to 1705, by Samuel Painter, who came from England and settled in the city of Philadel- phia. His son Samuel purchased five hun- dred and thirty-two acres of land in Bir- mingham, in 1707, and the father bought land adjoining him in 1711. The son mar- ried Elizabeth Buxcey at Concord meeting, April 7, 1716, and had six children : Mary, married Isaac Gilpin; Samuel, great-great- grandfather of the subject of this sketch ; John, married first to Agnes Cobourn and second Sarah Yeatman ; Thomas, married Grace Cloud; Ann, became the wife of Robert Chamberlin ; and Lydia. Samuel Painter (great-great-grandfather) married Esther Gilpin, a daughter of Joseph and Hannah Gilpin, of Birmingham township, on June 5, 1741, and their children were : James, who married Jane Carter ; George ; Lydia, married Isaac Baily; Joseph, great- grandfather of Henry; Thomas, Hannah, married Joseph Townsend, of Baltimore ; and Samuel. Joseph Painter (great-grand- father) was born April 1, 1748, and died October 24, 1804. He was a cloth fuller by occupation, and lived most of his life in East Bradford, now Birmingham, township, this county. He married Elizabeth Wood- ward, who was born June 12, 1748, and died August 24, 1808. She was a daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Kirk) Woodward, and bore him five children. Of these 792 BIOGSAPSY AND HIST OB Y Joseph Painter (grandfather), was born July 5, 1782, and died August 12, 1855. At Bradford, meeting, on September 12, 1805,hemarriedLydia Marshall, a daughter of Samuel and Rachel Marshall, of West Bradford. She was born August 2, 1788, and died May 10, 1857. They resided for many years in East Bradford, but removed to West Chester in 1829, where Mr. Painter became the founder and editor of the Anti- Masonic Register, afterward changed in name to Register and Examiner. He was also en- gaged in the manufacture of woolen goods for a time in Birmingham. Politically he was an ardent whig, and being a man of strong character he wielded a controlling in- fluence in local politics for many years. He was a strong abolitionist, a firm temperance advocate, an able writer and a first-class business man, accumulating considerable property. It has been well said of him that he "was a humanitarian in its broadest sense, a friend of liberty and good society, and a foe to t^-ranny, whether in govern- mental, religious or mental economics, and for a long period Avas the brilliant and trusted leader of a party whose most able exponent he was with his trenchantpen and iron will." By his marriage to Lydia Marshall he had a family of eleven children : Mary Ann, born July 11, 1806, and died November 11, 1809; Rachel M., born April 17, 1808, died ISTovembcr 15, 1865 ; Samuel M., father of Henry; Elizabeth P., born May 31, 1813, married Jose])h Vickers, and died Septem- ber 8, 1863 ; Lydia S., born August 3, 1815, died' November 24, 1832 ; Sarah, born De- cember 8, 1816, died June 30, 1817 ; Joseph H., born October 5, 1818, married Esther Kersey, February 19, 1840; Mary H., born September 30, 1820, married Chalkley M. Valentine, December 30, 1840; James G., born May 12, 1823, married Mary H. Pierce ; Cyrus P., born November 20, 1825, married Abigail A. Alison ; and Thomas, born July 7, 1830. Samuel M. Painter (father) was born Sep- tember. 16, 1809, in Birmingham township, this county, and died at West Chester, in 1882, aged seventy-three years. He spent his boyhood on the farm, and received a good common school education, which he afterward supplemented by a wide course of reading. On reaching man's estate he em- barked in merchandising, and in 1844 opened a lumber yard at West Chester, which busi-. ness he continued to follow until his death, when it passed into the hands of his son, Uriah H. Painter. Politically he was a whig and republican, taking an active interest in local politics, and always firmly supporting the policy and principles of his party. He w^as a Quaker in religion, and on October 17, 1839, married Ann Vickers, a daughter of John and Abigail Vickers, of Uwchlan township, this county. To this union was born a family of nine sons, five of whom still survive. One of these is John B. Painter, the Cleveland, Ohio, millionaire, who is now traveling in Europe, and another is Uriah H. Painter, engaged in the lumber business at West Chester. The others were : William, now deceased; Francis J., now in Europe; J. Elwood, died in Yokahoma, Japan, while serving in the United States navy; Albert P., resides in Florida, where he is engaged in growing oranges; Henry, the subject of this sketch, who died at his home in West Chester, February 5, 1893; Howard, who studied in Europe, graduating at Friedberg, Germany, served as a com- missioner to the Vienna exposition in 1878, and died recently at San Francisco, Cali- fornia; and Clarence, who died in early OF CHESTER COUNTY. 793 childhood. Mrs. Ann Painter died in 1890, at an advanced age. Her father, John Vick- ers, was a native of Pennsylvania, came to Chester while yet a young man, and died in Uwchlan township. He was a potter by trade, a strong abolitionist and prominent in the "underground railroad." Henry Painter was reared principally at West Chester and received a superior Eng- lish education, studying first in the public schools here, where he spent nearly all his life, and later in the Millersville State Nor- mal school, and a popular boarding school in New Jersey. After leaving school he was variously employed until he became in- terested in the Delaware & Atlantic Tele- phone Company, of which he was manager at the time of his death. In politics he ad- hered to the traditions of his family, and was a life-long republican, earnestly supporting that party on all general questions, but in- clined toward independent action in local aftairs. Mr. Painter never married. ■j^ANIEL W. FISHER, one of Tredy- fi'rin township's substantial farmers,who served as a Union soldier in some of the hardest battles of the array of the Potomac, is a son of Abraham and Ann (McDowell) Fisher, and was born in Shippenham town- ship, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, May 20, 1839. He was reared in his na- tive county, where he received his educa- tion, and in 1860 came with his father to Tredyffrin township. Two years later, on August 15, 1862, he enlisted at Upper Me- rion in Co. I, 129th Pennsylvania infantry, and served as a private until May 12, 1864, when he was honorably discharged at Har- risburg, this State. His regiment was a part of the second brigade, third division. fifth corps of the army of the Potomac, and he participated in the battles of Chantilley, second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antie- tam, Sheppardstown, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. After returning home he resumed farming, which he has successfully followed ever since. His farm contains ninety-two acres, is well improved and very productive. Mr. Fisher is a republican in politics, and has served as supervisor of Tredyftrin township. He is a member of Thompson Lodge, No. 340, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, and ranks as an active and progressive farmer in the community where he now resides. The .Fisher family in this country was founded by Malachi Fisher, who came from England and settled in Montgomery county, where his son, Malachi Fisher, jr., was born, and learned the trade of shoemaker. He worked at liis trade during his active years, was a member of the Society of Friends, and married a woman who was a minister of that religious denomination. They reared a family of six children, three sons and three daughters. Their son, Abra- ham Fisher (father), was born at White Marsh, Montgomery county, July 9, 1804, and in 1840 removed to "Chestnut Hill," Philadelphia, which he soon left to return to Upper Merion in his native county. In 1860 he again left Montgomery county and settled in Tredyftrin township, this county, where he died May 12, 1890, when well ad- vanced in the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was an extensive farmer, and in politics was a whig and republican. While a resi- dent of Montgomery county he served one term as supervisor of White Marsh town- ship. He was a member of Friends' meet- ing, and married Ann McDowell. To their union was born nine children : Sarah Stout. 794 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Rebecca Nice, Amanda, Mary Eliza (dead), Malachi, William, Elwood, Daniel W. and Susan, now deceased. The Fisher family is well known for its industry, morality and thrift. QEORGE HIMES, a reliable citizen of West Pikeland township, who has al- was been engaged successfully in agricultural pursuits, is a son of David and Martha (Tal- by) Himes, and was born May 15, 1844, on the farm on which he now resides, in West Pike- laud township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania. He grew to manhood on the pa- ternal acres, where he was carefully trained to agricultural pursuits and habits of hon- esty and economy, received his education in the common schools of WestPikeland town- ship, and" then engaged in farming, which he has followed successfully ever since. He has always resided upon the home farm, which he now owns. It contains thirty- seven acres of good farming land, and within the last few years Mr. Himes has purchased an adjoining farm of fifty acres, and started a dairy, which has yielded him very fair profits. At the time of the Pittsburg riots in 1877, he was a member of the National guard of Pennsylvania, and served for sev- eral weeks with his regiment which was engaged in quelling that lawless outbreak and restoring order in the "Iron City." He is a stanch supporter of the Republican party, and willingly performs any service required of him at any time to secure Re- publican success and victory. He has by due dilligence, prospered in life, and secured for himself a good home, surrounded with all the substantial comforts of to-day. Greorge Himes married Sarah Sloyer, a daughter of George Sloyer. David Himes, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in August, 1810, on the farm where he has always resided. He followed farming during the active years of his life, and now, at eighty-two years of age, is in good health. He was a whig, and when that party went down, became a republican. He married Martha Talby, and to their union were born ten children, among whom were John, Maria (deceased), Elmira Prizer, George, the subject of this sketch ; Victoria Snyder, Nelson and William. TA/lLLIAM C. DYER, an industrious and comfortably situated farmer resid- ing near Phoenixville, is a son of Henry and Mary C. (Coft'man) Dyer, and was born May 23, 1846, on a farm now within the borough limits of Phcenixville, and adjoining the farm on which he now resides in Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on the farm, received his education in the public schools and at an academy of Phoenixville, and then assisted his father in farming until the death of the latter in 1889. Since then he has managed the home farm successfully, and has now about completed the necessary arrangements for its purchase. This farm consists of sev- enty-two acres of well improved land. Mr. Dyer is a republican in politics, and after the completion of his fifth term as super- visor of Schuylkill township in 1892, he was elected as a member of the school board. William Dyer, the paternal grandfather of William C. Dyer, was a miller by trade, and ran the Moore Hall mill for several years. He owned a farm of two hundred acres. He was a republican in politics, and reared a family of eight children : Henry, James, Abram, John, Katie Showalter, OF CHESTER COUNTY. 795 Eosanna Coffman, Mary Showalter, and one other. Henry Dyer (father) was born near Williams' Corner, in Schuylkill town- ship, in 1814. He followed farming and teaming in the early years of his life, and later purchased a farm on which a part of Phcenixville is now built. He, soon sold that farm and purchased the one on which he died, in 1889, when in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was a republican in politics, and a member and deacon of the Phcenixville Baptist church, in which he was very prominent and useful. He was an in- fluential man in his township, where he served his fellow-citizens as supervisor, as- sessor and school director. He married Mary C. Coffman and to their union were born four children : Barbara A., who died in childhood ; Hannah C, wife of Jacob M. March, who is the stenographer and assist- ant receiver of the Spring Garden bank, and who served three years in the late war; William C. and Lizzie R. FRANKBEAVER,a well-known farmer and highly esteemed citizen, residing on the old Beaver homestead near Vincent post-oflice, is the only son. of Jacob and Eliza (Colehower) Beaver, and was born in East Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 11, 1857. The Bea- vers are one of the old families of Chester county. Daniel Beaver, paternal grand- father of Frank, was a life-long resident and farmer of Charlestowu township, and died at his home there, at an advanced age. He married and reared a family of four sons: Devalt, Joseph, John and Jacob, all now deceased except the eldest, Devalt. Ja- cob Beaver (father), was a native of Charles- town township, where he grew to manhood and received his education. He was a farmer all his life, accumulated considerable prop- erty, and died in East Vincent township in April, 1890, aged sixty years. Politically he was a stanch democrat, and frequently served asjudge of elections, school director, auditor, and in other official positions in his township. In religion he was a strict Lu- theran, and was one of the organizers of the Kimberton Evangelical Lutheran church, which he served as trustee for many years. He was always punctual in his attendance at church, and liberal in his contributions toward its support. He married Eliza Cole- hower, and by this union had an only son, the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Eliza Bea- ver is still living,, being now in her sixty- second year, and remarkably well preserved for a woman of her age. Frank Beaver was reared principally in East Vincent township, and received a good English education, first attendingthe public schools of his neighborhood and later tak- ing courses of instruction at a private school in Phcenixville and at Professor Lock's sem- inary at I^orristown. After completing his studies and leaving school, Mr. Beaver en- gaged in farming on the old homestead, and that has been his main occupation through life. He came into possession of the farm, containing one hundred and thirteen acres of valuable land, and has added improve- ments until he now owns one of the best farms and finest residences in this section. His farm buildings are all substantial, but his home is especially good, and is ele- gantly furnished. On January 22, 1879, Mr. Beaver was united by marriage to Elmira S. Roland, a daughter of Benjamin Roland, a prosperous farmerofCharlestown township. To their union have been born two children, one son and a daughter': Mary E. and Jacob I. 796 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Politically Mr. Beaver is an ardent demo- crat, as was his father, and has served as inspector of elections, and now occupies the position of assistant assessor of his town- ship. He is a member of East Vincent Ger- man Reformed church, and widely known as a good and useful citizen. He is a nephew of Devalt Beaver and first cousin to George H. Beaver, whose sketches appear elsewhere in this volume, and to those arti- cles reference is made for additional facts concerning the history of this old and highly respected family. QLIVER B. KEELEY was a man of such versatile talent and positive busi- ness ability that he had already climbed the heights which lead to eminence, and stood bathed in the golden sunlight of substantial and hono?able success, when removed by the pitiless hand of death from a career whose brilliant opening left its closing chapters alone with imagination. He had won his way to position side by side with the fore- most business men of Pennsylvania, and his reputation as a manufacturer was co-exten- sive with the State. Yet he who accom- plished this, and crowded a few brief years with achievements brilliant enough to crown a long career, never lived to reach manhood's noon, nor feel the full development of his power. He was a son of Joseph and Anna (Markle) Keelej^, and was born April 30, 1845, at Spring City, this county, which afterward became the theatre of his oper- ations, and witnessed his wonderful success. Even as a boy he gave evidence of unusual talent, rapidly acquiring education and reach- ing out in every direction for new facts and additional information, which by the chem- istry of intellect were transmitted into act- ual knowledge, and became a part of his working capital in practical business. While yet a lad he took and held a position as draughtsman with his father's firm, Keeley & Brownback, one of the largest contract- ing, building and lumber dealing concerns in the city of Philadelphia. While still young Oliver B. Keeley be- came a partner with his brother-in-law, Mr. Shantz, in the stove foundry at Spring City, under the firm name of Shantz & Keeley. Here he found ample scope for his great ability and that spirit of intelligent enter- prise with which he was gifted, and it was not long till their modest business began to feel the quickening effects of his superior management in every department. At the flood tide of their new prosperity, July 5, 1880, a disastrous fire destroyed their plant, and left ashes alone to mark the seat of former activity and wealth-producing in- dustry. In the autumn of that year Mr. Shantz sickened and died. Mr. Keeley im- mediately rc-organized the business under the firm name of 0. B. Keeley & Co., rebuilt the works, and with the calm assurance that marks the masterful mindj started in to re- trieve the misfortunes he had sustained. With that steady push and trained energy which characterizes the practical man of affairs in his native element, he threw himself into the business with a vim and vigor that chal- lenged the admiration of men and dis- counted failure before its paper could be drawn. Once more the enterprise felt his electric touch, and as trade increased the shops were enlarged, until the stove works of 0. B. Keeley & Co. became the most important industrial enterprise at Spring City, and were recognized as the bone and sinew of the business life of the town. ?. @^ OF CHESTEB COUSTY. 799 This was the condition of aftairs on June 13,1881, when Mr. Keeley met instant death in a railway accident near Spuyten Duyvil, on the Hudson River road. He had not yet reached life's meridian, being only in his thirty-sixth year, but his wide reputation andthe universal respect and esteem in which he was held was well attested by the genu- ine sorrow everywhere displayed, and the tremendous out-pouring of people to attend his obsequies. The funeral was conducted by his Masonic Lodge, assisted by delega- tions of Masons from Philadelphia, Norris- town, Pottstown, and other points in this and adjoiningcounties, and was perhaps the largest ever held in Spring City. All the men from his shops and stove works at- tended the service in a body, wearing black satin badges upon Avhich was inscribed "Employees of 0. B. Keeley & Co." The press of his own county and of the city of Philadelphia paid eloquent tribute to his distinguished business ability and great per- sonal worth. Mr. Keeley, although young in years, had w^on his way to prominence in the Masonic circles of the State, being a member of Spring City Lodge, No. 653, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he was a charter member and the first worshipful master after its organization ; and also a member of Phoenix Chapter, ISo. 198, Royal Arch Masons, at Phceuixville, and of Jerusa- lem Commandery,No. 15, Knights Templar. Oliver B. Keeley was united in marriage -to Mary E. Staufter, a daughter of John and Mary (Beary) Staufter, of East Coventry township, this county. They had only one child, a daughter, named Clara Staufter, who is now living with her mother in their com- modious and elegant home at Spring City, which was erected by Mr. Keeley just prior to his death. Mrs. K6eley is an intelligent. cultivated and refined lady, and extremely popular in the social circles of her city and wherever she is known. toENJAMIN H. HALTEMAN, a well known farmer and industrious, useful and respected citizen of this county, is the third son of Jacob and Sarah (Hunsberger) Halteman, and was born in East Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 7, 1841, where he has always re- sided. He grew to maturity on his father's farm, and received a good English education in the public schools here. Later he learned the trade of miller, and has been engaged in farming and milling for a number of years. He owns a nice little farm of fifteen acres of valuable and productive land, which is finely improved and kept in a good state of cultivation. In his political faith Mr. Halte- man is an ardent republican, and while tak- ing no active part in polities, yet earnestly supports the men and measures put forward by his party. In 1865 Mr. Halteman was united in mar- riage with Rachel Detwiler, a daughter of John Detwiler, of East Coventry township, this county, and to them has been born a family of two children, one son and a daugh- ter: Perry and Lizzie, the latter now the wife of George Romig. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, for whom he was named, was Jacob H. Halteman, a native of East Vincent township, this county, where he lived all his life and died at a good old age. By vocation he was a farmer, as his ances- tors had been, and was industrious, ener- getic and successful. Politically he was an old-line whig, and in religion a strict mem- ber of the Mennonite church, taking a deep 800 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY interest in everything calculated to enhance the success of his church or benefit his fel- low man. He married Fannie Funk and was the father of eight children, six sons and two daughtei's. The sons are : Jacob, Christian, John F., Benjamin F., Moses (deceased), and Joseph. Jacob Halteman (father) was born in East Vincent township, this county, about 1815, where he was reared and educated. After his marriage he removed to East Coventry township, where he lived for many years and where he died in 1865, after an active and useful life extending over half a century. He was a farmer, and devoted his tinje entirely to agricultural pursuits. In religion he followed the traditions of his family and adhered to the Mennonite church. Politically he was first a whig and later a stanch republican. He married Sarah Huns- berger, a native of this county, and by this union had a family of five children, four sons and a daughter, all of whom are still living, and all reside in East Coventry town- ship. The eldest, Joseph H., is a farmer and sawmill opera:tor, and married Hannah L. Detwiler, by whom he had three chil- dren — Sarah (now the wife of J. Singleton Wertz), William H. (married to Kate Brel- ton), and Benjamin F. The other sons of Jacob and Sarah Halteman were Samuel, now deceased ; Benjamin H., of whom this sketch is written; and Isaac, who married a Miss Shantz. QEORGE R. WALTON, a well estab- lished business man of Malvern borough and ex-coroner of Chester county, is a son of James and Jane (Thomas) Walton, and was born February 14, 1853, in Solebury township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. He was reared in his native township and in Philadelphia, received his education in the common schools of Bucks county and the High school of the city of Philadelphia, and then, in 1869, became a clerk in a drug store, where he remained until 1882. In that year he came to Malvern and established his present drug store in this village. Mr. Walton keeps a full stock of drugs, gives careful attention to his business and hasa good trade. , His ancestors on the paternal side are of English descent. His grandfather was a native and life-long resident of Solebury township, Bucks county. He followed farm- ing, and reared a family of five children, two sons and three daughters. One of the sons, James Walton, the father of the sub- ject of this sketch, was born in 1811. He resided in his native township and was en- gaged in farming until 1868, in which year he removed to Philadelphia, where he lived a retired life until his death in 1875, when he was in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He was active in the local afiairs of his na- tive township, where he served for several years as a school director. He was a mem- ber of the Society of Friends, and married Jane Thomas, by whom he had a family of eight children, five sons and three daugh- ters, of whom were Jacob, who died in the autumn of 1890 ; Jesse, a resident ot Phila- delphia, who is superintendent of construc- tion there for the Western Union Telegraph Company ; Charles M., of Moore's station, Delaware county; and Albert, now deceased. In politics Mr. Walton is a stanch repub- lican, and has always been active in support of the cardinal principles of his party. He was elected justice of the peace for the bor- ough of Malvern upon its organization in 1890. On January 5, 1891, he was appointed OF CHESTER COUNTY. 801 coroner of Chester county. In addition to his services as a public official he has done considerable work for his party, having served for three years as a menriber of the Republican county and State central com- mittees. George R. Walton married Ida J. Curri- deu, a daughter of William J. Curriden, of Camden, New Jersey. He has always la- bored diligently for the welfare of his boi»- ough, and is a member of Camp No. 548, Patriotic Order Sons of America. ■j^ANIEL, BENNER, who has been a well-known undertaker for fifty-one years, and a leading member of the German Rtjformed church for half a century, is the only son of John and Susannah (Ilolaker) Benner, and was born October 22, 1820, in East Coventry township, Chester county^ Pennsylvania. He grew to manhood in his native county, and received a good English education in the public schools, after which he went into the shop with his father and thoroughly learned the carpenter and cabi- net making business in all its* details. He then became an undertaker, and followed that occupation continuously for more than half a century, retiring in April, 1890, after devoting fifty-one years to the business. His trade was large and at times very re- munerative, extending over a wide territory in Chester county, and reaching parts of three or four adjoining counties. He now owns two fine farms in East Coventry town- ship, and is at present conducting a cream- ery, the second enterprise of the kind ever attempted in this township. He also owns a storehouse and several residences in Potts- town, Montgomery county, all of which he rents. In his political affiliations Mr. Ben- ner has always been democratic, and may be regarded as one of the! old wheel horses of democracy in this section. He has served his township as school director for several terms and is a member of the German Re- formed church, which he has served in the capacity of elder for nearly half a centuryi Daniel Benner married Sarah Ellis, a daughter of James Ellis, who was a native of Ireland, but emigrated to Amei'ica and resided for a time in East Coventry town- ship, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Ben- ner was born a family of children, only two of whom now survive : Anna, married An- drew Wornvanon, a coal and feed dealer of Pottstown, Montgomery county, and has one child — Storer; and Clara, who wedded Maris Brownback, a prosperous farmer of East Coventry township, and has two chil- dren, both daughters — Anna and Sarah. The Benner family has been resident in Chester county since an early day, and is of German origin. Da,niel Benner, paternal grandfather, for whom the subject of this sketch was named, was a native of this county, and died in East Coventry township at an advanced age. He was an extensive and pi'osperous farmer, owning a fine farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres of su- perior land. He married and reared a fam- ily of children, among his sons being John Benner (father) who was born in East Cov- entry township about 1789, and passed away in 1843. He received a good common school education, and afterward learned the trade of carpenter and cabinet maker, which occupation he followed in connection with undertaking during most of bis life. In po- litical aftairs he was always a democrat, and in religion a strict member of the German Reformed church. He was a man of sound judgment, wonderful energy and goodbusi- 803 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY ness ability. He married Susannah Hofaker, a daughter of Philip Hofaker, of South Cov- entry township, this county, and reared a family of seven children, one son and six daughters. A remarkable-thing about this family of girls was the fact-: — which is per- haps without a parallel in the history of the county — that they were three pairs of twins, and all lived to reach maturity. They were : Elizabeth, now deceased ; Maria, who is the widow of Ephraim Mattis, and lives in North Coventry township ; Ann, married Samuel Rigg, a farmer of Union township, Berks county, where they reside; Barbara, the widow of M. Hawk, who lives at Read- ing, this State ; Sarah, married David Wan- ger, a successful farmer of East Coventry township, this county; and Susan, who wed- ded Mahlon Miller, a clothier of Phoenix- ville, this county, where they reside. rrl IliLIAM S. TAYLOR, M. D., a graduate of the Hahnemann Medical college of Philadelphia, and who has been successfully engaged in the practice of his chosen profession at Malvern since 1887, is a son of Mordecai and Rebecca (Thompson) Taylor, and was born near Toughkenamon, in New Garden township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, February 2, 1857. He re- ceived his education at the Kennett Square academy and then took two full business courses — one at Bryant & Stratton's college, Philadelphia, and the other at Asbury Park, New Jersey. After completing his business course at Asbury Park he read medicine for three years with Dr. Hetrick of that place, and then entered Hahnemann Homeopathic Medical college of Philadel- phia, from which he was graduated in the class of 1886. After graduation, in order to better fit and specially qualify himself for his responsible profession, he took a full course in the New York Polyclinic insti- tute, whose treatment of disease is largely ofan allopathic character. Leaving the Poly- clinic institute, he opened an ofiice at As- bury Park, where he remained until the au- tumn of 1887. He then came to Malvern, where he has built up a good practice and stands high in his profession. Dr. Taylor is of English lineage. His pa- ternal grandfather, William Taylor, was born and reared in New Garden township, where he passed his life as a farmer. He married a Miss Vernoji, and to their union were born three children, one son and two daughters. Both daughters died in infancy. The son, Mordecai Taylor (father), was born in 1824, near Toughkenamon, where he was reared and received his education. He followed farming for several years, was next engaged in contracting and buildingat Ken- nett Square, and then removed to West Grove, from which he went to the sea shore for his health. A stay of a few years on the Atlantic coast restored his health, and in 1890 he removed to Philadelphia, where he has lived a retired life ever since. Mr. Taylor is a republican and a member of the Society of Friends. His wife, whose maiden name was Rebecca Thompson, is a daughter of Joel Thompson, a native of New Garden township, who was engaged for many years in the brick manufacturingbusiness at West Chester. To Mordecai and Rebecca Taylor have been born nine children : Spencer, now a carriage manufacturer of Chatham; Mary, Dr. William S., Rachel, Dr. Wilson S., a graduate of St. Louis Homeopathic college, and now practicing in Philadelphia; Annie, wife of Rev. Lawrence Kertzholtz, a Methodist minister of Lebanon county; OF CHESTER COUNTY. 803 Thompson, who died in 1889, at twenty-one years of age ; and Franklin, who died young. Dr. William S. Taylor is a republican in politics, and a member of the Hicksite So- ciety of Friends. He is a pleasant and agreeable gentleman, a skillful and success- ful physician, and an active and intelligent citizen, who commands public respect and the confidence of his patients. On October 15, 1889, Dr. Taylor was united in marriage with Ph'oebe M. Pass- more, daughter of Samuel W. Passmore, of Rising Sun, Maryland. Their union has been blessed with one child, a son, named Herbert, who was born on Christmas day, 1890. J'OHN FRANCIS, whose life has been one of industry and usefulness, is one of the highly respected citizens and success- ful business men of Kimberton. He is the fifth son of Joseph and Susannah (Snyder) Francis, and was born October 17, 1816, in East Pikeland township, this county. He spent his boyhood on the farm, received his education in the common and select schools of his neighborhood, and then assisted his father in farming until 1838. In that jear he embarked in the milling business, which he left nine years later to resume farming, and was successfully engaged therein until 1877, when he came to Kimberton, where he immediately established his present flour, feed and coal business. He is honest and reliable in all his transactions, has a good trade, and enjoys the respect of all with whom he has dealings. In addition to his business interests at Kimberton, he owns a well cultivated farm of forty-three acres of land. Mr. Francis holds to the principles of the Democratic party, which he has al- ways given a hearty support. He is a mem- ber of the German Reformed church of Kimberton, and is ever interested and al- ways active in religious affairs. John Francis is a descendant of the Fran- cis family of Montgomery county, of Eng- lish lineage, and his paternal grandfather, Joseph Francis, was a farmer and life long resident of that county. He w^as a member of theDunkard or Gernian Baptist church. One of his sons was Joseph Francis, father of the subject of this sketch. He was born and reared in Montgomery county, from which he removed in early life to East Pike- land township, this county, where he speiit the remainder of his days in agricultural pursuits. He was a democrat in politics and a member of the Dunkard church, and died at his home in East Pikeland at an ad- vanced age. He married Susannah Snyder, who passed away when in the sixtieth year of her age. They reared a family of seven children, six sons and onedaughter: Thomas, Casper, Arnold, Joaejih, John, Henry and Mary A., now dead. In 1844 John Francis was united in mar- riage with Eliza Defrain, daughter of Bern- ard and Rebecca Defrain, of Chester county. To Mr. and Mrs. Francis have been born two children, a son and a daughter: Arnold, now deceased ; andLydia,the wife of Charles Small, a resident and merchant of the ciry of Philadelphia. JAMES WILSON, a prominent farmer and stock dealer of Kimberton, who for some years was engaged in merchandising at Wilson's Corners, is the only surviving son of John and Mary ( Whitesides) Wilson, and was born March 31, 1820, in the house he now occupies in West Vincent township, 804 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Chester county, Pennsylvania. This family is one of the oldest in the Keystone State, and its members have heen natives of Penn- sylvania since colonial times. Thomas Wil- son, paternal grandfather of James, was born in Chester county, and after attaining man- hood married and took up the land which has ever since been in the family, and which is now owned by the subject of this sketch. Here he passed the remainder of his life, ac- tively engaged in cultivating the soil and improving his farm. Here, too, he died, at an advanced age. Among his children was John Wilson (father), who vras a native of West Vincent township, and died at his home here. He was a farmer by occupa- tion, and in politics a stanch democrat. In religious faith and church membership he was an Episcopalian, and he married Mary Whitesides, of this county. By. this union he had a family of four children, only two of whom now survive : Mary Ann and James, whose name introduces this sketch. James Wilson grew to manhood on his father's farm, which is now his own, and re- ceived his education in the common schools of his neighborhood. Some time after leaving school he embarked in general mer- chandising at Wilson's Corners, and suc- cessfully conducted that business for a pe- riod of nine years, after which he engaged in farming on the old homestead, and like- wise began dealing in live stock. His farm consists of one hundred and twelve acres of valuable land, all well improved and sup- plied with excellent farm buildings. Fol- lowing the political traditions of his ances- tors, he has been a life-long democrat, and has frequently served as judge and super- visor of elections in his township. He also adheres to the religious faith in which he was reared, and for many years has been an active and influential member of the Epis- copal church. James Wilson married Elizabeth C. Em- ery, a daughter of Henry Emery, of West Pikeland township. To their union was born a family of five children, one son and four daughters: Emma, married Abram Pugh of Phoenix, this county ; Clara,Thomas B., who married a Miss Sloyer, and is now engaged in farming in West Vincent town- ship ; Ella, living at home ; and Laura, who became the wife of Ralph P. Bush, of Roy- er's Ford, Montgomery county. Mrs. Eliza- beth C. Wilson, the mother of these chil- dren, is still living. J ACKER G-USS, president of the Spring City Steani Paper and Box Manufacturing Company, and chairman of the Prohibition county committee of Ches- ter, is a son of Jacob and Sarah (Keeter) Gruss, and was born near the old Pikeland church in West Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, December 28, 1848. His great-grandfather, Charles Guss, was a native of Baden, Germany, and settled in what is now East Vincent township prior to the revolutionary war. He was well edu- cated, a good linguist, and became a very successful teacher in Chester county.' Charles Guss was born in 1732, and died September 1, 1795. On July 12, 1761, he toarried Mary Shunk, who was born May 4, 1741, and passed away on April 30, 1821. Their children were: Mary M., Charles, Rachel, Catherine, Elizabeth, Samuel and Salome. One of these sons, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Schuylkill township, and in early life re- moved to Juniata county, where he died. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812 OF CHESTER COUNTY. 805 was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, married and reared a family. His son, Jacob Guss (father), was born near Phceuixville, received his education in the schools of his neighborhood and learned the trade of shoemaker, which he followed for many years. He married Sarah Keeter, a daughter of Henry Keeter, of East Vincent township, who was born April 5, 1803 and died at an advanced age. To them were born ten children : Levi, who died in infancy; Mary A., married Samuel Guss, and died at West Chester; Captain George W., who served as corporal in Co. C, 4th Pennsylvania infantry, raised and commanded Co. A, 138th Pennsylvania in- fantry, and died in 1872 from the effects of a wound received in one of the many battles of the army of the Potomac in which he was engaged; Barbara A., widow of B. F. Grif- fith, a prominent abolitionist and republican, who was one of the pioneer coal operators of Schuylkill county, of which he served one term as recorder; Catherine, who mar- ried F. M. Burger, of Montgomery county, and is now dead ; Frederick E., who re- ceived his education at Pughtown, served with the emergency men of 1863, and is now engaged in teaching in Buffalo, ifew York; Samuel M., now of Reading, this State, and superintendent of the Seyfert rolling mills of Seyfert; Henry F., enlisted in 1861, in Co. H, 68th Pennsylvania in- fantry, and died of typhoid fever on the night of the battle of Fredericksburg; J. Acker; and William E., of St. Louis, Mis- souri, who was educated at the Pennsylvania institute for the deaf and dumb, and is a car builder. J. Acker Guss received his education in the common schools of Chester county and Ursinus college. He commenced life for himself as a clerk for D. S. Taylor, of Spring City, before he had completed his collegiate course. He served as assistant postmaster of East Vincent, and in 1871 engaged in the dry goods business at PhcBnixvillc, where he remained one year. He and D. W. Stoufer then purchased J. G. Yeager's store at Spring City, which they run for one year, when Mr. Guss sold out his interest to Mr. Stoufer, and became an agent for Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co., of New York, and introduced their school books throughout the State. In 1877 he left their employ to en- gage in the wholesale paper and stationery business at Royer's Ford, where, in March, 1884, he established the first printing house of that place, and from which he issued, in March, 1885, the Royer's YovA Bulletin, », monthly paper, which was soon changed to a thirty-two column weekly, now known as the Royer's Ford Tribune.. In March, 1891, Mr. Guss came to Spring City, where he has resided ever since. On January 17, 1871, Mr. Guss married Sallie J. Mowrer, and to their union have been born six children : Lauren E., Edwin C, Charles L., George G., Frances Williard and Ralph A. J. Acker Guss has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church for nearly a quarter of a century, and is an active worker in the Spring City Methodist Sunday school, of which he has been chorister for several years. He was formerly a republican but is now a prohibitionist in politics, and at the present time is chairman of the Prohibition county committee. He has been frequently honored by his party with nominations for important county offices. He served for eight years as a delegate to State conven- tions, and in 1888, and again in 1892, was a delegate to the National Prohibition con- 806 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY vention. He is an earnest and successful worker in the cause of prohibition. Mr. Guss is a stockholder and secretary of the Arctic King Refrigerator Company, whose works are in Montgomery county. He is a thoroughgoing business man and is presi- dent of the Spring City Steam Paper and Box Manufacturing Company, which was organized June 15, 1891, and will soon com- mence the manufacture of paper on a large scale. HENRY PRIZER, an honored citizen of East Coventry township, is a leading representative of one of the oldest and most highly respected families in Chester county. He is the youngest and only surviving child of Frederick and Susannah (Brownback) Prizer, and was born June 13, 1802, in East Coventry township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania. He was reared on the farm, re- ceived such education as could be obtained in the country schools of that period, and has always resided in his native township. After attaining manhood he engaged in farming and saw-milling on his own account, and being endowed with energy, industry and good business qualities, soon became prosperous. For many years he did an ex- tensive business, acquiring a moderate for- tune and what he values still more, an hon- orable and untarnished reputation. In 1867 he retired from active business, and has since been living quietly in his beautiful home, surrounded by all those material com- forts which contribute so much to the en- joyment of life. Mr. Prizer was one of the first members of Brownback's Reformed church, in which for many years he was ac- tive and influential, serving as deacon and elder. Later he became a Methodist, and was instrumental in founding the llfew Bethel Methodist Episcopal church in 1844. He served for a number of years as class leader, steward and Sunday school superin- tendent, and until the weight of increasing years prevented it, was always an active and prominent worker in behalf of his church and the general interests of Christianity. In politics he was first a democrat, later a re- publican, and is now an ardent prohibition- ist. He served for a time as school director, and in various ways has been useful to the people among whom he has lived. In his twenty-fourth year, March 30,1826, Mr. Prizer married Elizabeth Difl'endoft'er, a daughter of Henry Diffendofier, of Pugh- town, this county, who is still living. To them was born a family of six children, one son and five daughters : Sarah, married Uriah Brownback, and both are now de- ceased ; Elizabeth, wedded John Prizer (de- ceased) and resides in the city of Philadel- phia; Leah, the wife of Joseph Green, a merchant of Pughtown, whose biography appears in this work ; Harman, who married Mary Wanger and resides in East Coventry township, engagedin farming (see his sketch on page 310) ; Susan, who wedded William M. Stauffer, of the foundry firm of Buck- waiter & Co., whose works ai'e at Royer's Ford, Montgomery county, though Mr. Stauffer resides in the city of Reading; and Esalindah, living at home with her parents. The Prizer family is of German descent and was planted in Pennsylvania at a very early day. The paternal grandfather of Henry Prizer was a native of Montgomery county, this State, from which he removed in early manhood to settle in Berks county, and later came to Chester county. Here he spent the latter part of his life, dying at a good old age. He was a farmer by occu- OF CHESTER GOVNTY. 807 pation, mai-ried and reared a family, one of his sons being Frederick Prizer (fatiier), who was horn in 1764 near "The Trappe," Montgomery county, and came with his father's family to East Coventry township, this county, when quite young. He attended the common schools, and later learned the trade of carpenter, which together with farming, constituted his main business in life, though he also owned and operated a sawmill — the mill now in possession of Jos- eph Haldeman. He was a man of great business enterprise and untiring energy, and achieved success in nearly everything he undertook, being apparently at the zenith of his career when called away by death in 1820, in his fifty-sixth year. In politics he was a democrat, and in religion a strict member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, in the support of which he was active and influential. He married Susannah Brown- back and was the father of three children, two sons and a daughte : Hannah, who mar- ried John Diffendoffer and is now deceased; John, also dead; and Henry, the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Prizer is a daughter of Henry Brownbaek, who is still living, be- ing now of great age. He is a descendant of Garrett Brownbaek, whose history will be found recorded elsewhere in this volume. rjrJiLIilAM J. KAUFFMAN, editor ^^^ and proprietor of the Chester Valley Union at Coatesville, is a representative of one of the oldest settled families of Lancas- ter county, Pennsylvania. The Kauft'mans are of remote German origin, and are noted for the thrift and other characteristic vir- tues of that sturdy race. Christian Kaulf- man, paternal graindfather of William J., was born in Lancaster county, this State, but 47 while yet a young man removed to York, Pennsylvania, and later to Baltimore, Mary- land. He was a carpenter by trade, and fol- lowed cabinet making in Baltimore, where he lived until his death, at an advanced age. His grandson, the subject of this sketch, now owns a clock, the elaborate and hand- some case of which is a specimen of his handiwork. He was a strict member of the Evangelical Lutheran church, married and reared a large family, his youngest son be- ing Joseph C. Kauff'man (father), who was born in the city of Baltimore in 1806. After attaining manhood Joseph C. Kauftmau be- came a merchant tailor, and carried on a large business in Baltimore for a number of years. He died there in October, 1843, in the house in which he was born, at the early age of thirty-seven years. In polities he was an old-line whig and in religion a strict adherent of the Presbyterian church. His brothers all served in the war' of 1812, bu't he was then too young to enter the army. He married Margaret J. Rettew, a native of Harford county, Maryland, who was reared in the city of Baltimore. She was born in 1808, and died at Coatesville, this county, in 1891. For many years previous to her death she was a devoted member of the Presbyterian church, and was a woman of decided character; greatly respected and re- vered. William J. Kauff'man, son of Joseph C. and Margaret J. (Rettew) Kauff'man, was born in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, April 11, 1836. There he lived until twelve years of age, when he removed with his mother to Lancaster city, Pennsylvania. His education was obtained in the public schools of Baltimore and Lancaster, and by the practical training inseparable from earnest work in a newspaper office. At the age of 808 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY fourteen, young Kauftman entered a print- ing office in Lancaster, and began his ac- quaintance with the "art preservative of arts." Here he remained until 1857, when failing health caused him to go to Strasburg, where he afterward worked at the printing business up to 1861. In the following year he came to Coatesville, and on June 6, 1863, issued the first number of the Chester Val- ley Union. It was a small sheet at first, and for a number of years was published as a weekly paper. It vpas republican in poli- tics, ably edited, and soon acquired popu- larity and influence. Its circulation and jobbing business grew rapidly, and in time the paper was enlarged and changed to a semi-weekly. The Union is now printed on a sheet 26x40 inches, and consists of four pages with eight columns to the page. It is the oldest paper in Coatesville, has a large circulation throughout the county, and its plant consists of four modern presses, with abundance of body type and job faces of every desirable size and design. The work turned out here is first-class in every par- ticular, and many jobs are fine specimens of artistic typography. In 1857 Mr. Kauftman married Mary A. Brooke, a daughter of Samuel Brooke, of Lancaster city. To this union was born a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters : Samuel B., Joseph C, jr., Mary A., Annie J., Margaret L., Harry B. and J. Alexander. In 1862, when the emergency men were called out, Mr. Kauftman enlisted in one of the Chester county companies, but was not sworn into the United States service. In the same year he was drafted, but upon ex- amination was exempted on account of con- sumption, the doctors having given up all hope of his recovery. But, to use his own words, he "beat the consumption," and is now a stout, hearty, robust man. In poli- tics he is a stanch republican, and in his paper ably advocates the doctrines of bis party. He is a member of Star of Hope Lodge, No. 199, and of Chosen Friends En- campment, No. 88, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Coatesville, and has served as notary public here for a period of eighteen years. He is also a member of the Presby- terian church and a prominent and success- ful Sunday school worker, having been called to serve as superintendent of Rock Run Presbyterian Sunday school ever since its organization in 1865. Mr. Kauftman is an aftable gentleman of pleasing manners, wields a trenchant pen, and has been quite successful in business. TjORENZO BECK, an honored citizen and resident of West Chester for over a quarter of a century, was born in Thorn- bury, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, Octo- ber 17, 1812, and is a son of Michael and Sarah (Perkins) Beck. His father was ia highly respected citizen of Delaware county, a prosperous miller, and a stanch upholder of and believer in the principles of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, of which he was a faithful member until his death, in 1846, at the age of sixty-three years. He married Sarah Perkins, and they had a family of eight children, of whom the subject of this sketch is the only one now living, he being the third in order of age. The others were : Adley, John, Deborah, Sarah, Lorenzo, Lydia, William and Levis. Lerenzo Beck was educated in the public schools of his native county, where he was successfully engaged in business until 1864. He lived for several years in the town of OF CHESTER COUNTY. 809 East Goshen, where he carried on the busi- ness of edge tool maker, a trade to which he was apprenticed in his youth in the vil- lage of Wawa. In 1864, at the age of fifty- two years, he removed to "West Chester, this county, where he now lives a quiet and retired life, at the advanced age of eighty years, respected and esteemed as one who has helped to build up and add to its mate- rial prosperity. Since 1868 he has been one of the directors of the National bank of Chester county. Mr. Beck, in his political preferences, differs from his father, who was a life long member of the Democratic party, arid is a warm supporter of the principles of the Eepublican party, which publicly recog- nized his services by electing him to the office of county commissioner, in which po* sition he served acceptably for a term of three years. Although his parents were Methodists, yet Mr. Beck has been for many years a member of the Society of Friends, in whose faith and doctrines he firmly believes. He has been twice married, his first wife was Phoebe G. Thatcher, and after her death he wedded Mrs. Mary Marshall, nee Xraston. Mr. Beck throughout his long and active life has always conducted his afl^airs honor- ably and honestly, and upon correct busi- ness principles. TA>ILMAR GRIFFITH, a prosperous farmer now serving as assessor and constable of Uwchlan township, is the sec- ond child and eldest son of Charles N. and Martha E. (Phillips) Griffith, and was born in Uwchlan township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania-, February 12, 1846. He was reared on his father's farm and received a superior English education in the public schools of his township. After leaving school he learned the trade of carpenter and followed that occupation some six years, when he aban- doned it to engage in farming. Since 1888 he has managed the home farm, and being energetic and industrious, as well as posses- sing a good degree of business ability, he has been quite successful in agricultural pursuits. In his political affiliations Mr. Griffith has always been a republican, and is now serving as assessor and constable of his township, which positions he has filled since 1889, when he was appointed thereto by the court. He has also been called on frequently to serve on the election board of his district. He is a leading member of the Methodist Episcopal church of Pughtown, and has been president and secretary of its board of trustees for a number years. On the 10th of February, 1868, Mr. Grif- fith was united in marriage to Rebecca Mitchner, of South Coventry township, this county. To them has been born a family of three children, two sons and a daughter: Martha, Lewis and Charles, all of whom are living at home with their parents. Mrs. Griffith is a member of the Methodist Epis- copal church. Charles I^T. Griffith, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in West Vincent township, Chester county,- in 1820. He re- moved to Uwchlan township in 1854, and died at his home here in September, 1887, aged sixty-seven years. He was a man of unusual energy, and in defiance of adverse circumstances in early life, went to work to make a career for himself, and ultimately became a useful, influential and honored citizen. He had few educational advantages, but by careful reading and close study educated himself in the ordinary English branches, and later learned surveying and 810 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY conveyancing. He was what is frequently termed a self-made man, having depended on his own unaided efforts from the start. He became well posted on all general top- ics, especially on history and the bible. By occupation he was a farmer, and first pur- chased forty-two acres of fine land in Uwch- lan township, to which he afterward added a farm of fifty-four acres — where his son Wilmar now lives — and still laterpurchased an additional tract of timber land. Polit- ically he was a whig until just before the civil war, when he became a republican. He always took an active interest in poli- tical matters and became influential in the local councils of his party. He was elected to the position of justice of the peace in Uwchlan township in 1860, and served in that office continuously for a period ot twen- ty-eight years. He was also school director for a long time, and served as county auditor one term. He was frequently a delegate to the county conventions of his party, and was a man who won and held the respect and esteem of all who knew him. In 1866 he was appointed revenue collector for this dis- trict and served for some time. He was frequently called as a juror in the supreme court. In religious faith he was a Baptist, and served for many years as a deacon and secretary of Windsor Baptist church. He married Martha E. Phillips, and to their union was born a family of six children, three sons and three daughters : Cecelia, married Oliver Channell, a cigar dealer in West Chester; Wilmar, whose name heads this sketch ; Emerson, who graduated from the military academy at West Point in 1868, served twenty years in the i-egular army, first as lieutenant and later being promoted to the rank of captain, but resigned in 1888, and together with his wife, Bessie Irwin, now resides at West Chester in retirement; Daniel, who married Emma Trace and now lives at Pottstown, Montgomery county ; Joanna, wedded John Hanson, an employee of the Pottstown Iron Company ; and Mary, formerly a teacher in the public schools of Philadelphia, in which city she still resides. TTDDISON MILLER, proprietor of the Vincent creamery at Sheeder and the Exeter creamery at Exeter Station, is a young business man of remarkable energy and enterprise, and has already attained a good degree of success in life. He is a son of Franklin and Mary (Knaur) Miller, and was born in East Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1855. He was reared principally on the farm, but re- ceived a superior English education. Upon leaving school he engaged in marketing, and has been more or less connected with that business all his life. In 1889 he re- moved to Sheeder and erected the "Vincent creamery," which he now operates, and the product of which has won such deserved popularity in the mai'kets of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities. Later he built and yet owns the "Exeter creamery," at Exeter Station, which. latter is now man- aged by his brother, Franklin K. Miller. The business of these creameries now amounts to three thousand dollars per month, and the output is between four hundred and fifty and five hundred pounds of gilt- edged butter per day. Great care is exer- cised in every detail of manufacture, and the excellence thus secured has created a de- maud for the product of these creameries, which it is almost impossible to supply. In addition to his creamery business Mr. Miller has been dealing in coal and feed OF CHESTJEB COVNTY. 811 since 1890, and has charge of the railroad station at Sheeder. He is also engaged in farming to some extent, and everything con- sidered, may be written down as a very busy man. In politics he is an ardent democrat, and is so popular with his people that he has been elected and reelected to the posi- tion of auditor for his township, in which position he has already served for four years. On January 18, 1888, Mr. Miller was uni- ted in marriage with Anna L. Prizer, a daughter of Harmon and Mary (Wanger) Prizer, of this county. The paternal grandfather of Addison Mil- ler was Samuel Miller, who lived at what was known as "The Swamp" hotel prop- erty, where he was engaged in manufactur- ing gunpowder and in various other lines, conducting an extensive business. Later he purchased and moved to "The Buck" hotel, where he engaged in general merchandising and became quite prosperous and successful. He died there at an advanced age. He married, and reared a family of three sons and a daughter: John, Isaac, Franklin and Cordelia. Franklin Miller (father) was born in Chester county about 1817, and lived most of his life in East Vincent township. After attaining manhood he was engaged in the mercantile busines's at "The Buck" for a period, and then purchased a farm and de- voted bis time to agricultural pursuits dur- ing the remainder of his life. He died in 1880, at his home in East Vincent township, aged about sixty-three years. Politically he was a democrat, and in religion a strict member of the German Reformed church. He married Mary Knaur and was the father of twelve children, eight of whom lived to reach maturity : Samuel, now deceased ; Sarah, also dead ; Emma K., married J. C. Roberts, a member of the firm of Roberts & Miller, dealers in coal, feed and fertilizers, and a farmer of East Vincent township; Cordelia, Addison, the subject of this sketch; Franklin K., who married Mary Rinard and is now engaged in managing the creamery owned by his brother Addison; Oliver, wedded Angeline Irwin, and now resides in Plymouth county, Iowa, where he is en- gaged in farming ; and Thomas Clinton,who married Maggie Lonaker and lives at Potts- town, this county. The other four died in infancy. TjrllLLIAM P. KEELEY, a public spirited and influential citizen, and the senior member of the building and plan- ing mill firm of William P. Keeley & Son, of Phoenixville, is a son of John and Mary (Longacre) Keeley, and was born in Uwch- lan township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 13, 1837. His paternal grandfather, Matthias Keeley, was a native of Uwchlan township, where he followed farming until he was well advanced in years, when he re- moved to La Porte, at which place he died in 1843. He was a democrat in politics, and married a Miss King, who died and left four children. After her death he married a Miss Evans, by whom he had seven chil- dren. His son, John Keeley (by his first marriage), was born in 1812, in Uwchlan township, where he followed blacksmithing until 1882, when he retired from all the ac- tive duties of life. He is a republican and a member of the Reformed church, and re- sides now in Berks county. He married Mary Longacre, who died at Phoenixville, in April, 1889, when in the seventy-third year of her age. To Mr. and Mrs. Keeley were born five children, two sons and three daughters: William P., Mary A., wife of 812 BIOGRAPHY AND HIST OB Y Cyrus Moser, a resident of Berks county and a traveling salesman ; Edward, a sales- man in the city of Philadelphia; Stephina, wife of John Widroder, a business man of the Quaker City ; and Anna, who died in infancy. "William P. Keeley was reared in his na- tive township, where he received his edu- cation in the common schools. He then learned the trade of carpenter in Philadel- phia, and worked in that city and in differ- ent pai'ts of Chester county until 1871. In that year he became the junior member of the wood-working firm of Keeley, Brown- back & Co., which continued in existence until 1883, when Mr. Keeley withdrew and purchased his present well equipped plan- ing mill plant. He admitted his son Clar- ence into partnership with him, under the firm name of William P. Keeley & Son. They employ a regular force of twenty-five hands and do an extensive and lucrative business. The mill contains all late and nec- essary machinery needed for any kind of work in their line of business. They carry an extensive stock of material, are prepared to fill a,ny order that may be sent them, and enjoy a patronage that extends beyond the boundaries of the county. In addition to furnishing material, the firm take a great many building contracts and have erected some fine residences. In April, 1861, Mr. Keeley married Anna, daughter of William and Anna Hazlet, of Philadelphia. To Mr. and Mrs. Keeley have been Ijorn six children, two of whom are Clarence and William Keeley. William P. Keeley is a republican in politics and has served his borough as a coun- cilman for the -last three years. He is wor- shipful master of Phcenixville Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons ; a past grand of Fredonia Lodge, N'o. 145, Independent Order of Odd FellowSj of Philadelphia; a member of Phoenix Chapter, Eoyal Arch Masons; and an elder and trustee of the Pres- byterian church. He has built up a substan- tial trade, and is an enterprising and pro- gressive business man. vJOHN J. DA VIES, foreman of the bridge shop of the Phoenix Iron Company, and a lineal descendant of the old and highly re- spectable Davies fainily of Scotland and Wales, is a son of Robert Hall and Rebecca (Baylis) Davies, and was born in the city of Philadelphia, this State, on January 15, 1860. He received his elementary education in the public schools of his native city, and in 1871 entered the Birchbeck schools of London, England, where he took a full threeyears' course. Returninghomein 1874, he served an apprenticeship in the shops of the Phoenix Iron Company and then entered the draughting room, where he remained for three years. At the end of that time he was made inspector of bridge and roof work, in which capacity he served for eight years, and was then appointed foreman of the bridge shop, which position he still, holds. His paternal great-great-grandfather, Jor- dan James Davies, was of Scotch-Irish des- cent, and his patents moved while he was younginto Wales, where lie died about 1777, aged ninety years. He was a gardener and florist, and married Hannah Watkin, by whomhehadtwochildren : Martha andJohn J. The son, John J. Davies, became a steward on the estate of a wealthy lady, and died in 1851, at eighty-four years of age. He mar- ried Winifred Evans, who was a daughter of Rev. GeorgeEvaus, and died in 1852, aged seventy-eight years. They had four chil- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 813 dren : Thomas, a sea captain ; William, also a sea captain ; Rev. John J. and Martha. The third son. Rev. John J. Davies (grand- father), was born in 1805, at Kilwendage, Wales, and was a noted Baptist minister', preaching in the vicinity of London for over a quarter of a century. He died October 3, 1858, when in the fifty-third year of his age. In 1826 he m.^rried Elizabeth Evans, who died ten years later, at thirty-one years of age, and left six children : John M., dead ; George Evans, also deceased ; Robert Hall, Elizabeth M. and Rachel F.,now dead. For his second wife he married Rachel, daughter of Joseph Fletcher, a noted ship builder, and by that marriage had seven children : Agnes, Susanna, Mary J., William K., John R., Alfred and Foster L., now dead. Robert Hall Davies (father), thethird son by the first marriage, was born near Lo|idon, October 6, .1830, and received his education in the Tottenham schools and at the Enfield school, which was held in a house built by Sir Walter Raleigh. At four- teen years of age he became an apprentice to learnengineering, under the son of James Watt, who invented the steam engine. Af- ter becoming an engineer he came, in 1854, to Philadelphia, and was variously engaged in his profession until 1868, when he be- came master mechanic and superintendent of the Phoenix Iron Company's shops, which ■ position he resigned in 1890 on account of impaired health. He is a republican in poli- tics, and a member of the Methodist Epis- copal church. On August 26, 1857, he married Rebecca Baylis, who was a daugh- ter of Isaac and Rebecca Baylis of Totten- ham, England, and who died June 12, 1865, aged thirty-six years, leaving five children : William, an inspector for the Phoenix Iron (Jompany ; John J., Agnes, Harry, deceased ; and Groorge, now dead. Some years after the death of his first wife Mr. Davies wed- ded Elizabeth, daughter of James and Mar- tha Evans, of Killgarran, Wales. John J. Davies is a republican in polities and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and ranks in his community as an honorable man and intelligent citizen. On September 1, 1882, Mr. Davies mar- ried lola Kurtz, who was a daughter of Ma- jor I. W. and Myra Kurtz, of Phoenixville, and who died December 16, 1884. Four years later Mr. Davies wedded Rosa E., daughter of Edward and Hannah Brown- back, of Phoenixville, and has by his second marriage three children : Robert Hall, Ora and John J., jr. "CDWIN HARLEY, a justice of the peace and a successful business man of North Coventry township, is a son of Har- rison and Susannah (Hollowbush) Harley, and was born in East Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 29, 1861. He was reared in his native town- ship, received his education in the common schools of North Coventry township, and learned the trade of puddler, at which he worked for ten years. He then purchased sixteen acres of land in North Coventry township, and has been engaged ever since in farming in connection with other business. His land is fertile and pro- ductive, and lies near Pottstown, Mont-, gomery county, where he finds a ready mar- ket for most of his products He is an active democrat in politics, and in 1890 was elected asa justice of the peace for North Coventry township. In^addition to his other business he represents the Home Fire InsuranceCompany of New York citj'. 814 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTOBY the Phcenix Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany, and the Iron City Fire Insurance Com- pany of Pittsburg. He has been very suc- cessful in the fire insurance business, which affords protection to property that could not possibly be secured by any other means. Mr. Harley is one of the young, progressive business men of the northern part of Ches- ter county, and by intelligent action and correct commercial methods has won a large measure of success and popularity. On N"ovember 20, 1883, Mr. Harley was united in marriage with Emily Lavan, a daughter of Abraham and Amelia (Nagle) Lavan, of whose fifteen children only two are living: Emily and Mrs. Caroline Hist of Pottstown, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Harley hav« been born four children: Sue Edna, born June 16, 1885 ; Harry LeEoy, born January 25, 1887 ; Helen Raville, twin sister of Harry LeRoy, now dead ; and Sarah Ethel, born January 30, 1889. The first Harley who settled in Pennsyl- vania was Rudolph Harley. He was of Ger- man descent, and on account of religious persecution in Germany came in 1728 to Indian creek, Montgomery county. He was one of the founders of the German Baptist church in that county. His grandson, Rudolph Harley, was the fatherof Benjamin Harley, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Benjamin Harley was born in 1805 and died in 1891. He served as a justice of the peace for over fifteen years, and married Susan Pennypacker, by whom he had five children : Enos T., Aquilla,Cai'oline, Frank- lin and Harrison. The youngest child, Har- rison (father), was born in Chester county, October 5, 1839. He has always been a resi- dent of North Coventry township, where he has followed farming and stock raising. He is a democrat in politics, and wedded Susan- nah Hollowbush, daughter of Rev^ Peter Hollowbush, a minister of the German Bap- tist church. Mr. and Mrs. Harley have four children: Prof. Lewis R., principal of the High school of N'orth Wales, Montgomery county, and whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume; Edwin, Mary Cora and Fred F.. T8AAC HOIiMAN, a prosperous farmer and builder of this county, in whose school affairs he has been active and useful for nearly a quarter of a century, is a son of Isaac, sr., and Mary (Fulmer) Holman, and was born inWestVincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 16, 1829. Isaac Holman, sr., was born in West Pikeland township, and followed farming nearChester Springs, where he died at an advanced age. He was a democrat in politics, and married Mary Fulmer, now deceased. To their union were born five sous and three daughters : Margaret Mock ; Anna Kirtner ; a daughter that died; Samuel, Frederick, Joseph, Isaac and Davis. Isaac Holman was reared on the farm, re- ceived his education in the common schools, and was then engaged in the house building business where h e lives and at Chester Springs for thirty-five years. At the end of that time, in 1870, he came to his present farm of one liundred and ten acres, which is well improved and productive land. In addition to farming he conducts a good dairy, and has been very successful alike in farming and dairying. He is a democrat of the Jeffersonian school, and believes in thorough economy in public expenditures of every kind, from township finances to National affairs. Mr. Holman has always taken an interest in popular education, and is now OF CHESTER COUNTY,.. 815 serving on his twentieth consecutive yeai* as a school director of his township. On February 17, 1851, Mr. Holman was united in marriage with Anna McGoweu,a daughter of Edward and Mary McGowen. To Mr. and Mrs. Holman were born eight children, two sons and six daughters, of whom were Harmon, who died in childhood ; Mary E., wife of John March, a farmer of West Pikeland township; Sallie E_. and Laura. JOHN" li. JANEWAY, C. E., a descend- ant of one of the old and prominent English families of New York city, and who during his professional career has had charge of some very important engineering opera- tions connected with the niunicipal and in- dustrial development of Pennsylvania, Ifew York and South Carolina, is a son of Rev. John L. and Maria (Kane) Janeway, and was born at Flemington, New Jersey, April • 18, .1853. The first Janeway to come to America was William Janeway, who left En- gland and settled on the site of Broadway street, New York city, and farmed on land now occupied by solid blocks of buildings. He brought over the charter for Trinity church, granted by James II. of England. He married, and one of his descendants was Rev. Jacob Jones Janeway (grandfather), who was born in New York city in 1771, and died in Philadelphia in 1855,aged eighty- four years. He was a very intelligent man and an able minister of the Presbyterian church. He married Martha Grey, who died in 1852, aged sixty-five years. They reared a family of five children: Thomas, presi- dent of the Presbyterian board of publica- tion at Philadelphia; William, now dead; Henry, president of the Janeway Paper Man- ufacturing Company, of New Brunswick ; Rev. John L., and Martha, wife of William Van Ness, who is engaged in the whole- sale grocery business in New York city. Rev. John L. Janeway (father) was born in New York city, April 21, 1814, and received his education in Rutgers college. New Jer- sey, from which he was graduated at the close of his course. He studied theologyand entered the ministry of the Presbyterian church, where he was actively engaged un- til the commencement of the late war, wUen he left his pulpit to serve his country. He served as chaplain, first of the 3d and after- ward of the 35th' New Jersey infantry, and became known throughout the army of the Potomac as the "Fighting Chaplain." The privations and exposure which he suffered during the war so impaired his health as to compel him to give up all regular minister- ial work after returning^ome. He is adem- ocrat in politics, and married Maria Kane, of Philadelphia, who passed away at Wal- nut Hill, this State, on September 21, 1880. They had six children: Jacob J., division engineer, at Pittsburg, of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company ; Price W., secretary and treasurer of a private corporation in Phila- delphia; Elizabeth, wife of Dr. Herman Ber- gen, of Gerraantown, this State ; John L., Maria K. and Rachel W. John L. Janeway received his education at the celebrated Phillips academy, Ando- ver, Massachusetts, and then entered a sci- entific school in New Jersey, from which he was graduated in 1871, with the degree of C. E. After graduation he was successively engaged in civil engineering for the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company, the Penn Gas & Coal Company, of Westmoreland county, with Prof. F. S. C. Lowe of Norristown, and for the United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia. From Philadelphia he 816 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY went to ITew York, as erection engineer for James S. Price & Co., whose employ he left to go to Columbia, South Carolina, where he built the gas works and the street car lines of that city. After the great Charles- ton'earthquake of 1888, he came to Phcenix- ville,* and bought the property of the Phoe- nix Gas Company. In 1890 he became president of the Downingtown Gas Com- pany, and since then has been actively en- gaged in different business enterprises. On February 14, 1882, Mr. Janeway wed- ded Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Hilde- burn of Philadelphia. Their union has been blessed with three children: John L.,jr. ; Augustine S. and Sybil K. K. Ill politics Mr. Janeway is a democrat. He is a member of the Protestant Episco- pal church of Phcenixville. He has kept abreast of the times in his chosen profes- sion, and is highly respected as a gentleman and a citizen. JAMES CAMPBELL ME WHINNEY, M, D., a skilled and successful physi- cian, and an energetic and public-spirited citizen of Spring City, is a son of James and Amanda (Harvey) Mewhinney, and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 2, 1859. Dr. Mewhinney is of Scotch-Irish lineage, and his paternal grandparents, Thomas and Letitia (Campbell) Mewhinney were natives respectively of Ireland and the highlands of Scotland. Thomas Mewhin- ney came, in 1833, from Ireland to Phila- delphia, where he resided at the corner of Dauphin and Memphis streets until hisdeath in 1880. He was a man of prominence in the locality where he resided, and amassed a considerable fortune from his line of busi- ness as a contractor on excavation work. He married Letitia Campbell, a member of one of the many branches of the historic Campbell family of Scotland, and who had three brothers who were nearly seven feet in height. They were the parents of five children ; one tliat died at five years of age ; another which was scalded to death at an early age; Susan, wife of William Mauck of Philadelphia ; James and Jane, the latter of whom was twipe married, and whose sec- ond husband was William Stratton. James Mewhinney (father) was born in Ireland, May 17, 1833, and was brought the same year to Philadelphia by his parents. He was reared and educated in the Quaker City, and in early life removed to Barren Hill, Montgomery county, where he has been en- gaged in the hotel business for the last twenty years. He also deals in cattle, buy- ing and shipping large droves to the east- ern markets. He was an old-line whig, but when that party went down he changed his allegiance to the democrats, and has ever since supported democratic principles and ' democratic nominees. He married Amanda Harvey, who was born in 1836, and is a daughter of John Harvey, who was a resi- dent of Philadelphia, where he amassed a considerable foi-tune in the wholesale drv goods and grocery business. To Mr. and Mrs. Mewhinney were born three children, two sous and one daughter : Dr. James C, Ed- win Forrest, who is engaged in the droving business with his father at Barren Hill, Montgomery county ; and Letitia, who died at twelve years of age. James Campbell Mewhinney was reared partly in Philadelphia and partly, at Barren Hill, and received his education in the pub- lic schools, Fremont seminary of itforris-. town, and Gettysburg college. Leaving college he made choice of medicine as a life vocation, and entered the medical depart- OF CHESTER COUNTY. fil7 meat of theuiiiversitj of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated with third honors in the class of 1883. After graduation he opened an office in Lower Providence town- ship, Montgomery county, where he prac- ticed with good success for four years. At the end. of that time he came to Spuing City, where he now enjoys a large and lu- crative practice. He makes a specialty of surgery, in which he has been very suc- cessful. _ On OctQber 8, 1883, Pr. Mewhiuney was united in marriage, with Mary -May^Cassel, daughter of Joseph Oassel of Montgomery coyuty. J)r..Mewhj;na.ey is a member of Spring Gity Lodge, ISTo. 558, Free and Accepted Ma- sons; and of the Knights of the .Goldeai Eagle, of Royer's Ford. He is also a mem- ber of the Junior Order of United, American Mechanics; and of the Iwdependent Order of Odd Fellows. . He. is a democrat in poli- tics, and sei'ved as burgess of his borough in 1891, but refused a renomination in 1892. During his term as burgess he -exerted him- self so successfully, in the interests of his town that the borough limits were greatly extended, and several important business iirn^is were induced to locate their establish- -ments in the place. He ha§ alsg, contributed to, the prosperity of the borough by his nu- merous transactions in real egtate.. Aside from his large practice and many efforts for the development of Spring City, he takes considerable interest in horses, owning some very fine and valuable ones. In his prac- tice. Dr. Mewhinney keejjs we.ll up with the medical advancement of the day. He is a member of the Chester County Medical so- ciety, the Inter-medical society of Schuylkill valley, and the Penusylvii.nia State Medical society. .,^ ., QAMUEL D. PARKE, a prominent and progressive farmer of Parkesburg, aiid an influential and useful citizen of Chester county, is a son of David and Mai-y A; (Brandt) Parke, and was born July 14, 1850; at the old homestead where he now resides, near Parkesburg, Chester county, Peitnsyl- vania. He .is a lineal descendant, fifth in line, from that Artbu.r Parke who emigra- ted from the north of Ireland prior to 17,24 and settled in this county. (See fuller his- tory of him in sketch of Samuel E. Parke in this volume.) Joseph Parke (great-grand; father) was a son of John, who was a son of Arthur, and was born December 21, 1737, dying July 2, 1823., He was twice married. His children by his first wife were Jolm Gardner, Joseph and Keziah, and by his second marriage Gi^orge W., James^Letitia, David, Samuel,William, Agnes and Harriet. Hon. John Gardner Parke (grandfather) was born November 21,. 1761, and died October 25, 1833. He was a member of the genei'al assembly in 1818, and was the founder of Parkesburg, owning the land on which it was built. He was an enterprising, energetic business man,, and became Very prosperous. He was a member, of Octoraro Presbyterian ■ church, married and i-eared a family of six sons : Joseph, SamuelyRobert, John, Francis and D^vid. Of .these, Samuel was a mem- ber of the -bar of Lancaster county, and liobert was_a ;raember of the State assembly in 1848-45, and for six years associated judge of Chester county. Four' of th^se sons died old bachelors, and were buried at the Octoraro Presbyterian church. Francis married and reared a family. He was a farmer by occupation.. David Parke (father) was born on the old homestead in 1807, aind died March 15, 1888, in his eighty -first year. He vy^a^ a rspHblican in, political sentiment. 818 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY and always took an active part in local pol- ities. • For many years he was a member of the Presbyterian church, a man perfect in all his deportment and well liked by all who know him. He married Mary A. Brandt, a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and a member of the Presbyterian church, who now resides in the city of Brooklyn, New York. To them was born a family of seven children, four sons and three daugh- ters: John B., now a colonel in the regular army ; Joseph G-., a civil engineer, now in Mexico ; Sallie F., married J. D. Wilson and resides in the city of Helena, Montana; Belle, widow of S. J. Torbett, of Washing- ton, District of Columbia; Emma, now the wife of J. Glenn Fisher, of Brooklyn, New York ; Samuel D.,the subject of this sketch ; and Robert A., a railroad passenger agent at Washington city. Samuel D. Parke was reared on the farm which he now owns, and on which his father lived all his life. His education was ob- tained in the public schools, and after com- pleting his studies he engaged in farming, and has continued to devote his attention to the cultivation of the soil, believing with Washington that "agriculture is the noblest pursuit of man." His farm is large and valu- able, being located in the edge of Parkes- burg, andfinely improved, with all necessary buildings and fixtures. Mr. Parke is a strict member of the Presbyterian church, and takes an active interest in all matters aft'ect- ing its prosperity and usefulness. He is also a member of Keystone Lodge, No. 569, Free and Accepted Masons. Politically he is a stanch republican, and socially an in- telligent, companionable gentleman, whom it is a pleasure to meet and know. In 1874, Mr. Parke was united in mar- riage with Mary C. Miller, a daugUter of John P. Miller, a representative of one of the old families of the city of Eeading, Pennsylvania. To Mr. and Mrs. Parke have been born a family of three children, all daughters : Kate Lillie, Mary E. and Elinor. fl. STANLEY BROWN, one of the prosperous farmers of West Cain township, has been known in his commun- ity for over fifty years as an honorable man and reliable citizen. He was born in West Cain township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, and is the son of James W. and Sarah (Stanley) Brown, both natives and life-long residents of Chester county. James W. Brown was born in West Cain township in 1782, which was a history-making year of the then struggling young Pepublic. He followed the occupation of his immediate ancestors, that of farming, in which he en- gaged until his death. He married Chris- tiana Lovett, and to them were born two children, both sons. The eldest, William K. Brown, married a Miss Doane, who is now dead; and the youngest is A. Stanley, the subject of this sketch. A. Stanley Brown received his elementary education in theschools of his neighborhood, and assisted his father in the tilling and management of the home farm for some years. He then took the entire management of the farm. At his father's death he fell heir to the old homestead, which he has tilled with good success ever since. A. Stanley Brown is a strict member of the Presbyterian church, in whose belief he was reared. Although a democrat polit- ically, and ever supporting his party on National issues, yet he exercises his privi- lege of American citizenship in local aflairs by casting his vote for the best man for the OF CHESTER COUNTY. 819 place. Although rapidly nearing his four- score years, Mr. Brown is well preserved physically, while his mental powers are un- impaired, and he is remarkably active and energetic for one of his advanced years. ■to FRANKIN MO WRY, a reliable man and one of the prosperous farmers of East Pikeland township, is the youngest son and only living child of Peter and Susanna (Pennypacker) Mowry, and was born De- cember 15, 1839, on the farm where he now resides, in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on the paternal acres, received his education in the common schools of his native township, and has always been engaged in farming and stock raising where he now resides. He owns ninety acres of the home farm, and his land is well improved and productive. Within the last few years he has established a dairy on his farm and hasquite a demand for his milk and butter. Mr. Mowry, in ad- dition to his farm, owns a large double brick building at Phoenixviile, and a valuable frame building at Spring City, where his wjfe also owns a large brick dwelling house. He is a democrat in politics and a member of the Mennonite church. B. Franklin Mowry married Annie Funk, a daughter of Jacob and Anna Funk. To Mr. and Mrs. Mowry have been born five children, four sons and one daughter: Ella, who died when quite young; John H., of West Chester ; David, Peter, and one other. The Mowry family is of German descent. Peter Mowry, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came in early life from Ger- many,during the latter part of the eighteenth century, and purchased a large tract of land, a part of which is now owned by his grand- son, B. Fi'anklin Mowry. He was a mem- ber of the Evangelical church and atv anti- federalist in politics, and died at an advanced age in 1814. He married and had three children, two sons and one daughter: John, Peter and Magdalene. Peter Mowry (father) was born on the home farm, where he re- sided until 1871, when he removed to Spring City, where he died in 1884, at an advanced age. He was a • Jacksonian democrat, but would never accept any political office. He married Susanna Pennypacker, a daughter of Jonas and Mary Pennypacker. Mr. and Mrs. Mowry were the parents of four chil- dren : B. Franklin, of whom this sketch is written; Mary and Sarah, who were twins and died in childhood, of scarlet fever; and Jonas, who died at the same time as his sis- ters, of scarlet fever, which wa^then prev- alent in the township in epidemic form. ^AliEB BAIiDWIN, who was a prom- inent and influential citizen of East Cain township, well known throughout the county and greatly esteemed for his many sterling qualities, his benevolence and busi- ness capacity, was born November 1, 1825, in that township, where his widow still re- sides. He was of English descent, his di- rect paternal ancestors having emigrated to this country in 1638, and settled in the col- ony of Kew Haven. At that time a family of five — father and four sons^started for America, with the purpose of creating homes for themselves in this then new and strange country; but only the sons — John, George, Kichard and Joshua — reached it in safety; the father, Sylvester Baldwin, having died during the voyage. One of their descend- ants, Jonathan Baldwin, was among the early pioneers of Chester county, owning a 820 BIOQBAPHY AND HIST OR Y fine farm of two hundred acres, which has been 'in the Baldwin family from the time of the grants made by Johii Penu, heing a part of the original tract of one tlionsand acres taken up in 1753j the deeds bearing that date and the signature of John Penn. Caleb Baldwin was a man of good common school education, and he early engaged in his life-long pursuit of farming. Later he was also occupied in the quarrying of lime on his father's farm. Although prirnarily his intei*ests were agricultural, he held many pliblic -positions of trust and prominence in various fields, having been a director .of the Dow-ningtownisTational bank for many years, and president of the Northwood Cemetery association until his death, being the origi- nator of the idea of a burying ground at that place.' During the Centennial exposi- tion of 1876j he acted in the capacity of su- perintendent of the dairy department, under the supervision of the Dairy association, which was one of the most extensive dis- plays of the exposition. He was a firm be- liever in the principles of the Eepublican party (having previously been a whig), and was a man of considerable political intiu- ence. In 1879 he was elected director of the poor of Chester county, but only served one year, being obliged to resign before the completion of his term, owing to a stroke of paralysis, which incapacitated hinfi forthe position. Mr. Baldwin was a strong aboli- tionist, and-although amemberof the Ortho- dox Society of Friends, was so stanch a pa- triot that he contributed liberally toward a substitute fee in support of the late war. For this he was disowned by this religious body, one of whose fundamental doctrines is that of peace. This was one of the most trying circumstances of his life, and one to which he never became fully reconciled. He felt, however, fully justified in taking this step tovrard the support of his country in A time of its direst need, without being at all prompted by any antagonisfii to the doc- trines of his religious faith. While taking so active and pronounced a part in business and public matters, he was also deeply in- terested in all things pertaining to the cul- ture of the useful and ornamental adjuncts of the farm. His father, Jonathan C. Bald- win, served' as president of the County Hor- ticultural association and was a member of the Pennsylvania Pomological society, act- ing in' the latter as a representative for Chester county. Caleb Baldwin was a mail of many estimable qualities and character- istics, an affectionate father and husband, a kind neighbor, a true friend, a genial and hospitable host, and a patriotic citizen of sterling integrity, frank, decided and very determined in his own ideas of right and justice. He was strong yet candid in his convictions, and was a man greatly loved in his domestic and social relations, while he was universally respected wherever he was known.' In 1866 he was married to Emma A. Lewis, by whom he had two sons,Johu Bald- win, born June 23, 1868, and J. Lewis Baldwin, born July 6, 1872. Caleb Baldwin died January 3, 1888'. J. Lewis Baldwin, youngest son, was born July 6, 1872, at Hanover Home, East Cain township, this county. He received his education'in Various institutions — in the model department af the West Chester Nor- mal, Friends' Graded school at West Ches- ter, one year in the Biological department of the university' of Pennsylvania, and is now a student in a medical department of the same institution, which department he entered in October, 1890, and from which OF CUESTEB COUNTY. 821 he will be graduated in 1893. During the summer vacations he superintends the iarm- ingoperations on thehomestead place, which consists of one hundred and fifty acres. On this farm is situated a fine marble quarry, which furnishes a superior quality of blue marble. The stone was obtained at this quarry for the Catholic church at Vilanova, and several fine residences at Haverford. J. Lewis Baldwin is also a partner with his brother, John Baldwin, in a steam laundry at Downingtown. In politics he is a re- publican. > ^ • nEV, CALVIN DERR, the present pop- ular pastor of the Reformed church at Spring City, this county, was born at Ta- maqiia, Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, December 30, 1863, and is the only son of Rev. Levi K. and Rachel (Reagan) Derr. His paternal grandfather, Daniel Derr, was a native and prosperous farmer of Lehigh county, this State, and was well known there as an active member in his day of the Re- formed church of the United States. He married Susanna Knerr, also a native of that county, and reared a family of wix children, dying at his home there at a good old age. Among his sons was Levi K. Derr (father), who was born in that county, and resided there until 1880, when he removed to the city of Reading, which has since been his place of residence. He was educated at what is now Muhlenberg college, and after- ward studied theology with Dr. William A. Helfrey, a leading theologian of the Re- formed church. After completing his edu- cation and being graduated, he became a minister in the Reformed church, and has devoted his life almost entirely to preaching the gospel. He now has charge of a Re- formed church at Reading, which he organ- ized nearly eleven years ago, and has built up until it has become one of the leading churches of that city. This is the fifth church he has organized, and all have beep successful and are now in a flourishing coiir dition. Indeed it maybe said that his whole life has been devoted to the work of organ- izing and building up new churches of his denomination throughout the western part of Pennsylvania. And the success, which has constantly attended his eftbrts furnishes the amplest proof of his fitness for such labor and his ability as a minister. He be- gan his labors in the coal regions of Schuyl- kill county in 1857, at a time when that section was sparsely populated, and among his first successes was the work at Mahanoy City, where he organized a church which is now one of the largest in that place. Later he did similar service at Tamaqna, same county; in 1870 at Statington, Lehigh county; and at Lehighton, Carbon county. "With the two latter he remained until his removal to Reading, where his work has also been greatly blessed, the church being singularly prosperous. Rev. Levi K. Derr married Rachel Reagan , a daughter of George Reagan, ageutleman of Scotch-Irish lineage, who spent most of his life in Berks county, this State, where he was a largfe property holder and prosperous iron master. By this union Rev. Mr. Derr had a family of five children, one son and fou,r daughters : Mary, now livingwith her brother in Spring City; Calvin, the subject of this sketch; Emma, wedded Warren Lewis, of the city of Read- ing, who is now State agent of the Philadel- phia & Reading railroad; Deborah and Winna, the two latter living at home with their parents. Rev. Calvin Derr was educated atUrsinus college in Montgomery county, this State, 833 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY from which institution he was graduated in the spring of 1888. He entered Yale Divin- ity school in the autumn of that year, being graduated in theology in 1891. He was called by the first Reformed church of Spring City, this county, nearly five months before his graduation at Yale, his term of service beginning here in May, 1891. Upon com- pleting his theological course he at once threw himself earnestly into his chosen life work, and is succeeding admirablyin build- ing up a working church of live, devoted and enthusiastic Christians. He is a young minister of much promise, and seems en- tirely consecrated to the work of his Divine Master. TT MOS G. WIIiSON, who for nineteen years has been in the grocery business at Parkesburg, and was postmaster at that place for a quarter of a century, beside serv- ing as burgess, school director and a mem- ber of the council, was born in West Cain township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 12, 1821, and is a son of Major "William and Susannah (Grifiith) Wilson. The family is of Scotch-Irish origin, and is among the oldest in the Keystone State. Major William Wilson (father) was born about 1783, and was a native of Chester county, where he grew to manhood and re- ceived such education as was afibrded by the schools of that early day. He was a prosper- ous farmer of West Cain township, and only abandoned his farm to engage in hotel keep- ing at Compass, this county, three or four years previous to his death, which occurred February 22, 1838, in his fifty-fifth year. When a young man he had learned the carpenter trade, and occasionally worked at that business in connection with his farming operations. He was a democrat in politics, and in the early part of this century served as major of a regiment of Pennsylvania militia, being ever afterward known and addressed as Major Williams. In persoir&l appearance he was stout and portly, a man of great energy and constant activity, and a well known advocate of temperance prin- ciples. He married Susannah Griffith, by whom he had a fafliily of children. She was a native of Chester county, a life-long member of the Baptist church, and her life was a fine example of true Christian woman- hood. She died in 1872, at the advanced age of eighty-nine years. Amos G. Wilson was reared partly on the farm in West Cain township, and partly at Compass, this county. His education was received in the common schools and at the Unionville academy, then taught by Jonathan Gause. Leaving school he be- came a clerk for a short time in the general store of his brother William, at Wagon- town, this county, and afterward engaged in teaching for several years. In 1863 he started his present grocery business at Parkesburg, in the same building he now occupies. He has been very successful, and now has a large and lucrative trade. He "was appointed postmaster here in 1861, be- ing commissioned by President Lincoln, and held the office continuously until Pres- ident Cleveland's administration, except some eighteen months during the adminis- tration of Andrew Johnson. During all his protracted term as postmaster, Mr. Wilson served acceptably, alike to the people and the postal authorities at Washington. On July 3, 1844, Mr. Wilson married Rachel Filson, a daughter of Joseph Filson, of Sadsbury township, this county. She died in 1872, leaving five children, two sons and three daughters, all of whom are still OF CHESTER COUNTY. living: William, a druggist, owning three drug stores on Broadway, New York city ; J. Chester, a coal merchant of Philadelphia, residing at Clifton Heights ; Ida, the wife of Samuel E. Parke, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume ; Belle, married "William Michener, clerk for the Parkes- burg Iron Company • and Pauline E.., living at home. In 1882 Mr. "Wilson was again married, this time wedding Mrs. Hannah A. (Fritz) Stroud, of Highland township, Ches- ter county. In his political affiliations Mr. Wilson has hitherto been republican, but now strongly inclines toward the Prohibition party. He has served two terms as burgess of Parkes- burg, and also as school director, and a member of the common council, and is now treasurer of the Parkesburg Building and Loan association. Mr. Wilson is a pleasant and popular gentleman, and ranks high as a citizen and an upright business man. J'ACOB H. GEIGER, a leading con- tractor and builder at Parker Ford, and a man who has achieved financial success in the face of adverse circumstances, is a son of Jonas and Elizabeth (Hatfield) Geiger, and was born May 1, 1829, in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. When he was two years old his father died, and the care of a family of six children fell on the mother. The family resided near Pottstown, and the father was a mason by trade, which occupa- tion he followed until called away by death. In politics he was a democrat, and married Elizabeth Hatfield, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. One of these daughters, Sarah, married Joshua Plaldeman, who is now deceased, and she lijjes in the city of Philadelphia. 48 Jacob H. Geiger was reared in his native county, where he early became accustomed to hard work, learning lessons of self-reliance and the necessity of careful management in the practical affairs of life. His educational advantages were few, and nine months in the public schools formed the sum total of his scholastic training. He embraced every opportunity for improvement that came in his way, however, and in the practical school of life acquired that knowledge which has served him better, perhaps, than any mere study of text books would have done. In early manhood he learned the trade of car- penter, and has followed that occupation more or less all his life. He also does work in the line of contracting and building, and many specimens of his handiwork may be seen at and in the vicinity of Parker Ford, this county, where he has resided since 1856. His natural energy and business ability, in- herited from a long line of industrious an- cestors, and quickened into new life by the necessities surrounding his early career, have led to financial success and placed him in independent circumstances. Politically Mr. Geiger is a democrat, and while avoiding the turmoil of practical politics is ever ready to do what he can to advance the cause and principles of genuine democracy among the people. He is a member of the German Reformed church, as are all his family, and active in support of his denomination and its various interests. He is also a member of Manatou Lodge, No. 214, Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Pottstown. Jacob H. Geiger was united in marriage with Sarah Yost, a daughter of John Yost, of Montgomery county, where he died. To Mr. and Mrs. Geiger was born a family of four children, two sons and two daughters : J. Huston, a carpenter by occupation, who 824 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY lives in Chester county ; Mary, married F. P. Huber, of Parker Ford, who is also a car- penter by trade ; Harry, who wedded a Mrs. Shantz, nee Towers, and now lives with his father and manages the farm ; and Sarah, who died at an early age. HARRY C. HART, one of the leading merchants of Kenilworth and a useful and highly popular citizen of Chester county, is the fifth son of Simon and Leah (Mc- Grady) Hart, and was born May 12, 1859, in the township of Providence, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. He was reared on the farm and educated in the common schools of his neighborhood. At the age of twenty-six he entered a general store and for a period of three years was engaged in clerking and as salesman. At the end of that time, in September, 1889, he embarked in business on his own account, at Potts- town, Montgomery county, where he re- mained until the spring of 1891. He then removed to Kenilworth, just opposite Potts- town, where he opened out his present busi- ness, and where he conducts a first-class general store. His location is among the best in the borough, and he carries a large and complete stock of all kinds of general merchandise, which is sold at correct prices. Here by industry and enterprise, backed up by a large share of practical ability and good business judgment, he has succeeded in building up an extensive and lucrative trade. He is a stanch republican in politics and a member of the Patriotic Order Sons of America. Harry C. Hart married Dilla B.UiFelman, i of Pottstown, and their union has been blessed by the birth of two daughters, the eldest of whom, Mabel IrenCj is now de- ceased, while the other, Hilda May, is yet an infant, having been born December 22, 1891. Mrs. Hart's father. Christian Uffel- mau, is a native of Liebaca, Prussia, Ger- many, and came to this country when only thirteen years of age. He settled in Lan- caster county, this State, from which he re- moved in 1889 to Pottstown, Montgomery county, where he still resides. He married Barbara Burkholder, by whom he had a family of twelve children, Mrs. Hart being one of its younger members. Others are : Charlotte Ann, married Fred R. Reynolds, a clerk in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at Pottstown ; John F., lives in Dakota; Christian B., a hotel clerk in Lancaster city; Mary L., clerking in a millinery store; Tillie B., wife of William H. Colandic, a telegraph operator and des- patcher of trains in Lancaster county; Jos- eph A., deceased; Samuel C, a telegraph operator located in Washington city; Ella B., now dead; Daniel and Elsie M., the two latter living at home with their parents in Pottstown". The paternal grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch was Harry Hart, a native of Lancaster county, this State, who was born and reared in Providence township. He was a man of more than ordinary education for that day, and en- gaged in teaching for many years, becoming widely known. Politically he was an old- line whig and took a rather active part in the politics of his time. He married and reared a family of five children, three sons and two daughters: Amos, Oren (killed in the late civil war), Martha, Susan and Simon. Simon Hart (father) was born Ifovember 19 1828, in Providence township, Lancaster county, a,iid has always resided there, hav- ing never been outside of Pennsylvania,. OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 835 He is a farmer by occupation and has spent his life chiefly in the cultivation of the soil, though he has also been engaged extensively in lime burning at times. In religious faith he is a Methodist and a prominent member and class leader in that denomination, be- ing also trustee of his church. He married Leah McGrady, who was born March 9, 1824, and died August 7, 1888. By this union he had a family of eight children : Emery, foreman in a tobacco warehouse at Lancaster city ; Milton, now deceased; Al- bertis, a prosperous farmer of Conestoga township, Lanca;ster county; Allen J., de- ceased ; Harry C.,the subject of this sketch ; Elmer E., a farmer residing at Safe Harbor, Lancaster county; Lilly F., married Ben- jamin Beach, who lives at Mardic Ford, Lancaster county; and Oren Gr. Some of the family connection has been noted for longevity. The maternal great-grandfather of Harry C. Hart, Simon Groft", was a black- smith by occupation and lived to be almost ninety-eight years of age. He worked at his trade about sixty years in Lancaster county, where he lived all his life. Mr. Hart's maternal grandmother also attained a remarkable age, dying in her ninety-sixth year. J'UDSON ARMOR, a wounded Union veteran of the late war, an active, ener- getic and thoroughgoing carriage and wagon manufacturer of Downingtown, and a Thir- ty-second degree Mason of the northern Masonic jurisdiction of the United States, is a son of John G. and Catherine C. (Russel) Armor, and was born at Laughlintowu, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, April 25, 1844. His paternal great-grandfather, Robert Armor, was of Scotch-Irish descent, and served for several years as an officer in the body guard of King George II. of En- gland. He came to Chester county in 1732, with two men named Wagoner and Gault, and settled at Compassville, where he fol- lowed farming and kept the Compass inn of that place for a number of years before his death. He was a strict member of the Presbyterian church of his ancestors, and married and reared a family of seven chil- dren : David, George, John, Robert R., Su- san, I'I'ancy and Martha. The youngest son, Robert R. Armor (grandfather), was born at Compassville, October 8, 1775, and in 1815 left that place to settle at Laughlin- towu, Westmoreland county, where he re- sided until his death, March 16,1858, when in the eighty-second year of his age. He was a whig in politics, and kept an inn and run a farm at Laughlintown until 1845, when he retired from active business. He married and reared a family of eleven chil- dren, of whom were : James, David, George, it^ancy Curry, John G., and Susan, the youngest and only surviving member of the family. Of these sons, John G. (father), was born at Compassville in 1806, and went with his father in 1815 to Westmoreland county, where after arriving at manhood he was engaged in the general mercantile busi- ness at Laughlintown until his death in 1876, at seventy years of age. He was an old-line whig and republican in politics, and an influential member and a prominent elder of the Presbyterian church, and married Cartherine Russel, who is a daughter of Robert Russel, a native of Ireland and a strict Presbyterian, who settled at Shippensburg, Cumberland county, where he engaged in the mercantile business and reared and edu- cated his family of five children: William, Dr.. Robert, Susan, Eliza, and Catherine Ar- 836 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTOBY mor. John G. and Catherine (Russel) Armor were the parents of seven sons : Kob- ert R., in business at Jamestown, New York ; William C, a notary public and now en- gaged in the mercantile and real estate busi- ness ; Judson, George E., who died in 1892 ; Francis W., a merchant of Laughlintown ; Herbert S., a telegraph operator of Oxbury ; and Charles L., a merchant of l^orthumber- land county. Judson Armor received his education in the common schools and Caldwell's acad- emy of Latrobe, Westmoreland county, and then learned the trade of carriage trimmer and painter, which he followed until the commencement of the late war, when he en- listed, in August, 1861, in Co. E, 105th Pennsylvania infantry, which was known as the "Wild Cat" regiment on account of its fearless fighting. He served under Mc- Clellan in the Peninsular campaign, and with Pope and at second Bull Run, and then under Burnside at Fredericksburg, where he was struck in the side by a piece of a shell, and dangerously wounded. He was conveyed from the battle-field to Mansion hospital, from which he was afterward re- moved to Rhode Island hospital, where he was discharged on March 26, 1863. After being discharged he returned home and was variously engaged until 1876, when he came to Downingtown, where he worked at his trade up to 1880, in which year he en- gaged in his present carriage and wagon manufacturing business. He operates a large repair shop and employs four men. He is the pioneer dealer in foreign built carriages and wagons in Chester county, and in his three lines of business of manufacturing,, selling and repairing carriages and wagons, has built up a very fine trade. In 1869 Mr. Armor wasjunited in mar- riage with Amanda Compton, daughter of Gilbert Compton. In politics Mr. Armor is a republican. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, of whose Sunday school he is superintend- ent. He is a past commander of Hancock Post, No. 255, Grand Army of the Repub- lic ; a past grand of his lodge of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows; and a past master of his lodge. Free and Accepted Ma- sons. He is also district deputy grand master of his Masonic lodge district, and is a Thirty-second degree Mason of the An- cient Accepted Scottish Rite. TA>ENDELL P. LAMBORIV, D. D. S., one of the able and promising young professional men of West Chester, who is rapidly acquiring a lucrative dental practice in this borough, is a son of Richard J. and Hannah (Strode) Lamborn, and was born De- cember 24, 1862, in Newlin township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania. The family is of English extraction and was planted in Amer- ica as early as 1713, by Robert Lamborn, who came, when only seventeen years of, age, from Berkshire, England, and settled in Chester county. He bought land in Lon- dongrove township, married and reared nine children, whose decendants are now numer- ous and widely scattered. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Townsend Lamborn, was a native of West Bradford township, this county, where he passed his life principally in agricultural pursuits, and where he died at an advanced age. He married and reared a family of children. Richard J. Lamborn (father) was born on the old homestead, and passed his entire life as a citizen of Chester county, dying at a good old age. He was a general OF CHESTER COUNTY. 827 merchant aad a prosperous farmer, devoting his attention mainly to farming during the latter part of his life. Politically -he was a republican, and was called to fill several township offices. In business he was ener- getic and scrupulously honest, and became very successful, being a man who made friends easily and retained them for life. He married Hannah Strode, a native of N"ewlin township, who still resides on the old homestead in that township. She has been a devoted member of the Baptist church for many years, and is a woman of many excellent traits of character. Wendell P. Lamborn was reared on tlie home farm in JSTewlin township, and ob- tained his education principally in tbe public schools of his neighborhood. He supple- mented this instruction by a two-years' course of study at the Edgefield institute in this county, and after completing this course, remained on the home farm for five or six years. In 1887 he entered the dental office of Dr. Frank P. Cobourn, at West Chester, and on February 26th of the following year graduated from the Pennsylvania Dental college of Philadelphia, with the degree of D. D. S. He did not at once begin the prac- tice of his profession, but in January, 1891, opened his present dental office in the city of West Chester, where by the exercise of skill and energy, and careful attention to business, he is rapidly building up a good trade, and winning a fine reputation as a dentist. On September 27, 1888, Dr. Lamborn was united in marriage to Mamie L. Grubb, a daughter of Samuel W. Grubb, of West Goshen township, this county, and this union has been blessed by the birth of a daughter. Hazel L., who was born August 14, 1890. Dr. Lamborn is a member of the First Baptist church of West Chester, and in poli- tics is a straight republican, always giving his party an intelligent and hearty support. He and his wife are very popular socially, and have the respect and esteem of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Having thoroughly prepared himself for the practice of dentistry, and being in easy financial cir- cumstances, the doctor's well-known energy, ability and devotion to his chosen pursuit will no doubt win him an honorable position among the leading men of his profession in this State. HW. DAVIS, a courteous and pleasant gentlemen, and one of the prosperous farmers of Charlestown township, is a son of William J. E. and Hannah (Eixstine) Davis, and was born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September 12, 1858. He received his education in the public schools of Charlestown, to which township he was taken when quite young by his parents. Leaving school he became an apprentice to the trade of miller, but not liking milling, he made satisfactory arrange- ments and in 1879 cancelled the remaining partof his apprenticeship. He then engaged in farming, which he has followed ever since, where he now resides in Charlestown town- ship. His farm contains seventy-five acres of fertile and well watered land, which is finely improved and highly cultivated. On it he has established a first class dairy, whose products are in good demand. In his agri- cultural pursuits of farming, stock-raising and dairying, he has been successful, and particularly in the latter branch has built up a prosperous and flourishing business. Politically he is a democrat, and is a mem- ber of PhcBuix Lodge, N'o. 212, Independent Order of Odd Fellows ; and of , Pikeland 838 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY Reformed church, in which he has served as a deacon for the last twelve years. On February 24, 1881, Mr. Davis was united in marriage with Clara March, a daughter of John and Margaret (Penny- packer) March. To Mr. and Mrs. Davis have been born four children, two sons and two daughters : Mabel, Hannah M.,William . J. and Hosea K. H. W. Davis is of German descent, and his paternal grandfather, Isaac M. Davis, was a life-long resident of Charlestown township, where he owned a fine farm of one hundred and forty-one acres near Phce- nixville. He was a man of more than or- dinary intelligence, always took an active part in the interests of the Democratic party, and served for many years as a deacon in the Phoenixville Baptist church. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and died at an advanced age. He married Sarah J. Evans and reared a family of six children, four sons and two daughters : Charles R., Margaret, William J. E., Roger, Sarah and Isaac M.,jr. "William J. E. Davis (father), was born on the home farm in Charlestown township, May U, 1828. He followed farm- ing during the active years of his life, and now resides near the village of Charlestown. He is a democrat in politics, and married Hannah Rixstine, only daughter of Henry Rixstine. Th^y had four children : B. Frank, H. W., the subject of this sketch ; Ida V. March, and Charles R. Mrs. Davis was educated in Professor Bolmar's board- ing school at West Chester, and taught sev- eral terms. Henry Rixstine, maternal grand- father, was a native of the northern part of the county, and settled about 1830 on the farm where H. W. Davis now resides. Henry Rixstine was a democrat, a member of Pikeland Reformed church, and married Rachel Yeager, by whom he had one child, Mrs. Hannah Y. Davis, the mother of H. W. Davis. QEORG-E S. BENNETT, a member of the window glass manufacturing firm of G. 8. Bennett & Co. of Spring City, and a representative business man of Chester county, is a son of David S. and Annie (Abel) Bennett, and was born December 4, 1858, at Winslow, N'ew Jersey. He received his education in the common schools of his na- tive town, and took a thorough course in one of the leading commercial institutions of Philadelphia. Being thus specially fitted f(^r business life, he engaged with his father in the window glass trade. In 1882 they established a window glass and painters' supply house in Philadelphia, which they are still conducting at N'o. 114 North Mnth street, that city. Their success was of such an encouraging character that at the end of six years business transactions in the Quaker City, they resolved to widen their field of operations by embarking in the manufac- ture of window glass. They built a plant at Millville, Ifew Jersey, which they oper- ated under the firm name of G. S. Bennett & Co. for three years, when its capacity was not suflicient to meet the demands of the trade which they had secured by that time. They were then faced by the alter- native of enlarging the plant or removing to a more favorable locality and erecting larger works, and after a careful study of the situation resolved upon the latter course. Of the many places oftering favorable in- ducements they selected Spring City as hav- ing superior advantages for their line of business. They located their present plant here in the spring of 1891, and it has been pronounced by those able to judge, as one OF CHEST EB COUNTY. 829 of the best equipped window glass plants in the United States. Their two main build- ings are respectively ninety by ninety and ninety by one hundred and fifteen feet in dimensions, while an additional building forty by two hundred feet has been lately erected. They employ one hundred and fif- teen men, of whom nearly all earn six dol- lars per day. Their annual output is now three million feet of window glass, but their trade has increased so rapidly during the last year that the firm contemplates doub- ling the capacity of their works in order to meet the future orders of their daily in- creasing number of patrons. They also own and operate a pottery for the manufacture of crucibles for glass house consumption, and rank among the most successful busi- ness men of Pennsylvania and the leading window'glass manufacturers of the United States. Mr. Bennett is a republican in po- litical sentiment, and but few men of his years have been more successful in the busi- ness world. On October 13, 1887, Mr. Bennett was united in marriage with Annie Berger, daughter of Levi Berger, a member of the firm of Berger Bros, of Philadelphia. The Bennett family has been settled for over a century in New Jersey, where Wil- liam Bennett, the grandfather of George S. Bennett, was born and reared. He was a glass worker, married and reared a family. His son, David S. Bennett (father), was born at Cumberland, that State, in 1838. He learned the business of window glass mak- ing, and by thirty years of steady and con- tinuous work in every department of that industry, thoroughly fitted himself to under- take the manufacture of window glass, which he did in 1882, at MillvillejNew Jer- sey. In 1891 he came to Spring City, where he is a member of the present win- dow glass manufacturing firm of G. S. Ben- nett & Co., which has been noticed fully in a preceding paragraph. He married Annie Abel, a native of Burlington, New Jersey, and they have had six children : George S., Laura E., wife of li. E.Pond, a route agent of the Adams Express Company, and who resides in Trenton, New Jersey; Harry, manager of his father's Philadelphia glass store; Prank, who is connected with the same store; Lily and Lizzie, the latter now deceased. Mrs. Annie (Abel) Bennett is a daughter of Thomas Abel, who served as a drummer boy in the war of 1812, and became one of the most expert glass workers of his day. He possessed as secrets some of the latest approved methods used in the successful manufacture of glass, and his son-in-law and his grandson, David S. and George S. Ben- nett, benefited by his instructions, and are skilled workmen and active and progressive manufacturers, who thoroughly understand every detail of their business, and who have won a part of their marked success by their intelligent supervision of all their processes of manufacture. -pEV. E. W. BLISS, A. M., a scholarly T and courteous gentleman, and the high- ly respected and esteemed pastor of Willis- town Baptist church at Malvern, is a son of William Bliss, and was born at Barnston, Canada East, near the border line of the State of Vermont, in 1820. William Bliss was a carpenter by trade and spent the larger part of his life at Barnston, which was mainly settled by JSTew England people. He married and reared a family of five chil- dren, one son and four daughters : Nancy 830 BIOOBAPBY AND HISTORY Davis, Emily Comestock, Caroline, Rev. E. W. and one other. E. W. Bliss received his education at Col- gate university of Hamilton, 'S&y7 York, from vfhich well-known institution of learn- ing he was graduated in the class of 1844. To secure his collegiate education he had taught several winter terms so as to secure means to defray his expenses during the summer terms at the university. After grad- uation he studied theology under a private tutor, and was ordained to the Baptist min- istry in 1844. His first charge was the Baptist church of Venice, Cayuga county,, to which he received a call in the last named year, and with which he sustained very pleasant pastoral relations for a number of years. Leaving Venice, he served as pastor successively of Baptist churches in Oswego, Kingston, Newburg and Brooklyn, in the State of New York, and in 1876 came to Malvern, where he accepted his present charge as pastor of the Willistown Baptist church. This church was organized in 1833 as a branch of Great Valley, and the pres- ent meeting house and parsonage were erected in 1875. Under Reverend Bliss' charge the church has prospered in its spir- itual life and in the increase of its member- ship, until it now numbers three hundred and fifty. Mr. Bliss is a close student, a clear thinker and an entertaining speaker. Rev. Mr. Bliss married Mary Peck, who died and left four children, one of whom is E. W. Bliss, jr., who is in the real estate business at the corner of Sixth and Chest- nut streets, Philadelphia. Eor his second wife Mr. Bliss wedded Sarah Pauline Denton, of Plainfield, New Jersey, and by this marriage had three chil- dren : Lewis D., Frank C. and Howard R. Lewis D. Bliss, an expert electrician, is now at the head'of a large electrical, engineer- ing and constructive company, and was sent some time ago by the Edison Company to visit all electrical plants in Virginia and the Carolinas. He invented an electric light at seventeen years of age, and is the inventor of the electrical fountain in Bethesda park, Washington city, which has been such an attraction to the public. Frank C. Bliss is an electrician in the census building at Washington. He was formerly associated with Professor Lewis of the Edison Com- pany, and afterward organized an electri- cal companj', which is now doing a large business. He is now agent for the long dis- tance electric light. \A>II.LIAM MARSHAL,!. WOOD- WARD, a prosperous farmer and liv- eryman of the borough of West Chester, and a representative of one of the oldest families in the Commonwealth, is a son of Thomas S. and Mary B. (Worth) Woodward, and was born August 4, 1820, in West Bradford township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Woodwards are of English descent, and trace their American ancestry back to Richard and Robert Woodward, brothers, who were prominent citizens of Chester county as early as 1687. From a genealogy of the family compiled by Lewis Wood- ward, M.D., of Carroll county, Maryland, it is learned that in 1888 the descendants of these brothers numbered nine hundred and seventy-four, extending through eight generations and scattered over several States. The line of descent from (1) Richard Wood- ward to the subject of this sketch is traced through (2) Richard, the son of Richard, who married Esther Davis in 1695, by whom he had twelve children, among whom was OF CHE&TEB COUNTY. 831 (3) William (great-grandfather), who wed- ded Eliza Marshall and reared a family of four sons and two daughters, one, of the sons being (4) William (grandfather), who was born August 8, 1743. After attaining manhood he became a country storekeeper, and later in life purchased a farm in West Bradford township, near Marshalltou, where he spent the remainder of his days, dying in October, 1825. Pie was successful and pi'osperous,both as a merchant and a farmer, and was twice married, first to Lydia Lewis and after her death to Elizabeth Stalker, by whom he had one son, (5) Thomas S. (father), who was born February 9, 1795, in Chester county, and who on January 28, 1817, married Mary B. Worth, a daughter of Samuel Worth, a prospei'ous farmer of this county, who was of English descent and a representative of one of the oldest families in this section. To them were born nine children, the second being (6) William Marshall Woodward, the subject of this sketch. Thomas 8. Woodward, being an only child, inherited all his father's estate, including the homestead in West Bradford township. Here he passed most of his life, owning some three hundred acres of fine land and being a highly prosperous farmer. He died March 20, 1868, in his seventy-fifth year, his wife surviving until August 25, 1877. He was a whig and republican in politics, and a member of the orthodox So- ciety of Friends, as was his wife. He served in several township offices during the course of his life, and occupied a high place in the esteem of his neighbors and all who knew him. William Marshall Woodward was reared on the old homestead near Marshallton, re- ceiving his early education in the common schools and supplementing that by a course of instruction at a well known boarding school. He was engaged in agricultural pursuits exclusively until his forty-fourth year, and came to be numbered among the most prosperous farmers in East Bradford township. In 1864 he sold his farm, and removing to West Chester, engaged in the livery business. For a period of four years he conducted this enterprise successfully, and then purchased a large farm in Penns- burg township, this county, and once more devoted his attention to the cultivation of the soil. He continued his farming oper- ations until 1875, when he returned to the borough of West Chester and again embarked in the livery business, which he has con- tinued ever since. He has the largest and most completely equipped stables in the borough, with fine horses and a large num- ber of elegant buggies and carriages. In 1852, Mr. Woodward was united in marriage to Esther P., daughter of John and Hannah James, of East Bradford town- ship. They have no children, but a step- son, Alvin Garrett. Mr. Woodard is a reg- ular attendant of the Friends' church in this city, and a member of the Goodwill Fire Company. He has been a life-long republican and has been called to fill a num- ber of the township offices. He is an in- telligent gentleman and keeps well posted on current events. TA>ILLIAM MOCK, a prosperous, well known and greatly respected farmer residing near Anselma, is the youngest son of Levi and Mary (Hippie) Mock, and was born February 16, 1835, in West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. Here he was reared and educated, and in this township has passed most of his life, 833 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY entirely engaged in agricultural pursuits. He owns a valuable little farm, consisting of fifty-six acres of choice land, all well improved, and he has been very successful. Politically Mr. Mock is a democrat, and he and his family are members of the Vincent Baptist church. On June 7, 1858, Mr. Mock was united in holy matrimony with Mary E. Stietler, a daughter of Henry Stietler, a prosperous farmer of West Vincent township. To them was born a family of six children, all sons : Vincent S., now deceased ; Joseph A., also dead ; Harry S., a machinist, who married Zenith Osbon, and now resides in the city of Reading ; Shaner S., also a machinist of Reading; Lewis, deceased ; and Maurice^ F., living at home. The Mocks are one of the families that were early planted in this State, where it has become quite numerous. Peter Mock, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a life-long resident of West Vincent township, and died at his home there at an advanced age. He was a carpet weaver by trade, but owned a farm and de- voted part of his lime to its cultivation and to stock raising. In politics he was a demo- crat and became widely known for his fear- less advocacy of the principles of his party, though he did this so good natUredly as never to make personal enemies among his political foes. He married and reared a family consisting of six sons and a daugh- ter, all of whom are now deceased, except the youngest son, William. Levi Mock (father) was born in West Vincent town- ship, where he grew to manhood and re- ceived a good common school education. After leave school he learned the trade of carpenter, and followed that occupation most of his life. He died at his home in this county at a good old age. Like his father he was a stanch democrat in politics, loyal to his political convictions alike in victory or defeat. In religious faith he was a Baptist, and for many years an active and influential member of that church. He mar- ried Mary Hippie, of this county, and to their union was born a family of sous and daughters: Davis, Perry, Lewis (deceased), John, Sylvester, William, the subject of this sketch ; Sophia and Rosanna. J[ACOB C. BROWNBACK, a leading farmerof Anselma,WestPikelaud town- ship, who was a gallant soldier during the civil war, and has been an active, enterpris- ing and useful citizen ever since, is a de- scendant of the early emigrant, Garrett Browuback, and a son of Jesse and Elizabeth (Christman) Brownback. He was born in East Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 3, 1840, and gi-ew to manhood on his father's farm, receiving a practical English education in the public schools of that township. Soon after leav- ing school he engaged in farming, to which occupation he had been early trained, and" he has made that his principal business to the present time. In 1873 he removed to West Pikeland township, where he pur- chased a fine farm containing one hundred and forty acres of valuable land, all well improved and amply supplied with conven- ient farm buildings. Here he has resided ever since, and has been very successful in the management of his excellent farm. He is a republican in politics, and in religion he and his family are members of the Ger- man Reformed church. On Augusts, 1862, at the age of twenty-two, Mr. Brownback enlisted as a private in Co. I, 6th Penn- OF CHESIER COUNTY. 833 sylvauia cavalry, and served continuously until the close of the war, being honor- ably discharged at Cloud's Mill, Virginia, in June, 1865. He was a brave and gallant soldier, actively participating in the terrible conflicts at Sharpsburg, Antietam, Chancel- lorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spottsylvania, beside a number of other minor contests and skirmishes in different States. He was a member of that monster military organization known in history as the army of the Potomac, and was person- ally present in nearly all its histoi'ic engage- ments. On December 15, 1868, Mr. Brownback was married to Lizzie Kimes, a daughter of Samuel Kimes, a prosperous farmer of West Pikeland township. This union was blessed by the birth of four children, three sons and a daughter : Katie K., George K., Maurice K. and Jesse K., all living at home with their parents on the farm. For additional facts concerning the his- tory of the Brownback family, see sketches of Lewis C. Brownback, on page 555, and Garrett Elwood Brownback, on page 603, of this volume. nOGER M. lilTTIiE, one of the repre- sentative farmers and leadingsmall fruit growers of Charlestown township, is a son of Major and Eliza (Olewine) Little, and was born August 30, 1845, on the old home- stead where he now resides, in Charlestown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He grew to manhood on the farm, received his education in the common schools and at Professor Wyer's academy. West Chester, and then engaged in farming and fruit grow- ing, which he has followed successfully up to the present time. He now owns the homestead farm, first purchased by his grand- father and afterward owned by his father. It contains one hundred and twenty-nine acres of choice and well improved land. Mr. Little devotes several acres of his farm to the raising of small fruits, and has fully demonstrated that his section of the county is well adapted to the cultivation of such fruits. He has by actual experiment ar- rived at a knowledge of the small fruits that will thrive and yield remunerative crops in Charlestown township. He has ready sale for his fruit, and often ships it to a consid- erable distance. Mr. Little is a republican in politics, has served his township as au- ditor and school director, and was once a candidate for county treasurer. He is a member and trustee of Pikeland Reformed church. He is courteous and accommoda- ting, has been very successful in his business enterprises, and ranks high in his commun- ity as an honest and honorable man. Roger M. Little married Catharine Roland, a daughter of Benjamin and Mary Roland. To Mr. and Mrs. Little have been born two children, a son and a daughter : Howard P. and Mabel M. The family of which Mr. Little is a mem- ber was planted in Chester county during the revolutionary period. His paternal grandfather, Roger Little, owned four farms in Charlestown, and was reputed in his day as one of the wealthy citizens of the town- ship. He was an old-line whig in politics, married and reared a family of three chil- dren : William, Major, and Rebecca, who married James Pennypacker. The second son, Major Little (father), became the owner of the home farm, and during the active years of his life held various of his township oflices. He was an exemplary member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and married 834 BIOGBAPHY AND HISTORY Eliza Olewine. They were the parents of six children, two sons and four daughters : Mary Potts, Hannah, John, Sarah Rennard, Rebecca and Roger, whose name appears at the head of this sketch. |3ROF. FRANCIS H. GREEN, who has held the chair of English in West Chester State ITormal school since "1890, and is recognized as the pioneer of social reform in Pennsylvania, is a son of Sharpless and Mary (BootVi) Green, and was horn at Booth's Corners, Delaware county, Pennsyl- vania, May 19, 1861. His paternal grand- father, Abram Green, was born and reared in England, and during the early part of the present century came to Delaware county, this State, where he resided until his death. He married, and his son, Shai-pless Green, the father of Professor Green, was born in 1830, in his Delaware county home, where he died in 1887, aged fifty-seven years. Sharpless Green was engaged in the mer- cantile business for over a quarter of a cen- tury. He was a republican in politics, a Methodist in religious belief and church membership, and married Mary Booth, who was a daughter of James Booth and who is still living. Mr. and Mrs. Green had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters: Nelson C, who served for sev- eral years as postmaster, and now resides on the home farm ; Charles, of West Ches- ter; Lydia,wife of Curtis C. Hanby,of Dela- ware county ; Phoebe ; Mattie,wife of George L. Stanbridge, of West Chester; Prof. Fran- cis H., and a son that died in infancy. Francis H. Green was reared in Delaware county, and after attending the public schools he entered the West Chester State Normal school, from which he was gradu- ated in the class of 1882. After graduation he engaged in teaching in the public schools, and in 1884 became principal of the public schools of Marshallton, this county, from which he went one year later to take charge of the department of English in the Normal college of Huntingdon, this State. Four years later, in 1888, he accepted the position of first assistant in the department of En- glish in West Chester State Normal school, in which capacity he served until 1890, when he assumed full charge of the depart- ment as professor of English. While act- ing as first assistant he took a special course in English at Amherst college, and came well qualified to the chair which he has so successfully held for the last two years. Professor Green has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church for several years. He has done considerable work in the line of social reform, has lectured in New York and Brooklyn, and really is the pioneer of the movement 4n Pennsylvania. Articles from his pen, on the many social reforms that are so imperatively demanded in the interests of social progress and na- tional prosperity, have appeared from time to time in leading magazines and newspa- pers, and have received praise and commen- dation from the intelligent and right-think- ing people of the country. As a part of his reform work he labors in the temper- ance field, and is the founder and superin- tendent of the Order of the Knights of Tem- perance in Chester county. He studies closely everything bearing on social and edu- cational topics, and has acted for some time as secretary of the West Chester Philosoph- ical society. In connection with teaching he does con- siderable institute work, during the winter seasons, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 835 Delaware. Professor Greeu has labored hard and with good success in making his department what it should be in this en- lightened and progressive age. He is well informed on the history and growth of the English language, has mastery of the best and most progressive methods of teaching it, and is thoroughly conversant with the best thoughts of the masters of English lit: erature. The West Chester State Normal school for the first district of Pennsylvania is admirably equipped for the high grade of work which it is doing. It is recognized as one of the leading and foremost normal schools of the country, and Prof. Francis H. Green has well done his'part in maintaining the high standing which the school has at- tained as a superior institution of learning. "T^HOMAS D. FUNK, one of the young and prosperous farmers of the Picker- ing Creek valley, is a son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Davis) Funk, and was born on the farm on which he now resides, in Schuyl- killtownship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, December 21, 1862. He was reared on his father's farm, received his education in the common schools of Charlestown township, and assisted his father in farming until the death of the latter in 1890. He then pur- chased the home farm, and has been success- fully engaged in farming and dairying up to the present time. His farm contains one hundred and fifty-six acres of laud, well adapted to grain raising and grazing. It is situated in Schuylkill township, within con- venient distance of church and school. The dairy business of Chester county has as- sumed large proportions, and Philadelphia depends upon it to a large extent. The superior dairy products of the county are in great demand, and Mr. Funk is one of the many farmers of Schuylkill township who help to keep up this demand, by the purity and excellence of the products which they daily ship to the Quaker city. Mr. Funk is a republican in politics, and while never neglecting the support of his party, yet gives his time principally to business affairs. The Funks of Chester county are descen- dants of Elijah Funk, who came from Ger- many about 1750. He purchased the farm on which the subject of this sketch now re- sides, and built for his first house a small, round-log cabin, which is still standing. He afterward erected good buildings, and in 1797 built the present large stone barn that is on the propei'ty. His son, Benjamin Funk (grandfather), was a native and life-long resident of Schuylkill township, where he was afarmer by occupation. Benjamin Funk was born in 1781. He purchased the home farm, was a well-to-do man for his day, mar- ried and reared a family of eight children, five sons and three daughters : Eliza, Joseph, John, Jacob, William, George, Margaret Entriken, and Mary Jenkinson. Joseph Funk (father), the eldest son, was born in 1816, and learned the trade of saddler, which he followed but a short time. He then turned his attention to farming, purchased the old homestead, and became one of the most successful and wealthy farmers of Schuylkill township. He was a republican in politics, and died December 10, 1878. He was twice married, first to Elizabeth Davis, and after her death he wedded Caroline Rhodes, who is still living. By his first marriage he had five children, four sons and one daughter : Mary, wife of Elwood Fisher, of Charlestown village ; William, who died in childhood; John, ThomasD., the subject of this sketch, and one other. 836 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 'pHOMAS DOWNING, one of the pro- gressive and prosperous farmers of Uwchlan township, who is well known for his success in agriculture and the prominent part he takes in political allairs, is the sec- ond son of "William S. and Tamison (Mason) Downing, and was born at Lionville, Uwch- lan township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 20, 1830. His paternal great-grand- father, Joseph Downing, was a life-long resident of Chester valley, where he died. Hon. Thomas Downing (grandfather) was born in the Chester valley, "West Cain town- ship, about 1757, and lived there until 1761, when he removed with his parents to what is now Lionville, Uwchlan township, where he continued to reside until his death in 1827, at the advanced age of seventy years. He was to some extent a farmer by occu- pation, but for a number of years was en- gaged in merchandising at Lionville. Po- litically he was an old-line whig, very promi- nent in the politics of his day, and was elected and served as a member of the legis- lature from Chester county. He was also a justice of the peace for many years, and came to be regarded as the legal adviser of his neighborhood. In religion he was a member of the Society of Friends, and prom- inent in the aflairs of that religious body. He married Sarah Smith, and was the father of eight children : George, Joseph, "William, Thomas, Betsy, Tamison, Mary A. and Sarah Hoopes, all now deceased. William Downing (father) was born at Lionville in the initial year of the present century, and passed his entire life at that place, dying August 29, 1874, in his seventy-fourth year. After receiving such education as could be obtained in the schools of his neighborhood, he engaged in farming, and continued to make that his main business during life. In politics and religion he followed the ex- ample of his honored father, and at the ad- vent of the Republican party in Pennsyl- vania became a firm supporter of that political organization. He united in mar- riage with Tamison Mason, a daughter of Isaac Mason, of Uwchlan township, this county, and to them was born nine chil- dren, five sons and four daughters, only four of whom are now living: Henry, Thomas, the subject of this sketch ; Mary, and Sarah, the latter of whom became the wife of a Mr. Beitler. Thomas Downing was reared on the old Downing homestead near Lionville, and re- ceived his education in the public schools of that village. He has always resided on the farm where he was born, and has de- voted his life to agricultural pursuits, in- cluding stock raising and marketing. His farm contains two hundred and five acres of valuable land, most of which is improved and in a fine state of cultivation. In his po- litical affiliations Mr. Downing has always been a republican, and takes an active part in the politics of Chester county. He never married. gliLWOOD PATRICK, M.D., one of the well known and successful physi- cians of the city of "West Chester, is a son of David B. and Christie Ann D. (Huston) Patrick and was born in Charlestown town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Novem- ber 4, 1856. His paternal grandfather, John Patrick, was born and reared to manhood in one of the rural districts of Scotland. Arriving at the age to do for himself in life, he followed the footsteps of many of his countrymen into the celelbrated north of Ireland, where he continued to reside until about 1812, when he crossed the Atlantic OF CHESTER COUNTY. 837 to settle in Charlestown township, this county. He was a farmer by occupation, and after coming to this country became a democrat in politics. He was reared in the Presbyterian faith of his Scottish forefathers, and was an ardent and useful member of the Presbyterian church, both in Ireland and in this country. He was a worthy rep- resentative of that sturdy, energetic, self- willed and God-fearing Scotch-Irish race so prominent in the early settlement of this country. His son, David B.Patrick (father), was born in 1817, in Charlestown township, this county, where he followed farming until a few years ago, when he retired from all active pursuits of life. He was an old-line whig in politics until that party went down under the weight of public opinion in 1852, and since then has supported the principles of the Republican party. Mr. Patrick is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and married Christie Ann D. Huston, by whom he had eleven children : Harrison and Granville (twins), of whom the former died in infancy, and the latter married Fran- cis Hurry and is a resident of Phcenixville ; Mary, now dead ; John, married Alice March, and is a farmer of West Pikeland township ; Lydia, wife of John Bearer; R.Jones, mar- ried a Miss King, and follows farming in South Coventry township : "Wintield, who died in infancy; Dr. EUwood; Lizzie, wife of Rev. B. F. Davis, a minister of the Re- formed church; Ida, who died young; and Lottie E. Mrs. Patrick, who died in 1889, aged fifty-two years, was a daughter of Rob- ert Huston, who spent sixty years of his lif^ in Charlestown township. EUwood Patrick was reared in Chester county, and received his education in the common schools and a college of Montgom- ery county, which latter institution he at- tended for nearly three years. Leaving college he taught school for one-term, and then determined upon the study of medicine. He read with Dr. Howard Evans, then of Charlestown, but now of Philadelphia, and entered the university of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated March 14, 1880. Immediately aftergraduation he went to West Whiteland, where he practiced until the winter of 1884, during which he came to West Chester. Two years later, in Feb- ruary, 1886, he accepted the position of medical examiner of the Pennsylvania Rail- road Relief association, with headquarters in Pittsburg, but only served until June of that year, when he resigned to resume his practice at West Chester, which has steadily increased ever since. On March 24, 1887, Dr. Patrick was united in marriage with Emma P. Shoe- maker, daughter of Kersey Shoemaker, of this county, and their union has been blessed with one child, a son named Jesse K., who was born October 6, 1889. Dr. Patrick is a republican in politics and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church . He has always been active in the interests of his party, is now serving as a member of the city school board, and has frequently been elected as a delegate to republican county and State conventions. He is a member of West Chester Lodge, ISo. 42, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, In his profession Dr. Patrick has always been pro- gressive, and takes an interest in all the efforts made to advance the science and practice of medicine. He is a member of the West Chester Medical society, the Ches- ter County Medical society, and the Penn- sylvania State Medical society. In the sum- mer of 1891 he visited Europe, and made a tour thrQjagh England, Ireland and France. 838 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY He spent some time in London, Dublin and Paris, whose hospitals he went through and carefully inspected, and then visited many places of scenic beauty and historic interest in southern France, the Emerald Isle and eastern England. vjOSEPH H. BALDWIN, one of the young and rising members of the Ches- ter county bar, is a son of John E. and Mary G. (Hoopes) Baldwin, and was born in West Bradford township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, November 13, 1862. The name of Baldwin is to be traced back in Chester county to 1689, when John Baldwin, a re- mote ancestor of the subject of this sketch, was a merchant of Chester. He was an early settler of Aston township, Delaware county, removed to Chester county, where he acquired a considerable estate, and mar- ried April 4, 1689, Catharine Turner, a widow, by whom he had two children, Ruth and John. John was born April 10, 1697, was a saddler, married Hannah Johnson April 11, 1719, and died in 1728, leaving two sons. One of these sons was John Baldwin, who was born at Chester, Decem- ber 22, 1719, married September 9, 1739, to Ann Peirce, a daughter of Caleb and Ann Peirce, of Thornbury, and died in 1788, in East Cain township, on land purchased by his grandfather in 1702. He was a tin- plate worker, and left four children : Mary, John, Caleb and Ann. Caleb, the third child, was born in 1749, married on Decem- ber 24, 1774, to Charity Cope, a daughter of Samuel and Deborah Cope, of East Brad- ford, and died February 11, 1826, leaving four children : Deborah, John, Samuel and Jonathan C, the latter of whom was born in East Cain township, near Downingtown, January 30, 1792. He was an extensive farmer and raised a large number of horses for the eastern markets. He was much in- terested in horticulture, and served for some time as president of the Chester County Horticultural society. He died October 20, 1874, aged eighty-two years. He married Mary Ann Jacobs, a preacher of the Society of Friends, who was a daughter of Richard and Lydia (Gibbons) Jacobs, of East Brad- ford. Their children were: John Erskine, Hannah, Caleb, Deborah, Caroline Cope, Lydia J., Richard A., James H., Charity, Susan P., Jonathan C, Rebecca S. Conard, Henry C. and Mary Ann. John Erskine Baldwin (father), was born in 1823, in East Cain township, where he resided until his marriage, when he removed to West Brad- ford, where he died in 1890, at sixty-seven years of age. He was a very wealthy farmer, owning two hundred acres of choice land on Brandywine creek, was a whig and repub- lican in politics, took an active part in local affairs, and held several township offices. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and married Mary G. Hoopes, a daughter of William Hoopes, and who was born in East Goshen township. They reared a family of nine children, of whom seven are living : Hannah, wife of George A. Hoffman, a farmer of West Whiteland township ; John Erskine, jr., residing on the home farm; Phoebe, married to Byard Conard, a mer- chant of Upland, Delaware county ; Henry C, in the mercantile business at Chadd's Ford ; Joseph H. ; Elizabeth, wife of George H. Fester, of Downingtown ; and Emma L., who married Jacob Kendig, an extensive lumber dealer of Muscatine, Iowa. Joseph H. Baldwin grew to manhood in his native township, and after attending the public schools and Professor Worral's acad- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 839 emy, entered "West Chester State Normal school, from which he was graduated in the class of 1883. After graduation he engaged in teaching, which he followed for three years. He read law with Thomas S. and "William Barth, jr., was admitted to the bar in August, 1889, and since then has been ac- tively engaged at West Chester in the prac- tice of his chosen profession. In politics Mr. Baldwin has always been a stanch republican, and is now serving his second term as chairman of the Republican county committee. He leans toward the Society of Friends, of which so many of his ancestors were worthy and devoted mem- bers. He is a member of Pocahontas Lodge, No. 316, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of "West Chester, and stands well at the bar, where he has won his way into a flattering and lucrative practice. 'T^HOMAS LANCASTER, an industri- ous citizen and the proprietor of the Charlestown Flouring mills, is a son of Jo- seph C. and Lydia (Stanley) Lancaster, and was born in Bethel township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1864. His paternal grandfather, James Lancaster, was a native of Brandywine Hundred, county of Delaware, but resided after early man- hood in Bethel township, Delaware county, on the farm which he purchased there, and which is now known as the Lancaster home- stead, as it has remained ever since in the possession of his lineal descendants. He was a tanner by trade, and owned a large tannery in Wilmington, which he operated for thii'ty-five years. At the end of that time he engaged in butchering and market gardening, which he followed with more or less activity until his death in 1890, at an 49 advanced age. He was a democrat in pol- itics, married and had a family of thirteen children, of whom nine died within two weeks during an epederaic of dysentery. One of the four children who survived was Joseph Lancaster, the father of the subject of this sketch. Joseph Lancaster has always resided in his native township, where he has followed farming and butchering. He is a democrat in political opinion, and married Lydia Stanley. To their union were born five children, two sons and three daughters : Thomas, Lizzie, wife of William Hall, a blacksmith by trade, who owns and operates a large wheelwright and blacksmith shop at Greenville, in Delaware county ; Alfred B., who died in 1891, at twenty-one years of age ; Isabella, who died in infancy, and Jen- nie H. Thomas Lancaster grew to manhood on the home farm, received his education in the common schools of his native township and Charlestown graded school, and then learned the trade of miller, at which he worked for four years. At the end of that time he commenced business for himself, renting the Chester Valley mills, which he operated for one year. He then rented the Green Bank mill, which burned down a year later, after which he took charge of the Harrison Bernard mill, where he re- mained until 1890, when he purchased the Charlestown mills. His mills are situated in a good grain producing section of the county, and turn out an excellent grade of flour. Thomas Lancaster married Lizzie F. Tholo, daughter of John H. and Hannah Tholo. Mr. Lancaster is a democrat, of the Jeff'ersonian school. He is well qualified for the business in which he is engaged, and has acquired an enviable reputation for the high grade of flour that he manufactures. 840 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTOBY HENRY R. MILLER, one of the old and substantial citizens of East Cov- entry township, who has served as assessor and tax collector and is widely known, is the fourth child and third son of Henry and Hannah (Eoot) Miller, and was born JSTovem- ber 8, 1824, in "West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was reared principally in his native township, and received his education in the public schools of his neighborhood. Later he re- moved to West Coventry township, where he lived for a number of years, and then came to his present home in East Vincent, where he owns a fine farm containing fifty- one acres of choice land, all improved and in a good state of cultivation. He has de- voted his entire life to agricultural pursuits, and has met with a good degree of success, being now in independent circumstances. Politically Mr. Miller is a republican, and has been honored by his fellow citizens with election to the oflSces of assessor and tax collector of East Coventry township, the duties of which positions he has discharged faithfully and well. He is a member of the German Reformed church, in which he has served as elder. On December 21, 1845, Mr. Miller was united in marriage with Elizabeth Longaker, a daughter of Jacob Longaker, of East Vin- cent township. To them was born six chil- dren, three sons and three daughters : Alvin W., a blacksmith of Spring City, who mar- ried Mary Urliss ; Mariah J., wedded John Grrubb, of East Coventry township, where he is engaged in farming ; Irvin W., a mason by occupation, who married Zela Kirk and now resides in East Coventry; Alice J., Phcebe S. and William H., the three latter now living at home with their father. Mrs. Elizabeth Miller died June 30, 1888, in the sixty-fifth year of her age, and greatly re- spected by a wide circle of friends and ac- quaintances. The paternal great-grandfather of Henry R. Miller was a native of Germany who emi- grated to the United States and settled in Pikeland township, this county, at an early day. He was a farmer and owned three hundred acres of land. One of his sons was John Miller (grandfather), who was born in 1765, and lived in East Vincent township until his death in 1825, at the advanced age of sixty years. He also was a farmer by occupation, and became quite prosperous. In religious faith he was a Lutheran, and an ardent democrat politically. He was elected justice of the peace and served an extended term in that ofiice, and was also captain of a companj"^ of State militia for a number of years. He was a man of sound judgment and even temper, and was fre- quently called on by his neighbors and ac- quaintances to act as arbitrator in the settle- ment of differences that grew up among them. In early life he married Catharine Christman, and was the father of five chil- dren, the eldest of whom was Henry, the father of the subject of this sketch. The others, all now deceased, were : Mary, who married a Mr. March ; John, Margaret, and Peter. Henry Miller (father) was born in West Vincent township, this county, in 1795, and died at his home in East Vincent 4n 1879, aged eighty-four. He spent his active yeai'S mainly in the cultivation of the soil, and was known as a progressive and successful farmer. In politics he was a stanch democrat, and served three or four terms as a school director in his township. Religiously he was a firm adherent of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and served for many years as an elder and deacon. He OF CHESTER COUNTY. 841 married Hannah Root, of this county, and they had a family of eleven children : Se- bastian, Catharineand Samuel, all three now deceased ; Henry R, whose name heads this sketch; Joshua, Perry, Jones, a farmer in the west; Davis, deceased ; John and Sa- varia, living ; and Margaret, dead. TAllLLIAM R. MANGER, a well-known farmer residing nearPottstown, and a highly esteemed citizen of Chester county, is the only son of John and Sarah (Reif- snyder) Manger, and was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania, June 2, 1852. At the age of seven years, his father having died, he came to Chester county, where he be- came a member of his uncle's family, and here he was principally reared. He received a good practical education in the public schools, and in 1867 entered the Pottstown Iron works, where he learned the trade of puddler, and followed that occupation for a period of ten years, after which he engaged in farming in IJforth Coventry township. He now owns a fine farm of sixty-six acres at South Pottstown, that township, and has it all improved and in a good state of culti- vation. Being a man of considerable abil- ity, great energy and good judgment, he has been quite successful in agricultural pur- suits and is in comfortable circumstances. In politics he is attached to the Democratic party, and while taking little active part in the heated contests that annually convulse the State, he is earnest in his support of the great principles of liberty and equality that form the basis of that political organ- ization, and ever ready to do what he can to secure its triumph at the polls. He is a member of the German Reformed church, as were many of his ancestors, and active in support of the different interests of his de- nomination. On January 17, 1878, Mr. Manger was united in marriage with Anna Filman, a daughter ofJosiahFilman, of Pottstown, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Manger have been born two children, both sons: Harry F. and Lee F. Jacob Manger, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Berks county, Pennsylvania, where he resided all his life, and where he died about 1860, at the advanced age of sixty-five years. He was a miller by trade, and was also engaged in farming during his later years. Politi- cally he was a democrat, and supported that party all his life. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and was a life-long member of the German Reformed church. In early manhood he wedded Sarah Sands, and they reared a family of five children : Jacob, John, Mary, Catharine and one other. John Manger (father) was born on the old home- stead in Berks county, where he grew up and was educated in the public schools of his neighborhood. After leaving school he engaged in farming, and in early manhood was married to Sarah Reifsnyder, of Bucks county, by whom he had two children, one son, William R., and a daughter, Mary, who married Henry Manger, a farmer of Bucks county, where they now reside. John Man- ger was a democrat in political faith and a strict member of the German Reformed church. He continued to reside in Bucks county, engaged in farming until his death in 1859, at the early age of twenty-seven years. » » • i^ETER WELLS, a successful farmer of Charlestown township, and a descend- ant of one of the oldest families of the State, 842 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY is a son of John and Catherine (Young) Wells, and was born in Charlestown town- ship, Chester connty, Pennsylvania, N'ovem- ber 28, 1830; He received his education in the common schools, and then learned the trade of carpenter, at which he never worked to any great extent. He has always fol- lowed farming, and upon the death of his father he came into possession of his pres-' ent farm of ninety-two acres, which is a part of the old home place. He runs a dairy and operates a stone quarry, in connection with farming, and has been successful in all three lines of business. He is a republican in politics and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church. Mr. Wells served as en- rolling oiScer during the late war, for Schuyl- kill and Charlestown townships. He is a member of the fraternal orders of the Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, and Free and Accepted Masons. He is also a lipyal Arch Mason and a Knight Templar. Peter Wells married SalliePennypacker, and to their union were born three children : Emma, Franklin, who died in infancy, and Millie A. The Wells family is of Welsh descent. Its immigrant ancestor came with the Swedes in 1638, and his descendants settled in Charles- town township, where John Wells (father), was born and reared. The latter was a whig and Lutheran, and served as a justice of the peace for many years. He died in this county at an advanced age. He married Catherine Young, who is also deceased, and they had seven children : Peter (1), who died in infancy; Kuth Beaver, Catherine, Lydia Beaver, Sarah, Dr. John, who mar- ried Agnes Ralston ; and Peter (2), the sub- ject of this sketch. One of the sons of Pr, John Wells is Pr. John R. Wells, who was born in Charles- town township, September 27, 1858. He received his education in the common schools and Ursinus college, read medicine with his father and entered the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in the class of 1882. Immediately after graduaj;ion he commenced practicing with his father, Dr. John Wells, a man of fine education and a graduate of Pennsylvania Medical college, in the class of 1854, and who has practiced medicine successfully for thirty years in Charlestown township, where he is a leading republican and a prominent Presbyterian. Dr. John R. Wells is a republican in politics, and has served for several years as a member of the school board of his township. He has three brothers and one sister: Frank H., in the fertilizer business in Philadelphia.; Harry L., James T., who is manager of his father's farm and is now serving as a member of the Republican county committee ; and Agnes R. Dr. John R. Wells married Lizzie Hart- man, daughter of Granville Hartman. He has a fine practice, which extends through- out Charlestown and into adjoining town- ships. « ♦ « ■ JONATHAN MORRIS, a substantial farmer of this county, and a wounded Union veteran of the late war, who fought in thirty battles for the preservation of his country, is a son of William and Caroline (Bush) Morris, and was born near Valley Forge, in Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, in 1826. His immigrant ancestor, George Morris, was a native of Germany, who after coming to this country settled near Gulf Mills, Montgomery county, where he died in 1844, aged seventy years. He was a farmer and democrat, married and OP chmtjeh county. 843 had six children : Jacob, William (father), Rees, Elizabeth Famous, Martha Upright, and Sarah. William Morris, the second son, was born in 1807, and died in 1842, at thirty- five years of age. He was a farmer and democrat, like his father before him, and served for some time in a militia company. He married Caroline Bush and reared a family of six children : Charles, Jonathan (subject), George, Samuel, Mary, and Sarah Cummings. - Jonathan Morris, by the untimely death of his parents, was thrown at an early age upon the world and among strangers to do for himself. He received his education in the early common schools of Pennsylvania, and worked for several years in the cotton factories at Gulf Mills, this State. In 1861, he enlisted in Co. G, 82d Pennsylvania in- fantry, and served until August 20, 1865, when he was honorably discharged at Hall's Hill, Virginia. He served as a private for a time and was then promoted to corpoi'al, and later was promoted from that position to sergeant. He served in the armies of the Potomac and the Valley of Virginia, lost a finger at Fair Oaks, but never left the field, and received two other wounds, one at Winchester and the other at Sailor's Creek, where he was held prisoner by the Confederates for three days. He partici- pated in the following battles and engage- ments: Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Seven Days' Fight, second Bull Eun, South Moun- tain, Antietam, Fredericksburg,Chancellors- ville, Gettysburg, Eappahaunock, the Wil- derness fights, Spottsylvania Courthou'se, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Weldon Railroad, Winchester, Fisher's Creek, Hatcher's Run, Fort Steadman, Sailor's Creek, and Appo- mattox Courthouse. 'After the close of the war Sergeant Morris returned home, and now resides on his well improved farm, where he gives his time principally to farm- ing and stock raising. Jonathan Morris married Margaret Sho- walter, a daughter of John Showalter, and they have three children : Athalia, Elsie and Carrie. In politics Mr. Morris is a republican. He has a splendid military record, and ranks high"as a citizen and as a successful farmer. He is a member of Josiah White Post, No. 45, Grand Army of the Republic, and also of Phoenix Lodge, No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons. rflililSON E. YEAGER, one of the prominent and leading citizens of this county, who is now engaged in the coal, mer- cantile and creamery business at Kimber- ton, is the eldest son of John and Martha S. (Emory) Yeager, and was born in East Vin- cent township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, November 3, 1853. He received his education in the common schools of East Pikelaud and East Vincent townships, and at Ursinus college, at which excellent edu- cational institution he took a two years' course. He commenced life for himself as a teacher, and after two years of teaching in the public schools, he came to Kimber- ton, where he was engaged in the general mercantile business from 1876 to 1880. In the last named year he became a coal dealer, and in 1889 resumed the general mercantile business and started his present creamery. He has been successful in each of his dift'er- ent lines of business, and is a man of good executive ability and organizing power. His coal yards are large and well supplied with the best grades of coal to be found in the market ; his store is a large two-story brick structure, and is heavily stocked with dry 846 BIOGRAPHY AND HIST OH Y Phoenixville ; Ida D., wife of Harry Snyder, a window sash and frame manufacturer of Spring City; and Morris L., at home. George Deery, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, passed the larger part of his life in WestPikeland township, this county. He was a large landholder, a strong democrat, and a strict member of the Evangelical Lutheran church. During the war of 1812 he hauled supplies to the Amer- ican forces encamped at Marcus Hook. He died in 1825, at eighty-five years of age. Among his children were : Peter, John, George, Hannah Smith and Mary Phillips. George Deery (father) was a farmer by oc- cupation, always supported the Democratic party, and held membership in the Evan- gelical Lutheran church for many years be- fore his death, which occurred in 1839. He married Susanna Knerr, and they had three children, one son and two daughters : Eliza- beth Emery, Mary March, and Henry, the subject of this sketch. JOHN REESE, one of the older citizens and successful farmers of Chester county, is a son of Enos and Margaret (Rixstine) Reese, and was born in East Pikeland town- ship, this county, JS"ovember 20, 1826. Enos Reese always resided in East Pikeland town- ship, where he died at an advanced age. He was a farmer by occupation, and partly cleared out and largely improved a farm of one hundred and two acres, in a day when farming was accomplished by the hardest of manual toil, and agricultural labor-saving machinery was unknown. He was a repub- lican in politics during the latter years of his life, while in religious belief he held to the principles and teachings of the Friends, although not a member of the society. He was an industrious and thrifty farmer, and married Margaret Rixstine. They reared a family of four children, two sons and two daughters : John, Samuel, Anise and Sarah. John Reese grew to manhood on the home farm, received his education in the subscription schools of his neighborhood, and then engaged in farming, which he has steadily pursued up to the present time. He never embarked in any rash or speculative schemes, or risked his earnings on the pos- sible success of any doubtful enterprise, but satisfied himselfwith moderate returns from safe and legitimate investments in property and farming operations. Thus he acquired slowly but surely the handsome competence which he now enjoys. Li 1875 he came to Kimberton and purchased a valuable farm of ninety acres of excellent land, on which he still resides. Besides this land he owns the homestead farm of one hundred and two acres in East Pikeland township, several valuable wood lots in Charlestown township, and a largedouble brick house atKimberton. John Reese married Annie Davis, and they have two children : Maggie Quay and Flora Keeler. In politics Mr. Reese has always been a strong democrat, and has served in several of the various offices of his township. He is a consistent member of Charlestown Pres- byterian church, a good neighbor, and an unassuming and excellent citizen. QHRISTIAN W. WAGONER, the well known stove manufacturer of Royer's Ford, this State, who resides at Spring City, this county, is a fine example of the ener- getic, pushing, progressive and successful business men of our day. He is a son of John and Catharine (Walters) Wagoner, a Of CHESTER COUNTY. wr native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and was born July 26, 1844, in East Vincent township. The Wagoners trace their Amer- ican ancestry back to one John "Wagoner, who emigrated from Germany and settled in what is now West Cain township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, in 1768. On June 25th of that year he purchased fifty acres of land and a grist mill from John Miller, for which he paid eight hundred pounds English sterling. lie died in 1794, leaving the following children : Peter, George, Wil- liam, John, Susan, who married John Skiles, and Betsey, who wedded Andrew McGill. From these have descended the now num- erous family of Wagoner in this section. John Wagoner, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Chester county, and spent most of his life within her borders. He was a stone mason by trade, but in later life became a farmer and en- gaged extensively in agriculture. Politi- cally be was a Jacksonian democrat, and in religion a strict member of the Lutheran church. He married and was the father of three children, one son and two daughters: John, father of Christian; Margaret, who married a Mr. Rodawalt; and Elizabeth, who became the wife of a Mr. Hause. They are all now deceased. John Wagoner (father) was born in this county, and lived nearly all his life in East Vincent township, where he was engaged in farming and shoemaking. In politics he was a democrat, and served for a number of years as school director and supervisor of his township. He was a life long mSmber of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and always took an active interest in religious matters, filling all the official positions in his church and becoming quite prominent. As a working member of the committee having the affair in charge, he was largely instrumental in the erection of Zion's Lutheran church at Spring City. He married Catharine Walters, and to them was born a family of five children, four sons and a daughter: Nathan, Maggie (deceased in infancy), John F., William and Chris- tian W. Christian W. Wagoner was reared prin- cipally on his father's farm in East Vincent township, this county, and received a good practical education in the common schools of that neighborhood. He was a bright student and acquired knowledge rapidly. After leaving school and before attaining his majority, about 1868, he engaged in general merchandising at Spring City, and continued successfully in that line until August 14, 1883, when he disposed of his mercantile business in order to devote his time entirely to the manufacture of stoves at Royer's Ford, in which enterprise he had become interested in 1882. From that time to the present he has given his attention almost exclusively to the stove business, and has built up an extensive trade. The works employ about one hundred and ten men, and the stoves and other products turned out are known far and wide for their excellence, and meet a ready sale in all parts of the country. The annual output aggre- gates over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Wagoner also owns three large stores adjoining the property he lives in at Spring City, and three fine dwelling houses in the same borough. He is at present (1892) erecting a handsome brick structure at the corner of Now and Church streets, - to be used as his future residence. It is massive in proportions, elaborate in detail, and when finished will constitute one of the most convenient and beautiful homes to be found in Spring.City. 848 BtOOBAPBY AND SISTOBY Christian W. Wagoner was united in mar- riage to Mary Gracey, a daughter of James and Nioma Gracey, and to their union have been born four children, one son and three daughters: George, now chief clerk in his father's stove foundry ; Katie, Lilly and Ella, all living at home with their parents. In politics Mr. Wagoner is a democrat, thus following the political traditions of his ancestors. He has served as one of the school directors of Spring City for nearly a decade, and is a prominent member of the Evangelical Lutheran church of that bor- ough. He is also a member of Spring City Lodge, 'So. 553, Free and Accepted Masons, and of Lodge, IsTo. 91, Knights of Pythias, of which latter he has been treasurer ever since its organization eighteen years ago. In addition to these he holds membership in Spring City Lodge, l^o. 16, United Order of American Mechanics, and is also con- nected with the Lidependent Order of Odd Fellows. He is an intelligent, retined, and aft'able gentleman, and popular alike in fra- ternal societies, social circles, and wherever be is known. 1A>- D. CHANDLER, one of Oxford's ac- tive and progressive business men who has achieved substantial success, is a son of Jacob and Hannah (Kettlewood) Chandler,and was born in JtfewCastle county, Delaware, August 25, 1846. The Chandler family has been resident for several genera- tions in Delaware, where Swithin Chandler, the grandfather of W. D. Chandler, was born and reared. He was a farmer by occupa- tion, a democrat in politics, and in religion a member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends, He married Ann Greg- ory and reared a family of nine children. One of his sons, Jacob Ohaudler (father), was born in 1816 in New Castle county, Dela- ware, where he died in June, 1890, at sev- enty-four years of age. He was a carpenter by trade, but was principally engaged in farming. He was a republican in politics, held several township offices, and was always active in local affairs. He was a member and ruling elder of Lower Brandy wine Pres- byterian church, and married Hannah Ket- tlewood. Mr. and Mrs. Chandler reared a family of nine children, seven sons and two daughters, all of whom are still living. W. D. Chandler was reared in his native county, received his education at Fairview academy, and learned the trade of carriage manufacturer. After finishing his trade he engaged in business for himself at Hockes- sin, Delaware, where he remained from 1865 to 1884, and during the last three years of that time operated a general store and lum- ber yard. On August 1, 1884, Mr. Chandler came to Oxford and established his coal and lumber yards and grain store, to which, in 1889, he added his present planing mill. He is energetic, industrious and accommo- dating, and has a very fine trade in his line of business in this and adjoining coun- ties. Mr. Chandler employs from seven to eight men, and also does a good business in contracting and building. He keeps the best grades of anthracite and bituminous coal, all kinds of hard and soft lumber, and a full stock of grain, hay, feed and fertil- izers. His planing and feed mills are run by a thirty-five horse-power engine, and a side track of the i-ailroad passes directly into his yards and to his mills ancl ware- houses. On April 6, 1870, Mr. Chandler married Kate Robinson, of Newark, Delaware, who died September 22, 1881, and left three children : Lillian A., Bertha H. and Florence OF CHESTJBB COUXTr. 849 G. Mr. Chandler was retnarried on Janu- ary 14, 1885, wedding Lucy L. Flinn, of Newport, Delaware. W. D. Chandler is a member of Friend- ship Lod|:e, Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, and is also a Knight of the Golden Eagle. He is a republican in political sen- timent, and has served his borough as a member of the council for four years and as a school director for three years. Mr. Chand- ler is well fitted for the business in which he is engaged, and ranks among the honest, honorable and substantial citizens of the county. nC. GHEEN,a well-known farmer and stock dealer of West Goshen town- ship, residing near Everhart, is the only son of ]Srathan and Alice (Cheyney) Gheen, and was born on the farm where he now resides, in February, 1836. The family have been residents of Pennsylvania since a very early day. On December 7, 1768, at Christ church, in the city of Philadelphia, Joseph Gheen married Elizabeth Ingram, and removed soon afterward, it is thought, to Goshen township, Chester county. His children were Thomas, John, William, Joseph, Jonathan and Levi. Thomas was three times married. His first wife's name was Alice, his second was a Miss Brinton, and the third Ann "West, a widow. His children, so far as known, were William A., Levi A., Elizabeth (married David West), Martha, Sarah and Mary Ann. John Gheen was twice married, his wives being sisters, Sarah and Hannah Hicks, and to him was born seven children : Hannah, Elizabeth, Thomas, Edward, John, Enos and Mary. Of these, Edward married Hannah Hick- man, by whom he had one daughter, and by a second wife, Phebe Hickman, was the father of Francis IL, Lieut. Edward H., of the United States navy, and John J., for years a member of the Chester county bar. Jonathan Gheen was born August 13, 1777, and died June 17, 1861. He married Han- nah Chamberlin, and left three children : Amy, Susan and John W. Levi Gheen, born March 3, 1783, and died December 12, 1839, married Mary Chamberlin, resided in East Goshen township and had children : Titus W., Jonathan, Palmer, Lydia (married John McCauley), Elizabeth and Taylor. The name seems to have been originally spelled "Gahagan," but changed to the present spelling about 1768. Joseph Gheen, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in West Goshen township, this county, and spent all his life there, engaged in fai-miug and stock raising, dying at an advanced age. Politi- cally he was an old-line whig, and married Hannah Osborn, by whom he had a family of five children : William, Joseph, Nathan, Sarah and Betsey. Nathan Gheen (father) was born at the homestead in West Goshen township, and died there at an advanced age. He was a farmer by occupation, and spent nearly all his active years in the cultivation of the soil and stock raising. His farm (now owned by his son, R. C. Gheen) contained seventy-five acres of choice land, all finely improved and supplied with excellent farm buildings, including a handsome residence. He was a republican in politics, and mar- ried Alice Cheyney, by whom he had two children, a daughter named Ella, and a son, whose name heads this sketch. R. C. Gheen grew to manhood on the farm where he now resides, in West Gosheii township, and received a good practical edu- cation in the public schools of this vicinity. On leaving school he adopted agriculture as his business in life, and has given his time 850 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY principally to that occupation. For some years he has also been dealing in live stock, of which he is an excellent judge, and has handled a large amount. He has been quite successful, and is now in fairly independent circumstances. Politically Mr. Grheen is an ardent democrat, and while taking no very active part in politics, always gives his party a loyal support on all leading issues, and keeps well posted on public questions and passing events. J^OSEPH I. MOWREY, of the well- known firm of Davis & Mowrey, coal, wood, feed and flour mercTiants, of Spring City, is a son of Samuel and Leah (Cunsen- houser) Mowrey, and was born in North Coventry township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, January 26, 1854. His paternal grandfather, Peter Mowrey, was a native of this county, where he lived all his life, and died in ISTorth Coventry township, at an ad- vanced age. ^j vocation he was a farmer and married a Miss Grubb, by whom he had a family of seven children, five of whom were sons : Samuel, Peter, Joseph, Abra- ham and Enos. The daughters were Lydia and Hettie. The eldest son, Samuel Mow- rey (father), was born in Iforth Coventry township, this country, in 1817, and died at his home in East Vincent township in 1874, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He also followed farming as a vocation, and be- came successful and prosperous. Politically he was a whig and republican, and served as a school director in his township for a number of years. He was a strict member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and mar- ried Leah Cunsenhonser, of this county, by which union he had a family often children, six sons and four daughters : Malinda,died at the age of twenty-six; Sarah, married J. Acker Guss, who resides at Spring City, this county, where he is engaged in the manufacture of paper, boxes; Seneca, a farmer by occupation, now living on the old homestead ; Wesley, died in 1891, form- erly one of the firm of Mowrey, LatshawA Co., of Spring City; Joseph L, the subject of this sketch ; Lydia, became the wife of John H. Davis, a sketch of whom appears on page 405 of this volume ; Samuel R., a resident of Spring City; Enos E., a mer- chant of Spring City ; Horace, also a resi- dent of that borough, where he is a paper- box manufacturer; and Anna Leah, deceased. Joseph I. Mowrey was reared principally in North Coventry township, where he re- ceived a good English education in the pub- lic schools, and afterward took a course ex- tending through three terms in [Jrsinus college. On leaving college he engaged in farming in East Coventry township, and was thus employed for a period of five years, after which he removed to Spring City and embarked in the bakery and ice cream busi- ness. He successfully conducted the latter enterprise for nearly six years, when he sold out, and in March, 1890, formed a partner- ship with his brother-in-law, John A. Davis, under the firm name of Davis & Mowrey, and began dealing in flour, feed, coal, wood, limestone and cui'b stone. Being energetic, progressive and enterprising, and endowed with good business ability and sound judg- ment, the members of this firm sooii had a prosperous business, which has steadily in- creased and is now important and lucrative. They handle everything in their line, and make it a point to give satisfaction in every transaction, endeavoring to make a friend of every customer. On December 2, 1877, Mr. Mowrey was OF CHESIER COUNTY. 851 united in marriage with Harriot Latsbaw, a daughter of John Latshaw, of Spring City, and to them has been born a family of seven children, five of whom are still living: Annie L., John H., Davis K. (deceased), George B., Ida (dead), Paul B. and Edna L. In his political affiliations Joseph I. Mow- rey is a stanch republican, and has served as assistant assessor of his borough. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church at Spring City, an^ is one of the board of stewards. He is also a member of the fra- ternal organization known as Knights of the Golden Eagle, and is popular alike in social and business circles and wherever he is known. V TARVIS ELLIS was one of the leading and most prominent business men of Downingtown and the great Chester valley for nearly a quarter of a century, and was highly esteemed for his sound business judg- ment and many good qualities. He was a son of James Ellis, and was born at the vil- lage of Oberny, in Yorkshire, England, Jan- uary 29, 1829. James Ellis was born in England, where he held various positions during his life, in different large cotton fac- tories. He married and reared a family of children : Benjamin, Mary, Hannah, Joseph, Jarvis and James. Jarvis Ellis was left an orphan when a mere child. At nineteen years of age he came to Fisherville, where he was employed as a carder in the old woolen mill for nine- teen years. At the end of that time he be- came manager of James C. Roberts' woolen mill at Barneston, and four years later, upon the death of Mr. Roberts, was made joint manager with James Mullen, of the entire business of the heirs of the Roberts estate. When the youngest heir of the estate be- came of age Mr. Ellis resigned his position in the mill to engage in the woolen manu- facturing business for himself. He pur- chased the site of the old woolen mill at Fisherville, which had burned down, and erected the present cotton and woolen- mills of that place now owned by his heirs. He soon built up a good business, and was act- ively engaged in manufacturing a superior line of goods until his death in 1892. He was a republican in politics and ranked as one of the leading cotton and woolen manu- facturers of southeastern Pennsylvania. In addition to his factory Mr. Ellis owned twenty-eight houses in the village of Fish- erville, and a farm of one hundred and thirty-three acres. His labors of life closed on July 20, 1892, when he passed away at sixty-three years of age. His factory, now ojDcrated by his widow and children, is a well equipped structure that was recently enlarged and remodeled in order to keep up with a large and constantly increasing volume of trade from Philadelphia and other eastern cities. Seventy-five men are em- ployed as a regular force, and of the many- fine lines of woolen goods and jeans cloth one is the famous "Beaver Valley Buck- skins." Seventy looms are in constant oper- ation and as high as sixty thousand yards of cloth have been turned out in one month. The plant ranks as one of the largest, best equipped and most prosperous of the cotton and woolen factQries of the State. Jarvis Ellis married Mary Jackson, who was born in 1830, in Yorkshire, England, and is a daughter of John Jackson, a nur- seryman, w.ho came from England to Bonds- ville, this county, where he died and left five, children : Bessie Sharp, Mrs. Mary El- lis, Joseph, Harry and George. To Jarvis and Mary Ellis were born ten children : 852 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY George, married Elizabeth King, and is the present factory manager ; Martha, wife of William Fisher, loom boss ; Mary McCanan, now dead; Hannah, wife of W. E. Brown, a merchant of Fisherville ; Sarah, who is now dead; Jarvis,jr. ; Laura, wife of Harr}' Irwin, a dyer by trade; Emma, who mar- G. L. Hadfield ; James, an engineer, who married Emma Clift; and Sarah, wife of F. J. Elston, of Guthriesville. Jarvis Ellis, jr., second son and fifth child of James and Mary (Jackson) Ellis, is a cloth finisher by trade, and married Katie, daughter of Jacob Wagoner. They have four children : Harry, Laura, Jarvis and Jacob. Mr. Ellis is a republican in poli- tics, and a member of the Knights of the Golden Eagle, the Independent Order of Hed Men, and of the Junior Order of United American Workmen. ^OHN A. HENNISS, a prominent tin- ware and stove dealer of Atglen, who has served as burgess, school director and mem- ber of the council of that borough, is a son of Capt. John and Matilda (Watson) Hen- uiss, and was born at Cochranville, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, November 4, 1844. There he grew to manhood, attend- ing the public schools and acquiring a su- perior English education. After leaving school he learned the tinner's trade with his father, and continued to work with him un- til 1877, when, one year after his marriage, he removed to Atglen and engaged in the tin and stove business for himself. Being energetic, enterprising, and willing to devote his best efforts to please his patrons, he soon had a nice trade which has steadily in- creased to the present time. He now carries a large stock of everything in his line, and can satisfy the most fastidious taste and meet the views of the most careful purchaser. Inheriting fine business ability and having had a long practical training, it is a satis- faction to him to do business, and fully com- prehending the fact that business is only half done if the buyer is dissatisfied, betakes particular pains to make every transaction satisfactory in itself. In 1876 Mr. Hennis was united in mar- riage to Clara Wise, a d'aughter of Michael and Mariah Wise, of this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Henniss have been born three daugh- ters: Emma M., Annie A., and Gladyss, all living at home with their parents. Inhis political afiiliations Mr. Henniss has always been a democrat, is a stanch sup- porter of his party, and influential in its lo- cal councils. He was elected and served as burgess of Atglen, and has also served as a school director and a member of the borough council. To the duties of these various po- sitions he has always given that close atten- tion which distinguishes the management of his private business, and discharged evei-y official duty with ability and a patriotic re- gard for the public good. He is a member of Skerrett Lodge, No. 343, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, of Cochranville, and a gen- tleman of broad intelligence and affable manners. The Henniss family is of direct Irish de- scent, this branch of it having been planted in America by John Henniss, grandfather of the subject of this sketch. John Henniss was born and reared on the Emerald Isle, but left his native shore in 1810, with wife and children, to seek a home in the United States. He first settled at Petersburg, Vir- ginia, but afterward removed to Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania, where he carried on the brokerage business for a number of years. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 853 He died in that city in 1846, at an advanced age. His son, Capt. John Henniss (father), was born in Ireland, but was brought to America by his parents while yet an infant, and with them lived in Virginia and Phila- delphia. In early life he learned the trade of tinner, and in 1839 located at Cochran- ville, Chester county, where he carried on the tin and stove business until his death, August 16, 1881, when in the seventy-first year of his age. He was remarkably suc- cessful in business, and at the time of his death owned the second largest tin and stove house in Chester county. Politically he was an ardent democrat all his life, and served as sealer of weights and measures in this county for some time. There was a military side to his character, and he took great interest in the militia organizations of his day. When a young man he served as captain of a military company at Coch- ranville, known as the " Steel Grays," and was ever afterward known and addressed as Captain Henniss. He married Matilda Watson, and to them, was born a family of children. She was a native of Harford county, Maryland, and died December 15, 1889, in the seventy-sixth year of her age, and greatly beloved by all who knew her. .JOHN BEITLER, Jr., the popular postmaster at Chester Valley, and a suc- cessful general merchant of that place, is a son of John and Thomazine (Thompson) Beit- ler, and is a native of Lionville, Uwchlan township, this county, where he was born April 4, 1843. His paternal grandfather, Hon. John Beitler, was born in Chester county, and lived for many years at Lion- ville, where he died in 1878, aged ninety- two years, and where his remains repose in the Friends' burying ground. He was a farmer by occupation, a Quaker in religion, and politically a' whig and a republican, be- ing active and prominent in local politics for many years. He represented Chester county in the State legislature one term, and at one time or another held all the offices of his township. His wife was Anna Evans, and they were the parents of five children, two sons and three daughters: John, Jesse, deceased ; Hannah, who married a Mr. Rog- ers, and is now dead; Mary and Sarah. John Beitler (father) was born at Lionville, in ISTovember, 1808, received a fair education in the common schools of hi^ native place, and has continued to reside there all his life. His attention has been principally de- voted to agricultural pursuits, in which he was very successful, owning one hundred acres of valuable land. Politically he is a republican, with whig antecedents, and he married Thomazine Thompson, by whom he had a family of five sons and four daugh- ters: Hannah, married James Trimble, a farmer residing in Maryland; Julia, de- ceased ; Lewis, married Elmira Oberholtzer, and is now a carpenter and builder of West Pikeland township, this county : Elizabeth, widow of Wilmer Smedley, and living in West Chester; John, the subject of this sketch ; Anna, still living at home ; Henry, married Rachel Stephens, and is now en- gaged in milling in Uwchlan township ; Hollan, who wedded Sallie Downing, and resides on the old homestead in the same township ; and Luman, who married Anna R. Pyle, and is engaged in merchandising at West Grove, this county. John Beitler, whose name heads this sketch, was reared principally at Lionville, and received a good English education in the common schools. He began life on his 854 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY own account as a clerk in a general store at Howellville, this county, where he remained five or six years. In 1872 he embarked in business for himself at Chester Valley, where he has ever since conducted a general store, meeting with marked success. He keeps a complete stock of all kinds of gen- eral merchandise, sells at reasonable prices, and takes pains to please all who favor him with their custom. As a consequence he has built up a lucrative business, and become well known and very popular in his com- munity. In connection with his store he also owns and manages a small farm. Po- litically he is a republican, and takes an in- telligent interest in all public questions. ISTear the beginning of President Harrison's administration he was appointed postmaster at Chester Valley, and has acceptably filled that office to the present tim-e, 1893. On March 19, 1874, Mr. Beitler was united in marriage to Anna M. Steeu, a daughter of H. J. Steen, of Paoli, this county. To Mr. and Mrs. Beitler have been born two children, one son and a daughter : Florence C. and John, who is the fourth of that name in direct line of descent. Both are living at home with their parents. T^HOMAS MARSHALL, one of the substantial business men of Chester county, and a director of the First National bank of Kennett Square, is a man whose career well illustrates how success can be won by integrity and industry. He is a son of Thomas, sr., and Sarah (Grregg) Marshall, and was born near Kennett Square, in Ken- nett township, Chester county, Pennsylva- nia, July 18, 1809. He passed his boyhood days on the farm, received a good practical English education, and upon attaining his majority learned the trade of stone mason, at which he worked steadily for nine years. He then turned his attention to farming and stock raising, in which he was successfully engaged in Kennett township until 1874. In that year Mr. Marshall came to Kennett Square, where he was largely instrumental in establishing the First Ifational bank of Kennett Square, of which he has served continuously as director ever since its or- ganization. He is careful in financial mat- ters, and always advocates a conservative policy that well protects the interests of the stockholders and depositors. In addition to his banking interests Mr. Marshall owns two large farms, beside his fine residence on Broad street, and some valuable property on State street. In politics he was formerly a republican, but at the present time is not identified with any political party, although his interest in governmental affairs has never abated, and he now casts his ballot for the man he thinks best qualified for the oflSce, independent of all party considerations. As a man and as a citizen he is respected, and as a financier he possesses the confidence of the public. His grandfather, John Marshall, was born and reared in Kennett township, where he received his education, and fol- lowed farming and milling until his death, in the early part of the nineteenth century. He owned a flouring mill near Kennett Square, and lived and died in the faith of the Society of Friends, in which he was reared. He married, and reared a family of five children : William, sr., Robert, Thomas, Anna Scarlet and Hannah Yeatman. Thomas Marshall, sr., the youngest son, and father of the subject of this sketch, was born on the home farm, where he was reared and spent his life. He followed farming and milling, was an old-line whig Tea^e. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 857 in politics, and had been an exemplary member of the Society of Friends for many years before his death. His wife's maiden name was Sarah Gregg, and to them were born five sons and four daughters: John, "William, Carpenter, Albion, Susan, Phebe, Hannah, Sarah and William. William Marshall is a member of the Society of Friends, and has lived such a life as to reflect credit on his society and his family, which has always had honorable standing in the county. He married Eliza- beth, daughter of Peter Plankintou, and to their union were born three children : Sarah, now the wife of Ezra Hill, a farmer of Kennett township; Charles, who married Mary Sharpless, and is engaged in farming ; and Eslenia Jackson, who died in 1885. QAPT. HORACE A. BEALE, presi: dent of the Parkesburg Iron Company, who has been mainly instrumental in build- ing up one of the greatest industrial plants of the State, and whose life career is a fit- ting exemplification of nineteenth century progress, is a son of Joseph and Margaret (McDowell) -Beale, and was born in Phila- delphia, Pennsylvania, January 25, 1827. The progenitor of the Beale family in Ches- ter county was William Beale, a son of Thomas and Catharine Beale of Caine, in Wiltshire, England. He was born August 14, 1709, and about 1730 settled in West Whiteland township, where he owned a large tract of land and where he died December 27, 1800, aged ninety-one years. By his first wife, Mary, daughter of David Jenkin, he had eight children, and one of their sons, John Beale (grandfather), was born Decem- ber 12, 1740. He enlisted in the Continental army, and while serving under LaFayette 50 died January 25, 1777, near the head of Elk valley, where his remains were buried. He married Tamar Burgoyne and left two chil- dren : Mary and Joseph, the father of the subject of this sketch. Joseph Beale was born in 1768, in Juniata county, and after his father's death, was reared near Dowur ingtown by his grandfather. He did one round of service during the closing years of the revolutionary war, being stationed in the lower part of the State, but was never called into action. He became a member of the extensive furniture manufacturing firm of Beale & Jemison, of Philadelphia, where he made his home for many years before his death. He died on his farm at Downingtown,in 1841, when in the seventy- seventh year of his age. He was a demo- crat, a member of the First Presbyterian church of Philadelphia, and ranked as one of the successful business men of that city. He married Margaret, daughter of Capt. James McDowell, of Upper Oxford town- ship, who- was a member of the same church as her husband, and died in 1834, aged fifty= three years. Mr. and Mrs. Beale reared a family of three children : James M., Joseph, late surgeon-general of the United States navy; and Capt. Horace A., the subject of this sketch. Horace A. Beale was reared principally in Chester county and received his education in the old Philadelphia academy and the university of Pennsylvania, at which latter celebrated institution of learning he took a three years course. His first insight into the iron business, in which he has since played an important part, was obtained when he left school and became a clerk in 1846 at Laurel iron works. In a short time he left there and went to Phcenixville, where as a clerk in the office of the Phcenixville iron 858 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTORY works, he had good opportunities for acquir- ing a practiced knowledge of iron manu- facturing in all of its details. In 1852 he left Phoehixville and purchased Thorndale iron works, and commenced the career in which his life's success has been achieved. The direction of his life was set with his as- suming the management of Thorndike,which he successfully operated for eleven years. In the line of his life-work at Thorndike he studied closely all that bore upon the iron industry, and his progress was rapid and substantial until he needed a larger field for the exercise of his energy and abili- ties, which he found at Parkesburg in 1872. Existing conditions there were so favorable that he built his present iron plant of that place and ran it most successfully until 1882. In that year he disposed of it to the Parkes- burg Iron Company, which he had organized and of which he has served as president ever since. This company was organized January 13,' 1882, with a capital stock of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dol- lars, and under the efificient management of Mr. Beale has achieved remarkable success in the field of iron manufacturing. Their plant covers about three acres of ground and is thoroughly equipped with buildings and machinery for the manufacture of iron. The rolling mill when running full furnishes employment for two hundred and fifty men. It has a capacity of ten thousand tons and is pronounced by competent judges to be one of the best equipped mills of the State. In 1855, Mr. Beale married Caroline Dou- gal, who was a daughter of James Dougal, of Northumberland county, and died in 1859. In 1869 he wedded Ellen M., daughter of liev. Edwin H. Mendenhall, now of Wayne, but formerly of this county. By his second marriage he has one child, Horace A., jr. Horace A. Beale is a republican in poli- tics and a member of the Protestant Epis- copal church, in which he is an active worker. He is a member of Williamson Lodge, No. 309, Free and Accepted Masons, of Downingtown. In the late war, during Lee's invasions of Mai'yland and Pennsyl- vania, Mr. Beale took an active part for the defense of the State, and raised and com- manded an independent infantry company in 1862 and again in 1863. Mr. Beale owns a farm adjoining Parkesburg, which he per- sonally supervises. By the establishment of his iron works at Parkesburg he inaug- urated a career of prosperity for that town, whose population of three hundred has in- creased to fifteen hundred since the building of the rolling mill. Horace A. Beale met many hindrances in the development of his business that would have defeated less san- guine and determined men, but by energy, quick perception of opportunities and judi- cious management, he conquered every ob- stacle and achieved substantial success. While resolute and determined in business affairs, Mr. Beale is generous, charitable and kind-hearted, and is esteemed and re- spected in the community where he resides. XTNOWLES CROSKEY, a popular citi- V zen and business man of Phoenixville, proprietor of the largest and most thor- oughly equipped machine knitting needle factory in the United States, and who first introduced into this country the wonderful St. Bernard dog, whose fame is world wide for his rescue of hundreds of perishing trav- elers amid the snows of the Alps, is a son of Henry and Ann (Dunohue) Croskey, and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 3, 1853. His paternal grandfather. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 859 George Duncan Croskey, was a native of England, and in early life came to Philadel- phia, where he was successfully engaged in the lumber business until his death at a good old age. His son, Henry Croskey, was born in Philadelphia, where he became one of the largest lumber merchants in the world, re- maining in business until 1875, when he re- tired from active life. He is a republican in politics, a member and deacon of the Baptist church, and married Ann Dunohue, a daughter of Matthew Dunohue, who was a native of Scotland, and came to Philadel- phia, in which city he was engaged as a con- tractor and builder until his death. Mrs. Croskey was a native of Delaware, and a member of the Second Baptist church of Grermantown, and died at her home in Phil- adelphia in June, 1892. ' Knowles Croskey was reared in Philadel- phia, received his education in the Friends', high school and Rittenhouse academy of Philadelphia, and at Blackwell academy in Virginia, and then became assistant super- intendent of depositories for the American Sunday school union, which position he held for three years. At the end of that time he went to Richmond, Virginia, where he was engaged as a contractor in building engines and boilers, in the general machine works of that city, from 1872 to 1879. In the last named year he returned to Philadelphia, where four years later he took charge of the chandelier factory of Yeaton & Harris,which position he resigned in July, 1887, upon the death of his father-in-law, William Smith, to assume the management of the machine knitting needle factory of the latter at Phce- nixville. He immediately added many im- provements, purchased the factory on March 31, 1892, and now employs a force of forty- men, which he expects to increase to a hun- dred as soon as he can put in place a large amount of machinery that hehas just bought. The factory was erected in 1883, by Mr. Smith, and is now well equipped with all the late and modern machinery for the man- ufacture of first-class kitting needles. The durability and superiority of this needle has made an extensive and steady demand for it throughout this country and in some parts of Europe. Mr. Croskey has aimed to make his factory and products first-class, and has succeeded. The factory is a large brick structure, situated on Vanderslice street. In April, 1886, Mr. Croskey was united in marriage with Kate C. Smith, and they have one child, a son named Ralph. Mrs. Croskey is a daughter of Williarai Smith, whose father established the first needle fac- tory in Leicester, England, in 1827. William Smith came from Leicester to Philadelphia, where he started a needle factory in 1857, at (lermantown, which he operated until 1883, when he established the present knit- ting needle factory of Mr. Croskey at West Chester. He died in West Chester in July, 1887. In politics Mr. Croskey supports the re- publican party, and is a member of the pres- ent city council, being the first republican ever elected to that position. He is chair- man of the street and electric light commit- tees, and has served for some time as a member of the committees on ways and means, police, light and water. On January 12, 1888, Mr. Croskey established the Men- thon kennels at Phoenixville, which he named after Bernard de Menthon, who founded the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard in 962, and raised those remarkable St. Bernard dogs who have saved the lives of thousands of storm lost travelers in the Alps, although life saving monk and dog have now passed 858 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY works, he had good opportunities for acquir- ing a practiced knowledge of iron manu- facturing in all of its details. In 1852 he left Phoehixville and purchased Thorndale iron works, and commenced the career in which his life's success has been achieved. The direction of his life was set with his as- suming the management of Thorndike,which he successfully operated for eleven years. In the line of his life-work at Thorndike he studied closely all that bore upon the iron industry, and his progress was rapid and substantial until he needed a larger field for the exercise of his energy and abili- ties, which he found atParkesburg in 1872. Existing conditions there were so favorable that he built his present iron plant of that place and ran it most successfully until 1882. In that year he disposed of it to the Parkes- burglron Company, which he had organized and of which he has served as president ever since. This company was organized January 13,' 188.2, with a capital stock of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dol- lars, and under the efficient management of Mr. Beale has achieved remarkable success in the field of iron manufacturing. Their plant covers about three acres of ground and is thoroughly equipped with buildings and machinery for the manufacture of iron. The rolling mill when running full furnishes employment for two hundred and fifty men. It has a capacity of ten thousand tons and is pronounced by competent judges to be one of the best equipped mills of the State. In 1855, Mr. Beale married Caroline Dou- gal, who was a daughter of James Dougal, ofNorthumberland county, anddied in 1859. In 1869 he wedded Ellen M., daughter of Rev. Edwin H. Mendenhall, now of "Wayne, but formerly of this county. By his second marriage he has one child, Horace A., jr. Horace A. Beale is a republican in poli- tics and a member of the Protestant Epis- copal church, in which he is an active worker. He is a member of Williamson Lodge, No. 309, Free and Accepted Masons, of Downingtown. In the late war, during Lee's invasions of Maryland and Pennsyl- vania, Mr. Beale took an active part for the defense of the State, and raised and com- manded an independent infantry company in 1862 and again in 1863. Mr. Beale owns a farm adjoining Parkesburg, which he per- sonally supervises. By the establishment of his iron works at Parkesburg he inaug- urated a career of prosperity for that town, whose population of three hundred has in- creased to fifteen hundred since the building of the rolling mill. Horace A. Beale met many hindrances in the development of his business that would have defeated less san- guine and determined men, but by energy, quick perception of opportunities and judi- cious management, he conquered every ob- stacle and achieved substantial success. While resolute and determined in business afiFairs, Mr. Beale is generous, charitable and kind-hearted, and is esteemed and re- spected in the community where he resides. JTNOWLES CROSKEY, a popular citi- T zen and business man of Phcenixville, proprietor of the largest and most -thor- oughly equipped machine knitting needle factory in the United States, and who first introduced into this country the wonderful St. Bernard dog, whose fame is world wide for his rescue of hundreds of perishing trav- elers amid the snows of the Alps, is a son of Henry and Ann (Dunohue) Croskey, and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 3, 1853. His paternal grandfather, OF^ CHESTER COUNTY. 859 George Duncan Croskey, was a native of England, and in early life came to Philadel- phia, where he was successfully engaged in the lumber business until his death at a good old age. His son, Henry Croskey, was born in Philadelphia, where he became one of the largest lumber merchants in the world, re- maining in business until 1875, when here- tired from active life. He is a republican in politics, a member and deacon of the Baptist church, and married Ann Dunohue, a daughter of Matthew Dunohue, who was a native of Scotland, and came to Philadel- phia, in which city he was engaged as a con- tractor and builder until his death. Mrs. Croskey was a native of Delaware, and a member of the Second Baptist church of Grermantown, and died at her home in Phil- adelphia in June, 1892. ' ' Knowles Croskey. was reared in Philadel- phia, received his education in the Friends', high school and Rittenhouse academy of Philadelphia, and at Blackwell academy in Virginia, and then became assistant super- intendent of depositories for the American Sunday school union, which position he held for three years. At the end of that time he went to Richmond, Virginia, where he was engaged as a contractor in building engines and boilers,in the general machine works of that city, from 1872 to 1879. In the last named year he returned to Philadelphia, where four years later he took charge of the chandelier factory of Yeaton & Harris,which position he resigned in July, 1887, upon the death of his father-in-law, "William Smith, to assume the management of the machine knitting needle factory of the latter at Phoe- nixville. He imrtiediately added many im- provementSjpurchasedthe factory on March 31, 1892, and now employs a force of forty men, which he expects to increase to a hun- dred as soon as he can put in place a large amount of machinery that hehas just bought. The factory was erected in 1883, by Mr. Smith, and is now well equipped with all the late and moderri machinery for the man- ufacture of first-class kitting needles. The durability and superiority of this needle has made an extensive and steady demand for it throughout this country and in some parts of Europe. Mr. Croskey has aimed to make his factory and products first-class, and has succeeded. The factory is a large brick structure, situated on Vanderslice street. In April, 1886, Mr. Croskey was united in marriage with Kate C. Smith, and they have one child, a son named Ralph. Mrs. Croskey is a daughter of Williami Smith, whose father established the first needle fac- toryin Leicester, England, in 1827. William Smith came from Leicester to Philadelphia, where he started a needle factory in 1857, at (lermantown, which he operated until 1883, when he established the present knit- ting needle factory of Mr. Croskey at West Chester. He died in West Chester in July, 1887. In politics Mr. Croskey supports the re- publican party, and is a member of the pres- ent city council, being the first republican ever elected to that position. He is chair- man of the street and electric light comniit- tees, and has served for some time as a member of the committees on ways and means, police, light and water. On January 12, 1888, Mr. Croskey established the Men- thoh kennels at Phoenixville, which he named after Bernard de Menthon, who founded the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard in 962, and raised those remarkable St. Bernard dogs who have saved the lives of thousands of storm lost travelers in the Alps, although life saving monk and dog have now passed 868 BIOQBAPHY AND HISTORY Prudence Murdock and Rachel Weldin, mother of the subject of this sketch. John L. Weldin received his education in the select schools of Delaware and the Wilmington academy, and leaving school commenced to learn the trade of blacksmith, which he soon abandoned to become an ap- prentice in the shop of L. F. Adair, a cabi- net maker and undertaker of his native city, with whom he served from 1872 to 1876. Upon completing his trade, in the last named year, he went to Texas, and after working at Honey Grove for a year, he went to Paris in the "Lone Star State," where he was manager of Wells & Babcock's furniture factory and undertaking business until 1882. In that year he returned to Wilmington, and then came to Downingtown, whei-e he became a partner in the furuiture and under- taking business. This partnership existed until July 21, 1883, when Mr. Weldin pur- chased his partner's interest, and has con- tinued the business ever since. In his es- tablishment he keeps a large and choice stock of tables, chairs, stands, sofas, cham- ber sets, and all kinds of useful and orna- mental furniture. He also carries every- thing in the line of funeral requisities. He has the latest and most artistic designs in caskets and coffins, and is an efficient and popular funeral director. He does a large business and enjoys the confidence of his many patrons. On February 18, 1884, Mr. Weldin was united in marriage with Rebecca Irwin, who died and left two children : George and Wilber Lewis. In politics Mr. Weldin is a republican. He is a member of Downing- town Baptist church; Yamassee Tribe, No. 134, Improved Order of Red Men; and Brandywine Lodge, ISTo. 385, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he is the representative to the Grand Lodge of Penn- sylvania. His record as a business man has been one of success and prosperity. J^OHN HENRY BUCKWALTER, ex- treasurer of Chester county, and a rep- resentative farmer and business man of the Schuylkill valley, is a son of Samuel and Mary (High) Buckwalter, andwas born on the farm on which he now resides in Charles- town township, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, July 25, 1837. He grew to manhood on the farm where he has always resided and which he has owned for over a quarter of a century. He received his education in the common schools and Professor Hon- sack's academy at Freeland, Montgomery county. Leaving school he turned his at- tention to agricultural pursuits, in which he has been successfully engaged ever since. His farm contains one hundred and fifty acres of choice land, which is well improved and in a high state of cultivation. While successful in grain and stock-raising, he gives considerable attention to grass, and makes a specialty of hay baling, in which line of business he averages annually ten thousand tons of baled hay. He also oper- erates a steam grain thresher, and does a lai'ge amount of custom work in the eastern and northeastern part of the county. John H. Buckwalter married Anna J. Baker, daughter of Dilworth and Hannah Baker, of Schuylkill township. Mr. and Mrs. Buckwalter have seven children, five sons and two daughters: Mary, now the wife of H. R. Vanderslice, a machinist in the employ of the Phoenix Iron Company, and a resident of Schuylkill township ; Sam- uel, now in the employ of the railroad com- pany; James, married Anna Meggs, and is OF CHESTER COUNTY. 863 railroad station agent at Douglasville, this county ; Charles, who married Vina Sailor, and is a farmer of Schuylkill township ; Carrie, now engaged in the millinery busi- ness at Spring City ; John H., who is in the United States railway postal service, and runs between New York city and Pittsburg, this State; and Winfield E.., at home. The Buckwalter family is one of the old, prominent and highly respected families of Chester county "and the Schuylkill valley, an^ was founded by two brothers who fled from Grermany on account of religious per- secutions during the latter part of the sev- enteenth century. They purchased, direct from William Penn, a tract of two thousand acres of land on the west side of the Schiiyl- •kill, and extending up to the line of the great Welsh purchase on the west. They wrote their name as Bockwalter, but it be- came Anglicised into Buckwalter. They became members of the Mennonite church after coming to this country. John Buck- waiter, a grandson of one of these brothers, was the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He was a farmer and distiller by occupation, and served in the Revolution- ary war. His distillery was on the farm now owned by his grandson, John H. Buckwal- ter. On this farm was made the first im- provement by one of the two brothers who founded the family in the county, and on it was located a hospital for some time during the revolution. John Buckwalter married and reared a family of four children : Jacob, John, Henry and Elizabeth Kingle. John Buckwalter (grandfather), the second son, was born September 14, 1777, and in early life removed to East Nantmeal township, where he died in 1819, aged forty-nine years. He was a farmer and distiller, and a mem- ber of St. Matthew's church, to which he was a liberal contributor. On July 27, 1800, he married Mary Bechtel, who was born in 1775. They had six children : Samuel, John, Elizabeth Wynne, David, Henry and James. Samuel Buckwalter (father), was born May 6, 1801, and died in February, 1869, aged sixty-eight years. He was a farmer by oc- cupation, and a man of intelligence and good judgment. At eighteen years of age John Buckwalter assumed control and man- agement of the farm which he afterward purchased. He was an enthusiastic whig, had held the oflBces of supervisor and school director of Charlestown township, but would never accept any county office, and was one of those who, in»the presidential campaign of 1840, moved on rollers the historic Har- rison log cabin from his farm to Lancaster city. He was a Mennonite, and married Mary High. To their union was born two sons and three daughters : Charles, John H. (subject), Mary E. Davis, Mrs. Robinson and Carrie E. John H. Buckwalter is a stanch republi- can, and in 1877 was nominated by his party for county treasurer, being elected and serving for three years. He is a liberal and generous man, an honest and honorable business man, and an intelligent and re- spected citizen. HORACE W. WALTERS, an energetic business man and public spirited citizen of Chester county, who has been promi- nently identified for nearly twenty years with the material progress and prosperity of Phoenixville, is a son of Jonas P. and Rebecca (Miller) Walters, and Avas born in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, November 13, 1858. He was reared in his native township, received his 864 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY education in the coraraou schools and public schools of Phcenixville, and then entered Eastman's Business college of Poughkeepsie, ISevf York, from which he was graduated in 1876. Immediately after graduation he returned and engaged in the ice business at Phcenixville with his father under the firm name of J. P. "Walters & Son. At the death of his father in 1889 he succeeded to the entire business, which he has conducted successfully ever since. His paternal grandfather, William Wal- ters, was born in Chester county, where he resided until his death at an advanced age. He received his education in the schools of his day, and afterward learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed in connection with farming. He was a democrat in poli- tics, and a Lutheran in religious faith and church membership. He married Hannah Pennypacker, and they reared a family of five children: Nathan, Jonas P., Jeft'erson, Isaac and Lewis. The second son, Jonas P., the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in East Pikeland township in 1832. He learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed until 1869, when he removed to Phcenixville and embarked in the ice business, which he conducted up to his death, which occurred December 13, 1889, when he was well advanced in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was a democrat and a Lutheran, like his father before him. After coming to Phcenixville he was elected and served for three terms as a member of the borough council. He married Rebecca Miller, who still resides at Phcenixville. To their union were born three children, two sons and one daughter : Horace W., Eugene E., and Flora, who is now dead. In politics Horace W. Walters is a strong democrat, and gives an active suppoj-t to his party on all the great political issues of the day. By industry, perseverance and honor- able dealing, he has built up a very success- ful business. He has three large dams and ice houses, employs four teams to deliver ice to his home trade at Phcenixville, and ships large quantities to Philadelphia, where he does a wholesale business. Active and energetic, he is Avell qualified to manage large and important business enterprises, and has already carved oilt for himself a successful career. On Ifovember 19, 1882, Mr. Walters was united in marriage with Minnie, daughter of Francis H. and Ellen E. Cook, of Phce- nixville. Mr. and Mrs. Walters have one child, a son, named J. Frank, who was feorn January 4, 1884. QOL. ALFRED RUPERT, ex-protho- notary of Chester county, who served in the army of the Potomac from 1861 to the end of the civil war, and is now one of the prominent and leading business men of West Chester, is a son of William and Ann (Acheff) Rupert, and was born at Russell ville, Upper Oxford township, Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, May 28, 1837. His paternal grandfather, William Rupert, sr., was a native of Philadelphia county, and grew to manhood in a portion of that county that is now included within the limits of the Quaker city. He received a good acad- emic education and became a teacher. In 1820 he left Philadelphia and removed to Upper Oxford township, Chester county, where he was engaged in his chosen pro- fession until his death. While devoted to teaching he gave some attention to agri- cultural pursuits, and owned a good farm, which he kept in a good state of cultivation. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 865 He was prominent and useful in his com- munity, and married and reared a family. His son, William Rupert (father), was born in 1808, in Philadelphia county, and in 1820 was brought by his parents to Upper Oxford township, where he remained until after he was married. He then removed to West Fallowfield, where he embarked in the gen- eral mercantile business, which he followed until his death at an advanced age. He also owned a good farm, and ranked as a successful business man. He was an old- line Avhig and republican in politics, and mjirried Rachel Achetf. They had seven children, of whom six grew to manhood and womanhood : Noah, who is engaged in ■farming in Lancaster county, this State; Major George M., a successful lawyer of West Chester, whose sketch appears on page 277 of this volume; Col. Alfred; Charles A., general manager of a large mercantile establishment at Ercildoun, this county, of which he is postmaster; and David Hayes, train dispatcher in the office of the Philadelphia Street Traction Railway Company. The deceased was Martha J., who married John Y. Latta, a prominent cattle dealer and business man of Sadsbury township. Alfred Rupert was reared in his native county, received his education in the com- mon schools of Upper Oxford township and at Hopewell academy, and commenced life for himself at twenty years of age as a clerk in a book store at West Chester. At the end of eighteen months he left the book store to accept the appointment of deputy recorder of the county, which position he held until 1861, when he enlisted as a pri- vate in a Pennsylvania regiment, and served up to 1865, being discharged with the rank of captain. He returned home from the army in 1865, and in 1866 was elected pro- thonotary.of Chester county, which office he filled very acceptably until the close 'of his term in 1870. In 1869 he established his present book and stationery business on High street, to which he has given his per- sonal attention since leaving the protho- notary's office in 1870, except the time that he was in command of the 11th regiment of the If ational Guard of Pennsylvania, and helped to suppress the Pittsburg labor riots of 1877. Colonel Rupert is a republican in politics, and at the present time is serving on his second term as justice of the peace of West Chester, and has held various other offices. He is a member of Gen. George A. McCall Post, Grand Army of the Re- public, and West Chester Lodge, No. 322, Free and Accepted Masons. Colonel Rupert married Mary E. Gi'oft', a daughter of Isaac Groff, a native of Lan- caster county, who came to Atglen town- ship, and afterward (1870) removed toWest Chester, where he died at an advanced age. To the Colonel and Mrs. Rupert have been born three children, one son and two daugh- ters : Eva, wife of J. Frank E. Hause, a young and rising lawyer of West Chester (see his sketch on page 215); Jennie, who died at ten years of age; and Frank B., living at home. Colonel Rupert's military career com- menced in 1861, when he enlisted as a pri- vate in Co. A, 1st Pennsylvania reserves. He was soon made adjutant's clerk at regi- mental headquarters, was detailed as acting adjutant on July 5, 1862, and on i'ebruary 3, 1863, received his commission as adjutant, which position he held until the regiment was mustered out of the service on June 13, 1864. He was wounde,d at Gettysburg, and during the Wilderness campaign was BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY acting assistant adjutant-general of the 1st brigade, 3d division, 5th army eorps. In 1^64 he re-enlisted, was commissioned as adjutant of the 192d regiment Pennsylvania infantry,' and in a short time was detailed as acting adjutant-general, which position he held until his brigade was disbanded. He was honorably discharged from the Federal service in 1865, with the rank of captain, by brevet conferred on liira by President Andrew Johnson, for " brave and meritor- ious conduct during the Wilderness cam- paign." After the organization of the Itfa- tional Guard of Pennsylvania, Governor Hartranft commissioned Captain Rupert, on July 8, 1873, as judge advocate of the third division, with the rank of major. He was commissioned as major on April 18, 1874; as lieutenant-colonel of the 11th regiment on August 14, 1874; and as colonel of the same regiment on June 18, 1877. He com- manded the 11th regiment when it was or- dered to Pittsburg in July, 1877, to help put down the labor riots in that citj. He acted judiciously in the part in which he took in suppressing the rioters and restor- ing peace and tranquility. Col. Alfred Rupert is characterized by industry, energy and perseverance, and these, combined with prudence, economy and sound judgment, have achieved for him a large measure of success as a business man. He is a public spirited citizen, and has always been the friend and supporter of every enterprise or movement calculated to be of local. State or ITatioual benefit. QEORGE S. GRIFFEN, who died Jan- uary 27, 1893, was secretary of the Grif- fen China Company, and formerly a success- ful civil engineer. He was a man who made his name familiar in every part of America in connection with the wares produced at his works in Phceuixville, this county. Mr. Griffeu was a son of John and Mary E. (Lig- gett) Griffen, and was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1854. The Griftens are of original English extrac- tion, but have been residents of the town of Mamaroneck, in Westchester county, Il^ew York, for more than two hundred years. There John Griflen (father) was born in 1812, being the sixth John Griften in regu- lar line of descent born in the same house. In less than a year after his birth his father died, and his education was conducted by his mother until ho was fourteen years of age, when he entered a Friends' boarding school at Nine Partners, Duchess county, New York. After leaving shool he entered the mercantile house of an uncle in New York city, and remained with him uutil his majority. He then engaged in business with another uncle, and in 1843 came to Penn- sylvania, where he was employed as book- keeper for a time in the iron works and nail factory of R. C. Nichols & Co., of Norris- town. There he developed the talent for engineering and that mechanical genius which afterward made him celebrated as an engineer, inventor and iron master. He erected the iron works of Moore & Hooven, of Norristown, and while so engaged con- ceived and successfully applied a novel method for generating steam to run the en- gines, by using the waste heat from the puddling furnaces. In this way he pro- duced all the power necessary to run the machinery, and made it possible to run the mill as cheaply as by water power, with a far better motor. While the idea was not altogether new, to him must be ascribed the OF CHESTER COUNTY. 867 honor of having been the first to success- fully apply it. In 1847 Mr. Griffen con- structed the works of Reeves, Abbott & Co., at Safe Harbor, Lancaster county, this State, and his duties being mainly executive, this work gave him a fine opportunity to dis- play his remarkable talents and pre-eminent ability. After the mills were completed he became superintendent, and while thus en- gaged introduced the governor for controll- ing the speed of the steam engines used in rolling iron, which had hitherto been con- sidered impossible. He also introduced ma- chinery to carry the rails to the saws, in- stead of running the carriages by hand, as had formerly been done. His well-known invention for making wrought iron cannon was also made at those works. Many hun- dreds of these guns, made by the Phoenix Iron Company, and known as the "Grifien gun," were used by the government during the civil war. In 1856 he came to Phoenix- ville to take charge of the iron works here, and remained until 1862. His next inven- tion was for rolling the large wrought iron beams, used in modern buildings, on the small rollers then in use; This device he patented in 1867, and it is yet in successful operation. For years he rolled the largest beams made in the world, and assigned all rights in this process to the Phoenix Iron Company. In 1862 he erected the Buffalo Union Iron works for a company engaged in general iron manufacture,and these works are still among the best in America. In 1867 he accepted the position of civil and mechanical engineer with the Phoenix Iron Company, and returning to Phoenixville, continued to reside here until his death in 1884. In 1868 he was again placed in charge of the works as general superintend- ent, and during 1873-74 erected the large works which are still in operation. They were the first mills in the world in which compound high and low pressure vertical engines were introduced as motive power for train rolls. The general plan of the mill and machinery was his own arrange- ment. Mr. Griffen was elected burgess of Phoenixville in 1857, and subsequently be- came a member of the school board. He was largely instrumental in improving the schools and in the erection of the present fine school buildings of the borough, the plans of which he designed and the building of which he superintended. He was a mem- ber of the famous bridge building firm of Clarke, Reeves & Co., • and was a good draughtsman. He drew the plans for many of the finest residences in and around Phoe- nixville. In 1837 Mr. Griffen mai'ried Esther Liggett, of New York city, by whom he had five children, all but one of whom preceded him to the grave. His first wife died in 1849, and two years later he married her sister, Mary E. Liggett, and to this sec- ond marriage was also born a family of five children. The eldest, Robert, was a grad- uate of the naval school at Annapolis, Maryland, and. served' in the United Stales navy. He died of yellow fever while in the service of his country. Another is Henry R. Griffen, general manager of the Griffen Enameled Brick Company, whose works are at Oaks, Montgomery county. Pen nsylvania, but whose main ofiice is in the Times build- ing, New York city. Mrs. MaryE. Grifien is of English descent, a member of the Epis- copal church, and now resides at Phoenix- ville. George S. Griffen was reared principally at Pluenixville, this county, and received his early education in the common schools here. After leaving school he took a thor- 868 BIOOBAPHY AND HISTOSY ough course in civil engineering at the Eensselaer Polytechnic institute, Troy, New York, being graduated from that institu- tion in the class of 1874. Soon after grad- uation he removed to Illinois, and for five j'ears was engaged in civil engineering in the southern part of that State. In 1879 Mr. Grifi'en came to Phoenixville and en- gaged in the pottery business here. From that time until his death he maintained his connection with that enterprise, though the firm was changed several times. It is now known as the Griften China Company ,which succeeded to the business formerly owned by Griften, Love & Co., and they manufacture what is known to the trade as white granite ware. The company has a capital stock of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dol- lars. The capacity of their factory is one hundred and twenty-fiv.e thousand dollars' worth of goods per year, and they furnish work for one hundred and fifty employees. The works were originally small, but have been greatly enlarged and improved from time to time, as the necessities of the in- creased business demanded. The white granite ware produced here is among the best of its kind in the world, and has a steady sale in all parts of the country. In political sentiment George S. Griften was a republican, and like his father and grandfather, a member of the Society of Friends. He served three terms as a mem- ber of the borough council, and was very popular among all classes. In addition to his other business he was president of the Phoenixville Gas Light and Fuel Company, and took an active interest in the improve- ment and development of his town and county.. Mr. Griften never married, and his death, which resulted from apoplexy, oc- curred January 27, 1893. J" AMES G. PARKER,the present active and energetic sheriff" of Chester county, who was successfully engaged in the mer- cantile and insurance business for nearly twenty years, is a son of Thomas W. and Rachel (Gawthrop) Parker, and was born in Pocopson township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, June 12, 1847. The Parkers are of English lineage, and the name is found at an early period in the civil and religious records of the county. Benjamin Parker, the paternal grandfather of Sherift" Parker, was born and reared in Pocopson township, from which he removed to East Marlbor- ough, where he died. He was principally engaged in farming. He was an old-line whig and republican in politics, married and reared a family. His son, Thomas W. Par- ker (father), was born near Lenape, in Po- copson township, on a farm now owned by Edward Brinton. He was reared and re- ceived his education in his native township, and then engaged in farming, which he fol- lowed until 1854, when he was elected clerk of the courts of Chester county. At the end of his term of ofiace, in 1857, he reurned to farming and purchased a farm in North- brook township, on which he resided until his death, April 10, 1869. He was an in- dustrious and well respected man, a consis- tent and useful member of the Society of Friends, and held membership for many years in West Chester Lodge, No. 322, Free and Accepted Masons. He married Rachel Gawthrop, and to them were born five chil- dren, three of whom died young. The two who lived to reach maturity were James G., the subject of this sketch, and Mary, the wife of James "W. Daly, foreman in a ma- chine shop at Philadelphia. James G.Parkerwas reared on his father's farm, received his education in the public OF CHESTER COUNTY. 869 schools, Concordville academy and the State Normal schools, and after the death of his father, in 1869, was engaged in farming for one year. He then disposed of his farming interests and embarked in the general mer- cantile business, which he followed success- fully at Parkesburg for fourteen years. At the end of that time he came to West Ches- ter, where he was engaged for three years in the live stock insurance business and in the sale of fertilizers. On January 1, 1887, he was appointed deputy sheriff", under Sher- iff" Benjamin Irey, who was accidentally killed at Fraziersville in twenty-four hours after entering upon the duties of his office. Greorge R. Hoopes was appointed in Mr. Irey's place until the fall election, when Mr. Gallagher was elected to fill out the unex- pired term. Mr. Parker served as deputy under both Hoopes and Gallagher, and at the end of Mr. Gallagher's time was elected sheriff". He assumed charge of the office on January 1, 1890, and such has been his in- dustry and energy that with the assistance of his daughter, Ellen T., he has done all of the work of the office. His services as sheriff^ have given good satisfaction, for he has conscientiously labored for the best in- terests of the county and its citizens. James G. Parker married Sallie P. Hos- kius, daughter of Dr. John R. Hoskins, and they have four children : Ellen T., Florence H., Hannah H. and Ethel S. Sheriff" Parker is a republican in politics, and a member of the Society of Friends. Although never neglectful of his party's in- terests, yet he gives his time principally to his business aff'airs. While in the mercan- tile business at Parkesburg, he served as postmaster of that place for fourteen years — from August 1, 1870, to August 1, 1884; and was secretary and treasurer of the Union Live Stock Insurance Company for twelve years. He is a member and past master of Kennet Lodge, No. 340, Free and Accepted Masons, of Kennett Square, this county. Mr. Parker stands well with his own party and with the public. All public moneys entrusted to his hands are always faithfully and accurately accounted for, and the duties of his office have always been promptly and efficiently discharged. A man of good judg- ment and recognized business ability, he is active and clear headed in whatever he undertakes, and has made a conscientious and successful public official. TA>ILLIAM H. MOSTELLER, M. D., a graduate from the medical depart- ment of the university of Pennsylvania, and now a successful practitioner at Phce- nixville, this county, is a son of John and Mary (Brownback) Mosteller, and was born March 21, 1859, iu West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Mos- tellers are of German origin, but have been residents of the United States since the rev- olutionary period, and of this county for several generations. Henry Mosteller, pa- ternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a very prosperous farmer of West Vincent township in his day, and owned three or four fine farms there. He was a Jacksonian democrat in politics, and a strict adherent of the old Lutheran church. Hediedathishomein thattownshipatan ad- vanced age. He married and reared a fam- ily of eleven children, eight sons and three danghters, all of whom are yet living, the eldest being now (1892) seventy years of age and the youngest »forty-eight. The second of these sons, John Mosteller (father), was born on the old homestead in West 870 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Vincent township in 1823, and is still a prosperous farmer of that township, hale and hearty, though the snows of sixty-nine winters have whitened his hair and chilled the enthusiasm of early youth. He is a member and elder of St. Matthew's Re- formed church, and proud of the fact that he has been an ardent democrat all his life. He has frequently been called on to fill oflScial positions in the township, serving as' school director for many years, and occupy- ing a number of other trusts. He married Mary Brownback, who is a native of Chester county, and a member of the Eeformed church. The Brownbacks — originally spelled Brurobach — are one of the largest families in Chester county, and trace their ancestry back to Garrett Brownback, who came from Holland and settled in Vincent early in the eighteenth century. He owned a thousand acres of land, was the first tav- ern-keeper in these parts, and the founder of Brow'nback's Reformed church. His death occured in 1768. His son, Benjamin, served in the revolution. William Brown- back, maternal grandfather of Doctor Mos- teller, was a naitive of West Vincent town' ship, and one of a large family of children^ each of whom lived to be over eighty years of age. He was a well-to-do farmer, and died in July, 1890, at the advanced age of eighty -five years. William H. Mosteller was reared on his father's farm in West Vincent township, and received his early education in the pub- lic schools there. He afterward attended Ursinus college at CoUegeville, Montgom- ery county, for a time, but on account of failing health was compelled to leave before graduation. In the fall of 1880 he entered Pickering institute, then located at Kimber- ton, this county, where he studied fOr one year, and in the autumn of 1881 matricul- ated at the university of Pennsylvania. From the medical department of that insti- tution he was graduated May 1, 1884, with the degree of M. D. He at once located in the northern part of West Vincent town- ship, this county, where he practiced only foul' months before coming to Phoenixville, in October, 1884. Here he opened an office, and has conducted a large and lucrative practice ever since. He makes a specialty of chronic and nervous diseases, in treating which he has been very successful. His office is on the second floor of No. 19 South l^inth street, where he liiiay be found every day between the hours of ten and four. On November 18, 1885, Dr. Mosteller was united in marriage to Mary D. Custer, a daughter of David Custer, of the village of Fairview, Montgomery county, this State. Following the political traditions of his family, Dr. Mo'steller is an ardent democrat, and is now serving as president of the Phoe- nixville Democratic club. He is a member of the American Legion of Honor, and of the Reformed church of Phoenixville. For a period of seven years he was annually re- elected to the postion of superintendent of the Sunday school here, and for- four years he has been president of the Chester County Reformed Sunday school convention. Dr. Mosteller is a prominent member of the Chester County Medical society, and also of the Spring City and Parker's Ford Inter- County Medical society, of which latter h* was one Of the founders and is now vice- president and one of its permanent comraif- tee on surgery. ^ILLIAM E. WHANNj the well- known manufacturer of the popular "Chester valley phosphate," at Atglen,and OF CHESTER COUNTY. 871 one of the successful business men who have given this county her wide reputation throughout the country, is a son of Thomas and Alvyra (Duvall) "Whann, and a native of Chester county, having been born near Strickersviile, December 10, 1855. He was reared on the old homestead there, and re- ceived his education in the public schools of that town. When about nineteen years of age he went to liichmond, Virginia, where he was employed for two years as superin- tendent of a fertilizer plant in that city. After leaving Richmond he returned to Pennsylvania, and about 1876 settled at At- glen and embarked in the manufacture of phosphate on his own account. He has been continuously engaged in that business ever since, and has become very successful, making a superior article, which has won the confidence of agriculturists and finds a ready sale over a wide expanse of territory in this and adjoining states. His specialty is what is known as the " Chester valley phos^ phate," and this brand is everywhere re- garded as a synonym for first-class goods that are always equal to the published analy- sis. In addition to his factory at Atglen Mr. Whann is also interested in two other phosphate factories in this State, both of which are prosperous and do a thriving business. In 1879 William E. Whann married Mary A. O'Mara, of Kansas City, Missoviri. -She died in 1884, leaving two daughters: Edith and Alice. In February, 1887, he was wed- ded to Emma J. Ewing, of Atglen, this county. ,, ■ , - Politically Mr; Whann is a democrat, and while never taking a prominent part in prac- tical politics, yet gives his party a loyal sup- porton all leading issues, and takes a deep interest in all questions affecting the public welfare. He is a member of the Presby- terian church of Atglen, and takes high rank as a useful citizen and an intelligent, pro- gressive and successful business man. The Whanns are of Scotch-Irish extrac- tion, but resident in Pennsylvania since about 1770, when James Whann, great- grandfather of the subject of this sketch, left his native place in the north of Ireland to find a new home in .the western world. Soon after landing in America he. settled near Strickersviile, in the lower end of Ches- ter county, where he passed the remainder of his days in agricultural pursuits. He purchased several hundred acres of land there, part of which is yet owned by some of his direct descendants, and there he died at an advanced age. Among his sons was Thomas Whann (grandfather), who was born on the homestead, near Strickersyi^e, became a farmer and spent his life, in the cultivation of the home farm, dying at a good old age. His sou, Thomas Whann (father), was born in 1802, on the old home- stead, where he grew to manhood and re- ceived such education as was aftbrded by the schools of that day. After attaining his majority he engaged in farming, and that continued to be his principal occupation dur- ing life. He died in 1885, in his, . eighty- third year, having been a member of the Presbyterian church nearly all his life, an elder during forty -five years, and trustee of his: church for half a century. Politically he was a democrat, and became a prominent man in his part of the county. Though al- ways devoting his principal attention to. his farm operations, in later life he became in- terested to some extent in the manufacture of phosphate, being one- of the pioneers, in that business. Oneof his sons, John Whann, now of Philadelphia, was the originator of 873 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY Whann's phosphate, which he commenced to manufacture on the old homestead, in partnership with his father, as early as 1858, and which is now so well known all over this country. Thomas -Whann married Alvyra Duvall, of Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, and to them was born a family of children, two of whom were John,alreadymentioned, and Willianri E., whose name heads this sketch. Mrs. Whann is of French descent, was born near Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, and now resides on the old homestead near Strickersville, this county. She is a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church, and greatly beloved for her kindliness of manner and many rare qualities of heart and mind. vTOHN CORNOGr, a representative busi- ness man and i ron manufacturer of Down- ingtown, who furnished the stone for Girard college, Philadelphia, is a son of Daniel and Sarah (Effinger) Cornog, and was born in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, September 18, 1808. His paternal grandfather, John Cornog, was a native of Delaware county, where he followed farming as an occupation. He was a Jeft'ersonian democrat in politics, and married and had two children : Daniel and Thomas. Daniel Cornog, the father of the subject of this sketch, after arriving at manhoood removed to Radner township, Delaware county, where he followed farm- ing until his death, which occurred at an advanced age. He married Sarah Effinger, now deceased, and they were the parents of eight children, five sons and three daugh- ters, among whom were: John, Ferdinand, Charles; Anna Lindsay and Adalaide. John Cornog was reared on his father's fjarm, received his education in the old sub- scription schools of Pennsylvania, and then engaged in the marble business nearDown- ingtown, which he followed for a number of years. During that time he resided in Chester valley, so as to be convenient to his work, and shipped large quantities of mar- ble to Philadelphia. He furnished all the stone used in the construction of the cele- brated Girard college of that city. When he retired from the stone and marble busi- ness, he engaged in farming and iron man- ufacturing, which he has followed ever since. His farm lies near Downingtown, and his iron plant is situated seven miles from that borough, on Brandywine creek, where he employs a force of one hundred men, and manufactures iron for rolling mill purposes. John Cornog was united in marriage with Eleanor Van Leer, and to their union was born a family of children, among whom were: George, now engaged in the hotel business in Philadelphia; Henry and Fer- dinand, the latter now deceased. John Cornog is intelligent, energetic and firm in his convictions of what he thinks to be right. He has always had large faith in the development of the material resources of his own county, and has been the pioneer in the line of the marble and stone trade. Amidst all the multiplied cares of his ex- tensive business he has time to think of his friends, whom he is always glad to greet and render any service within his power. Success in business life comes not to every one who embarks in commercial pursuits and of those who have succeeded in Ches- ter county, Mr. Cornog deserves especial mention. His life has been one of activ- ity and usefulness, and in all of his busi- ness enterprises success has attended his efforts. ra/feU. OF CHESTER COUNTY. 875 QAPT. LOUIS R. WAI.TERS, of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was born FebruarylS, 1865, near that borough, where he has since lived continuously. After a preliminary education in the public schools he prepared for college under Professor (now Judge) Swartz, of Montgomery county, and entered Lafayette college in 1873, from which he was graduated as a civil engineer (C.E.) in 1877, and a year later received the degree of Master of Science (M.S.). He has been for a number of years a very active member of the board of education, and takes special interest in educational matters. After graduating he entered the employ of the Phoenix Iron Company, and by assiduous and close application to the company's affairs, won for himself the greatest respect and esteem, filling several responsible and important positions,- such as engineer, superintendent of mills, and roll designer. He faithfully filled these positions, and continuously remained with the Phoenix Iron Company up to the time of being honored with an appointment as assistant United States treasurer at Phila- delphia. Captain Walters has always been active and prominent in party work, and has repeatedly represented his party in county. State and l^ational conventions. It is a noteworthy fact that the candidates for whom he worked have always been success- ful. As a delegate, to the Republican Na- ; tional convention of 1888, it is a well known fact that he was in the front rank among the members of the Pennsylvania delegation, and was a persistent champion of General Harrison, and at the critical period in the struggle was instrumental in gaining for the General twenty-three dele- gates. With great determination he con- tinued the Harrison fight, and it was unani- 51 mously conceded that he was the standard bearer in the struggle of 1888. He was justly credited with being the original Har- rison man from the State of Pennsylvania. Captain Walters gained his military title by organizing in Phoenixville, abouttwenty- one years ago, a juvenile infantry company, known as the "Whealley Cadets," which afterward became a part of the 6th regiment of the National Guard. He was chosen cap- tain of Co. D, 11th regiment of the i^ational Guard of Pennsylvania, on August 7, 1873, and resigned in July,1876;and was appointed paymaster of the 11th regiment the follow- ing month. During the Pittsburg riots he acted as adjutant of the 11th regiment, and when the National Guard was re-organized in 1878, he rejoined his old company and was unanimously elected captain. Under the re-organization this company became Co. D, 6th regiment National Guard of Penn- sylvania. Captain Walters has constantly laboredin the interest ofthe National Guards of this State, and by virtue of re-elections in 1878, 1883, and 1.888, he is still in command, being fourth in the order of seniority in a list of one hundred and forty captains in the National guard of this State. His name was prominently mentioned for the position of naval officer at the port of PhiladelpTiia, and he had weighty endorse- ments for appointment, his backers includ- ing all the State officers, a number of con- ,gressmen, State senators, representati ves,the judges and county ofiicers of Chester, Mont- gomery and Delaware counties, members of the iron and steel association, besides other manufacturers, merchants, and influential contributors to the National campaign fund. Captain Walters was solicited by the citi- zens of Chester county to stand for the legis- lature in 1890, but had to reluctantly refuse 876 BIOGRAPHY AND HIST OB F a nomination, on account of accepting the position of assistant United States treasurer at Philadelphia, to which he was appointed August 4, 1890. General Walters became a member of the Knights of the Golden Eagle in 1886, by joining Washington Gastle, No. 45, and has worked hard for the interests of the Order ever since. He entered Washington Com- mandery, ISTo. 15, as a private in 1887, and has been promoted through that channel from ensign to sergeant, to lieutenant and captain, and in 1888 was elected major of the third battalion, 6th regiment. When the State organization was divided into two brigades he was elected brigadier general of the second brigade, which includes all the commanderies in the State outside of Phil- adelphia, comprising four full regiments of twelve companies each. He is also a mem- ber of the Union League of Philadelphia. Captain Walters married Ada S., daughter of the late David and Andora Latshaw, and they have had four children, only two of whom, Millie and George, are now living. The Latshaws are an old family of Chester county, their residence here covering a pe- riod of nearly two hundred years. Capt. Louis R. Walters is a son of William and Ann Walters. His father died in March, 1858, and was a brother of George Walters, chief engineer Phoenix Iron Company. He is of German and Irish parentage. His great-grandfather, John Walters, came to America about 1762, and settled on the Schuylkill road, &t a point known as the forks, the exact spot where the subject of this sketch was born. His maternal grand parents came to America from Ireland about 1802. Their name was McVilliams, and they settled on a small lot, just about one mile south of Kimberton. TjiUAulAM DEIiL HAKTMAN, ^"^^ M.D.,apromiuentphysicianof West Chester and a leading natural scientist of Pennsylvania, whose large collection of par- tula and Achinella exceed the collections of the British museum and the Jardin des Plantes of France, is a son of Major-General George and Edith W. Hartman, nee Weaver, and was born in East Pikeland, Chester county, Pennsylvania, December 24, 1817. William Dell Hartman grew to manhood in his native county, received a good edu- cation, and after reading medicine entered the university of Pennsylvania from which institution he was graduated in the class of 1839. Aftergraduation he returned to West Chester, where he has been successfully en- gaged in the practice of his profession ever since. Dr; Hartman married Mary Jane Kabee, daugViter of Job n Kabee, of Jefferson county. West Virginia, on December 3, 1841. While ranking high as a physician, yet Dr. Hartman ranks higher in a field where his labors have made his name known throughout this country and Europe as one of the successful natural scientists of the nineteenth century. When a boy at school he showed such a fondness for the natural sciences that at fifteen years of age he was mentioned by Dr. William Dai'lington in his Flora Cestrica as " a zealous and promising young botanist." While completing his course at school and during several years of his early practice as a physician, he took up successively and made himself familiar with different branches of natural history. He has paid particular attention to conchology entomology, geolog'y and mineralogy. He has made a large collection of shells which is especially rich in the genera of partula and Achinella. Of the latter class his col- OF CHESTER COUNTY. 877 lection exceeds that of the British museum and the Jardin des Plautes. Dr. Hartman has published bibliographic and synonymic catalogues in these genera collections. In 1874, he and Dr. Ezra Michener issued an illustrated treatise on the fresh water and land shells of Chester county, under the title of Conchologia Cestrica. Dr. Hartman has contributed some very valuable articles to the scientific joui'uals of this country, and for several years has corresponded with the leading scientists of Europe and America. HeisquotedbyDr. Darwin in his "Descent of Man ". for his published observations on the cicada -septendecim or seventeen-year locust of this country. The founder of the Hartman family in Chester county was John Hartman, a native of Schwerin, Hesse-Cassel (now Prussia). In 1753 he, with his wife, whose maiden name was Moses, and their family of five sons and several daughters, came to Philadelphia, and afterward settled west of Yellow Springs. His wife died some time after comiugto this country, and John Hartman married again. Abigail, a daughter by his second wife, married Zachariah Rice, and was the mother of twenty-two children, and whose grand- daughter, Mrs. Daniel Kable, was the mother of Mrs. Dr. Hartmanof "West Chester. John Hartman's eons by his first wife were : John, Joseph, George, Peter and Christopher. Christopher was born May 6, 1750 ; in Au- gust, 1776, married Mary Hutchinson of Mercer county, New Jersey, and died in Clermont county, Ohio, March 16, 1833. Pe- ter Hartman, the fourth son, went to Phila- delphia to learn the sugar refining business, which he abandoned in 1775 to serve as an officer in the Continental army. He mar- ried a widow named Stein, whose maiden name was Smith, and who had come from Germany. They had one son, George Hart- man (grandfather), who served through the revolutionary war as a drum major. Be- fore the battle of Brandywine he was stricken down with camp fever and sent home, but on account of the tories harass- ing the neighborhood he was removed at night several times to different whig houses to save him from capture by the "King's Men." He and his father, while Washing- ton lay at Valley Forge, took their four- horse wagon and collected provisions for the sufl:ering army, for which they often re- ceived the thanks of General Washington. Major George Hartman married Eliza- beth Hench, who was a daughter of Chris- tian Hench and had seven brothers, who were men of remarkable physique, all being over six feet in height, and all perished in the revolutionary war. Of three children born to them, the third and only surviving one was Gen. George Hartman (father), who was born in East Pikeland township. May 5, 1793. His design in early life of enter- ing the mercantile marine was interfered with by the war of 1812. He then studied military tactics, became a drill master, and in 1814 enlisted in Captain Wersler's vol- unteer company as an orderly sergeant, but an injury which he received caused him to be dropped from the roll. On his recovery he was elected as captain of the 2d com- pany of the 65th Pennsylvania militia. On August 31, 1821, he was commissioned as colonel of the 57th militia, and August 3, 1835, was elected brigadier-general of the first brigade, third division, which position he held until the death of General Barnard, when he was elected and commissioned as major-general of thethird division. Genei'al Hartman served as deputy sheriff under his father after the war of 1812, and was re- 878 BIOORAPHY AND HISTORY corder of deeds from 1839 until 1843. A fine penman and mathematician, a popular surveyor, he was regarded as a gentleman of unswerving integrity. He was a member and officer of 8t. Peter's Lutheran church, and died November 5, 1878, aged eighty- five years and four months. General Hart- man married and had a family of childrei) : Dr. William D., Granville S., Mary T., widow of Isaac Sloanaker ; Joshua "W., G. Washington, Elizabeth Roby, Albert S., and two who died in infancy. CAMUEIi H. EGOLF, vice-president and general manager of the Columbia Paper Company, of Buena Vista, Virginia, is a gentleman prominently identified with the business interests of Spring City, this county, where he resides, and is also largely interested at E.oyer's Ford, Montgomery county, this State. He is a son of John and Mary (Horner) Egolf, and a native of Doug- las township, Berks county, Pennsylvania, where he was born September 9, 1842. He passed his boyhood on his father's farm, and received a good common school education in his native county. In 1860, at the age of eighteen, he began life on his own account as a farm laborer, but after eighteen months secured a position with the American Wood- paper Company at Spring City, with which he remained for a period of eight years, in different capacities. At the end of that time he engaged in the nianfacture of doors, sash and blinds at Spring City, and successfully conducted that business for nearly a year. The paper company then offered him inducements to return to their employ, and in 1874 he became superintend- ent of the paper mill at Spring City, which he managed successfully until 1880, when the Manyunk Pulp works was added to the business, and from that time until -July 1, 1892, Mr. Egolf was superintendent of both these concerns. At the latter date he re- signed his position here to look after the in- terests of the Columbia Paper Company, a new organization then formed for the pur- pose of manufacturing pulp and paper at Buena Vista, Virginia. This is a joint stock company, and upon its formation Mr. Egolf was elected vice-president and soon after- ward made general manager of the business. While carefully attending to the duties of his new position he continues his. residence at Spring City, this county, where he is largely interested in various enterprises. He is a director in the National bank of Royer's Ford, and is also president of the Royer's Ford Machine Company, and holds a like position in the Spring City Bloom works, while he is also president and gen- eral manager of the Spring City Gas Com- pany. Mr. Egolf is likewise a director in the Home Water Company, and in addition to these varied interests is also connected with a number of other enterprises in Spring City and elsewhere. He owns a farm of sixty acres, one third of which lies inside the borough limits of Spring City, and also owns considerable real estate at Royer's Ford. In National politics he is a democrat of the old school, but inclined to independ- ence on local issues, and has served on the school board and as a member of the bor- ough council. He is a member of the Evan- gelical Lutheran church, and of Spring City Lodge, No. 553, Free and Accepted Masons, while he also holds membership in the local Council of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. Samuel H. Egolf first married Emma Louisa Clemtnens, by whom he had two OF CHESTEB COUNTY. 879 children : Mary, who died in childhood, and John, deceased at the age of twenty-three years. Some time after the death of his first wife, Mr. Egolf wedded, on May 30, 1872, Annie Boze, a daughter of Joseph Boze, of Montgomery county. By his sec- ond marriage Mr. Egolf had eight children, five sons and three daughters : Harry New- ton, Aaron B. (deceased), Daniel W., Wil- liam Elwood, Emma May (also dead), Clar- ence Burgess, Bessie Salena and Katie Evalina. The Egolfs are of German extraction, but have been resident Penusylvanians since early times. Adam Egolf, paternal grand- father of Samuel H. Egolf, was a native of Berks county, this State, but in later life removed to Pottsgrove township, Montgom- ery county, where he died in the eighty- fourth year of his age. He was a farmer by occupation iind he and his wife, Rachel, had two sons and four daughters: John, father of the subject of this sketch ; Rebecca, now deceased; Rachel, also dead; Sarah, now living on the old homestead in Mont- gomery county; Mary Ann, married Peter Lindenman, a Montgomery county farmer ; and Aaron, for many years a citizen and live stock dealer of Perry county, this State, where he died in 1892. John Egolf (father) was born in Douglas township, Berks county, where he grew up and received an excellent common school education. After attaining manhood he engaged in farming and made that the principal occupation of his life. He was industrious, capable in management, and became quite prosperous. He still owns and resides on a fine farm in Douglas town- ship, Berks county, but retired from active business several years ago. Politically he is a stanch democrat, and formerly took con- siderable interest in politics. He is a mem- ber of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and married Mary Horner, who died in 1874, leaving behind her a family of five sons and three daughters: Jonathan, who served in the civil war and is now a retired merchant, residing in Ohio; Matilda, at home with her father ; Elizabeth, married Charles Hu- ber, a prosperous farmer of "Washington township, Berks county ; Mahlon, now liv- ing on the old homestead in Berks county ; Samuel H., whose name heads this sketch_j_ Levi, a resident of Pottstown, Montgomery county; William, employed in the paper mill at Spring City ; and Catherine, who married Samuel Livengood, of Pottstown, Montgomery county. . .';'.'.' "V.; «'- ''L' '>0'i-;? JrSK '•••^).<-li''Cl