USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
Gc 974.8 C71j v.2 1317990
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02143 8160
Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania
Benealogical and Jersonal Etlemoirs
EDITOR JOHN W. JORDAN, LL.D.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania Ex-General Registrar of Sons of the Revolution and Registrar of Pennsylvania Society
VOLUME II
NEW YORK CHICAGO THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Gc 974.8 ( 71 j V.2"
19II
Copyright THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1911
1317990
WILLIAM SERGEANT BLIGHT, JR.
The maternal ancestors of the subject of this sketch, probably of Scotch origin, were among the early settlers of Connecticut. Jonathan Sergeant was one of the founders of Brampton, Connecticut, and died there in 1652. His son Jonathan Sergeant was one of the Connecticut Colony who formed the first English settlement at Newark, New Jersey in 1667, and from that date, down to and including the period of the Revolutionary war, his descendants were prominently identified with the affairs of that province and state. John Ser- geant, a brother of the immediate ancestor of the subject of this sketch, was a missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, about the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury and a prominent minister of the gospel.
JONATHAN SERGEANT, the great-great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, a resident of Newark, New Jersey, married (first) Hannah, daughter of James Nutman, of Hanover, New Jersey, and widow of Jonathan Dod. She died in 1743, leaving two daughters, Hannah, who became the wife of Rev. John Ewing, D. D., and Sarah, who married Jonathan Baldwin, one of the early graduates of the College of New Jersey. He married (second) in 1745, Abigail, (b. 1711), daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, long one of the most eminent divines of America, one of the founders >> and first president of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, by his wife Joanna Melyn.
THE HON. JONATHAN DICKINSON SERGEANT, eldest son of Jonathan and Ab- igail (Dickinson) Sergeant, and one of the most prominent and influential pa- triots of the Revolution in New Jersey, was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1746. Soon after his birth his parents removed to Princeton, New Jersey, where he resided until the beginning of the Revolutionary struggle. He grad- uated at the College of New Jersey in 1762, at the age of sixteen, and took up the study of law at Princeton under the Hon. Richard Stockton, the Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and was admitted to the New Jersey bar, at about the time the passage of the Stamp Act aroused the indignation and op- position of the liberty-loving American colonists. In the opposition to the en- forcement of this obnoxious measure, the young lawyer took an active and strenuous part. With the beginning of the real struggle against continued English oppression, he came prominently to the front, and was clerk of the Provincial convention held at New Brunswick, July 21, 1774, to elect delegates to the Continental Congress held at Philadelphia, July 15, 1774. He was delegate to and the principal secretary of the convention held at Trenton, May 23, 1775, and in August, 1775, became a member and treasurer of the New Jersey Committee of Safety. His active and earnest work in the patriot cause attracted the attention of John Adams of Massachusetts, who referred to him as "a cordial friend of American liberty," and with him he was in close corres- pondence during the formative period of free American statehood, and for many years thereafter. On February 14, 1776, Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant
H
#1154
3, 8
30
658
BLIGHT
was one of the delegation sent to the Continental Congress from the State of New Jersey, and he took an active part in the deliberations, of the national body until May, 1776, when, having been elected a member of the Provincial congress, or legislative body of his native state, he resigned his seat in the national con- gress, feeling that he could be of more use to the cause in the state body, in which he distinguished himself as an able and eloquent advocate of measures for the prosecution of the war. On June 24, 1776, he was named by the Provin- cial congress, one of the committee to formulate a state constitution, whose re- port was presented on June 26, and adopted July 2, the same day on which his former colleagues in the Continental Congress affixed their signature to the im- mortal Declaration of Independence. He was again chosen as a representative in the Continental Congress, by the Provincial Congress November 30, 1776, with Richard Stockton, his old preceptor, John Witherspoon, Abraham Clark, and Jonathan Elmer. During the following year he became a resident of Phil- adelphia, and on July 28, 1777, was appointed attorney-general of Pennsylvania, by the Supreme Executive Council, and was re-appointed to the same position by Congress, February 8, 1778. He resigned this position November 20, 1780, but continued his active work for the patriot cause until the close of the Rev- olution, when he resumed the practice of law in Philadelphia. He was agent and counsellor for the Supreme Executive council 1782-1790. When Philadel- phia was visited by the terrible scourge of yellow fever in 1792-3, he was an active member of the Committee of Health, appointed to take measures to stamp out the scourge, but died of the disease October 8, 1793, in his forty- eighth year and in the prime of a brilliant and successful career.
He married (first) March 14, 1775, Margaret, sixth child of the Rev. Elihu Spencer, D. D., then of Trenton, but formerly of Elizabeth, New Jersey, the successor of the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, as president of the College of New Jersey, by his wife Joanna Eaton, daughter of John and Joanna Eaton, of Shrewsbury, N. J. Mrs. Sergeant was born January 5, 1759, and died June 17, 1787. He married (second) December 20, 1788, Elizabeth Rittenhouse. By his first wife he had five children :- William, of whom presently; Sarah, mar- ried Samuel Miller, D. D., of New York; John (1779-1852), the eminent law- yer and statesman; Thomas, (1782-1860), an eminent lawyer and Justice of the Supreme Court; Elihu Spencer, born 1787, also an honored member of the Phil- adelphia bar. By his second wife, Elizabeth Rittenhouse, he had three children :- Esther (1789-1870), wife of Dr. W. P. C. Barton, founder and first chief of the Medical and Surgical Bureau of the United States Navy; David Rittenhouse (1791-1872) ; Frances (1793-1847), wife of John C. Lowber, of the Philadel- phia bar.
WILLIAM SERGEANT, eldest son of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant by his first wife, Margaret Spencer, was born January 1, 1776, and died March 7, 1807. He studied law and during his brief adult carer was a member of the Philadelphia bar and in active practice in that city. He married, September 3, 1801. Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Jacob Morgan, Jr., and his wife Bar- bara Jenkins, and granddaughter of Colonel Jacob Morgan, Sr., and his wife Rachel Piersol.
COL. THOMAS MORGAN, SR., born in the year 1716, was a son of Thomas Morgan, said to have been a native of Wales, to whom was surveyed, Septem-
659
BLIGHT
ber 6, 1719, a tract of 400 acres of land, including the present site of Morgan- town, Caernarvon township, in the extreme southern point of Berks county, then part of Chester county, Pennsylvania. Colonel Morgan inherited this tract at the death of his father about the year 1740, in which year he erected thereon a stone house still standing, marked with his and his wife's initials and the date of erection. After the Revolution he laid out Morgantown, and erected there another house, which also bears the same initials and the date 1782. Col- onel Morgan was long a distinguished officer in the Provincial service. He was commissioned captain of a company in Colonel Conrad Weiser's regiment, De- cember 5, 1755, his company being designated in the records as "of the Forks of the Schuylkill," now Reading. He was in command of Fort Lebanon, dur- ing 1756 and 1757, and took part in the defense of the Pennsylvania frontier in the trying times succeeding the defeat of Braddock at Fort DuQuesne, and in 1758, took part in the second and successful expedition against that fort. He had, however, on December 18, 1757, been re-commissioned a captain in Col- onel James Burd's regiment, long known as the "Augusta Regiment" from the fact that they erected and garrisoned for two years Fort Augusta, now Sun- bury. With the return of peace Captain Morgan returned to his home at Mor- gantown, and April 24, 1764, was commissioned a justice of the peace for Berks county; was re-commissioned, May 1769, May 22, 1770, and again in 1773. He was a member of the first Committee of Safety of Berks county, and represented that committee in the Provincial conference at Carpenter's Hall, June 18, 1775. He was also a delegate to the Provincial convention that framed the constitution of 1776. May 20, 1777, he was elected a member of the Su- preme Executive Council, and two days later was commissioned by that body colonel of the Pennsylvania militia, and appointed sub-lieutenant for the coun- ty of Berks, in which position he was especially active in organizing the local militia for service in the field. He became a member of the State Council of Safety, October 17, 1777, and served until December 4, 1777. He was named as one of the commissioners to seize the personal effects of traitors, October 21, 1778, as agent for forfeited estates, May 8, 1778, and assistant forage-master for the state, April 5, 1780. He had been commissioned a Justice of the Su- preme Executive Council July 25, 1777, and on October 9, 1784, was commis- sioned Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Berks county, a position he filled until his death on November 1I, 1792. He married, about 1739, Rachel, daughter of Richard and Bridget (Brown) Piersol, and granddaughter of John Piersol, who died November 8, 1777, aged 100 years and his wife Alice, who died December 1789, aged 84 years.
COL. JACOB MORGAN, JR., son of Colonel Jacob, Sr. and his wife Rachel Pier- sol, was born at Morgantown, Berks county, Pennsylvania, about 1742. At the age of sixteen years he was commissioned ensign in the Provincial service in company, with which he took part in the second expedition against Fort Du gusta with other officers as an escort of provisions for Colonel Burd's battalion engaged in erecting the historic fort at Sunbury. He later served for a time in Lieutenant-colonel Armstrong's regiment as ensign of Captain Edward's com- pany, and returned to the Augusta regiment as ensign of Captain Levi Trump's company, with which he took part in the second expedition against Fort Du Quesne. After the capture of Fort Du Quesne, he was stationed with Trump's
660
BLIGHT
company at Fort Augusta, where we find him, December 1, 1758. He was pro- moted lieutenant, April 21, 1760, and became adjutant of Colonel Hugh Mer- cer's Second Pennsylvania battalion. Soon after the close of the French wars, Colonel Jacob Morgan, Jr. located in Philadelphia, where he was a prominent merchant, and like his father took an active part in the Revolutionary struggle from its inception. He was major of the Philadelphia battalion of Associators, under Colonel John Dickinson, in 1775 and was promoted colonel of the First battalion Philadelphia militia, with which he served during the years 1777 and 1778. He was appointed wagon-master for the state, August 14, 1780, and on the same date, superintendent of the commissioners for purchasing provisions. He died in 1812. His wife was Barbara Jenkins of Welsh ancestry.
MARY VALERIA SERGEANT, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Morgan) Sergeant, married George Waln Blight, of Philadelphia, and their son,
WILLIAM SERGEANT BLIGHT, was born in Philadelphia, December 17, 1826. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1846, and was for several years vice-president of the Alumni society of the College department of the University. He was a prominent business nian of Philadelphia and for many years secretary and treasurer of the Ridge avenue Passenger Railway Company. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution, in right of descent from the Hon. Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, Colonel Jacob Morgan, Sr., Colonel Jacob Morgan, Jr., of Pennsylvania, and Chaplain Elihu Spencer, of the New Jersey troops in the Revolution. He died in Philadelphia, May 9, 1903.
William Sergeant Blight, Sr., married, September, 1854, Sarah Clemen- tina Penrose, who was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, October 1I, 1829, and died in Philadelphia, March 14, 1897. She was a daughter of the Hon. Charles Bingham Penrose, and his wife Valeria Fullerton Biddle, granddaugh- ter of the Hon. Clement Biddle Penrose and his wife Anne Howard Bingham, great-granddaughter of James and Sarah (Biddle) Penrose, great-great-grand- daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Coates) Penrose, and great-great-great-grand- daughter of Captain Bartholomew Penrose and his wife Esther Leach.
CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW PENROSE, a native of Bristol, England, emigrated to Philadelphia prior to 1700, and engaged in ship building there until his death in November, 1711, when he was succeeded by his sons. He built the trading ship "Diligence," in which William Penn was part owner, in 1706. He married Esther Leach, daughter of Toby Leach, of Cheltenham, who was prominent in colonial affairs, by his wife Esther Ashmead, who had accompanied him from Cheltenham, England.
THOMAS PENROSE, son of Captain Bartholomew and Esther (Ashmead) Pen- rose, was born in Philadelphia, January 17, 1609-10, died there and was buried at Christ Church, November 17, 1757. He was a prominent ship-builder and shipping merchant, building and owning a number of vessels engaged in for- eign and West Indian trade. He married October 21, 1731, Sarah, daughter of John Coates, an early brick manufacturer of Philadelphia and his wife Mary Mele. Sarah (Coates) Penrose married (second) in 1763, Captain Lester Fal- ner and (third), in 1770, Anthony Duché. She died July 7, 1777, aged 63 years.
JAMES PENROSE, son of Thomas and Sarah (Coates) Penrose, was born in Philadelphia, February 23, 1737-8, and died there, September 7, 1771. He was
661
BLIGHT
also a ship-builder and shipping merchant, in partnership with his brother Thomas, and both were signers of the non-importation resolutions in 1765. He married, March 15, 1766, Sarah, daughter of John and Sarah (Owen) Biddle, granddaughter of William and Lydia (Wardel) Biddle, and great-granddaugh- ter of William Biddle of Mount Hope, New Jersey, born in England, 1630, and his wife Sarah Kemp.
THE HON. CLEMENT BIDDLE PENROSE, only surviving child of James and Sarah (Biddle) Penrose, was born in Philadelphia, February 20, 1771, and died at St. Louis, Missouri, about 1820, while serving as commissioner of the Louis- iana Territory, a position he had filled since 1805. He married, August 1, 1796, Annie Howard Bingham, daughter of Major Charles Bingham, of the English army, by his wife Anne Howard.
THE HON. CHARLES BINGHAM PENROSE, eldest son of the Hon. Clement B., and Anne H. (Bingham) Penrose, was born at his father's country seat near Frankford, Philadelphia, October 6, 1798, and died in Harrisburg, Pennsyl- vania, April 6, 1857. His youth was spent in St. Louis, Missouri, where his father was commissioner of the Louisiana territory, and while there, he enlisted in a volunteer company for service in the war of 1812-14, but was not called into active service. He returned to Philadelphia and studied law under Samuel Ewing and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar, May 9, 1821. Soon after his admission he removed to Carlisle, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and began the practice of his profession, in which he soon rose to a foremost prominence. He took an active interest in political matters, and was elected to the state sen- ate in 1833, re-elected in 1837, and in the same year elected Speaker of the Senate, which position as well as his seat in that body, he resigned in March 1841, to accept the position of solicitor of the United States Treasury, to which he had been appointed. He retired at the close of President Tyler's adminis- tration and resumed the practice of law, but was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in 1849, a position which he resigned in a short time. In 1856 he was elected to the state senate and served until his death, April 6, 1857. He was the projector of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and was for some years trustee for Dickinson College and secretary of the board. He was one of the compilers of the three volumes, of Penrose and Watts', "Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania." He married March 16, 1824, Valeria Ful- lerton Biddle, daughter of William McFunn Biddle and his wife Lydia Spen- cer, daughter of the Rev. Elihu Spencer, before mentioned, who was born at East Haddam, Conn., in 1721, and died at Trenton, New Jersey, December 27, 1784, a graduate of Yale college, missionary to the Indians, and successively pastor of Presbyterian churches at Jamaica, Long Island, and Elizabeth, New Jersey, chaplain of the New York troops during the French war, 1758-60, and appointed by the Continental Congress, October 20, 1777, Chaplain of the Hos- pital of the Continental army. William McFunn Biddle, born McFunn, was a son of Captain William McFunn, and his wife Lydia Biddle, daughter of Wil- liam and Mary (Scull) Biddle before mentioned.
William Sergeant and Sarah Clementina (Penrose) Blight had four chil- dren :- Charles Penrose, born October 8, 1855, died July 4, 1895, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and member of the Philadelphia bar; William Sergeant, Jr., of whom presently; Elihu Spencer, born Nov. 1I, 1860, gradu-
662
BLIGHT
ated from the University of Pennsylvania, 1881, member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution, University Club, etc., Lydia Spencer Blight, married in 1886, John F. Hagaman, Esquire, of the New Jersey Bar, who died at Princeton, N. J., July 1893.
WILLIAM SERGEANT BLIGHT, JR., second son of William S. and Sarah Clem- entina (Penrose) Blight was born in Philadelphia, March 7, 1858. He gradu- ated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1878, from the College department, and from the Law department with degree of LL.B. in 1880, when he was ad- mitted to the Philadelphia bar. He practiced his profession at Philadelphia for seven years. He then established in that city, The Blight School (for boys), of which he has since been head-master, instructor in Latin and Greek, and proprietor. He married, December 6, 1890, Cornelia Taylor Blight, of To- wanda, Pa., daughter of Isaac Oliver, and Matilda M. (Harris) Blight.
HENRY WHELEN, JR.
The Whelen family of Pennsylvania is of Irish ancestry. Whelen of Dun Faelen. near Cashel, in the County of Waterford, Ireland, who came of a line of kings of the Clan Colla, having jurisdiction over the little principality of Docies comprising the county of Waterford and a portion of the county of Tip- perary, was himself king of this section, and his descendants held sway there until driven into exile during the civil war of 1640-1660. The branch of the family to which the subject of this sketch belonged found refuge in county Hampshire, England, about 1675.
JAMES STEPHENSON WHELEN, the first American ancestor, a son of Malachi, came from Hampshire, England, to America in the last decade of the seven- teenth century. He was married by Rev. Simon Smith, a chaplain of His Majesty's forces in the Province of New York, May 29, 1694, to Sarah Eliza- beth Dennis, of a family that was among the earliest settlers at Woodbridge, New Jersey. Her mother whose maiden name was Jacques, was of Huguenot ancestry, the daughter of an eminent barrister in Paris, who becoming a Prot- estant was driven into exile on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He found refuge for a short time in England and came from there to America, locating first in South Carolina and later in New York, where his daughter married one of the early Dennises of Woodbridge, New Jersey. Mrs. Henry Whelen of Philadelphia has in her possession a portion of a hanging of antique pattern painted in colors by hand that is said to have been brought to this country by Madame Jacques, born Cuissant, the ancestress of the Whelens of Philadel- phia. The portrait of the Madame Jacques is also in possession of a collateral branch of the family. Both the Whelen and Dennis families were zealous ad- herents of the Protestant Episcopal church.
DENNIS WHELEN, son of James Stephenson and Sarah Elizabeth (Dennis) Whelen, was one of the early settlers of Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and married (first) there, in 1720, Ann Townsend, of an old Quaker family. It was probably this association that many years after induced him to unite himself with the Society of Friends. He was admitted a member of the Goshen Monthly Meeting in 1744, transferred to Bradford Meeting, May 18, 1747, and continued a member of that meting until his death. He married, (second) November 8, 1749, Sarah Thompson of a Virginia family, who be- came the mother of his children, Ann, Israel, Isaac, Edward, Townsend, and Dennis.
ISRAEL WHELEN, eldest son of Dennis and Sarah (Thompson) Whelen, was born December 13, 1752. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, though reared under the influence of the peace principles of the Society of Friends, he allowed his patriotism to overcome these influences, and took an active part in the struggle for Independence. He raised a company of Associators with whom he served in the field. A letter written by him from camp to his wife sets
664
WHELEN
forth at some length the reasons that impelled him to take up arms, part of which are as follows :
The uneasiness of my mind at leaving all I hold dear in this world, added to some little uneasiness in the Company, and trouble and fatigue in providing for them, makes my situation not so agreeable as I could wish, but I hope God in his mercy will order everything for the best. Many of my friends will blame me for entering into the cause that I am engaged in. Had I been fully convinced it was wrong to resist lawless tyranny. bearing down all before it, I hope I should have had resolution enough to have stuck to my principles, but as it was not the case I can see no reason why I should be expected to follow any opinion I was not convinced in my own mind that it was right.
I never was able to draw the line of distinction between the law punishing offenders it could take hold of, and the sword of those that are too strong for the law. If I had I should not have taken the part I now have, and when I can draw that line I shall take a different one.
Some may impute my conduct to one cause and some to another. It was not the love of honour, because I could have easily obtained an higher office than I hold; it was not the love of popularity because it made me unpopular amongst those whose esteem it must be supposed I should be most desirous to cultivate-no person can be absurd enough to say it was from interest, pleasure, or ease, because these things are not to be expected in camps. If they were there are none of them so pleasing as the converse and company of an endearing wife and children which I love with the greatest tenderness. The real cause was an expectation to be serviceable to my friends and my country-if I can serve the lat- ter faithfully it may yet be in my power to render some small service to the former.
The letter concludes:
I hope my relations will regard thee for my sake, and that Providence will be graciously pleased to bring me to my friends and family again. Remember me to my friends and believe me to be with the regard and esteem, thy ever loving and affectionate husband, ISRAEL WHELEN.
He continued to devote his time and energies to the cause of liberty through- out the struggle and rose to the rank of commissary-general of Pennsylvania militia. He was also one of the commissioners named by Congress for signing Continental currency. Israel Whelen continued active in public affairs after the close of the Revolutionary war, serving for some years as naval purveyor, and was a presidential elector for John Adams. He was until his death in close association with the leading men of that historic epoch. There is in the pos- session of Miss Mary H. Whelen, of Philadelphia, an original invitation from Thomas Jefferson which reads as follows :-
Thomas Jefferson asks the favor of Mr. Whelen to dine with him to-morrow at half after three.
Novmbr. 18, 1802.
Locating in Philadelphia, Israel Whelen was elected to represent that city in the state senate, and achieved an enviable record in that body. After the close of the war he had resumed his relations with the Society of Friends, which continued throughout the remainder of his life. He was a successful merchant, having his place of business in 1793, at 196 High (now Market) Street and later at Sixth and Market. In addition to his city residence he had a country seat in Chester county, where he erected a large mansion and spent his summer months. He was elected a director of the United States Bank in 1791, and later president of the "Board of Brokers" and president of the Lancaster Turnpike Company. He did an extensive shipping business and a large amount of his goods was captured and confiscated by the French under the first Napoleon. He was purveyor of public supplies at the time of the removal of the seat of gov- ernment to Washington, and had charge of the general arrangements as "Agent for the removal of the Public Departments, from the 5th of June 1800, to the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.