USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Biographical annals of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, containing genealogical records of representative families, including many of the early settlers and biographical sketches of prominent citizens, Vol. I > Part 47
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The grandparents of Miss Wells were Jaines and Margaret (Umstead) Wells. James Wells was born in Bath, Pennsylvania, March 25, 1790, and died in Chester county, June 28, 1853. His wife died March 27, 1847. They had nine chil- dren, as follows: Samuel, born March 2, 1812; Umstead, born December 31, 1814; Christiana, December 13, 1817; Herman ( father), November
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1, 1821 ; Hannah, March 29, 1824; Oliver, born September 28, 1827; Elmira, born October 19, 1830; Margaret, born January 17, 1834; and Elizabeth, born September 22, 1839.
Joseph Wells (great-grandfather) married Margaret Welles. She was the daughter of Isaac and Hannah Welles, of New England, that branch of the family which settled in that part of the state spelling their names differently. The family coat of arms dates back to Adam de Welles, Baron, 1299. Joseph and Margaret Wells had twelve children, as follows : Isaac, Jolın, Sam- uel, Ann, Hannah, James (grandfather), Will- iam, Susannah, Edmond, Jesse, Joseph and David.
John Wells (great-great-grandfather) was the progenitor of the Pennsylvania branch of the Wells family. He was a native of Cornwall, Eng- land. He, with two brothers, came to America about 1730, landing at Philadelphia. One of the other brothers settled near Bustleton. In 1749 he purchased from Richard and John Penn land on the Schuylkill, where Pottstown now stands. About 1735 John Wells married Susanna Morton, of Chester county. Her parents were natives of Ireland and members of the Society of Friends. The children of John and Susanna Wells were: John, Joseph, William, Edmund, Samuel, Eliza- beth, Mary and Susanna.
FRANKLIN NEWLIN, of Pottstown, was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and died October 12, 1900, at the age of sixty-six years. He was the son of James and Sarah (Fipps) Newlin. He attended school until he was nine- teen years of age, being a student in the Darling- ton school at Christiana for a time. He was em- ployed as a clerk after leaving school. Mr. New- lin was superintendent of the Plate Mills for many years and afterwards was a coal merchant in Pottstown. During his last years he returned to the Plate Mills in which business he was en- gaged at the time of his deatlı. During the Re- bellion he served as a soldier in emergency call. He was a member of the Society of Friends. He belonged to the Knights Templar of Pottstown. In 1873 he built the present home of the family in
Pottstown, which faces the river and is one of the finest in the borough.
He married Hannah, daughter of Joseph and Esther (Keim) Wells. The children of Frank- lin and Hannah Newlin: George, born in 1860, died in 1881. Anna married Thomas W. Ent- wisle, and they reside in Chester, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, where he is engaged in the newspaper business. They have five children : Margaret, deceased, Edith, Frank, Sarah and Esther. Esther Newlin married Jerrald Bockers, who lives in the West, she being deceased and leaving no children. Sarah married Charles H. Ewing, a civil engineer in Pottstown, and they have two children, George and Annie. Edith W. died very young. All the deceased members of this family are buried at Mt. Zion cemetery.
James Newlin (father) married Sarah Fipps and they lived and died in Chester county. He was a miller and farmer, but lived retired for many years before his death. They were buried at Ercildawn, Chester county. They also be- longed to the Society of Friends. Their children were : Henry, Abbie, Elizabeth, Ellen, Mary, Sarah, John, James, Franklin and one that died in infancy. Of these John and James are the only ones surviving.
Joseph Wells, father of Mrs. Hannah Newlin, married Esther Keim. He was a farmer and re- sided in Montgomery county. He died in 1863. his wife surviving until 1893. They are buried in the Stover burying-ground, Chester county. In religious faith they were Dunkards and Baptists. They were very prominent citizens of this county. Their children : Reuben, a resident of Patterson, New Jersey ; Keziah, living on the old homestead ; Mrs. Mary Wills, a widow ; Mrs. Hannah New- lin ; George, a resident of Pottstown ; Alan, living on the old homestead ; Edmond, living in Florida ; Joseph, living in Reading ; and Annie, who mar- ried Lewis Thomas and lives in Pottstown.
Joseph Wells, grandfather of Mrs. Newlin, married Margueritte Wells and they were en- gaged in farming in Berks county during their lives. He died early in life, his wife surviving him for some years. He was buried at Forest cemetery, Berks county. Their children : Isaac,
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William, Jesse, Edmond, James, David, Joseph (father), one who died young, Samuel, Anna and Hannah.
Jacob Keim (maternal grandfather of Mrs. Newlin) married Hannah Switzer and they lived in Chester county, where he was a farmer by oc- cupation. They were buried at Shingles' church- yard, Chester county, Pennsylvania.
THOMAS FOULDS, son of John and Ann (Geldred) Foulds, was born at Colne, Lanca- shire, England, March 31, 1847. He was the seventh child and oldest son of his parents. John Foulds was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, England, and spent his entire life in his native land. He was connected with his brother James in the man- ufacture of yarns. He served as inspector of the Constabulary of Rochdale district, in the county of Lancashire. The paternal and maternal an- cestors of Thomas Foulds were all natives of Yorkshire, England.
Thomas Foulds attended the private schools of the locality until his sixteenth year, when he became a pupil teacher in the school, which posi- tion he held for three years, and at nineteen years of age was apprenticed to the trade of a gardener at Ravenhead Hall, the seat of Sir Billings Blink- horn, near Liverpool, where he remained until his twenty-first year. He then became chief gardener to Mr. W. W. Schofield, member of Parliament, a large manufacturer, who had extensive estates in that neighborhood, with whom he remained for nearly two years. He then decided to try his fortune on this side of the Atlantic, and came to the United States in 1869, landing at Castle Gar- den, New York. Thence he went to Walloon- sack, near North Adams, Massachusetts, where he worked for a short time as a gardener, going thence to North Adams, Masachusetts. There he was engaged at the same occupation until the fall of 1869, when he decided to go west. He did not stop until he had reached Council Bluffs, where he found that there was little employment for men of his calling in life, and he at once set about do- ing whatever he could find at hand. Soon after- ward he went to Omaha, Nebraska, where he found employment in a railroad yard in making
up trains of cars to be dispatched to various sec- tions of the country. He also found at that place several of his countrymen who were of great value to him, one being the superintendent and the other a foreman for the company for which he worked. He was given the place of a fireman, and later that of engineer on a switch engine, and eventually was given employment as a driver on a train that ran between Omaha and North Platte, a position which he held for about eighteen months, when, on account of the breaking out of hostilities between the Indians and the settlers of that region, he relinquished the work as too dan- gerous for one who had a family in England de- pendent upon him. He decided to remain no longer in that employment, and started in the di- rection of Kansas, doing odd jobs on his way as he found them. He labored diligently to accumu- late a fund which might be used to send for the loved ones he had left behind him in England, who were anxiously awaiting his ability to estab- lish a home for them in this country.
Mr. Foulds was much impressed with the ad- vantages of Humboldt, in Allen county, Kansas, and he purchased a tract of ten acres in the suburbs of that town, on which he established a home for his family, whom he brought from Eng- land in 1870. He had married in England, in 1867, Mary Ann, daughter of James and Eliza- beth Uttley, of Bamoldwick, Yorkshire, of an old family in that part of England. Their children were: Clara, deceased ; John, who married Mary, daughter of Samuel and Margaret Hoover, of North Wales, Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of one son Howard ; Prudence, who mar- ried William H. Campbell, and lives at East Hampton, Massachusetts, the couple having two children, namely : William Thomas Foulds, born April 25, 1898, and Prudence Margaret Selina, born December 18, 1900; Thomas, Jr., unmarried, was born March 17, 1876, and resides in Philadel- phia ; Frederick Mason, born April 28, 1878, who married Hannah Tarbottom. John Foulds re- sides at Gwynedd, and assists his father at the Gwynedd Rose Nurseries.
In 1875 Mr. Foulds removed with his family from Humboldt, Kansas, to Paschallville, Dela-
Thomas Goulde
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ware county, Pennsylvania, where he established himself as a jobhing gardener, and in 1876 became chief gardener to Charles H. Rogers, at Branch- town, with whom he remained until 1882, manag- ing with great skill the extensive interests in- volved in the care of that place. In that year he became superintendent of the Mount Airy Nur- series for Messrs. Miller & Yates, with whom he continued for two years, when he became head gardener for the late William M. Singerly, on his extensive farms at Franklinville, in Whitpain township.
Mrs. Foulds having died, Mr. Foulds mar- ried a second time, the ceremony being performed July 15, 1884. His second wife was Sarah H., widow of Mr. Warren, and daughter of Charles Marple, of Philadelphia, and his wife Elizabeth Greer Marple. Their children were: Margaret Emily S., born March 15, 1885, unmarried, and resides with her parents; Dora Hopkins, born March 27, 1886, died March 13, 1889; Edna Haldeman, born May 4, 1890, died July 6, 1892; Horatio Schofield, born February 6, 1892, de- ceased ; and Selina Horsefield, born May 18, 1898.
Mr. Foulds remained with Mr. Singerly until 1888, when he removed to Nicetown, Philadel- phia, to manage the nurseries of Hugh Graham, with whom he remained until March, 1890, when he removed with his family to the location now known as Gwynedd Rose Nurseries, which he es- tablished on a tract of land containing eighteen acres which he bought from John Canby in 1888. Gwynedd Rose Nurseries has grown, as the repu- tation of its products has become more and more widely extended from year to year, they being sent mostly to the Philadelphia market. The seven large houses cmbracing 22,000 feet of glass in all attest the success of the business established by Mr. Foulds.
Mr. Foulds and his family are members of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah at Gwynedd, in which he has served for some years as one of the vestrymen. In politics Mr. Foulds is a Republi- can, taking an active interest in the success of its nominees for public position and the triumph of its principles. In local affairs he is also much interested, and especially as a member of the
township school board in educational work. He has served in this capacity or several years, and is now its secretary. Mr. Foulds is another in- stance of the triumph of native ability and strength of character over the most unfavorable circumstances in the conflict of life. He is em- phatically a self-made man, and enjoys the esteem of the community in which he is a useful and valued member.
Thomas Foulds, the great-grandfather of Thomas Foulds, was a native of Halifax, York- shire, England, where he was engaged in the manufacture of woolen goods. He married Nancy Higginson, and had three sons: Simon, Esket and John. Simon Foulds, the grand- father of Thomas Foulds, was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, England. He spent the greater por- tion of his life in his native town, where he was a dealer in cotton waste, and subsequently re- moved to Bolton, Lancashire, England, where he engaged in the manufacture of yarns. He died in Bolton. His children were : John, James, Will- iam, Ann and Betzie.
Esket Foulds was also born in Halifax, York- shire, England. He emigrated to America in early manhood, engaged in the wholesale liquor business in the south, but nothing is known of him since 1864. He never married.
FRANKLIN G. FEGLEY, a carpenter of Pottstown, was born July 8, 1829. in Douglass township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He is the son of John and Anna (Fritz) Fegley.
John Fegley ( father) lived in Douglass town- ship for a number of years and later removed to Pottstown, where he died October 1, 1869. at the age of fifty-nine years, and his wife several years later. He was a painter by trade. Both he and his wife were members of the Lutheran church and were buried in Pottstown cemetery. In poli- tics he was a Democrat. They had only two children, one who died in infancy and Franklin G. Fegley.
George Fegley (grandfather) was a farmer in Douglass township. He and his wife were members of the Lutheran church, and are buried at Swamp. Their children were: John; Daniel :
18
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Jonas; Mary, who married Henry Buchert; and Sallie, who married Harry Solomon.
Peter and Susanna (Shaner) Fritz, the ma- ternal grandparents of Franklin G. Fegley, lived in Douglass township, where he was a farmer. They were members of the Lutheran church and are buried at Boyertown. Their children were: Peter ; Samuel; Catharine, who married Jacob Dannehower; Sallie, who married Mr. Neiman ; Mrs. Susanna Boyer ; Mrs. Esther Herbst ; Mary, wife of A. Gilbert; Rebecca, wife of William Thomas, and living in Tylersport, at the age of ninety-three years; and Elizabeth, wife of Au- gustus Koons.
Franklin G. Fegley received a fair education, attending school until he reached the age of four- teen years. He learned the trade of carpentering and coopering, and worked at home until he was nineteen years of age. He then went to Potts- town and worked at his trade one year; worked some time in Tamaqua; two years in Gloucester county, New Jersey; several years in Philadel- phia ; eight years in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania; and finally returned to Pottstown, where he has since resided. He has lived in his present home for thirty-eight years, following his trade.
November 10, 1855, Franklin G. Fegley mar- ried Ellen Moser, who was born November 3, 1833, in Berks county, a daughter of George and Hannah (Bush) Moser, residents of Berks county. Mr. Moser was a constable and stone- mason. He was a member of the Reform church, the Hill church, Berks county. The children of George and Hannah (Bush) Moser were : Sadie, Judas, Rebecca, Lettie, Caroline, Elizabeth, Ellen, Daniel and Charles. All of these children are deceased except Ellen, the wife of Franklin G. Fegley.
Mr. and Mrs. Fegley never had any children but adopted William Henry Antrim when he was one year old. They reared him, giving him a good education, and at the age of twenty-two years he married and now lives in West Phila- delphia. He is a reporter for the Philadelphia Record and has three children living.
Franklin G. Fegley is a Democrat in politics. He has held the offices of assessor, .councilman
.
and tax collector for twenty-four years. The fam- ily are members of the Lutheran church, and he belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, No. 449, of Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, of which he has been a member for fifty years. Mrs. Fegley had a paralytic stroke in September, 1900, and another in April, 1903, which has disabled her right side. Otherwise both she and her hus- band are in good health.
CHARLES HENRY ROBERTS, son of Hugh and Alice A. Roberts, the father being of Welsh-Quaker descent and the mother a combin- ation of Scotch-Irish and Pennsylvania German elements, is emphatically self-taught, owing his position in life very largely to his own exertions and to his indefatigable energy and application.
He was born at Wilmington, Delaware, June 18, 1843. He attended the private school of Miss Mary Mahaffy in that city, and for a few months in each year the ordinary country schools of that section, the family having meantime made several successive removals to the vicinity of Christiana (locally known as "Christen"), in New Castle county, in that state, and later to Scott's Mills, in Cecil county, Maryland, the last named location being about seventeen miles from Wilmington.
During his boyhood days he engaged in the ordinary duties of farm life,-ploughing, harrow- ing, planting, cultivating, hoeing and harvesting the crops that were produced on the farm on which the family made their home. Hugh Rob- erts (father) was a miller by trade, and a Penn- sylvanian by birth. About the year 1840, having learned his trade with his brother, Spencer, at the historic Townsend-Roberts mill on the stream crossing Stenton avenue, known as one branch of the Wingohocking creek, named from a fa- mous Indian chief of William Penn's time who lived on its banks, Mr. Roberts had come to Wilmington to obtain employment in the far- famed Brandywine Mills, operated at that time by William Lea and by the Prices and Tatnalls, well-known business men of that day, whose de- scendants are still numerous in Delaware. There Hugh Roberts became acquainted with Alice Anna, daughter of John and Margaret (Stotsen-
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burg) Gallagher. The acquaintance developed into something stronger than mere friendship and their marriage followed on August 8, 1842, being performed by Friends' ceremony in the presence of John M. Scott, mayor of Philadelphia. In due time the couple were surrounded by a family, Charles H. being the oldest child and early devel- oping strong traits of individuality, inherited from ancestors on both sides of the family.
Hugh Roberts was a man considerably above the average in culture and intelligence. He was denied to some extent those blessings of education which are so generally diffused in this day, but he overcame these obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge by a course of persistent self-study that gave him mental acquirements which, supple- mented by natural good sense and native shrewd- ness, caused him to be regarded by the community in which he lived as a man of superior attain- ments. He was strongly attached to the princi- ples of the Society of Friends, of which his an- cestors for eight or ten generations had been members. A Friend by principle and conviction, he endeavored to live in accordance with the guid- ance of the Light Within which is and always has been the distinguishing tenet of Friends. Re- moving from the Maryland farm which he had sold, in 1861, at the breaking out of the Rebellion, he returned to Pennsylvania, the state of his birth, locating on the farm of his uncle, Thomas Pim Spencer, in Lower Makefield township, Bucks county, on which he had been brought up as a boy and from which he went to Germantown to learn the trade of a miller. After a sojourn of two years in Bucks county, Hugh Roberts re- moved to Philadelphia, and thence after one year to Montgomery county in which he remained for the next thirty years or until his death at Nor- ristown on August 23. 1894, at the age of seventy- three years. His earlier years in Montgomery county were passed in Gwynedd on the old Ellis farm, situated at the junction of the state and township line roads, adjoining the Singerly homestead, and overlooking the beautiful valley of the Wissahickon. In 1882, having sold his property in Gwynedd, Hugh Roberts removed to Norristown and engaged in business as a builder
in which he accumulated a competency, spending his later days in comparative retirement, enjoy- ing the fruits of a long and well-spent life. His widow survived him nearly eight years, dying at the residence of her son, Ellwood Roberts, April 10, 1902, in the eighty-third year of her age. Having survived all the friends of her youth, and retaining all her faculties undimmed to the latest moment of her life, she passed peacefully away honored and respected by all who knew her.
Charles H. Roberts, having qualified himself by laborious study for the position, began teach- in 1862 in Bucks county and later continued that occupation in the public schools of Philadel- phia for a number of years, closing at the Colum- bia school, Holmesburg, in 1870. Having made several trips to the west, spending the winters of 1863 and 1864 at Mount Carmel, in Wabash county, Illinois, where an aunt of his mother, Elizabeth (Stotsenburg) Hawley, resided, he early became imbued with the idea that he would make his future home in that section of the coun- try. In the meantime he married, March 25, 1865, Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel and Louisa (Blakey) Stradling, of Oxford Valley, in Bucks county. In the autumn of 1878 the family removed to Yankton, Daokta, where they resided for several years, his time being spent partly in the occupation of teaching and partly in prepara- tion for the practice of law, to which he was ad- mitted in 1880. About 1871 the couple received appointments at Sac and Fox Indian Agency under the care of Friends, at Great Nemaha in Richardson county, Nebraska, he holding the po- sition of Indian agent on the Indian reservation. His experience in this position was as varied as it was interesting, but did not appear to prevent him from finally deciding upon making his home west of the Mississippi where he resided about twenty-five years, returning to the East in 1903.
Having adopted the legal profession, Charles H. Roberts removed, in 1885, to Sioux City, Iowa, and in 1895 to Kansas City, Missouri. During the residence of the family in the east the follow- ing children were born : Alice Anna, born in By- berry, Philadelphia county, Pennsylvania, April 16, 1866; Hugh, born in Byberry, January 8,
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1868; and Samuel, born at Lansdale, Montgom- ery county, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1871. Their youngest child, Louisa Elizabeth, was born at Sioux City, Iowa, September 23, 1886.
During the residence of the family at Green Island, in the Missouri river near Yankton, they had a remarkable experience, the great flood of the spring of 1881 sweeping away their house and its contents, together with those of all of their neighbors, and exposing them for several days and nights to almost unheard-of danger. The flood was due to an ice-jam which formed some distance up the river and suddenly broke upon the doomed town, giving them no time for escape. The Roberts family, with others of the vicinity, were compelled to take refuge on the roof of one of the houses which was built upon the highest ground, they having no choice but to remain six days and nights until the waters had somewhat subsided, and they were able to make their way to the river bank opposite Yankton over the cakes of ice which had been partly connected, because freezing weather had in the meantime set in. Con- trary to their expectations, all were saved, but, having lost all their household effects, they were, in a measure, compelled to begin life anew, with the aid of relatives and friends in the east as well as in the west. During the exposure on the pin- acle of the roof, the members of the family had their ears, fingers or toes frozen, and suffered un- speakable terror from being in momentary dan- ger of being swept away by the waters of the fierce Missouri, more terrible than ever in the time of the spring ice floods. The night previons to their final escape from their unpleasant predica- ment, the whole party essayed to reach land by means of boats, but owing to the fact that the water was rapidly freezing, they were obliged to return to their temporary ark of refuge to wait until the ice was thick enough to bear their weight, so that their deliverance could be accom- plished in that way. The boat in which was the oldest son, Hugh, then about thirteen years of age, did not return, and the rest of the party knew not but what he had perished by the capsizing of the boat or otherwise, for several weeks. It de- veloped finally however, that his boat was able
to reach an island in the river some miles above and later he rejoined the rest of the family and all reached Yankton safely, after two or three weeks' delay on account of the continued high water .. The reunion of all nearly a month after the de- struction of the town, was a happy conclusion of the terrible experience, which can better be im- agined than described.
Of the children, Alice Anna studied in schools taught by her father, including the Friends' school, at Salem, New Jersey, which he taught for several years in the late '6os and the early '70s, and elsewhere, and commenced teaching in Iowa at the age of fifteen years, following that occupation with considerable success, holding the responsible position of principal of public schools in Sioux City, and teaching later in Kansas City. In June, 1899, she located in Norristown, mak- ing her home with her uncle, Ellwood Roberts, and teaching the Friends' school at Media one year, and then securing an appointment as clerk of the census bureau at Washington, where she rendered very efficient services in connection with the collection and tabulation of the twelfth enum- eration of the inhabitants of the United States,. their occupations, etc. She was married Decem- ber 23. 1903, to Charles H. Brown, of New York, but resides in Chicago.
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