USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. I > Part 50
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 (link on the Part 1 page).
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 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89
Elizabeth, m. (between 1687 and 1698) Milliard; he died before 1702;
Amy, m. (between 1698 and 1702) Daniel Johnson.
Silas, son of Capt. William and Anne (Jasper ) Crispin, probably accompanied his father in the unfortunate voyage which ended at Barbadoes. He first arrived in Pennsylvania with Capt. Thomas Holme, Surveyor-General, in the ship "Amity," of London. On his arrival, he no doubt lived with Capt. Holme's family at Shackamaxon; within a year he married the latter's daughter, Esther, and in 1684 they went to live on his plantation on Pennepack creek, upper part of Dublin township. There is a tradition that their first child was born here in the wigwam of an Indian chief. He soon had a house built on the plantation, and lived there the remainder of his life. In deeds, etc., he is styled "Silas Crispin of Dublin Township, gentleman." He was a member of the Free Society of Traders in Pennsylvania. He was executor of the will of his father-in-law, Capt. Thomas Holme, and spent a great deal of time in caring for the large interest in lands left by the latter ; obtaining warrants for laying out lands not taken up at Holme's death, selling some of the tracts, etc.
Silas Crispin died May 31, 1711. By his will, dated May 5, 1711, he made his wife Mary executrix, left her his negroes, household goods, etc., and directed her to sell one hundred acres which he bought from Robert Grismall, adjoining the
360
CRISPIN
north end of his plantation, to pay debts and legacies. To his son Thomas he left a mare and colt and some small articles. To his granddaughter, Sarah Loftus, and his sister, Rebecca Blackfan, he left sums of money. [The witnesses were Mar- garet Ashton, William Blackfan, and Robert Ashton. Mary Crispin renounced her executorship, July 5, 17II, and letters of administration cum testamento annexo were granted Thomas Crispin, April 19, 1714.] His landed estate is not mentioned in his will, his own plantation going by the law of the time to his son Thomas, while the other children by his first wife were heirs, through their mother, to Capt. Thomas Holme's large domains. His children by his second wife were quite young, and he probably expected them to be provided for by their mother, whose family was wealthy. After her husband's death Mary Crispin, with her children, returned to Burlington, New Jersey, where she had lived before her marriage.
In the list of "First Purchasers" the names of William Crispin and Silas Cris- pin are bracketed as purchasers of five thousand acres ; William was doubtless the purchaser of the whole, Silas being his heir in Pennsylvania after his death; but Silas did not inherit all of this, as it reverted to the Proprietary, who then gave to the children of William Crispin lands equalling the same amount. Silas was given five thousand acres in Hilltown township, Philadelphia county, forty acres in the "liberties of Philadelphia," and three lots in the city. The liberty land was just half, and the area of the city lands approximately half, of what was due under a purchase of five thousand acres, yet Silas appears to have been the only one of the children who had either, as the others all sold their rights before any land was actually laid out to them. The patents to all these are made out to "Silas Crispin, Purchaser," which would seem to be an error, as they were given him as part of his father's purchase. He had in addition a plantation of five hundred acres, on which he resided, no patent for which has been found on record. It is said to have been given him by Penn; if so, it was in excess of his father's purchase.
The five hundred acres in his father's right were in Hilltown township, Phila- delphia county (now Abington township, Montgomery county), about eight miles back from the Delaware river in a straight line along the hypothetical Susque- hanna road; the tract was rectangular, bounded northeast by Moreland, southeast by Ph. Th. Lehnmann's land, southwest by the Susquehanna road, and northwest by land Capt. Thomas Holme had taken up in right of Samuel Clarridge. It is shown on Holme's map. Between 1686 and 1698 Silas Crispin sold this, in sepa- rate portions, to Cornelius Sturgis, John Meredith and Thomas Hood.
The forty acres of liberty land was a rectangular tract a short distance northeast of Germantown road, beyond Isaac Norris's "Fairhill" plantation. He sold this to Nicholas Rideout in 1695, who sold it to Nicholas Waln. Silas Crispin's city lots, as already mentioned, were not the same as those allotted to his father on the original city plan ; a number of alterations had been made in the plan before the lots were surveyed. One was on the west side of Delaware Front street, one hundred and sixty-two feet south of Walnut street; it was forty-two feet on Front street, running back one hundred and fifty-five feet on the north line and two hundred and one feet on the south line, bounded on the west by a marsh. In 1684 he sold this to William Frampton. Another of his lots was on the southwest corner of High street and Strawberry alley, forty feet (afterwards found to be forty-one) on High street and eighty feet on the alley ; he sold this about 1692
361
CRISPIN
to Joseph Farrington. The other of Silas Crispin's lots was on the southeast corner of Sixth and High streets, sixty-six feet on High and three hundred and six feet on Sixth street ; this was patented to him in 1688, and the same year he sold it to Patrick Robinson. [Patrick Robinson exchanged thirty-nine and a half feet in breadth of this with Robert Greenway for the same amount adjoining the lot he (Patrick Robinson) had purchased from Crispin, as Holme's executor, farther east in the same square, the latter being twenty-six and a half feet (orig- mally intended for twenty-six) ; these combined lots, sixty-six feet front, he sold to Lionel Britain. This exchange has made a good deal of confusion in the attempt to locate the lots from the records, some giving it as "Robert Greenway's exchange with Silas Crispin," while the deed shows Crispin to have sold the corner lot intact to Robinson, and the minutes of the Board of Property say that Robinson made the exchange with Greenway.]
Silas Crispin's plantation on which he went to live shortly after his marriage, remaining there the remainder of his life, was about five hundred acres in the upper part of Dublin (afterwards Lower Dublin) township, Philadelphia county, on the line of the present Abington township, Montgomery county, now in the thirty-fifth ward of the city ; it was rectangular, bounded northeast by Moreland, southeast by John Mason's land, southwest by the line of the Susquehanna road, and northwest (across the present Abington line) by William Stanley's land; it is shown on Holme's map. This is the plantation mentioned in his will, though not devised by that instrument. His son Thomas inherited it by the laws of primo- geniture, then in force.
On August 28, 1689, the Council appointed Robert Turner, Benjamin Chambers, Joseph Fisher, Silas Crispin, Thomas Fairman and Robert Adams, with a sur- veyor, to lay out a cart road according to statute, they having petitioned to have a road laid out from Philadelphia to Bucks county. This was the present Bristol pike, and they probably followed to a great extent the rather indefinite trail previously known as the "King's Path."
Silas Crispin married (first) in 1683, Esther Holme, who died April 17, 1696, daughter of Capt. Thomas Holme, Provincial Councillor and Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania, an account of whom, follows this sketch.
Issue of Silas and Esther (Holme) Crispin:
Sarah Crispin, b. March 31, 1684; m. Lesson Loftus, of the city of Phila .;
Rebecca Crispin, b. May 6, 1685; m. Joseph Finney, son of Samuel Finney, Provincial Councillor and Provincial Judge, and a brother of Capt. John Finney, Provincial Coun- cillor, High Sheriff of Phila. co., and of the family of Finney, of Fulshaw Hall, Che- shire, England; an account of some of the descendants of one branch of this family appears elsewhere in these volumes;
Marie (or Maria) Crispin, b. Oct., 1686; m. John Collet, son of Richard and Elizabeth (Rush) Collet, grandson of Capt. John Rush, formerly of the Parliamentary in the Civil War in England, who came to Pa. in 1683, and settled on a plantation in Byberry; an account of this family and its distinguished representative, Dr. Benjamin Rush, is given in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. xvii .;
Eleanor Crispin, b. Sept. 1I, 1687; m. Nov. 25, 1708, John Hart, Jr., High Sheriff and Coroner of Bucks co., and a justice of the County Courts; son of John Hart, from Witney, Oxfordshire, a member of the first Provincial Assembly, and his wife, Sus- anna Rush, dau. of Capt. John Rush, above mentioned; some account of the Hart family is given below;
William Crispin, b. Sept. 3, 1689, d. y .;
Esther Crispin, b. Oct. 29, 1691; m. Thomas Rush, grandson of Capt. John Rush, above mentioned;
362
CRISPIN
Thomas Crispin, b. June 22, 1694; lived on his father's plantation in Lower Dublin twp .; m. Jane, dau. of Joseph Ashton, Esq., of Lower Dublin twp., a Justice of the County Courts of Philadelphia co .;
Susanna Crispin, b. April 14, 1696, d. y.
Silas Crispin married (second) 1697, Mary, daughter of Richard and Abigail Stockton, of Springfield township, Burlington county, West New Jersey, and widow of Thomas Shinn, of the same county and province. Her father, Richard Stockton, was an Englishman of good birth and some fortune who settled in Flushing, Long Island, where he was lieutenant of a troop of horse in 1665, and afterwards joined the Society of Friends and removed to Burlington county, New Jersey ; he was the ancestor of the Stockton family of New Jersey. Her first husband, Thomas Shinn, belonged to a well-known West Jersey family; she had two sons by him, Thomas and Samuel, who both settled near Mount Holly and left descendants. [Thomas Shinn and Mary Stockton were married Ist mo. 6, 1693; he died 9th mo. 15, 1695.]
Silas and Mary (Stockton) Crispin had issue:
Joseph, b. Oct. 7, 1698; m. Elizabeth Barratt; removed to Del .;
BENJAMIN, b. Sept. 1, 1699; m. Aug. 21, 1722, at Springfield Meeting, Margaret, dau. of Joshva and Martha Owen, of Springfield twp .; of whom later;
Abigail, b. Jan. 20, 1701; m. John Wright, of Springfield twp .;
SILAS, b. March 19, 1702; d. Nov., 1749; m. Nov. 9, 1724, Mary, dau. of Thomas and Ann (Fearon) Wetherill, of Burlington, and granddaughter of Christopher Wetherill, an- cestor of the Wetherill family of N. J. and Phila .; of whom later ;
Mary, b. May 12, 1705; m. Nov. 5, 1727, Thomas Earl, of Burlington co., son of William Earl, of New England, ancestor of the Earl family of N. J .; John, b. Dec. II, 1707.
After Silas Crispin's death, his widow, Mary (Stockton) Crispin, married (third) September II, 1714, at Springfield Meeting House, Richard Ridgway Jr., of Springfield township; she had no issue by him. Richard Ridgway Jr., had married (first) Mary Willet; he was son of Richard Ridgway Sr., of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, who removed to Burlington county, West Jersey, and mar- ried (second) Abigail Stockton, sister to Mary Stockton, Richard Ridgway Jr.'s second wife.
THOMAS CRISPIN, eldest surviving son of Silas and Esther (Holme) Crispin, was born June 22, 1694, on his father's plantation in Lower Dublin township, Philadelphia county, which he afterwards inherited, and made his home the remainder of his life. He and his sisters (of the full blood) inherited through their mother, their grandfather, Capt. Thomas Holme, Well Spring plantation and the smaller tract adjoining it, amounting in all to over 2100 acres, which in 1723 was divided among the then living heirs the one acre laid out by Capt. Holme for a family graveyard being reserved for their use in common.
As the daughters, or their descendants, (except the children of Esther Rush), all removed from the immediate vicinity, the descendants of Thomas Crispin and Esther Rush only continued to use it, and it has long been known as the "Old Crispin Burying-Ground." It is now under the care of a board of trustees in which other branches of the descendants of Capt. Holme are represented.
This graveyard, one acre in extent, is located about a mile northwest of the main street of Holmesburg, and a short distance from Rowland station on the
363
CRISPIN
Bustleton branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. It was laid out by Capt. Thomas Holme, in 1694, for the use of himself and his descendants. In an article in the Frankford Herald, of 1895, Oliver Hough tells us that :
"On Wednesday afternoon, November 20, 1895, the two surviving trustees of the Crispin Cemetery Corporation, Mr. B. F. Crispin, of West Philadelphia, and Mr. Charles Green, of Sandiford, Philadelphia, met at the home of George S. Clark, Esq., in Holmesburg, for the purpose of filling the three vacancies in the Board of Trustees and to reorganize the cor- poration, which for thirty-two years has been dormant, the last meeting having been held in April, 1863. Messrs. Crispin and Green first held a preliminary meeting and filled two of the vacancies, by electing as Trustees, Mr. James Watts Mercur, of Wallingford, Delaware county, Pa., and Mr. Oliver Hough, of Philadelphia. These two gentlemen being in waiting, a meeting of the Board was then held, and an organization was effected, Mr. Crispin, being made President, Mr. Green, Treasurer, and Mr. Hough, Secretary. The last vacancy in the board was then filled by the election of General William Watts Hart Davis, of Doylestown, Bucks county, Pa., as the fifth trustee.
"This corporation is not a public cemetery company, nor in any sense a financial institu- tion but was chartered to protect the interests of the heirs in a private family burying-ground, laid out by Captain Thomas Holme in the year 1694, for the use of himself and his descend- ants.
"Besides his daughter Hester, wife of Silas Crispin, he had two sons, who died without issue before their father, a daughter Sarah, who married and had children, but appears not to have come to America, and a daughter Eleanor, who was married twice, but whose de- scendants died out in the second generation. The children of Hester Crispin thus inherited all of Captain Holme's land, including the graveyard. In 1723 they divided the estate and gave each other deeds of release of the various shares reserving the burying-ground for the use of all and their descendants.
"There were six interests represented in this division, four being children of Hester Crispin, and the other two the interests of deceased children, represented by their children; these were : 1, Sarah (Crispin) Loftus, represented by her daughter Sarah, wife of Andrew Hannis; 2, Eleanor (Crispin) Hart, wife of John Hart of Bucks county; 3, Thomas Crispin; 4, Mary (Crispin) Collet, wife of John Collet; 5, Hester (Crispin) Rush, wife of Thomas Rush; 6, Rebecca (Crispin) Finney, represented by her daughters, Mary Bell, and Elizabeth Finney.
"Thomas Crispin's share of the land surrounded three sides of the burying-ground, and his descendants continued to reside in this vicinity for many years and were mostly buried there, while the descendants of the other heirs nearly all removed to a distance, and no doubt soon forgot that they had an interest in the lot. In 1748, Thomas Crispin sold the land adjoining the burying-ground to John Paul, but reserved the burying-ground itself.
"This land was the estate afterwards known as 'Longford.' The fourth side of the graveyard was the line of Susquehanna Road, originally laid out by Thomas Holme, on a middle line of Lower Dublin township, and intended to run from the Delaware to the Sus- quehanna River, but never opened up at this point. The land on this side had been sold by the Crispin heirs at an earlier date.
"In an account of the burying-ground, written by Silas Crispin, son of Thomas in 1794, he says that only about a quarter of an acre was then in use; this was in the northern corner of the lot. On April Ist, 1825, the descendants of Thomas Crispin, met at the house of Benjamin Crispin in Holmesburg, when Paul Crispin and Robert C. Green were appointed a committee to visit George Henry Walker, who then owned the estate of 'Longford.' Mr. Walker agreed to preserve the plot and keep it in good order. He kept his agreement, but as the ground was unenclosed, it was found that cattle sometimes wandered in and trampled down the mounds and broke some of the tombstones. Therefore, on January 22, 1831, the descendants again met at Benjamin Crispin's and formed a society called the 'Crispin Burial- Gound Community' to take charge of the property. The members of this society then pres- ent or afterwards admitted were: Benjamin Crispin, Paul Crispin, George Crispin, John Creighton, Thomas Creighton, James A. Creighton, George C. Creighton, Robert C. Green, James D. Mckean and Paul K. Hubbs. The 'Community' had the ground surveyed the same year and fenced in the part then in use. They afterwards held annual meetings until 1840. In the latter year Benjamin Crispin introduced a bill in the State Legislature, of which he was a member, which passed both houses and was approved by the Governor in the session of 1840, incorporating Benjamin Crispin, Paul Crispin, Robert C. Green, Thomas Creighton, and James A. Creighton, and their successors, under the title of the 'Crispin Cemetery,' to take charge of the burial-ground. These incorporators, or trustees, as they afterwards called themselves, divided the ground into twenty-four lots part of which they assigned to the different branches of the family, two lots being reserved for the church, and one for strangers or persons not connected with the Crispin family. They planted a cedar hedge around the whole acre and cedar trees to mark the boundaries of lots. Very few persons not connections were ever buried there. In 1847 or 1848 Robert C. Green, of Sandy Hill, took charge of the cemetery under a lease, he keeping it in order in consideration of the profits from hay,
364
CRISPIN
etc., grown on the unused portion. He renovated about twenty-five or thirty of the graves, but when he gave up the superintendence of the ground in 1860, it became neglected.
"The last annual meeting of the Trustees was held in 1863, in which year the last burial (Mrs. Rachel Polk) was made there. Before the reorganization in the present year, thirty- two years after the last meeting, it was brought to the attention of the surviving Trustees that the 'Community' and the corporation succeeding it had been composed entirely of the descend- ants of Thomas Crispin, one of the parties to the division in 1723; while the descendants of the latter's sisters (co-heirs with him in the ground), having mostly removed from the neighborhood, had made no effort to join these organizations until recently, when some of them awakened to the knowledge of their interest in the ground which contained the remains of their forefathers and desired to participate in the care of it. The Trustees expressed their willingness to associate some of the representatives of the other branches of the family with themselves in the management of the corporation and elected Gen. Davis, Mr. Mercur, and Mr. Hough, who are all descendants of Thomas Crispin's sister Eleanor, wife of John Hart; Gen. Davis and Mr. Mercur, being also descendants of another sister, Mary Collett.
"At the present time the traces of about one hundred graves can be found, only half of which have stones, and of these only a dozen have legible inscriptions."
Capt. Thomas Holme's own grave was marked only by a smooth round stone until 1863, when a small monument was erected over it by the Trustees of the Lower Dublin Academy, whose foundation was due to him.
In the division of 1723, the heirs had set aside a lot for a school site in lieu of the four pounds for school purposes bequeathed by Capt. Holme, in his will. Shortly after this date a log school house was erected and used until 1794, when the present structure, built of stone, colored yellow, was completed ; the log por- tion is still standing and is used as a part of the janitor's residence. On January 23, 1794, a charter was granted to the Trustees of the Lower Dublin Academy, who continued to conduct the school as a private institution until the inauguration of the public school system, when it was rented to the public school authorities and used as a public school ; in 1901 it was bought by the city of Philadelphia and con- tinued in the same use.
From the Frankford Herald, of May II, 1901, we glean the following facts in reference to the old Academy :
"THE LAST MEETING AT THE OLD ACADEMY."
"One day in every May, for seven years more than a century, the Trustees of the ancient corporation known as the "Trustees of the Lower Dublin Academy' have held their annual meetings at the old Academy, where a school has been in continuous existence for one hundred and seventy-three years.
"On Tuesday last the present Board, consisting of Andreas Hartel, President, George S. Clark, Joseph H. Brown, William Rowland, Jonathan Rowland, Jr., Henry V. Massey, Edwin M. Thomas, and John S. Clark, held its last meeting on the property which the city authorities have recently purchased, and already are in possession of, and have been for many years as tenants, conducting the Thomas Holme Public School. It is a beautiful prop- erty, comprising about three acres of land, a stone school house and a stone tenant house, a part of the latter being the original school house where children were taught when all the people of the neighborhood were loyal subjects of George II., of Great Britain, and the United States of America had not as yet been dreamed of by the wildest fancy.
"The property is situated at the junction of Willit's Road and Academy Lane, and nearby are the handsome country places of the late Alexander Brown, and others. It is an ideal spot for a school, the ground having a sunny exposure and a gentle slope in several directions. It is also beautifully shaded with forest trees, some of which are supposed to be nearly two hundred years old. The roads in the neighborhood are finely Telfordized, and the trolley cars run along the Bristol Turnpike, within three minutes walk of the school. Looking to the west one can see, about a half mile away, the grove that marks the location of the 'Old Crispin Cemetery' where the remains of Captain Thomas Holme, founder of the trust, repose under a monument erected to his memory many years ago by the then existent board of trustees, all of whom have long since departed this life. The thriving and growing village of Collegeville is near at hand. The country round about is gently undulating, highly cultivated and well wooded. Hereafter the trustees instead of assembling amidst these pleasant surroundings, fragant with the odor of Spring blossoms and melodious with the love songs of the mating birds, will hold their meetings in a stuffy city office. The ancestors of some of the trustees sat in the original board in 1794. Others are successors of their fathers
365
CRISPIN
and grandfathers. One trustee is a lineal descendant of the founder of the trust, and for all, the place is full of pleasant memories of the meeting of friends, many of whom are now no more.
"The meeting on Tuesday confirmed the sale of the property to the city of Philadelphia, and the Trustees parted with the melancholy reminders that this was their last assemblage at the old Academy. The city authorities showed their excellent judgment in purchasing the property before it had so increased in value as to command a much higher price. This country is ripe for improvement and there will no doubt be a great advance in that direction in the near future. The money derived from the sale will form a part of the endowment fund, the income from which is used, by decree of the Common Pleas Court, given on peti- tion of the Trustees, to aid in the support and maintenance of the 'Thomas Holme Free Library,' situated in the Athenaeum Building, Holmesburg."
The Holmesburg Library was founded February 13, 1867. In 1880 Dr. J. Burd Peale succeeded in obtaining a decree of court, making the funds which the Trus- tees of The Lower Dublin Academy obtained from the rent of the ancient school house available for the support of this library, whose name was thereupon changed to "The Thomas Holme Library." In 1897 the Trustees found that their small endowment was insufficient to meet the growing needs of the library and an appeal was made to the management of the Free Library of Philadelphia to take charge of the local institution as a branch, which it did. In 1906 it became one of the Carnegie chain of free libraries, in a new building, though under the same management.
Thomas Crispin married Jane, daughter of Joseph Ashton, Esq., a Justice of the Philadelphia County Courts, and a considerable landowner in Lower Dublin township, where the Ashton family has been one of prominence to the present day
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.