Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. I, Part 52

Author: Jordan, John Woolf, 1840-1921, ed; Jordan, Wilfred, b. 1884, ed
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: New York, NY : Lewis Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 710


USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. I > Part 52


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).


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Issue of Hon. George S. and Sarah Frances (Crispin) Clark:


John Stephenson Clark, b. Aug. 1, 1875; trustee of Lower Dublin Academy, and trustee of the Crispin Cemetery Corporation, succeeding his grandfather, B. F. Crispin, in both these offices. He m. Elizabeth, dau. of Jonathan and Mary Frances (Risdon) Rowland. Her father, Jonathan Rowland, son of Maxwell and Matilda Rowland, and grandson of Jonathan Rowland, Sr., who about 1829 established the Rowland Shovel Works on the Pennypack, once Holmesburg's principal industry, and of a family that has been prominent in the neighborhood of Frankford and Holmesburg since early Colonial times, was b. in Holmesburg, March 28, 1856, and graduated from the Polytechnic College, Phila., 1874, with degree of Civil Engineer. He was a vestry- man of Emanuel Church, trustee of Lower Dublin Academy, and an official in many corporations in Holmesburg and elsewhere. They had issue:


John Maxwell Rodman Clark.


Benjamin Crispin Clark, b. March 28, 1877, d. Dec. 24, 1878;


Arthur Douglass Clark, b. August 14, 1883;


Elizabeth Frances Clark, b. Sept. 16, 1878.


ELEANOR CRISPIN, daughter of Silas and Esther (Holme) Crispin, and grand- daughter of both Capt. William Crispin and of Capt. Thomas Holme, born Sep- tember II, 1687, married, November 25, 1708, John Hart, Jr., of Warminster township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, son of John Hart, who came from Witney, Oxfordshire, England, in 1682, and grandson of Christopher Hart.


Christopher and Mary Hart were members of Society of Friends, living at Witney, Oxfordshire, which town is described in Playfair's Geography, publish- ed in 1809, as "a long town, consisting of two streets, of which the principal one is spacious, with a church at the upper end. It is eight miles West-north-west from Oxford, and five miles from Bampton. It is situated on the Windrush that runs southeast to the Issis." In that neighborhood was Wichwood Forest, once of great extent.


Christopher and Mary Hart had issue:


JOHN, b. Nov. 16, 1651, of whom presently ;


Sir Robert Hart, b. Aug. 1, 1655; lived in London, where he m. and had children; Mary, b. April 1, 1658; accompanied her brother John to Pa., where she d. unm .; Joseph, b. Oct. 24, 1661; went to the island of Jamaica, where he acquired great wealth, d. unm.


JOHN HART, eldest son of Christopher and Mary Hart, born at Witney, Oxford-


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shire, England, November 16, 1651, came to Pennsylvania, when about thirty years of age. By deeds of lease and release dated October 1I and 12, 1681, he purchased of William Penn, of Worminghurst, county Surrey, England, Proprietary of Pennsylvania, 1000 acres of land to be laid out in the Province of Pennsylvania. He came to Pennsylvania in the summer of 1682, possibly in the same ship with Capt. Thomas Holme, stopping for a while at Upland, or Chester, where he was a member of the Grand Jury, September 12, 1682. He soon after this date removed to Byberry township, Philadelphia county, where 484 acres of his purchase were laid out as early as 1683. In 1684, 485 acres more of his 1000 acres were laid out in Warminster township, Bucks county. The Byberry tract is now owned by Gen. Edward de V. Morrell, and the Drexel family, but the so-called "hipped-roof Hart House," near Morrell's entrance, is not the house built by John Hart, but the one erected by Thomas Rush, husband of Esther Crispin, sister to Eleanor, wife of John Hart, Jr., in 1731, on seventy-two acres sold by John Hart to James Rush, father of Thomas, August 8, 1697. John Hart sold the remainder of his Byberry land at about the same date, reserving his private burial ground, which, however, he later made over to Abington Monthly Meeting, for public use ; his great-grand- son, John Hart, released it to the Overseers of the Poor for Byberry township, May 30, 1786. In the year 1697, or perhaps a little earlier, John Hart removed to his plantation in Warminster township, Bucks county, where his descendants re- mained for many generations and were one of the most distinguished families of the county.


John Hart was a member of Colonial Assembly from Philadelphia county, 1683- 84, and signed the first "Form of Government" 2mo. 2, 1683. At the time of com- ing to the Province of Pennsylvania he was of such standing in the Society of Friends as to become a minister of ability and influence ; he at once took a leading position among Friends in the Province, and was probably their leading minister. The meetings of the Society, including the monthly meetings, were held at his house until 1686, when the Meeting House was erected, and he filled the position of clerk of the Monthly Meeting, and was trustee of the lands held by the meeting and served on many of its important committees. In 1691 he joined George Keith's schism, and carried with him the greater part of his family connection, in- cluding the Rush and Collett families. Next to Keith himself, John Hart was the most important member of their organization. But at about the time John Hart removed to Warminster the Keithians had disintegrated and he and many others became Baptists. In 1702 he joined Pennypack Baptist Church, in Lower Dublin township, and was made assistant minister, and became as satisfactory a preacher among the Baptists as he had among the Quakers. He died in War- minster township, Bucks county, in September, 1714, and was buried in the Penny- pack graveyard. Robert Proud, in his "History of Pennsylvania" describes John Hart, as a "man of rank, character, and reputation." In collaboration with Thomas Budd he wrote a small book on religious matters, one of the earliest books publish- ed in the Province of Pennsylvania.


John Hart married, in 1683, Susanna, daughter of Capt. John and Susanna (Lucas) Rush, of Byberry. During the Civil War in England, her father, John Rush, commanded a troop of horse in the Parliamentary Army. On June 8, 1648, he married Susanna Lucas, at Harton, Oxfordshire. About 1660 they embraced the principles of Friends, and in 1682 emigrated to Pennsylvania, where Capt.


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Rush took up a tract of land, laid out for 500 acres, in Byberry township, Phila- delphia county, adjoining that of his future son-in-law, John Hart. They were the ancestors of the well-known Rush family of Philadelphia, including the cele- brated Dr. Benjamin Rush; Dr. James Rush, who founded the Ridgway Library, and to whom descended Capt. John Rush's sword and watch; Col. Richard Rush, of "Rush's Lancers," and many others prominent in affairs and in Philadelphia Soci- ety. The earlier generations of the Rush family were largely intermarried with the Harts, Crispins and Colletts, and continued to live many generations on the original tract taken up by Capt. John Rush in Byberry and some of them on the original Hart tract in that township. Many of them were buried in the Hart burial-ground above mentioned. In his later years Dr. Benjamin Rush visited this graveyard, and his own birthplace nearby, and embraced a large tree which had been planted by his father ; the incidents of which trip he described in a letter quoted by Watson, in his "Annals of Philadelphia," and others ; which letter is of much local historical value, except that Dr. Rush woefully misinterpreted his grandfather's social position, because he had heard him called a "gunsmith." Sus- anna (Rush) Hart died February 27, 1725.


John and Susanna (Rush) Hart had issue:


JOHN HART, JR., b. July 16, 1684; m. Eleanor Crispin, of whom presently; Thomas Hart, m. Esther ; inherited 200 acres of his father's Warminster planta- tion, but sold it to James Rush, Dec. 11, 1719;


Joseph Hart, m. April 2, 1713, Sarah Stout; d. 1714, probably without issue; Josiah Hart, was granted a letter of dismission from Pennepack Baptist Church, Aug. 12, 1715, to "Cokehansey" probably Cohansey, Cumberland county, New Jersey, where there was a Baptist Church established as early as 1683;


Mary Hart, d. 1721, probably unm.


JOHN HART, JR., born on his father's plantation in Byberry, Philadelphia county, Pennsylvania, July 16, 1684, died on his own plantation in Warminster township, Bucks county, March 22, 1763. He was a Justice of Bucks County Courts, as early as 1726, and still in commission as late as 1757. In the meantime, however, he was High Sheriff of Bucks county, 1738-39-43-44-45-48-49; and Coroner, 1741- 42. He inherited 200 acres of his father's Warminster plantation, and lived there all his life, being a man of wealth for the times. He was among the founders of the Southampton Baptist Church, an offspring from Pennypack, April 8, 1746, and was elected the first deacon on May 8, of the same year. He was a pillar of this church to the day of his death and its clerk from the organization until 1762; also trustee of the church's real estate. He built the family mansion on the War- minster plantation (though his father no doubt had a house there previously) the date stone of which has his own and his wife's initials, "Hart, John and Eleanor," and the date 1750. He was buried in the graveyard of Southampton Baptist Church, beside his wife, Eleanor Crispin, who died October 29, 1754.


Issue of John and Eleanor (Crispin) Hart:


John, b. Sept. 10, 1709, d. unm. June 1I, 1743, in Va .; killed by the accidental discharge of a gun in his own hands;


Susanna, b. April 20, 1711, d. March 30, 1733, m. March 31, 1731, John Price;


William, b. March 7, 1713, d. Oct. 6, 1714;


JOSEPH HART, b. Sept. 1, 1715, d. Feb. 25, 1788; m. Elizabeth Collett, of whom presently; Silas, b. May 5, 1718, d. Oct. 29, 1785; moved to Augusta co., Va., where he m. Sept. 26,


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1749; in 1778, when Rockingham co. was set off from Augusta, he was made a Justice of the County Court and Sheriff of the new county;


Lucretia, b. July 22, 1720, d. Dec. 15, 1760; m. (first) Oct. 15, 1741, William Gilbert, of Warminster; (second) March 5, 1752, John Thomas; some branches of her descend- ants are among the prominent families of Harford co., Md., and others in Phila .;


Rev. Oliver Hart, b. July 5, 1723, d. Dec. 31, 1795; m. (first) Sarah, dau. of Henry and Hannah Breece, of Bensalem twp., Bucks co .; (second) April 5, 1774, Anna Maria (Sealy) Grimball, widow of Charles Grimball, of Charleston, and dau. of William and Sarah Sealy, of Eutaw, S. C. He was a minister of the Southampton Baptist Church, and with his father one of its founders. In 1749 he became pastor of the First Baptist Curch of Charleston, S. C., and the College of Rhode Island made him Master of Arts at its first commencement, in 1769. "The breaking out of the Revolu- tionary War found Mr. Hart laboring in his church; but when the tocsin of war was sounded it filled him with the same patriotic ardor that burned in the bosoms of other members of his family." He served on important commissions for the Provincial Congress of S. C., and received the thanks of that body. When the British captured Charleston, he returned to Warminster, Bucks county, and never went back to S. C .; but his descendants to-day include many of the most distinguished families of that state, and of Georgia, and neighboring states, bearing the names of Lee, Coxe, Screven, etc., as well as Hart. He died at Hopewell, N. J., while pastor of the Baptist church there, but was buried in his ancestral churchyard at Southampton, Bucks co., Pa .;


Edith, b. May 4, 1727, d. March 27, 1805; m. Sept. 29, 1748, Isaac Hough, a landed pro- prietor of Warminster twp., member of Warminster Company of Associators, 1775, and serving on important committees under the Bucks County Committee of Safety during the Revolution. He was son of John Hough, Justice of Bucks County's Courts, and grandson of Richard Hough, Provincial Councillor, 1693-1700, and member of Assembly eight terms, between 1684 and 1704;


Seth, b. June II, 1731, d. Oct. 31, 1740;


Olive, b. July 3, 1734, d. Aug. 13, 1734.


COL. JOSEPH HART, son of John Jr. and Eleanor (Crispin ) Hart, and one of the most conspicuous patriots in Bucks county during the Revolution, was born in the old family mansion in Warminster township, September 1, 1715, died there Febru- ary 25, 1788. He inherited, as eldest son, 200 acres of his father's plantation on which was located the family mansion, and added to it by purchase, during his father's lifetime, the 200 acres which had been his Uncle Thomas's portion of his grandfather's land, sold by Thomas to James Rush, in 1719. He thus became seized of 400 acres of the 484 acres taken up by his grandfather, John Hart, Sr., in 1684. With his father and brother, Oliver, as well as his wife, Elizabeth Col- lett, he was among the founders of Southampton Baptist Church in 1746, and suc- ceeded his father as clerk in 1762; was trustee in 1763, as well as deacon and treas- urer. He was Sheriff of Bucks county, 1749-50-51 ; Justice of the County Courts, 1747, and when the various courts were separated was Justice of the Court of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas, in 1764.


In 1747 he was ensign of the regiment of "Bucks County Associators" com- manded by Col. Alexander Graydon, and was promoted to captain after Brad- dock's defeat in 1755. As the Revolution developed he early prepared to support it. "He was among the first to gather up the strength of the Colony before the contest broke out." "His standing gave him great influence, and he was probably the foremost man in the county of Bucks in moulding public opinion." He was one of his county's representatives in the Provincial Convention, held in Carpen- ter's Hall, Philadelphia, July, 1774; a member of the Bucks County Committee of Safety, and chosen its chairman, when it organized January 16, 1775; vice-presi- dent of the Provincial Conference held at Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, June, 1776.


Joseph Hart was elected July 20, 1775, colonel of the second battalion, Bucks


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County Associators, and had his command in the field with the "Flying Camp" in the summer of 1776. In the summer of 1777, Col. Hart was elected a member of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, and took his seat, July 2, serving until October, 1779. In 1780 he was appointed County Lieutenant for Bucks. At the same time he also held leading civil offices in the county, having been commis- sioned Register of Wills for Bucks county, under the new government, March 21, 1777, and the county courts being reorganized he was commissioned Judge of the Courts of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, June 7, 1784. The battle of Crooked Billet, now Hatboro, was fought partly on his homestead plantation.


Col. Joseph Hart married, October 9, 1740, his cousin, Elizabeth, born in By- berry, May 14, 1714, daughter of John and Mary (Crispin) Collett, of Philadel- phia county. She was both his first and second cousin, her mother being a sister of his mother, Eleanor Crispin, and her father a first cousin to his father, she, like him, being descended from the Crispins and Rushs; an account of her mother, Mary (Crispin) Collett (in earlier life called Marie or Maria) is given above in the list of the children of Silas and Esther (Holme) Crispin. Elizabeth (Collett) Hart died in Warminster, February 19, 1788, less than a week prior to her hus- band, and both are buried in Southampton Baptist Churchyard.


Issue of Col. Joseph and Elizabeth (Collett ) Hart:


William, b. Dec. 4, 1741, d. unm. Oct. 15, 1760;


John, b. Nov. 29, 1743, d. June 5, 1786; m. Sept. 13, 1767, Rebecca, dau. of David and Mar- garet Reece, of the "Crooked Billet" (now Hatboro), Montgomery co., then Philadelphia co .; he removed to near Chester, Delaware co., but about 1777 returned to Warminster, and in 1779 was made county treasurer, and removed to Newtown, then the county seat. In 1781 he was the victim of the celebrated robbery, by the notorious outlaws known as the "Doan Boys," their leader being Moses Doan, and lost £735 of the public money; the legislature passing a bill for its repayment after his death. He died at Newtown, and was buried beside his ancestors in the Southampton Churchyard;


Silas, b. Oct. 4, 1747; m. Jan. 29, 1770, Mary Daniel, the date and place of his death is un- known;


JOSIAH, b. July 17, 1749, d. Oct. 25, 1800; m. Ann Watts; of whom presently:


Joseph, b. Nov. 21, 1751, d. Jan. 30, 1752;


Joseph, b. Dec. 7, 1758, d. April 15, 1811; m. Dec. 25, 1783, Ann, or Nancy, dau. of Will- iam and Elizabeth Folwell, and a sister to William Watts Folwell, a distinguished scholar, and a graduate of the Univ. Pa .; she was also a descendant of Dr. Isaac Watts. Joseph Hart, Jr., succeeded to the ancestral homestead in Warminster, d. in the old family mansion and was buried at Southampton. During the Whiskey Insurrec- tion of 1794, he was paymaster of Col. Hanna's brigade. He was a member of the State Senate in 1804 and for several years thereafter, and in the session of 1808 in- troduced the bill for removing the county seat of Bucks from Newtown to Doylestown. His son, John Hart, who with his brothers, Thomas and Lewis, was a member of Capt. William Purdy's, Bucks co. company in the second war with Great Britain, a member of the State Legislature and the incumbent of a number of local offices, was the father of B. Frank Hart, of Phila., many years a prominent manufacturer and business man of that city.


JOSIAH HART, second son of Col. Joseph Hart, born in the family mansion in Warminster, Bucks county, July 17, 1748, married. January 11, 1776, Ann (Nancy) Watts, born in Southampton, Bucks county, October 5, 1759, daughter of Arthur and Sarah Watts, of Southampton, and a sister to Hon. William Watts, many years Prothonotary and Associate Justice of Bucks County Court of Common Pleas. She as well as the wife of her husband's brother Joseph, Nancy Folwell, was a descendant of Dr. Isaac Watts.


The first of the Watts family in Pennsylvania was Rev. John Watts. born in


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Leeds, England, November 3, 1661, who settled in Lower Dublin township, Phila- delphia county, in 1686, and married, February 23, 1687, Sarah Eaton. He be- came pastor of Pennypack Baptist Church, to which the early Harts belonged, died there August 27, 1702, and was buried at Cold Spring Baptist Church, Bristol township, Bucks county, the parents of Pennypack.


Either he or his son Stephen, grandfather of Mrs. Hart, purchased 200 acres of land in Southampton, on the Warminster line, near the estate of the Hart family, and the family has been a prominent one in Bucks county and elsewhere.


Josiah Hart purchased of his father, Col. Joseph Hart, April 9, 1777, a grist and sawmill and a tract of land on Pennypack creek in Moreland township, Phila- delphia. now Montgomery county, and lived there nearly twenty years, or until April, 1795, when he sold his Moreland property and removed to the old Watts plantation in Southampton, at what is now Davisville, a portion of which, with fifteen acres adjoining in Warminster, his wife later inherited under the will of her father, Arthur Watts, dated October 16, 1809. Here Josiah Hart spent the re- mainder of his days, and was buried with his ancestors at Southampton Church- yard. He died October 25, 1800, and his widow, March 2, 1815. He was a prom- inent and active man in the community, and during the Revolution was captain of the Moreland Company of Philadelphia County Associators.


Issue of Josiah and Ann (Folwell) Hart:


Sarah, b. Nov. 6, 1776, d. May 3, 1838; m. Dec. 7, 1797, William Shelmire ; Elizabeth, b. Dec. 13, 1779, d. Oct. 23, 1834; m. March 30, 1797, Arthur Yerkes; Rebecca, b. Jan. 14, 1782, d. March 4, 1815; m. Sept. 24, 1805, William Miles; Amy, b. June 30, 1784, d. Aug. 17, 1847; m. John Davis; of whom presently; Frances, b. Aug. 27, 1787, d. March 7, 1789;


William Watts, b. June 2, 1790, d. Feb. 24, 1815; admitted to Bucks co. bar, June 3, 1813; Deputy Register of Wills, under his cousin, Dr. William Hart, 1810; Deputy Register and Recorder of Deeds under John Pugh, 1813; Deputy Prothonotary, under his uncle, William Watts, March, 1811; commissioned Clerk of Orphans' Court, Feb. 28, 1814, but resigned that position to join the army when news was received at the county seat of the burning of Washington by the British, and was commissioned Lieutenant of the company then organized, becoming later Adjutant of Col. Thomas Humphries' regiment at Marcus Hook. Returned to Doylestown at close of war, was taken with typhus fever and died at the house of his uncle, Hon. William Watts, Feb. 24, 1815.


AMY HART, fourth daughter of Josiah and Ann (Watts) Hart, born in More- land township, Philadelphia county, June 20, 1784, was reared from her eleventh year on the old homestead of her maternal ancestors at Davisville, Bucks county, and married there, March 23, 1813, General John Davis, born August 7, 1788, son of John and Ann (Simpson) Davis, of Solebury, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, later of Maryland.


William Davis, grandfather of Gen. John Davis, became a resident of Solebury township, in his youth, and while tradition relates that he was of Welsh ancestry, his environment and associations strongly indicate that either he or his father was a native of the north of Ireland, others of the name having emigrated from Ulster and settled on the Delaware in that vicinity shortly prior to the earliest record we have of him. He married, about 1756, Sarah Burleigh, or Burley, daughter of John Burley, of Upper Makefield township, Bucks county, who had settled there about 1735, and lived the life of a farmer in that vicinity, dying in the latter part of the century. William and Sarah (Burley) Davis had issue :


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Jemima Davis, b. Dec. 25, 1758; m. John Pitner, and removed with him, first to Md., later to New Castle, Del., where the family were prominent in affairs;


JOHN DAVIS, b. Sept. 6, 1760, of whom presently;


Sarah, b. Oct. I, 1763; m. Lott Search, of Southampton, Bucks co .;


William Davis, b. Sept. 9, 1766; became a sea captain and died at sea;


Joshua Davis, b. July 6, 1769; removed to Maryland about 1800, and later to Ohio; Mary, b. Oct. 3, 1771;


Joseph, b. March I, 1774, of whom we have no further record.


JOHN DAVIS, eldest son of William and Sarah (Burley) Davis, and the father of Gen. John Davis, was born in Solebury or Upper Makefield, Bucks county, Sep- tember 6, 1760, and at the age of sixteen years became a member of Capt. Samuel Smith's company in Col. Joseph Hart's battalion of the "Flying Camp," and took part in the Jersey campaign of 1776; the following spring he enlisted in Capt. Butler's company, Col. Butler's regiment, Continental Line, but was later trans- ferred to the light infantry, under Gen. the Marquis de Lafayette, Capt. Joseph McClelland's company, serving in all five years, participating in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and the storming of Stony Point. At Brandywine, he assisted in carrying the wounded Lafayette to a place of safety.


Returning to Bucks county at the close of the war, he married, June 26, 1783, Ann Simpson, of Buckingham, Bucks county, where her father was a landholder and is supposed to have been of the same lineage as the maternal ancestors of Gen. U. S. Grant, though of this there is no proof, and the relationship, if existing, is somewhat remote.


John and Ann (Simpson) Davis resided for a time on a farm in Solebury, and in 1795 removed to Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, and in 1816 removed to Franklin county, Ohio, where he died January 25, 1832, and his widow, June 6, 1851. They had issue, as follows :


Sarah, b. Oct. 12, 1784; William, b. Aug. 22, 1786; GEN. JOHN, b. Aug. 7, 1788, of whom presently;


Ann, b. Nov. 6, 1790;


Samuel, b. 1792, d. inf .; Joshua, b. in Md., June 27, 1796; Samuel S., b. Sept., 1798; Joseph, b. Jan. 23, 1803; Elizabeth, b. Nov. 18, 1805.


Most of these children removed with their parents to the banks of the Scioto, and became active and useful members of the community.


GEN. JOHN DAVIS, second son of John and Ann (Simpson) Davis, born in Sole- bury township, August 7, 1788, removed with his parents to Maryland, but on his marriage to Amy Hart, settled on his mother-in-law's property, the old Watts estate above mentioned, in Southampton, and at the latter's death in 1815 became its owner, and resided in that neighborhood the remainder of his life; the present village of Davisville taking its name from him. He early became active in public affairs. On the news of the burning of Washington reaching Bucks county, a meeting was called at Hart's tavern at the Cross roads, now Hartsville, September I, 1814, to raise volunteers to take the field, and the name of John Davis heads the list of the men then enrolled. He became ensign of the company, and after two


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months drill, at Bush Hill, Philadelphia, the company joined Col. Humphries com- mand at Marcus Hook, where they were stationed for three months to guard the approach to Philadelphia.


Ensign Davis at the close of the war joined the volunteer militia, and became active therein, holding commission constantly for thirty-four years, first as Cap- tain, later Brigade Inspector, Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, and was three times elected Major General of the division composed of Bucks and Montgomery counties. Gen. Davis was a natural politician, a Democrat from conviction, and was for many years a leader of that party in Bucks county. Sturdy in the ad- vocacy of what he conceived to be the best interests of the country, and an orator of considerable ability, he was for many years one of the strong local orators of his party. He was appointed by Gov. Wolf, in 1833, one of the appraisers of public works, his first public office, which he held for three years. In 1838 he was elected to House of Representatives of the United States and made a splendid record as a Congressman; his speech in favor of the passage of the Independent Treasury Bill, June 27, 1840, being commented on throughout the country as a masterly and able one. He also served on many important committees, and was fearless in his expression of his views on questions before the national law-making body. On March 4, 1845, he was appointed Surveyor of the Port of Philadelphia and filled that position for four years. He was constantly active in political mat- ters up to the time of the election of James Buchanan to the presidency, of whom he was a personal friend and an ardent advocate of his election. He, however, disapproved of the president's attitude on the Kansas question, and other national policies, and withdrew from active participation in political affairs for a time. He was, however, active in raising troops and funds for the putting down of the rebellion, and had his age permitted would have gone to the front in defense of the constitution.




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