USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. III > Part 23
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Spencer Bonsall entered the military service during the Civil War, as first lieutenant in the Eighty-first Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers. He was lat- er chief hospital steward of Hancock's Corps, in the Army of the Potomac. He was disabled at the battle of Gettysburg, by his horse being shot and fall- ing upon him. In 1868 Mr. Bonsall was appointed genealogist and assistant li- brarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and many of the ms. rec- ords at their library are in his handwriting, he having filled that position until failing health compelled him to abandon it shortly before his death. He died April 4, 1888, at his residence, 1430 Pine street. He was a member of Frank- lin Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and was prominent in Masonic circles having taken most of the higher degrees of the Order.
Spencer Bonsall married, May 10, 1854, Eleanor Crosby Martin, born at Lenni Mills, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, December 23, 1826, died in Phil- adelphia, December 17, 1879, daughter of William and Sarah Ann (Smith) Martin, granddaughter of Dr. William and Eleanor (Crosby) Martin, great- granddaughter of John and Mary Martin, and great-great-granddaughter of William Martin, of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, of whom little is known.
John Martin, born in 1735, resided the greater part of his life in Philadel- phia, died at the residence of his sister, Ann ( Martin) Bartram, at Newtown, Bucks county, in 1805. He was twice married, his first wife Mary, who died December II, 1785, at the age of fifty-three years, being the mother of Dr. William Martin.
Dr. William Martin, son of John Martin, was born in Philadelphia, Sep- tember 2, 1765. He studied medicine and received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1786. He located in George- town, Virginia, and practiced medicine there for a few years and then settled
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in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he practiced medicine until 1794, when, hav- ing studied law with William Graham, Esq., he was admitted to the Philadel- phia bar, March 24, 1794. He died at Chester, September 28, 1798. Dr. Mar- tin was a prominent Mason; was worshipful master of a lodge in Georgetown, Virginia, while residing there, and became worshipful master of Lodge No. 69, Ancient York Masons, of Chester, after location there. He was captain of a military company in Chester and was commissioned a justice of the peace, Au- gust 9, 1797. He was married, December 8, 1796, by Rev. Levi Heath, rector of Pequea and Bangor churches, to Eleanor Crosby, born March 24, 1777, died January 16, 1837, daughter of Captain John and Ann (Pierce) Crosby, whose ancestry is given below.
William Martin, son of Dr. William and Eleanor (Crosby) Martin, and father of Eleanor Crosby Martin, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was born September 17, 1797, at Chester, Pennsylvania. He studied law with William Graham, Esq., and was admitted to practice in 1821. He, however, engaged in business pursuits, first as a commission merchant in Philadelphia, and later as a manufacturer of cotton goods at Lenni Mills, Aston township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania. He represented Delaware county in the State Legislature in 1826-27, and soon after the latter date retired from the manu- facturing business and moved to Chester, where he filled the office of justice of the peace for several years and was clerk to the board of county commission- ers in 1834. In 1835 he was elected secretary of the Delaware County Mutual Safety Insurance Company, and when the offices of the company were re- moved to Philadelphia, he took up his residence in that city. He was also president of the same company for seventeen years; a director of the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company ; of the West Philadelphia Railway Company ; pres- ident of the Pennsylvania Steamship Company ; president of the board of fire underwriters; president of the Philadelphia Steamboat Company; a director and one of the organizers of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company; a manager of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum; a manager of the House of Refuge and of the Seaman's Friends' Society; a director and controller of public schools and president of the board of directors of public schools of Philadel- phia. On his removal to Philadelphia he resided for a time at 48 South Front street, first door below Chestnut. He died in Philadelphia, October 16, 1862.
William Martin married, at St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, January 4, 1821, Sarah Ann Smith, born February 4, 1801, died March 20, 1876, daughter of William Smith Jr., born December 3, 1758, died April 2, 1818, by his wife, Margaret (Welch) Smith, born August 28, 1763, died November 16, 1843, and granddaughter of John Welch, by his wife, Ann (Bond) Welch, born May 19, 17II, daughter of Joseph Bond, of Wrose, near Bradford, Yorkshire, and Ann, his wife, who brought a certificate to Philadelphia Monthly Meeting dated August 8, 1709; they located in Bristol, Bucks county, Joseph Bond be- ing one of the charter burgesses of that borough in 1720.
John Hill Martin, eldest son of William and Sarah Ann (Smith) Martin, born in Philadelphia, January 13, 1823, the well-known lawyer, historian, and author, was educated at private schools of Chester, Pennsylvania, and in 1838 was appointed a cadet to the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which institution he resigned in 1841 to prepare for the legal profession.
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He studied law in Philadelphia and was admitted to the bar there in 1844, and took up the active practice of his profession which continued until 1881. For twenty years prior to the latter date, however, he had devoted much of his time to literary pursuits. He became editor of the legal department of the Legal Intelligencer, of Philadelphia, in 1857, and filled that position for many years. Through spending his summers at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he became inter- ested in that historic locality, and in 1872 published his "Bethlehem and the Moravians", and in the following year, "Sketches in the Lehigh Valley", and "Historical Notes on Music in Bethlehem". In 1877 he published his "His- tory of Chester", and in 1883, "History of the Bench and Bar of Philadel- phia", both ranking among the most carefully prepared and reliable local his- torical works of their time. Besides the works above enumerated Mr. Martin compiled and edited many papers in history, genealogy, marine insurance, etc. He was for a time treasurer of the Philadelphia Law Academy, and was a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Delaware County His- torical Society, and of the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution. During the Civil War, Mr. Martin was captain of an Independent Artillery Company. He died in Philadelphia, April 7, 1906.
Richard Crosby, the maternal ancestor of Eleanor Crosby (Martin) Bon- sall, with Eleanor his wife, came from Cheshire, England, in 1682, is said to have been a passenger on the "Welcome" with William Penn. He settled in Middletown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where three hundred and eighty acres of his purchase of one thousand acres of land of William Penn, was laid out to him in 1683, extending from Ridley creek to Crum creek. In 1684 he removed to what was known for a century as the "Crosby Place" near Chester, erecting a mill on Ridley creek, long known as "Crosby's Mill". He was appointed collector of the assessment levied for erection of the first Court House and Prison for Chester county in 1684. He died intestate and let- ters of administration were granted on his estate to his eldest son John, May 2, 1718. The name of Richard Crosby appears on a list of the persons said to have been passengers on the "Welcome" with William Penn, in 1682, as do those of the Widow Fearne and her children, but there being no authentic list of passengers in existence, it is largely a matter of conjecture and corroborat- ing circumstances as to who came on this vessel. Richard and Eleanor Cros- by had several children. Their eldest daughter, Catharine, became the wife of Nicholas Fairlamb, in 1703, to whom they conveyed part of the Middletown plantation.
John Crosby, son of Richard and Eleanor Crosby, accompanied his parents to Pennsylvania, when a child. He joined his father in the purchase of sixty- three acres of land in Middletown, from James Jarvis and Jasper Yeates, by deed dated February 27, 1704-05. He was known as "Squire John Crosby", having been commissioned a justice of the peace, and of the courts of Ches- ter county, February 18, 1723, and re-commissioned August 25, 1726, 1730-34- 37-38, January 7, 1745, and May 19, 1749, and continued to fill that position un- til his death in 1750. He was also a member of Provincial Assembly, 1723-24. John Crosby was the owner of a one-half interest in a forge on Crum creek two miles above Chester, with Peter Dicks, which was operated by his two sons, Richard and John, and by the will of Squire John, dated September 24, and
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probated October 15, 1740, was devised to John Crosby Jr. John Crosby married Susanna (surname unknown). Susan Crosby, a daughter of Richard, and granddaughter of Squire John, became the wife of Isaac Mc- Ilvain of the family before mentioned.
John Crosby, son of John and Susanna Crosby, was born in the present limits of Delaware county, Pennsylvania, June 4, 1721, died there, September 9, 1788. He resided about one-half mile from the point where the old "Queen's Road" from the South crossed Ridley creek. He was a member of Provincial Assem- bly, 1768-69-70-71, and was coroner of Chester county, 1771-72. He married, May 6, 1740, at Old Swedes Church, Wilmington, Eleanor Culin, who died at "Crosby Place", July 7, 1793, "aged about 70 years". He was a member of Chester Monthly Meeting, and made an acknowledgment of this breach of discipline, in his marriage "by a Priest" on September 29, 1740, which was ac- cepted by the meeting.
John Crosby, father of Eleanor (Crosby) Martin, above mentioned, was a son of John and Eleanor (Culin) Crosby. He was known in later years as "Judge Crosby" by reason of his having held the office of associate justice of the Chester County Courts for a number of years after the Revolution. He was born at "Crosby Place", the old family mansion on Ridley creek, March 12, 1747-48. He was named as one of the first Committee of Observation at the meeting of the citizens of Chester county, held December 4, 1774. On the formation of the Chester county contingent of the "Flying Camp" in 1776, John Crosby was commissioned first lieutenant of Captain Culin's company. When the company was mustered into service at the White Horse Tavern, Captain Culin, who was a brother to Lieutenant Crosby's mother, was shot dead by a private in the company, and John Crosby succeeded him as captain of the company, which was incorporated into the battalion under the command of Col- onel Jacob Morgan and marched to Perth Amboy. Later, while visiting his family in Ridley, during the occupation of Philadelphia by the British, Captain John Crosby was captured by a boat's crew from a British vessel lying off Chester, and was taken on board. He was afterwards transferred to New York and confined on board the prison ship "Falmouth" in New York Harbor, for six months. His wife visited him there and was able to secure his release. He was named June 2, 1780, as one of the Commissioners of Purchase, of supplies for the army, for Chester county. He died February 9, 1822. Captain John Crosby married Ann Pierce, born June II, 1747, died August 7, 1825, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Pierce, of Christiana Hundred, New Castle county, now Delaware. Their eldest daughter, Eleanor Crosby married William Martin, above mentioned, and was the great-grandmother of the subject of this sketch.
WILLIAM MARTIN BONSALL, only child of Spencer and Eleanor Crosby (Martin) Bonsall, was born in Philadelphia, October 7, 1855, and resides at 4410 Locust street. He was educated at Friends Central School, and the Protestant Episcopal Academy. He was a member of the Society of the Alumni of the Acad- emy, and until 1878 was employed at the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, of which his father was many years assistant librarian. He was later employed as a topographical draughtsman, but has lived retired since 1891. He was a member of the National Guard of Pennsylvania, from 1878 to 1890, taking a very active interest in the organization, passing through all
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the grades, from a private in Company A, First Regiment, to the rank of sec- ond lieutenant of his company; and is a member of the Veteran Corps of the First Regiment, and of the "Old Guard" of Company A. He has been a mem- ber of Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution, since its organization in 1888; is a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Mercantile Library Association.
Mr. Bonsall was married April 3, 1893, at the Protestant Episcopal Church of The Transfiguration, West Philadelphia, to Helen, daughter of Charles Ferdinand and Helen M. Klauder. They have one daughter, Eleanor Crosby Martin Bonsall, who is a member of the Junior Auxiliary, Sons and Daugh- ters of the Revolution, being eligible as a great-great-great-granddaughter of Captain John Crosby.
FRANK EVANS TOWNSEND
The Quaker family of Townsend to which Frank E. Townsend belongs was founded in America by Richard Townsend, who was born near Cir- encester, county of Gloucester, England, November 30, 1645. He and his brother William, the lineal ancestors of the subject of this sketch, are thought to have been sons of another Richard Townsend, who, as a Friend, suffered imprisonment for his faith at Cirencester in 1660-62-75. Richard Townsend, the younger, also became a member of the Society of Friends, May 1, 1672, and in May, 1676, removed to London. He married there, May 25, 1677, Ann Hutchins, and two children, Joseph, who died young, and Hannah, were born to them in London. With his wife and infant daughter, Richard Townsend, embarked for Pennsylvania in the "Welcome" with William Penn, and arrived at Chester in October, 1682. He erected the first mill near Chester, the work- ing gear of which he brought from England with him. In 1683 he removed to Bristol township, near Germantown, and erected another mill there. He be- came a prominent minister among Friends, and in 1706 paid a religious visit to England. After his removal to Bristol township he became a member of Abington Monthly Meeting, of which he was an elder, but in 1713 removed to Philadelphia. In his old age he went to live with his nephew, Joseph Town- send, in East Bradford, Chester county, and died there, in 1732. Three other children were born to him: James on the "Welcome" during the passage to Pennsylvania, and who died young; Mary, in 1685; and Joseph, in 1687. The latter married Elizabeth Harmer in 17II but had a daughter only, so that Richard Townsend left no descendants of the name.
RICHARD TOWNSEND SR., the father of the emigrant above mentioned, re- moved to the residence of his son, William, at Buclebury, Berkshire, Eng- land, and died there July 19, 1697, at the age of ninety-five years.
WILLIAM TOWNSEND, of Buclebury, county of Berks, England, brother of Richard, the emigrant, and son of Richard above named, was married (first) by Friends ceremony on January 23, 1679, to Jane Smith, who survived her marriage but a short time, and is not known to have left issue. He married (second), April 1, 1863, at Faringdon Magna, Berkshire, Mary Lawrence, of Little Coxwell, Berkshire. He was buried at Buclebury, July 19, 1692. By his second wife he had children : Joseph, Mary and Joan.
JOSEPH TOWNSEND, eldest child and only son of William and Mary (Law- rence) Townsend, was born at Buclebury, county of Berks, England, January 18, 1684-85. Being but a child at the death of his father he spent several years as a member of the household of Oliver Sansom, a highly valued Friend, and according to the custom of the time, was on September 29, 1699, bound an apprentice to the trade of a weaver with Jonathan Sargood, for the term of seven years. He married, November 27, 1710, Martha Wooderson, born No- vember 18, 1683, daughter of Julian and Esther Wooderson, and with his wife, their infant child and his sister Joan, sailed for Pennsylvania some fif-
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teen months later, taking with them a certificate from the Monthly Meeting of Friends at New Bury, Berkshire, dated IImo. (January) 15, 1711-12, which they deposited at Abington Monthly Meeting, Philadelphia, now Montgomery county, on their arrival, his uncle, Richard Townsend, being then a member of that Meeting. On April 11, 1715, Joseph Townsend and his wife Martha and their family took a certificate from Abington to Concord Meeting in Chester county, where they resided until five years later when they took a certificate dated August 1, 1720, to Chester Monthly Meeting, of which he and his wife were both overseers for several years, but on September 26, 1725, took a cer- tificate to Abington Monthly Meeting. They were living in Bristol township, Philadelphia county, on October 21, 1725, when a deed was executed from John Wanton, of Newport, Rhode Island, conveying to Joseph Townsend, of Bristol township, weaver, eight hundred acres of land in East Bradford township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, for the price of forty pounds per hundred acres, to be paid in three instalments, one hundred pounds down, one hundred on Oc- tober 21, 1726, and the remainder on October 21, 1727, and deeds of lease and release were executed to him, September 6 and 7, 1727. They removed at once to their new purchase taking a certificate to Concord Monthly Meeting, dated January 3, 1725-26, and becoming active members of Birmingham Par- ticular Meeting. He died on his East Bradford plantation, April 9, 1766, and his widow on March 2, 1767, and both are buried at Birmingham Friends bury- ing ground. Joseph and Martha (Wooderson) Townsend had eight children : William, Mary, Joseph Jr., John Hannah, Martha, Richard, Esther.
JOSEPH TOWNSEND, JR., third child and second son of Joseph and Martha (Wooderson) Townsend, was born June 8, 1715, probably in Chester county (his parents having taken a certificate to Concord Meeting two months before his birth). He inherited a portion of his fathers eight hundred acre planta- tion in East Bradford township, Chester county, and resided there until his death, December 3, 1749. He married, May 17, 1739, Lydia Reynolds, born April 24, 1716, daughter of Francis Reynolds, of Chichester township, Chester county, and his wife, Elizabeth (Acton) Reynolds, granddaughter of Henry Reynolds, and great-granddaughter of William and Margaret (Exton) Rey- nolds.
Henry Reynolds, son of William and Margaret Reynolds, born in England in 1655, came to New Jersey in 1676, landing at Burlington, after a passage of twenty-two weeks. He married, January 10, 1678-79, Prudence, daughter of William and Prudence Clayton, of Chichester, Chester county, and settled in that township, where he resided until his death, October 7, 1724. His widow, Prudence, survived him about four years.
Francis Reynolds, third child of Henry and Prudence Reynolds, born Octo- ber 15, 1684, inherited his father's homestead of two hundred and ninety acres in Chichester and lived thereon to his death in 1760. He married, in December, 1712, Elizabeth, daughter of Benjamin and Christian Acton, of Salem, New Jersey, who was born February 26, 1690, and they had eight children of whoin Lydia, who married Joseph Townsend, was the second.
FRANCIS TOWNSEND, son of Joseph and Lydia (Reynolds) Townsend, was born in East Bradford township, Chester county, June 15, 1740. He mar- ried, July 8, 1762, Rachel Talbot, and had several children, all of whom except
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Samuel (of whom some account follows), removed to the western part of Penn- sylvania.
John Talbot, the grandfather of Rachel (Talbot) Townsend, came from England prior to 1710 and settled in Middletown, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, near the Friends Meeting House, where a tract of land was conveyed to him by his father-in-law, John Turner. He died there in 1721.
Joseph Talbot, son of John and Mary (Turner) Talbot, married (first) in 1732, Hannah, daughter of Joseph Baker, of Thornbury, by his wife, Mary Worrilow, daughter of John and Ann (Maris) Worrilow, of Edgmont. He married (second), May 8, 1761, Lydia (Reynolds) Townsend, widow of Joseph Jr., above mentioned. He married (third), August 21, 1776, Ann Sharpless, wid- ow of Jacob Sharpless, and daughter of Charles and Susanna Blakey. He re- sided from 1773 to his death in 1783 in Aston township, Chester, now Delaware county. His ten children were all by his first wife, Hannah Baker, and the sixth, Rachel, born November 27, 1745, died September 22, 1784, married, July 8, 1762, Francis Townsend, above mentioned.
SAMUEL TOWNSEND, second son of Francis and Rachel (Talbot) Townsend, born November 17, 1764, settled in Coventry township, Chester county. He married, March 22, 1787, Priscilla Yarnall, born June 6, 1766, daughter of David Yarnall, granddaughter of Moses Yarnall, (born December, 1692) and his wife Dowse Davis, and great-granddaughter of Francis Yarnall, who came from Cloynes, county of Worcester, England, and settled on a plantation in Springfield township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, surveyed to him October 17, 1683. He later purchased a plantation of five hundred and ten acres in Willistown township, extending from Crum creek westward nearly two miles. He was a member of Provincial Assembly in 17II, and died in 1721. By his wife, Hannah Baker, whom he married in 1686, he had nine children, of whom Moses was the fourth. Hannah Baker, the wife of Francis Yarnall, was a daughter of John Baker, a prominent member of the Society of Friends, in Edgmont, Shropshire, England, born 1598, died April 25, 1672, son of Sir Richard Baker, born 1568, died February 18, 1645-46. John and Joseph Baker and their three sisters, Mary, Hannah and Sarah, were among the first settlers in Edgmont township, Chester county, which was named for their ancestral home in Shropshire. Samuel Townsend died February 16, 1816. His widow Priscilla survived him over a quarter of a century, dying October 6, 1842.
DAVID TOWNSEND, son of Samuel and Priscilla (Yarnall) Townsend, born December 12, 1787, went to West Chester in 1810 as a clerk in the offices of the Register of Wills and Recorder of Deeds for Chester county. He later engaged in the mercantile business there, and also engaged in conveyancing, and was very prominent in public affairs. He was elected county commissioner in 1813, and at the termination of his term, three years later, was elected coun- ty treasurer. In 1814 he was chosen a director of the Bank of Chester County, and three years later became its cashier, and served in that capacity until 1849. He also served as treasurer of the West Chester Academy from 1826 to 1854. David Townsend was a botanist of high rank, devoting much time and attention to that branch of science, the genus Townsendia was named in his honor. He was secretary and treasurer of the Chester County Cabinet of Natural Science for about twenty-five years prior to his death, which occurred December 6.
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1858. David Townsend married, at Birmingham Friends Meeting, April 16, 1812, his distant cousin, Rebecca Sharpless, born June 9, 1789, died July 22, 1836, daughter of William and Ann (Hunt) Sharpless, granddaughter of Na- than and Hannah (Townsend) Sharpless, great-granddaughter of Joseph and Lydia (Lewis) Sharpless, and great-great-granddaughter of John Sharpless.
The Sharpless family derived their name from the ancient manor of Sharp- less, in the county of Lancaster, and has been traced by Gilbert Cope, the em- inent genealogist and historian of West Chester, Pennsylvania, back to the beginning of the fourteenth century, Adam de Sharples, being witness to an inquisition in 1297. From these researches it appears that John Sharpless, the emigrant ancestor of the Chester county family, was a descendant through many generations of the hereditary owners of the manor of Sharples, down to near the close of the sixteenth century, when Richard Sharples, of that ilk, removed to Wybunbury, county of Chester, England, and Jeffry Sharples, of Wybunbury, who died December 15, 1661, the father of John, the emigrant, was doubtless the son of Richard, (1555-1641), by his first wife Cicely. This Jeffry or Geoffrey Sharples was married, April 27, 1611, and John, the emi- grant, was their fifth child.
John Sharpless, son of Jeffry and Margaret (Ashley) Sharpless, of Hather- ton, parish of Wybunbury, Cheshire, was baptized there, August 15, 1624. He became an early convert to the teachings of George Fox, and suffered severe persecutions for his faith, his name appearing in this connection as a fellow sufferer with two other prominent Friends who emigrated to Pennsylvania at about the same period, his neighbor, John Simcock, of Ridley, and Thomas Jan- ney, of Bucks county, all three prominent in the councils of Penn's new colony in the wilderness.
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