USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. III > Part 24
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John Sharpless married, April 27, 1662, Jane Moor, and eight children were born to them in Cheshire. By deeds of lease and release dated the fifth and sixth of April, 1682, he purchased of William Penn, one thousand and nine acres of land, "to bee allotted and sett out to him in Pennsylvania", and with his wife and children sailed in the ship "Lion" which arrived at Chester, Penn- sylvania, August 13, 1682, two months before the arrival of Penn. This land as well as purchases made after his arrival was laid out in several different tracts in Ridley, Nether Providence and Middletown townships. John Sharp- less died near Chester, June II, 1685, having during his four years residence in Pennsylvania taken an active part in the establishment of the new government. His name appears in the first list of persons selected to serve in the Provincial Council and Assembly in 1682. His widow died November 1, 1722.
Joseph Sharpless, the youngest of the eight children of John and Jane (Moor) Sharpless, was born at Hatherton, Cheshire, England, November 28, 1678, and came with his parents to Pennsylvania in his fourth year. He mar- ried, May 31, 1704, at Haverford Friends Meeting, Lydia Lewis, born in Gla- morganshire, Wales, May 8, 1683, daughter of Ralph and Mary Lewis, of Teverig, Glamorganshire, who came to Pennsylvania in 1683, and settled in Haverford township, Chester county, later removing to Upper Darby, where Ralph Lewis died September, 1712, and Mary, August, 1704.
Joseph Sharpless lived in Nether Providence township until 1711, then re- moved to Middletown township, removing thence to West Caln township in
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1737, but returning to Middletown in 1744, lived there until his death, in the spring of 1757. He was an extensive land owner in these several townships, an elder and overseer of Friends Meeting and more or less prominent in local af- fairs. Joseph and Lydia (Lewis) Sharpless had ten children, of which Na- than, the sixth, was the ancestor of Frank Evans Townsend.
Nathan Sharpless, sixth son of Joseph and Lydia Lewis) Sharpless, was born in Middletown township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, November 7, 1715. He removed with his parents to West Caln township in 1737, and on June 4, 1740, they conveyed to him one hundred and ninety-three acres of land there, on which he settled on his marriage, December 10, 1741, to Hannah Townsend, born August 9, 1718, daughter of Joseph and Martha (Wooderson) Townsend, the emigrant paternal ancestors of the subject of this sketch, as heretofore shown. In 1744 Nathan and Hannah removed to a part of her father's land in East Bradford township, but in 1747 he purchased a two hundred acre plantation in Goshen township, now included in the borough of West Chester, where he died in 1755. His widow married (second), April 13, 1758, Charles Ryant, of Goshen, and died there, December 31, 1790. Nathan and Hannah (Townsend) Sharpless had six children, of whom William was the fifth.
William Sharpless, son of Nathan and Hannah (Townsend) Sharpless, was born in Goshen township, now West Chester borough, January 9, 1752, in a log house erected by his father, which stood on the site of the present brick dwelling on the south side of Dean street between High and Church streets. He was but three years of age at the death of his father. He received a good education under the tutelage of Ralph Forrester, an old time pedagogue of West Chester, and at proper age was apprenticed to John Marshall to learn cabinet making. Being the only surviving son of his father he inherited the West Chester homestead, and erected a shop on the Wilmington road near the present intersection of Dean and High streets, where he followed his vocation until 1792, when he built the house in which he died on High street, next door to the Bank of Chester County, in which he carried on the mercantile business, until near the time of his death, which occurred October II, 1817; his son-in- law, David Townsend, having charge of the store from 1815, until appointed cashier of the Bank of Chester County in 1817. In a part of this house was published, in 1794, the West Chester Gasette, the first paper printed in Chester county, and in 1797 the Literary Museum was published for six months in the same rooms over the store by William Sharpless in partnership with Philip Derrick, one of the proprietors of the first short-lived newspaper, as Dr. Dar- lington says, "both enterprises being decidedly premature, and consequently abortive".
In 1795 William Sharpless was elected a member of the "Pennsylvania So- ciety for the Abolition of Slavery" of which he was for many years one of the most active and consistent members. He was also active in the cause of temperance, discontinuing the sale of spirituous liquors at his store, in 1806, much against the wishes of his partner who withdrew from the partnership for that reason. On the erection of West Chester into a borough, March 28, 1799. William Sharpless became its first chief burgess and was reelected in 1807 and 18II. He was also at the head of the West Chester Fire Company, at its or- ganization in 1799. He was prominent in all affairs of West Chester in his
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day, frequently acting as attorney-in-fact, trustee, executor and guardian, and many trusts were placed in his hands from time to time.
William Sharpless married, October 7, 1773, at Birmingham Friends Meet- ing, Ann Hunt, born January 16, 1755, died November 5, 1820, daughter of William and Sarah (Fred) Hunt, of Westtown, and granddaughter of Joseph Hunt, a native of England, who landed in Pennsylvania, August 1, 1714. He married, May 21, 1724, at Concord Friends Meeting, Mary Hickman, born May 9, 1702, daughter of Benjamin and Ann (Buffington) Hickman, and set- tled in Westtown township, Chester county. He died February 18, 1771, aged eighty-two years, and left seven children. William Hunt, son of Joseph and Mary (Hickman) Hunt, succeeded to his father's homestead in Westtown and died there, in 1790. He married (first) at Birmingham Friends Meeting, Oc- tober 25, 1753, Sarah, daughter of Nicholas and Ann (Need) Fred, of Birm- ingham, who was the mother of his six children, of which Ann, the wife of William Sharpless, was the eldest. Sarah Hunt died January 25, 1773, and William married (second) Susanna Yearsley, a widow, who survived him. William and Ann (Hunt) Sharpless had seven children, the eldest of whom, Sarah, was the wife of Philip Derrick, William Sharpless's one time partner in the newspaper venture. Rebecca, the wife of David Townsend, was the fifth child.
David and Rebecca (Sharpless) Townsend had seven children : Washington ; B. Franklin; Priscilla, who died in childhood; Gulielma Maria, married Ed- ward Hoopes; Albert; Anna E., married William E. Barber; S. Sharpless, married Anne Peckworth.
WASHINGTON TOWNSEND, eldest son of David and Rebecca (Sharpless) Townsend, was born at West Chester, Pennsylvania, January 20, 1813. He was educated at West Chester Academy, and in 1827 was appointed second tell- er of the Bank of Chester County, and was advanced to first teller in 1835. He studied law under William Darlington, at West Chester, and was admitted to the Chester County Bar in 1844. He was district attorney of the county, 1848- 49, and in the latter year was appointed cashier of the Bank of Chester County, to succeed his father, and filled that position until 1857, when he resigned. He early took an active interest in politics and became prominent in the councils of his party in Chester county. He was a delegate to the Whig convention at Baltimore in 1852, and to the Republican National Convention at Chicago that nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In 1868 he was elected to Congress, and was three times reelected, serving the whole eight years of Grant's term as president, during which time he served on the committees of Education and Labor, Public Lands, and Banking and Currency, serving as chairman of the committee on Public Lands for one term. He was an earnest advocate of a sound national currency, a protective tariff, and homesteads for settlers on public lands. He served as president of the Bank of Chester County from 1879 until his death, March 18, 1894, and continued to practice law at West Chester.
Washington Townsend married (first) at Philadelphia, September 27, 1837, Elizabeth Barnard Price, born April 18, 1818, died February 1, 1849, and (sec- ond), December 11, 1850, Elizabeth A., daughter of Dr. William Gibbons, of Wilmington, Delaware.
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Elizabeth Barnard Price, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was a daughter of John Richards Price, of Chichester, Delaware county, and his wife, Elizabeth (Barnard) Price, a descendant of Richard Barnard, who with his wife Frances, came from Sheffield, England, in 1682, and settled in Mid- dletown township, Chester county, on a plantation surveyed to him in 1683. Mrs. Townsend's parents died when she was a child and she was reared in the family of her maternal uncle, General Isaac D. Barnard, of West Chester, cap- tain in the Fourteenth United States Infantry, in 1812, promoted to major United States Army, June 26, 1813, and served with distinction during the War of 1812, later brigadier-general of Pennsylvania Militia, and state sena- tor from Chester county.
Samuel Price, father of John Richards Price, and maternal great-grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was a son of John and Mary (Alricks) Price, and was born in Lower Chichester township, Chester, now Delaware, county, August 30, 1750. He was one of the active patriots of Chester county during the Revolution, being named as the representative of his section of the county as a member of the Committee of Observation, named at a meeting of the inhabitants of the county held December 20, 1774, to carry out the resolve of the Continental Congress held at Carpenters' Hall. He also rendered active military service in the field as a private in the company of Captain William Price, in the First Battalion of Chester County Militia, entering the service of the United States, June 12, 1777, his company being stationed at Chester un- til July II, 1777. He married Ann Richards, and they had a son, John Rich- ards Price.
Washington and Elizabeth Barnard (Price) Townsend had three children : Rebecca, born August 3, 1840, married, in 1868, Lieutenant Colonel W. Har- vey Brown, United States Army, son of William and Lydia (Townsend) Brown, the latter a sister to David Townsend, before mentioned; Frank Evans Townsend, the subject of this sketch; and Harriet E., who, with her two sur- viving half-sisters, resides in the old family mansion at West Chester.
FRANK EVANS TOWNSEND, only son of Hon. Washington and Elizabeth Bar- nard (Price) Townsend, was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1843. He was a student at the West Chester Academy until 1859, then en- tered the Preparatory School of Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Massa- chusetts, and in 1861 entered the Pennsylvania Military Academy at West Chester. While a student at the Academy he enlisted in Company A, Tenth Regiment, Pennsylvania Militia, was sworn in September 10, 1862, and dis- charged September 26, 1862. On his discharge he returned to the Academy, but in response to the call of Governor Andrew G. Curtin, the war governor of Pennsylvania, in June, 1863, for the enrollment of sixty thousand additional militia, on account of General Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania, Mr. Townsend again left the Academy with six other cadets, and in two days recruited a company of one hundred and twenty-four men, composed of some of the most prominent citizens of West Chester, to man the Academy battery of six pieces, and enter the service in defense of the state. The company was accepted by the governor and was mustered into service, July 1, 1863, as the "Independent Artillery of Pennsylvania", officered by Cadet George R. Guss, as captain, Ca- det Frank E. Townsend, as senior first lieutenant; William E. Barber, as
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junior first lieutenant, and Rev. William E. Moore, as senior second lieutenant. The company served under the command of Major General Couch, in the Cumberland Valley, until mustered out, August 24, 1863. On completing his education, Mr. Townsend engaged in business in Philadelphia where he has since resided, and is a general insurance broker with offices in the Real Estate Trust Building at Broad and Chestnut streets. He is a member of the Histor- ical Society of Pennsylvania, of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and of the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution, in right of his great-grandfather, Samuel Price. He is also a member of the Masonic fraternity, and of various social and semi-political organizations.
Mr. Townsend married, October 14, 1869, Mary Tindall, daughter of Charles and Louise (Tindall) Heller, and a great-granddaughter of Jacob Heller, (born March 6, 1750, died October 8, 1822) who served as lieutenant of the Sev- enth Company, Fifth Battalion, Northampton County Militia, in the Revolu- tionary War, and afterwards as a captain in the Second Battalion of the same county, in whose right Mrs. Townsend is a Daughter of the American Revolu- tion. Mr. and Mrs. Townsend have one daughter, Marie Louise Townsend.
WILLIAM RIGHTER FISHER
WILLIAM RIGHTER FISHER, of the Philadelphia Bar, is of German, Welsh and Scotch-Irish descent, and his ancestors on different lines were early set- tlers within the limits of what was originally Philadelphia county and adjoining parts of Chester county.
He is a great-grandson of Francis Fisher, who served in the Pennsylvania Navy during the Revolutionary War; grandson of William Cornog and Eliz- abeth (Righter) Fisher, and son of William A. and Sarah Pennypacker (An- derson) Fisher, of Lower Merion township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvan- ia. His mother, Sarah Pennypacker (Anderson) Fisher, was a daughter of Dr. James Anderson, of Lower Merion, and Sarah Thomas, his wife; grand- daughter of Hon. Isaac Anderson, and Mary Lane, his wife; great-granddaugh- ter of Major Patrick Anderson, of the Revolution, and great-great-grand- daughter of James Anderson, a native of Scotland, who settled in Chester Val- ley, near Valley Forge, in the early part of the eighteenth century, and mar- ried Elizabeth Jarman, daughter of John Jarman, a well-known preacher of the Society of Friends in Chester county, who had come from Wales in 1685.
Major Patrick Anderson, son of James and Elizabeth (Jarman) Anderson, was born in Tredyffrin township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, July 14, 1719, and was reared on his father's farm, about two miles from Valley Forge. He was a captain in the Provincial forces of Pennsylvania during the French and Indian wars, and at the beginning of the protest against the oppressive meas- ures of the British Ministry, was one of the foremost of the public-spirited pa- triots of his section, and was selected at the public meeting of the citizens of Chester county, held at Chester, December 20, 1774, as one of the first Com- mittee of Observation for the county. When, however, it was decided to re- sort to arms to enforce the rights of the Colonies, Captain Anderson's military training and experience called him at once to the military branch of the ser- vice and he became major of Chester County Militia, under Colonel Anthony Wayne, and was commissioned, March 15, 1776, captain in the Pennsylvania Musketry Battalion commanded by Colonel Samuel J. Atlee, which after the disastrous campaign on Long Island, when Colonel Atlee and a large part of his battalion were taken prisoners, was consolidated with other troops into the State Regiment of Foot, and on November 12, 1777, into the Thirteenth Penn- sylvania Regiment, Continental Line. Major Anderson was in the battle of Long Island, and the subsequent engagements about New York, participated in the retreat across New Jersey, and was with Washington's army when it marched to intercept Howe's invasion of Philadelphia which resulted in the bat- tle of Brandywine and the subsequent battle of Germantown. His term ot enlistment having expired, he retired from the military service, January I, 1778, while Washington and his army were encamped near his home at Valley Forge, and took his seat in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania to which he had been elected in October preceding, and was regularly reelected to that
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body until 1780, taking an active part in legislation and the work of the Com- mittee of Safety, and in providing means for carrying on the war. In 1781 he was one of the commissioners appointed to improve the navigation of the riv- er Schuylkill and filled many other important positions.
Honorable Isaac Anderson, son of Major Patrick Anderson, was a lieutenant of Chester County Militia during the Revolution, and represented that county in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for several years after the close of the Revolution. He was elected to the United States Congress in 1806, and reelected in 1808, serving in the Eighth and Ninth Congresses and was a presidential elector in 1816. He died October 27, 1838. Hon. Isaac Anderson married Mary Lane, born in Providence township, Philadelphia, now Mont- gomery county, May 22, 1762, daughter of Edward and Sarah (Richardson) Lane, granddaughter of Samuel Lane, great-granddaughter of Edward and Anne (Richardson) Lane, and great-great-granddaughter of William and Ce- cilia (Love) Lane, of Bristol, England.
Edward Lane was the first settler in Providence township, taking up a large tract of land lying between the Manor of Gilberts and Van Bebber's township, Philadelphia, now Montgomery county, where he died in 1710. He was the founder of St. James Episcopal Church, of Providence. Edward Lane married Anne Richardson, daughter of Samuel Richardson, who with his wife Elea- nor came from Barbadoes in 1684, and located in Philadelphia, where he died June 10, 1719. He was a member of Provincial Council and one of the most prominent men of his day.
Samuel Lane, eldest son of Edward and Anne (Richardson) Lane, born April 17, 1690, inherited a portion of his father's land in Providence township and lived there all his life, dying December 17, 1771. He was a warden of St. James Episcopal Church, and prominent in local affairs.
Edward Lane, son of Samuel Lane, was born in Providence township, Phila- delphia county, removed shortly prior to the Revolution to Charlestown town- ship, Chester county, where he died July 8, 1818, and is buried in the Ander- son burial lot in Schuylkill township. He married, at Christ Church, Philadel- phia, October 14, 1754, his second cousin, Sarah Richardson, born at Olethgo, Providence township, January 14, 1732, daughter of Edward Richardson of Olethgo, and his wife, Ann Jones; granddaughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Be- van) Richardson, and great-granddaughter of Samuel Richardson, the Pro- vincial Councilor, before mentioned, and his wife Eleanor.
Joseph Richardson, the son of Samuel and Eleanor Richardson, and paternal grandfather of Sarah (Richardson) Lane, settled, in 1710, on a tract of one thousand acres of land called "Olethgo" in Providence township, adjoining the Lane homestead, purchased in that year of his brother-in-law, Abraham Bick- ley. He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Bevan, and Barbara Aubrey, his wife, who had come from Treverigg, Glamorganshire, Wales, in 1683, the ancestry of both of whom has been traced by ex-Governor Samuel W. Penny- packer, back to Edward III, king of England, and that of John Bevan twelve generations farther, through several royal lines to the Duke of Aquitaine. Jo- seph Richardson died at "Olethgo", December, 1751, and his wife, Elizabeth Be- van, died February 27, 1740. They had six sons and three daughters and have left numerous descendants. Colonel Josiah Harmer of the Revolution, and
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first commander-in-chief of the United States Army, after Washington, was a great-grandson, through their daughter Eleanor who married William Harmer.
Hon. Isaac Anderson and his wife Mary Lane had several children, among them Sarah, born February 9, 1784, died September 13, 1833, who married Matthias Pennypacker, and for her, Sarah Pennypacker Anderson, the mother of William Righter Fisher, was named.
Dr. James Anderson, son of Honorable Isaac Anderson and his wife, Mary Lane, and father of Sarah Pennypacker (Anderson) Fisher, was born in the Chester Valley, and was for many years a practicing physician in Lower Mer- ion, Montgomery county. He married Sarah, daughter of William and Naomi (Walker) Thomas, of Merion township, Philadelphia county, and a descendant of Rees Thomas, a cousin of Barbara (Aubrey) Bevan, whose mother, the wife of William Aubrey, of Pencoed, Wales, was a sister to his father, Rees Thomas. He was also a nephew of John Bevan, of Treverigg, his mother be- ing a sister of Bevan.
Rees Thomas came to Pennsylvania from Wales prior to June 18, 1692, on which date he married, at Haverford Meeting, in the Welsh tract, just over the Philadelphia line in Chester county, Martha Aubrey, born in Llanelyw, Wales, who came to Pennsylvania with her relatives, John and Barbara (Au- brey) Bevan, of Treverigg, Glamorganshire, in 1683. She was a sister to Wil- liam Aubrey, who married Letitia, the daughter of William Penn, and a daugh- ter of William Aubrey, who died December 14, 1716, at the age of ninety years and is buried at Llanelyw Church, by his wife, Elizabeth Aubrey, his first cousin, and a descendant of Lord Aubrey, Earle of Bullen and Marechal of France, who came to England with William of Normandy in 1066, and whose descendant in the eleventh generation, William Aubrey, of Aberknfrig, Mont- gomeryshire, Wales, who died June 27, 1547, married Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Herbert, of Montgomery Castle, gentleman usher of Henry VIII, etc. William Aubrey, he nonogenarian above mentioned, being a great-great- grandson of William and Jane (Herbert) Aubrey. Rees Thomas purchased by deed dated August 15, 1692, three hundred acres in Merion township, and subsequently purchased other land adjoining, making a fine plantation, about ten miles west of Philadelphia, the greater part of which remained in the family four generations, the original homestead passing to his great-great- granddaughter, Jane Cleaver, on the death of her father, William Penn Thom- as, in 1840, other branches of his descendants also retaining parts of the origi- nal tract for a like period.
Rees Thomas was a prominent man in the community, serving several terms in the Colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania, the first in 1702 and the last in 1720. He was also commissioned a justice of Philadelphia county, June 14, 1722, and subsequently recommissioned. His will dated September 10, 1742, was prov- en February 12, 1742-43. His wife, Martha Aubrey, whose ancestry has been already referred to, was a woman much loved and respected in the community for her benevolent and charitable works-many years an elder of Haverford Monthly Meeting of Friends, and a real "mother in Israel" in that community. She died March 7, 1726-27. She was possessed of considerable poetic and lit- erary ability, and a quaint little volume of her poems, with a poetical memorial of her, published in 1727, is still in existence. A reprint of this volume was
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issued in 1837, under the supervision of her great-great-granddaughter, Mary (Thomas) Jones, wife of Jonathan Jones, of Wynnewood.
Rees and Martha (Aubrey) Thomas had five sons, and one daughter. The eldest son Rees married a daughter of Dr. Edward Jones, the pioneer of the Welsh Tract in Merion and Haverford townships. Aubrey Thomas, the sec- ond son, married Guliehna, daughter of William Penn Jr., and granddaughter of the great Founder of Pennsylvania.
William Thomas, the fourth son of Rees and Martha (Aubrey) Thomas, in- herited a portion of the homestead in Merion, and erected thereon a substan- tial stone house near the present Rosemont Station on the Pennsylvania Rail- road, where he lived until his death, June 13, 1776. He married, May 12, 1724, Elizabeth, daughter of David Harry, a Colonial justice of Chester coun- ty, and member of Provincial Assembly from that county, 1716-17. They had eight children, several of whom have left descendants. William Thomas is de- scribed as "a mild tempered man, very constant in his attendance of religious meeting".
Reese Thomas, eldest son of William and Elizabeth (Harry) Thomas, inher- ited his father's homestead, and erected the old "Mansion House," which was occupied by his son, William Penn Thomas, until his death in 1840, and then passed to the latter's daughter, Jane Cleaver. Reese Thomas married, Novem- ber 3, 1758, Priscilla Jarman, or Jermon, as the name is sometimes spelled, only daughter and heiress of John and Mary Jarman, of Radnor township, and granddaughter of John Jarman, of Llangerigg, Montgomeryshire, Wales, who with his wife Margaret brought a certificate dated July 20, 1685, from the Friends Meeting in Radnorshire, which they deposited at Haverford Meet- ing. His son John, the father of Priscilla, was born in Wales, November 12, 1684. His daughter Elizabeth, born in 1687, became the wife of James An- derson and the mother of Major Patrick Anderson before mentioned, and his youngest daughter Sarah, born February 14, 1695-96, married Thomas Thom- as. Edward Jarman, of Philadelphia, the father of Sarah, wife of Isaac Walk- er, hereafter mentioned, was probably also a son of John and Margaret. Sarah (Jarman) Thomas died July 6, 1769, and her husband, Reese Thomas, did not long survive her, dying in his forty-fifth year.
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