USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. III > Part 25
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They had seven children: Mary, married Anthony Tunis, a descendant of one of the German pioneers of Germantown; William, of whom presently ; John, who died without issue; Hannah, who lived to old age with her brother William on the homestead; Priscilla, who died unmarried; Reese and Jonathan, who removed to Kentucky while it was yet a wilderness and reared families there.
William Thomas, the father of Sarah (Thomas) Anderson, and the mater- nal great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was the second child and eldest son of Reese and Priscilla (Jarman) Thomas, and was born in the old Thomas "Mansion House"erected by his father, July 8, 1762, and lived there all his life. He married, April 5, 1786, Naomi Walker, born February 17, 1765, died May 4, 1817, daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Thomas) Walker, grand- daughter of Isaac and Sarah (Jarman) Walker, and great-granddaughter of · Lewis Walker, who had come from Merionethshire, Wales, in 1687, and set- tled first in Radnor township, but removed to Tredyffrin township, Chester
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· county, where he purchased a plantation which he named "Rehoboth," and erect- ed the first house thereon, in which the earliest Friends Meetings of that section were held, by a dispensation from Haverford Meeting of which Lewis Walker was long an elder. Here Lewis Walker died in the winter of 1728-29, his will dated December 14, 1728, being proven January 24, 1728-29. He had married at Haverford Meeting, April 27, 1693, Mary Morris, a native of Wales, who is said to have crossed the ocean in the same ship with him. She survived him and died at "Rehoboth" in 1747.
Isaac Walker, the seventh of the eight children of Lewis and Mary (Mor- ris) Walker, was born in Radmor, Chester county, March 7, 1705, and was reared at "Rehoboth," Tredyffrin township, which he inherited at the death of his mother in 1747, having previously lived, from the date of his marriage, on an adjoining tract inherited from his father. He died at "Rehoboth," February 23, 1755. He married, November II, 1730, at the house of Hannah Jones, in Tredyffrin, Sarah Jarman, born in Philadelphia, October 25, 1713, a daughter of Edward Jarman, who was a resident of Philadelphia, as early as 1703, and who died there September 10, 1714, possibly a son of John and Elizabeth Jar- man before referred to. She married (second), January 25, 1759, Jacob Thom- as, of Willistown, and lived to almost reach her ninetieth year, dying April 26, 1802.
Joseph Walker, the eldest of the eleven children of Isaac and Sarah (Jar- man) Walker, was born at "Rehoboth," July 25, 1731. He acquired the home- stead on the remarriage of his mother and resided there the remainder of his life, dying there November 1, 1818, having been totally blind for several years prior to that date. He married (first) in 1752, Sarah Thomas, born May 25, 1734, died March 12, 1792, daughter of Thomas Thomas, born May 12, 1690, died July 13, 1744, and his wife, Sarah Jarman, born February 14, 1695-96, daughter of John and Margaret Jarman, the Welsh emigrants of 1685, before mentioned, and granddaughter of William and Elizabeth Thomas, also of Welsh ancestry, who were early settlers at Newton, Chester, (now Delaware) county, Pennsylvania.
"Rehoboth," the home of Joseph and Sarah (Thomas) Walker, was for six months the headquarters of General Anthony Wayne, while Washington's army was encamped at the historic Valley Forge, located only a few miles distant, and General Lafayette and Washington himself were frequent visitors there. Joseph Walker and his wife were conscientious and consistent members of the Society of Friends, and, while he was a man of affairs in the community in which he lived, he refrained from taking any part in the sanguinary struggle, though contributing to the best of his ability to the relief of those suffering pri- vations by reason thereof, without reference to party, sect or nationality. He suffered considerably from the depredations of the soldiers until given a guard to protect his property.
Mary (Thomas) Jones, of Wynnewood, writing in 1829 of the life of her grandparents, Joseph and Sarah (Thomas) Walker, at "Rehoboth" during the Revolutionary period says,
"I have heard many testify in an uncommon manner of the affectionate and grateful remembrance they had of the noble and generous acts of kindness and hospitality extended by my dear grandfather to themselves and others during the Revolutionary War, and since.
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They, being members of the Society of Friends, whose principles would not permit my grandfather to take an active part, either offensive or defensive in the struggle of that time, therefore united their efforts to do all in their power to relieve those that were in trouble or distress, without respect to person or party, and many were the opportunities for the exer- cise of the law of kindness and acts of charity to the poor half clad and shivering soldiers as well as private individuals, General Wayne having chosen their house for his headquarters for six months during the winter that Washington had his army at Valley Forge which was but a few miles from my grandfather's dwelling. They were of course surrounded by the American Army and consequently witnessed a great portion of the distress and suffering of that eventful period".
Joseph Walker married (second) in his old age, Jane, widow of William Rankin.
William and Naomi (Walker) Thomas had nine children, of whom Sarah, the wife of Dr. James Anderson, was the third. Mary, the eldest child, be- came the second wife of Jonathan Jones, of Wynnewood, a greatgrandson of Dr. Edward Jones, before mentioned, and was the Mary Jones who wrote the above quoted account of her maternal grandparents, Joseph and Sarah (Thom- as) Walker, during the Revolution, and who also published, in 1829, a second edition of the little volume of poems and a memorial of Martha (Aubrey) Thomas. She also prepared a narrative history of her family from their ar- rival in Pennsylvania down to 1829, from which much of the information given in this sketch is obtained.
Reese Thomas, the eldest son of William and Naomi (Walker) Thomas, was the father of William Brooke Thomas, (1811-87) the prominent miller, mer- chant and business man of Philadelphia, one of the chief founders and first president of the Corn Exchange.
Dr. James and Sarah (Thomas) Anderson resided near the present site of Ardmore, in Lower Merion township, Montgomery county, where their nine children were born. Their eldest daughter Mary became the wife of John Buck- man, of Burlington, New Jersey, and beside their daughter, Sarah Pennypacker Anderson, they had sons, Isaac, Patrick and Rev. James Rush Anderson, and four children who died unmarried.
Sarah Pennypacker Anderson, daughter of Dr. James and Sarah (Thomas) Anderson, married, in 1845, William Anderson Fisher, of Lower Merion, born March 24, 1824, died March 27, 1903, son of William Cornog and Elizabeth (Righter) Fisher, and grandson of Francis Fisher.
FRANCIS FISHER was a farmer and cooper in West Marlborough township, Chester county, from 1765 to the outbreak of the Revolution, when he enlisted in Captain Henry Christ's company, April, 1776, in the Pennsylvania Rifle Regi- ment, Colonel Samuel Miles, and served in the New Jersey and Long Island campaign of 1776, being stationed at Perth Amboy from July I, to August I, 1776. He next enlisted in the company of Captain Patrick Anderson, or was transferred to that company, in the formation of the State Regiment of Foot from the remnants of Colonel Mile's and Colonel Atlee's battalions, at Red Bank, New Jersey, March 1, 1777, and his name appears on the roll of that company at Red Bank, March I, to May 1, 1777.
WILLIAM RIGHTER FISHER was born in Lower Merion township, Montgom- ery county, Pennsylvania, June 24, 1849. He received his preliminary education and prepared for college at private schools, and in 1867 entered Dickinson Col- lege, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1870. He was for one year a member of the faculty of Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, Penn-
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sylvania, and later went abroad where for two years he pursued his studies at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich, in Germany. Shortly after his re- turn to America he became a member of the faculty of Dickinson College, where he remained for two years. He studied law in Philadelphia and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1877, and has since practiced his profession in that city. He is a member of the Law Association of Philadelphia; the Pennsyl- vania State Bar Association; the American Bar Association; the International Law Association ; and also of the State Board of Law Examiners. Mr. Fisher has taken an active interest in some of the financial and other institutions of Philadelphia, having served as treasurer and trust officer of the West End Trust Company, and filled other important positions. He is a member of the Union League, and other clubs, and is a member of the National Geographical Society, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, the American Forestry Association and of the Franklin Institute.
He married, in 1876, Mary, daughter of Benjamin Wager, of New York, and they reside at Bryn Mawr. They had one son, Wager Fisher, born May 14, 1877, who graduated at Cornell University in 1899, as a civil and electrical en- gineer, and has since been actively engaged in the practice of his profession.
1
WILLIAM CHURCHILL HOUSTON
The Houston family derived its name from the parish of Houston in Ren- frewshire, Scotland, and is of great antiquity, deriving its descent from Hugo de Padvinan, who obtained the grant of the barony of Kilpeter, later Houston, from Baldwin of Bigger, Sheriff of Lanark, in the reign of Malcolm IV, (1153- 1165). He was a witness to the foundation charter from Walter, High Steward of Scotland, to the Abbey of Paisley, in 1160. His son Reginald, obtained a charter for the lands of Kilpeter and was succeeded by his son Hugh, who was living in 1228. From these ancient barons of Houston descended Sir Patrick Houston, of that ilk, who died in 1450 and was buried in the chapel at Houston, Renfrewshire, where there is a monument to his memory and that of his wife Mary Colquhown, who died in 1456. Sir Patrick Houston, grandson of this couple, was killed at the battle of Flodden. He married Helen, daughter of Sir John Schaw, of Sauchy, and had numerous issue. Sir Lodovick Houston of this family, who died in 1662, married Margaret, daughter of Patrick Maxwell, of Newark, and had sons, Patrick and George, and several daughters. Patrick, the eldest son, died in 1696; he had married Anne, daughter of Lord Bregany, and had issue: Sir John, Patrick, William, James, Archibald and three daugh- ters. He is supposed to have been the ancestor of the Houstons who settled in the Carolinas in the early part of the eighteenth century.
ARCHIBALD HOUSTON, was for a time resident in the Sumter District, South Carolina, and was a kinsman of Dr. William Houston, of Bull Creek, in that district, a man of considerable prominence and influence, and interested in large land and colonization schemes. Archibald Houston was, however, one of the earliest settlers of Anson now Mecklenburg, North Carolina, where originated the famous "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence", which was carried to the Continental Congress then sitting at Philadelphia, by Captain James Jack, a son-in-law of Archibald Houston.
Archibald Houston received his first patent for land at Anson, North Caro- lina in 1753. He was a planter of standing and influence in the colony of sturdy Scotch covenanters on the extreme margin of the frontier, who unlike most frontier settlers were extremely pious God-fearing people, founding Presby- terian churches, on their first settlement, in which was taught, not only the iron creed of John Knox, but the rudiments of an English education, followed close- ly by classical schools, that fitted their sons for entrance in the colleges and universities further north and east. Joseph Alexander, reared in this primi- tive settlement, graduated at Princeton in 1760, returned to his home in Meck- lenburg county, North Carolina, and established an academy at Sugar Creek, carrying letters of recommendation to the Presbyterian elders and ministers from President Samuel Finley, of Princeton. This and the academy at Poplar Tent, and other classical schools on the frontier of North Carolina owed their establishment and support to the Presbyterian Church, and its pious Scotch sup- porters in these primitive colonies, many of whose sons became distinguished
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scholars and professional men, as well as eminent Presbyterian divines. Eph- raim Brevard, M. D., the author of the "Mecklenburg Declaration", was a class- mate of William Churchill Houston at Princeton. This declaration was the nat- ural product of the sturdy independence of these hardy Scotch settlers, who like practically all their race in all parts of the American Colonies were the first to espouse the patriot cause.
Archibald Houston died in Cabarrus county, North Carolina, (formed out of Mecklenburg, as the latter had been formed out of Anson) in 1805, at a very advanced age. He married first Margaret -, and second, Agnes -. The records of these marriages are supposed to have perished during the Civil War, but from various researches strong probability exists that his first wife, Margaret, (mother of William Churchill) was a descendant of Colonel Wil- liam Churchill, of Virginia, whose name her son bore with pride and was most particular to use in signing public documents.
WILLIAM CHURCHILL HOUSTON, the distinguished patriot of the American Revolution, was a son of Archibald and Margaret Houston, and was born in Sumter District, South Carolina, in the year 1746. His parents removed to Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, as above shown when he was a small child, and his youth was spent under the austere tutelage of the early Scotch masters in the rude school houses on the extreme frontier of civilization, where the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw Indians were still near and dangerous neigh- bors, being almost constantly at war with each other or with the white settlers. His early education was acquired in the log-cabin academy at Polar Tent, near his home, and at Sugar Creek, under Joseph Alexander, before mentioned, him- self a native of Mecklenburg county. To the latter he doubtless owed the su- perior knowledge, for one of his age, that fitted him to become a teacher in the Grammar School at Princeton, New Jersey, when he matriculated at the Col- lege of New Jersey, there in 1764. There is a tradition among his descendants of an estrangement between William Churchill Houston, and his father, owing to the former's determination to seek a college education at the North, and that he was given a horse and sufficient funds to carry him to his destination as his sole inheritance. Color is given to this theory from the fact that he never re- turned to his native home, though he had started to make the journey when taken with his fatal sickness at Frankford, Philadelphia, in 1788. The exigen- cies of the times however, in the Revolutionary War, which soon succeeded his graduation, and his prompt appointment as an instructor in his alma mater, furnish sufficient reason for the delay of what was an arduous journey at that date.
William Churchill Houston graduated with the highest honors at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, in the class of 1768, and was at once appointed senior tutor. He received on his graduation, a silver medal, which is still a prized possession by his descendants.
Dr. Witherspoon came to Princeton as president of that College in the year of Mr. Houston's graduation, and the latter was for many years his most active assistant, counsellor and friend. He assisted Witherspoon in the introduction and arrangement of new courses, and raising the college to a higher plane, and when Dr. Witherspoon was called to active political duties in connection with the framing of the first constitution of New Jersey, and as a member of the
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Continental Congress it was to Mr. Houston he delegated the important affairs of the college. Mr. Houston was appointed professor of the department of mathematics and natural philosophy, on its creation as a separate department, September 25, 1771, and filled that position until 1779.
With the outbreak of the Revolutionary struggle, he became at once promi- nently identified with the patriot cause, seconding and assisting Dr. Wither- spoon, in the measures and correspondence leading up to the establishment of State and National self-government, and the preparation for prosecuting the war. Mr. Houston was commissioned captain of a company in the Second New Jersey Regiment of Foot, from Somerset county, under Colonel Abraham Quick, and served for some months with this organization prior to his resignation on August 17, 1776, when he alleged that duties in connection with the college, in the absence of Dr. Witherspoon, prevented his active attendance on military affairs. He was a member of the Provincial Council of Safety, its treasurer, and one of the most regular in attendance at its meetings.
He, however, resumed his commission as captain in the New Jersey Militia, in November, 1776, and saw considerable active and arduous service. His com- pany, in which were a number of Princeton students, as shown by the journal of one of them, was largely employed on scouting expeditions, and frequently in armed conflict with marauding parties of the enemy, as well as participating in the battles of Trenton, Princeton and Monmouth. It also served as part of the guard of Washington's headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey. Captain Houston's term of enlistment expired March 6, 1777, and he did not again en- ter the military service, his service being required in other positions which his eminent abilities, ardent patriotism and untiring industry, fitted him to fill.
On March 25, 1777, William Churchill Houston, was unanimously chosen Deputy Secretary of Continental Congress, and he immediately took charge of a large part of the correspondence, the transmission of resolutions of Congress to the different departments and states, the printing of the journals, and ably assisted the Secretary, Charles Thompson, in the administration of that most important office.
In the winter of 1778, William Churchill Houston returned to his duties as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Princeton, but still retained his position as Deputy Secretary of State. He was however elected to the New Jersey assembly in the fall of 1778, and reelected the following year. In this position he exhibited the same energy, patriotism, and industrious applica- tion to his duties that characterized his whole career. On July 9, 1779, he took his seat in the Continental Congress, alternating with Dr. John Witherspoon, with whom he had so long been closely associated. From that date he was most regular in his attendance and took a leading part in the proceedings of Congress ; serving on the important committees of War, Foreign Affairs, Pos- tal Service, and Finance. In the latter department,-a most trying one,-he was especially interested, and his correspondence, with Governor Livingston of his own state of New Jersey, among others, shows his activity in devising means of raising funds for the support and equipment of the army. In one of these letters he says, "A treasury without money, and an army without bread, is really alarming." The expression of his views as to means of raising funds, shows that he had given the subject of national finances much thought and con-
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cern. In December, 1779, with Governor Livingston and Robert Morris, he made himself responsible to the treasurer of the State of New Jersey, for seven thousand pounds, to be used for clothing Continental troops, should the legislature, when convened, fail to appropriate the amount. He was active in the public discussion of financial questions, and wrote in January, 1781, a paper entitled, "Detached Thoughts on the Subject of Money and Finance." He also prepared the 1781 budgets of appropriations for Army and Navy Affairs. On September 24, 1781, he was elected by Congress, Comptroller of the Treasury, but declined the position in a letter dated October 13th. He retired from Con- gress in 1781, and devoted himself assiduously to the practice of law; and on September 28, 1781, was appointed clerk to the Supreme Court of New Jer- sey, a position he held until his death. He then returned to the duties of the professorship at the College of New Jersey, resigning in 1783, to devote his whole attention to political duties and the practice of law ; was also receiver of continental taxes, from 1782 to 1785. He always kept up his interest in the College of New Jersey, serving as its treasurer until his death, and was one of the founders and first stockholders of the Trenton Academy.
He was selected as one of the commissioners appointed by Congress to set- tle the dispute between the states of Pennsylvania and Connecticut, in refer- ence to the lands and jurisdiction at Wyoming, and one of those who signed the final decree of adjudication, called the "Trenton Decree", after a session of the commission lasting from November 12, to December 30, 1782. He was again elected to Congress in October, 1784, and reelected in October, 1785. He was one of the delegates named from the State of New Jersey to the convention that framed the first United States Constitution in 1787, and took an active part in its deliberations. He was the author of the motion to strike out the clause making the president ineligible to reelection. When the question of adopting a national constitution was first agitated, and a call for a convention to be held at Annapolis, Maryland, was issued, New Jersey was the first to name dele- gates, one of whom was William Churchill Houston, but only a few states send- ing delegates, nothing was accomplished, and he was again named as a delegate to the later successful convention held at Philadelphia.
As a lawyer Mr. Houston was learned and able, and would never become en- gaged in a cause he believed unjust. He delivered a number of lectures on law at Princeton, which showed exhaustive research. Mr. Houston, was one of those who seured for John Fitch, the inventor of the steamboat, the office of Deputy Surveyor, and was one of a company interested in vast tracts of land in Kentucky. To secure the assistance of Congress in perfecting and launching the invention in a practical way, Fitch and his friends applied to Mr. Houston, who (not then a member of Congress) transmitted the application to Lambert Cadwallader, then in Congress, on August 23, 1785, with this statement of his impressions of the merits of the invention :
"Sir :- I have examined the principles and construction of Mr. Fitch's Steamboat, and though not troubled with a penchant for projects, cannot help approving the simplicity of the plan.'
Too close application to professional and political duties impairing his health, Mr. Houston, decided to seek rest in a long deferred visit to his old home and
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kindred in North Carolina, and started on the journey, but was taken seriously ill at an inn on Frankford Road, in Philadelphia, kept by a Mr. Geisse, and died there, August 12, 1788, and was buried in the church-yard of the Second Pres- byterian Church, at the northwest corner of Arch and Third Streets, Philadel- phia.
William Churchill Houston married Jane, daughter of Rev. Caleb Smith, of St. George's Manor, Long Island, by his wife Martha, daughter of Jonathan Dickinson, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, the first president of the College of New Jersey. Mrs. Houston, died in 1796, at the age of forty-one years and was buried at Lawrenceville Cemetery.
William Smith, the grandfather of Rev. Caleb Smith, and the founder of St. George's Manor, near Brookhaven, Long Island, was in his youth a page of Charles II, who appointed him Governor of Tangier, the English sea-port of Morocco, in the Straits of Gibraltar, and came to New York about 1688. He was one of the prominent Landgraves of New York Colony; is said to have owned fifty miles of sea coast, his land extending the whole breadth of Long Island at one point. He was appointed to Council of State by Governor Slough- ter on his arrival in 1691, and was one of the judges before whom Leisler was tried and condemned. He was also Chief Justice of New York. He retained his seat in Council during the administration of Lord Bellmont, who said of him that he "had more sense and was more gentlemanlike than any man he had seen in the Province." At the death of Lord Bellmont he was senior member of Council and acting Governor.
Jonathan Dickinson, the maternal grandfather of Jane (Smith) Houston was of early New England ancestry. He was born at Hatfield, Massachusetts, April 22, 1688; graduated at Yale in 1706, and in 1709, was installed as pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he served as pas- tor, physician, and "father of his flock" in temporal as well as religious affairs. He was elected president of the College of New Jersey, (which had its birth in Elizabethtown), October 22, 1746, but died less than a year later, October 7, 1747. He was the author of a number of works of a religious and controversial character.
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