USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Vol. III > Part 36
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On returning to Philadelphia he engaged in business for a short period. In 1894 he matriculated in the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1897, graduating June 9, 1897; receiving the degree of LL.B., and was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar, June 12, 1897.
Mr. Brice is a member of the Rittenhouse and St. Anthony clubs of Philadel- phia; the St. Anthony Club of New York; is a member of the Delta Psi Fra- ternity, of the General and Law Alumni Societies of the University of Penn- sylvania; of the Alumni Association of the Episcopal Academy. He is a mem- ber of the Society of Colonial Wars, through descent from Captain John Brice, and Chief Justice John Brice ; a member of the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution, through descent from Captain John Brice (III) ; and a member of the General Society, War of 1812, through descent from Judge Nicholas Brice ; being one of the few to possess eligibility to membership in these three leading patriotic societies through his direct paternal line; beside being eligible to mem- bership in the Colonial Society on several maternal lines.
Mr. Brice is a member of the Board of Managers of the Philadelphia City Institute, and is a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Philip Howard Brice married, April 24, 1901, at St. Peter's Church, Philadel- phia, Sarah Pepper Leonard, born October 29, 1876, eldest daughter of James Biddle and Katharine (Pepper) Leonard, granddaughter of Dr. William Pepper, the elder, and great-granddaughter of Captain Charles Biddle.
SAMUEL MCCLINTOCK HAMILL
The well-known Irish clan of O'Hamill, a sub-clan of the O'Neills, was located some six centuries ago in the counties of Tyrone and Antrim, and bore arms, described by Bursle, as follows: Azure, two bars ermine; with crest, On a ducal coronet a leopard serjeant proper, with the motto : Vestigia nulla retrorsum. In course of time the prefix O' was dropped, and the ancestors of Robert Hamill who came to this country from county Antrim in 1798, have resided for several generations at Bush Mills, in the Barony of Dundee, county Antrim.
ROBERT HAMILL, of Bush Mills, county Antrim, Ireland, the earliest ancestor of the Pennsylvania family, of whom we have any record, had a son, John Hamill, who married Annis Dinsmore, and they were the parents of Hugh Hamill, who married a distant cousin of Letitia Hamill, and the latter couple were the parents of the Pennsylvania emigrant. The heads of the family had been for three generations above-mentioned, elders of the Presbyterian church. John Hamill, a brother of Robert, the emigrant, writing to the latter on receipt of the news of his brother's marriage, says: "I hope it may be said of your descendants as it can be of your ancestors, that for more than a century they have not been without a ruling or teaching elder of the church in the family," which wish, as hereafter shown, was more than realized.
ROBERT HAMILL, born near Bush Mills, in the Barony of Dundee, county Antrim, Ireland, in 1759, was reared on a farm and received an excellent edu- cation, it being a well-known fact that with the early Presbyterians the church and school went hand in hand, and the sons of the family almost invariably received a sound, practical business education with a fair knowledge of the classics. Robert Hamill came to Pennsylvania with Robert Patterson, later prominently associated with Philadelphia, in 1798, and both soon after their arrival located in Norristown, the county seat of Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, where they engaged in the mercantile business under the firm name of Hamill & Patterson. On the marriage of Robert Hamill, in 1802, he purchased his partner's interest in the business, and Patterson removed to Philadelphia. Hamill continued to conduct a successful business for a number of years, when he closed out, and thereafter lived retired in a house adjoining his place of busi- ness on Main street, Norristown, midway between Swede and Charry streets, where he died in 1838, in his eightieth year. He was buried in the graveyard of the First Presbyterian Church, of Norristown, but his remains and those of his wife were later removed to the burying-ground of the Presbyterian church at Prospect Hill, two miles north of Norristown. True to the instincts and tradi- tions of his family and race, Robert Hamill was an active supporter of the church and school, and an especially ardent patron of education. He was one of the most active in the organization of the old Norristown Academy in 1804, of which he was one of the first trustees, and later president of the board of trustees. He was also several years a member of the town council, and some time its presi- dent. He was a man of high standing in the community, universally respected
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by all who knew him for his sterling qualities of integrity, piety and public spirit. Robert Hamill married, in 1802, Isabella, born in 1784, died 1850, daughter of Colonel Andrew Todd, of The Trappe, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, (1754-1838) a soldier of the Revolution, and a justice of the peace from May 22, 1800, to near the time of his decease, and a well-known officer of Pennsyl- vania militia, and his wife Hannah Bowyer, of German ancestry, a granddaughter of one of the first German settlers near the site of the old Norriton Presbyterian church, five miles north of Norristown. Andrew Todd was a son of David Todd, who came from Ireland in 1737, and settled near The Trappe, in New Providence, now Upper Providence township, Montgomery county, and a brother to the grandfather of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.
Robert and Isabella (Todd) Hamill had nine children, two of whom died in infancy. The eldest child, Lydia Hamill, married, in 1826, Rev. James C. How, D. D., for many years principal of the Norristown Academy, and subse- quently pastor of the Presbyterian church at Springfield, at the head of Lake Otsego, Otsego county, New York, and later pastor of St. George's Presbyterian Church, at New Castle, Delaware, where he died. Hannah Hamill, the second daughter, married, in 1828, Rev. Charles W. Nassau, D. D., for some years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Norristown, of which Robert Hamill was one of the founders and one of the elders from its organization until his death; and subsequently professor in Marion College, Missouri; afterwards professor in and president of Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, and still later for twenty-five years principal of the Female Seminary at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where he and his wife both died in 1879. Rev. Hugh Hamill, eld- est son of Robert and Isabella (Todd) Hamill, graduated with first honors at Rutgers College, New Jersey, and prepared for the ministry at Princeton Theo- logical Seminary. He was pastor of a Presbyterian church at Black Rock, New York, later of a church at Elkton, Maryland, and subsequently for several years associated with his brother, Samuel McClintock Hamill, D. D., as principal and professor of Latin and Greek in Lawrenceville Academy, Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Elizabeth Hamill, the third daughter, married, in 1831, Benjamin Dav- is, an elder of the Presbyterian church, son of General John Davis, of Chester county, and his wife, a daughter of John Morton, the signer. Rev. Samuel Mc- Clintock Hamill, D. D., the second son of Robert and Isabella Hamill, prepared for college with Dr. George Jenkins, at Germantown, and at Easton, Pennsyl- vania, and graduated from Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1834. He received his degree of Doctor of Divinity from Rutgers College, New Jersey, and from Hanover College, Indiana. He studied theology at Princeton Theological Semin- ary, of which he was long a member of the board of trustees. He was for sixty years president of Lawrenceville high school, and several years prior to his death, in 1889, president of New Jersey State Historical Society. He married Matilda M. Green, of the eminent New Jersey family of that name.
REV. ROBERT HAMILL, D. D., youngest son of Robert and Isabella (Todd) Hamill, was born at Norristown, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He grad- uated at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1829, and prepared for the ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey, and was licensed to preach in the Presbyterian church by the Presbytery of New York, and was ordained at Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where, and in Center county, Pennsyl-
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vania, most of his life as a Presbyterian minister was spent. He was widely known in central Pennsylvania as an able and popular preacher, "where his la- bors were greatly blest, and his influence for good excessively felt". He was several times offered more remunerative charges in wealthier communities, but chose to labor among the mountains of his native state, where he was greatly beloved. He retired from the ministry late in life and located in Philadelphia where he died in 1900.
Rev. Robert Hamill, D. D., married (first) Margaret Elizabeth Lyon, born March 24, 1829, daughter of John Lyon, a prominent ironmaster of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania Furnace, Center county, Pennsylvania, by his third wife, Margaret Elizabeth Stewart; granddaughter of Captain Benjamin Lyon, of the Revolution ; and great-granddaughter of both John and James Lyon, of Ennis- killen, county Fermanagh, Ireland. Dr. Hamill married (second) Anna K. Bell- ville, daughter of Rev. Jacob Bellville, of St. George's, New Castle county, Del- aware.
John Lyon, son of William Lyon, of Enniskillen, county Fermanagh, Ire- land, accompanied by his wife and family, and by his brother James Lyon's three sons, William, Robert and Benjamin, and by his sister Margaret, and her husband, the late distinguished Colonel John Armstrong, emigrated to Penn- sylvania in 1763, and settled in what is now Milford township, Juniata county, two miles west of Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, where two hundred and seventy- five acres of land was surveyed to John Lyon, September 18, 1766. In 1773 he was granted twenty acres of land for the use of the Presbyterian Church of Tuscarora, of which he was one of the founders and where he lies buried. His daughter, Mary Lyon, married her cousin, Benjamin Lyon. Of the three sons of James Lyon, who accompanied their uncle, John Lyon, to Pennsylvania in 1763, William Lyon, the eldest, was an officer in the Provincial service prior to the Revolution, but espoused the cause of the mother country and settled in Canada. Robert Lyon, the second son, was taken prisoner in Canada in Feb- ruary, 1777, and held captive to the close of the war, when he returned to Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, where he died August 19, 1823, at the age of seventy-seven years.
Captain Benjamin Lyon, youngest of the three brothers who accompanied their uncle, John Lyon, to Pennsylvania, was born in Enniskillen, county Fer- managh, Ireland, in 1752. The ten years preceding the breaking out of the Rev- olutionary War was spent with his uncle's family in the Tuscarora Valley. His name appears in the tax lists of Milford township, now Juniata county, for 1775, as a single freeman. He enlisted in Captain William Hendricks company, Col- onel William Thompson's rifle regiment, which left Carlisle, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, for Washington's camp before Boston, July, 1775, being the first armed force from Pennsylvania to march to the defence of the common cause of the liberty of the American Colonies. After a short period spent at the camp at Cambridge, Captain Hendrick's company was ordered to join Gen- eral Arnold's command in the Expedition against Quebec, and endured the hard- ships, trials and dangers of that unsuccessful attempt against the British in Canada. After the defeat at Quebec and Three Rivers, and a brief period spent at Ticonderoga, Colonel Thompson's battalion joined the main army at Long Island, and participated in the battle of August 27, 1776. For his gallant and
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meritorious service in this action, he was granted a commission as second lieu- tenant. He participated in the subsequent actions about New York and the Highlands of the Hudson, and on June 18, 1777, Colonel James Chambers in whose regiment he was serving, in a letter dated at Mt. Prospect, writes to Gen- eral Hand, "We have a partisan Regiment, Coll. Morgan commanding, chosen marksmen from the whole army composes it,-Captain Parr, Lieuts. Lyon and Brady & 50 men from my regiment are among the number," as a result of this letter Lieutenant Lyon was promoted on July 16, 1777, to first lieutenant. He was promoted to captain on December 8, 1778, and spent the winter with Wash - ington's army in the desolate camp at Valley Forge, where he contracted the ill- ness which necessitated his resignation from the army in May, 1779. A Bible lost by Captain Lyon while with Arnold in Canada was found a century later in the DuPlante family, in the parish of St. Francis, on Chaudine river, Canada, down which the army passed. The legislature of Pennsylvania by act of March 14, 1818, granted Captain Benjamin Lyon an annuity for his services in the Rev- olutionary War. On his resignation from the army in 1779, Captain Lyon returned to the Tuscarora Valley, and in 1780, married his cousin, Mary Lyon, daughter of his uncle, John Lyon. She was born in Ireland in 1748, died in 18II. About 1784 they removed to Northumberland county, where they resided until 1800, and then returned to the Tuscarora Valley, and resided there until the death of his wife in 1811, when Captain Lyon went to live with his daughter Elizabeth, who had married her cousin, James Lyon, and was living at Shirleys- burg, Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania. Here Captain Lyon died in 1826. His son John, and another son James survived him. A daughter Margaret died unmarried at the age of twenty-five years.
John Lyon, son of Captain Benjamin and Mary (Lyon) Lyon, was born in the Tuscarora Valley, Cumberland, now Juniata county, August II, 1782. Tak- en by his parents to Northumberland county when a small child, he was edu- cated there under the tuition of Dr. Matthew Brown, then a famous instructor of youth. In 1800 he entered the office of his uncle, William Lyon, and his mother's brother, then prothonotary of Cumberland county, and in 1805 left that office to accept a similar position in the prothonotary's office at Harrisburg, taking charge of that office for Joshua Elder, the prothonotary of Dauphin coun- ty. He held this position for several years during which he studied law under Samuel Laird, Esq., an eminent lawyer, but never sought admission to the bar. He was for many years a prominent figure in political affairs at Harrisburg. About 1813 he became associated with William Patton and Jacob M. Haldeman in the purchase of large iron interests and lands in Center and Huntingdon coun- ties, and established Pennsylvania Furnace in Center county, which, with the ore beds there and in Huntingdon county, he personally superintended and final- ly became sole owner, making his residence at Pennsylvania Furnace. The iron interest increased greatly in extent and value. Iron works were in Huntingdon, Blair, Clarion and Allegheny counties, and Mr. Lyon moved to Pittsburgh in 1834, and established the most extensive charcoal iron manufacturing concern of his day. He returned to Pennsylvania Furnace in 1841, retaining his posi- tion at the head of the Allegheny and other iron industries until his death, at Allegheny City, January 25, 1868, at the age of eighty-six years. He continued to exercise a wide influence in public affairs throughout his long career and was
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esteemed as an earnest, public-spirited and far-seeing business man. Governor Porter once said of him: "John Lyon never said a foolish thing".
John Lyon married (first), April 28, 1808, Jane, daughter of Hon. William McClay, one of the most prominent men of his day, born in New Garden town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, July 20, 1737, died at Harrisburg, April 16, 1804, having been reared in Franklin county, where his parents, natives of the north of Ireland, settled in 1742. He was ensign of a company in the Third Pennsylvania Battalion under Hugh Mercer against the French and Indians in 1758, and an officer in Boquet's expedition of 1763. He studied law and was admitted to the York county bar, and was a surveyor of state lands and assistant commissary of purchases. He was one of the most active and prominent pa- triots of the Revolution, and the first United States senator from Pennsylvania. Jane McClay Lyon died April 30, 1809, leaving one son. John Lyon married (second), in 1814, Ann, daughter of General John Patton, of Center county, and a veteran of the Revolution. She died in 1817, leaving one son. He mar- ried (third), in 1820, Margaret Elizabeth Stewart, born in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, April 8, 1796, died in Pittsburgh, May 26, 1835, daughter of Samuel Stewart, a prominent citizen of Hanover township, Dauphin county. He married (fourth), in 1838, Ann P., daughter of Joseph Hubley, of Lancas- ter, who survived him.
Margaret Elizabeth Lyon, daughter of John Lyon and his third wife, Mar- garet Elizabeth (Stewart) Lyon, was born at Center Hall, Penn Valley, Center county, Pennsylvania, March 24, 1829, died at Oak Hall, in the same county, October 12, 1867. She married at Pennsylvania Furnace, October 15, 1851, Rev. Robert Hamill, D. D., before mentioned, who was for forty-five years active pastor of one church in Center county, and was then retired as pastor emeritus.
Robert Hamill, D. D., and his first wife, Margaret Elizabeth (Lyon) Hamill, had children. Their eldest son, John Lyon Hamill, married Mary J. C. Faires, of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, and resides in West Philadelphia. The second son, Robert H. Lyon, M. D., married Fannie N. Lincoln, of Bos- ton, and is a practicing physician at Summit, Pennsylvania. Lydia Hamill, the eldest daughter, married Henry Wilson Armstrong. The third son, James Lyon Hamill, Esquire, is a practicing attorney of the Columbia county, Pennsylvania, Bar. Samuel McClintock, mentioned below.
SAMUEL MCCLINTOCK HAMILL, M. D., fourth and youngest son of Rev. Robert Hamill, D. D., and his wife, Margaret Elizabeth (Lyon) Hamill, was born in Center county, Pennsylvania, November 3, 1864. He was educated at the Lawrenceville high school, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and at Princeton Uni- versity, graduating from the latter institution in the class of 1886. He then entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received his medical diploma in 1888, and has since been in active practice of his profession in Philadelphia. He is a member of the American Association of American Physicians, the American Pediatric Society, the American Medical Association, the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, the Philadelphia County Association, State Medical Association, and is Professor of Diseases of Children in the Philadelphia Polyclinic and School for Post Graduates, and visiting physi- cian to the children's department of Philadelphia Polyclinic, Presbyterian, and St.
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Vincent's hospitals. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution, and of the University and Philadelphia clubs.
He married, April 17, 1895, Lela Clarke, daughter of Elias Davidson and Agnes Shields (Clarke) Kennedy, and they have three children: Elias David- son Hamill, born June 7, 1897; Samuel McClintock Hamill, Jr., born August 8, 1899; Hugh Maxwell Hamill, born April 16, 1901.
ALBERT BISSELL
ALBERT BISSELL traces Revolutionary descent from both paternal and mna- ternal lines, and on the Bissell side, four generations of Colonial ancestry, beyond John Partridge Bissell, the patriot soldier ancestor, a native- born son of Connecticut. On the maternal side he traces to Major Daniel Leet, of New Jersey birth, who was his great-great-grandfather. It is probable that the Bissell family were of Huguenot descent, many of whom fled to England to escape the persecutions that followed the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572. The family is not a well known one in England, and has but one coat-of- arms, which is of a religious rather than a warlike character. Burke describes it as "Gu. on a bend, or ; three escallops, sa. Crest. A demi eagle with wings dis- played, sa .; charged on neck with an escallop shell, or." The family of John Bissell, who came to Windsor, Connecticut, is the only one of the name known to have come to this country. There is a tradition that a brother Thomas came from Somersetshire, England, to Plymouth in 1628. This is not established.
JOHN BISSELL came to Windsor, Connecticut, about 1640. He received the monopoly of the Scantic Ferry and was the first settler on the east side of the Connecticut. He was the founder of a numerous, energetic and honorable family, down to the present day. He died October 3, 1677, aged eighty-six. His wife died May 21, 1641. His children were John (2), Thomas, see forward; Mary, married Jacob Drake, April 12, 1649. "Now it is 25 years and never had a child" (Old church record) ; Samuel; Nathaniel; Joice. Tradition preserves the following ditty with which John Bissell used to call his children :
"John, Tom, Sam and Nat, Rise, Joice, put on the pot".
THOMAS BISSELL, son of John Bissell, was born in England. He probably came to America and Connecticut at the same time as his father John. He mar- ried Abigail Moore, settled on the east side of the Connecticut river, and died July 31, 1689. His children were: Thomas, born 1656; Abigail, 1658; John, January 26, 1660, see forward; Joseph, 1663; Elizabeth, 1666; Benjamin, 1669; Sarah, 1671-72; Isaac; Ephraim, baptized 1676, born same year; Esther, born 1677, Ephraim (2),. 1680; Luke, 1682.
JOHN (2) BISSELL, son of Thomas and Abigail (Moore) Bissell, was born January 26, 1660. He removed to Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1707-08. He mar- ried, November 12, 1689, Mrs. Sarah (White) Loomis, widow of Thomas Loomis, of Hartford. She was a daughter of Lieutenant Daniel White, of Hat- field. The children, recorded at Windsor, were: Sarah, born November 12, 1690; John, September 10, 1693; Daniel, January 4, 1698; Benjamin, March 22, 170I, see forward; Sarah, October 15, 1714.
BENJAMIN BISSELL, son of John (2) and Sarah (White-Loomis) Bissell, was born in Windsor, Connecticut, March 22, 1701, died August 9, 1758. He lived in Lebanon. He married, July 17, 1728, Mary Wattles. In 1725 he agreed to take care of John Bissell and his wife. In his will made August 9, 1758, he
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names his wife Ann (probably a second wife), sons Joseph and Benjamin, daugh- ters Sarah (Hyde), Betsey (Finch), Jerusha Bissell.
JOSEPH BISSELL, son of Benjamin and Mary (Wattles) Bissell, was born at Lebanon, Connecticut. He married Hannah Partridge.
JOHN PARTRIDGE BISSELL, son of Joseph and Hannah (Partridge) Bissell, was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, 1756, died at Youngstown, Ohio, March 16, 18II. He answered the Lexington Alarm of April 19, 1775, and marched with Captain James Clarke's company. He is credited with eighteen days service at this time (see report of adjutant-general of Connecticut). He again enlisted and served as a private in one of the two Connecticut militia regiments of Arnold's division. He was in service from August 25 to October 8, 1777. These two regiments of Poor's brigade lost very heavily at the battle of Stillwater, fought September 19, 1777. At the time of the Alarm young Bissell was but nineteen years old. It is likely that he saw other military service, but it is difficult to separate his service from that of others of his family of the same name who served, for they were a patriotic family and gave freely to their country's de- fense. He was by occupation a civil engineer and after the War for Independ- ence was fought and won, he was sent out by the Connecticut Land Company to survey their lands in the Western Reserve. He left Lebanon, Connecticut, April 25, 1800, and removed to Coitsville, Ohio. In 1805 he settled at Youngstown, Ohio, where he died. He represented Trumbull county in the Ohio legislature in 1806. His wife was Temperance Stark, born in Lebanon, Connecticut.
JOHN (3) BISSELL, son of John Partridge and Temperance (Stark) Bissell, was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, January 8, 1797, died at Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania, July 15, 1865. He married, July 13, 1820, Nancy Semple, born in Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania, April 13, 1802, died April 2, 1885.
WILLIAM SEMPLE BISSELL, son of John (3) and Nancy (Semple) Bissell, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 2, 1822, died at Alliquippa, Penn- sylvania, May 27, 1886. He married at Leetsdale, Pennsylvania, July 28, 1857, Eliza Shields Wilson, born at Washington, Pennsylvania, March 20, 1830.
ALBERT BISSELL, son of William Semple and Eliza Shields (Wilson) Bissell, was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1868.
The maternal great-great-grandfather of Albert Bissell, Major Daniel Leet, was born at Bordentown, New Jersey, March 6, 1748, died at Sewickley, Penn- sylvania, June 18, 1830. He was a friend of General Washington, and joined the Revolutionary forces at his request. He was appointed quartermaster of a Virginia regiment, January 1, 1777, and paymaster in October, 1777. Septem- ber 21, 1778, he was commissioned brigade-major. He was at the battle of Trenton and at Valley Forge, the winter of 1777-78. He served under Gen- eral McIntosh at Fort Laurens, and in 1782 was brigade-major with Crawford at the latter's defeat. He remained in Western Pennsylvania after the war was ended. He married Wilhelmina Ballah.
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