USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 56
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MAJOR JOHN VINTON, son of John and Dorothy (Holmes) Vinton, was born at Charlton, Worcester county, Massachusetts, February, 1760. Accord- ing to the testimony of his granddaughter, Rhoda M. Lamborn, of Cornish, New Hampshire, he served in the Revolutionary War from 1777 to 1780, but since she has certainly given the date of his birth as at least ten years too early she may also have confounded the record of her great-grandfather with that of her grandfather. Major John Vinton married Susannah Manning, a native of Woodstock, Connecticut, and settled in Cornish, Sullivan county, New Hamp- shire, where he was a prosperous farmer and blacksmith. He was a man of ex- traordinary size, weighing during his active years 350 pounds, and increasing his weight in later years to 450 pounds. He was a man of note in the community in which he lived, being well known in all that region as a popular officer of State militia, holding for many years the rank of major. He was also a prom- inent Free Mason. He had fifteen children. He died March 18, 1838.
DANIEL HOLMES VINTON, son of Major John and Susannah (Manning) Vin- ton, born 1785, was a farmer at Cornish, New Hampshire and lived there all his life, dying February 22, 1831. He married, in 1808, Hannah Smith, of Cornish, and they had nine children.
HELEN T. VINTON, sixth child of Daniel H. and Hannah (Smith) Vinton, born at Cornish, Sullivan county, New Hampshire, married, April, 1846, James Brown, born at Deerfield, Rockingham county, New Hampshire, in 1824. They
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finally settled in Southbridge, Worcester county, Massachusetts, the old home of Mrs. Brown's grandparents, and she died there March 13, 1867, and he on January 10, 1900. They had four children: Frances A. Brown, born April, 1848; Daniel Vinton Brown; Helen A. Brown; and infant, who died early in life.
DANIEL VINTON BROWN, only son of James and Helen T. (Vinton) Brown, was born at Wilmot, Merrimac county, New Hampshire, July 22, 1850. His youth was spent at Southbridge, Massachusetts, and he married there, Decem- ber 24, 1874, Mary Eliza Butler Goodier, daughter of Samuel and Eliza (Smith) Goodier, natives of Manchester, England. She was born at Manchester, Hills- borough county, New Hampshire, October 28, 1851. Mr. and Mrs. Brown re- sided for a few years after their marriage in Southbridge, Massachusetts, and then removed to the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he engaged in business as a wholesale optician, in which business he has since been extensive- ly engaged, at 736-738-740 Sansom street, in that city.
ANDREW VINTON BROWN, son of Daniel Vinton and Mary Eliza Butler (Goodier) Brown, was born in Southbridge, Worcester county, Massachusetts, September 27, 1875, and came with his parents to Philadelphia when a child. He was educated in the public schools of Philadelphia, and at the age of fif- teen years began to assist his father in his business as a wholesale optician, and has since been associated with him in that business. He is a member of the American Association of Wholesale Opticians, and at the present its president.
Mr. Brown is a member of the Young Republican Club of Philadelphia, also of the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution, and the New England Society of Philadelphia. Mr. Brown is also a member of the Masonic fratern- ity, being affiliated with Richard Vaux Lodge No. 384, Free and Accepted Ma- sons, of Philadelphia. He married, January 23, 1900, Ida Margaret Booz, daughter of Henry Nace and Margaret Booz, and they have one daughter, Helen Vinton Brown, born April 9, 1903.
THOMAS REHRER OSBOURN
THOMAS REHRER OSBOURN, of Philadelphia, is of early Puritan ancestry, being a descendant of Richard Osborne, who with a brother Thomas, came from England to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1635.
DAVID OSBORNE, son of Richard Osborne, above named, married Abigail Pinckney.
RICHARD OSBORNE, of East Chester, New York, son of David and Abigail Osborne, on June 4, 1713, purchased of Richard Whiting, of Norwalk, Con- necticut, a one-twenty-ninth interest in the lands comprising the township of Ridgefield, Fairfield county, Connecticut, and was one of the first settlers there.
JOHN OSBORNE, son of Richard Osborne, born in 1704, in East Chester, New York, went with his parents to Ridgefield, Connecticut, in 1713, and married there, September 28, 1726, Patience Keeler, and lived at Ridgefield, probably until his death, though the death of his widow, Patience, is recorded in the church at Salem, Westchester county, New York, whither some of his family had removed, about 1760.
JOHN OSBORNE, son of John and Patience (Keeler) Osborne, was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, March 2, 1733. He married, March 22, 1761, Eunice (Nicholls) Bouton, at the Church of Salem, Westchester county, New York. On the records of Westchester county we find record of his purchase of lands in Salem and South Salem in the years 1773-74-81, and he died in Salem, now Lewisboro, Westchester county, New York, 1783. He was the sergeant of Captain Jesse Trusdell's company, from Salem, in the regiment of Colonel Thaddeus Crane, New York State Militia, from August to December, 1777; later known as the Fourth Regiment, Westchester County Militia, which was called into service at different periods, from March, 1779, to November, 1781. John and Eunice (Nicholls) Osborne had twelve children, all were born in Salem, Westchester county, New York. After his death his widow removed with her family to Otisville, Orange county, New York, where she took up land in the names of her two eldest sons, on which some of her descendants of the name still reside.
EBENEZER OSBOURN, (as he and his descendants spelled the name) seventh child of John and Eunice (Nicholls) Osborne, born at Salem, now Lewisboro, Westchester county, New York, May 25, 1774, removed with his widowed mother to Otisville, Orange county, New York, and about 1799 came to Phila- delphia, and was for a number of years a carpenter and builder, later engaging also in the lumber business. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church on Pine Street, near Fourth, where he is buried. He died August 17, 1855.
Ebenezer Osbourn married, June 16, 1800, Elizabeth, daughter of Lieuten- ant Lewis Grant, of the Pennsylvania Line in the Revolution, born at Inver- ness, Scotland, and who was appointed corporal of Captain Rudolph Bunner's company, in the Second Pennsylvania Battalion, under Colonel Arthur St.
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Clair, February 26, 1776; promoted to sergeant, March 4, 1776, and was dis- charged October 1, 1776, after taking part in the heroic but unsuccessful expe- dition against Canada. He was later first lieutenant of Captain Thomas Brad- ford's seventh company, in Colonel William Bradford's Associated Battalion of Philadelphia Militia.
LEWIS GRANT OSBOURN, son of Ebenezer and Elizabeth (Grant) Osbourn, born in Philadelphia, October 18, 1814, was a wholesale grocer, a member of the Philadelphia firm of Waterman & Osbourn. He died in Cairo, Egypt, Jan- uary 24, 1860, while travelling with his family. He married, December 12, 1848, Miranda E., daughter of Thomas Rehrer, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
THOMAS REHRER OSBOURN, only surviving child of Lewis Grant and Miranda E. (Rehrer) Osbourn, was born in Philadelphia, October 19, 1849. In 1858 he and his younger brother, Lewis Grant Osbourn, Jr., were taken abroad by their parents to be educated in German and French schools. After spending two years at schools in Paris, France, and in Geneva, Switzerland, the death of the father, in Cairo, Egypt, of typhus fever, caused the return of the family to Philadelphia, as soon as permission could be obtained to bring his remains to his native city for burial. The family continued to reside in Philadelphia and Thomas R. Osbourn was educated at the Rittenhouse Academy, Eighteenth and Chestnut streets, conducted by Lucius Barrows, and later at the Academy of William Few-Smith, at Tenth and Chestnut streets, and finally at the age of nineteen, just before going into business for himself, he took a short course at a commercial college. In 1869, with a view of gaining a knowledge of business, he entered the employ of the firm of Wainwright & Company, wholesale gro- cers at Second and Arch streets, Philadelphia, for a term of five years.
In 1875, Mr. Osbourn, with a cousin, under the firm name of J. G. & T. R. Osbourn, engaged in the wholesale cloth business at No. 31 Bank Street, which continued for seven years, when the firm was dissolved, and the busi- ness closed up July, 1882. Having previously invested considerable capital in the stock of a Maryland Coal Company, and in soft coal lands, Mr. Osbourn took an extended course in geology, mineralogy, and coal geology, analysis and mining; he accompanied this with active practical work in the coal fields, and in the opening of mines, and developing the coal property of the Empire Coal Company, of Maryland, in which he had invested; and later, in intro- ducing and finding a market and trade for the coal output of the mines of the Empire Coal Company, as the secretary and treasurer of that company.
During his work and residence in the Maryland coal regions in 1888-89, Mr. Osbourn opened the first mine in the "Four-Foot Vein" of the George's Creek- Potomac Coal region, that was ever worked continuously and commercially, on the lands of the Empire Coal Company, at Bloomington, Maryland. The geo- logical position of the vein in the coal section, being in the "Lower Barren Measures", No. XIV, about three hundred and seventy-five feet below the "Big Vein" or Pittsburgh vein. He also, during that period and later, made vertical coal sections, by instrument and barometer of the coal basin around Westernport, Maryland, and Piedmont, West Virginia, which in later years, September 20, 1893, and June 9, 1898, were published in the Coal Trade Jour- nal.
In March, 1892, Mr. Osbourn patented a mechanical drawing, or labor sav-
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ing Coke Oven, and various coke quenching apparatus, and during a year's res- idence in Western Pennsylvania and the Connellsville coke region, he made a full and extensive examination of the practice and prevailing methods of cok- ing in the "Beehive Oven", and the possibility of improvement, both in oven and method, and made a detailed report of the same, which was published in the Trade Journal for June 30, 1895, and has made further reports, and contri- butions on coals, coking, analysis, etc., at various dates to trade papers.
Mr. Osbourn is secretary and treasurer of the Bellefonte Central Railroad Company, and of the Nelsonville Coal and Land Company, and the Empire Coal Company. In addition to his duties as an officer of those corporations, he has other and varied business interests; in marketing coal from mines and lands in which he is interested; in buying and selling coal and other lands; and in making contracts for coal, for his own company and from mines of other companies.
He is a member of the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution; the Undine Boat Club, Germantown Cricket Club and of the Civil Service Reform Association, and was a member of numerous other clubs in his "younger and Club days." He is unmarried.
JOHN HEMAN CONVERSE
The ancestors of John Heman Converse, of Philadelphia, both paternal and maternal, were of sturdy New England Puritan stock. His paternal ancestor, Deacon Edward Convers, was one of the select company of Puritans who came to New England with Winthrop in the "Arbella", arriving at Salem, Massa- chusetts, June 12, 1630. He was accompanied by his second wife, Sarah, and three children, of a former marriage to Jane Clark, viz: Josiah, James and Mary. He settled first in Charlestown, and he and his wife were among the founders of the First Church of Boston, July 30, 1630; there then being no church in Charlestown. They assisted in the founding of the First Church of Charlestown two years later, and with others received their dismissal from the Boston Church, November 2, 1632.
DEACON EDWARD CONVERS established a ferry between Boston and Charles- town, at the site of the later Charlestown bridge, November 9, 1630, known as the Great Ferry. He held the lease of this ferry until October 7, 1640, when he transferred it to the use of Harvard College, probably encouraged thereto through his close friendship and respect for John Harvard, whose generous bequest founded the college. Deacon Convers was made a freeman, October 19, 1630, and took the oath of allegiance, May 18, 1631. He was a juryman in 1630, selectman from 1635 to 1640, when he removed to and founded the new town of Woburn, where he built the first house and mill. He was named one of the selectmen of Woburn on its organization into a munici- pality ; was one of the three commissioners or magistrates named to try cases ; filled very many positions of trust; was deacon of the church of Woburn, and a man of influence, energy and strength of character. He died in Woburn, August 10, 1663.
SERGEANT SAMUEL CONVERS, youngest son of Deacon Edward Convers, was baptized at the First Church of Charlestown, March 12, 1637-38. He was ad- mitted a freeman of Woburn, where he had removed with his parents when an infant, in 1660, and was made sergeant of Woburn Train Band, in 1666. He inherited in common with his elder brothers the mill erected by his father at Woburn, and was the active operator thereof. He was killed while engaged in chopping ice from the water-wheel of the mill, February 20, 1666-67. He married, June 8, 1660, Judith, daughter of Rev. Thomas Carter, the first min- ister of Woburn Church, by his wife, Mary (Parkhurst) Carter. Dr. Carter took his degree of A. B. at St. John's College, Cambridge University, England, January, 1629-30, and the degree of M. A. at the same University in 1633. He came to New England in 1635, in the ship "Planter", and located first at Ded- ham, Massachusetts, removing from there to Watertown and finally to Wo- burn, where he preached his first sermon in 1641. He married Mary, daugh- ter of George Parkhurst Sr., of Watertown. She died March 28, 1687. Ju- dith (Carter) Convers married (second), May 2, 1672, Giles Fifield, and died in
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1677. Sergeant Samuel and Judith (Carter) Convers had two children: Sam- uel and Abigail, the latter dying unmarried July 14, 1689.
SAMUEL CONVERS, only son of Sergeant Samuel Convers, born at Woburn, Massachusetts, April 4, 1662, removed to Thompson parish, Killingly, Con- necticut, about 1710, and he and his four sons were extensive land owners there. He married Dorcas , (supposed to have been Dorcas Pain, though there is no positive proof of her connection with the Pain family), and they had six children: Samuel, Edward, Thomas, Dorcas, Pain and Josiah.
THOMAS CONVERS, third son of Samuel and Dorcas Convers, was born at Woburn, Massachusetts, October 28, 1699. He removed with his parents to Thompson, Connecticut, and was active in public affairs there. He was elect- ed deacon of the church there in 1742, but declined to serve. He died in Thomp- son, Connecticut, about 1760. He married (first), April 11, 1723, Martha, daughter of Thomas Clough, of Salisbury. Her brother, Jonathan Clough, had settled at Thompson, Connecticut, in 1722. She died June 18, 1735, and Thom- as Convers married (second), November 3, 1737, Abigail Fay, born January 19, 1709, daughter of Samuel and Tabitha (Ward) Fay, and granddaughter of John Fay, who was born in England in 1648, and on May 30, 1656, embarked with his parents from Gravesend, in the ship, "Speedwell", which arrived at Boston, June 27, 1656.
JOEL CONVERSE, youngest son of Thomas Convers, of Killingly, Connecticut, by his second wife, Abigail Fay, was born at Thompson, Connecticut, Septem- ber 2, 1750, and signed the oath of a freeman at the first town meeting of Thompson, June, 1771. He married (first) Demaris Wilson, born May 2, 1746, died April 6, 1784, and had by her three children: Lyman, Otis, and Demaris. He married (second), January 20, 1785, Elizabeth Bixby, born Sep- tember 2, 1762, died November 12, 1850, by whom he had seven children : Joel, Theron, Marquis, Elizabeth (Tanton), Sarah (Thornton), Amasa and John Kendrick. Joel Converse resided until after his second marriage in Thomp- son, Connecticut. He served in the American army for a few months only, during the Revolutionary War, being compelled to remain at home to provide for his widowed mother and his own growing family. His brother Thomas was a colonel in the Continental service. He removed with his family to Lyme, New Hampshire, about 1788, erecting in that year a house on a tract of wild land on Davison's Hill, Grafton county, New Hampshire. He was one of the first settlers there and one of the founders of the town of Lyme. The Bixbys, brothers of his wife, were soldiers in the Revolution, and were also among the first settlers of Lyme, New Hampshire.
REV. JOHN KENDRICK CONVERSE, youngest son of Joel and Elizabeth (Bixby) Converse, was born in Lyme, New Hampshire, June 15, 1801. He prepared for college under the tutorship of Rev. John Fitch at Thetford, Vermont, and entered Dartmouth College in the class of 1827, but necessity for self support compelled him to leave college in the winter of his second year, and he taught school for a short period in Acton, Massachusetts, and then accepted a posi- tion as principal of a school at Keene, New Hampshire. Later in the same year he went to Nottoway county, Virginia, to conduct a classical school there, meanwhile continuing his college studies, and spending the last year of his college course at Hampden-Sidney College, Prince Edward county, Virginia,
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where he graduated in 1827. Dartmouth College also subsequently conferred upon him the degree of A. B. He continued teaching in Nottoway county, Virginia, for one year after his graduation, then resigned and for two years assisted his brother Amasa in the editorial department of The Southern Re- legious Telegraph and The Literary and Evangelical Magazine at Richmond, Virginia, in the meantime studying theology, which he continued at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey, from which he graduated in 1832.
On August 8, 1832, Rev. John Kendrick Converse was installed as pastor of the Congregational Church at Burlington, Vermont, known as White Street Congregational Church. He was pastor of this church for twelve years. In 1839 he had accepted a call to the Congregational Church at Providence, Rhode Island, but before his removal the Burlington church was destroyed by fire, and a sense of duty to his old parishioners, and the church he had so long served, compelled him to decline the call and remain in his old charge. Bron- chial trouble compelled his retirement from the ministry in 1844 and he became principal of the Burlington Female Seminary, a position he filled for twenty- five years. During a portion of this period, however, he again took up minis- terial work, filling the position of pastor of the church at Colchester from 1850 to 1855; of Winooski, 1855-61, and subsequently supplied the pulpit at West Milton several years. His residence in the south awakened his interest in the colored race, and he became one of the most active members of the American Colonization Society, and took a lively and zealous interest in the Republic of Liberia; was for many years secretary of Vermont Colonization Society and Agent of the American Society for Vermont, New Hampshire and Northern New York, speaking in that behalf in many pulpits and raising money for the carrying out of the projects of the Society. He died in Burlington, Vermont, October 3, 1880.
Rev. John Kendrick Converse married, May 21, 1834, at Burlington, Ver- mont, August 13, 1810, died at Burlington, April 14, 1873. She was a daugh- ter of Hon. Heman Allen, of Milton, Vermont, by his wife, Sarah (Prentis) Allen, daughter of Dr. Jonathan Prentis, of St. Albans.
The Allen family were residents of Deerfield, Massachusetts, before its de- struction and the massacre of its inhabitants by the Indians during King Phil- ip's war, and Edward Allen, Jr., the great-great-grandfather of Sarah (Allen) Converse, was one of the first of the refugees to return after peace was par- tially established. His son Samuel, the great-grandfather of Mrs. Converse, a soldier in the King's service, was several times driven from his home by the savages and was finally killed by them while working in his fields, August 25, 1746.
Corporal Enoch Allen, grandfather of Mrs. Converse, was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, November 27, 1744. He removed to Ashfield, Massachusetts, after 1767, and died there July 8, 1789. His first service in the Revolutionary war was as a member of Lexington Alarm Roll, a private in Lieutenant Sam- uel Bartlett's company. This company marched April 22, 1775, in response to an alarm of April 19, from Ashfield, and was in the actual service five days. He next enlisted on April 27, 1775, in Captain Ebenezer Webber's company, Colonel John Fellows' regiment, and served with that command as a private
John M. onverse
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until September 22, 1777, when he enlisted in Captain Ephraim Jenning's com- pany, Colonel David Wells' regiment, "for service on the Expedition North- ward". His name appears on the muster roll of this latter company as cor- poral. Corporal Enoch Allen married, November 28, 1777, Mercy, daughter of Deacon Ebenezer Bedden, of Ashfield, granddaughter of Samuel Bedden, of Wethersfield, later of Hatfield, who fought in King Philip's war; his wife was slain at the Indian massacre and raid on Hatfield, September 19, 1677. Richard Bedden, the great-grandfather of Mercer (Bedden) Allen, was one of the earliest settlers of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Corporal Enoch Allen died July 8, 1789, and in 1795 his widow Mercy removed with her eight children to Grand Isle, Vermont.
Hon. Heman Allen, father of Sarah (Allen) Converse, and grandfather of John Heman Converse, of Philadelphia, was the eldest son of Corporal Enoch and Mercy (Bedden) Allen, and was born at Ashfield, Massachusetts, Junc 14, 177 -. When his widowed mother and brothers and sisters journeyed to Grand Isle, Vermont, in 1795, Heman was left behind to pursue his studies. He took a two years classical course at an academy at Chesterfield, New Hamp- shire, and made the journey from there to Grand Isle on foot. After four years more of study in leisure hours, devoted principally to Latin and Greek, he read law, and was admitted to the bar, in 1803. He opened an office in Holgate's tavern in the town of Milton, Vermont, and rapidly built up a re- munerative practice. He was elected to represent Milton in the State Legis- lature in 1819, and was re-elected eleven times, as long as he would accept the office. In 1827 he was a delegate to the National Convention at Harrisburg, and in 1832 was elected to Congress, for the first time, subsequently serving four successive terms in that body. He died December 11, 1844. He married, December 4, 1804, Sarah Prentis, who survived him until December 1, 1850.
JOHN HEMAN CONVERSE, the fourth of the seven children of Rev. John Ken- drick and Sarah (Allen) Converse, was born at Burlington, Vermont, Decem- ber 2, 1840. He was fitted for college in the schools of his native town and en- tered the University of Vermont, in 1857, and graduated in the class of 1861, which numbered on its roll some of the brightest and most successful men ever enrolled as students in that institution. After graduation Mr. Converse en- gaged in journalism, being for three years connected with the editorial depart- ment of the Burlington, Vermont, Daily and Weekly Times. In 1864 he went to Chicago and for two years was in the service of the Chicago and Northwes- tern Railway Company. In 1866 he removed to Altoona to accept a position with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company under Edward H. Williams, the gen- eral superintendent of the road. In 1870 Mr. Converse secured a desirable position with the Baldwin Locomotive Works through Dr. Williams, who had become one of the proprietors thereof, and three years later was admitted into the firm and he has ever since been connected with the works. Mr. Converse was intrusted with the general business and financial management of the works, as apart from the mechanical departments. How well he mastered these duties is evidenced by the wonderful growth of the plant. When Matthias W. Baldwin died in 1866, the output of the works established by him had reached one hun- dred and eighteen locomotives per annum; this capacity (in 1907) had grown to the production of over two thousand and six hundred locomotives per an-
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num, of a vastly improved and enlarged design, bearing as little resemblance to the old Baldwin locomotive as the "ocean greyhound" bears to the old packet steamer of generations ago. The market for the great product of these works is practically the entire civilized world, the firm having almost a monopoly of the export business in locomotives. In addition to the successful management of the business affairs of this great manufacturing establishment, Mr. Con- verse has for many years held directorships and taken an active part in the management of numerous financial and other institutions, all of which have received his active and constant attention, bringing to all his undertakings a well trained mind and a wonderful aptitude in the conduct of financial matters. Among these institutions are the Philadelphia National Bank, The Philadelphia Trust Company, the Real Estate Trust Company and the Philadelphia Savings Fund. Since 1889 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of City Trusts, at first serving at the head of the committee having in charge the Girard Estate outside of the city, and later filling the position of chairman of the Household Committee. In addition to these positions he is a member of the Board of Public Education, president of Fairmount Park Art Association, trustee of the Presbyterian Hospital and of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
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