USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 57
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During the war with Spain Mr. Converse served as president of the Nation- al Relief Commission, organized in Philadelphia in aid of the soldiers and sail- ors called into active service by the exigencies of war. He has always been a large contributor to public objects; one of the principal buildings of the Pres- byterian Hospital was erected entirely at his expense, and his benefactions to churches, charities and various educational and civic institutions have been constant and generous, indicating a large and broad sympathy with the pro- gressive humanitarian and religious movements of his day. To the University of Vermont, his alma mater, he has been a liberal benefactor; a trustee of the university, he has made himself intimately acquainted with its needs, so that his benefactions have been wise as well as liberal. He has erected for the uni- versity three buildings of great architectural beauty and completeness; includ- ing two dwellings for the use of professors and a student's dormitory. In 1897 the University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D.
"Mr. Converse's career exemplifies in a marked degree the value of trained intellect in extensive business affairs and fidelity in the administration of great trusts. Coming to Philadelphia thirty odd years ago practically unknown, he has since become one of its foremost citizens, whose name has been frequently urged for civic honors, and if merit and not politics were the guiding force. he would have long ago been called to fill the chief magistracy of the city."
"In his private life Mr. Converse has gathered around him in a quiet and modest way the luxuries which are congenial to a man of culture. In his home, art, music, literature and genial society abound, presided over by an amiable and accomplished wife, who is in full sympathy with his tastes and aims. It is not quite so difficult to conceive how a man can carry such manifold serious business cares with such serene and sunny ease after one has seen what relaxations and refreshments are available to a man of intellectual resources, of social gifts, and of domestic tastes."
Mr. Converse is a member of the New England Society of Pennsylvania and of the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution, having been admitted to membership in the latter Society, June 14, 1898, as a great-grandson of Cor-
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poral Enoch Allen (1744-89), an account of whose life and record as a revolu- tionary soldier is given above.
Mr. Converse married, July 9, 1873, Elizabeth Perkins, daughter of James and Mary Johnson (Bishop) Thompson, of New York. They had issue :
Mary Eleanor, b. April 10, 1877; John Williams, b. March 30, 1879;
Helen Prentiss, b. July 26, 1880, m., June 5, 1905, Warren P. Thorpe, and had issue : Thedora Thorpe, b. Aug. 20, 1906.
JOHN MARSTON
The Marston family, several representatives of which, all more or less re- lated to each other, came to Salem, Massachusetts, about 1635, is of Norman origin, descendants of a liege-man of William of Normandy, who accompan- ied him to England in 1066, and received, in recognition of his services in the conquest of Saxon England, the grant of a manor including Marston Moor, the site of the great battle between the royal adherents of Charles I., under Prince Rupert, and the Parliamentary army under Lord Fairfax and General Oliver Cromwell, July 2, 1644. From the manor, according to Norman cus- tom, the family took the name of de Marston, which became a permanent sur- name with their descendants. From Yorkshire, branches of the family mi- grated to the counties of Worcester, Leicester and Norfolk, all bearing practi- cally the same coats-of-arms as the Yorkshire family, remnants of which are yet to be found near Marston Moor.
Robert and William Marston, supposed to have been brothers, came to Sa- lem, Massachusetts, in 1634, the latter with a wife and a large family of chil- dren, with whom he removed to Hampton, then in the old county of Norfolk, Massachusetts, but later included in New Hampshire. This family has left numerous descendants now widely scattered. Robert Marston, the other emi- grant of 1634, removed with William and his family to Newbury, Massachu- setts, in 1637, and from there to Winnecumett, later Hampton, and died there in 1643, letters of administration on his estate being granted to John and Thomas Marston, sons of William "until true heirs of his estate, who are in England, shall come or send to take order therein".
John and William Marston, two other English immigrants, came to Salem, Massachusetts, in the ship "Rose" in 1637, from Ormesby, town of Yarmouth, county Norfolk. The former a carpenter, and for a time a Quaker, united with the First Church of Salem, and the baptism of his ten children, by Alice Eden, who accompanied him to New England, and whom he married later, are of record there between the years 1640 and 1661. William Marston, of Or- mesby, some years the junior of his brother, John, also settled at Salem, owning land adjoining the latter, and following the sea as a "Master Mariner". He married, about 1652, Sarah - -, and had several children.
John Marston, the ancestor of John Marston, also a "Master Mariner", has not been clearly identified with any of the above named Marston emigrants, though he is thought to have been a nephew of the Yarmouth brothers, whom he accompanied to America as a child. He was born in England about the year 1630, and appears to have lived during early manhood, or at least had his home when not at sea, in that part of Salem later incorporated as Barnsta- ble. He seems to have been master of vessels plying between New England ports and the Barbadoes and West Indies, as in 1658 he brought suit in Salem court against one Captain Thomas Clarke for freightage on "six pieces of wine containing three tuns, from Barbadoes to Boston". He had several sons and daughters of whom we have very meagre record.
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NATHANIEL MARSTON, son of John Marston, the "Master Mariner", was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in the years from 1675 to 1678. He resided the great- er part of his life in Salem, but eventually removed to Boston, where he died. He married, about 1702, Mercy - -, by whom he had seven children, all of whom were baptized at the First Church of Salem, the eldest Eunice, June 19, 1703. Nathaniel, the fifth child and eldest of the two sons, baptized Decem- ber 21, 17II, went to South America, and never returned.
JOHN MARSTON, sixth child of Nathaniel and Mercy Marston, was, according to the family record, baptized at the First Church of Salem, February 26, 1715, but this is probably an error, that being the date of his birth, as the records of the church give the date of his baptism as June 12, 1715, and a like discrepancy appears between the family record of the baptism of the other children and the church records, though the family record is printed in the "Genealogy of the Marston Families" distinctly refers to the dates there given as that of "baptism". John Marston was for many years proprietor of a famous public house in Boston. He was an officer in the Provincial troops of Massachusetts, having been commissioned first lieutenant of a company in the Third Massachu- setts Regiment, under Colonel Jeremiah Moulton, October 27, 1745, for the expedition against Louisburg, later attaining the rank of captain.
Captain John Marston was a man of influence and high standing in Boston. With the beginning of the struggle against the unjust taxation imposed by the British ministry, he took a prominent part as a champion of the rights of the Colonies. The minutes of the selectmen of Boston, under date of December 7, 1777, record that "The committee to prepare a list for a Committee of In- spection and to carry the Resolutions of the Continental Congress into execu- tion" reported the name of Captain John Marston as one of the persons to serve on the first Committee of Observation and Inspection, in accordance with these resolves, together with Hon. Thomas Cushing, Hon. John Hancock, Sam- uel Adams, Captain John Warren, John Winthrop, Colonel Thomas Marshall, Dr. Joseph Marshall and others. He is also said to have been one of the "In- dians" composing the "Boston Tea Party" who cast the obnoxious tea over- board in Boston Harbor. This was, however, more probably his son of the same name. Some of the tea was carried home in his shoes and was long kept by the family as a memento of the historic event. Captain John Marston, too old for active service in the Revolutionary war, retired to Woburn, Middlesex county, Massachusetts, ten miles northwest of Boston, and there resided during the war. Returning to Boston after the coming of peace and national inde- pendence, he died there in 1786 at the age of seventy-one and a half years. His will dated August 22, 1786, was probated September 12, 1786.
John Marston married (first) in 1740, Hannah Welland, by whom he had three daughters, all of whom died young. He married (second) in 1751, Eliz- abeth (Welland) Blake, a sister of his first wife. She did not long survive the marriage, dying without issue. He married (third) in 1755, Elizabeth Greenwood, by whom he had nine children, seven of whom survived him; John, Eunice, Nathaniel, Elizabeth, Benjamin, William, and Martha W., the latter born May 17, 1779.
COLONEL JOHN MARSTON, son of Captain John and Elizabeth (Greenwood) Marston, born in Boston, Massachusetts, March 27, 1756, was long engaged in
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the mercantile business in Boston, and became a wealthy and highly respected merchant of that city. Just coming to manhood's years at the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, Colonel Marston took an active part in the struggle for independence. Tradition relates that it was his father who formed one of the "Boston Tea Party" in 1774, but it seems more probable that it was the son who took part in the daring act of patriotism than his father, then a man in his sixtieth year. Colonel Marston was second lieutenant of the Ninth Com- pany, Captain Perez Cushing, Massachusetts Regiment of Artillery, Colonel Craft commanding, in 1776, his name appearing on the roll of that company as serving from September 9, 1776, to February 1, 1777; again from February 9, to May 8, 1777; August I, to September 30, 1777; November I, to December 3, 1777; January I, to March 1, 1778; and March I, to April 3, 1778. He served until the close of the war, and later was identified with the state militia of Massachusetts, attaining the rank of colonel. He removed late in life to Taunton, Bristol county, Massachusetts, where he died December 13, 1846, aged ninety years and eight months. John Marston married, August 4, 1784, Anna Randall, of London, England, and they were the parents of seventeen children, nine of whom died in infancy. With but two of the surviving eight children is this narrative concerned, viz : Rear Admiral John Marston, and Colonel Ward Marston, of the United States Marine Service. The latter, the eleventh child of Colonel John and Anna (Randall) Marston, was born in Boston, Massachu- setts, May 7, 1799, entered the marine service of the United States early in life, and served many years as colonel, residing in Boston, Massachusetts, and where the duties of his service called him. He died April 14, 1885, at Rox- bury, Massachusetts, at the age of eighty-six years. Colonel Ward Marston married, August 4, 1825, Mary Von Weber, of Dutch ancestry, and had eleven children, seven of whom lived to maturity: Elizabeth Greenwood Marston, long a missionary in India ; William S. Marston; Anna Randall Marston, born 1833, wife of John Marston; Catharine Marston, Edward Lincoln; Mary Marston, George Etheredg; Frank Ward Marston, who served in the Civil war, as lieu- tenant of a company in the Seventy-fifth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, and at the close of the war entered the Regular Army, and attained the rank of major, in signal corps, dying at Merion, Pennsylvania, March, 1885, at the age of forty-three years; Emily Louisa Marston.
REAR ADMIRAL JOHN MARSTON, was the ninth child and eldest surviving son of Colonel John and Anna (Randall) Marston, and the third child of his par- ents to bear his father's Christian name, two others dying in infancy. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, February 26, 1796, and was reared and educated in that city. He was the first to carry the news of the capture of the "Guer- rière" by Commodore Isaac Hall, to John Adams, at Quincy, and attracting the favorable attention of the ex-president, secured through his influence the ap- pointment as a midshipman in the United States navy, his commission bearing date April 15, 1813. He saw some service during the second war for national independence, and was later an officer on board the "Constitution", serving on that famous frigate at the time Lord Byron visited her. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, July 13, 1825, and was on board the "Brandywine", when that vessel conveyed the Marquis de Lafayette back to France after his mem- orable visit to the United States in 1824-25. He served on the Pacific Squad-
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ron during the years 1827-29, and 1833-34. In 1840 he was assigned to the frigate "United States", and the following year, September 8, 1841, was com- missioned a commander. In 1850 he was assigned to the command of the "Yorktown", on the coast of Africa. From 1853 to 1855 he was in charge of the Navy Yard at Philadelphia. On September 14, 1855, he was commissioned captain. Prior to the Civil war, his service on and in command of vessels of the United States navy included the frigates, "President", "Washington", "Java", "Constellation", "Constitution", "Congress", and "Brandywine".
Although placed on the retired list, December 21, 1861, he was assigned to the command of the "Cumberland", and served on her until commissioned Com- modore, July 16, 1862, and placed in command of the Union squadron, at Hampton Roads, Virginia, with the "Roanoke," as his flag ship. He was in command there when the Confederate ram "Merrimac", destroyed his old ves- sels, the "Cumberland" and the "Congress." Before the "Monitor" had arrived at Hampton Roads, Commodore Marston had received positive orders from the War Department to order that vessel to proceed at once to the defence of Washington, but fearing the destruction of his entire fleet of wooden vessels by the terrible "Merrimac", he disregarded his orders and ordered the "Moni- tor" to attack the ram "Merrimac", with the well-known result of the de- struction of that dreaded engine of destruction. After the close of the war, Commodore Marston was appointed inspector of lighthouses in the Boston dis- trict, and in 1866 was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. He also had charge of the navy yards at Portsmouth and Philadelphia. He died in Phila- delphia, April 9, 1885, having retained his wonted mental and physical vigor beyond the age of four score years. He was one of the most efficient officers of the United States navy during the trying period of the Civil war; was a man of scholarly tastes and a fine specimen of a gentleman of the old school, kind, affable and courteous with a natural dignity of carriage and deportment. Rear Admiral Marston married, November 2, 1830, Elizabeth (Bracket) Wilcox, widow of John Wilcox (1799-1827), of the well-known Wilcox family of Ivy Mills, Delaware county, Pennsylvania. They had five children: John Marston, September 21, 1831, died February 28, 1833; John Marston, see forward; Brevet Major Matthew R. Marston, born October 13, 1835, who was appointed a ca- det to the United States Military Academy in 1857, and on April 26, 1861, was commissioned second lieutenant in the First Regiment United States In- fantry, promoted to first lieutenant, May 14, 1861, and to captain, January 10, 1862, and was made brevet-major for gallant and meritorious services during the siege of Vicksburg, died January 13, 1869, from injuries received in an explosion of a steamboat on the Mississippi; James Henry Marston, died in childhood; Frank Dupont Marston, born August 9, 1847.
JOHN MARSTON, eldest surviving son of Rear Admiral John and Elizabeth (Bracket) (Wilcox) Marston, born in Philadelphia, December 15, 1833, was educated at the Episcopal Academy in that city. He was for several years connected with the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Philadelphia, leaving that company in 1868, to become the general agent of the New Eng- land Life Insurance Company of Boston, Massachusetts, which position he successfully filled until 1906, when he retired from active business, and resides at Merion, Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Union League Club, and of
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the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, Society of the War of 1812, and of the Naval Commandery. He mar- ried, October 17, 1855, his cousin, Anna Randall Marston, daughter of Colonel Ward and Mary (von Weber) Marston, and they had five children :
JOHN MARSTON, born September 13, 1856, married June 19, 1883, Mary, daughter of John and Mary Roberts, of Somerset, Pennsylvania, and they had three children, John, born August 3, 1884, who is a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, stationed at Mare Island, California; Anna Randall and Susan Rob- erts, twins, born March 3, 1887, the latter of which died in infancy. Anna R. Mar- ston married, April 25, 1904, Theodore Green, of Louisville, Kentucky, and they had two children: John Marston Green, died in infancy, and Theodore Green Jr., born November 29, 1908.
Henry Ward Marston, born in Philadelphia, March 6, 1859, married June 19, 1890, Alice Sellers, daughter of Joseph and Amanda (Seal) Rhoades, of Philadelphia, and they had five children : Matthew Randall Marston, born Feb- ruary 7, 1892; Joseph Rhoades Marston, born January 28, 1893, d. July 14, 1894; Henry Ward Marston, Jr., born December 25, 1897; James Rhoades Marston, born October 25, 1901; Alice Rhoades Marston, born February 18, 1903.
Mary Von Weber Marston, born June 6, 1863, married, April 8, 1896, Harry Parmalee Nichols, of New York, son of George P. Nichols, of that city.
Katharine Lincoln Marston, born July 10, 1868, is unmarried.
Anna Randall Marston, born April 25, 1875, married, April 25, 1901, Henry Goodwin Green, of London, England.
JOHN CALVERT
The subject of this narrative, a life-long resident of Philadelphia, is a great- great-grandson of Sir Charles Calvert, fifth and last Lord Baltimore, as well as of that Lord's cousin, Captain and Honorable Charles Calvert, Colonial Gov- ernor of Maryland, 1720-27, and a great-grandson of Dr. Benjamin Rush, the distinguished Revolutionary patriot and physician of Philadelphia.
The grant of arms to Sir George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, on December 3, 1622, by "Sir Richard St. George Norroy, Kinge of Arms of the North parts of the Realme of England from the Riuer Trent Northward," shows that the Calvert family was one of great antiquity. It states in part as follows:
"I fynd the right Honourable Sir George Caluert Knight one of his Maiesties princi- pall Secretrayes of State and his ancestors to hauve resided in the North partes of this Kingdom, and not only to haue lived in the Ranks and reputacon of gent: and bene bearers of such badges and Ensignes of honour amongst vs, but further hane seene an exact collection made by Mr. Richard Verstegan an Antiquarie in Antwerpe sent ouer this last March 1622 by which it appeareth that the said Sir George is descended of a Noble and antiente familie of that Surname in the Earldome of fflanders where they haue liued long in great Honor, and haue had great possessions, their principall and antiente Seate being in Warvickoe in the said Province. And that in theis later tymes two brethren of that surname vid: Jaques Calvert Lord of Senere two leagues from Gaunt remayned in the Netherland broyles on the side of the Kinge of Spayne and hath a sonne who at this present is in honourable place and office in the Parliament Courte at Macklyn, And Levinus Caluert the other brother tooke parte with the States of Holland and was by them employed as their Agent with Henry the fourth late Kinge of France, which Levinus Caluert left a sonne in France whom the foresaid Kinge of France entertayned as a gentleman of his bed chamber. And further it is testefied by the said Mr. Verstegan that the proper Armes belonging to the familie of the Caluerts is, or, three martletts Sables with this Creast vizt the vpper parte or halues of two Launces the bandroll of the first Sables and the Second or. Now forasmuch as I have beene required by the said Sir George "Caluert Knight to make a trve declaracon to posterity of what I haue seene concerninge the worthyness of his ancestors, that it may remayne to posterity, from whence they originally descended as also this instant there is thre of that Surname and
lyniage lyvinge in thre severall countryes beinge all men of great emenencey and honour- able ymployment in the State where they liue, which otherwayes by a general neglect might in future tyme be forgotten and the honour of their ancestors buried in oblivion. And withall for a better maifestacon and memoriall of the familie from whence he is descended, the said Sir George Calvert is likewise desirous to add some parte of those honourable badges and ensignes of honour which descend vpon him from his ancestors there to those wich he and his predecessors haue formerlye borne here since their cum- minge into England. The premises considered I the said Norroy Jinge of Armes haue thought fitnot only to publishe by this declarcon what hath come to my hands and knowl- edge concerneinge the honour of this worthye familie but also to add to the Coate of Armes which they haue borne here in England beinge paley of Sixepeices, or and Sables a bend counterchanged : this Creast ensuinge, Vizt: the vpper parte of two halfe Lances or, with Sables standinge in a Ducall Crowne gules, as more playnly appeareth depicted in the margent, and is the antiente Creast descended vnto him from his ancestors."
The above shows that the Calvert family was descended from "a Noble and antiente familie of that Surname in the Earledome of Flanders", who had "great possessions" with the "antiente Seate at Warvickoe, in that Prov- ince", and that the immediate ancestors of the first Lord Baltimore "lived in the North partes this Kingdom" (England), and had the rank and reputation of gentlemen, and had been the bearers of "badges and ensignes of honour amongst vs", but gives no data as to their "cumminge into England" or their
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part in the early history of that kingdom. All we know of them is given in the following sketch of Sir George Calvert, and includes only his grandfather, of whom nothing is preserved but his name, John Calvert.
GEORGE CALVERT, first Lord Baltimore, was born on his father's estate of Kiplin, the valley of the river Swale, Yorkshire, about the year 1580. His father, Leonard Calvert, son of John Calvert, of the same locality, was a country gentleman of some estate, residing at the time of his marriage with Alicia Crossland, a lady of gentle birth, in or near the town of Danby Wiske, near Kiplin, acquiring the latter estate through his marriage in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign.
George Calvert entered Trinity College, Oxford, as a commoner, at the age of fourteen years, and received his degree from that institution in 1597. After a tour of travel on the continent we find him associated with his influential pa- tron and the founder of his fortunes, Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, Bar- on of Essenden, Viscount Cranborne, etc., who was Secretary of State for both Queen Elizabeth and James I, Lord High Treasurer, etc., and stood ex- ceedingly high in the councils of both sovereigns. At the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, he was a member of Parliament for the Cornish borough of Bossiney, and was associated with his patron in the management of some estates settled on the Queen. He received his Master's degree at Oxford in 1605, and became private secretary to Lord Salisbury, and was appointed by King James as Clerk of the Crown and Assize for County Clare, Ireland. In 1613 he was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council and sent on a mission to Ireland; in 1616, on a mission to France on the occasion of the accession of Louis XII, and was knighted in 1617. In 1619 he became Principal Secretary of State, and he filled that position until he became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith in 1624, when he besought the King to be permitted to resign and retire to private life. He was however retained in Privy Council and many other high positions. He was a member of Parliament from Yorkshire in 1621, and in 1624 for Oxfordshire. On February 16, 1621, King James granted him a manor of 2,300 acres in County Longford, which on February 16, 1625, were erected into the manor of Baltimore, and Calvert was created Baron Baltimore of the Irish Peerage by a Royal Patent, the original of which is in the possession of the Maryland Historical Society.
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