USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 59
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LOUIS CHILDS MADEIRA
LOUIS CHILDS MADEIRA, of Philadelphia, is a descendant of a Portuguese family many years settled in Spain. During the reign of the "Holy Roman Em- peror" Charles V., 1519-58, some of the family became Protestants and mi- grated to Holland.
HANS JACOB MADEIRA, the immediate ancestor of Louis C. Madeira, came to Pennsylvania with many other Palatines in the ship "Loyal Judith", Captain Edward Painter, from Rotterdam, which arrived in Philadelphia, September 3, 1739. He was accompanied by his wife Hester, and at least two children, Jacob and Sebastian. The family settled in Philadelphia county, in the neigh- borhood of Germantown, and were affiliated with the Reformed congregation worshipping at the Church at Market Square, Germantown. The name of Ja- cob Madeira, ("Madori") appears to the letter from the members of the Ger- man Reformed Congregation at Germantown, dated July 14, 1744, addressed to the Deputies of the Synod of South and North Holland, and which was re- ceived and read at the Synod of South Holland, held July 6 to 15, 1745. He later became a member of the First German Reformed Church, at Frankford, and his name appears among the list of contributors to the erection of the church of which the cornerstone was laid May 4, 1770. He and his wife ap- pear as sponsors at the baptism of their grandchildren at the First Reformed Church of Philadelphia as early as 1765.
Hans Jacob and Hester Madeira had nine children: Jacob, Sebastian, Esther, Christopher, George, Christian, Samuel, Nicholas and Simon. The four youngest sons were soldiers in the Pennsylvania Line, of the Continental Army during the Revolution: Christian in the First Pennsylvania Regiment; Samuel in the Third Pennsylvania; Nicholas in the Seventh, and Simon in Captain Patrick Anderson's company under Colonels John Bull and Walter Stewart.
The family name has been variously spelled, not only on civil records where in the early times we often find Christian names mispelled, but by members of the family themselves. As shown on the petition of the members of Market Square Reformed Church to the Holland Synod in 1745, the name of Jacob Madeira, the emigrant, is signed Madöri, though appearing on the list of passengers of the "Loyal Judith" in 1739 as Madera, the form in which we find it generally spelled on the early records, and that used by his son George throughout his life, and so signed to his will in 1801. The record of the marriage of George Madera on the registry of the First Reformed Church of Philadelphia gives the name Madoery. a slight eruption of the spelling of the original name Madori. Two very com- mon forms of the name, however, were Madery and Medary; the latter being the form used by Isaac B. Medary, son of George and grandfather of Louis C. Madeira. Later generations of the family have usually spelled the name Madeira, a legitimate English interpretation of the name as written by the emigrant ances- tor.
GEORGE MADERA, son of Hans Jacob and Hester Madoi, was probably born in
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Philadelphia county soon after the arrival of his parents there, in 1739, though the date of his birth has not been definitely ascertained. During his early man- hood he resided in the District of Northern Liberties, Philadelphia county, where his name appears on the tax lists from 1769 to 1779, when he removed to Warring- ton township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. He was a member of Captain Man- uel Eyre's Company of Associators, for the District of Northern Liberties in 1776, as shown by a roll of the company published in the Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, Vol. XIII, page 568. Captain Manuel Eyre's company was later, in 1777, incorporated in the Philadelphia Brigade under Brigadier General John Cadwalader, but no later roll of the company is known to be in existence.
By deed dated December 7, 1779, Ezekiel Shoemaker and Hannah his wife conveyed to "George Madery, of Warrington township, County of Bucks", Yeaman, a messuage and tract of fifty-three acres and twenty-eight perches of land in Warrington township, Bucks county, lying along the line of Philadel- phia, now Montgomery county, and on "Naylor's Branch of the Neshaminy Creek". Here George Madera lived the remainder of his life, erecting on this farm, in 1792, a stone house, on the gable of which may be still seen the ancient date stone with the inscription, "G. M. B., 1792", the initials standing for George and Barbara Madera. A large stone barn adjoining, erected a few years later, bears a like inscription with the date. He had added to his fifty- three acre farm, in 1787, a one hundred acre tract adjoining, across the line in Horsham, Montgomery county, adjoining Graeme Park, the historic residence of Governor Sir William Keith. Also adjoining was the Simpson homestead, where was born the mother of General Ulysses S. Grant, whose father John Simpson, was a schoolmate of the children of George Madera, and when the Simpson family removed to Ohio, they were accompanied or followed by Sam- tel Medary, a grandson of George, son of his son Jacob. Young Medary became a member of the family of John Simpson in Ohio, and through the influence of the latter secured a position as. teacher of a school nearby. He later started the publication of the Clermont Sun, and rose to a position of influence in the poli- tics of the State and was elected Governor in 1856.
George Madera died on his Warrington farm, leaving a will dated November 21, and probated December 8, 1801. His wife Barbara survived until 1812. After her death, December 1, 1812, the farms were sold, under direction of the will and passed permanently out of the family.
George Madera was twice married. By his first wife, whose name is un- known to the writer of these lines, he had one son Jacob, who married Eliza- beth Harris, at Neshaminy Church, 1795, and was the father of Governor Sam- uel Medary. He married (second) at the First German Reformed Church of Philadelphia, March 13, 1777, Barbara Benther, who survived him and died on the homestead in Warrington in 1812. They had children: John, Peter, Samuel, Joseph, Esther (who married Judge John Barclay, one of the most prominent men of his time in Bucks county), David, Isaac B., William, Sarah Louisa and Mary.
ISAAC B. MEDARY, seventh child of George and Barbara (Benther) Madera, was born on the Warrington farm, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, June 11, 1790. His family were members of Doylestown Presbyterian Church, of which he was one of the founders, and he and his wife lie buried in its neighboring church-
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yard. Isaac B. Medary was more or less prominent in the local affairs of Doylestown during his long residence there. When the news of the burning of Washington by the British reached Doylestown in 1814, he was one of the pa- triotic citizens of the town who at once organized the "Bucks County Rangers" under the captaincy of William Magill, and entered the United States service for a three months' term, leaving Doylestown, September 21, 1814, and were under the command of Colonel Thomas Humphreys at Camp Dupont, Marcus Hook, until discharged December 6, 1814. The "Rangers", however, retained its organization as a militia company at the county seat for many years there- after. Isaac B. Medarv died on his farm in Doylestown township, January 27, 1853. He married, March 10, 1815, Rebecca Child, who was born in Plum- stead township, Bucks county, February 11, 1790, died at Jenkintown, Mont- gomery county, Pennsylvania, November 6, 1868. She was a daughter of Cephas and Agnes (Grier) Child, granddaughter of Cephas and Priscilla (Nay- lor) Child, great-granddaughter of Cephas and Mary (Atkinson) Child, and great-great-granddaughter of Henry Child, of a well-known Hertfordshire fam- ily, representatives of which were emigrants to America at different periods, from almost the earliest English colonization of America. Isaac B. and Rebec- ca (Child) Medary had nine children, three sons and six daughters, only two sons surviving him, Louis Cephas and John Ferdinand.
Henry Child, of Coleshill, later of Horring-Crook, parish of Amersham, County Hertford, England, purchased of William Penn by deeds of lease and release dated January 28 and 29, 1687, five hundred acres of land to be laid out in Pennsylvania, and in 1693, accompanied by his son Cephas, came to Pennsylvania to take up the land, which was laid out in what later became Plumstead township, on the road from Newtown to the Great Swamp, four miles north of Doylestown. Henry Child did not, however, take up his resi- dence on his land in what was then a wilderness, but leaving his son Cephas un- der the care of Friends in Philadelphia, where he learned the trade of a car- penter, he resided for a number of years in the province of Maryland, where his son later joined him. In 1715 he conveyed the land to his son and returned to Hertfordshire, where he resided until his death. Beside Cephas he had at least one other son and several daughters who are referred to in letters written to his son between the years 1729 and 1738. Henry Child was an early convert to the Society of Friends in which most of his American descendants have re- tained membership, many of them of the name being prominent in the affairs of Philadelphia, from Colonial times to the present day.
Cephas Child, only child of Henry Child who came to America, received from his father in 1715 a deed for the five hundred acres of land in Plumstead, and it is said walked from near Baltimore, Maryland, to Bucks county. On April 12, 1716, he married, at Middletown, Bucks county Monthly Meeting, Mary Atkinson, born at Scotforth, Lancashire, England, September 25, 1689, second child of John and Susanna (Hynde) Atkinson, who with their children, and the family of his brother, Christopher Atkinson, had sailed for Pennsyl- vania in the "Britanica", which arrived at Philadelphia, August 24, 1699. One- fifth of the passengers on this ill-fated ship died during the voyage, including Christopher Atkinson, his brother John and Susanna, the wife of the latter. The orphan children of John and Susanna Atkinson were taken in charge by
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their maternal aunts, Mary and Alice Hynde, who accompanied the family from England, and settled in Middletown, Bucks county.
Cephas Child, for a time after his marriage to Mary Atkinson in 1716, re- sided in Warminster township, Bucks county, but soon removed to his planta- tion in Plumstead, where he became a prominent and influential citizen. He was a member of Colonial Assembly from Bucks county for the sessions of 1747-48. He died in Plumstead, March, 1756, his wife Mary and four sons, Henry, Cephas, John and Isaac, surviving him. Five other sons had died in childhood, four of them being burned to death when his dwelling was destroyed by fire in 1723.
Cephas Child, son of Cephas and Mary Child, born January 18, 1727-28, in- herited the greater portion of his father's homestead in Plumstead, and lived there all his life, dying July 12, 1815, at the age of eighty-eight years. He mar- ried (first) April 16, 1751, Priscilla, daughter of Joseph Naylor, of Warring- ton, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, who died September 19, 1768. He married (second) Mary Cadwallader. By the first wife he had eight children and by the second, one.
Cephas Child, third child of Cephas and Priscilla (Naylor) Child, was born in Plumstead, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, April 10, 1755, died there prior to the execution of his father's will which bears date, April 26, 1815, and mentions the three children of his deceased son Cephas. Cephas Child married, in 1785, Agnes (Grier) Kennedy, widow of Major William Kennedy, who was killed at the capture of Moses Doan, the Tory outlaw, September 1, 1783. She was born in Plumstead or New Britain, Bucks county, in 1748, died March 21, 1812. She was a daughter of Matthew Grier, who with his brother John came from Carrick-fergus, province of Ulster, Ireland, about 1735, and settled in New Britain township, nearly opposite, across the Swamp Road, from the Child plantation in Plumstead. In 1744 Matthew Grier purchased a large tract of land in Plumstead, at Grier's Corner, as it is still known, on the Swamp Road, and sold his interest in the New Britain lands to his brother John. He died on his plantation; September 7, 1802, at the age of seventy-eight years, and was buried at Deep Run Church, of which he was one of the founders, and of which his nephew, Rev. James Grier, was many years pastor. He married Jean, daughter of James Caldwell, an adjoining landowner in Plumstead, who was also the father of Agnes, the wife of his brother, John Grier.
Matthew Grier, (1714-92) though over sixty years of age at the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, nevertheless enrolled himself as a member of Cap- tain William McCalla's company of Plumstead Associators, which was in- corporated into the Second Battalion of Bucks County Militia, of which Dr. John Beatty was colonel and Robert Shewell, of New Britain, lieutenant-colo- nel. On the roll of this company dated "August ye 21st, 1775" the name of "Matthew Grier, ab. 50" appears, showing that notwithstanding he was above the age at which military service was required or expected, he voluntarily en- rolled himself for service in defence of the rights of his adopted country. He was also elected to the first Provincial Assembly under the constitution of 1776 and served two terms therein. His wife Jean survived him and died Decem- ber 31, 1799, aged eighty-two years.
Cephas and Agnes (Grier) Child had three children: one son, Colonel Ce-
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phas Grier Child, (1793-1871) a veteran of the War of 1812, a noted engrav- er, and many years editor and proprietor of the Commercial List and Price Current, also of the North American and Daily Advertiser; and two daughters, Rebecca (Child) Medary, and Nancy (Child) Hughes, wife of Alexander Hughes, of New Albany, Indiana.
LOUIS CEPHAS MADEIRA, third child and eldest son of Isaac B. and Rebecca (Child) Madeira, was born at Doylestown, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, July 18, 1819, and was educated at the Doylestown Academy and private schools. He went to Philadelphia in 1836, and was for several years connected with the business department of the North American and Daily Advertiser. In 1846 he entered the shipping house of S. & W. Welsh, with which he was connected un- til 1859, when he founded the firm of Madeira & Cabada, which soon became one of the largest importers of sugar, molasses and other products of Cuba and other West Indian islands, and one of the leading mercantile firms of Philadel- phia. Mr. Madeira retired from the firm in 1871 and was appointed secretary and treasurer of the Philadelphia Warehouse Company, which position he re- signed in 1873 to become general agent of the American Steamship Line, ply- ing between Philadelphia and Liverpool. In 1874 he established an insurance agency, fire and marine, in which his two sons, Louis C. and Henry, were as- sociated with him, and was for many years prior to his death one of the best known and successful insurance men of Philadelphia. He died at his residence, 723 Pine Street, Philadelphia, April 3, 1896. He was one of the active mem- bers of the Philadelphia Board of Trade; a member and director of the Homeo- pathic Medical College; a director of the Insurance Company of North Amer- ica; a member of the Union League, the Missions for Seaman, the Union Benevolent Society, and known for his interest in benevolent enterprises. He was a member of the Committee of One Hundred, during the strife for munic- ipal reform in Philadelphia, and took an active interest in its work. He and three of his sons, Louis Childs, Henry and Percy Child Madeira, were mem- bers of the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution, all being admitted May 4, 1891 ; his eldest and only other son, Walter Colton Madeira, died in 1882. He married February 27, 1849, Adeline Laura Powell, who died sud- denly December 11, 1893. Both are buried at Woodland Cemetery. She was daughter of John and Catharine (Mills) Powell, both natives of England.
Louis Cephas Madeira was for over fifty years a member of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, becoming a member in 1843, was its secretary in 1856-58, and one of the most active of its members in the promotion and de- velopment of musical taste and talent in Philadelphia. He represented the So- ciety in the reception to Madame Sontag in 1852, going to Burlington, New Jersey, to receive the noted singer and escorted her and her party to Philadel- phia. He compiled the "Annals of Music in Philadelphia", and the History of the Musical Fund Society, published shortly after his death. The collec- tion of facts and illustrations and the compilation of this excellent history of music and the development of musical talent in Philadelphia, as well as of the Musical Fund Society, from its founding in 1820, was for years Mr. Mad- eira's favourite occupation.
LOUIS CHILDS MADEIRA, formerly known as Louis C. Madeira Jr., third child of Louis Cephas and Adeline Laura (Powell) Madeira, born in the city of
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Philadelphia, June 2, 1853, prepared for college at the Episcopal Academy, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1872, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. From 1872 to 1877 he was employed as a civil engineer on the Wilmington and Northern and Bound Brook railroads. He then became as- sociated with his father and brother in the firm of Louis C. Madeira & Sons, insurance agents, and continues an active member of the firm. In 1902 he be- came an officer of the incorporated company of Madeira, Hill & Company, min- ers and shippers of anthracite and bituminous coal, of which he is the present secretary. He is also a director and secretary of George B. Newton & Com- pany, Incorporated, shippers, and wholesale and retail dealers in coal; treasurer of the Saltsburg Coal Mining Company; treasurer of the Madeira Hill, Clark Coal Company; treasurer and director of the Thomas Colliery Company; a director of the Standard Ice Manufacturing Company, of the General Accident Insurance Company and the Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Madeira is a Republican in politics, and while taking an active interest in municipal affairs, serving as a member of the Committee of Seventy since 1905, has never sought or held public office other than that of a member of the School Board, on which he has served several years. He is also a trustee of the Protestant Episcopal Academy of Philadelphia.
Mr. Madeira is fond of outdoor sports. Was commodore of the Schuylkill Navy, 1890-91, a director of the Athletic Association of the University of Pennsylvania, 1890-1905; is a member of the Corinthian Yacht, Germantown Cricket and Philadelphia Barge clubs. He is also a member of the Rittenhouse and University clubs.
Louis Childs Madeira married, in Philadelphia, October 16, 1890, Marion Clark, and they reside on West School House Lane, Germantown. They have three children : Edward Walter Madeira, born March 23, 1892; Crawford Clark Madeira, born February 23, 1894; Elizabeth Madeira, born September 7, 1906.
DAVID CHAMBERS BOGGS
THOMAS BOGGS, the great-grandfather of David C. Boggs, was born in Glass- drummond, county Monaghan, Ireland, in the year 1722, where his parents had settled on their removal from Scotland several years previously. He married there Elizabeth Chambers, and they had six sons and two daughters; David C., William, Thomas, Elizabeth, John, Anna, James, Robert.
DAVID CHAMBERS BOGGS, first son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Chambers ) Boggs, born in Ireland in 1783, accompanied by three of his brothers, emigrated to Pennsylvania in the year 1799. The brothers settled in that part of Alle- gheny county now comprised in Beaver county, and David C. in what is now Plum township, Allegheny county, on the southeast banks of the Allegheny river. He was one of the pioneers of that section and purchasing large tracts of woodland near the site of Murraysville, gradually cleared out several fine farms.
He married, in 1806, Mary, daughter of Squire McKee, of near Murraysville, with whom he spent fifty years of wedded life, and by whom he had thirteen children, nine sons and four daughters, three of the former dying in infancy. The surviving sons filled high and honorable positions in the respective locali- ties in which they settled. James Boggs was a prominent lawyer of Clarion county, Pennsylvania; David Chanibers Boggs, still living in North Buffalo township, Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, filled the offices of register of wills and recorder of deeds, for Armstrong county, and was for years one of the most popular and influential Democratic leaders in the county; Hon. Jackson Boggs, born in 1818, was from 1874 to his death in 1879, president judge of Armstrong county.
CYRUS BOGGS, son of David Chambers and Mary (McKee) Boggs, was born in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, October 12, 1826. He studied law and was admitted to the Armstrong county bar, March 24, 1855, and practiced there for several years. He married, May 8, 1855, Mary Caroline Oswald, born at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, August 12, 1833, daughter of Benjamin and Sar- ah Ann (Brinham) Oswald, granddaughter of John and Eve (Garver) Oswald, great-granddaughter of John Philip and Margaret (Spielman) Oswald, and great-great-granddaughter of Bernard and Margaret Oswald, who emigrated from Germany, in 1749, and settled in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania.
John Philip Oswald, son of Bernard and Margaret Oswald, was born in Wur- temberg, Germany, in the year 1746, and came with his parents to Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, when a child. He died near Hagerstown, Maryland, September, 1799. He married, in Lancaster county, Margaret Spielman, also of German parentage, born October 20, 1742, died near Hagerstown, Maryland, April 17, 1825.
John Oswald, son of John Philip and Margaret (Spielman) Oswald, born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1769, removed with his parents to near Hagerstown, Maryland, and lived there until his death, February 17,
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1812. He married, September 21, 1801, Eve, daughter of Christian and Eliza- beth Garver, German Mennonites, who settled in Washington county, Mary- land, prior to 1790. Mrs. Eve Oswald died August 13, 1829.
Benjamin Oswald, son of John and Eve (Garver) Oswald, and father of Mary Caroline (Oswald) Boggs, was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, July 10, 1802. He married there, April 16, 1827, Sarah Ann Brinham, and soon after that date settled at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he was editor and proprietor of The Chambersburg Whig, a weekly newspaper of that day. In 1838 he removed to the borough of Kittanning, Armstrong county, on the east bank of the Alleghany river, forty-five miles above Pittsburgh, where he es- tablished a weekly newspaper called The Union Free Press, which is still in existence, being edited by his grandsons. Three of his sons, John, Benjamin and Randolph, were soldiers in the civil war, the latter being taken prisoner, was confined in the Confederate prison at Andersonville, and is supposed to have died there.
Sarah Ann (Brinham) Oswald, wife of Benjamin Oswald, was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1808, died at Kittanning, August 17, 1889, surviving her husband nearly thirty-five years, he having died at Kittanning, March 17, 1855. She was a daughter of John Brinham, born June 2, 1774, died March 17, 1855, and his wife, Mary (Hanna) Brinham, born near Hagerstown, Mary- land, April 15, 1786, died there April 21, 1869.
The Hanna family were like the Boggs, of sturdy Scotch-Irish stock, that were ever the vanguard of civilization in the settlement of our frontiers in Colonial days, and furnished the bone and sinew of the Patriot army in the trying days of the Revolution.
John Hanna, the great-grandfather of Mary (Hanna) Brinham, was one of the pioneer settlers on the Octarora in Chester and Lancaster counties, Penn- sylvania, and in 1743 obtained a patent for land located by him some years earlier, in West Nantmeal township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he died March 10, 1770. His wife Jane died there December, 1774.
William Hanna, son of John and Jane Hanna, born in West Nantmeal town- ship, Chester county, Pennsylvania, died at Beaver creek, Washington county, Maryland, about the year 1800.
John Hanna, father of Mary (Hanna) Brinham, and great-great-grandfather of David C. Boggs, was a son of William Hanna, and was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 26, 1748. On August 19, 1776, he was mustered into the service of the United States at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as a private in Captain John Paxton's company, Third Battalion, Lancaster County Militia. which on that date were "destined for the Camp in the Jerseys," he belonged to a delegation selected from three different companies, Ross's, Paxton's, and Johnson's in Colonel Thomas Porter's battalion, selected for this important ser- vice.
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