Colonial families of Philadelphia, Volume II, Part 51

Author: Jordan, John Woolf, 1840-1921, ed
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: New York : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 978

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As the United States was at peace for many years after 1815, the navy was but little engaged except in cruising, and Thomas Harris pursued his profession a number of years on shore, being on leave of absence. In 1831 he was called upon

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to extract a ball which President Andrew Jackson had received in 1806, in a duel with Charles Dickinson. He was on several occasions assigned to special duty by the Navy Department, but his home remained in Philadelphia. He lived in his own house at the northwest corner of Spruce and Ninth streets until 1844, when he was ordered to Washington as Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, which position he held till he was retired from the service, 1857, on account of age and physical disability. He then returned to Philadelphia, and spent the rest of his life there.

His first wife, Jane, whom he married, January, 1820, was a daughter of Major Samuel Hodgdon, of Philadelphia, who was an officer of the United States Army, 1776-1800. He was Quartermaster-General of General St. Clair's Army in the campaign against the Miami Indians, 1791. In 1813 he was president of the Pennsylvania Company for Insurance on Lives and Granting Annuities in Phila- delphia. His wife was Mary Hodge, of Philadelphia. Jane Hodgdon, who was the mother of all the children of Thomas Harris, died July 21, 1834.

His second wife, Esther White, born 1803, was a daughter of Major Samuel Macpherson, of the Revolutionary Army, and Elizabeth, daughter of William White, first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania. She died May 18, 1855-

JOHN HARRIS entered the United States Marine Service during the second war with Great Britain, his commission as Lieutenant bearing date April 23, 1814. He served during the summer of that year, in the force which opposed the British advance on Washington. In May, 1815, he sailed under Commodore Decatur in the expedition which punished the Barbary piratical powers, and was present in the action which resulted in the capture of the Algerian flagship, "Mashouda," by the United States frigate, "Guerrière." He was in active sea service a large part of the next twenty years, visiting in that time most parts of the world in which the United States then maintained a fleet. In 1836 he was engaged in the Creek War, Alabama, and in the Seminole War, Florida, and received a brevet as Major "for gallantry and good conduct in that war, particularly in the affair of Hatchee Lustee." He was in command of the battalion of marines stationed at Alvarado, near Vera Cruz, Mexico, during the latter part of the Mexican War, and January 7, 1859, he was appointed Colonel-Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, which position he held till his death.

His first wife, Mary, whom he married October 28, 1819, was a daughter of Colonel Thomas Forster and Sarah Montgomery. She was born August 16, 1795, and died September 22, 1820. His second wife, Mary Gilliat, was the daughter of William Gray, who was many years British Consul at Norfolk, Virginia. She was born 1811, married, October, 1845, and died February 16, 1883.

WILLIAM HARRIS was educated at Brandywine Academy, and in 1812 received the degree of M. D. from University of Pennsylvania. He practiced medicine in Chester county until 1834, when he removed to Philadelphia, and spent the rest of his life there, living most of the time in his house at the southeast corner of Twelfth and Walnut streets. He was a successful physician, a writer on medical subjects, and a lecturer in a summer school of medicine.

His wife, Elizabeth Matilda Patterson, born February 13, 1794, married April 20, 1820, died July 18, 1880, was the youngest daughter of Dr. Robert Patterson, of Philadelphia, and Amy Hunter Ewing. Dr. Patterson was born in Ireland,

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May 30, 1743, emigrated to America 1768, was a surgeon in the Revolutionary Army, 1776-8; professor of mathematics, University of Pennsylvania, 1779-1814, and director of the United States Mint, 1805-24, in which year he died.

STEPHEN HARRIS was educated at Chester County Academy, and at the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated 1819. He spent most of his life in the practice of his profession, while living at the Harris homestead, Chester Valley, near Philadelphia, to which he succeeded by purchase from his brother, John Harris. Never having been strong, his health succombed to the hardships of a country practice, and partly on that account, and partly to have better facilities for the education of his children, he removed to Philadelphia in 1850; but died the next year. He was the leading man in his section of the country, a physician and surgeon of excellent ability, and a fore- inost man in all that tended to the advance of the community in which he lived. An elder in the Presbyterian church, as was his father and a number of the other members of his family, he was the leader in the movement to build, 1839, the church which is now called the Frazer Church, after his wife's family, and was much the largest contributor. His services in this respect were recognized by the congregation, when they built the present house of worship, 1876, by the erection of a memorial window therein.

His wife, Marianne, born April 2, 1805, died March 12, 1890, was a daughter of Joseph Smith and Mary Frazer.

Joseph Smith's father was Colonel Robert Smith, of the Revolution, and his grandparents were John and Susanna Smith.

John Smith's father, John Smith, was born about 1655. He was of the Scottish family of Macdonald, who are descended from Somerlett, Lord of Argyle, who married Ragnhildis, daughter of Olave the Swarthy, 1140, and died 1164. His grandson, Donald Mac Donald, of Islay and South Kintyre, married a daughter of William the Steward, who was ancestor of the Stuart Kings of Scotland and Eng- land. From this marriage the present family of Macdonald is descended.

The islands of Islay and Kintyre approach the Irish coast very nearly, less than fifteen miles of water separating the latter island from Antrim, and intercourse across the narrow channel has been very frequent from remote times.

In 1400, John Mor (Big John), second son of the head of the clan Donald, married Marjory Bisset, heiress of "the Glens," Antrim, Ireland, and the clan thus obtained a permanent footing there. They gradually strengthened their hold in Ireland, though with varying fortunes, and Sorley Buy Macdonald, in the end of the sixteenth century, closed his long quarrels with other neighboring chieftains, receiving four districts in permanence. His eldest son, Sir James Mac Sorley Buy, known as Mac Donnell of Dunluce, was a strenuous supporter of James VI., of Scotland, upon his accession to the throne of England, 1603.

The branch of the Macdonald family to which John Smith belonged, removed during the seventeenth century, from Antrim, journeying about sixty miles south- westward, into county Monaghan, in which county there is still a village named Smithborough, on the line of the Ulster Canal.

One of the family, apparently a farmer with some skill in farriery, replaced for King William III. a shoe which had been cast by his horse about the time of the battle of the Boyne, July 1, 1690. The action was of sufficient importance to give the man a surname, "the Smith," which, as names were frequently given in those

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days on account of some personal peculiarity or from some incident in a man's history, became in time adopted as the name of the family. This was apparently the action of the John Smith, born about 1655, from whom the family of Smith, of which we are speaking, has descended. John Smith had issue :

JOHN SMITH, b. 1686; m. 1713; d. Dec. 19, 1765;

MARY SMITH, m. 1728;

JOSEPH SMITH, b. 1704; m. 1730; d. May 27, 1760.

JOHN SMITH emigrated, 1720, went to Upper Uwchlan township, Chester coun- ty, Pennsylvania, where he bought a good farm and spent the remainder of his life. He and his wife, Susanna, born 1691, died December 24, 1767, are buried at Brandywine Manor Presbyterian Church.

MARY SMITH married William Fulton about 1728. They were grandparents of Robert Fulton, the inventor, who originated steamboat navigation.

JOSEPH SMITH and his wife, Isabel, lived in Oxford, Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, about twenty-five miles southwest of John's home.

John Smith and Susanna had fifteen children, of whom nine reached maturity and married. The fourth and fifth of these children were:

ROBERT SMITH, b. 1720; m. Dec. 20, 1758; d. Dec., 1803;

ISAAC SMITH, b. 1739; m. Dec., 1763; d. Aug. 20, 1807.

ROBERT SMITH, who was born at sea on the original journey to America, spent his life at Uwchlan township, where he had two fine farms. In August, 1775, he was thanked by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania for a model of a machine to be used in handling the chevaux de frise, which were to be sunk in the Delaware River as a part of the defence of the city of Philadelphia, and in June, 1776, he was instructed to take charge of and sink the proposed obstructions, which work continued nearly a year, during which time the Committee of Safety ordered, January, 1777, that "the Committee appointed to view Liberty Island repair as soon as the season will permit with Robert Smith, John McNeal and David Rittenhouse, and lay out such works as they shall think sufficient." Robert Smith was also a member of the Constitutional Convention, which, September 28, 1776, adopted the first State Constitution of Pennsylvania. March 12, 1777, he was appointed by the Supreme Executive Council, Lieutenant of Chester coun- ty, which county had been officially reported, 1770, to contain about one-seventh of the taxable persons in Pennsylvania, while Philadelphia contained two-sevenths. This office, to which was affixed the rank of Colonel, gave him the charge of rais- ing and of preparing in every way the troops to take the field, they remaining under his control until called into active service. He held this responsible position till March 21, 1786, when he retired, with a balance of money remaining due him, which the state paid. He was, during this period, also Sheriff of Chester county, elected 1777-8. In October, 1783, he was one of two persons chosen at the popular election for this office, but the Governor in whom, at that time, was vested the final choice, appointed the other candidate, William Gibbon. He served one term in the State Legislature, 1785, and was a trustee of the State Loan Office, whose function it was to manage the indebtedness of the state.

His wife, Margaret, born November 1, 1735, died March 18, 1822, was a daugh- ter of John Vaughan, of Uwchlan township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and

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his wife, Emma Parry. John Vaughan was born in Wales, June 5, 1690, and died May 24, 1750. Emma Parry, born 1700, died 1791, was a daughter of Rowland Parry, of Haverford township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, born about 1665, died about 1737.

ISAAC SMITH graduated at Princeton, A. B., 1755, and A. M., 1758. He then studied medicine and was graduated M. D., 1762, University of Pennsylvania. He settled in Trenton, where he married, 1763, and where he spent the rest of his life. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he was Colonel of the First Regiment of Hunterdon county, New Jersey. Upon his election by the Legisla- ture of New Jersey, February, 1777, as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, of which the other members were Robert Morris, Chief Justice, and John Cleves Symmes, Associate Justice, he left the military service. He con- tinued to sit in this court twenty-eight years-a longer term than the position has been held by any other person. He was also a Judge of United States District Court, which had admiralty jurisdiction. After his retirement from the bench he became first president of the Trenton Banking Company, which office he held until his death. He was a member of Congress, 1796. In 1797 he was appointed by President Washington, Commissioner to treat with the Seneca Indians, with whom he negotiated a treaty. He married Mary Pennington, who died 1801.

Robert Smith and Margaret Vaughan had eleven children. The third, sixth and eighth of these children were :

JOHN SMITH, b. April 3, 1762; m. Dec. 23, 1790; d. April 2, 1815; JONATHAN SMITH, b. Aug. 2, 1767; m. Oct. 16, 1794; d. Nov. 20, 1839; JOSEPH SMITH, b. Sept. 24, 1770; m. Feb. 27, 1800; d. Dec. 18, 1845.

JOHN SMITH was an iron manufacturer, living at Joanna Furnace, Berks coun- ty, and having an interest in several other iron industries. He was a man of con- siderable fortune and influence. His wife, Elizabeth, born December 19, 1771, died March 23, 1835, was eldest daughter of Thomas Bull, who was Lieutenant- Colonel in the Revolution, and his wife, Ann Hunter.

JONATHAN SMITH was, in his early life, some years engaged in the county offices of Chester county, at West Chester. He removed to Philadelphia, 1792, and for thirty years was a bank officer, most of the time cashier of Bank of Penn- sylvania, of United States Bank, and upon its discontinuance, cashier of the Me- chanics Bank. In 1825 he became interested in the project of establishing the Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Company, of which he was appointed secretary when it commenced to do business, April, 1825. He continued as its chief execu- tive officer ten years, when he was elected its president, which position he held- during the rest of his life.

His wife, Mary Ann, born February 4, 1774, died February 9, 1845, was a daughter of Persifor Frazer and Mary Worrall Taylor. Jonathan Smith lived where the office of the Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Company now is, on Walnut street, above Fifth street.

JOSEPH SMITH was a merchant. In his early life he was a member of the ex- pedition of which William Irvine, Andrew Ellicott and Albert Gallatin were com- missioners. They were appointed to lay out the town of Erie, and to commence the development of the northwest corner of the state, then recently purchased from the general government. The expedition started 1794, but did its chief work

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in 1795. After his return, he established himself in business in Philadelphia, 1796, at first as an iron merchant, being agent for the sale of the products of his brother John's Joanna Furnace. Later he became a shipping merchant, trading with India and China for silks, etc., with Ireland for linen goods, and with Ger- many. His store was on the northeast corner of the Chestnut Street Wharf. He lived on the north side of Walnut street, one door above the corner of Third street. He was interested in the business projects of his cousin, Robert Fulton, then de- veloping the steamboat business of the Delaware River, and was part owner of the "Delaware," one of Fulton's steamboats, built, 1816, to run from Philadelphia to New Castle, Delaware. It there made connection with a stage line to Elkton, Maryland, whence the steamboat, "Chesapeake," continued the route to Baltimore. His enterprises were prosperous until the general collapse of business after the close of the war with Great Britain, when his business was wound up, and he retired, March, 1824, to his home near Frazer, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he spent most of the rest of his life.

His wife, Mary Frazer, born January 14, 1780, died May 23, 1862, was a sister of Mrs. Jonathan Smith. The parents of these sisters were Persifor Frazer and Mary Worrall Taylor. Persifor Frazer was a grandson of Persifor Frazer, born about 1667, died about 1740. The first Persifor Frazer was a member of the Fraser clan of Scotland, and has been conjectured to have been Alexander Fraser, eldest son of Thomas, of Beaufort, twelfth Lord Fraser, of whom history notes that in 1689 he had slain a piper at a feast at his father's castle for some words in a song which Alexander considered as reflecting on himself.

Alexander certainly disappeared immediately, and was never heard of again. An elaborate attempt, which failed, was made within a few years by a Welsh claimant, to prove to the English House of Lords that he was a descendant of Alexander Fraser, and entitled to hold the estate and its dignities; and Persifor Frazer, grandson of the second Persifor, persuaded himself, after much study, that Alexander reappeared in the first Persifor, who had taken a new name. There were reasons for his continued disappearance, and for his failure to assert his claims. He would have had to answer for the piper's death, and his younger brother, Simon Fraser, had become thirteenth Lord Lovat, and would doubtless have defended his possession by any means which he might have thought neces- sary. Be that as it may, the first Persifor Frazer, who had attached himself to the cause of William III. and gone to Ireland in 1690, lived from 1690 in the neighborhood of Glasslough, townland of Tonyhannigin, county of Monaghan, Ireland, probably on an estate which he leased from the Leslies, who have owned it down to the present time.

He married, about 1700, Margaret Carlton, and had seven children, of whom the fifth was John Frazer, born August 8, 1709, died Setember 7, 1765. He mar- ried, June 16, 1735, Mary, born February 10, 1713, died July 5, 1764, eldest daugh- ter of Robert Smith, born September 5, 1678, married about 1712, and died 1757, and Mary Douglas. He lived at Derry Hall, county Monaghan, Ireland, and was a well-to-do man with a family of seven daughters, who seem to have been of the gentry of the neighborhood. John Frazer and Mary Smith emigrated immediately after their marriage to Pennsylvania, sailing June 28, 1735, and arriving at Phila- delphia, September 28, 1735. Their first home in Pennsylvania was at Newtown, Delaware county, but he soon removed to Philadelphia, where he lived on Society

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Hill, below the mouth of Dock Creek. He was a merchant and was licensed as an Indian trader. His trade was largely to the West Indies, and he was interested in the vessels as well as in their cargoes. He and his wife both died in Philadelphia.

PERSIFOR FRAZER, born August 9, 1736, married Mary Worrall Taylor, October 2, 1766, died April 24, 1792, was only son of John and Mary (Smith) Frazer, who had ten children, seven of whom died at an early age.

Persifor Frazer received a good education in Philadelphia, and in his early life was interested in his father's trading ventures to the West Indies. One of these ventures concerned the ship, "Ranger," which, having taken a cargo from Phila- delphia to Charleston, South Carolina, late in 1763, left there for the West Indies with Robert Frazer-Persifor's next younger brother-on board as supercargo. The vessel was never heard of again, and must have foundered on the way to St. Kitts, Barbadoes. Persifor's father and mother dying soon after. Persifor, after settling the accounts of the "Ranger," went to Chester county, where he became partner in the firm of Jonathan Vaughan & Company, manufacturing iron at Deep Creek furnace, Worcester county, Maryland. Frazer had charge of the store attached to that enterprise. He also became interested in the iron works of John Taylor, at Sarum Forge, whose daughter, Mary, he married. This connection with the work of making iron continued throughout his life. His life went on quietly and prosperously during the first ten years of his married life, caring for his iron interests and the large farming interests of his wife. In January, 1765, he was appointed from Philadelphia a delegate to a Provincial Convention, among whose resolutions was one recommending the passage of a law forbidding the im- portation of slaves into the provinces. He was also a signer of the Non-importa- tion Resolutions of October 25, 1765, of which the original copy is in possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. In 1744, when the first Congress re- solved that no more English goods should be imported and that no exportations to England should be made after December, 1776, unless the obnoxious laws re- lating to the American colonies should before that date be repealed, the Congress being without means to enforce the resolutions, popular meetings were held every- where to ratify and carry into execution the recommendations it had made.

Persifor Frazer was one of the Chester county committee, appointed December 20, 1774. This committee was authorized "to be and continue from this time until one month after the rising of the next Continental Congress, with full power to transact such business and enter into such associations as to them shall appear expedient." The committee advised that "a Provincial Convention shall be called to take into consideration the present unhappy condition of public affairs," and such convention assembled in Philadelphia, January 23, 1775. Persifor Frazer was a delegate to this convention.

He appears frequently in the reports of meetings during this time. January 5, 1776, when the Fourth Battalion was organized, he was named at the head of the list of captains from Chester county, and was appointed eighth in rank. He served at the battle of Long Island, and was afterward transferred to General Gates's army at Ticonderoga. He continued in service, being promoted to be Lieutenant- Colonel of the Fifth Battalion, March 12, 1777, serving during that summer in New Jersey, and being with the army at Brandywine in September. After the battle he and Major Harper were captured by the British, and were confined in Philadelphia till the following March, 1778. He spent that summer in the army

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in New Jersey, being in the action at Monmouth Court House. In October he re- signed his commission and returned home, feeling that he had been treated un- justly, some of his junior officers having been promoted ahead of him. March 22, 1781, he was appointed County Treasurer, but as he was elected to the Pennsyl- vania Legislature in 1781-82-84, he did not continue to hold the Treasurer's office. In 1785, Colonels Bayard Smith and Frazer were appointed by the Supreme Exec- utive Council, commissioners to Wyoming, where serious disturbances had been caused by the conflicting claims to jurisdiction made by the States of Connecticut and Pennsylvania, each claiming it as a part of its own territory. April 7, 1786, the General Assembly elected Persifor Frazer as Register of Wills and Recorder of Deeds for Chester county, to which office he was reappointed September 4, 1790. He held these offices till his death.

Persifor Frazer's wife, Mary Worrall Taylor, was a great-great-grandchild of John Taylor, born in Wiltshire, England, about 1625, where they are said to have been people of prominence. He came to Pennsylvania apparently before Penn's first visit in 1682, as he was engaged in surveying in Sussex county, Delaware, 1679. In 1684 he came to Philadelphia, with his wife, Hannah, and three children, bearing instructions from Thomas Callowhill, father of William Penn's second wife, relative to laying out five thousand five hundred acres of land in Pennsyl- vania for him. These instructions, which are in considerable detail, are still in possession of the family. On his arrival he joined his relative, Christopher Tay- lor, who lived on Tinicum Island, from whom he leased some land, but he soon died, perhaps from malarial fever contracted there. He had, however, removed, in 1685, to land which he had bought near Glen Riddle, in Delaware county, Penn- sylvania. The date of his wife's death is not known. It is probable that she did not long survive the removal to Delaware county. The issue of this marriage was :

Elizabeth Taylor, b. 1660; m. March 11, 1686; d. 1722;

JACOB TAYLOR, b. 1673, d. unm., March 2, 1746;

ISAAC TAYLOR, b. 1674; m. Jan., 1695; d. May, 1728.

JACOB TAYLOR is supposed to have received his early education in Christopher Taylor's school. At sixteen he was engaged in the office of Thomas Holme, Sur- veyor General. His own occupation was partly that of a schoolmaster. He is said to have had a school in Abington, now Montgomery county, 1701, and Gen- eral Davis, in his "History of Bucks County," says that he taught an academy in Philadelphia in 1738, and he elsewhere speaks of his "celebrated classical school" in Philadelphia. Such academies, at that time, marked the highest grade to which education in Pennsylvania and the adjoining provinces had reached, and it is certain from much evidence, that Jacob Taylor was one of the most learned men of the state.

In May, 1702, James Logan, Secretary of the Province, speaks of Jacob Taylor as being connected with the surveys of his land which the proprietor was then pushing, and speaks also of an almanac which he has just published. Edward Pennington, second Surveyor General of the Province, died January 10, 1702, and upon his death Jacob Taylor was put in charge of the land office, and was com- missioned Surveyor General, March 20, 1706. There are numerous records of his work in this position, which he held during the greater part of his life. De- cember 14. 1719, Mayor William Fishbourne and Alderman Hill, in conjunction

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Colonial families of Philadelphia, Volume II, Part 51

Author: Jordan, John Woolf, 1840-1921, ed Publication date: 1911 Publisher: New York : Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 978

Author: Jordan, John Woolf, 1840-1921, ed
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: New York : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 978