Colonial families of Philadelphia, Volume II, Part 63

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

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John P. Crozer was universally lamented as a model Christian gentleman and public benefactor ; the press and many associated bodies throughout the State gave expression to the common grief and regret at his loss.

Few men have given as conscientious a study on how to place their surplus wealth into channels where it might be the greatest means of uplifting and Chris- tianizing the human race. Wealth was never bestowed upon a more worthy steward as he always realized his responsibility as its possessor. He was a remarkable

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man in many ways ; having little opportunity in his youth for acquiring an educa- tion, by persistent application of his leisure hours to the reading of well selected books, he became one of the best informed men of his time on practical and humanitarian lines.

His wife was always a ready sympathizer and abettor in his many philanthropic schemes, and continued them after his death. She died August 7, 1882, at the age of eighty-two years, leaving a much cherished memory for her lovely char- acter and her countless benefactions. During the greater part of her life she was a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, but in January, 1852, with her daughter, Sallie, and her niece, Mary Lewis, was baptized and became a member of the Baptist church, with which her husband had been united from boyhood.

After the death of John P. Crozer, his cotton mills at Upland were divided among his children, Samuel A., the eldest son, taking Mill No. 2, and the other three sons, J. Lewis, George K. and Robert H. Crozer, taking charge of mills Nos. I and 3, which they operated under the firm name of J. P. Crozer's Sons.

Issue of John Price and Sallie (Knowles) Croser:

SAMUEL ALDRICH CROZER, b. Dec. 25, 1825; m. (first) Abigail Cheyney; m. (second) ~; of whom presently ;

Margaret Crozer, d. March, 1870; m. William Bucknell: Pearl Hall Library, at Crozer Theolog. Sem., was erected by him and endowed in memory of his wife; Elizabeth Crozer, m. Rev. Benjamin Griffith, D. D .;

J. Lewis Crozer, b. at West Branch, Delaware Co., Pa .; d. at Upland, Apr. 7, 1897; educated in Phila .; learned cotton manufacturing business with his father, and after his death was for some years senior member of firm of J. P. Crozer's Sons, in the conduct of Mills Nos. 1 and 3, at Upland; later retired from active busi- ness; was treas. of the Crozer Theo. Sem., from its institution, and contributed largely to its endowment; was also large contributor to support of Baptist Church, and to various philanthropic institutions; his will set apart $500,000 for erection and endowment of hospital for incurables, and $250,000 for free library in city of Chester; he was very public-spirited, but of retiring nature and habits; m. 1857, Mary A., dan. of Richard G. and Mary A. (Turey) Stotesbury, of Phila., and descendant of one of the oldest English families in America; they had no issue ;

Sallie K. Crozer, d. Aug., 1852:

James Crozer, d. Oct. 25, 1838;

GEORGE K. CROZER, b. at West Branch, Del. co., Pa., Nov. 12, 1839; of whom later; Robert H. Crozer, b. Crozerville, member of firm of J. P. Crozer's Sons; Emma Crozer, b. Crozerville, 1845.

SAMUEL ALDRICH CROZER, eldest son of John P. and Sallie ( Knowles) Crozer, was born at West Branch, Ashton township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, December 25, 1825, less than a year after his father had purchased the dilapidated old paper mill there and transferred his cotton manufacturing machinery to it, naming the locality West Branch, from its locality on the west branch of Chester creek. Here it was that his father laid the foundation of the large fortune he subsequently acquired.

Samuel A. Crozer received his primary education at the country schools of his native district, and on arriving at sufficient age was placed in a boarding school at Wilmington, Delaware, and later attended a similar institution in Philadelphia. His real education, however, that which fitted him to become an accomplished Christian gentleman, a practical and well equipped business man and an exemplary and useful, public-spirited citizen, he acquired in his own home. His mother was a cultured, refined and gentle woman, whose teachings exerted a lasting influence

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for good upon her children, and his father, though not liberally educated in his youth, was one of those thorough and practical students who devoted his spare time to the selection and study of instructive books, and was so thoroughly master of their contents and cognizant of the needs of a growing mind that he was of the utmost assistance in forming the education and founding the character of his sons.

In February, 1843, when Samuel A. Crozer was slightly over seventeen years of age, he was recalled from his boarding school to take charge of the financial and office department of his father's manufacturing business, which had by this time grown to large proportions, his father being confined to his bed by a fractured thigh, the result of an accident. This unexpected responsibility the son met with such ability that his father, on his recovery, continued him in absolute control of that branch of the business.

In August, of the same year, Delaware county was devasted by the memorable flood, which swept away many mills, mill-dams and other property, and Sam- uel A. Crozer was sent by his father to the West Branch mill to direct the operations of preserving all that was possible of the mill and its contents from destruction, and he continued at his post after more than half of the factory had been undermined and crumbled into the raging flood.

As before stated, in 1845, John P. Crozer purchased the old Chester mills, near Upland, and began the erection of his first large cotton factory there, afterwards known as Mill No. I. When the building was completed Samuel A. Crozer was entrusted by his father with the supervision of placing the new machinery, and when, in 1846, the mill was started up, he had entire control and direction of the factory, and throughout the diary of John P. Crozer, we find thankful mention of how much he relied upon and appreciated the advice and assistance of his son.

On arriving at his majority, or on January 1, 1847, Samuel A. Crozer was ad- mitted to partnership in his father's business, under the firm name of John P. Crozer & Son, which continued until the death of the father in 1866, when Samuel A. Crozer, in the division of his father's property took Factory No. 2, which he conducted on his own account until 1881, when his eldest son, John Price Crozer, was given an interest in the business and the firm name became Samuel A. Crozer & Son, under which it has since continued to conduct the business, established by John Price Crozer, Sr.

Besides the cotton manufacturing business in his native county, Samuel A. Crozer is identified largely with business interests elsewhere. He is one of the principal stockholders in the Crozer Steel & Iron Company, of Roanoke, Virginia, as well as holding large interests in the Upland Coal Company, of Elkhorn, West Virginia, in both of which he owns a controlling interest. He is also a large real estate owner in Roanoke, Virginia ; in the business part of the city of Chicago; in Delaware county, particularly in the city of Chester and the borough of Upland ; and also owns the Crozer Building on Chestnut street, Philadelphia.

Samuel A. Crozer has taken an active and prominent interest in religious, phil- anthopic and charitable work for many years. In 1863 he became president of the National Baptist Convention for Missionary Purposes, and has contributed liberally to the general charity and missionary funds of the Baptist Church. He was for over forty years one of the board of managers of the Training School for Feeble-minded Children, at Elwyn, Pennsylvania, and for several years president of the board, a position his father held at the time of his death. He has been

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president of the board of trustees of the Crozer Theological Seminary, since that institution was endowed by the Crozer family, in 1868. He is president of the Baptist Publication Society of Philadelphia, and has been for nearly a half century a member of the board of managers of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Philadel- phia. He has also frequently served on the managing boards of a number of other religious and philanthropic associations and institutions.

Mr. Crozer erected at his own cost the South Chester Baptist Church; the Leipersville Baptist Church, and the New Emanuel Baptist Church, at Fifteenth and Potter streets, Chester; the latter being erected as a memorial to his wife. He was a large contributor to the Chester Hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital, in Philadelphia : the Chester Free Library, and several similar institutions. Crozer Park, a tract of thirty-five acres was donated by him to the city of Chester.

Mr. Crozer is a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and of Dela- ware County Historical Society, and takes a lively interest in local history ; having delivered a number of addresses that have been valuable contributions to the local history of his native county. Among these are his address before the Delaware County Society at Upland, June 22, 1899, on "The Early Manufacture and Manu- facturers of Delaware County," and his historical address at the semi-centennial of Upland Baptist Church. He is an extensive traveller, having crossed the At- lantic eighty times and visited nearly every part of the inhabited globe.

Samuel A. Crozer married, June 14, 1854, at Lowell, Massachusetts, Abigail Cheyney, a native of Manchester, New Hampshire, and a descendant of the first Puritan settlers of that state. She was an accomplished linguist and was widely known for her proficiency in music. A number of her translations from German authors have been published and received a wide circulation. Among them was her translation of Otto Roquette's novel, "Conrad Hogen's Mistakes," which was widely read ; the proceeds from the sale of which she donated to the "Home for Destitute Children." Among her minor works was her translation of Paul Heyse's "La Rabbiata." For many years Mrs. Crozer conducted a singing school at Up- land, open to all the people of the village, which was a feature of the local life of the borough.

During the Civil War, when the main hall of the present Crozer Theological Seminary was used as a military hospital for wounded and disabled soldiers, Mrs. Crozer was president and directress of the Soldiers' Relief Association of Dela- ware county, and assisted materially in ministering to the thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers brought to the Hospital, at Upland. She died July 21, 1890, and he married (second)

Issue of Samuel A. and Abigail (Cheyney) Crozer:

John P. Crozer;

Samuel A. Crozer, Jr., d. at Seine Port, France;

Edward Crozer, grad. at Haverford Coll. and engaged in business with his father for short time; later engaged in breeding and raising of thorough-bred fox hounds and hunting horses, and became an authority on merits of these animals; was largely instrumental in organization of the Upland Hunt Club, in 1900, and was made master of hounds. He is also member of Radnor Hunt Club; Phila. Country Club; Phila. Gun Club; and many other social organizations. He pur- chased the old West property some years ago, where his grandfather was born, and has devoted considerable attention to its preservation and improvement, making it one of the handsome and attractive country seats in the neighborhood of Phila. He m. 1902, Florence, dau. of John M. Robinson, of Baltimore, Md .; Sallie K. Crozer, m. William H. Robinson:

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Margaret Crozer, m. Caleb Fox; Mary Crozer, m. Lewis R. Page.

GEORGE K. CROZER, son of John Price and Sallie (Knowles) Crozer, born at West Branch, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, November 12, 1839, received his preliminary education at the schools of Chester and vicinity, and preparing for college at the Chester Academy built and organized by his father, entered the College Department of the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1860. On leaving college he learned the cotton manufacturing business and later became a partner in the family firm of John P. Crozer & Sons, which continued until after his father's death in 1866, when the two firms were formed by the sons, that of Samuel A. Crozer, later Samuel A. Crozer & Son; and that of John P. Crozer's Sons, composed of three of the sons, J. Lewis, George K. and Robert H. Crozer, operated Mills No. 1 and No. 3, until the death of J. Lewis Crozer, the senior member of the firm, in 1897, when the company was dissolved, and George K. Crozer retired from the business so long conducted by the family.

George K. Crozer has been a member of the Upland Baptist Church, established by his father, since the early sixties, and has served on the various boards of man- agers of that denomination and as president of a number of them. He was one of the founders of Crozer Theological Seminary, and actively associated with the affairs of that institution since its organization. He was for several years a mem- ber of the Sabbath School Union, and one of the managers of the House of Refuge. During the Civil War, Mr. Crozer made a close study of military tactics and drilled a large number of men known as the Home Guards, most of whom eventually entered the United States Volunteer Service. In June, 1863, he took out a company from Upland for ninety days service, known as Company B, Forty-fifth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia, which was mustered into the service of the United States for the defence of the state.

Mr. Crozer has been a liberal contributor to the religious, charitable and phil- anthropic institutions and enterprises founded and fostered by the Crozer family, as well as to like enterprises in the city and elsewhere. He is a member of a num- ber of clubs and social organizations in Philadelphia and vicinity, and of the Penn- sylvania Society, Sons of the Revolution, and of the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

George K. Crozer married, December 14, 1865, Emma P., daughter of William T. and Anna (Graham) Snodgrass, of Philadelphia, by whom he had the follow- ing children.

Issue of George K. and Emma P. (Snodgrass) Crozer:

Anna G. Crozer;

Sara L. Crozer, m. Robert H. Page, of Phila., and had issue :

Frances Page; Robert H. Page, Jr .;

George Crozer Page; Ada M. C. Page.

Emma Crozer, m. Gamble Latrobe, of Baltimore, Md., and had issue: Charles H. Latrobe;

Gamble Latrobe, Jr.

George K. Crozer, Jr., m. Lydia Harper, dan. of Charles S. and Julia A. Harper. of Yonkers, N. Y.

COLKET FAMILY.

The earliest American ancestor of the Colket family, as the Pennsylvania branch of the family spell the name, was Edward Colcord, born in England in 1616 or 1617, came to America about 1633, and settled in Hampton, New Hamp- shire, where his son, Samuel Colcord, a representative in the Provincial Assembly of New Hampshire, in 1682, was born. Jonathan, son of Samuel and Mary (Ayer) Colcord, born May 4, 1684, was father of Edward Colcord, who, about the year 1750, married Jane Coffin, born at Dover, New Hampshire, March II, 1721 daughter of Tristram Coffin, Jr., by his wife, Jane Heard.

TRISTRAM COFFIN, the great-grandfather of Jane (Coffin) Colcord, was born in Brixton, Devonshire, England, where he was baptized March 11, 1609-10, and in 1642, with his wife and five children, accompanied his widowed mother and two sisters to New England, where he became one of the most distinguished men of his time. The Coffin family belonged to the Landed Gentry of England, and is supposed to have been of Norman origin, the first of the name of whom we have any record being Richard Coffin, who held commission in the army of William the Conqueror, and accompanied him to England in 1066, and was Lord of the Manor of Wigton, held by his descendants ever since, the present proprietor being a magistrate of Devon. The earliest ancestor, however, from whom the descent of Tristram Coffin, of Nantucket, can be traced with any degree of certainty, was Nicholas Coffin, of Brixton, Devonshire, whose will dated September 12, 1613, was proven November 3, 1613. This will names his wife, Joan; sons, Peter, Nich- olas, and John; daughter, Ann ; grandson, Tristram (the emigrant) ; and grand- daughter, Joan.

The will of Tristram Coffin, a brother of the above Nicholas, of Butlers, Parish of Brixton, Devonshire, dated November 16, 1601, and proven at Totnes, Devon, on October 16, 1602, gives legacies to Joan, Ann, Nicholas and John, children of Nicholas Coffin ; to Richard and Joan, children of Lional Coffyn; the children of Thomas Coffyn, without naming them; Philip Coffyn and his son, Tristram; and made Nicholas Coffin, son of Nicholas, executor.

PETER COFFIN, son of Nicholas, of Brixton, married Joan, daughter of Robert and Anna Kember, and his will, dated December 21, 1627, proved March 13, 1628, mentions : Wife, Joan ; sons, Tristam and John; and daughters, Joan, Deborah, Eunice and Mary ; and devises a tenement in Butlers, Parish of Brixton, called Silferhay. John Coffin, the younger son, was an officer in the army in the Civil War, and died of a mortal wound in Plymouth Fort. The two eldest daughters married and remained in England, and the two younger accompanied their mother and brother to New England in 1642; Eunice, becoming the wife of William But- ler, and Mary, the wife of Alexander Adams.

TRISTRAM COFFIN, son of Peter and Joan (Kember ) Coffin, of Brixton, Devon- shire, England, and the founder of the family in America, married Dionis, daugh- ter of Robert and Dionis Stevens, of Brixton, and five children were born to them there. At the age of thirty-two years, accompanied by his immediate family and his widowed mother and two younger sisters, he emigrated to New England. He

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settled first at Salisbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, where on March 15, 1642, he signed his name as "Tristram Coffyn, Commissioner of Salisbury." In the same year he removed from Salisbury to Pentucket, later Haverhill, and joined in the purchase of land from the Indians for that town, November 15, 1642. Early in 1649 he removed to Newbury, having for four years previously conducted a ferry across the river to that town. He returned to Salisbury in 1654-5.

Tristram Coffin was one of the company who, in 1659, purchased the island of Nantucket, and the following year, with his wife and four of his children, formed part of the company of adventurers who made their way to that island in an open boat, and established the first settlement there. He was one of the five proprietors of the island and built the first mill there. He was one of the first magistrates of Nantucket, and was commissioned Chief Magistrate of the colony, by Governor Lovelace, of New York, June 29, 1671, and was recommissioned, September 16, 1677, by Edmund Andross, "Seigneur Sausmarez, Lieutenant and Governor Gen- eral, under His Royal Highness, James, Duke of Yorke and Albany, &c., of all his Territories in America." Tristram Coffin was the leading spirit among the islanders of Nantucket, the richest of the proprietors, with the possible exception of his eldest son, Peter, and in the administration of his office of Chief Magis- trate, conducted the affairs of the infant colony with consummate skill and the strictest integrity and fairness ; his conduct of affairs, and especially his attitude toward the Indians, was in strong contrast to the rigid and often severe rule in Puritan New England. Benjamin Franklin Folger says of him: "The Christian Charity which he exhibited and which he practically illustrated in all the varied circumstances and conditions of that infant Colony, is analogous to that which subsequently distinguished the founder of Pennsylvania, so that the spirit of the one seemed to be but the counterpart of the other."

Tristram Coffin died at Nantucket, October 2 or 3, 1681. His mother, Joan Coffin, died in Boston, May 30, 1661, at the age of seventy-seven years.

PETER COFFIN, eldest son of Tristram and Dionis (Stevens) Coffin, was bap- tized at Brixton, Devonshire, England, July 18, 1630, and died at Exeter, New Hampshire, May 21, 1715. He accompanied his father to Nantucket in 1660, but stayed but a short time there, locating for a time in Boston, but returning to Nantucket, was made Assistant Magistrate and had large possessions there. He, however, removed in a few years to Dover, New Hampshire, where he was made a freeman, May 23, 1666. He was a representative in the Provincial Legislature, 1672-3, and again in 1679, and was a Lieutenant of militia in King Philip's War in 1675. He was a large mill owner and merchant at Dover, where his house and mill were burned by the Indians. Peter Coffin removed to Exeter, New Hamp- shire, in 1690, and from 1692 until his death in 1715, was successively Associate and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and was also for several years a mem- ber of the Governor's Council.

He married Abigail, daughter of Edward and Catharine (Reynolds) Starbuck, of Dover, New Hampshire. Edward Starbuck, born in Derbyshire, England, in 1605, came to New England at about the same date as the Coffin family and locat- ed in Dover, New Hampshire, where he received a grant of forty acres of land, June 30, 1643, acquiring later considerable other lands, and became a man of prominence and substance. He was a Deputy of the General Court, 1643 and

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1646, and an elder of the church. He was one of the Nantucket purchasers in 1659, and a magistrate there. He died February 4, 1691.

TRISTRAM COFFIN, son of Hon. Peter Coffin, by his wife, Abigail Starbuck, born July 18, 1665, married Deborah, a daughter of Edward and Ann Colcord, of Hampton, New Hampshire, the immigrant ancestor of the Colcord family, men- tioned at the opening of this narrative. Tristram Coffin lived all his adult life at Exeter, New Hampshire, where he died January 23, 1717.

TRISTRAM COFFIN, JR., son of Tristram and Deborah (Colcord) Coffin, born at Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1691, died at Dover, June 21, 1761. He married (first) Jane, daughter of John and Jane (Cole) Heard, and (second) Hannah Smith. His daughter, Jane Coffin, by his first wife, Jane Heard, born March II, 1722, married Edward Colcord. Tristram Coffin was commissioned Captain of a Troop of Horse, November 6, 1732.

PETER COLCORD, son of Edward and Jane (Coffin) Colcord, born at New Mar- ket, New Hampshire, March 7, 1758, died at Epping, New Hampshire, January 15, 1836. He was a farmer and married Phoebe, a daughter of James and Phœbe ( Broughton ) Hamilton, and had three children : Pamela Colcord, born August I, 1801, died at Epping, August 29, 1865, unmarried; Tristram Coffin Colcord, of whom presently ; and Mary Dow Colcord, born at Epping, February 5, 1812, died at Exeter, January 15, 1883, unmarried.

TRISTRAM COFFIN COLKET, as he spelled his name after locating in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was born in Epping, New Hampshire, October 15, 1809, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 5, 1883. He came to Philadelphia when a young man and engaged in business there. Though possessed of little or no capital on his arrival in this city, he, by his own exertions and the exercise of an almost prophetic foresight in business matters, amassed a large fortune. Prior to his death he was interested in and filled various official positions for no less than thirty-eight corporations. Among others, he was a director of the Central Rail- road of New Jersey, the Morris Canal Company, the Tioga Land and Improve- ment Company, the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company, the Citizens' Passen- ger Railway Company, the Penn Township Bank, and Northern Saving Fund; and President of the Philadelphia City Passenger Railway Company, Chestnut Hill Railroad Company, the Philadelphia and Norristown Railroad Company, the Long Island Railroad Company, and the Tremont Coal Company.

He married, March 21, 1839, Mary Pennypacker Walker, born at "Rehobeth Spring," long the seat of her family in Tredyffrin township, Chester county, Penn- sylvania, September 3, 1819, died in Philadelphia, November 15, 1889. She was a daughter of William and Sarah (Pennypacker) Walker, of Tredyffrin, and of a family, long prominent residents of the Chester Valley.

LEWIS WALKER, the immigrant ancestor of the Walker family of the Chester Valley, came from Merionethshire, Wales, in 1687, and settled first in Radnor township, purchasing three hundred acres there of David Evans, and taking up two hundred acres additional adjoining his purchase. He married at Haverford Meeting, April 22, 1693, Mary Morris, also a native of Wales, who had crossed the ocean with him. After residing at Radnor for several years, he took up a large tract of land in the Great Valley of Chester county, and removed there in 1705. He named his plantation "Rehobeth," and built a house thereon, in which the early Friends' Meetings in that section were held under dispensation from

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Colonial families of Philadelphia, Volume II, Part 63

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