Colonial families of Philadelphia, Volume II, Part 77

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

USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Colonial families of Philadelphia, Volume II > Part 77

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Children of William Lukens Elkins, Jr., by his wife, Kate Felton:

Felton Broomall Elkins, b. March 23, 1889;

Marie Louise Broomall Elkins, b. Aug. 24, 1892.

MOON FAMILY.

The Moon family long resident in and about Bristol, England, were among the early converts to the principles of the Society of Friends. John Moone (as the name is universally spelled on the early English and American records), was mar- ried at a Friends Meeting in Bristol, June 17, 1666, to Sarah Snead, and on the records of that meeting is recorded the births of four of their children, Joseph, Sarah, John and Elizabeth, the last on April 22, 1676. The names of others of the tamily also appear on the records of Bristol Meeting at these and succeeding dates. John Moone came to Philadelphia with his wife and children about 1682, and was a member of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, a Justice of the Peace, and member of Provincial Assembly. He removed to Dedford township, Gloucester county, New Jersey, where he died leaving a will dated October 8, 1715, which mentions his home farm on Mantoes Creek; children, Joseph (absent out of the province), John, Elizabeth Gibson, Thomas, Edward and Charles.

Another John Moone, a member of the Friends Meeting at Horslydown, or Southwark, England, appeared before that Meeting, September 17, 1684, and requested a certificate to Pennsylvania, which was granted and signed by the Meeting. The records of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting show that the other John Moone was active in its affairs before this date, making it clear that he was a differ- ent individual. We have no further record of the Southwark John Moone.

JAMES MOONE, the first American ancestor of the subject of this sketch, came to Pennsylvania from Bristol, England, at about the same date that John Moone, first above mentioned appears in Philadelphia, and located near the falls of the Delaware in Bucks county. He had married at Bristol, England, about 1663, Joan Burgess, and was accompanied to America by several children, of nearly adult age. When he purchased a tract of land in Falls township in 1695, his son, James Moone, Jr., was named as one of the grantees, the title to vest in him when he arrived at the age of twenty-one years.

There is little doubt that John Moone, of Philadelphia, was a brother of James, of Bucks, they were both witnesses to the will of Joseph Siddal, of Bucks county, which was probated in Philadelphia, May 5, 1704.

James Moone was actively associated with the affairs of Bucks county, his name frequently appearing on the early records of the courts of that county after 1685, as a member of Grand and Petit Juries, and as serving in various capacities by appointment of the court, up to the time of his decease in September, 1713.

Joan Burgess, wife of James Moone, received a legacy from her parents or other relatives in England in 1695, and obtained a certificate from the Bucks County Court on December 11, 1695, to enable her to receive it, the court entry of which is as follows :

"A Certificate of Joan, the wife of James Moone, being alive Signed in Court shee being then there present."

She survived her husband over a quarter of century, dying December, 1739, in her ninetieth year, at the home of her son, Roger, the old home plantation in Falls, the title of which had been transferred from James, Jr., to his father and by the latter to Roger in 1706.

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The children of James and Joan (Burgess) Moone were Sarah, Jasper, James, Roger, Jonas, and Mary. Jasper, the eldest, located in New Jersey and died in Burlington county, letters of administration being granted to his widow, Susannah, April 29, 1728; the records of that county show that he was resident there as early as 1704. James, Roger and Jonas Moon remained in Bucks county, and have left descendants. James was Deputy Sheriff of the county in 1714.

ROGER MOON, son of James and Joan ( Burgess ) Moone, was born in England in or about the year 1679. He received, as above stated, a deed from his parents in 1706 for the plantation of one hundred and twenty-five acres in Falls township, about one and a half miles from the present borough of Morrisville, where he spent his whole adult life, dying there February 16, 1759. He was a consistent member of Falls Monthly Meeting of Friends and took little part in public affairs. His descendants take pride in the fact that he lived for seventy years in one place, and "had never discharged a gun or quarrelled with any man."

Roger Moon married (first), October 23, 1708, Ann Nutt, like himself a native of England, and had by her seven children, James, John, Elizabeth, Roger, Isaac, William and Ann. John died in 1732 at the age of fifteen, and Isaac in 1748, at the age of twenty-four. James, the eldest son, located in Middletown, and was the pioneer of the family in the nursery business, still extensively carried on by his descendants in Fall, Lower Makefield and Middletown townships.

Roger Moon married (second), in April, 1734, Elizabeth Price, daughter of Reese and Mary Price, and of Welsh ancestry. They had seven children, John, Mary, Sarah, Timothy, Samuel, Jasper and Hannah. Samuel was a chair-maker and resided in Fallsington until his death, July 5, 1813, at the age of seventy-seven years. Jasper was a soldier in the Bucks County Battalion, commanded by Colo- nel John Keller, in the company of Captain Robert Patterson, and saw consider- able active service in the Revolutionary War.

JOHN MOON, eldest son of Roger Moon, by his second wife, Elizabeth Price, was born on the old homestead in Falls township, February 28, 1734-35, and died in the same township, January 6. 1788. No record appearing of his purchase of real estate it is presumed that he continued to reside on the homestead in Falls until his death. Letters of administration were granted on his estate to his widow. Margaret, his brother, Samuel, being one of her sureties. His wife, Margaret, was not a member of the Society of Friends, and at a Monthly Meeting, held at Falls, May 6, 1761, "John Moon having some time since went out in his marriage with a woman that was not of our society notwithstanding he was precautioned," a committee is appointed to prepare a testimony against him. This committee pro- duced their "testimony," July 1, 1761. when it was read approved and signed and John Nutt was appointed to deliver a copy thereof to the said John Moon, and acquaint him with his right of appeal. He appears to have made no effort to retain his membership, and at the Meeting, August 5. 1761, it appearing that he had not yet been served with a copy of the "testimony," Friend Nutt is desired to de- liver it to him before the next meeting. Nothing more appears on the record in reference to him and he was probably disowned from membership without any protest on his part. The maiden name of his wife, Margaret, has not been as- certained. He was probably a soldier in the Revolution as well as his brother, Jasper, but the incomplete rolls make no mention thereof. Neither is there any record of distribution of his estate or other means of ascertaining who his children

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were, other than his son, William, whose date of birth appears in his own family Bible. It is thought, however, that Elizabeth, the wife of Joachim Richards, of Falls township, who died in 1845, at the age of seventy-seven years was a daughter.

WILLIAM MOON, son of John and Margaret Moon, was born in Falls township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, October 16, 1776. This date together with that of the birth of his nine children was entered by himself in a family Bible, still in pos- session of his grandchildren. From the same source we learn that his wife's name was Margaret, but her maiden name is unknown to her descendants. By deed dated September 26, 1825, William Moon purchased of William Wharton, and Ann, his wife; Henry Richards and Jane, his wife; William Richards, of Philadelphia, and Ann, his wife; and John Richards, of Northern Liberties, a small lot in Falls township, of which Joachim Richards had died seized in 1812, leav- ing the above named Ann, Henry, William and John, as his only children and heirs. The property had been purchased by Joachim Richards of the estate of Robert Kirkbride in 1806. Here William Moon resided until his death, February 22, 1845, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He died intestate and letters of adminis- tration were granted on his estate to his sons, Mahlon and Joachim R. Moon. By deed dated March 31, 1846, Mahlon Moon and Eliza Ann, his wife; John Jones and Catharine, his wife; Aaron L. Moon and Maria B., his wife; Paul Troth and Elizabeth, his wife; Joachim R. Moon and Sarah Ann, his wife; Ben- jamin C. Tatum and Mary, his wife; James C. Moon and Elizabeth, his wife: and John Moon, heirs and representatives of William Moon, deceased, conveyed the above mentioned lot to William Bowers.

The children of William and Margaret, as shown by the above mentioned Bible record, were: Mahlon, born March 25, 1802; Catharine, born February 27, 1804 ; William, born June 15, 1806; Aaron L., born February 10, 1809; Elizabeth, born August 30, 1811; Joachim R., born October 17, 1813; Mary, born March 12, 1816: James Kimmons, born July 30, 1818; and John Moon, born July 4, 1821. All of these, except William, lived to mature age, as shown by the above deed.

AARON LIPPINCOTT MOON, second surviving son and fourth child of William and Margaret Moon, was born in Falls township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, February 10, 1809. He received a good education and adopting the profession of a teacher in early life, he became an eminent instructor of youth. The greater part of his life was spent in Burlington county, New Jersey.

He married, in 1842, Maria Braddock Osborne, daughter of Abraham and Catharine (Snyder ) Osborne, of Burlington county, New Jersey, and had five children, two of whom died in infancy, those who survived being, William, who died in 1879; Catharine Osborne, wife of Thomas A. Havens, of Bordentown, New Jersey, and Reuben O. Moon, the subject of this sketch.

HON. REUBEN OSBORNE MOON, second son and third child of Aaron Lippincott and Maria (Osborne) Moon, was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, July 22, 1847. He was educated under the supervision of his father, and at the Shoe- maker National College of Elocution and Oratory, Philadelphia, graduating from the latter institution in 1875. He filled the chair of literature and expression in his alma mater, for a time, then engaged in the mercantile business for a short time and again accepting a position on the faculty of his alma mater, also took up the study of law. At the death of Professor Shoemaker in 1880, he assumed the management of the college, was elected its president and filled that position until

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1884, when he was admitted to the Philadelphia bar and began the practice of his profession in that city. His rise in his chosen profession was rapid. Combin- ing with a good understanding of the fundamental principles of the law, an extra- ordinary power of expression, lucidity, and eloquence in expounding it, his con- vincing style and winning personality made him a power as an advocate, and he won many notable cases in both the criminal and civil courts. He was counsel for a number of large corporations and identified with prominent and important litigation, and was long recognized as a leader of the Philadelphia bar. He was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1886, and the United States Courts in 1890.

Gifted with an eminent talent for oratory, perfected and polished by careful and diligent training, he became widely known as a lecturer and instructor, and delivered a great number of orations and public addresses that attracted wide attention.

Reluctantly consenting to become a candidate for a seat in the National House of Representatives, he was elected to the Fifty-eighth Congress from the Fourth District in 1903, to fill a vacancy, and was re-elected to the Fifty-ninth and Sixtieth Congresses.

Familiar as a practitioner, and indefatigable student, with the cumbersome and conflicting nature of the national code of laws, by reason of experimental and un- systematic congressional enactments covering a period of a century, Mr. Moon, soon after taking his seat in the House, turned his attention to this branch of national legislation, and he is the author of more constructive Federal legal legis- lation than any man in Congress for half a century. He was made chairman of the Committee on the Revision of Laws, and determined to bring about a revision of the national code, which congress had made two ineffectual attempts to accom- plish. In December, 1906, he introduced a resolution demanding a report of the Committee on Revision, on the revision of the criminal code, which was adopted. He was made chairman of the joint committee of the Senate and House to under- take the revision, and was the leading spirit in the work of codifying the national laws, and the chief author of the bill reported by the joint committee. His speech in reporting the bill to the House gave such lucid explanations of the need of the proposed legislation, the conflicts and discrepancies that existed in the old laws, that the necessity of the proposed legislation was clearly apparent to even the lay members of the House, so that they were enabled to vote intelligently upon the measure and its passage was secured. He held the floor of the House for twenty- two days to the exclusion of all other business, and his speech was one of the gems of the session. He succeeded in satisfying the conflicting interests of dif- ferent sections of the Union, magnified by sectional and partisan jealousies and ambitions among the representatives and his new code was adopted in March, 1908, and went into effect January, 1910.

In recognition of his work in codifying the national law, Mr. Moon was given a dinner and reception by the Lawyers' Club of Philadelphia, May 8, 1909, at which nearly every member of the Philadelphia Bar, and many noted legal lights and prominent public men united in doing him honor for his herculean accom- plishment. Judge and practitioner alike united in an expression of obligation to Mr. Moon for the work he had done, and voiced encouragement to him in the com- pletion of his work in Congress. He also received numerous letters from promi-

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nent lawyers and judges complimenting him upon his speech in presenting the bill, some of them declaring that they considered it of so much importance that they used it in the nature of a text book in their offices. Mr. Moon has since continued his work on the same line in the halls of Congress, and is the author of a bill restricting the power of injunction in the Federal courts. He also favors the abolition of the United States Circuit Court, now made almost useless and obsolete by the creation of other courts of judicature designed for the relief of the United States Supreme Court from the extraordinary pressure of appeals, but which really changed absolutely the whole jurisdictional scheme designed by the constitution and made the Circuit Court practically obsolete and useless.

Mr. Moon is a prominent and popular club man, a leading member of the Law- yers' Club; president of the prominent Up-town Columbia Club; member of the Union League and Penn clubs ; of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and of a number of other patriotic, social, professional and philanthropic organizations.

He married, February 25, 1876, Mary A. Predmore, daughter of Captain Wright Predmore, of Barnegat, New Jersey, and his wife, Elizabeth Bodine. Mr. and Mrs. Moon have two children, Harold Predmore and Mabel M. Moon.

HAROLD PREDMORE MOON was born June 14, 1877. He received his elementary education at the Eastburn Academy, Philadelphia, and entering the University of Pennsylvania graduated in 1898. He studied law in the office of his father, Hon. R. O. Moon, and attended the Law School of the University, and was ad- mitted to the Philadelphia Bar, March 18, 1901. He has since been in active practice of his profession in Philadelphia. He was assistant City Solicitor of Philadelphia, from 1902 to 1906. He is a member of the Union League and of the Yacht and other social and athletic organizations of the city.

He married, December 2, 1908, Attaresta Barclay de Silver, daughter of Robert P. and Fannie (King) de Silver, and they have one son, Harold Predmore Moon.

SINNOTT FAMILY.

The earliest representative of the Sinnott name in America was Walter Sinnott, of Milton, Massachusetts, in 1638, who was followed some forty years thereafter by John Sinnott, of St. Mary's county, Maryland. From these plantings spread two distinct families with branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The subject of the present sketch, Joseph Francis Sinnott, of Philadelphia, be- longed, however, to neither of these early families, but to the parent stem, that of county Wexford, Ireland.

It was in 1169 that Wexford was conquered by a band of Anglo-Norman ad- venturers, led by Robert Fitz Stephen, and under him the Sinnotts acquired promi- nence in what afterward became the barony of Forth. A scholarly history of this barony, beginning with the conquest of the Kingdom of Ireland, under Henry II., was written by a clergyman of the Synnott name about 1680, and is published in the "Proceedings and Papers of the Kilkenny and Southeast of Ireland Archeolog- ical Society," for January, 1862, in which work the writer gave some genealogical deductions concerning "the prime Gentlemen and Freeholders in the Barony," concluding with the Sinnotts. Of these he says: "There are many distinct fam- ilies of Synnotts in the said County, in number exceeding any other ancient name within the limits, whose estates were valuable before the tyrannicall usurpations," and he proceeded to demonstrate that the family, with varying fortunes, continued to flourish in Wexford, though many of its members found homes and honors in other lands, "Germany, France, Spaine and Muscovie."

In Wexford the house of Ballybrennan was esteemed the most eminent of the Sinnotts, and was represented in 1559 by RICHARD SINNOTT, EsQ., member of Parliament for that county. For his service in the Elizabethan wars, he received a long lease-hold of the ancient manor of Rosegarland, September 29, 1582, and at his death, September 9, 1591, Rosegarland, with its various estates, de- scended to his children and grandchildren, who retained possession thereof until, having kept allegiance to the Roman Catholic faith, they were attainted by Crom- well after the Great Rebellion, when the manor, with other lands passed into other hands.

Sir William Sinnott, grandson of Richard Sinnott, of Rosegarland, governed the country of the O'Murroughoes by lease from Queen Elizabeth, and by letter of July 15, 1600, the Privy Council speak in flattering terms of his "qualitye and services." He was commander of the forces in county Wexford to execute martial law in that county, being also one of the Justices of the Peace. He resided at Ballyfernock. His son, Walter, had his estates created into a manor, in 1617, and was Knight of the shire in 1613. William, another son, married a daughter of Sir James Carroll, Mayor of Dublin.

Colonel David Sinnott, descended from the house of Ballybrennan, and men- tioned in Carte's Life of Ormonde, as Lieutenant-Colonel of Preston's regiment. was Governor of Wexford, and was killed when that town was besieged by Cromwell in 1649. Sometime before this, his colonel and himself had com- manded the famous Anglo-Irish regiment in the Austrian service. His kinsman,

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Colonel Oliver Sinnott, who achieved distinction in the service of the Duke of Lorraine, and Walter Sinnott, of Farrelstown, colonel in the French service in 1650, were among the many Irish Gael who, as officers in the Continental service, and as ecclesiastics educated abroad, acquired extraordinary influence.

In 1686 Susan Sinnott, of Wexford, who had married George Nixon, also of that county, set out for America, and became, through her son, Richard Nixon, of Philadelphia, the grandmother of that picturesque figure, Colonel John Nixon, who read in the State House Yard, Philadelphia, on July 8, 1776, the immortal Declaration of Independence, to a waiting world.

JAMES SINNOTT, of Castletown, whose family had continued in Wexford after the great Cromwellian slaughter, was born one hundred years after that event, and remained loyal to the faith of his fathers, a course followed by his youngest son, JOHN SINNOTT, born May 1, 1775, at Arklow, county Wicklow. John Sinnott had barely reached manhood when the internecine troubles of his native land called him to action, and he fought bravely on the insurgent side in the Rebellion of 1798, against a furious Orange ascendancy in the Government of Ireland which looked forward to the ultimate possession of the landed estates not alone of the Roman Catholics but of liberal Protestants. In the celebrated fight at Vinegar Hill, Enniscorthy, he was wounded and left for dead, but was rescued, so runs the family tradition, by a friend through the service of a faithful dog. Sometime after this, he was captured by the King's troops and sentenced to death, but escaped through the intervention of the Governor's wife, a playmate of his child- hood. When amnesty was finally granted to the insurgents, and peace began to settle over disturbed Ireland, John Sinnott married, January 9, 1803, Elizabeth, daughter of John and Ann (McDonald) Murphy, of Monogarra, Wexford, and subsequently removed to Dublin, becoming a sea captain, sailing to various ports in America, West Indies, Africa and other lands. Seven of Captain Sinnott's nine children reached maturity, and all of these died in America, save the eldest surviving son, JOHN SINNOTT, who was born at Monogarra, and baptized June 20, 1813. After a liberal education at Dublin, he entered the revenue service of the United Kingdom and was stationed for many years in northwestern Donegal. His knowledge and skill as a navigator earned him the title of "Wizard of the North," and for three successive years he commanded the yacht that won the international races in Ireland. He died at Killybegs, October 4, 1877, having had by his wife, Mary, daughter of Francis and Margaret (Byrne) Armstrong, whom he married at Dublin, January 9, 1832, fourteen children, of whom,

Peter Sinnott, the eldest son, went to America in 1850, to join his uncle, and resided in Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, at which latter city he died, unmarried, of yellow fever, in 1857. He was a sculptor by pro- fession, in which he gave promise of eminence. There is a fountain of consid- erable merit designed by him, at Augusta, Georgia. His sister Margaret, the third daughter of Captain John Sinnott, Jr., married Thomas C. MacGinley, Esq., Principal of Croagh National School, county Donegal, and author of "General Biology" and several works on folklore and scenery of Western Donegal. Her eldest surviving son, James Columba Mac Ginley, D. D., is the Right Reverend Senior Dean of Maynouth College, Ireland; her second son, the Right Reverend John B. Mac Ginley, D. D., is Bishop of the Diocese of Neueva Caceres, Philli- pine Islands, and the youngest, Leo Patrick Mac Ginley, D. D., is secretary to the

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Papal Delegate at Washington. Three others, daughters of the junior Captain Sinnott, Katherine Sinnott, Ann Jane Sinnott, and Agnes Sinnott, became Reli- geuse, the former entering the Convent of the Visitation, Wilmington, Delaware, and the two latter, the order of the Sacred Heart. The youngest son, James Patrick Sinnott, D. D., became Assistant Rector to the Cathedral parish of Phil- adelphia, in 1876, and at the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ministry, June 10, 1901, was made permanent Rector of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, Phil- adelphia. He has recently been advanced to the dignity of Monseignor.

JOSEPH FRANCIS SINNOTT, the fourth child of Captain John and Mary (Arm- strong) Sinnott, was born at Killybegs, county Donegal, Ireland, February 14. 1837, and died at his residence, South Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, June 20, 1906. He received an excellent education, with a special course in navigation, and, dominated by an intense individualism and the intention to join his relatives in South Carolina, sailed for America in July, 1854. On his arrival at Philadelphia, learning of the death of his grandmother and aunts, by an epidemic of yellow fever at Charleston, he decided to remain in Philadelphia, and entered the customs brokerage house of Watkins & Weaver, where he continued until he became assistant bookkeeper in the counting-house of John Gibson's Son & Company, distillers. Most acceptably he filled this position until April 25, 1861, when he responded to the "call to arms," at the outbreak of the Civil War, and enlisted as a private in the afterwards famous Washington Grays of Philadelphia, which command was the first to pass through Baltimore after its Southern sympathizing citizens had fired upon the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment. After three months' active service in West Virginia, under Major-General Robert Patterson, Mr. Sinnott was, with his command, mustered out at Philadelphia, August 3, 1861, and resumed his position with John Gibson's Son & Company. About this time the firm determined to establish an agency in Boston, with Mr. Sinnott in charge, in consequence of which he was obliged to decline a captaincy in the Rush Lancers. He went immediately to Boston, where, in the establishment of the branch-house, he displayed remarkable practical talent, which, joined with close application, rigid integrity, fine tact, and successful management of the enterprise entrusted to him, won him the confidence of the firm and an interest in the Boston house. In 1866 he returned to Philadelphia, and became a member of the firm, with business interests the most extensive of the kind in the United States. Upon the retirement of Mr. Henry C. Gibson in 1884, the business was continued by Mr. Andrew M. Moore and Mr. Sinnott, under the firm name of Moore & Sin- nott, and in 1898, on the death of the senior partner, Mr. Sinnott became sole proprietor of the noted house, which, during the years preceding his decease, he still further advanced.

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Colonial families of Philadelphia, Volume II, Part 77

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