Historical and biographical annals of Berks County, Pennsylvania, embracing a concise history of the county and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families, Volume I, Part 72

Author: Montgomery, Morton L. (Morton Luther), b. 1846; J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : J. H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1018

USA > Pennsylvania > Berks County > Historical and biographical annals of Berks County, Pennsylvania, embracing a concise history of the county and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families, Volume I > Part 72

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WAMSHER .- The Wamsher family has been holding annual reunions or picnics since 1906. It held its last meeting at Monocacy, in 1908. An effort is to be made to trace the family to the an- cestor, and ultimately to publish a book. The of- ficers of the reunion are :

President, Jasper Wamsher, Monocacy, Pa.

Secretary, Norman B. Wamsher.

Treasurer, Frank McDermond.

Executive Committee, Harry A. Riegel, Howard Seidel, Eugene Mauger, Rev. Ruddy Millard.

YEICH .- The Yeich family held a reunion at Mineral Spring in the summer of 190S. Four gen- erations of the family were represented in Mrs. William Yeich, Mrs. William Mauger, Mrs. Flor-

Ilancy Jones

BIOGRAPHICAL

J. GLANCY JONES was born Oct. 7, 1811, in Caernar- von township, Berks county. His ancestors were of Welsh origin. His great-grandfather, David Jones, set- tled in 1730 upon the Conestoga creek, near Morgan- town, and there he erected and carried on one of the first forges in that section of the State. His grand- father, Jonathan Jones, was captain of a company of troops belonging to the Continental Line, enlisted by authority of Congress, and rendered distinguished ser- vices in the expedition against Canada in 1776. After- ward he was lieutenant-colonel. His death was occas- ioned by the hardships of that campaign. Jehu Jones, son of Jonathan and father of the subject of this sketch, was for many years engaged in the profession of teach- er, for which he was qualified by a classical education. He died in 1864, at an advanced age.

J. Glancy Jones was educated at Kenyon College, Ohio, and in 1833 was ordained to the ministry of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church, to which his family had for generations belonged. His inclinations, however, led him to prefer the profession of the law; and having under- gone the necessary course of preparation he was ad- mitted to the Bar. He commenced practice in 1842, at Easton, Pa. The judicial district was composed at that time of the counties of Berks, Lehigh and Northamp- ton, and was presided over by Hon. John Banks. After a residence of three years at Easton he removed to Read- ing, and was admitted to the Bar of Berks county Jan. 7, 1845. He was appointed district attorney for Berks county, under the administration of Governor Shunk, in March, 1847, and served in that capacity until Janu- ary, 1849. During that period he was tendered by the Executive the president judgeship of the Chester and Delaware District.

Though successful in the practice of his profession, he very early inclined to politics. Being a decided Demo- crat, he became active in the affairs of the dominant party in his native county, as well as in the State at large. He was the warm personal friend and political supporter of Morris Longstreth, the unsuccessful com- petitor of Governor Johnston in 1848, and the follow- ing year was chairman of the Democratic State Com- mittee. In 1850 he was elected to Congress from the Berks District. Having declined a renomination, the Hon. Henry A. Muhlenberg, the younger, was chosen as his successor for the term beginning in December, ing his seat, a special election was held in February, 1854, to fill the vacancy, when Mr. Jones was chosen for the unexpired term. He was reelected for two suc- ceeding regular terms, in 1854 and 1856, thus holding the position of representative, with but a brief inter- mission, for the period of eight years. As a member of the committee on Claims, he was author of the bill establishing the United States Court of Claims. In 1857 he 'was chairman of the committee on Ways and Means, a position of leadership which necessarily secured for its incumbent a national reputation.

1853. Mr. Muhlenberg having died shortly after tak- him to retire from all employments of a public nat-

After the election of Mr. Buchanan to the Presidency, in 1856, Mr. Jones was selected as a member of his cabinet. This selection, was ratified by the Democratic press and party throughout the country with great un- animity, but Mr. Jones declined the appointment. In February, 1857, he tendered to Mr. Jones the mission to Berlin. "It is my purpose," he wrote, "to present

your name to the Senate for that highly respectable and important mission immediately after my cabinet shall have been confirmed. And permit me here to add that I think your mind and qualities are admirably adapted to that branch of the public service." This position Mr. Jones declined. He continued his service in Congress as chairman of the committee on Ways and Means, and was the zealous advocate and supporter of President Buchanan's administration on the floor of the House.

In the year 1858 he was unanimously renominated for Congress, his opponent being Maj. John Schwartz, the candidate of the anti-Lecompton Democracy, which unit- ed with it the strength of the Republican party. Mr. Jones being the special representative of the policy of the Federal administration, the contest in Berks, as else- where, was conducted largely upon national issues. One of the most exciting campaigns in the history of the county ensued, which resulted in the election of Maj. John Schwartz by a majority of. nineteen votes. The total vote in the district was upward of fourteen thou- sand. Immediately after the result of the contest was known, President Buchanan tendered to Mr. Jones the Austrian mission, which he accepted. Upon his con- firmation by the Senate, he resigned his seat in Con- gress, and left, with his family, for his post in Janu-' ary, 1859. Upon the accession of the Republican party to power, in 1861, Mr. Burlingame was appointed by President Lincoln to succeed Mr. Jones at the court of Vienna; but, having been almost immediately recalled, Mr. Jones, at the request of the administration, remain- ed in the embassy until the arrival of his successor, Hon. John Lothrop Motley, in the month of December. At the period of the outbreak of the Civil war in the Unit- ed States the subject of the belligerent relations of the two contending sections devolved duties of a peculiarly delicate and responsible nature upon our diplomatic re- presentatives abroad, and, so far as Mr. Jones's sphere of service was concerned, he sustained his official trust in a manner highly satisfactory to the administration and the government of the country.

Upon his return home, where he arrived in January, 1862, the period of Mr. Jones's public life practically terminated, though he did not cease to participate in the councils of his party for many years afterward. He resumed the practice of the law, and carried it on for about ten years, when declining health compelled

ure.

Mr. Jones was, for a long period, prominent in the councils of the Protestant Episcopal Church, having been frequently a delegate to diocesan conventions, and hav- ing taken a leading part in the measures which led to the establishment of the new diocese of Central Penn- sylvania in 1871. During his entire political and pro- fessional career he preserved a character of unblem- ished integrity, and in his private relations to his fellow- men was equally above reproach. He had many warm and zealous friends, and succeeded, as few public men succeed,. in preserving the personal esteem of his politi- cal opponents, against whom he never cherished ani- mosity or resentment. He was well fitted to be a leader of men, and those who differed most radically from him in political opinion did not hesitate to acknowledge the winning power of his personal influence. He was a very social man. His domestic life was especially hap-

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HISTORY OF BERKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

py and attractive. His wife, Anna Rodman, a daughter share the inheritance with his two brothers, each to take a of the Hon. William Rodman, of Bucks county, for- third part. A certain tract of three hundred acres of land merly a representative of that district in Congress, was in the Jerseys he devised to his son John, and other lands a lady of superior refinement and most estimable Christ- ian character, and her decease, in 1871, severed the ties of a peculiarly united and affectionate household. in the same Province to his daughters Ann and Sarah, leaving bequests to his remaining daughters, Hannah and Mary. His wife Mary received the residue of his personal estate, and the use of his plantation for life, being also constituted executrix. His friends Jonathan Robeson and George Boone were designated as her assistants in that office, according to a custom then prevalent.

Mr. Jones died at Reading, March 24, 1878, in his sixty- seventh year, and upon that occasion the Bar of the county united in a testimonial. of marked respect to his memory and appreciation of his public services.

Two of his sons, Charles Henry and Richmond L. Jones, were admitted to the Berks county Bar in 1863, having studied law in their father's office. The latter was a representative from the county in the Legisla- ture from 1867 to 1869, and the former became a resi- dent and practitioner at the Bar of Philadelphia. Mr. Jones's eldest daughter, Anna Rodman, married Far- relly Alden, of Pittsburgh, and died there in December, 1885. His youngest daughter, Katharine, married Wil- liam Thomas Wallace, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

BERKS COUNTY ANCESTRY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Concerning the historical fact that the pa- ternal ancestors of President Abraham Lincoln were resi- dents in the Eighteenth Century of Berks county, whence they migrated to Virginia, Louis Richards, Esq., president of the County Historical Society, in a recent paper read before it, wrote in part as follows:

The son John, who was by a former wife, was the lineal ancestor of President Lincoln. He subsequently sold his land in New Jersey, and emigrated to Rockingham county, Va., in 1765. This date is established from the tax lists of Berks county and the local records in Virginia in cor- respondence therewith. John had a son Abraham who went to Kentucky in 1782, and two years later was killed there by the Indians. Abraham left three sons, Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas. The president was the son of the last named, by his first wife, Nancy Hanks.

The posthumous son of Mordecai of Exeter, named Abraham, half-brother of John, was born Oct. 29, 1736. He became the most prominent member of the Berks county family in public life. From 1773 to 1775 he was a County Commissioner ; served as sub-lieutenant of the county in 1777, was a member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly from 1772 to 1786; delegate to the Pennsylvania Convention of 1787 to ratify the Federal Constitution, and a member of the convention which devised the State Constitution of' 1790. He died at his residence in Exeter township Jan. 31,. 1806, in his seventieth year. He married in 1761 Anne Boone, daughter of James Boone, and his wife Mary Foulke. Her father's brother, Squire Boone, was the father of Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky, and a native of Berks county, to whom she was thus first cousin. Thomas Lincoln, brother of Abraham, was a thrifty landholder, and was sheriff of the county in 1758 and 1759. Mordecai Lincoln, the other brother, remained a resident of Berks county up to about 1789, removing to Dauphin and subsequently to Fayette county, Pennsylvania.

Among the early immigrants to the Colony of Massa- chusetts-or Massachusetts Bay, as it was called in colonial times-were the Lincolns from old England. The first of the name from whom the President's descent can be traced was Mordecai Lincoln, who is said to have been born at Hingham, near Boston, in 1657. The tradition that he was an "ironmonger" is strengthened by the fact that his son Mordecai followed that occupation. The latter, who was by the first wife, was born in 1686, and had two brothers, Abraham, born 1689, and Isaac, born 1691. The preference for Scriptural Christian names was followed in the family through many succeeding generations. Presi- dent Lincoln, writing a brief autobiography in 1860, said that an effort to identify his Quaker ancestors in Pennsyl- President Lincoln referred to his Pennsylvania ancestors as Quakers. There is no evidence of the connection of the New England Lincolns with the Friends. Some of the members of the branch which came to Pennsylvania became affiliated with that denomination through intermarriage. Anne Boone, wife of Abraham Lincoln, the county com- missioner, was brought under mild censure for marrying out of meeting. The Boones were of English descent, and staunch Quakers. George Boone, a native of Devonshire, who emigrated to the Province in 1717, belonged for a time to the Gwynedd Monthly Meeting, in Philadelphia county. Having acquired lands in what is now Exeter township, Berks county, in 1718, and settled there, he was appointed in 1723 by the Gwynedd Meeting to keep the accounts of births and marriages of Friends in his vicinity. He do- nated the ground for the meeting-house and burial-place of the Oley Monthly Meeting, since called the Exeter Monthly Meeting. constituted in 1737. The Boones were a prolific race, and, together with the Lincolns, left numerous de- scendants, who were among the most intelligent' and re- spectable of the county stock. The two families were close- ly associated, and in the Exeter Meeting Ground the earlier generations of both lie buried. vania with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian. names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai and Solomon. Since that date the connection of the families has been reliably established. By a second marriage, Mordecai, Sr., had other children, some of whose descendants remain in Massachusetts at this day. The son Mordecai, Jr., removed with his brother Abraham to East Jersey about 1717, acquiring lands in Monmouth county. He resided there until probably 1720, at which date, and down to 1726, he is found assessed as a taxable in Nant- meal and Coventry townships, Chester Co., Pa. That he was possessed of considerable estate, and was an iron- master, appears from record evidence of his association with Branson and Nutt, pioneers of the iron industry in that State, in the erection of a forge at Coventry, on French creek. His one-third interest in that establishment, and the lands appurtenant, he sold to Branson for £500, in De- cember, 1725. In 1726 he is designated as a resident of Chester county in a conveyance to him in that year of certain lands in New Jersey. On May 10, 1732, he obtained from Thomas Millard, of Coventry, a conveyance of one thousand acres of land in that part of Amity township, Squire Boone, father of Daniel, removed in 1750 with his family to North Carolina, on the Yadkin river. Thence after he had grown to manhood, Daniel went to Kentucky, and entered upon his famous career as pioneer of that remote border land of civilization. From the connection of the Boones and Lincolns in Berks county, the inference is the President's ancestor, in 1765, was the direct result of that of the Boones, fifteen years previously. Philadelphia county, now included in Exeter township. Berks county ; the tract being a portion of sixteen hundred acres formerly belonging to Andrew Robeson. The date of this deed is conjecturally that of his first residence in what is now Berks county, though it is possible that he may have come there earlier. In 1732-33 he is found in . reasonably certain that the Southern migration of John, commission as one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace. His will dated Feb. 22, 1735 (O. S.), was proved June 7, 1736, indicating very nearly the date of his death. By it he divided his land in Amity township equally between his sons, Mordecai and Thomas, making provision con- tingently for an expected child, which, if a son, was to

'A theory regarding the maternal ancestry of President Lincoln is that his mother, Nancy Hanks, was descended from a family of that name traceable in Berks county at the period when the earlier generations of the Lincolns

325

BIOGRAPHICAL

were seated there. Nancy Hanks was a daughter of Joseph Hanks, of Nelson county, Ky., and one of her aunts on the maternal side married Abraham Lincoln, of Virginia, the grandfather of the President and son of John. All that is positively known upon this head is that a family by the name of Hanks appears in the records of the Gwy- nedd Monthly Meeting of an early date, and that the name of one Joseph Hanck is found upon the list of taxables of the town of Reading between 1758 and 1763. Whether the latter was identical with the Joseph Hanks of Kentucky, father of Nancy, is a matter of conjecture. In the absence of more definite facts, either for or against the supposition, no positive conclusion can be reached upon the subject.

[On page 299 may be seen a cut of the building where the children of Mordecai Lincoln. Sr., were born. It is situated about a mile below Lorane Station, several. hun- dred feet north from the Philadelphia & Reading railroad, near a small stream. An extension was built to the west end.]

HON. THOMAS WHARTON, JR., the first Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, under the consti- tution of 1776, was born in 1735, in Chester county, Pa., a son of John and Mary (Dobbins) Wharton, grandson of Thomas and great-grandson of Richard Wharton.

Richard Wharton, who emigrated to Pennsylvania from Kellworth, in the parish of Overton, Westmorelandshire, England, at an early date, was the emigrant ancestor of the Wharton family in America.

Thomas Wharton, who later achieved so great a distinc- tion in his native State, spent his boyhood attending school in the primitive institutions in the vicinity of his his home, and assisting on the paternal farm, and he be- came a young man of sterling character. In 1755 he moved to Philadelphia, where he apprenticed himself to an employer by the name of Reese Meridith and later was associated with Anthony Stocker. With the latter he formed a partnership, under the firm name of Stocker & Wharton, in the mercantile line. This firm became very strong, and according to the custom-house bonds of 1762, was one of the heaviest importers in the city.

Governor Wharton, then but a prosperous merchant, was married Nov. 4, 1762, at Christ Church, Philadelphia, to Susannah Lloyd, daughter of Thomas and Susannah (Kearney) Lloyd, and they had the following children: Lloyd, Kearney, William M., Sarah N. and Susannah. The mother of these children died Oct. 24, 1772. On Dec. 7, 1774, Thomas Wharton married (second) Elizabeth Fishbourne, daughter of William and Mary (Tallman) Fishbourne, and they had three children, viz .: Mary, Thomas F. and William Fishbourne. Governor Wharton was an Orthodox Friend.

It is passing strange that the history of Thomas Wharton, Jr., a man whose life was so closely linked with that of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, whose affairs he ad- ministered during the darkest struggle in which she and her sister colonies ever engaged, is not more widely and more intimately known. One most obvious reason for this is to be found in the circumstance of his early death, which abruptly terminated a useful and honorable career ; for, considerable as were the services which he had already rendered his country, the potentialities of the future were even greater, and without doubt he, who had acquitted himself so creditably, would, had he lived to see the new government permanently established, have continued to hold positions of honor and trust in his native State. To quote: "Full justice has never been done to the magna- nimity and ability of Pennsylvania's statesmen and war- riors during the Revolutionary contest. The quiet and unassuming character of her population has caused the historians, in a measure, to overlook their merit in the council and in the field."

By reading the history of Pennsylvania during those momentous years from 1774-1775 and up to 1778, we recog- nize the worth of Governor Wharton, from the pages of her records and archives, full of important orders emanat- ing from him at trying crises; or, in glancing over the journals of the day, which abound in proclamations that

even now stir us by their tone of deep and earnest pa- triotism. Through ringing calls to arms and eloquent appeals to the nobler impulses of mankind, we gain some insight into the character of the man of whom few written expressions are left us. He was a man, however, who had impressed his personality in such a way that we know he was universally beloved.

Thomas Wharton had been called to numerous posi- tions of trust, had served with honor and capacity on the committee of Safety, and in 1776, when the Commonwealth of Pennyslvania called together a convention to frame a new Constitution, for the Province of Pennsylvania, in accordance with the Resolve of Congress (on May 10th of that year), on July 24th a Council of Safety was estab- lished, in which the convention vested the executive author- ity of the government until the new Constitution should be put in operation. Thomas Wharton, Jr., who had given abundant proof of his zeal and ability when a member of the late committee of Safety, was now chosen president of the newly formed council and again distinguished him- self in a most creditable manner. In February, 1777, an election was held for the choice of assemblyman, in place of several who had declined to act. Thomas Wharton, Jr., was elected councilman from Philadelphia and later, as such, assisted to organize the Supreme Executive Council and thus complete the new government. This was done and the General Assembly and Council united and elected Mr. Wharton president of the latter body. As president of the Council of Safety, Mr. Wharton had filled with honor a position of trust, hence, it is not strange that he should have been offered one of greater responsibility under the new government. It seemed, indeed, as if by mutual attraction, the best minds of the country were drawn together, and that, with an insight born of the necessities of the hour, men recognized each other's worth and discerned in what field their talents would be best developed for the good of the common cause.

Thus Thomas Wharton, Jr.'s talents were pre-eminently administrative, and from one important position in his State he was raised to another until finally called upon, amid the bitter political dispute of 1777, to fill the most elevated position his proud State could offer him, that of president of the the newly formed Supreme Executive Council. On March 5, 1777, the new president was duly inaugurated as president of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, captain- general and commander-in-chief, and served as such until May 23, 1778, when his death occurred in the city of Lancaster. His funeral was solemnized with civil and military honors and his remains were interred at the Evangelical Trinity Lutheran Church at Lancaster. His fame rests with posterity.

William Fishbourne Wharton, the third child of Thomas and Elizabeth (Fishbourne) Wharton, was born Ang. 10, 1778, and was married (first) May 10, 1804, to Susan Shoemaker, who died Nov. 3, 1821. She was the mother of nine children as follows: Thomas, George M., Fish- bourne, Henry, Joseph, Deborah, William, Edward and Elizabeth. He married (second) Mary Ann Shoemaker, a sister of his first wife. by whom he had two children, namely: Susan F. and Philip Fishbourne. Two of these children, George M. and Philip F., attained distinction in legal and artistic circles.

Besides Miss Susan F. Wharton, who is the only living grandchild of Governor Wharton, several of his great- grandchildren have resided in Berks county, namely : Wharton Morris, grandson of Kearney, who was a son of the Governor by his first marriage; Maria Wharton Brooke, widow of Dr. Brooke and a granddaughter of Kearney Wharton; and Robert Wharton Bickley, also a grandson of Kearney Wharton. Mrs. Brooke and Mrs. Bickley are living in Reading at the present time, both widows. Miss Susan F. Wharton, who until lately re- sided at No. 138 North Fourth street, Reading, is now living at "The Poplars," Wyomissing, esteemed for her ancestry and also for her personal characteristics.

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HISTORY OF BERKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

EDWARD BIDDLE, representative from Berks county in the First Congress, was born in 1732. He was the fourth son of William Biddle, a native of New Jersey, whose grandfather was one of the original proprietors of that State, having left England with his father in 1681. His mother was Mary Scull, the daughter of Nich- olas Scull, Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania from 1748 to 1761. James, Nicholas, and Charles Biddle were three of his brothers.

In 1758, Edward Biddle was commissioned an ensign in the Provincial Army of Pennsylvania, and was present at the taking of Fort Niagara in the French and Indian War. In 1759 he was promoted to lieutenant, and in 1760 commissioned as a captain, after which he resigned from the army and received 5,000 acres of land for his services. He then selected the law as his profession, and after the usual course of study at Philadelphia in the office of his eldest brother, he located at Reading, where

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Historical and biographical annals of Berks County, Pennsylvania, embracing a concise history of the county and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families, Volume I, Part 72

Author: Montgomery, Morton L. (Morton Luther), b. 1846; J.H. Beers & Co Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago : J. H. Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 1018

Author: Montgomery, Morton L. (Morton Luther), b. 1846; J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : J. H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1018