USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. III > Part 3
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The development of Quakerism in Eng- land under, let us say, the reign of Henry VIII, would have been an impossibility ; but the growth of popular government and freedom of thought which were so firmly established by the genius and power of Oliver Cromwell, rendered possible that which would have been entirely impossible a century earlier. All the force of gov- ernment, however, and all the power of the church were thrown against the So- ciety of Friends, and no means were spared
to persecute them and subject them to ignomy and contempt. No class of life or society was spared in these persecutions. Many of the early converts to Quakerism were of noble birth or people of power and influence in the realm. William Penn was "the companion of princes and the dispenser of royal favors." Thomas El- wood was of gentle birth, being nearly related through his mother to Lady Wen- man. George Barclay was of good stock and a fine classical scholar. Yet all these men, because of their religious convictions, were frequently imprisoned, sometimes herded with the lowest felons and vilest prostitutes-"nasty sluts indeed they were," says Elwood in his autobiography. "Re- member," said Phineas Pemberton, in an epistle that was intended as a preface to the "Book of Minutes of the Yearly Meet- ing of Friends," on the setting up of that body at Burlington, New Jersey ; "Remem- ber, we were a despised people in our native land, accounted by the world scarce worthy to have a name or place therein ; daily liable to their spoil; under great sufferings, by long and tedious imprison- ments, sometimes to the loss of life-ban- ishment, spoil of goods, beatings, mock- ings, and ill treatings; so that we had not been a people at this day had not the Lord stood by us and preserved us." (Friends' Miscellany, vol. vii, p. 42.) His descrip- tion is not overdrawn: "Come out," they cried before Phineas Pemberton's door in 1678; "Come out, thou Papist dog, thou Jesuit, thou devil, come out." He was several times imprisoned in Chester and Lancaster castles, being confined in the latter prison in 1669 nineteen weeks and five days, and this, too, before he was twenty-one years of age.
James Harrison, who lies buried beside Phineas Pemberton and who was his father-in-law, was very active as a minis- ter among Friends and was imprisoned in 1660, in Burgas-gate prison for nearly two months ; in 1663 in the county jail of Wor- cester ; in 1664, 1665 and . 1666 in Chester castle : "But none of these things," says Phineas. were done unto us because of our evil deeds, but because of the exercise of our tender consciences towards our God." Nor were these cases exceptional; to such a pitch of nervousness had the government
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
been wrought by the various plots, and so great was the fear of Catholic ascen- dency among the people at that time, that later. in 1686, when James II issued the general pardon to all who were in prison on account of conscientious dissent, over twelve hundred Quakers-perfectly inof- fensive and harmless subjects as they were -were released, "many having been im- mured in prison, some of them twelve or fifteen years and upwards, for no crime but endeavoring to keep a good conscience to- wards God."
It was from this English barbarism and English oppression that William Penn in- vited his fellow Friends to join him in what he called his "Holy Experiment" in America. Accordingly, on the 5th of the 7th month (September), 1682, the Pember- tons and Harrisons, with other families, sailed from Liverpool in the ship "Sub- mission" for Pennsylvania. As it may be of interest to their descendants we give below the list of passengers on the "Sub- mission." This list is taken from James Pemberton Parke's mss. account of the Pemberton family, 1825. It is from this manuscript that the account of the family -published in the Friends' miscellany, vol. vii, is drawn. The latter, however, con- tains only a partial list of the passengers given below. Our list also contains some particulars not included in the list given -in the "Sailing of the Ship Submission" in vol. i, no. i, of the "Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania," Philadelphia, 1895.
Passengers on board the ship "Sub- mission."
Ralph Pemberton, Bolton, Lancashire, age 72; servants, Joseph Mather, Eliza- beth Bradbury.
Phineas Pemberton, Bolton, Lanca- shire, age 33; servants, William Smith, servant of Phineas Pemberton, came in Friends' Adventure, arrived 7th mo. 28, -1682.
Phebe Pemberton, wife of Phineas, daughter of James Harrison, age 23
Abigail Pemberton, daughter of Phineas, age 3 years.
Joseph Pemberton, son of same, aged one year.
James Harrison, Bolton, Lancashire, age 57 years; servants, Joseph Steward, Allis Dickerson, Jane Lyon.
Agnes Harrison, Bolton, Lancashire, mother of James, age 81.
Ann Harrison, his wife, Bolton, Lanca- shire, age 61.
Robert Bond, son of Thomas Bond, of Waddicar Hall, near Garstang, Lancashire, age 16; being left by his father to the tu- ition of sd. James Harrison.
Lydia Wharmsby, of Bolton afsd., age 42.
Randolph Blackshaw, Hollingee, in the Co. of Chester, servants, Sarah Brad- bury. Roger Bradbury, and Elinor his wife and their children Hager, Jacob, Joseph, Martha, and Sarah.
Alice Blackshaw, his wife, and their chil- dren, Phebe, Sarah, Jacob, Mary, Nehe- miah, Martha and Abraham, the latter died at sea, 8 mo. 2d, 1682.
Ellis Jones, and Jane his wife, Coun- ty of Denby or Flint, in Wales, and their children, Barbara, Dorothy, Mary and Isaac Jones. "Servants of the Gov- ernor Penn these came."
Jane Mode and Margery Mode of Wales, daughters of Thomas Winn, and the wife of sd. Thomas Winn; servants, Hareclif Hod- ges, servant of Thomas Winn.
James Clayton, of Middlewitch, Chester, blacksmith, and Jane his wife, and chil- dren James, Sarah, John, Mary, Joshua and Lydia.
The list conforms to the account given in the original "Book of Arrivals" in the handwriting of Phineas Pemberton, now in possession of the Bucks County Historical Society. The list given in the Publications of the Genealogical Society, above referred to, gives, in addition to the above, "Rich -- ard Radclif, of Lancashire, aged 21," and Ellen Holland, whose name adjoins that of Hareclif Jones : "Joseph Clayton, aged 5," and omits Joshua Jones ; and gives age of Barbara Jones as 13, gives "Margery and Jane Mede, aged II I-2 and 15, respective- ly. It also gives "Rebeckah Winn, 20 years," but omits the name of - Winni, wife of Thomas. In re, Winn and Mode, see "Pen- na. Magazine of History and Biography," vol. ix, p 231, also "Genealogy of Fisher Family, 1896, pp. 15, 199, and "Ancestry of Dr. Thomas Wynne," 1904.
James Settle, captain of the ship "Sub- mission." was by the terms of his agree- ment to proceed with the ship to the "Del- aware River or elsewhere in Pennsylvania, to the best convenience of the freighters," but through his dishonesty they were taken into Maryland, to their very great disad- vantage where after a severe storm they had encountered at sea, on 8 mo. 2, 1682, they arrived in the Patuxent river, on the 30th of October, and unloaded their goods at Choptank. Here James Harrison and Phin- eas Pemberton, his son-in-law, left their respective families, at the house of Will- iam Dickenson, and proceeded overland to the place of their original destination. the "falls of the Delaware," in Bucks county. William Penn, who had arrived on Octo- ber 24, was at that time in New York; Harrison and Pemberton had hoped to meet him at New Castle. When they arrived at the present site of Philadelphia they could not procure entertainment for their horses, and so "spancelled" them and turned them into the woods. The next morning they sought for them in vain they having strayed so far in the woods that one of them was not found until the following Jannary. After two days searching they were obliged to proceed up the river in a boat. Philadelphia was not then founded, and the country was a wilderness.
James Harrison had received grants of 5,000 acres of land of Penn, when in Eng-
PEMBERTON
METHIN THESE WALLS ARE BURG RENES WIFE OF IMMANUEL HARRISON BORK ISOL BIED AUG 6 1687 HER SON - JAMES HARRISON
B.1628 D OCT. 6 1687 HIS WIFE ANNE (HEATH) HARRISON FEB 13 1629-4 D. MARCH 5 1689-90 THEIR CHILD PHOEBE WIFE OF PHINEAS PEMBERTON B. APRIL7 1660 D. OCT 30 1696 RALPH PEMBERTON
8. JAN.3 161011 D. JULY 17 1687 HIS SON PHINEAS PEMBERTON B. JAN 30 1649-50 D. MARCA I /7012 FIVE OF HIS CHILDREN MAY | 1682- JOSEPH - NOV TIOA FEB 3 1686-2 SAMUEL- JAN 23 16912 FEB.26 1889-30 - PHOEBE ~ MAY 3D 1699) JULY 15 (894 - RALPH -NOV 18 7694 APRIL 17 1696 PHINEAS JENINGS -170Y HERE ALSO RESI THEIR FRIENDS ROGER LONGWORTH B.1631 D. AND. 1 68 SYRIA WYHARMBY 8.1640.8. SEPT 3 1695
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LID.TRY
ASTON, LEN: X AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
land, a short time before his departure for America. Most of this land was sub- sequently located in Bucks county. In the following spring, 1683, Harrison and Pem- berton brought their families and house- hold goods from Maryland to this county, Harrison stopping at Upland, now Ches- ter, on the way south, to attend the first Assembly, to which he had been elected. Until Phineas could crect a house in Bucks county, he and his family stayed at the house of Lyonel Brittian, who had arrived in Bucks, 4 mo. (June) 1680. On II mo. 17, 1683, Phineas Pemberton purchased a tract of 500 aeres on the Delaware, oppo- site Oreclan's (later Biles') Island and built a house there. It must have been a satisfaction to him, after the storms at sea and wanderings on land, to have his fam- ily at last under his own roof-tree. This plantation he called "Grove Place." He appears, however, at first to have called it "Sapasse," since letters to him from friends in England in 1684 were addressed, . "Sapasse, Bucks County." It was part of a traet of over 8,000 acres of land, pur- chased by Penn from an old Indian king. and had once been a royalty called "Sep- essain." (On Peter Lindstrom's map of 1654, in Sharp and Westcott's "History of Philadelphia." vol. i. p. 75, the name ap- pears as "Sipaessing Land"). The old bury- ing ground before referred to was located on this tract. Being desirous of ereeting ·a more comfortable home for his family, Phineas Pemberton finished one in 1687. .On the lintel of the door was this inscrip- tion :/
, "P.
P. P. 7 D. 2 mo. 1687."
The initials signifying Phineas and Phebe Pemberton. This lintel is now in the pos- session of the Historical Society of Penn- sylvania, Philadelphia. This house Pem- berton moved after his second marriage to another tract of land five miles distant and more in the interior. It was taken , down in 1802 by his grandson, James Pem- · berton. In the year 1687 a great deal of sickness prevailed in the colony, and Phin- eas Pemberton lost his father, Ralph Pem- berton, and his father-in-law, James Harri- . son. Agnes Harrison, the mother of James, also died. Three years later Anne ( Heath) Harrison, the widow of James died; and in 1696 Phineas lost his wife Phebe, who died 8 mo. 30, 1696, exactly fourteen years after her arrival in Patuxent river, Mary- land.
On the 18th day of May, 1699, Phineas Pemberton married, at the Meeting House at Falls, Alice Hodgson, "of Burlington, in the Province of West Jersey, spinster, daughter of Robert Hodgson, late of Rhode Island, deceased." The following names, as witnesses appear on the marriage certifi- ·cate :
Alice Dickerson, Martha Drake,
Joseph Borden, John Borradaill,
Ann Elett,
Ann Jennings,
Elenor Hoopes,
Mary Baker,
Saml. Jennings,
Thos. Duckett,
Eliz. Browdon,
Sarah Surket,
Mary Webster,
Henry Baker,
Phebe Kirkbride,
Richard Hough,
Sarah Jennings,
Will. Dunkin,
Grace Lloyd,
Isaac Mariott.
Mary Badeoke,
Peter Worrall,
Elizabeth Badok,
Edward Lueas.
Ann Borden,
Abraham Anthony,
Elizabeth Stacy,
John Cooke,
Sarah Stacy,
John Sidwell,
William Croasdell,
Robert Hodgson,
George Browne,
Philip England,
John Surket, Junr.,
Mary Yardley,
Joseph Large,
Abell Janney,
Peter Webster,
Jos. Janney,
Seth Hill,
Mary Williams,
Edwd. Penington,
Abigail Pemberton,
Tho. Brock,
Eliz. Janney,
Joseph Kirkbride,
Joseph Pemberton,
John Jones,
Israel Pemberton,
Jeremiah Langhorn
Thomas Yardley,
William Ellett,
Rand'l Blackshaw,
John Biles,
Joseph Mather.
The original certificate is in the posses- sion of a descendant, Mr. Henry Pember- ton. of Philadelphia. Phineas had no chil- dren by his second wife. After his deatlı she married, in 1704, Thomas Bradford, being also his second wife. She died Au- gust 28, 17II.
James Harrison was at an early date the friend and confidant of Penn. "He was," says Proud, "one of the Proprietor's first Commissioners of Property, was divers years in great esteem with him, and his agent at Pennsbury, being a man of good education and a preacher among the Quak- ers." In the library of the Historical So- ciety of Pennsylvania at Thirteenth and Locust streets, Philadelphia, (Penn mss. Domestic Letters) there are many original letters from Penn to Harrison, some of them written before Penn left England. They undoubtedly belong to the collection of Pemberton mss .* now owned by the His-
*This collection, mounted in about one hundred volumes, extends over a period of about two hundred vears. from a date before the birth of Penn to within modern times. It was presented to the Society in 1891 by Henry Pemberton, of Philadelphia, and com- prises mss. of the Pemberton, Harrison, Galloway, Rawle, Shoemaker. Clifford and other families. Two volumes of letters now in the "Etting Collection " of the same Society, belonged originally to this collec- tion as they are docketed on the outside in the hand -. writing of James Pemberton. Harrison was a member of the first provincial council, which met in Philadel- phia on the tenth day of the first month, 1682-3. In the same year he was a member of the committee to draw up the charter of the colony. In 1685 he was appointed by Penn as chief justice of the supreme court, but declined to serve : but the following year he accepted the position of associate justice. He was Penn's steward and agent in Pennsylvania until his death. on October 6, 1687. His daughter Phebe mar- ried Phineas Pemberton, the Ist dav of Il mo. ( Janu- ary ) 1676-7. at the house of John Haydock, in Coppull. near Standish, Lancashire, England, under the super- vision of Hardshaw Monthly Meeting of Friends.
Saml. Beakes,
Arthur Cooke,
John Simcocke,
Abigail Sidwell,
Jos. Growdon, Mahlon Stacy,
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
torical Society, since they contain an index drawn in the handwriting of Phineas Pem- berton. Many of these letters from Penn are interesting in that they contain refer- ence to matters current in the earliest days of the colony, and also occasionally give a picture of political life in England.
Phineas Pemberton took an active part in the public affairs of the colony as well as of Bucks county. He was a member of provincial council in 1685-7, 1695, and 1697- 9; was a member of assembly 1689, 1694, 1698 (the latter year he was speaker), and in 1700, and a member of Penn's council of state in 1701. But it was in the affairs of Bucks county, where he lived, that his activity and usefulness was the greatest and his work of the most value. He was beyond doubt the most prominent man of his time in the county and the most ef- ficient, as shown by the mass of records he has left behind him in his own hand- writing, and by the number of official po- sitions he filled. In addition to filling the local positions of register of wills, recorder, and clerk of all the courts, he held for a time the positions of master of the rolls, register general, and recorder of proprie- tary quit-rents for the province; and the records of the county up to the time of his fatal illness are entirely in his handwrit- ing, and are models worthy of imitation by officials of our day. The records of the different courts left by him are invaluable to the historian, and greatly superior to those of his successors in office in the matter of lucidity and completeness. Many of our historians have noticed and acknowledged this fact, which is apparent to all that have had access to them. Buck, in his "His- tory of Bucks County," referring to the records left by Pemberton, says, "they comprise the earliest records of Bucks coun- ty offices, and, though they have been re- ferred to by different writers, comparative- ly little has been heretofore published from them. To us they have rendered valuable aid and we must acknowledge our indebt- edness for information that could, possi- bly, from no other source have been ob- tained." In like manner Battle, in his "His- tory of Bucks County," writing on the same subject, states, "From that period (i. e. 1683) until disabled by a fatal illness, save an unimportant interval, the records of the county were written wholly by his hand; and in them he has left a memorial of him- self that will not be lost so long as the his- tory of the commonwealth which he helped to establish shall be read."*
Phineas Pemberton died March 1, 1701- 2, at the age of fifty-two years, and was
*The Records of Arrivals " published in vol. ix. of Penna. Mag. of History and Biography, was compiled by Phineas Pemberton, although through an editorial oversight it is not accredited to him therein. This record has proved very valuable in genealogical and historical research. The original Record of Arrivals in Bucks County in Pemberton's handwriting is in possession of the Bucks County Historical Society, while that of Philadelphia and elsewhere is in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
buried in the old graveyard above referred to. "Poor Phineas," wrote Penn to Lo- gan on September 8, 1701, "is a dying man, and was not at the election, though he crept. (as I may say) to Meeting yester- day. I am grieved at it; for he has not his fellow, and without him this is a poor country indeed." Again, in a letter from London to Logan in 1702, Penn writes, "I mourn for poor Phineas Pemberton, the ablest as well as one of the best men in the Province. My dear love to his widow and sons and daughters." Samuel Carpenter, in a letter to Penn, quoted in J. Pemberton Parke's mss., writes, "Phineas Pemberton died the Ist mo. last, and will be greatly missed, having left few or none in these parts or adjacent, like him for wisdom, in- tegrity, and general service, and he was a true friend to thee and the government. It is a matter of sorrow when I call to mind and consider that the best of our men are taken away, and how many are gone and how few to supply their places."
Of the nine children of Phineas and Phebe (Harrison) Pemberton, but three survived him for any length of time: Abi- gail, who married, November 14, 1704, Stephen Jenkins, and settled in Abington township-her descendants being the founders of Jenkintown-Priscilla, mar- ried. 1708-9, Isaac Waterman, and set- tled at Holmesburg; and Israel, the only son, who lived to manhood, mar- ried 2 mo. 12, 1710, Rachel Read, daughter of Charles Read, a provincial councillor. He was an active and in- fluential Friend, and for nineteen consecu- tive years a member of colonial assembly. He left three sons : Israel Jr., born 1715; James, born 1723; and John, born 1727. Of these, John, who was a prominent preacher among Friends, left no issue, and James left only daughters, one of whom married Dr. Parke, and another Anthony Morris. Israel Jr. married Sarah Kirkbride of Bucks county, and had two daughters, and one son, Joseph, who married Ann Gallo- way of Maryland, first cousin of Joseph Galloway, the Bucks county loyalist, and died at the early age of thirty-six, leaving a large family, of whom John Pemberton, born in 1783, was in 1812 the only male representative of the family in America. He married Rebecca Clifford, and left a large family, of whom Henry Pember- ton, of Philadelphia, referred to in this. sketch, was the fifth. A complete geneal- ogy of the descendants of Phineas Pem- berton will be found in Glenn's "Geneal- ogy of the Lloyd, Pemberton and Parke Families." Phila., 1898. Isreal, James and John, the sons of Israel and grandsons of Phineas, were prominent in the religious. political, social and business life of Phlia- delphia, where their descendants are still found.
Further accounts of the Pemberton Fam- ily, may be found in Appleton's "Cyclo- pacdia of American Biography." vol. iv, p. 706; Westcott's "Historic Mansions of
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Philadelphia," p. 494; Sarah E. Titcomb's "Early New England People," p. 52; "Glenn's Genealogy ;" and "Friends' . Mis- cellany," vol. vii, both before referred to.
RICHARD HOUGH AND SOME OF HIS DESCENDANTS. Richard Hough, Provincial Councillor from Bucks county, for many years one of the most prominent figures in the Provincial Assembly, as well as in all the affairs of the Province and Bucks county, justice of the county court, etc., was a native of Macclesfield, in the county of Chester, England, and came to Pennsyl- vania in the "Endeavor" of London, arriving in the Delaware river 7th mno. 20. 1683 (O. S.), bringing with him four servants or de- pendents-Francis Hough, (probably a younger brother or nephew ), Thomas Wood (or Woodhouse) and Mary his wife, and James Sutton. He settled at once in Bucks county on land doubtless previously pur- chased, though patented later. This land consisted of two tracts fronting on the Delaware in Makefield township, one of them in what became later Upper Make- field and covered the present site of Tay- lorsville, and the other lying along the original (buft not the present) line of Falls township in Lower Makefield. On the lower tract fronting on the river about one- fourth of a mile and extending inland about three miles, Richard Ilough made his home and erected his first and only Bucks county home, a stone house, (one of the earliest to be erected of that material) from a quarry on his plantation which Penn con- sidered of so much importance that he or- dered a memorandum be entered in the land-office, "that ye great quarry in Rich- ard Hough's and Abel Janney's lands be reserved when they come to be confirmed, being for ye public good of ye county." On this plantation lived six generations of the eldest male branch of the family. part of it remaining in their possession until about 1850, when they removed to Ewing township, Mercer county, New Jer- sey.
Richard Hough took an active part in all the affairs of the county, political, so- cial and religious. He was a member of Falls Meeting of Friends and his character and attainments gave him an important place in its proceedings. Prior to the erec- tion of the Falls Meeting House, the Bucks Quarterly Meeting as well as meetings for worship were frequently held at his house. He was there, as elsewhere, intimately as- sociated with Phineas Pemberton, Thomas Janney, William Yardley, William Biles, Nicholas Waln, Joseph Kirkbride and others, who, with him, were the leaders in the affairs of the county and province, though some of them, notably William Biles, with whom he was intimately associated in private affairs, differed from him in provin- cial politics, Biles being the Bucks county leader of the Popular party, with strong
Democratic tendencies, while Richard Hough was a strong adherent of the Pro- prietary party headed by James Logan. Richard Hough began early to engage in public affairs, and represened Bucks county in the Provincial Assembly in 1684. 1688, 1690, 1697, 1699, 1700, 1703, and 1704-5; and member of Provincial Council, 1693 and 1700. He was one of the commission to divide the county into township in 1692; was one of the justices of the coun- ty count, and appointed in 1700, with Phin- eas Pemberton and William Biles, by Will- iam Penn, a "Court of Inquiry" to inves- tigate the affairs of the province. This bare record of the positions filled by Richard Hough can give but a very inadequate idea of the real position he filled in the af- fairs of the county and province, careful perusal of the records of both disclosing that he was one of the foremost men of his day. William Penn in a letter to Lo- gan, 7 mo. 14, 1705, replying to one of Lo- gan reporting the death of Hough, says : "I Jament the loss of honest Richard Hough. Such men must needs he wanted where selfishness and forgetfulness of God's mer- cies so much abound." Richard Hough was drowned in the Delaware March 25, 1705, while on his way to Philadelphia from his home in Bucks county. By his will dated May I, 1704, his home plantation of 400 acres was devised to his eldest son, Rich- ard, one half to be held by his wife Mar- gery, for life. His upper plantation, next the Manor of Highlands, went to his sec- ond son John; 350 acres and his Warwick plantation mentioned as 570 acres, but real- ly nearly 900 acres, was devised to his youngest son Joseph ; 271 acres, "next to John Palmer's," and 475 acres in Bucking- ham, purchased of his brother John, in 1694, were to be sold. The Warwick tract was one originally taken up by his father- in-law, John Clows, and purchased by Rich- ard Hough of the heirs, and remained the property of his descendants for many gen- erations, some of it for nearly two centu- ries. His daughters Mary and Sarah were given their portions in money. His wife Margery, son Richard, and "friend and brother," William Biles, were made execu- tors.
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