History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches, Part 145

Author: Futhey, John Smith, 1820-1888; Cope, Gilbert, 1840-1928
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1162

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human bodies in all states of mutilation and disjointed parts rising and falling in the air, with a few left entire to complete the joke by implying such familiarity with the practice as to coolly salute each other in the air. Davis well understood the causes of these perils and the best remedies to be applied. By one of these the " Cincinnati" was wrecked, some time before May, 1825, when I was in Cincinnati.

Davis Embree was the most efficient advocate for an act of Congress to repress the dangers of all steam navigation. To this he devoted several years of his time and the ener- gies of an intelligent and vigorous mind. The act of Con- gress of 30th August, 1852, was the result, and is the basis of the system of inspection and supervision of steam- boats and their boilers, with supply of life-preservers, in force to the present time. It was due to him and his fitness and skill that he should receive the appointment of inspector for the Mississippi River district, and he con- tinued to hold office under the act with general approval for some years ; but his independent Ulster blood was too much for his safety. He would not for office concede his freedom of speech, and a successor of other party politics was appointed to his place under the administration of Mr. Buchanan.

Though there are many disasters yet occurring, by reason of the neglect of duty by officials, owners, and captains, the savings under the aet, if they could be counted, would be of lives numbered in thousands, and of property numbered in millions, in the past and through all future times. Seldom, indeed, has one man exercised so much power for good as this son of Chester County.

Sibbilla was the veteran teacher of the family. From the small home school-house she went to the palatial one of Westtown to teach in 1813, and, as every good teacher is, was there further self-taught, as well as taught by others. There she remained some years. Her sister Anna, after some years spent in teaching in Wilmington, joined Sibbilla in teaching in Philadelphia. In the three places they moved under the benign auspices and protective care of Friends, as Jesse did in New Jersey and in Baltimore. This is an advantage that is of inestimable value to those who leave the parental roof to procure a livelihood. At the same time it afforded to these young women a most intelligent and agreeable social circle. Here they were employed together for several years. When Philip Price established his boarding-school for girls, soon after 1830, Sibbilla went to her uncle as a teacher, and remained with him until his death in 1837, and afterwards with his daughter, Hannah P. Davis, until she sold the school building in 1852. She extended her studies into the French language, drawing, and natural history.

Rebecca went, in 1816, to live with Sally Norris Dick- inson, daughter of Governor John Dickinson, author of the " Farmer's Letters" before, and president of the Su- preme Executive Council after, the Revolution, and lived in close friendship with her until her death, a period of more than forty years. There she read with her history, travels, biography, and general literature. The opportuni- ties for improvement there afforded her were most ample and made available. In that attractive and plain . but

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HISTORY OF CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

elegant home she met socially many members of the Society of Friends and others, women and men of superior culture and intelligence, and of high moral and religious excellence. This society was very refining to Rebecca, and her previous training and her kindred qualities made her fully susceptible to the influences that surrounded her. No better example of the dignity and refinement of a per- feet lady could be seen than was Sally Norris Dickinson.

It may here be truly said of all the daughters of James Embree that they were cultivated and refined ladies ; of all his sons that they were gentlemen in the sense of the better qualities of a true gentleman, though generally they were as plain in dress and address as required by the strictest observance of the rules of Friends' discipline.

There is something to be observed of the children of James and Rebecca Embree that was distinctive. They were of nervous constitution, and sanguine temperament as well, with little of the ballast of the phlegmatic .. While the sanguine made them hopeful and enterprising, the nervous left them depressed when exhausted or disappointed. They had a quick perception of the humorous, witty, and ridiculous that readily caused cheerfulness and laughter and made them brightly social ; but this vivacity again was met by the seriousness of a profound religious feeling, so that the alternations were plainly visible and often of quick recurrence. The blood of the persecuted French Hugue- not and of the Ulster Irish ancestor were both manifest.

Am I here asked why I thus commemorate persons who had so little success in life, for never one of them grew rich ? There are some things in life better to be done than the getting of riches, which has frequently a harden- ing tendency. The life of every daughter, so long as she lived, she lived independently and happily, and died leaving more loving and beloved friends than is commonly the lot of women. The failures of sons to grow rich was from overruling causes, but without reproach, and their lives convey lessons valuable as cautions to others ; and some of them were wise enough not to covet or strive for wealth. They all, sons and daughters, of both mothers, had an af- fection for each other more than is common ; that never failed, and made them helpful of each other according to ability. Rebecca, by the liberality of her devoutly-beloved and ever-lamented friend, Sally Norris Dickinson, was en- abled during life and at death to be helpful to her nearest relatives, whose tender and affectionate care and attentions she perfectly enjoyed. The conclusion is that James Em- bree and Phebe and Rebecca, his wives, while they lived, and through their children after them, were benefactors of society, and the world will long be the better because they had lived.

Have I seemed to occupy more than a due share of space in this local history with the sketches of the lives of Philip and Rachel Price, and of James and Rebecca Embree ? In writing them I have had this feeling : that my memory reaches further into the past than any who will write for this Chester County volume. I look back to a period when Friends there constituted a larger proportion of the community than now, and exercised a greater relative influence than now for the general good. Other religious persuasions now more abound, and with increase of religious earnestness.

We yet look upon many Friends there true in faith and practice, and such as I knew them in my youth; yet I have not been able to divest my mind of the feeling that " the society" is slowly waning, and the thought fills me with sorrow that in time it will verge to extinction there, where their good work and example have been conspicuously beneficent. In this possible event it has seemed good that our local history should. carry into future time the true conception of what we bave seen and known to be true. It is a precious part of the good history of our humanity, so sparse in this world. And in contemplating a possible future so sad I have this assured satisfaction : that besides the works of humanity they have done,-works great in- deed compared with their relatively small numbers,-they have leavened the world with a leaven that will leaven it through indefinite time ; have made its Christianity more spiritual and real ; the inspirations of the Holy Spirit more assured among men ; made mankind more humane; borne testimonies of righteousness that the world can never for- get ; given to it conceptions of divine truth that must at once stand the test of the most enlightened understanding and the divinest teachings of the Gospel.

The history of the Friends for over two hundred years, while it awfully reflects upon a persecuting and wicked world, is that which the good of mankind will in all the future look back upon with the highest approbation. They hore their persecutions heroically, they endured and died in the spirit of martyrs, but they never retaliated by in- jury for injury ; yet they owed it to humanity and to God to bear their testimony against all wrong, and to cry aloud against all oppression and iniquity, and this they did as fearlessly as they suffered bravely. Though seeming so serious a people, so unromantic to the young and worldly, their history is truly the brightest and most beautiful, in contrast with which the records of chivalry and the Cru- sades fade into folly and wickedness. It is but the light of the good and the true that will be seen across the dark- ness of the centuries.

EMLEN, GEORGE, of Philadelphia, vintner, and Han- nah Garrett, of the same place, daughter of William Gar- rett, of Chester County, were married 4, 5, 1694, and had the following children : 1. George, b. 5, 7, 1695; m. Mary, daughter of Robert and Susanna Heath, in 1716. 2. Samuel, b. 2, 15, 1697 ; m. Rachel Hudson, 10, 2, 1731. 3. Caleb, b. 4, 9, 1699. 4. Joshua, b. 2, 14, 1701. 5. Hannah, b. 12, 3, 1703-4. 6. Ann, b. 3, 19, 1705; m. William Miller, of New Garden, Chester Co. 7. Mary, b. 11, 1, 1707-8; m. Jobn Armitt. 8. Sarah, b. 1, 19, 1709-10; d. 8, 2, 1752 ; m. 3, 25, 1738, James Cresson.

Hannah Emlen, widow of George, married William Tid- marsh, of Chester, in 1716.

George and Mary Emlen had children,-George, b. 6, 21, 1718; Hannah, b. 4, 1, 1722; and Joseph, b. 5, 1, 1728. Joseph died young, Hannah married William Logan, and George married Ann Reckless, daughter of Joseph and Margaret, of New Jersey.

Their children were George, b. 2, 25, 1741; Caleb, b. 9, 15, 1744 ; Mary, b. 10, 19, 1746; Joseph, b. 10, 28, 1748; Margaret, b. 2, 15, 1750; Anne, b. 4, 30, 1755 ; Samuel, b. 8, 28, 1756 ; James, b. 6, 26, 1760.

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL.

Of these, Samuel was remarkable both for learning and piety. As a minister he seemed to have a wonderful insight of the spiritual condition of his hearers. James Emlen, his brother, was well educated, and it was designed that he should travel in Europe for his further accomplishment, but he declined the proposal and retired to the country, where he sojourned a considerahle time with his relative, Hannah, widow of William Miller, of New Garden, after- wards wife of Jacob Lindley. He assumed the manage- ment of her mill without an assistant and declined com- pensation, stipulating only that he might grind for some of the poorer customers without taking toll. In this, how- ever, he was careful not to let the left hand know what the right hand did.

In 1782 he removed to Middletown township, and was married, 4, 23, 1783, at Concord Meeting, to Phebe Peirce, daughter of Caleb and Ann, of Thornbury. The next year he purchased from Joseph Talbot 102 acres of land, together with a grist-mill and 29 acres adjoining in 1785. His wife, born 11, 11, 1758, died with the yellow fever 10, 25, 1793, and he died from the same epidemic 10, 3, 1798. While he lived here he was an elder in the meeting, and very serviceable as clerk, recorder, etc.

The children of James and Phebe Emlen were as fol. lows : Anne, b. 6, 9, 1784, m. Judge Walter Franklin, of Lancaster; Joshua, b. 12, 22, 1785, m. Abby Smith, of Philadelphia ; Mary, b. 8, 13, 1787, m. George Newbold, of New York; Samuel (M.D.), b. 3, 6, 1789, m. Beulah Valentine, of Philadelphia; Phebe, b. 8, 30, 1790; James, b. 6, 17, 1792.

This youngest child became the owner of the property, by releases from the other beirs, in 1818, and sold the mill and 100 acres to Nathan Yearsley in 1823. Upon the remaining tract was a house, built in 1794, for the miller, to which he made additions for school purposes. This is now owned by Samuel Markley. On the property and by the road leading to Middletown Meeting is a frame tenant- house, in part of which it is said that James Emlen taught school at one time, and to which an addition was made to accommodate the meeting for a time after the division in the society, until the new stone structure was erected.

He was married 1, 11, 1816, to Sarah F., daughter of Cadwallader and Phebe Foulke, of Ohio Co., Va., she being then a teacher at Westtown Boarding-School. In 1835 he became a teacher at this institution, and resided with his family on the property for about thirteen years. Removing thence to West Chester, his wife died 7, 27, 1849. She was a minister, and paid religious visits to distant parts, including Great Britain. James was a highly- esteemed elder in the meeting, but of quiet and unobtru- sive deportment. He died 10, 23, 1866. His children were James, who died young, Mary, Phebe, Sarah C., Anne, Susan, and Samuel, the last being now a resident of Germantown.

The following sketch of his brother, Samuel Emlen, is taken from a memoir prepared by his friend, Dr. Charles D. Meigs :

DR. SAMUEL EMLEN was born in Chester County, March 6, 1789. As springing from one of the oldest and most respectable families of the Society of Friends, he received,

of course, in his early education, all the advantages which their strict example and sedulous inculcation of good morals could bestow. His education was chiefly English, but, as it was carefully superintended, he laid in it a solid founda- tion of knowledge on which he afterwards erected a con- siderable structure of various and available information. Dr. Emlen's acquirements were more solid than specions, and produced in him those excellent fruits which have caused his death to be so muchi regretted.

In the year 1808, having resolved to devote himself to the profession of medicine, he placed himself, as a house- pupil, with Dr. Parrish, of Philadelphia, and under his roof, and with his example constantly before him, made rapid progress in his studies, to which, by the testimony of his teacher, he absolutely devoted himself. Under the roof of Dr. Parrish, as a member of his family, Dr. Emlen passed four years, during which, having attended the lec- tures delivered in the university by Profs. Rush, Wistar, Barton, Physick, James, and Coxe, he graduated M.D., and in June, 1812, embarked at New York for England.

Arrived at London in July, he placed himself in the vi- cinity of one of the great hospitals, where he sedulously endeavored to acquire the greatest amount of practical and surgical knowledge. Attendance on hospital practice, or lec- tures by the celebrated individuals whose reputation had attracted him thither, conversation with celebrated men, to the houses of many of whom he had free and familiar ac- cess, and visits to objects which interest the man of science or the philanthropist, kept his mind on the stretch ; and he accumulated a large stock of information, of which he noted down the heads in his journal, a perusal of which affords satisfactory evidence of the diligence with which he employed himself even at that period. The declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain, which reached London soon after his arrival, placed no obstacles in the way of his studies while in the metropolis. The detention it occasioned him gave him an opportunity, how- ever, of making an extensive tour through England, Ire- land, and Scotland, the history of which is detailed with considerable naïveté in his journal. At length the obstacles to his visit to Paris were removed, and, after a residence of fourteen months in the island, he reached that city about the time of the emperor's return from Leipzic. His stay in London, and his frequent access to the society of the most eminent physicians, surgeons, and lecturers, had in- creased his stock of knowledge, while the elegant society in which he moved, although it never abolished the gravity of his carriage or the serious and sententious style of his conversation, imparted, nevertheless, to his manners that urbane cast which is far more estimable and trustworthy than the false and heartless elegance of more fashionable intercourse. They were marked by the gentleness, self- possession, and confidence which belong to the gentleman. In Paris, though daily attracted by the extraordinary events of that eventful period of history, Dr. Emlen continued to attend mainly to the objects of his visit. The battles fought in the vicinity filled the hospitals with soldiers suffering every species of military accidents, which he care- fully studied. After the surrender of the French capital he returned to London in June, from whence he pro-

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HISTORY OF CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

ceeded to Holland, and came home in the corvette " John Adams," as bearer of dispatches for the government, after an absence of nearly two years and a half. Soon after his arrival he commenced the practice of physic, and was elected one of the physicians of the Philadelphia Dispensary, an excellent school of practice, through which most of the eminent practitioners here have passed. In 1819 .he re- signed this station in consequence of increasing occupations, soon after which he was elected to be one of the managers, and finally, after the death of his revered friend, Dr. Grif- fiths, became secretary to that charity. During the year 1819, when the yellow fever prevailed along the water margin of Philadelphia, he was secretary of the Board of Health, and made those observations of which the fruit is to be found in his valuable paper on yellow fever.

As a member of the Board of the Guardians of the Poor, as physician to the Magdalen Asylum, the Orphan Asylum, and the Friends' Asylum for the Insane, he established broadly and deeply the foundations of a reputation which tended daily to raise him in the public esteem. He suc- ceeded Dr. Griffiths as secretary to the College of Physi- cians, and to his zeal is undoubtedly owing much of the re- newed activity and efficiency which mark the present course of that institution. In 1825 he was elected one of the physicians to the Pennsylvania Hospital, an office to which he was annually re-elected,-a sufficient proof of the as- siduity and ability with which he discharged the functions of that honorable and responsible situation. This excellent man sat not down contented with the discharge of merely his professional duties. He had acquired very solemn im- pressions of the magnitude of the evils which the vice of drunkenness has brought on the country, and few persons, although much attention had been given to it by some of the foremost men of the time, had accumulated more of the statistic knowledge on the point than himself. In the organization of the " Pennsylvania Society for Discouraging the Use of Ardent Spirits," as well as in its administration as manager, he took a very active and discreet part. Dr. Em- len's private business occupied a very large share of his time. It had augmented rapidly during the last few years of his life, so that, with his public and private affairs, he had little leisure for visits of ceremony, or for any waste of that time which, in his eyes, was so valuable.

In 1819 he married Beulah Valentine, like himself a member of the Friends' society. In the tender relations which this union produced he found the purest sources of happiness. To his children he bore an affection that might be called passionate, and the fire of parental love glowed in his breast with redoubled intenseness, perhaps because of the habitual restraint under which he was accustomed to hold his passions. How lamentable must have seemed the stroke which divided him in this world from that care and watchfulness over his children which appeared to be, for him, the best part of existence ! Nevertheless, in com- mitting his family, as he did on his death-bed, to the provi- dential care of his Maker, he seemed to have acquired a calmness and submission that permitted no murmuring word to escape his lips, nor allowed of one sign of impa- tience or willfulness to express his unwillingness to meet that fate for which he was prepared by a blameless life.

He was daily rising in solid reputation and in the general estimation of his fellow-citizens, when he fell a victim to an attack of remittent fever, on April 17, 1828, in the thirty- ninth year of his age.

ENGLAND, JOSEPH, son of John and Love England, was born at Burton-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, England, 7, 2, 1680. His profession was that of a millwright. Having charge of the Water-works at London Bridge, in Deal, he, in 1705, obtained from Prince George, of Den- mark, a protection against impressment. He is described therein as a "tall, slender man, with dark brown hair, and fresh coloured."

About the year 1710 he married Margaret Orbell, daughter of Samuel and Joanna Orbell, of Deal, in Kent, where he remained a few years, and went thence to his native place. In 1723 they came to Pennsylvania and set- tled at Nottingham. Joseph spent most of his time for the next four years at iron-works some distance from his family. In 1730 he became a minister among Friends, and died 10, 23, 1748, his latter residence being in New Castle County. His wife was born 6, 3, 1685, at Deal, and died 2, 7, 1741 ; both buried at the " Brick" Meeting. Their children were as follows: 1. John, b. 7, 19, 1737; d. 8, 8, 1748 ; m. about 1736, Elizabeth - who after- wards became the wife of Joshua Johnson, of New Garden. 2. Samuel, b. 4, 18, 1717; d. 7, 27, 1791; m. 9, 11, 1740, Sarah Slater, and had several children. 3. Joanna, b. 7, 29, 1721; m. John Townsend, of East Bradford. 4. Joseph, b. 9, 2, 1723, at Springfield, in Nottingham. 5. Lydia, b. 12, 24, 1730-1 ; d. 1, 24, 1733-4.

WILLIAM ENGLAND, of Willistown, married Sarah Pennock, and died leaving a son, William. His widow married, 12, 7, 1749, Amos Boake, and they settled in Caln. William England, Jr., married, 1, 16, 1771, Susanna Hall, of Willistown, and removed to West Bradford, at or near Marshallton, where he had a smith-shop. Their chil- dren were Mary, b. 12,3, 1771, d. 12, 17, 1771 ; Sarah, b. 3, 2, 1773, d. 10, 23, 1773 ; Thomas, b. 11, 17, 1774, m. 2, 24, 1803, Mary Clemson ; William, b. 8, 31, 1776; David, b. 6, 22, 1778.

Susanna, the mother, died 7, 29, 1778, and William married second, 5, 22, 1783, Hannah Wood, who died 11, 2, 1822, at the supposed age of ninety-one. William died 10, 19, 1813, aged seventy-two.

The children of Thomas and Mary were Hannah, Emily, Lewis, James, Rachel, Lindley M., William, Thomas, Mary Ann, and Sidney.

EVANS, of London Britain .- An old manuscript in possession of this family says that John Evans, a native of Wales, landed in Philadelphia with a family of seven per- sons,-viz. : his father, mother, wife, daughter, brother, and sister,-and after a short sojourn with the Welsh on the west side of the Schuylkill, he purchased 200 acres in the Welsh Tract, New Castle County, to which he removed in 1696. His brother being a carpenter was of much assistance to him in making improvements. His daughter died soon after the settlement was made, but a son, John, was born in 1700, who in course of time married a neighbor's daughter, and in turn had a son, Johu. The wife and son died, how- ever, soon after. Before this time the first-named John

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL.

bought 400 acres of land on White Clay Creek, whereon he erected a mill as early as 1715. In 1718, Reynold Howell, a native of Wales, arrived in Philadelphia with his family of six children,-Jane, Lewis, Mary, George, Mar- garet, and William,-and the next year settled on a farm near the river, below the mouth of Christina Creek. This place proving unhealthy, he was induced to remove to the Welsh Tract, where he purchased a farm joining the present town of Newark. John Evans, Jr., married Jane Howell, the eldest daughter, and settled at the mill in London Britain in 1722. He died April 14, 1738, and his father, now "being ancient," about the year 1740. In 1734, John Evans, Jr., purchased from John Evans, Esq., of Denbigh, in Wales, 1000 acres in what was then New Garden township, and adjoining the tract whereon he was settled. This was doubtless the reason that part of New Garden was afterwards joined to London Britain. John Evans, of Denbigh, had bought from William Penn, Jr., all the unsold land in New Garden, and we suspect he was the former Governor of Pennsylvania, with whom the younger Penn was known to be intimate.

By his will John Evans, Jr., gave to his son John the homestead of 500 acres and the grist-mill thereon. To his son Evan he gave 400 acres, part of the 1000, with fulling-mills, tenter-yards, etc., and to his sons George and Peter the remaining 600 acres.

The children of John and Jane Evans were,-1. Mary, b. 1724 ; m. Evan Rice; d. Jan. 20, 1752. 2. Lydia, b. 1726. 3. John, b. 1728. 4. Evan, b. 1732; d. Oct. 22, 1794. 5. George, b. 1734. 6. Peter, b. 1736.

John Evans (3) was appointed by the Supreme Exec- ntive Council " Third Judge of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth," Aug. 16, 1777, and in October, 1783, he and Anthony Wayne were elected to the Council of Censors. His death occurred prior to Dec. 9, 1783, and on Feb. 26, 1784, Jacob Rush was appointed judge in his stead. James Moore succeeded him as censor, Dec. 13, 1783. March 3, 1784, " An order was drawn on the Treasurer in favor of the executors of John Evans, Esquire, deceased, for twenty-six pounds, five pounds specie, in full for his wages as a member of the Council of Censors, to be paid according to resolution of Assembly of the twenty-fourth of November, 1783."

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History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches, Part 145

Author: Futhey, John Smith, 1820-1888; Cope, Gilbert, 1840-1928 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts Number of Pages: 1162

Author: Futhey, John Smith, 1820-1888; Cope, Gilbert, 1840-1928
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1162