History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches, Part 171

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

USA > Pennsylvania > Chester County > History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches > Part 171

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1836 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, and was re-elected in 1837. He declined in 1838 a nomination for the State Senate, as his private affairs demanded all his time and attention. In 1840 he was selected to represent his dis- trict in the electoral college of Pennsylvania, and cast his vote for Harrison and Tyler, the Whig and successful candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. In June, 1840, he received the nomination from what is known in Chester County as the great " Whig Meeting," on the 9th of that month, to supply a vacaney in the popu- lar branch of the State Legislature, occasioned by the death of one of its members ; but the Speaker of the House with- holding the order for the special election, it never was held. In 1842 he was elected to the Twenty-eighth Congress from the Seventh Distriet, composed of Chester County, and was re-elected in 1844 and 1846. One of the great issues then before the country was the vexed question of a protective tariff. To the consideration of that policy his thoughts had been early directed. The results of his investigation had placed him among the ardent friends and supporters of the system ; and he took occasion to enforce his views in a masterly speech delivered April 29, 1844, and subse. quently June 18, 1846. He stood among the earliest and most constant opponents of the annexation of Texas, and spoke against that measure Jan. 25, 1845. With equal

resolution he opposed appropriations for the prosecution of the war against Mexico, and declined to vote on the de- claratory act of May 13, 1846. In his able speech of June 18, 1846, he said, " He washed his hands of this war. It was a war unnecessarily and unjustly forced upon the country by the President, without authority of law, and in violation of the Constitution, which gives to Congress alone the power to make war." In 1848, and for successive years, he was president of the Agricultural Society of Chester and Delaware Counties, and for a long time vice- president of the State Agricultural Society.

He possessed the personal esteem of men of all parties, his great abilities and the excellence of his private character being recognized by all within reach of their influence. He died Aug. 22, 1863, aged fifty-nine years. His only surviving son was Capt. Charles McIlvaine, of Co. H, 97th Pennsylvania Regiment, in the war of the Rebellion, also captain in the 19th United States Infantry, but which position his ill health and that of his father compelled him to resign in June, 1863. See also the rosters of soldiers in the Rebellion, in Appendix.

When President Lincoln was about to form his eabinet, he wrote to Mr. McIlvaine, asking who would best please Pennsylvania, and the name of Cameron was given. After the appointment the latter wrote to Mr. McIlvaine, thank- ing him for his letter to Lincoln, who had told him he owed it to " Abe."

When his only living son, just twenty-one, asked leave to enter the army, Abraham responded in this wise : " Charles, I was opposed to the Mexican war ; it was wrong and wieked. I said in a speech on the floor of Congress that in a just war I would give my last cent and last drop of blood. This war is just ; I am too old and feeble now ; you may go, my boy."

McKEAN .- As early as 1725, Susanna " McCain" was settled in New London on 300 acres of land which had been surveyed in 1720 for William Reynolds, now mostly in Franklio township. In her will, Dec. 28, 1730, she speaks of herself as " now living, and blessed be almighty God for the same, in the congregation of New London," and her death occurred in less than two months after. Whether she was a widow before leaving Ireland is un- known. She mentions her children, William and Thomas McCain, to whom she devised 400 acres of land ; also her daughter Barbara Murrah, son John Crighton, and son- in-law John Henderson, with his wife, Margaret, her daughter. Crighton was perhaps a son by a former hus- band. He died December, 1731, and in his will mentions his brothers William and Thomas McKane, sisters Barbara Murray, to whom he left his plantation, and Margaret.

There was a James McKean, who may have been another son.

In 1726 there was considerable dispute between Gabriel Alexander and his neighbors about their lands (see New London), which will explain the following :

" FRIEND ABRAHAM EMITT :-- I am informd yt ye hath granted a warrant to take Wm & James Mackean on ye complaint of Zackiackous Alexander for a traspas on sum Land. I would have ye have a care of thy Prosoding for I do no yt Gabral nor his son Zacious hath no Grant for yt Land, but yt wido Mackean hath. I would a came to ye

644

HISTORY OF CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

but at this time I cannot : ye bisenes of Proporty is not to be triefeled with. I would have ye to quash yt warrant untill ye seas me. I con- clude thy Reaial frind.

" ELISHA GATCHELL.

"NOTTINGHAM ye 21 day of ye 3 mo. 1727."

Abra. Emmit writes, Nov. 27, 1739, that " at ye Request of Thomas Mckean I try'd his Line in yt part yt it Joyns upon the London trackt," etc. In 1741, Thomas Mckean, having purchased a tavern property in Tredyffrin, received license and remained there for several years, probably at the " Ball" or " King of Prussia." In 1764 and 1779 he was living in Easttown.

William McKean, born in Ireland about 1707, married Letitia Finney, daughter of Robert and Dorothea Finney, of ." Thunder Hill," by whom he had four children,- Robert, Thomas, Dorothea, and William. He remained in New London until 1741, when, like his brother, he entered into the business of tavern-keeping at what is now Chat- ham. The old brick house in New London, which was known as the birthplace of Governor Thomas Mckean, was taken down about thirty-five years ago by William E. Haines, who used the brick in erecting a new house a few rods northward, now the residence of Joseph Peirce, in Franklin township. Haines subsequently built a new brick house for his son on the original site.

William McKean removed in 1745 to Londonderry, suc- ceeding James Logan as tavern-keeper, and married the widow, Anne Logan, who died in 1751. His residence in the township may have given rise to the statement that his son was born in Londonderry. A tavern property at Chat- ham was in possession of Thomas Mckean at the breaking out of the Revolution, but it had been rented for several years. What became of the father and other children has not been noticed.

THOMAS MCKEAN, a zealous and distinguished Revo- lutionary patriot, was born March 19, 1734, in New Lon- don township. At the age of nine he was placed in the celebrated academy of Rev. Francis Alison, D.D., at New London Cross-roads, where he completed the regular course of instruction adopted at that famous institution, and ac- quired a sound knowledge of the languages, of the practical branches of mathematics, rhetoric, logic, and moral phil- osophy. On leaving this excellent school he went to New Castle, Del., and entered the office of his relative, David Finney, Esq., as law student, and some months afterwards was a. clerk there in the prothonotary's office. In two years he was appointed deputy prothonotary, etc., for New Castle County, which he retained until the twentieth year of his age. Evidence has been lately discovered of his admission as a law student at the " Temple," in London. Before he reached his majority he was admitted as an at- torney in all the courts of Delaware, and in 1756 was admitted to practice in his native county of Chester, and soon afterwards in the city and county of Philadelphia. In 1756 the attorney-general of the province appointed him his deputy to prosecute the pleas of the Crown in the county of Sussex, which he performed for two years. In 1757 he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the province, and the same and succeeding year was clerk of the Provincial Assembly. In 1762 he was selected by the Assembly, together with Caesar Rodney, to revise

and reprint the laws passed subsequently to 1752. In 1762 he was elected a member of the Assembly from New Castle County, and was annually returned for seventeen successive years, during the last six of which he resided in Philadelphia. From 1764 to 1772 he served as one of the three trustees of the loan-office for New Castle County. He was a delegate to the first Provincial Congress, which assembled at New York in October, 1765, representing the counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex on Delaware. This "Stamp Act Congress," as it was called, having framed a declaration of rights and grievances, together with an ad- dress to his majesty, and memorials to the Lords and Com- mons, was dissolved Oct. 24, 1765. Mr. Mckean continued to be engaged in various public employments. On July 10, 1765, he was appointed by the Governor sole notary and tabellion public for the lower counties on Delaware, and in the same year received the commission of a justice of the peace, and of the Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, and of the Orphans' Court, for the county of New Castle. In November term, 1765, and February term, 1766, he sat on the bench which ordered all the officers to proceed in their several duties as usual on unstamped paper. This was accordingly done, and it is believed that this was the first court in the colonies that established such an order.

In 1766 he was licensed by the Governor of New Jersey to practice as a solicitor in chancery, attorney-at-law, and counselor in all the courts in that province. In 1771 he was appointed by the commissioners of his majesty's cus- toms collector of the port of New Castle, and in 1772 was chosen Speaker of the Assembly. To the first Continental Congress, that assembled in Philadelphia Sept. 5, 1774, he was appointed a delegate from the lower counties on Del- aware, although he had, a short time before, removed his residence permanently to Philadelphia. He took his seat in that august assemblage, of which he became an invalu- able ornament, and from that day his country claimed him as her own. He was annually elected a member until Feb. 1, 1783, serving in the great national council during the long and uninterrupted period of eight years and a half. Two remarkable circumstances connected with this epoch are peculiar to the life of Mr. Mckean. In the first place, he was the only man who was, without intermission, a member of the Revolutionary Congress from the time of its opening, in 1774, until after the preliminaries of the peace of 1783 were signed ; for, notwithstanding he was also engaged in other important public affairs, his residence in Philadelphia induced his constituents to retain him. The other circumstance is, that while he represented the State of Delaware in Congress until 1783, and was in 1781 president of it, he held the office and executed the duties of chief justice of Pennsylvania. His career in Congress embraced a long series of unremitting and dis- tinguished services. On June 12, 1776, he was appointed on the committee to prepare and digest the form of a con- federation to be entered into between the colonies, a draught of which was reported, and after many postponements, de- bates, and amendments, was finally agreed to Nov. 15, 1777, but not signed by a majority of the representatives until July 9, 1778. Mr. Mckean was particularly active

BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL.

645

and useful in procuring the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, for which he eloquently spoke and voted, and which he boldly signed after it had been engrossed on parchment.

In the year 1776 Delaware was represented in Congress by Cæsar Rodney, George Read, and Thomas Mckean. Mr. Rodney was not present when the question of inde- pendence was put, in committee of the whole, on the 1st of July. Mr. Mckean voted for and Mr. Read against (and both had been schoolmates at Dr. Alison's Chester County Academy at New London). Delaware was thus divided. When the president resumed the chair, the chair- man of the committee of the whole made his report, which was not acted upon until Thursday, the 4th of July. Every State, excepting Pennsylvania and Delaware, had voted in favor of the measure, but it was a matter of great

State also united in the vote by a majority of one. By these means the Declaration of Independence became the unanimous act of the thirteen States. Mr. McKean being engaged in military services, was not present in Congress during several months next succeeding the 4th of July, 1776 ; and it was not until the month of October ensuing that he had an opportunity of affixing his signature to the Declaration, engrossed on parchment, as directed by a reso- lution of Congress subsequent to his necessary departure from Philadelphia. Mr. Mckean was president of the Convention of Deputies from the committees of Pennsyl- vania, held at Carpenters' Hall, in Philadelphia, in June, 1776, who unanimously declared their willingness to concur in a vote of the Congress declaring the United States free and independent States. He was one of the committee, with Dr. Franklin and two other deputies, which drafted

THOMAS MCKEAN.

importance to procure a unanimous vote and voice. Mr. Mckean, therefore, without delay dispatched an express, at his private expense, for Mr. Rodney, who was then at his home in Delaware. That gentleman hastened to Phila- delphia, and was met at the door of the State-House, in ' his boots and spurs, by Mr. Mckean, as the members were assembling on the morning of the 4th. After a friendly salutation, but without exchanging a word on the subject of independence, they entered the hall together and took their seats. They were among the latest in attendance ; the proceedings immediately commenced, and after a few min- utes the great question was put. When the vote of Dela- ware was called, Mr. Rodney arose, and briefly expressing his conviction that the welfare of his country demanded the Declaration, voted with Mr. Mckean, and secured the voice of Delaware. Two of the members of the Pennsyl- vania delegation, adverse to the measure, being absent, that

that Declaration ; on June 24th he signed it in behalf of the State of Pennsylvania, and on the succeeding day de- livered it to Congress in the name of the convention. The regiment of Associators, of which he was colonel, had in the preceding month of May unanimously made a similar declaration. On July 5, 1776, he was chosen chairman, at a conference of the delegates in Congress, for the States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In the same year he was also chairman of the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania, and of inspection and observation for the "City and Liberties of Philadelphia." As colonel of the Philadelphia Regiment of Associators he marched at the head of his battalion to Perth Amboy, N. J., to support Gen. Washington, and was several months in military ser- vice, and participated in a number of skirmishes, no regular engagements having occurred while he was in the field. Finding that he had been elected a member of the con-

646

HISTORY OF CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

vention for forming a constitution for the State of Delaware, he in two days departed for Dover. Immediately on his arrival, after a fatiguing ride, a committee of gentlemen waited on him, and requested that he would prepare a con- stitution for the future government of the State. Retiring to his room at the tavern, he sat up all night, and having prepared it without a book, or any assistance whatever, pre- sented it at ten o'clock the next morning to the House, when it was unanimously adopted. On July 28, 1777, he re- ceived from the Supreme Executive Council the commission of chief justice of Pennsylvania, and performed the duties of that high station with distinguished zeal and fidelity for twenty-two years. At the time of his appointment he was Speaker of the Assembly, President of State of Delaware, and a member of Congress.

While chief justice of the Keystone State, it became his duty to regulate the unruly intruders from Connecticut, at Wyoming. The following passage, in reference to those troublesome customers, occurs at page 280, in the curious and highly interesting " Annals of Luzerne County," re- cently compiled by Stewart Pearce :

" In 1778, John Franklin, the indemitable Yankee leader, and his associates, who had captured Timethy Pickering, were arraigned be- fere the Supreme Court, at Wilkesbarre, Judge Mckean presiding. Franklin was released on bail, and the rest were tried for riet. The trials being closed, and sentence having been pronounced on a num- her of the offenders, the action ef the court was denounced by the great hedy of the population. In particular, Mr. Johnson (their pastor) teek eccasien to condemn the whele proceedings frem the pul- pit. By order of Judge Mckean he was brought before the court, and required to give bends for his good behavior."

On July 10, 1781, he was, on the resignation of Hon. Samuel Huntington, elected President of Congress. Owing, however, to the necessity of his attending the sessions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (as its chief justice), he resigned the presidency, and on the 5th of November ensuing Hon. Jolin Hanson was chosen as his successor. Proclaiming from the bench the law of justice and his country with eminent learning, ability, and integrity, neither fear nor power could bend him from the stern line of duty. Regardless of the powers of the crown of Great Britain, he did not hesitate to hazard his own life by caus- ing to be punished, even unto death, those who were proved to be traitors to their country. But no popular excitement against individuals accused of offenses could in the slightest degree divert him from the discharge, firm and inflexible, of his public duty. Hence he issued the famous writ of habeas corpus in September, 1777, in behalf of the twenty persons confined in the Freemasons' Lodge, at Philadel- phia, on treasonable charges. He industriously devoted himself to the discharge of the duties of chief justice until 1799, when he was elected Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and was re-elected in 1802, and again in 1805.

In 1799, after a furious political contest between the supporters of Mckean and James Ross, of Pittsburgh, Thomas Mckean was elected Governor of Pennsylvania, to succeed Governor Mifflin, in which office he was continued until succeeded by Governor Snyder in 1808. When the result of the election in 1799 was ascertained, the partisans of Mckean in Philadelphia held a town-meeting to con-

gratulate him on the auspicious event. At that meeting Israel Israel, a distinguished politician of the time, presided ; the language employed on the occasion was of the broadest Anglo-Saxon type, and unmistakably indicative of the feel- ings which then prevailed. The response of the Governor- elect will afford a correct idea of the temper of that period, and is highly characteristic of the man. It is liere inserted as one of the political curiosities-a sort of palæontological specimen-of a by-gone age :

"An address frem the Republican citizens of the city and county of Philadelphia, en my election to the chief magistracy of the State of Pennsylvania, affords me very sincere pleasure. I thank you mest cordially fer your faverable epinien and kind expressions of me, and trust you entertain a well-founded hope that under my administration our present happy system of government, raised en the authority of the people enly, will, by the faver of God, be continued inviolate; and that neither foreign ner domestic enemies, neither intrigue, men- ace, nor seductien shall prevail against it.

"The open arts and secret practices of its enemies have been cem- pletely excited and exhausted in the late election. Traitors, refugees, Tories, French aristocrats, British agents and British subjects, and their corrupt dependents, together with not a few apestate Whigs, all combined against your candidate; the most abominable lies were propagated, and nething emitted that could arrest a vote; and what is strange but true, all the officers and expectants of office under the President of the United States, not only in Pennsylvania, but in the neighhering States, joined in the coalition, with very few exceptions.

" Your tender and affectionate expressions of regard fer my life and health are extremely kind and ebliging; permit me deveutly to re- ciprocate them with you.

" PHILAD'A, Nov. 6, 1799."

"THOMAS M'KEAN.

Mr. Mckean was a member of the Convention of Penn- sylvania which ratified the Constitution of the United States, and which met in Philadelphia, Nov. 20, 1787. The long and eloquent speech delivered by him on the suc- ceeding 11th of December embraced a clear and compre- hensive view of the whole subject, and had great weight in securing the ratification of the national organic instrument by his State. He was a member of the Convention that assembled in Philadelphia, Nov. 24, 1789, and formed the State constitution of 1790. On Sept. 26, 1781, the Col- lege of New Jersey conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., as did also Dartmouth College in the following year. On May 2, 1785, he was elected a member of the Phila- delphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, and on October 31st following received the diploma of the So- ciety of Cincinnati, instituted by the officers of the Revo- lutionary army, at the period of its dissolution, to commem- orate the great event which gave independence to North America. He was also a trustee of the University of Penn- sylvania, and in 1790 one of the founders of the Hibernian Society for the relief of immigrants from Ireland, of which he was a long time president. He kept up until his death a correspondence with Presidents Jefferson and John Adams, and many other of the Revolutionary patriots. In person Mr. Mckean was tall, erect, and well proportioned. His countenance displayed in a remarkable manner the firmness and intelligence for which he was distinguished. In July, 1762, he married Mary, eldest daughter of Joseph Borden, Esq., of Bordentown, N. J., who died in February, 1773, leaving two sons and four daughters, the youngest of whom was only two weeks old. On Sept. 3, 1774, he was again married, to Miss Sarah Armitage, of

647

BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL.

New Castle, Del., and of this union five children were the offspring. At length, loaded with honors, this venerable patriot and distinguished jurist arrived at the ultima linea rerum, and departed to "the generation of his fathers" on June 24, 1817. His remains were interred in the burial-ground of the First Presbyterian Church, in Market Street, Philadelphia.

MOLENE, JAMES, the son of William MoLene, was born in New London, Chester Co., Oct. 11, 1730; was ed- ucated at the classical school of Rev. Francis Alison, and as early as 1753 took up land in Antrim township, Cum- berland (now Franklin) Co., locating there the year follow- ing. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1776 to form a constitution for Pennsylvania. He was elected to the Assembly in 1776 and 1777 ; was a member of the Supreme Executive Council from Nov. 9, 1778, to Dec. 28, 1779, when he took his seat in the Continental Congress, serving during that and the ycar 1780. He was a member of the Council of Censors in 1783, and again of the Assembly from 1787 to 1789. He was also a mem- ber of the Constitutional Convention of 1789-90, and was a member of the House of Representatives, 1790-91 and 1793-94. He married, July 6, 1753, Christina Brown ; she died Oct. 23, 1818, in her ninety-first year. He died at his residence near Greencastle, March 13, 1806.

McMILLAN, REV. JOHN, D.D., was born in Fagg's Manor, Chester Co., Pa., Nov. 11, 1752. His classical education was partially acquired at his native place, in the academy under the direction of Rev. John Blair, and fin- ished in the school of Rev. Robert Smith, D.D., at Pequea, Lancaster Co. He graduated at Princeton in 1772, and was licensed by the Presbytery of New Castle, Oct. 26, 1774.

Though his talents and learning would have commanded the most comfortable situation in the old settlements, yet he chose to forego all these, to traverse the Alleghany Mountains, and cast his lot with the settlers on the Monon- gahela and Youghiogeny, with all the privations, toils, suf- ferings, and perils attendant upon new and remote settle- ments, destitute of the comforts and conveniences of social life.

He became pastor of the congregations of Chartiers and Pigeon Creek, in Washington Co., Pa., in 1776, although, on account of the Indian disturbances, he did not remove his family until November, 1778. The circumstances in which he was placed required him to " work with his own hands" in handling the axe and other implements of labor in a new country. He possessed vigorous bodily powers, and during his long life was never confined half a day by sickness.

For many years after his settlement, he and his family were exposed to great privations and trials, and sometimes were compelled to seek safety in the forts from the Indians.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches, Part 171

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