USA > Pennsylvania > The provincial councillors of Pennsylvania : who held office between 1733-1776, and those earlier councillors who were some time chief magistrates of the province and their descendants > Part 17
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
In March, 1774, began British coercion of recalcitrant America. Boston, for its bold demonstrations culminating in the " Boston Tea Party," was closed as a port against all commerce by an Act of Parlia- ment passed during that month. The news of its passage aroused the indignation of the friends of liberty ; and resolutions for a suspension of trade with England and for a general congress came from the neigh- boring colonies : but in Pennsylvania the majority were disinclined to action. That any was taken is owing to Thomson, Mifflin, and Reed, with whom Dickinson united : and he only, trusted for his modera- tion, admired for his abilities, or considered for his wealth, could have induced the Quakers to consent to an expression of sympathy for Bos- ton and the participation by Pennsylvania in another General Con- gress. A convention of the county committees was called : and he prepared a statement of principles, which was adopted by that body for the instruction of the General Assembly, about to meet in a special session. They desired the assembly to appoint delegates to the Con- gress, with orders to exert themselves to obtain a renunciation by Great Britain of all powers under the statute of 35 Henry VIII for trans- porting persons to England for trial and all powers of internal legis- lation, imposing taxes or duties, or regulating trade except in certain
58
Norris-Dickinson.
cases ; also a repeal of the acts for quartering troops in the colonies, or imposing duties to be paid in the colonies passed within a certain time, or giving colonial courts of admiralty certain powers complained of, or shutting up the port of Boston, &c. : in exchange for which favors, the colonies should engage to obey the Acts of Navigation and other acts of Parliament, and settle an annual revenue on the King, and satisfy all damages done to the East India Company. The Assembly received the address of the Convention, and appointed certain of its members as delegates to the Congress, thereby excluding Dickinson, Willing, and Wilson, whom the Convention would have sent. The non-appoint- ment of " the Farmer " caused great chagrin ; however, in the begin- ning of October, he was almost unanimously elected a member of the Assembly, and, on the opening of the session, was added to the delega- tion. In Congress, his master hand was first employed in the Address to the Inhabitants of Quebec forwarded under date of Oct. 26. It was to explain the English Constitution, founded, as it said, on the principle that " to live by the will of one man or set of men is the pro- duction of misery to all men." Under that Constitution the first grand right is popular representation, leading to the right of withhold- ing supplies until grievances be redressed ; the second grand right, trial by jury ; the third, the writ of habeas corpus; the fourth, the holding of land by easy rents ; and the last, freedom of the press. In place of these rights, a recent act of Parliament had given to the peo- ple of Quebec an absolute government dependent on the pleasure of a Ministry. Such being the case, the Address appealed to them to unite with the Colonies. Nature had joined their country to ours : let the people join their political interests. They were not asked to commence acts of hostility against their sovereign, but to unite with the Colonies in one social compact. For this purpose, they were desired to send delegates to the Congress which should meet the 10th of May following.
After this, Dickinson wrote the Petition to the King, entreating his attention to a number of grievances, and asking but for Peace, Liberty, and Safety. It was penned, says Belsham in his Memoirs of George III, " with extraordinary force and animation, in many parts rising to a very high strain of eloquence." It is a great record for John Dickinson that nearly every address sent forth from the Continental Congress from this time to the Fourth of July, 1776, was written by him. At home, he was active as a member of Assembly and one of the Committee for the City and Liberties to enforce the non-importa- tion resolves of Congress, and was the head of the patriots even in
59
Norris-Dickinson.
arranging the taking up of arms. Upon news of the battle of Lex- ington, multitudes of the people entered into an association for de- fence. The Assembly was induced to resolve that it approved of the association, and would pay both officers and men in case it were necessary for those enlisted to go into active service. At the same time, it ordered 35,000l. in bills of credit to be struck off, appointed a Committee of Safety, Dickinson upon the Committee, and offered so much for every cwt. of saltpetre furnished the same within the next three months, and so much for every cwt. furnished within the three months following. Dickinson, born and bred a Quaker, was also elected colonel of one of the regiments.
In all the excitement of the period, Dickinson never swerved from the principle of maintaining union with Great Britain. A murmur for independence was becoming audible through the colonies ; but it was against the tenor of all his writings, and, however general it may have been in Massachusetts, had been quickly frowned down in Penn- sylvania. It was with difficulty that the mass of our people had been roused at all. A moderate amount of fair treatment by Parliament would have satisfied them. By the Quakers, what was desired was not to be obtained by bloodshed. By the Proprietary, it was not worth risk- ing deprivation of office. With the rest of the population, becoming more and more determined to battle for their rights, the influence of " the Farmer" was sufficient to keep them to the original purposes of resist- ance. In Congress, his labors were for reconciliation, and he carried through that body the Second Petition to the King, which was carried over to England by Richard Penn. It was called "the olive-branch," and was looked upon as a forlorn hope by the majority, and by many acquiesced in as the last effort of the Conservatives ; but Ramsey in his History says it produced more solid advantages to the Americans than preceding measures. In October, 1775, Dickinson was almost unanimously re-elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly-Bancroft sums up, " by patriots who still confided in his integrity, by loyalists who looked upon him as their last hope, by the Quakers who knew his regard for peace, by the Proprietary party whose cause he had always vindicated." In November, delegates were chosen to Congress ; Dick- inson was returned, and Benjamin Franklin alone, out of the nine delegates, was in favor of separation : and they were instructed to reject any proposition looking to such a thing. Dickinson continued to be one of the most important members of Congress, was placed on the committee to correspond with foreign powers, and was intrusted
60
Norris-Dickinson.
with the framing of Articles of Confederation. The majority were now determined to destroy the authority of the British King, and although Dickinson held his delegation to his own views, the progress of events changed public feeling in Pennsylvania. Only the Provin- cial office-holders and the few who had some lingering belief in the doctrines of passive obedience and divine right, saw anything awful in breaking their allegiance to George III, and many who regretted the cruel necessity were now ready to give up the name of Englishmen. With Dickinson himself, it became a question of advisability. At length the Assembly released the delegates from the former instruc- tions, and left the matter to their own judgment. A committee, with the author of the Farmer's Letters at its head, reported : " The hap- piness of these colonies has during the whole course of this fatal con- troversy been our first wish; their reconciliation with Great Britain our next. Ardently have we prayed for the accomplishment of both. But if we must renounce the one or the other, we humbly trust in the mercies of the Supreme Governor of the universe that we shall not stand condemned before His throne if our choice is determined by that overruling law of self-preservation which His Divine wisdom has thought proper to implant in the hearts of His creatures." The Con- tinental Congress now resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the question of independence. John Adams advocated it with great warmth : and delegates from other colonies joined in the clamor. Livingston of New York, Rutledge of South Carolina, and Wilson of Pennsylvania joined with Dickinson in opposing it. Wilson avowed, that, notwithstanding the recall of the instructions against independ- ence by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, his own sentiments remained the same. Dickinson, who had pledged his word to the Assembly the day before that he and a majority of the delegates from the colony would continue to vote against independence, declared that. two hun- dred years of happiness and present prosperity, resulting from English laws and the union with Great Britain, demonstrated that America could be wisely governed by the King and Parliament. It was not as independent, but as subject states ; not as a republic, but as a monarchy, that the colonies had attained to power and greatness. The restrain- ing power of the King and Parliament was indispensable to protect the colonies from disunion and civil war. If the dread of English arms were removed, province would rise against province, city against city, and the weapons now assumed to combat the common enemy would be turned against themselves. Even when supported by the
61
Norris-Dickinson.
powerful hand of England, the colonists had abandoned themselves to discords and sometimes to violence, from the paltry motives of terri- torial limits and distant jurisdictions : what then must they not expect now that minds were heated, ambitions roused, and arms in the hands of all ? For the past twelve years the measures of the English gov- ernment had savored of tyranny; but was there any doubt that it already felt a secret repentance ? The arms it prepared were not now designed to establish tyranny on our shores, but to compel us to accept terms of accommodation. The distance of the seat of government, the vast extent of intervening seas, the continual increase of our popula- tion, our warlike spirit, our experience in arms, the lakes, the rivers, the forests, the defiles which abounded in our territory, were our pledges that England would always prefer to found her power upon moderation and liberty rather than upon rigor and oppression. As to the beneficence of founding an American republic, Dickinson, accord- ing to Botta's Hist. Amer. War, reminded Congress how in popular republics " so necessary is monarchy to cement human society," it had been found requisite to institute monarchical powers more or less exten- sive, under the names of Archons, Consuls, Doges, Gonfaloniers, and Kings. The English nation had never found repose except in mon- archy ; and the English constitution seemed to be the fruit of the ex- perience of all former time, monarchy being so tempered that the monarch himself is checked in his efforts to seize absolute power, and the authority of the people being so regulated that anarchy is not to be feared. When a counterpoise should no longer exist, the democratic power, it was to be apprehended, might carry all before it, and involve the state in confusion and ruin ; and then an ambitious citizen arise, seize the reins of power, and annihilate liberty forever. The debate was adjourned to the 1st of July. When Congress again resolved itself into committee on the question, James Wilson had turned for independence. John Adams now made a stirring speech in favor of declaring it. Dickinson rose in reply. " I desire this illustrious assembly to witness the integrity, if not the policy of my con- duct." He argued that the time had not come for such a step. " Without some prelusory trials of our strength, we ought not to commit our country upon an alternative where to recede would be infamy and to persist might be destruction." It would add nothing to their strength: it might unite the different parties in England against them : it might create disunion among themselves. He pointed out that foreign aid would not be obtained without success in
62
Norris-Dickinson.
battle. Before the proposed step were taken, they should know the feelings of the great powers, which emissaries had been sent to sound, and as to which they would soon get a report. They ought at least to have agreed upon the terms of their own confederation, as had been begun, and it would have been well to have fixed the bounds of each colony, and declared the region not within the acknowledged bound- aries to be appropriated for the common benefit to pay the expense of the war. To the intelligent reader, there is sagacity in all Dickinson's utterances on public affairs : to the student of the history of that time, there was but common prudence in what he said on this occasion, suc- cessful as, after a long war, became the venture of declaring for inde- pendence at this juncture. The colonies were divided. Pennsylvania had been maintaining a border war with both Virginia and Connecticut, be- cause of conflicting or misunderstood boundaries. New York had a simi- lar dispute with Connecticut and New Hampshire, the latter contesting for the region which has since become the state of Vermont. Further trouble was to be expected as population advanced towards the interior of the continent, the older colonies claiming under their original charters as far as the Pacific ocean. It was imperative before these rival communi- ties were freed from outside control that such claims against each other should be arbitrated. The various colonies differed in interests, sentiments, and somewhat in race. The Huguenot and the Knicker- bocker naturally cared little for his neighbors of English descent. It was possible that the Quaker remembered New England persecution : left to himself, he would keep the state he controlled isolated. It was not likely that a body of gentleman farmers formed into a state free to follow their own inclinations would keep up any alliance with a mer- cantile democracy. That alliance, then, should have been imposed as the condition of their political greatness. Congress, however, was ordaining that South Carolina and Massachusetts and New York and Delaware, etc., etc., were each an independent nation absolved from allegiance to the British crown, and under no regulations as to inter- course with one another! Perhaps if the great declaration had been postponed until after the articles of confederation were settled, and the colonies bound together more closely by common suffering, the im- mortal instrument would have declared the colonies " a free and inde- pendent nation," and spared posterity the conflict arising from " free and independent states." Nothing but the long war welding together the opposite parts and peoples gave us a country. Dickinson in voting in committee of the whole against Lee's resolution declaring
63
Norris-Dickinson.
independence was joined by Robert Morris, Thomas Willing, and Charles Humphreys, making with him a majority of the Pennsylvania delegation ; but nearly every colony went the other way. On July 2, 1776, the resolution, being reported by the Committee of the Whole, came to a direct vote. Dickinson and Morris made no further oppo- sition, but by absenting themselves allowed Pennsylvania to be counted in the affirmative.
Dickinson's course had now destroyed his influence among the Whigs in Philadelphia. He was not chosen to the Convention which met in the middle of July to frame a new constitution for Pennsylva- nia; and the Convention would not re-elect him to Congress. When superseded, he left with that body a draft of Articles of Confederation, the framing of which the committee appointed on the subject had largely delegated to him. His draft formed the basis of the Articles afterwards adopted. Obeying the Declaration of Independence, he soon after went into service with his regiment.
Delaware sent him back to Congress in 1777, and he took an active part in perfecting the Articles of Confederation. For a short time he served as a private in the army, and was wounded in the shoulder in the skirmish at the Head of Elk. He was again in Congress in 1779, and penned the address on the depreciation of the currency. He was afterwards President of the State of Delaware. At the expiration of his term of office he returned to Fair Hill, and again entered upon public life in Pennsylvania. He was elected to the Supreme Execu- tive Council, a body created by the Constitution of 1776, and fashioned upon the Provincial Council of the old charter of 1683. It chose one of its members President, the latter being the Chief Magistrate under the people, just as Shippen, Logan, and Palmer had been under the Penns. Dickinson was raised to this dignity Nov. 7, 1782, and re- ceived it again the two following years. In addition to other duties, he had to preside over the High Court of Errors and Appeals. Some of his opinions are reported by Dallas.
Dickinson College, founded while he was President, was named after him. He was very generous with his large means, various insti- tutions being his beneficiaries in his life time and receiving legacies at his death.
Delaware sent him to the Convention of 1787 which framed the Constitution of the United States. There he earnestly advocated the equal representation of the states in one house of Congress at least, as the only way of preserving the independence of the smaller members
64
Norris-Dickinson.
of the Union. He afterwards spoke of the government as a union of sovereignties represented in the Senate and a union of peoples repre- sented in the House. He also advocated the adoption of the Consti- tution in a series of letters signed " Fabius."
He was also a member of the Convention of 1792 to frame a con- stitution for the State of Delaware. Dickinson sympathized with the French Republic, and in 1797, when the President called a special session of Congress to consider the troubles with that country, he wrote in its behalf another series of letters over the signature " Fabius." He died Feb. 14, 1808.
Issue of John and Mary Dickinson :
SALLY NORRIS, b. 1771, d. unm. Nov. 1, 1855,
MARIA, b. Nov. 6, 1783, d. Feb. 10, 1854, m. Albanus C. Logan-see LOGAN.
CHARLES NORRIS, b. May 9, 1712, son of the Councillor, was a merchant in Phila., acted for several years as a Trustee of the General Loan Office of the Province, and was in the first board of managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital. He built a fine house on the outskirts of the little city, where the Custom House now stands, owning the ground to Fifth Street, which he laid out in gravelled walks and parterres of flowers, and resided there until his death, Jany. 15, 1766. He died intestate. He m., 1st, Margaret, dau. of Dr. Rodman of Bucks Co., by whom he had no issue, and, 2nd, June 21, 1759 Mary, dau. of Joseph Parker, Dep. Reg. for Chester Co., native of York- shire, by his w. Mary Ladd of West Jersey. Mary Norris d. Dec. 4, 1799, bu. Friends' ground at Chester, Pa.
- Issue-all by 2nd wife :
ISAAC, b. July 18, 1760, d. Oct. 2, 1802 s. p.,
DEBORAH, b. Oct. 19, 1761, of whom there is a sketch in " Worthy Women of our First Century," published Phila. 1877, and who is as justly celebrated as any woman whom Philadelphia produced,-She was sent as a child to the school kept by Anthony Benezet, and after her school-girl days pursued a regular course of education at home, becoming one of the literary characters of her time. It is through her careful collation of family MSS., her memoranda of events of which she was eye-witness, her notes of facts which she had pecu- liar opportunities of learning, and the information which
Norris. 65
she gave to Watson the annalist that much of our Colonial History has been preserved. She had considerable poetic talent, writing small pieces in her diary. She d. Stenton Feb. 2, 1839. She m. George Logan,-see Logan,
JOSEPH PARKER, b. May 5, 1763, m. Elizabeth Hill Fox, see below,
CHARLES, b. July 12, 1765, m. Eunice Gardner,-see infra at end.
JOSEPH PARKER NORRIS, b. May 5, 1763, gr'dson of the Coun- cillor, was a pupil of Robert Proud the historian, and was an execu- tor of his will. The estates of Fair Hill and Sepviva having been settled upon the sons of Charles Norris, his father, in tail male, with remainder to the right heirs of Isaac Norris the Speaker, with power in Mrs. Dickinson to determine which son of Charles Norris should be tenant in tail, Joseph Parker Norris purchased the property. John Dickinson and wife appointed him tenant in tail male by deed of May 18, 1790, and by another deed of the same date, Mrs. Dickinson being sole heiress of Isaac Norris the Speaker, they granted him the rever- sionary interest. In the course of the year, by the legal legerdemain of a common recovery, he destroyed the entail, and so became seized in fee simple of some six hundred and fifty acres in the Northern Liberties lying between Gunner's Run, now the Aramingo Canal, and the Germantown Turnpike. This remained a rural seat up to the date of his death, although the time when it should be covered with rows of houses was then so near at hand that he must be considered to have left the greatest landed estate of any of his contemporaries in these parts. He was many years President of the Bank of Pennsyl- vania. He died June 22, 1841, having by his will devised Fair Hill to trustees for his sons' and Sepviva to trustees for his daughters' children. An Act of Assembly was passed to enable the trustees to sell during the lifetime of the testator's children. He m. May 20, 1790 Elizabeth Hill Fox, dau. of Joseph Fox, who succeeded Isaac Norris the 2nd as Speaker of the Assembly. Fox's wife was a Mickle. The widow of Joseph Parker Norris d. Jany. 1861.
Issue :
(I.) MARY PARKER, b. June 19, 1791, m. William Fish- bourne Emlen Nov. 11, 1813.
Issue (surname Emlen) :
1. George, b. Sep. 25, 1814, grad. A. B. (U. of P.),
E
66
Norris.
atty .- at-law, Sec. of Trustees of U. of P., and Pres. of the Controllers of Public Schools of Phila., d. June 7, 1853, m. Ellen Markoe May 6, 1840, Issue (surname Emlen) :
(a) Mary, b. May 29, 1842, m. James Starr June 12, 1869, James Starr d. Sep. 1, 1881,
Issue (surname Starr) :
(a.) James, b. April 5, 1870,
(b.) George Emlen, b. Oct. 23, 1871,
(c.) Ellen, b. May 12, 1873,
(d.) Lydia, b. May 18, 1876,
(e.) Theodore Ducoing, b. Jan. 14, 1880,
(b) George, b. Nov. 27, 1843, of the Phila. bar, m. Helen, Rotch Wharton April 2, 1874.
Issue (surname Emlen) :
(a.) Annie Wharton, b. Jan. 15, 1875, d. July 17, 1875,
(b.) Ellen Markoe, b. Jan. 21, 1877,
(c.) Dorothea, b. Feb. 20, 1881,
(c) Harry, b. March 31, 1847, d. March 17, 1871,
(d) Ellen, b. Feb. 13, 1850,
2. Joseph Norris, b. Sept. 4, 1816,
3. Elizabeth Norris, b. Jan. 26, 1825, m. James A. Roosevelt Dec. 22, 1847,
Issue (surname Roosevelt) :
(a) Mary Emlen, b. Sept. 27, 1848,
(b) Leila, b. April 2, 1856,
(c) Alfred, b. April 2, 1856,
(d) Emlen, b. April 30, 1857,
4. Sarah, b. June 15, 1832, m. James Casey Hale Oct. 15, 1862,
Issue (surname Hale) : (a) Mary Emlen, b. Aug. 9, 1863,
(II.) CHARLES, b. Feb. 24, 1793, of Phila., Trustee of the Fair Hill estate, m. Dorothea, dau. of Louis Clapier, in 1821, d. June 4, 1868,
Issue :
1. Louis Clapier, b. June 10, 1822, m. Jane McKee,
2. Joseph Parker, b. Feb. 11, 1824, m. Frances Ann Stevens Feb. 5, 1857,
Issue:
(a.) Dorothea Clapier, b. June 1, 1858,
(b.) Fanny, b. March 10, 1864,
(c.) Gertrude, b. Dec. 15, 1865, d. Oct. 8, 1866,
(d.) Charles, b. Dec. 4, 1867,
3. Charles, b. Oct. 23, 1828,
(III.) JOSEPH PARKER (the younger), b. Oct. 20, 1794, grad. A. B. (U. of P.), of Phila., atty .- at-law, m. Caroline, dau. o Edward Thomson, Feb. 1, 1821, d. Jany. 31, 1863, Issue :
1. Anne Thomson, b. March 22, 1822, m. Robert E.
1
67
Norris.
Johnson Oct. 19, 1844, and, afterwards, m. Lamar W. Fisher July 24, 1860, and d. s. p. May 30, 1866,
2. Elizabeth, b. July 23, 1824,
3. Joseph Parker, b. Jan. 27, 1826, m. Mary Elizabeth Garesché Feb. 22, 1854,
Issue :
(a.) Louisa Baudery, b. Feb. 3, 1855, d. Feb. 3, 1855,
(b.) Caroline Thomson, b. Oct. 31, 1857, m. William A. Dick April 28, 1881,
(c.) Mary Garesché, b. Nov. 19, 1859,
(d.) George Washington, b. July 5, 1864,
(e.) Annie, b. May 27, 1867, d. May 12, 1873,
(f.) Alexander Garesché, b. July 12, 1868,
(g.) Henry Turner, b. July 30, 1870, d. March 25, 1872,
(h.) Thomas Lloyd, b. July 12, 1874, d. June 4, 1876,
4. Caroline, b. Jan. 6, 1828, m. Phineas J. Horwitz M. D., U. S. N., Nov. 2, 1854, and d. Feb. 18, 1877, Issue (surname Horwitz) :
(a.) Theodore, b. Sept. 24, 1856, d. Dec. 13, 1877,
(b.) Joseph Parker, b. June 26, 1860, d. July 12, 1860,
(c.) Orville, h. June 26, 1860,
Caroline Norris, b. Sept. 7, 1861, d. July 1, 1862,
(e.) Lloyd Norris, b. Sept. 13, 1863,
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.