Family History: Chapters V-VI, Jenkins', The Family of William Penn, 1899: PA File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Linda Kyle. jkyle@trib.co USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ____________________________________________________________ The Family of William Penn Founder of Pennsylvania Ancestry and Descendants Page 47 V. WILLIAM PENN'S FIRST MARRIAGE. WILLIAM PENN, by the death of his father, "came into the possession of a very handsome estate, supposed to be worth at that time not less than fifteen hundred pounds per annum; so that he became, in point of circumstances, not only an independent, but a rich man." This statement, made by Clarkson,1 has been followed by successive biographers; Janney, Dixon, and probably others repeat it. The property which the son received was substantially that in Ireland, the Shangarry and adjoining estates; if there was any other of importance that came into his possession from his father I have seen no account of it. Penn's first marriage followed about a year and a half after the death of the Admiral. In the mean time he had been again imprisoned six months (1670-71), at first in the Tower, and then in Newgate, for being at the Friends' meeting in Wheeler Street, London, and for refusing to take the oath of allegiance (tendered as a "snare" to the Friends, who would take no oaths); had written several more political and religious pamphlets; and had made his first religious visit to Holland and Germany. The years of his courtship and of his first marriage--as late, at least, as his first return from Pennsylvania--form the halcyon period of Penn's career. There is about these years an air of hopeful and buoyant cheerfulness. The accounts given of the Springetts by Mary Penington, and of the Peningtons by Thomas Ellwood, are at once romantic and idyllic. Upon these details it will always be pleasant, in the study of the Founder's varied experiences of sunshine and cloud, to linger. Early in 1668, it is said, William Penn first met Gulielma 1 "Life of Penn," p. 33. Page 48 Maria Springett.1 She was then living in the family of her stepfather, Isaac Penington, with her mother, Mary Penington,--previously the wife of Sir William Springett, her (Gulielma's) father,--at Bury House, near Amersham, in Buckinghamshire. Isaac Penington was the son of Alderman Isaac Penington, of London, sometime lieutenant of the Tower, Lord Mayor of London, and one of the judges who condemned Charles I. to death. In 1654, Isaac, the son, had married the widow, Mary Springett, and somewhat later both had joined the religious movement of which George Fox was the leader. In 1658 they had settled at the Grange, at Chalfont St. Peter's, in Bucks, which had been assigned as a residence (not conveyed) to Isaac by his father, and they continued to live in that part of the country, amid many vicissitudes, until their death and burial in the Friends' ground at Jordans, near Chalfont, where also William Penn and most of his family are buried.2 Gulielma Maria Springett was the only child of Sir William Springett, Knight, who was a native of Sussex, born about 1620, and who died February 3, 1643/4, of a fever contracted at the siege of Arundel Castle, in Sussex, where he was commanding as a colonel in the Parliamentary 1 This is the statement of Maria Webb, in the "Penns and Peningtons." In a document quoted in that work, a narrative said to have been given by William Penn to a certain Thomas Harvey, and by him repeated to the (unknown) writer, it is said that in 1668, after his return from Ireland, Penn had been visiting and speaking in the Friends' meetings in the country; then, upon being summoned by his father to come to him, at Wanstead, he attended on his way a meeting in London, and after its close, "happening to be in the house of a Friend who resided in the neighborhood, Gulielma Maria Springett came in and was introduced to him; this was in the year 1668, and was the first time he ever saw his future wife." The authority of this document in some respects appears to me dubious, but on this point it may be trustworthy. 2 Isaac Penington died October 8, 1679, while he and his wife were on a visit at Goodenstone Court, a property belonging to her, in Kent. His remains were brought to Jordans ground for interment. Mary Penington died (as also stated in the text), while on a visit to her daughter Penn, at Worminghurst, in Sussex, September 18, 1682, and was buried at Jordans. Page 49 army. His wife, Mary, afterwards Mary Penington, was the daughter of Sir John Proude, Knight, and was born about 1624.1 She died at Worminghurst, in Sussex, September 18, 1682, a little more than a fortnight after the sailing of the "Welcome" for Pennsylvania (and a few months later than the death of William Penn's mother, the widow of the Admiral). Her daughter, Gulielma Maria, whose name thus represented those of both parents, was a posthumous child. She was born "a few weeks after the death of her father," Maria Webb says,2 and as this occurred, as already said, February 3, 1643/4, her birth may have been either in the closing days of 1643, old style, or the beginning of 1644. Maria Webb says, "it may be presumed she was born in 1644, but we have no exact record of the date." She was thus some six or seven months older than William Penn. The Peningtons continued to live at Chalfont Grange until 1666. The property had been confiscated in 1660, as belonging to the regicide alderman, but they had remained there six years, apparently on sufferance by the Crown. To whom it went, on their ejectment in 1666, is not definitely stated; some of the alderman's town property was obtained by the Bishop of Worcester, and some in the country by the Duke of Grafton, illegitimate son of Charles II. by his mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland.3 The Peningtons were 1 The narrative of her early life and first marriage, the death of her husband, her becoming a Friend, and her later experiences at Chalfont and Amersham, is given in Maria Webb's "Penns and Peningtons," and, as already suggested in the text, is a most interesting picture of real life. Many details concerning her and her family are given in that work, and also in W. H. Summers's "Memories of Jordans and the Chalfonts," an almost equally interesting book, published in London, 1895. 2 "Penns and Peningtons." 3 "A local tradition asserts that the notorious George Jeffreys [Judge of the 'Bloody Assize'], who is credited with the erection of the Greyhound Inn at Chalfont St. Peter's, resided at the Grange before the erection of his house at Bulstrode. It is added that a portrait of the 'Unjust Judge' was long preserved at the Grange under peculiar circumstances. Jeffreys had given strict orders that it was never to be removed from the walls of the house. After his disgrace, accordingly, it was removed to the cellar, fastened to the wall, and bricked in. So says tradition; but tradition says many strange things." (Summers, "Jordans and the Chalfonts," p. 95.) Alderman Penington remained a prisoner in the Tower from his commitment in 1660 to his death, December, 1661. His jailer was that same Sir John Robinson whose acquaintance we made at the time of Penn and Mead's trial. Page 50 repeatedly visited, while they remained at the Grange, by Thomas Ellwood, and for a time he resided there as tutor to their children. His description of them in his autobiography includes several references to the young girl, Gulielma, with whom, it was suggested, he had fallen in love, and whom, as his ill wishers suggested, he might carry off. He had, however, no such schemes; he admired her, but at a respectful distance. Of a visit to the Peningtons, at the Grange, about 1659, Ellwood says,-- "I mentioned before, that during my father's abode in London, in the time of the civil wars, he contracted a friendship with the Lady Springett, then a widow, and afterwards married to Isaac Penington, Esq., to continue which he sometimes visited them at their country lodgings, as at Datchet, and at Causham Lodge, near Reading. And having heard that they were come to live upon their own estate at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, about fifteen miles from Crowell [the home of the Ellwoods], he went one day to visit them there, and to return at night, taking me with him. "But very much surprised we were when, being come hither, we first heard, then found, they were become Quakers; a people we had no knowledge of, and a name we had till then scarce heard of. "So great a change, from a free, debonair, and courtly sort of behavior, which we formerly had found them in, to so strict a gravity as they now received us with, did not a little amuse us, and disappoint our expectation of such a pleasant visit as we used to have, and now had promised ourselves. Nor could my father have any opportunity, by a private conference with them, to understand the ground or occasion of this change, there being some other strangers with them (related to Isaac Penington), who came that morning to visit them also. "For my part I sought and at length found means to cast myself into the company of the daughter, whom I found gathering some flowers in the garden, attended by her maid, who was also a Quaker. But when I addressed myself to her after my accustomed manner, with intent to engage her in some discourse which might introduce conversation on the footing of our former acquaintance, though she treated me with a courteous Page 51 mien, yet, as young as she was, the gravity of her look and behaviour struck such an awe upon me, that I found myself not so much master of myself as to pursue any further converse with her. Wherefore, asking pardon for my boldness for having intruded myself into her private walks, I withdrew, not without some disorder (as I thought at least) of mind." Penn's courtship, if begun so early as 1668, progressed without undue haste. He is particularly said to have visited Guli, in Bucks, after the death of his father, in 1670, and upon his release from Newgate, in 1671. His pamphlet, "A Seasonable Caveat against Popery," is dated at "Penn in Buckinghamshire," 23d of Eleventh month (February), 1670, a few months after his father's death, and as this was not far from the young lady's neighborhood, it may suggest calls upon her at that time. The time of the marriage has been left by the biographers quite obscure. Janney mentions it briefly, without assigning any date. Dixon says, "the marriage was performed in the early spring of 1672, six or seven months after his liberation from Newgate." Maria Webb states that no family documents are forthcoming relative to this period in Penn's life. But Summers, in his more careful investigation of local sources, supplies from contemporary documents all the data that are needed to complete the account, and the marriage certificate itself has been found of record, and an abstract of it has been obtained for this work. In the Jordans Friends' Monthly Meeting Book, under date of 7th of Twelfth month, 1671 (February 7, 1671/2), there is this minute: "William Penn, of Walthamstow, in the County of Essex, and Gulielma Maria Springett, of Tiler's End Green, in the County of Bucks, proposed their intention of taking each other in marriage. Whereupon it was referred to Daniel Zachary and Thomas Ellwood to inquire into the clearness of their proceedings and give an account to next meeting."1 1 "Jordans and the Chalfonts," p. 158.--Penn is here described as "of Walthamstow," and Mr. Summers suggests that Lady Penn's residence,--that of the Admiral,--though always spoken of as at Wanstead, may have been really in Walthamstow, the parish adjoining. But Mr. Summers is at a loss to explain why Gulielma is described as "of Tiler's End Green." Her stepfather, Isaac Penington, was then in Reading jail, on religious account, and her mother was engaged in building the house at Woodside, near Amersham, five miles from Tyler's Green, where the Peningtons subsequently lived. Mr. Summers suggests that Gulielma was in lodgings at Tyler's Green, and that she may have been staying with some of the Penn family. There were Penns in Bucks who were then Quakers, for in the petition of the Quaker women of the country (1659) for the abolition of tithes, there are among the four hundred and seventeen signatures those of Anne and Elizabeth Penn. It seems to me, however, a more reasonable suggestion that--there being no clear evidence as to her residence elsewhere at this time--Mary Penington was herself lodging at Tyler's Green, and her daughter with her. Page 52 These preliminary proceedings took place at a monthly meeting held at the house of Thomas Ellwood. He had married Mary Ellis in 1669, and had taken up his abode at Hunger Hill, or Ongar Hill, not far from Beaconsfield, in the Jordans and Chalfont region. In this house he lived until his death in 1713. His poetical "Directions to my Friend Inquiring the Way to My House" run thus: "Two miles from Beaconsfield, upon the road To Amersham, just where the way grows broad, A little spot there is called Larkin's Green, Where, on a bank, some fruit trees may be seen; In midst of which, on the sinister hand, A little cottage covertly doth stand; 'Soho!' the people out, and then inquire For Hunger Hill; it lies a little higher, But if the people should from home be gone, Ride up the bank some twenty paces on, And at the orchard's end thou may'st perceive Two gates together hung. The nearest leave, The furthest take, and straight the hill ascend, That path leads to the house where dwells thy friend." At the next monthly meeting, March 6, 1671/2, the records show that "the consent and approbation of Friends" was given to the marriage, and it duly followed on the 4th of the following month, April, 1672. An old manuscript volume, kept in that time by Rebekah Butterfield, a Friend, at Stone Dean, a dwelling within sight of Jordans, is now preserved by Mr. Steevens, of High Wycombe, Bucks, and records thus: Page 53 "4th of 2nd Mo. 1672. They [W. P. and G. M. S.] took each other in marriage at Charlewood, at a farmhouse called Kings, where Friends meeting was yn kept, being in ye parish of Rickmansworth, in ye county of Hertford." The certificate of marriage is as follows: Whereas, William Penn, of Walthamstow, in the County of Essex, and Gulielma Maria Springett, of Penn, in the County of Bucks, having first obtained the goodwill and consent of their nearest friends & Relations, did in two publick Monthly Meetings of the people of God called Quakers, declare their intention to take each other in Marriage, & upon serious and due consideration, were fully approved of the said Meetings, as by several weighty testimonies did appear. These are now to certifie al persons whom it doth or may concern that upon the fourth day of the second month in the year one thousand six hundred seventy two, the said WILLIAM PENN and GULIELMA MARIA SPRINGETT did, in a godly sort & manner (according to the good old Order and practise of the Church of Christ) in a publick Assembly of the People of the Lord at King's Charle-wood in the County of Hertford, solemnly and expressly take each other in marriage, mutually promising to be loving, true and faithful to each other in that Relation, so long as it shal please the Lord to continue their natural lives. In testimony whereof we then present, have hereunto subscribed our names, the day and year afore written. Margret Penn Rich. Penn Isaac Penington John Penington Mary Penington Mary Penington Jun Elizabeth Springett Alexander Parker George Whitehead Sam: Newton Wm Welch Geo: Roberts Tho: Zachary James Claypoole Tho: Rudyard Robt. Hodgson John Jenner Charles Harris Edward Man Sam: Hersent Rich: Clipsham Robt. Jones Tho: Ellwood Martin Mason Tho: Dell Edward Hoar John Puddivat John Jigger Sen Abraham Axtell John Costard Giles Child Stephen Pewsey John Harvey Elizabeth Walmsly Rebecca Zachary Mary Ellwood Jane Bullocke Mary Odingsells Elizabeth Murford Mary Newton ffrances Cadwell Helena Claypoole Sarah Mathew Sarah Welch Mary Welch Martha Blake Page 54 [Certified to be an Extract from the Register or Record numbered 168 Bucks, and entitled a Register of Marriages formerly kept by the Society of Friends at the Monthly Meeting of Upper Side.]1 TABLE, GULIELMA MARIA SPRINGETT. Herbert Springett, Sir John Proude, of Sussex. m. Anne Fagge. Sir William Springett, Mary Proude, b. circa 1620, d. 1643/4. b. circa 1624, d. 1682. GULIELMA MARIA SPRINGETT m. WILLIAM PENN. King's Farm, Chorley Wood, is still a well-known and readily identified place. Though in Hertfordshire, it is but half a mile from the Bucks line. The name of the place is said to be derived from its having once been a huntingbox of King John. "The present house," says Summers, "probably dates from the latter part of the fifteenth century. The front, which is timber framed, presents one feature of interest in a curious old window, and there is a large door of very similar style, which probably in Penn's time was the main entrance, but is now concealed from view by a modern structure used as a dairy. The back of the house, where the entrance door now is, seems rather newer than the front, but was probably built earlier than 1672. The large room to which the window just now mentioned belongs is probably the one in which the marriage took place, and presents an interesting farm-house interior. The house is very much hidden from view by an immense barn, solidly built, and strengthened by numerous buttresses. This is said to have been fortified by an outpost during the civil war, by which party does not appear, and the loop-holes then pierced in the wall, which were only bricked up a few years ago, are still distinctly visible from the interior. The 1 Copy furnished from the General Register Office, Somerset House, London, August 11, 1896. page 55 old farm has not passed unnoticed by artists, but its historic interest seems to have hitherto been overlooked." Following the marriage, Penn and his young wife went to live at a house he had rented (probably), Basing House, Rickmansworth. It also is in Herts, but near the line of Bucks. Here they made their home for about five years, going in 1677 to Worminghurst, in Sussex, a property of his mother. Basing House is still standing, but much changed in appearance. Mr. Summers says (1895) it "is so shut in by a high wall with a row of trees behind it that little can be seen of it from the street, while what little is visible is so modernized by stucco and other alterations that there is some difficulty in picturing its original appearance. The garden front is less changed, but a fine avenue of trees and an extensive lawn have disappeared."1 At Rickmansworth three children were born, all of whom died in infancy, while a fourth, Springett Penn, born at Walthamstow, Essex, lived to grow up. Quoting again Mr. Summers: "Towards the end of 1672 Penn became the father of a little girl, who was named Gulielma Maria. She only lived a few weeks, and was buried at Jordans. Next year a boy was born, and called William. He lived about a year, and was then laid to rest beside his sister." (This statement is also made, though not exactly in these words, in Maria Webb's book, and may be derived from it.) Later, according to Mr. Summers, a third child was born (a girl), of whom Penn speaks in a letter to George Fox, December 10, 1674: "My wife is well, and child; only teeth, she has one cut." This child was named Mary or Margaret. She died not long after this letter to Fox, and was buried at Jordans with her brother and sister. These statements, substantially true, are not quite exact. 1 Maria Webb says ("Penns and Peningtons"), "The house at Rickmansworth . . . is more perfect than any other of his [Penn's] residences. The front has evidently been modernized, perhaps early in the present century; the rear, opening on the garden, appears not to have been altered; but the lawn, with the avenue of fine trees, no longer exists." Page 56 The two children, William and Mary (or Margaret), were twins, and were born February 28, 1673/4. The record of the births of all the four, as made by the Friends' Monthly Meeting for the Upper Side of Bucks, is as follows: "1672, 11 mo. 23: Gulielma Maria Penn, daughter of William & Gulielma Maria Penn, born at Rickmansworth, Herts. "1673, 11 mo. 28: William & Mary Penn, twins, children of William & Gulielma Maria Penn, born at Rickmansworth. "1675, 11 mo. 25: Springett Penn, son of William and Gulielma Maria Penn, born at Walthamstow, Essex, parish of Rickmansworth."1 The registry of the deaths of these children appears in the record of Friends' Meeting for the Upper Side of Bucks,2 where the death of the first, Gulielma Maria, is stated to have occurred First month (March) 17, 1672; of William, Third month (May) 15, 1674; and of Margaret (Mary), Twelfth month (February) 24, 1674, this last being ("old style") nine months later than William's death, and not three months earlier, as it might appear at first glance. Three children had thus been born and had died before the birth of Springett Penn. It is Springett who is referred to in Penn's account of his return from his religious tour in Holland and the Rhine country, in 1677, when he says, "The 5th of the next week [November 1] I went to Worminghurst, my house in Sussex, where I found my dear wife, child, and family all well." Worminghurst was part of the inheritance of Guli from her father; she and her husband appear to have removed to it from Rickmansworth early in the year 1677, for in describing his departure for the Continental journey, he says, "On the 22d of the Fifth Month [July], 1677, being the first day of the week, I left my dear wife and family at Worminghurst in Sussex . . . and came well to London that night. The next day I employed myself on Friends' behalf that were in sufferings [in prison, 1 From Friends' records at Devonshire House, London, as given by Mr. J. Henry Lea, PENN A. MAGAZINE, Vol. XVI. p. 335. 2 Cited in Coleman's "Pedigree," p. 8. Page 57 etc.] till the evening, and then went to my own mother's in Essex."1 Three children of William Penn and his wife were living in 1682, when he sailed for Pennsylvania. These were Springett, born in 1675 at Walthamstow, as already mentioned, and Letitia and William, Jr., born at Worminghurst. The letter of counsel to his wife and children, written by Penn on his departure, is well known, and has been many times published. The warmth of his affection for his wife appears in one of the first paragraphs: "My dear wife! remember thou wast the love of my youth, and much the joy of my life; the most beloved, as well as the most worthy of all my earthly comforts: and the reason of that love was more thy inward than thy outward excellencies, which yet were many. God knows, and thou knowest it, I can say it was a match of Providence's making; and God's image in us both was the first thing, and the most amiable and engaging ornament in our eyes. Now I am to leave thee, and that without knowing whether I shall ever see thee more in this world, take my counsel into thy bosom and let it dwell with thee in my stead, while thou livest." But the letter of which this is part was evidently not intended for the children, when written, but to be given them when they should become old enough to understand its import. Springett was then only seven years old, and the others younger. There are in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania the originals of three letters written by Penn to the little children, in a juvenile style adapted to their years,--missives of familiar parental simplicity. These letters bear the date of August 19, 1682, 1 Worminghurst descended to William Penn, Jr., as an inheritance from his mother, upon her death in 1694. He sold it about 1707, and before his death, in 1720, "had probably squandered the proceeds," Maria Webb remarks. "The house," she adds, "was situated on an eminence overlooking the beautiful south downs of Sussex, and within a few miles of the sea. It was razed to the ground long since, and the Worminghurst estate absorbed in the domains of the Duke of Norfolk. Only the stables now [1867?] remain to mark the spot." Page 58 not quite a fortnight before the "Welcome" left the Downs. They are all upon one sheet, and bear the superscription, "For Springett Penn, at Worminghurst, Sussex.--By Arundell Bagg." The letters are here given: "MY DEAR SPRINGET "Be good, learn to fear God, avoide evil, love thy book, be kind to thy Brother and Sister & God will bless thee & I will exceedingly love thee. farewell dear child "thy dear Father "WM PENN. "19th 6mo 82." "DEAR LETITIA "I dearly love ye & would have thee sober, learn thy book, & love thy Brothers. I will send thee a pretty Book to learn in. ye Lord bless thee & make a good woman of thee. farewell "Thy Dear Father "WM PENN. "19th 6mo 82." "DEAR BILLE "I love thee much, therefore be sober & quiet, & learn his book, I will send him one, so ye Lord bless ye. Amen "Thy dear father "WM PENN." One other child, Gulielma Maria, was buried at Jordans in 1689, making the fourth then dead. The Surrey and Sussex Friends' records (preserved in London) show that she was born at Worminghurst, Ninth month (November) 17, 1685. The register of burials of the Upper Side of Bucks Meeting of Friends shows that she died at Hammersmith, in Middlesex, Ninth month (November) 20, 1689.1 Springett Penn died, as has already been mentioned, in 1696. The memorial of him prepared by his father, "Sorrow and Joy in the Loss and End of Springett Penn," is pathetic throughout, and in places beautiful,--one of the finest of many fine compositions from his hand. It discloses his sad 1 Cited in Coleman's "Pedigree," p. 8. Page 59 sense of loss; it was upon this eldest of his then living children that he had evidently placed his hopes. There are many touching expressions in the memorial which might be quoted, but I confine myself to a few passages which suggest the character of the young man and relate to the circumstances of his death: "My very dear child, and eldest son, Springett Penn, did from his childhood manifest a disposition to goodness, and gave me hope of a more than ordinary capacity; and time satisfied me in both respects. For, besides a good share of learning and mathematical knowledge, he showed a judgment in the use and application of it much beyond his years. He had the seeds of many good qualities rising in him, that made him beloved and consequently lamented: but especially his humility, plainness and truth, with a tenderness and softness of nature, which, if I may say it, were an improvement upon his other good qualities. . . . He desired if he were not to live, that he might go home to die there, and we made preparation for it, being twenty miles from my house; for so much stronger was his spirit than his body that he spoke of going next day, which was the morning he departed, and a symptom it was of his greater journey to his longer home. . . . Feeling himself decline apace . . . somebody fetched the doctor; but, as soon as he came in, he said, 'Let my father speak to the doctor, and I'll go to sleep,' which he did and waked no more; breathing his last upon my breast, the tenth day of the second month, between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, 1696, in his one and twentieth year. So ended the life of my dear child and eldest son, much of my comfort and hope . . . in whom I lose all that a father could lose in a child, and he was capable of anything that became a sober young man, my friend and companion, as well as a most affectionate and dutiful child." Springett died at Lewes, on the south coast, where he had been taken, no doubt, for more favorable air and surroundings. He was buried at Jordans, making the fifth of Penn's children then interred there. Page 60 Preceding Springett three years, his mother, Gulielma Maria Penn, had died, February 23, 1693/4. Her death occurred at Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, to which place, it would appear, Penn had gone after being acquitted before the King (William III.) and Council, of Jacobite plotting, being thus enabled to quit the seclusion which he had maintained for three years. He wrote from "Hodson" Hoddesdon), on the 11th of Tenth month (December), 1693, to Thomas Lloyd and others at Philadelphia, announcing his "enlargement" and the friendliness of the ??ing, and added, "From the Secretary, [Sir John Trench??d] I went to our meeting at the Bull and Mouth; thence to visit the sanctuary of my solitude; and after that to see my poor wife and children; the eldest [Springett] being with me all this while. My wife is yet weakly; but I am not without hopes of her recovery, who is of the best of wives and women." In the memorial which he prepared of her, "An account of the Blessed End of my Dear Wife, Gulielma Maria Penn," he says she "departed . . . in the fiftieth year of her age; being sensible to the very last. . . . She did, at several times, pray very sweetly, and in all her weakness manifested the most quiet, undaunted, and resigned spirit, as well as in all other respects. She was an excellent person, both as wife, child, mother, mistress, friend and neighbor. . . . She quietly expired in my arms. . . . I hope she may say she was a public as well as private loss; for she was not only an excellent wife and mother, but an entire and constant friend, of a more than common capacity, and greater modesty and humility; yet most equal and undaunted in danger; religious as well as ingenuous, without affectation; an easy mistress and a good neighbor, especially to the poor; neither lavish nor penurious; but an example of industry, as well as of other virtues: therefore, our great loss, though her own eternal gain." It would appear that her health had been for some time declining, but there seems to be no distinct evidence on this point. She was buried at Jordans ground, near her Page 61 children. She had been nearly twenty-two years married. Four of her children were dead, three survived.1 Of these three surviving children, Springett, the oldest, who died two years later, has been fully mentioned. Letitia, next in age, lived to be an old woman. While a girl, she accompanied her father to Pennsylvania in 1699, and is often referred to in his letters as "Tishe,"--a two-syllabled diminutive of her name, more common in old times than now. She seems to have been a lively and probably a self-willed girl. Her father, writing from Pennsbury to James Logan, in July, 1701, just before his final return to England, said, "I cannot prevail on my wife to stay, and still less with Tishe. I know not what to do. Samuel Carpenter seems to excuse her in it; but to all that speak of it, say I shall have no need to stay, and a great interest to return." And there is the story of Watson "that when she was at Thomas Evans's place, at Gwynedd, seeing the men at threshing, she desired to try her hand at the use of the flail, which to her great surprise brought such a racket about her head and shoulders, that she was obliged to run into the house in tears, and expose her playful freak to her father!" Letitia Penn married William Aubrey. The marriage seems to have been arranged after her return to England 1 A portrait of Gulielma Maria Penn, on glass, is described by Maria Webb (note following preface, "Penns and Peningtons") as in the possession, 1867, of "the descendants of Henry Swan, of Holmwood, Dorking, who died 1796." This picture was engraved for Mrs. Webb's book, and its resemblance to the portrait of Hannah Middleton Gurney, wife of Joseph Gurney, of Norwich (great-grandparents of Joseph John Gurney), known as the "Fair Quakeress," was remarked. Mrs. Webb, however, pointed out that while the dresses are precisely alike in the two pictures, and there is other resemblance as to the figures, the faces differ, and she concluded that the portraits are genuine in each case, and that the engraver of the "Fair Quakeress" picture (Hannah Middleton Gurney), working about 1746, had copied the dress of Gulielma. Maria Penn as a contemporary figure. The picture of Gulielma Maria Penn is given in the "Penns and Peningtons" (English edition), and that of Hannah Middleton Gurney in A. J. C. Hare's "Gurneys of Earlham" (London, 1896). Page 62 with her father and step-mother in 1701. A letter from Penn to Logan, 3d February, 1701/2, written at Kensington, says, "My wife and little Johnne well at Bristol. Tishe with me." And, writing from London, 21st June, 1702, he says, "My wife hitherto is kept by her father [i.e., detained with him on account of his illness] whence she is coming next week to Worminghurst on my daughter's account, in likelihood to marry." A few weeks later the arrangements were well forward, for William Penn, Jr., wrote to James Logan, from Worminghurst, August 18, "I was much surprised at what you told me about my sister's engagement to W. Masters, but we find little in it, for she has been at the meetings [of the Friends, to ask approval and oversight of the marriage, according to their rules of discipline] and he was here, but could prove no engagement, for it passed the meetings, and she is to be married the day after to-morrow." The alleged engagement to William Masters (of Philadelphia) referred, no doubt, to some intimate acquaintance--of whatever degree--existing during Letitia's visit here. Upon her departure for England care had been taken to procure for her, from the monthly meeting of the Friends, a certificate that she had "behaved herself here very soberly and according to the good instructions which she hath received in the way of truth," etc., and that, as far as they knew, she was under no engagement of marriage.1 But Logan, who was evidently under the impression that Letitia had given William Masters reason to consider her pledged to him, wrote to Penn that though he supposed she had by that time "changed her name," yet he added, "I cannot forbear informing thee of what has been too liberally discovered of her, and among the rest by some that signed the certificate, viz.: that she was under engagement of marriage, before she left this place, to William Masters; the said signers, upon some unhappy information given them, lately expressed so great dissatisfaction at what they had 1 See a fuller citation of the certificate in Watson's "Annals," Vol. II. p. 117. Page 63 done that it had been proposed to send over and contradict or retract it." The marriage to William Aubrey took place on the 20th of August, 1702. A letter from Penn to Logan, dated at London, September 6, says, "My daughter is married next Fifth-day will be three weeks. We have brought her home, where I write, a noble house for the city, and other things, I hope, well. But S. Penington's, if not S. Harwood's, striving for William Masters, against faith, truth, and righteousness, will not be easily forgotten, though things came honorably off to his and the old envy's [? enemy's] confusion, his father's friends nobly testifying against the actions of both." And William Penn, Jr., in a letter of about the same time, wrote Logan, "My sister Letitia has, I believe, a very good sort of man, that makes a good husband. William Masters, whatever grounds he had for it in Pennsylvania, made a mighty noise here, but it lasted not long." The Founder, among his other characteristics, had that which is not uncommon with great men, and also small, a decided dislike for having his plans crossed, and a strong confidence that whoever did so must surely deserve condemnation. In this case it is probable that he would have done as well to let Letitia's Philadelphia affair go forward, instead of nipping it, as he doubtless did. In all the subsequent history of the Penn family, William Aubrey figures solely and entirely as an exacting and unpleasant person. His father-in-law's complaints of his demands for money on that side, and poor Logan's struggles to meet them on this, form a feature of the Penn-Logan letters for years. If it were the fact, as seems to be suggested, that her father broke off the Philadelphia match and arranged that in London, he must have had occasion many times bitterly to rue at least the latter portion of the performance. In December, 1703, Penn wrote to Logan that he had heretofore sent him "three several letters" about "son Aubrey's affair," the payment to him of one hundred and twenty pounds per annum. September 2, 1704, he again writes on the subject of "Son Aubrey's affairs," and adds, "In the mean time both Page 64 son and daughter clamor, she to quiet him that is a scraping man, will count interest for a guinea (this only to thyself), so that I would have thee fill his attorney's hands so full as thou canst." In 1706, August 14, Logan wrote to Penn, "I know not how to behave to W. Aubrey and his wife; they have never wrote since their last angry letter. Please and keep it to thyself, for I still honour my young mistress, and would by no means break with them." In 1707, June 10, Penn writes, "But my son-in-law Aubrey grows very troublesome, because he gets nothing thence [Pennsylvania] about to an open break, did I not bear extremely." Finally, a month later, when Logan was preparing to come to Engand, Penn wrote, July 5, "All our loves are to thee, but W. A. a tiger against thee for returns. Come not to him empty as thou valuest thy credit and comfort." Which quotation will suffice, no doubt, for the subject; there are several such passages in the Penn-Logan letters. William and Letitia Aubrey had no children. She survived him fifteen years. He died about May 21, 1731, as he was buried at Jordans May 23 of that year. April 6, 1746, Letitia's remains were also interred there. The stone marking her grave (placed there, with others, by Granville Penn, in the present century) bears the name "Letitia Penn," instead of Letitia Aubrey. There are letters from Letitia among the Penn manuscripts in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, but none that need occupy much of our attention. The following, in 1734/5, to her half-brother, John Penn, who was then in Pennsylvania, is given as an example: LETITIA AUBREY TO JOHN PENN. "LONDON ye 23 Jany 1734/5 "DEAR BROTHER "I was very glad of ye favour of thine, & to hear of your safe arival; that thee found things better yn expected; yt my Brother Thomas has put them upon a better footing yn you heard before thee went. I heartily wish all may be settled to your & ye whole familys Comfort; am obliged to thee for thy kind expressions in thy Letter to serve me; I have show'd my nephew what thee writes and believe he will send a Page 65 Power to end yt vexatious affaire of Mount Joye1 by ye first shipe yt it can be gott ready to go by; J. Logan informs me yt five thousand acres of Land taken up in Sr J. Faggs name, now mine, is settled upon intirely, yt there is not enough left for one plantation, wch I think very strang there is no Law to hinder such things yt every one may enjoye theire right; if this be ye case yt I cannot have my land there My request is yt I may have it somewhere else, my circumstances will not permit my loseing it, also the other five he saith he dont know where to take it up yt any will bye it, all wch I intreat thee to Consider me in & make it thy own case yn I hope for redress; thee knows what I have in England so leave it. I am very glad to find yt I may expect my money so sone, altho' I canot have it at better interest, nor security any where, I am senceable of: I must desier thy assistance in yt affaire of R. Ashton, who has never paide me, altho' his promises from time to time to my brother; & also to speak to my Brother about proclamation money he wroot me of, wch would be very acceptable to me to receive it; I perceive thee finds it a plentifull & pleasant Country; but not beyond old England. I am with sincere good wishes & Dear Love "Thy affect. Sister and true friend "LAETITIA AUBREY "Mary desiers her Respects may be presented to thee." (Endorsed: "To John Penn Esq. Propriator of ye Province of Pensilvania att Philadelphia, America. "per CAPTIN RICHMAN.") Letitia Aubrey's will is dated July 20, 1744; she describes herself as of London, widow. At the time of her death she lived at Christ Church, Spitalfields. Her will contains several specific legacies. To her nephew William Penn, 3d, son of her brother William, she gave a silver cup and salver, silver teakettle, tortoise-shell cabinet, etc. To others she left other pieces of plate, etc., including "a broad piece of gold to Eleanor Aubrey, now Clark, niece 1 The allusion here is to the manor of Mount Joy, part of what is now Upper Merion Township, Montgomery County. The manor was given Letitia by her father, October 24, 1701, being supposed to be seven thousand eight hundred acres, at a yearly rent of one beaver skin. On July 10, 1730, William and Letitia Aubrey sold the property to Sir Archibald Grant, "of that part of Great Britain called Scotland." (Cf. article "The Old Iron Forge--'Valley Forge,'" PENNA. MAG., Vol. XVII.) I am not able to explain why, if the sale was made to Sir Archibald Grant in 1730, there were still perplexities about it in 1734/5. Page 66 of my late husband, William Aubrey." Remembering her great-nieces and nephew, children of her niece Gulielma Maria (Penn) Fell (daughter of William Penn, Jr.), she left forty pounds to Robert (Edward) Fell; fifty pounds to Mary Margaretta, who afterwards married John Barron; and forty pounds to Gulielma Maria Frances, who afterwards married John Newcomb. To her nephew William Penn, 3d, she bequeathed all her American estate for life; after his death to his daughter Christiana Gulielma, who afterwards married Peter Gaskill. To the "poor women" of Devonshire House Friends' Meeting, Bishopsgate Street, London, she left fifty pounds,--the Friends about that time being somewhat pressed in their undertaking to care for their poor members. The residue of her estate--which after these special gifts must have been small--she left to her nephew William Penn, 3d, and his daughter Christiana Gulielma.1 William Penn, Jr., deserves more full notice than would be appropriate in this part of the narrative. We shall consider him separately, after speaking of his father's second marriage. WILLIAM PENN'S CHILDREN BY HIS FIRST MARRIAGE. WILLIAM PENN, Founder of Pennsylvania, married, first, at King's Farm, Chorley Wood, Hertfordshire, April 4, 1672, GULIELMA MARIA, daughter of Sir William Springett, Knight, and his wife Mary (daughter of Sir John Proude, Knight). GULIELMA MARIA PENN was born about the end of 1643 or beginning of 1644 (O. S.), and died at Hoddesdon, Herts, February 23, 1693/4. Her children by William Penn were: 1. Gulielma Maria, born at Rickmansworth, Herts, January 23, 1672/3; died there March 17, 1672/3; buried at Jordans. 2. William, born February 28, 1673/4, at Rickmansworth; died there May 15, 1674; buried at Jordans. 1 These details are from Westcott's "Historic Mansions," pp. 32, 33. Page 67 3. Mary, or Margaret, twin with William, born at Rickmansworth, February 28, 1673/4; died there February 24, 1674/5; buried at Jordans. 4. Springett, born at Walthamstow, January 25, 1675; died at Lewes, April 10, 1696; buried at Jordans; unmarried. 5. Letitia, born at Worminghurst, Sussex, March 6, 1678; married, August 20, 1702, William Aubrey, of London; died without issue, and was buried at Jordans, April 6, 1746. William Aubrey was buried at Jordans, May 23, 1731. 6. William, Jr., born at Worminghurst, March 14, 1680; married and had issue. See details later. 7. Gulielma Maria, born at Worminghurst, November 17, 1685; died at Hammersmith, Middlesex, November 20, 1689. VI. WILLIAM PENN'S SECOND MARRIAGE. Two years after the death of his wife, Penn married again. His second wife, Hannah Callowhill, was the daughter of Thomas Callowhill and the granddaughter of Dennis Hollister, both of Bristol, England, prosperous men of business and prominent Friends.1 (Clarkson describes them as "eminent merchants," and Janney follows this.) A deed of June 26, 1661, shows the marriage of Thomas Callowhill and Hannah Hollister as about occurring, and describes him as a "button-maker, sonn and heir of John Callowhill, late of said city [Bristol] gent, deceased." Later, in 1682 and 1711, other deeds describe Thomas Callowhill as "linen draper," 1 Dennis Hollister was among the early Friends in Bristol. In 1660 their meeting was held at his house, and January 15 a party of soldiers arrested all present. He was subsequently imprisoned. Thomas Callowhill was taken from his house by soldiers, the same year, 1660, "for refusing to contribute to the charge of the City Militia," and suffered much in person and estate, later, as a Friend. Dennis Hollister is mentioned in the marriage certificate of George Fox, 1669. After stating that George Fox and Margaret Fell had twice made known their intention of marriage at Broad Mead Meeting, Bristol, it says, "and the same intentions of Marriage being againe published by Dennis Hollister, at our public Meetinge place aforesaide, on the two and twentieth day of the month and year aforesaide," etc. Page 68 and this, no doubt, was his occupation during most of his business life. Dennis Hollister was a grocer. He had four daughters, Hannah, Lydia, Mary, and Phebe. Hannah married Thomas Callowhill; Lydia married Thomas Jordan, a grocer; and Mary married Simon Clement, a merchant. Penn, of course, was well acquainted with families of Friends in all parts of England, and doubtless knew the Callowhills. His courtship of Hannah,1 as appears from letters preserved among the Penn papers of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, was warmly pursued in the later months of 1695. It is probable, but is not clear from these letters, that the engagement of marriage had then been made.2 The Bristol records of the Friends record the birth of Hannah Callowhill, daughter of Thomas and Annah (sic), of High Street, Bristol, Second month (April) 18, 1664. She was, therefore, nearly thirty-two years old at the time of her marriage. ANCESTRY OF HANNAH CALLOWHILL. John Callowhill, Dennis Hollister, of Bristol, Eng., of Bristol, Eng., Gentleman. Grocer. Thomas Callowhill, Hannah Hollister of Bristol, linen-draper, (eldest of four daughters), d. 1712. = d. 1712. HANNAH CALLOWHILL b. 1664, d. 1726, m. (2d wife of) WILLIAM PENN. 1 Clarkson says, Penn "had long felt an extraordinary esteem" for Hannah Callowhill. 2 The letters preserved (of course by Hannah Callowhill) are some ten in number; one or two, though addressed on the outside to her father, appear to be intended for her. They convey many ardent representations of regard, and earnestly urge her not to delay the marriage. Some passages suggest the thought that the wooer was more in love than the lady, but we may reflect that he was a fluent letter-writer. In one letter he says, "This is my eighth letter to thy fourth, since I saw thee." A few days later, "This is my tenth letter to thy fourth, which is a disproportion I might begin a little to reproach thee for, but I do it so gently, and with so much affection that I hope it will prevail with thee to mend thy pace." One or two letters at the close of the series, just before the marriage, discuss details of house-keeping, the style and furnishing of a carriage, etc. Page 69 The marriage proceedings were regularly conducted according to the Friends' order, which, newly set up in 1672 when Penn was first married, had now become well settled and recognized. The intention of marriage was declared to the "men's meeting," at Bristol, November 11, 1695, and the meeting gave leave to proceed, February 24, 1695/6. On the 5th of March following the marriage took place.1 The certificate of the marriage follows. I am not aware that it has heretofore been published. Penn's biographers generally refer to his second marriage, as to his first, quite indefinitely, most of them not giving the date:2 [The memorial or copie of the certificate of William Penn's and Hannah Callowhill's marriage the certificate itselfe being wrott on a pece of Parchment stampt with the five shillings stamp according to the stattute.] Whereas it doth appeare by the Memorialls of the mens meeting of the people called Quakers in the Citty of Bristoll that William Penn of Warminghurst in the County of Sussex Esq and Hannah Callowhill daughter of Thomas Callowhill of the Citty of Bristoll Linen drap did on the eleaventh day of the ninth month 1695 manifest their intentions of marriage. And whereas such their intentions were on the ffoure and twentieth day of the eleaventh month in the yeare aforesaid published in the publique meeting house of the said People in the psence of many people there congregated. Now forasmuch as there appeares noe just cause wherefore a marriage betwixt the said William Penn and Hannah Callowhill should not be consumated. We therefore 1 The certificate, it will be seen, says "one thousand six hundred ninety & five." It is so recorded, but the antecedent dates show that it should be ninety-five-six (1695/6). It is another of the errors of Coleman's "Pedigree" that he states that this marriage occurred 1699. 2 Dixon ("Life of Penn," p. 286) says the marriage occurred "in January." Page 70 whose names are hereunto subscribed are witnesses that on the day of the date hereof the said William Penn taking the said Hannah by the hand did declare that he did take the said Hannah Callowhill to be his wife. And that the said Hannah holding the said William by the hand did declare that she did take the said William Penn to be her husband. And that also the said William Penn and Hannah Callowhill holding each other by the hand did mutually promise each to other to live together husband and wife in love & faithfullnes according to God's holy ordinance untill by death they shall be separated. And also the said William and Hannah as a further testimony of such their taking each other & of such their promise to each other have hereunto with us subscribed their names this fifth day of the first month in the yeare one thousand six hundred ninety & five. WILLIAM PENN HANNAH PENN. George Bowles Thomas Sturg Alexander Pyot Gilbert Thompson Thomas Bivin John Corke Henry Goldney Mary Russel Elizabeth Goldney Sarah Hersent Lydia Gregory Paul Moon Nicho Reist Tho: Speed Mary Speed Tho Lewis Alce Cooper Katherine Bound Joshua Mallet John Whiting John Clarke Nathaniel Wade James Stretter William Lickfold Thamazin Yeamans Thomas Jordan John Everard Abraham Jones John Harper Henr Dickinson J. Penington W. Penington Mary Wherly Sarah Jones Judith Dighton Elizabeth Cooke Rich Sneade Charles Harford Benja. Coole Richard Vickris John Field Rogr Haydock John Boulton John Vaughton John Tompkins D. Wherly Margt Duffeild Briget Haynes Eliz. Penington George Diton Robert Bound Tho Hicks John Clement James Millard Thomas Callowhill Anna Callowhill Sp: Penn Laetitia Penn Wm Penn Jur Thomas Harris Walter Duffeild Phebe Harris Mary Clement John Lloyd George Stephens Hump: Crosley [Certified to be an Extract from the Register or Record numbered 116, and entitled a Register of Marriages of the Society of Friends.]1 This certificate suggests some remark. It will be noticed that the contracting parties, the bridegroom and bride, sign their names, preceding those of the witnesses. In 1672, as 1 Copy furnished from the General Register Office, Somerset House, London, July 4, 1896. Page 71 will be seen by referring to the Penn-Springett certificate, this was not the case, the witnesses only signing. In this certificate, also, for some peculiar reason, the record kept in London has the signature of Penn and his wife in facsimile, and in the certified copy forwarded me the copyist has again cleverly imitated the two signatures. Among the witnesses are William Penn's three children, Springett (then within a few weeks of his death), Letitia, and William, Jr. The bride's father and mother sign, she writing her name, it seems, Anna. Thomas Jordan appears, but not his wife Lydia, though deeds show her living as late as 1711. Mary Clement signs, but her husband Simon is absent. Henry Goldney, often referred to in Pennsylvania affairs, and one of the mortgagees of the Proprietorship later, is a signer. He was then living in London; it was at his house in White Hart Court that George Fox died, January 13, 1690/91.1 Penn is described in this certificate as of Worminghurst; that continued to be his home, apparently, until 1697, when, his biographers say, he removed to Bristol. In 1699, on the 3d of September, almost precisely seventeen years after his first departure in the "Welcome," he sailed the second time for Pennsylvania, in the "Canterbury," accompanied by his wife and his daughter Letitia. They reached Chester at the end of November, and landed at Philadelphia December 3. "My passage was long, three months," Penn wrote in a letter to Secretary Vernon, March 10 following, "but merciful in that the northwesters had purged this town from a distemper that raged two or three months therein, brought as believed from Barbadoes, of which 215 died." Going first to the large house of Edward Shippen, on Second Street, north of Spruce, afterwards called the "Governor's House," where they remained about a month, Penn and his family then took up their residence in the famous house of Samuel Carpenter, the "Slate-Roof House," on Second Street, south of Chestnut; and here, on the 29th of January (1699/1700), the first child of the Founder, by 1 Henry Goldney himself died October 6, 1724.--Breviate. Page 72 his second marriage, was born,--John Penn, known usually as "the American," from the fact that he only, of all William Penn's children, was born on this side of the Atlantic.1 A letter from Isaac Norris when the boy was past a year old, dated at Philadelphia, March 6, 1700/1, says, "The Governor, wife and daughter well. . . . Their little son is a comely, lovely babe, and has much of his father's grace and air, and hope he will not want a good portion of his mother's sweetness, who is a woman extremely well beloved here, exemplary in her station, and of excellent spirit." There are several allusions to the child in his father's letters to James Logan, from England, after the family had returned there. They sailed, on the homeward voyage, in the "Dolmahoy," November 3, 1701, and on the 4th of January, 1701/2, Penn wrote from Kensington (London), "We had a swift passage--twenty six days from the Cape to soundings, and thirty [to] Portsmouth. . . . Tishe and Johnne after the first five days hearty and well, and Johnne exceeding cheerful all the way." And in another letter of the same date he says, "Wife and father and child are going this week for Bristol." February 3 following (1701/2) he says, "My wife and little Johnne well at Bristol." Again, from London, June 21, 1702, "I bless the Lord mine were lately well, my last son thriving much, and Johnne perpetually busy in building or play, otherwise but when he eats or sleeps, as his mother informs me. I have not been with them but seventeen days these five months." And a year and a half later the little boy had been taught to remember the city of his birth, for a letter from his father, written at London, December 4, says, "My wife, Johnny, (who is still going to Philadelphia in Pennsylvania), Tommy and Hannah, were also pretty well last post." 1 Foot-note in "Penn-Logan Correspondence," Vol. I., extract from a letter: "Third-day, 31st 11 mo., 1699. Our Governor has a son, born last First-day night, and all like to do well." The title applied to John was early used. Vide letter from Penn to Logan, London, March 10, 1703/4: "Remember poor Johnnee, the little American, according to what I writ, both of his grandfather's lot and land, and what I gave him in my former letters."--"Penn-Logan Correspondence," Vol. I. p. 277. Page 73 The allusions just made, "my last son thriving much" and "Tommy and Hannah," signify two more children. They were both born at Bristol, in the house of their grandfather Callowhill. The Friends' records of Bristol Meeting, preserved at Devonshire House, London, show these entries: "1701/2, 1 Mo. [March] 9--Thomas Penn born at dwelling-house of Thomas Callowhill, son of William and Hannah Penn." "1703, 5 Mo. [July] 30--Hannah Margarita Penn born at Thomas Callowhill's in James Parish, daughter of William and Hannah Penn."1 John Penn, the son born at Philadelphia, from these references of his father's and from such other evidence as we have concerning him, seems to have been a lively and well-tempered person. Watson says he "was quite an amiable man," and adds that in the estimation of James Logan he was "his favorite of all the proprietor's children."2 We may note at this point, since he died unmarried, the main facts concerning him. He was in his nineteenth year at his father's death, and had spent much of his time, subsequently to his father's apoplectic stroke in 1712, with his mother's relatives at Bristol.3 1 Entries cited by J. H. Lea, PENNA. MAG., Vol. XVI. p. 334.--An allusion is made in a letter of Penn to Logan, from London, June 6, 1703: ". . . My poor wife going down to-morrow to Bristol to lie in." Again, in a letter to Logan from Worminghurst, August 27, 1703: "I came from Bristol three weeks ago, and was there but about fourteen or sixteen days, on occasion of my wife's lying in, who this day month [four weeks] was brought to bed of a daughter, whom we call Hannah Margarita. They with my two sons were lately well, and so am I, bless God, at present." 2 "Annals," Vol. I. p. 116. 3 Watson says of John ("Annals," Vol. I. p. 116), "He had been brought up in Bristol, in England, with a cousin, as a merchant in the linen trade, a situation in which he gave his parents much satisfaction." The latter clause of this statement could refer only to his mother, as he was but twelve years old at the time of his father's disability. There are a number of references in Hannah Penn's letters, in 1716 and 1717, to his being at Bristol. Page 74 Following the authority of his father's will, his mother, by "a deed of appointment," in November, 1718, "directed and appointed" that John should receive one-half of the Proprietary estate in Pennsylvania, the three lower counties, and "elsewhere in America." He seems to have taken his heirship, with the subsequent development of its great value, cheerfully and without appearance of pride, and to have borne himself kindly towards his younger brothers. He came to Pennsylvania in September, 1734, landing at Chester, in company with his sister Margaret and her husband Thomas Freame, and was ceremoniously welcomed at Philadelphia on the 20th of the month. He remained here a year, returning in September, 1735, to attend to the litigation with Lord Baltimore over the Maryland boundary. For some years before his visit here he had a country place at Feens, near Maidenhead, in Berkshire, and maintained there what seems to have been a modest bachelor establishment. His death occurred October 25, 1746. He was buried at Jordans. The journal of Rebekah Butterfield says,1-- "5th of 9th Month November 1746, Daniel Bell, Isaac Sharples, and Sarah Holland were at ye burial of John Penn at Jordans. S. H. lodged at A. B. [Abraham Butterfield's]. Ye rest went away. There was ye Herse, seven Coches, and two Chaises. It was a large Meetting." And in another part of her journal she had inserted an extract from a local newspaper, the Oxford Flying Weekly Journal, of November 1, 1746, as follows: "On Tuesday night last, being the 25th of October, after a long and painful illness, which was borne with the greatest fortitude, resignation, and cheerfulness, died at Hitcham, in the County of Bucks, John Penn, Esq., the eldest of the surviving sons of William Penn, Esq., late Proprietary of the province of Pennsylvania; a gentleman who, from his strict justice and integrity, the greatness of his mind, his universal benevolence to all mankind, and his many other amiable qualities, was a worthy successor to his great father. In his life he was highly esteemed by all who knew him, and his death is as generally lamented. He dying without issue, his estate in Pennsylvania descends to his next 1 Cited by Summers, "Jordans and the Chalfonts," p. 248. Page 75 brother, Thomas Penn, Esq., who for many years resided in that province for carrying on the settlement thereof, upon the foundation which was laid by their father." Mr. Summers says, in his "Memories of Jordans and the Chalfonts" (p. 269), "In a plan of Jordans burying ground, made by John Wilkinson, of Wycombe, from the original by Rev. B. Anderson, Vicar of Penn (who obtained the information from Prince Butterfield in 1798), and now in possession of Mr. J. J. Green, it is distinctly stated that the grave opposite Isaac Pennington's is that of 'William Penn's son John,' not of John Pennington, as stated on the stone. This is confirmed in Wilson Armistead's 'Select Miscellanies,' 1851, Vol. VI. p. 160. It also states that Margaret Freame's son Thomas is buried in the same grave with his mother." John Penn died unmarried, and left his one-half interest in Pennsylvania and the lower counties to his brother Thomas for life, giving Thomas thus a three-fourths interest. There is a portrait of John Penn, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the Philadelphia Library. Penn's residence, after his return from America, in 1701, was for a time at lodgings at Kensington, but his wife no doubt spent a good deal of her time at her father's house in Bristol. Leaving Kensington, the biographical sketch prefixed to his "Select Works" says "he removed to Knightsbridge, over against Hyde-Park corner, where he resided for some years.1 In the year 1706 he removed with his 1 Describing Norfolk Street, Strand, built about 1682 on part of old Arundel House, Wheatley and Cunningham's "London Past and Present" (London, 1891) cites (Vol. II. p. 601) the following from Hawkins's "Life of Johnson": "The last house at the south-west corner of the street was formerly the habitation of the famous William Penn, of whom it is well-known that his circumstances at a certain period of his life were so involved that it was not safe for him to go abroad. He chose the house as one from whence he might, upon occasion, slip out by water. In the entrance to it he had a peeping-hole, through which he could see any person that came to him. One of these who had sent in his name, having been made to wait more than a reasonable time, knocked for the servant, whom he asked, 'Will not thy master see me?' 'Friend,' answered the servant, 'he has seen thee, but he does not like thee.' The fact was that Penn had, from his station, taken a view of him, and found him to be a creditor." This story, if authentic at all, seems to me quite as likely to belong to the period, in 1691, after the accusation by the "informer" Fuller, when Penn found it most prudent to go into retirement. He remained in London much if not all of the time, and very likely declined to see troublesome visitors. Page 76 family to a convenient habitation, about a mile from Brentford, and eight from London, where he dwelt some years. . . . In the year 1710, the air near London not being agreeable to his declining constitution, he took a handsome seat at Rushcomb, near Twyford, in Buckinghamshire,1 [sic] where he had his residence during the remainder of his life." The fourth child of Penn by his second marriage was Margaret. The Bristol Friends' records show: "1704, 9th Mo. [November] 7, Margaret Penn, born at Thomas Callowhill's, in James Parish, daughter of William and Hannah Penn." Margaret lived to grow up, and married Thomas Freame. There are extant lively letters from her to her brother Thomas, written a few years later, to which we must refer in a chapter on the family life at Ruscombe after Penn's disability. Just before Margaret's birth, in a letter of her father to Logan, dated at Bristol, October 7 (1704), he says, "Herself [the wife of William Penn, Jr.] and the three pretty children are all pretty well, for aught I hear, as through the Lord's mercy my three also are, and myself as well as my circumstances will admit; but my family increases apace, which I account a mercy, and yet it sometimes makes me thoughtful when I look forward." The fifth child was Richard. The Bristol Friends' records show his birth at his grandfather's, in Bristol: "1705/6, 11th Mo. [January] 17, Richard Penn, born at Thomas Callowhill's, son of William and Hannah Penn." 1 Ruscombe was in Berks, about six miles from Reading. It is curious that a narrative of Penn's life, prepared not long after his death, should make the error of locating it in Buckinghamshire. Page 77 The sixth child was Dennis. He was born at Ealing, near London,--the residence spoken of above as "a mile from Brentford." The Friends' records for London and Middlesex show: "1706/7, 12th Mo. [February] 26, Dennis Penn, born at Ealing, county of Middlesex, son of William Penn, gent., and Hannah Penn, of Worminghurst." The six children, until the death of Hannah Margarita, a year after Dennis's birth, were all living and doing well. There are numerous allusions to them in the Penn-Logan letters. Isaac Norris, writing from London, March 3, 1706/7, says, "He [William Penn] had appointed a day for my attendance, but did not come, being hindered by the birth of another son, as I since hear, about Fourth-day last. She [H. P.] lies in at Ealing, about eight miles off, and he's there." Thomas Callowhill writes from Bristol, March 23, 1706/7, to James Logan, "I received letters this week from both the Proprietor and my daughter. They are both and their family in pretty good health--she scarce got out of her confinement, for she was delivered of a son named Dennis, not a full month since. She has now four sons and two daughters--I bless God, healthy and hopeful. They are living at a place called Ealing, near London." Dennis Penn was named for his mother's grandfather, Dennis Hollister, of Bristol. He survived his father, and was assigned by his mother, in her deed in 1719, a share of the Pennsylvania property. He died, however, in his minority, in January or February, 1722/3. The "Breviate" in the Boundary Case states1 that his death occurred February 6, 1722. Rebekah Butterfield's journal gives the date of his burial at Jordans ground as January 8, 1722/3. One or the other account is wrong a month. Hannah Margarita, the third child, born at Bristol (as above) July 30, 1703, died at Bristol in February or March, 1707/8, while her father was in prison in London. A letter from Isaac Norris to James Logan, dated at London, March 6, 1707/8, 1 "Pennsylvania Archives," 2d series, Vol. XVI. p. 440. Page 78 says, "Our Proprietor and Governor is still in the Fleet, good lodgings, has meetings there, is often visited, and lives comfortably enough for the circumstance. Their daughter Hannah is dead at Bristol."1 And not only the death of this favorite child, but the birth of one more, making seven children of his second marriage,--as there had been seven of the first,--occurred while Penn was still in confinement. This last child, named Hannah, for her mother, was born in London; she lived but a few months. The Friends' records give both her birth and death. Those for London and Middlesex show: "Hannah Penn, born Seventh mo. [September] 5, 1708, Parish of Ludgate, City of London, daughter of William, Esquire, and Hannah." And the records for the Upper Side of Bucks show: "Hannah Penn, daughter of William Penn, late of Worminghurst, in the County of Sussex, England, and Hannah, his wife, departed this life at Kensington, in the county of Middlesex, on the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, one thousand seven hundred and eight, [January 24, 1708/9], and was buried at New Jordans, aforesaid."2 A letter from Penn to Logan, sent over by Governor Gookin, and dated at London, September 29, 1708 (a few days before his release from the Fleet prison upon the compromise of the Ford claim), says, "My poor wife had a quick and easy time for her last child-bearing, almost a month since, and has a daughter of her own name, in the room of an excellent child [Hannah Margarita] that died last spring, the love and admiration of all that knew her." And a few weeks later, December 29, 1708, writing again to Logan, he says, "My poor wife is better, that has been ill to a dangerous circumstance. All mine by her are well, which are six in number, thro' mercy, and so is my son Penn now, though dubious a month ago, and my daughter Aubrey, but my son's wife is at present out of order." 1 Cf. foot-note by Deborah Logan, "Penn-Logan Correspondence," Vol. I. p. 206. 2 Cited in Coleman's "Pedigree," p. 8. Page 79 The five children who survived, after the death of Hannah (as above) in January, 1708/9, were all living when their father died in 1718: John, Thomas, Margaret, Richard, and Dennis. Of John we have already spoken. Thomas and his family must be treated of at length. Margaret, as heretofore mentioned, married Thomas Freame. The marriage took place in 1727. An allusion in the "Breviate" of the Boundary Case ("Pennsylvania Archives," 2d series, Vol. XVI. p. 443), where she is quoted as a party, July 5, 1727, to "a family deed of indenture sextipartite,"1 says she joined in its execution with Thomas Freame, "whom she was then going to marry." Among the Penn family letters in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is one from London, May 7, 1723, from Thomas Freame to John Penn. It begins "Dear John," is deferential and polite in tone, and uses the Friendly expressions "thee," "thy," etc. The writer had apparently been at Ruscombe, and had been ill there. He says, "Pray give my kind regards to thy sister Peggy." This may have been the beginning of the courtship. Letters from Thomas Penn to John Penn (Margaret's brothers), October 25 and 31, 1727, refer to Thomas Freame as if married to Margaret, and in May, 1728, a letter suggests the expectation of a child. The Freames came to Philadelphia with John Penn in September, 1734, and appear to have lived here for some years. Thomas Freame's name appears in the list of the captains of the seven companies raised in Pennsylvania in 1740 to take part in the expedition under Wentworth and Vernon, which made the futile attack on Carthagena, in Spanish South America, in March, 1741. A daughter of the Freames, Philadelphia Hannah, was born in Philadelphia2 in 1746, and married, May 8, 1770 (being his second wife), 1 The six parties were John, Thomas, and Richard Penn, Margaret Penn (jointly with Thomas Freame), and two trustees, Joseph Wyeth and Sylvanus Bevan. 2 John Jay Smith's address, November 18, 1867. Introduction to "Penn-Logan Correspondence," Vol. I. p. 82. Page 80 Thomas Dawson, an Irish gentleman, who in 1770 was made Baron Dartrey, and in 1785 Viscount Cremorne, both in the Irish peerage, the latter honor being "of Castle Dawson, County Monaghan, Ireland." He died 1813, and the viscounty expired with him, as he left no descendants. The barony (Cremorne), however, was continued by a greatnephew, Richard Dawson, created Earl of Dartrey, 1866. He was a lord-in-waiting to the Queen 1857-58 and 1859-66. John Jay Smith spoke of him (1867) as a "nobleman of large income," and "in high favor." Viscount Cremorne's wife (Philadelphia Hannah) died in 1826, Coleman's "Pedigree" says. The famous Cremorne Gardens, in London, on the Thames, occupied a site which Viscount Cremorne had owned, and where he had resided.1 "There was a lovely portrait of Philadelphia Hannah Penn, Lady Cremorne, in the great north room of Stoke,2 painted by Sir Joshua [Reynolds], and one of the last acts of the late Mr. [Granville John] Penn was the presentation of this portrait, and that of her husband, to Earl Dartrey. Some of the Cremorne furniture and china and plate was at Pennsylvania Castle in 1865."3 A child of the Freames (Thomas) was buried at Jordans August 2, 1746. Margaret Freame was buried there February 12, 1750/1. Rebekah Butterfield's journal contains these entries: "2nd of 6th Month August 1746, Benjamin Holmes, Thomas Whitehead, and William Penton was at ye burial of Thomas Freame, grandson to our friend William Penn, at Jordans." "12th of 12th Month, 1750, [February 12, 1750/51] Daniel Bell and Jane Hoskins, of Pensilvania, was at ye burial of Margrate Frame. 1 In 1825 the property belonged to Granville Penn.--Wheatley and Cunningham's "London." 2 Residence of John Penn, son of Thomas (nephew of Margaret Freame, first cousin of Philadelphia Hannah), Stoke Poges, Bucks, England. To be spoken of more particularly later. 3 J. J. Smith's address.--Pennsylvania Castle, to be hereafter referred to, was a residence of John Penn, son of Thomas, on the island of Portland, near the Isle of Wight. Page 81 There was a hearse and seven Coaches in all. They went away after Meetting from Jordans."1 The stone over her grave is believed to be the one (placed with the others in recent time) marked "Mary Frame." Richard Penn and his family must be spoken of at length later. The death of Dennis Penn, the fifth of the children of William Penn by the marriage we are now describing, has been mentioned. The apoplectie stroke which disabled William Penn occurred at Bristol on the 4th of October, 1712.2 He was writing an earnest letter to Logan, some passages of which may be here cited. After impressively urging Logan "to move all springs that may deliver me from my present thraldom" of money troubles, he refers to a plan he had entertained of assigning his proprietary patent to trustees, for the maintenance of a government which would protect the Friends in Pennsylvania, and plaintively adds, "But I am not to be heard, either in civils or spirituals, till I am dead." Other passages follow: "I am now to tell thee that both my daughter and son Aubrey are under the greatest uneasiness about their money, which I desire, as well as allow thee, to return per first [opportunity] . . . I have paid William Aubrey, (with a mad bullying treatment from him into the bargain), but [? about] ú500, which with several hundreds paid at different times 1 These citations from Butterfield MSS., in "Jordans and the Chalfonts," pp. 248, 250. 2 The time of this stroke is precisely fixed by the date of Penn's letter to Logan, cited in Janney's "Life of Penn" (p. 525), with Hannah's postscript to it, also dated. Maria Webb says ("Penns and Peningtons," p. 426, Philadelphia edition) that it occurred "on the 24th of Fifth month,"--i.e., July,--and Summers has followed this ("Jordans and the Chalfonts," p. 224). And I regret to say that in the "Memorial History of Philadelphia," Vol. I. p. 173, I have said that it occurred on the 4th of August, my mistake being that I took "Eighth month," with which Penn's date begins, in its modern form. (Hannah's postscript is dated "13th 8ber," which I did not note.) In a foot-note to this present essay (p. 13) I have followed Maria Webb's authority, and said the seizure occurred July 24! Thus are errors repeated when once committed. Page 82 to him here makes near £1100, besides what thou hast sold and put out to interest there,--which is so deep a cut to me here,--and nothing but my son's [Aubrey probably] tempestuous and most rude treatment of my wife and self too, should have forced it from me. "I writ to thee of our great and unhappy loss and revolution at Bristol, by the death of our near and dear friends, father and mother Callowhill; so shall only say he has left all his concerns in America to poor John, who had almost followed his grandfather, and who by his sorrow at his death and burial, and also by his behaviour since, has justified my special regards to him, as of an uncommon character and capacity. Now, through the Lord's mercy, he is on the recovery, as I now likewise am, by the same Divine goodness; for I have been most dangerously ill at London." A few sentences followed, and then, in the midst of one, his pen stopped: he had sustained a second stroke of apoplexy. October 13, Hannah Penn added on the other side of her husband's letter a pathetic postscript to Logan: "The enclosed my poor husband wrote, but had not time to finish before he was taken ill with a second fit of his lethargic illness, like as about six months ago, at London; which has been no small addition to my late most severe exercises. But it has pleased the Lord, in the midst of judgments to show us mercy, in the comfortable prospect of his recovery, though as yet but weak. And I am ordered by the doctors to keep all business from him until he is stronger. . . ."1 February 5, 1712/13, Hannah Penn again wrote to Logan, from Ruscombe, where, as already mentioned, the family home had been fixed in 1710. Her husband, she says, recovered from the seizure at Bristol, "so as by easy journeys to reach London, and endeavored to settle some affairs, and get some laws passed for that country's [Pennsylvania's] ease; but finding himself unable to bear the fatigues of the town, he just reached Ruscombe when he was seized with the same severe illness that he has twice before labored under. And though, by the Lord's mercy, he is much 1 These letters in full in Janney's "Penn," pp. 525, 526. Page 83 better than he was, and in a pretty hopeful way of recovery, yet I am forbid by his doctors to trouble him with any business till better." These three strokes of apoplexy--the first in London, in the spring of 1712; the second at Bristol, in October; the third at Ruscombe, probably in January--permanently disabled Penn's mental powers, and left his physical strength so shattered that he gradually declined until his death at Ruscombe, July 30, 1718. The "Life" prefixed to his "Select Works" describes the closing six years as "a continual and gradual declension." The sale of his proprietary rights in Pennsylvania to the Crown, begun before the first stroke, was suspended and never completed, the Crown lawyers advising that he was incompetent for so important an act. His will he had made in London in the early part of 1712, at the time of a severe illness,--probably the first stroke of apoplexy, though in the codicil to the will, added at Ruscombe, May 27 of that year, he says it--the former--was made "when ill of a feavour at London." The condition of Penn's health, though year by year it declined, permitted him to go about for some time. Hannah Penn wrote to Logan, February 16, 1713/14, that "he was at Reading [Friends'] meeting last First-day, as also two or three times before, and bore it very comfortably, and expressed his refreshment and satisfaction in being there." A. visitor in the spring of 1713 "found him to appearances pretty well in health, and cheerful of disposition, but defective in memory . . . nor could he deliver his words so readily as heretofore." A year later the same visitor "found him very little altered." He "accompanied him in his carriage to Reading meeting," where he rose up "to exhort those present," and spoke "several sensible sentences, though not able to say much," and on leaving the meeting took "leave of his friends with much tenderness." Thomas Story, in the autumn of 1714, found him with "his memory almost quite lost, the use of his understanding suspended. . . . Nevertheless no insanity, no lunacy, at all appeared in his actions, and his mind was in an innocent state. . . . That Page 84 he had a good sense of Truth is plain by some very clear sentences . . . he spoke in an evening meeting we had together there; . . . so that I was ready to think this was a sort of sequestration of him from all the concerns of this life which so much oppressed him, not in judgment, but in mercy, that he might have rest, and not be oppressed thereby to the end." The "visitor" spoken of above again came to Ruscombe in 1715 and the two following years. In 1715 he found Penn's memory more deficient, "but his love and sense of religious enjoyments apparently continued, for he still often went in his chariot to the meeting at Reading, and there sometimes uttered short but very sound and savoury expressions. . . . This year he went to Bath, but the waters there proved of no benefit." In 1716 the visitor found him "much weaker than last year;" he could not remember the names of those who called, "yet by his answers it appeared he knew their persons." In 1717 he "found his understanding so much weakened that he scarce knew his old acquaintances; and his bodily strength so much decayed that he could not well walk without leading, nor express himself intelligibly." In February, 1714/15, Hannah Penn wrote to Logan that "he has had two or three little returns of his paralytic disorder, but I thank the Lord it went off, and he is now in pretty good health, not worse in his speech than for some months past, nor can I say he is better; but when I keep the thoughts of business from him he is very sweet, comfortable and easy, and is cheerfully resigned to the Lord's will, and yet takes delight in his children, his friends, and domestic comforts as formerly." He must have been still in such condition of body and mind in 1716 as to be thought capable of signing the commission to Governor Keith, when he was sent out to supersede Governor Gookin, for the record made by the Council at Philadelphia, upon its reception, was, that it was "from the Proprietor."1 Hannah Penn, however, in her letter of reproof to Keith, May 20, 1723, used the expression, 1 "Colonial Records," Vol. III. p. 1. Page 85 "As thou wert chosen in the time of my husband's weakness, by means of his friends only, to that important trust," etc. In March, 1717, about a year and a half before his death, Hannah Penn wrote to Logan that she had continued to live for three or four years at Ruscombe, which was a large house, and carried a heavy rent, solely on her husband's account, "for he has all along delighted in walking and taking the air here, and does still, when the weather allows, and at other times diverts himself from room to room," etc. After Penn's death, about 1730, a man named Henry Pickworth, for some object (as Penn's friends thought, mere malevolence), asserted that Penn had died insane at Bath. Joseph Besse, the author subsequently of the wellknown work, the "Sufferings" of the Friends, published a refutation of the story, and cited the testimony of Simon Clement (Hannah Penn's brother-in-law, husband of her sister Mary). Clement's statement, in brief, was that in all his illness Penn never had any symptoms of insanity. "He was indeed attacked with a kind of apoplectic fit in London, in the month of May, 1712, from which he recovered, and did go to the Bath, and from thence to Bristol, where he had a second fit about September [October?] following; and in about three months after he had the third fit at his own house at Rushcomb, which impaired his memory [etc.] . . . But . . . so far from any show of lunacy . . . his actions were regular and orderly, and nothing appeared in his behaviour but a loving, meek, quiet, easy temper, and a childish innocence," etc. Penn was near the completion of his seventy-fourth year when he died. The close came between two and three o'clock in the morning of July 30, 1718. He was buried on the 5th of August at the Jordans ground, where his dust remains. Thomas Story's journal gives a few details relating to his death and funeral: "We arrived at Ruscombe late in the evening, where we found the widow and most of the family together. Our coming occasioned a fresh remembrance of the deceased, Page 86 and also a renewed flood of many tears from all eyes. . . . On the 5th I accompanied the corpse to the grave, where we had a large meeting," etc. Rebekah Butterfield's journal says the burial was in the presence of "twenty or thirty publick Friends [i.e., ministers] and a vast number of Friends and others." The ground at Jordans has been repeatedly described by visitors, and pictures of it showing the stones that now mark the graves are numerous. One of these views is given as an illustration to Mr. George L. Harrison's report (1882) of his visit to England, by authority of Governor Hoyt, of Pennsylvania, to procure approval of the proposition to remove the remains of William Penn to Philadelphia for reinterment. The stones are, unfortunately, in several particulars wrongly lettered. That of Letitia Aubrey is marked "Letitia Penn." The death of Gulielma Maria Penn is given as 1689, that being the time of the death of the last child of Penn's first marriage. Margaret Freame is marked "Mary Frame." And, as already mentioned, the grave marked "John Penington, 1710," is believed to be that of John Penn, "the American," who died 1746. Prince Butterfield, brother to Rebekah, whose memoranda concerning burials at Jordans and other Quaker events are esteemed a valuable source of our modern knowledge, informed the sometime vicar of Penn, the Rev. B. Anderson, that, "contrary to the rest, William Penn's head lies to the south, and the remains of his second wife, Hannah Penn, are laid upon his; also that he [P. B.] saw William Penn's leaden coffin when the grave was opened to bury his second wife." It appears by Penn's interrupted letter, October, 1712, that Thomas Callowhill and his wife had then recently died. It is evident that Thomas Callowhill was not only a valuable friend to his son-in-law, but also a useful citizen of Bristol. An earlier letter from Penn to Logan, dated at London, January 16, 1704/5, says, "and if my wife's mother should die, who is now very ill, I believe not only my wife and our young stock, but her father too, would incline Page 87 thither [Pennsylvania]. He has been a treasure to Bristol, and given his whole time to the service of the poor Friends' funds, till they made eight per cent. of their money, and next the city poor, where, by act of Parliament he has been kept in [office] beyond form, he has so managed to their advantage that the city Members gave our Friends, and my father[-in-law] in particular, an encomium much to their honor, in the House."1 WILLIAM PENN'S CHILDREN BY HIS SECOND MARRIAGE. WILLIAM PENN, the Founder, married, second, at Bristol, March 5, 1695/6, HANNAH, only daughter and child of Thomas Callowhill and his wife Hannah (daughter of Dennis Hollister). HANNAH PENN was born April 18, 1664, at Bristol, and died December 20, 1726, and was buried (in the same grave with her husband) at Jordans. Her children by William Penn were: 1. John, "the American," born at Philadelphia, January 29, 1699/1700; died unmarried at Hitcham, Bucks, England, October 25, 1746; buried at Jordans, November 5. 2. Thomas, born at Bristol, England, March 9, 1701/2; married and had issue. See details later. 3. Hannah Margarita, born at Bristol, England, July 30, 1703; died at Bristol in February or March, 1707/8. 4. Margaret, born at Bristol, England, November 7, 1704; married, 1727, Thomas Freame, and had issue: (1) Thomas, buried at Jordans, 1746; (2) Philadelphia Hannah (said to have been born at Philadelphia, 1746, and to have died 1826), who married Thomas Dawson, created Viscount Cremorne; and perhaps others. Margaret Freame died in February, 1750/51, and was buried at Jordans on the 12th of that month. 5. Richard, born at Bristol, England, January 17, 1705/6; married and had issue. See details later. 6. Dennis, born at Ealing, Middlesex, England, February 26, 1706/7; died, unmarried, February 6 (or January?), 1722/3, and was buried at Jordans. 1 "Penn-Logan Correspondence," Vol. I. p. 355. Page 88 7. Hannah, born in Ludgate Parish, London, September 5, 1708; died at Kensington, January 24, 1708/9, and was buried at Jordans.