Chester County PA Archives Biography of the BINGAMAN Family, 1881 Contributed to PAGenWeb Archives by Diana Quinones [audianaq@msn.com] ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ Futhey and Cope, History of Chester County, 1881. pp.461-504. BINGAMAN, FREDERICK, from Germany, settled in Chester County, and married a daughter of Garret Brown-back, by whom he had children,— 1. John, who went to Virginia; 2. Frederick, who served in the army of the Revolution in a rifle company whose trimmings were colored with maple-bark; 3. Garret, who was drafted, but his brother Frederick went in his stead, having been out before; 4. Mary. Frederick, Jr., married Elizabeth, daughter of Cassimir Missimer, of Montgomery County, and resided there for some time. He died in 1832, and she about a year afterwards; both were buried at Brownback’s church. They had two children,— John, born Sept. 23, 1783, and Mary, who married Jacob Aman. John married, Feb. 21, 1809, Mary, daughter of Judge John Ralston, born May 4, 1787, and resided in Coventry. He died Dec. 4, 1825, aged forty-two years, and his widow married Henry Rimby, whom she survives, at the age of ninety-four years. The children of John Bingaman were Joshua, Eliza, John Ralston, Frederick, Robert, William, and Levi. LEVI BINGAMAN was born Oct. 21, 1824, in Coventry township opposite the house in which he now resides. His father kept the "Rising Sun Inn," an ancient hostelry of Coventry, dating back to or beyond the Revolution. Frederick (John’s father) also kept the same inn, and the buildings are now occupied by Levi, their son and grandson. John kept the inn until Sept. 11, 1817, when, being converted at meeting, he cut down his sign and quit keeping public-house. Levi was raised on the farm until his fifteenth year, and attended the summer schools. He then clerked in Robert Ralston’s store in West Vincent for eight years, after which he was in the mercantile trade for twelve years where he now lives. He was married, Jan. 24, 1850, to Mary Ann, daughter of Henry and Margaret (Sheneman) Mosteller, of West Vincent. She was of a family of eight sons and three daughters, all living and all married but two. Levi and his wife have had ten children, of whom three are living,— Howard, Samuel, and Levi Arthur. After selling out his store at home, Levi was in the iron business in Jersey City for two years, until the breaking out of the war. He then returned home and operated for two years the Coventry Forge, and since then has been working his farm of one hundred and ninety acres. He was a school director a long time, and has been for eleven years an agent, surveyor, and receiver of the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Chester County. He is a Republican in politics, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a trustee, and has been superintendent of the Sunday-school. He is the inventor of an improvement in apparatus for transmitting motion (No. 154,008, issued July 6, 1874), which is of great value, and is now in successful use in the oil regions of New York and Pennsylvania. A sketch of Levi Bingaman can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/chester/bios/bingaman-l.jpg