Biographical Sketch of Joshua E. HIBBERD (1893); Chester County, PA Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by John Morris . *********************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: Printing this file within 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. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsyl- vania, comprising a historical sketch of the county," by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Phila- delphia, PA, 1893, pp. 737-9. "JOSHUA E. HIBBERD, a prosperous farmer of Malvern, and a director in the National bank of Chester county, is a representative of a family whose history is co-extensive with that of Pennsylvania, and that has given the Commonwealth some of her most useful and influential citizens. He is the fourth child and oldest surviving son of Enos and Eliza E. (Evans) Hibberd, and a native of Chester county, being born in Willistown township, May 10, 1837. The Hibberds are descended from early English-Quaker stock, the first representative in America being Josiah Hibberd, whose purchase of land in Pennsylvania, April 5, 1682, antedates by some months the arrival of William Penn in the colony. Josiah Hibberd resided in Darby township, Delaware county, and on November 9, 1698, married Ann Bonsall, by whom he had eleven children: John, Joseph, Josiah, Abraham, Mary, Benjamin, Eliza- beth, Sarah, Isaac, Ann and Jacob. From these have descended all the Hibberds in the United States, some families of whom now spell the name Hibbard. "The eldest son, John Hibberd, removed to Chester county and settled in Willistown, having a certificate from Darby to Goshen meeting dated Sept- ember 6, 1728, and the following year married Deborah Lewis, of Newtown, by whom he had five children: Abraham, Ann, Phineas, John and Samuel. After her death he married Mary Mendenhall and had seven children: Deborah, Lydia, Mary, Jacob, Martha, Amos and Abraham. Four of five years later, in 1732, the second son, Benjamin Hibberd (great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch), who was born in Darby township, Delaware county, in 1700, obtained a certificate from Darby meeting and removed to Willis- town, this county, where in the same year he married Phoebe Sharpless, and to them was born a family of seven children: josiah, Jane, Hannah, Joseph, Benjamin, Caleb and Phoebe. "The third son, Benjamin (great-grandfather), was born in this county, and was a farmer by occupation. Prior to the revolution he took up a tract of one thousand acres of land from the original Penn purchase, on which he lived the remainder of his life, and a portion of which is still owned by members of the Hibberd family. He married and was the father of a large family of children, among his sons being Amos Hibberd (grandfather), who was born in Willistown township, this county, in 1770, and died here in 1852, in the eighty-second year of his age. He learned the trade of tanner and currier when a young man, and combined that business with faring during the greater part of his life, being very successful. Politically he was an old-line whig, and in religion a strict member of the Society of Friends. He married Hannah Garrett, and had a family consisting of one son and two daughters: Philena, Enos and Mary, all now deceased. "Enos Hibberd (father) was born near Sugartown, Willistown township, this county, in 1800, and died at his home there August 29, 1875, after an earnest, useful and successful life extending over three quarters of a century. He devoted all his days to agricultural pursuits, and following the religious traditions of his family, was a member of the Society of Friends. In politics he was a whig until the dissolution of that organi- zation, after which he affiliated with the Democratic party, and always was a firm friend of popular sovereignty and such individual liberty as did not infringe on the rights of others. He married Eliza E. Evans in 1831, and by this union had a family of six children, three sons and three daughters: Hannah, deceased; Benjamin, also dead; Anna M., Joshua E., Josiah G., and Mary E. "Joshua E. Hibberd grew to manhood on the old homestead and attended the public schools of his neighborhood, where he acquired the rudiments of a good English education. Later he took a course of training in the private school conducted by Joseph Foulke at Gwynedd, Montgomery county. Soon after leaving school he went to Kentucky, and accepting a position as salesman in a large dry good house in the city of Louisville, that State, he remained there for a period of four years. Leaving Kentucky, he re- turned to Pennsylvania and engaged in farming, which has been his principal occupation ever since, and in which he has been very successful. In 1887 he became a director in the National bank of Chester county, a position which he still occupies. "On December 27, 1866, Mr. Hibberd was united in marriage with Anna M. Taylor, only daughter of William and Mary Taylor, of Edgemont, Delaware county, this State. To Mr. and Mrs. Hibberd has been born a family of four children, one son and three daughters: Dilworth P., who was educated at Haverford, Delaware county, graduating in the scientific course in June, 1890, with the degree of B. S., held a fellowship there the next year, received the degree of Master of Arts, and later took a special course in Harvard college, and is now engaged in teaching at the Friends' Central school in the city of Philadelphia; Mary T., who was educated in Philadel- phia, graduating from the Friends' Central school of that city in June, 1888; Eliza E., who was graduated from the same school in the spring of 1889, and is now a successful teacher in the Friends' school at Media, Delaware county; and Hannah, living at home with her parents on the farm near Malvern."