Historical collections relating to Gwynedd : a township of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, settled 1698, by Welsh immigrants, with some data referring to the adjoining township of Montgomery, also a Welsh settlement / by Howard M. Jenkins.

  • Howard Malcolm Jenkins
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical collections relating to Gwynedd : a township of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, settled 1698, by Welsh immigrants, with some data referring to the adjoining township of Montgomery, also a Welsh settlement / by Howard M. Jenkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The title of Turner was passed to John and Evans, as ap- pears by the recital in the patent, on the loth of First month [March], 1698. No doubt they entered immediately into pos- session, but as to this we have no certain knowledge. The most definite account we have of the time when the settlers actually entered upon their lands, is that given by Edward Foulke,— which I shall quote in full, later,— and he was one of the main company of immigrants, who did not reach Philadelphia until July. (On March lOth they had not set out from their homes in Wales. It was the 3d of the month following that Edward and his family left Coed-y-foel, to take the ship at Liverpool.) But it is fair to presume that the two representatives lost no time in repairing to their purchase. It was a wooded up- land. The timber was well grown,— oaks, hickories, chestnuts the most conspicuous and useful. Of Indians there were few, if any. Of neighbors there were some in the townships below, but none in those beyond Gwynedd. Horsham had been taken up soon after Penn’s first visit, and Upper Dublin received some settlers a little later. In Whitpain, the family of that name had located as early as 1685, and other settlers in the interval. But Montgomery, Hatfield, and Towamencin were unoccupied, and the Welshmen, as they began to ply their axes, waked the echoes of the undisturbed wilderness. They were on the frontier of civilization, at this part of the line. The main company of immigrants sailed from Liverpool on in the city, at the south-western corner of Front and Mulberry streets. From 1687 to 1689 he was one of the Commissioners for Penn who carried on the government of the Province, and from 1686 to 1694, and again in 1700-1701, he was one of the Provincial Council. He was also a justice of the peace, and a commissioner of property. In the controversy between the Friends and George Keith, he, for a while, supported the latter. He left two daughters, from whom numerous Philadelphia families trace a line of descent — the Learnings, Rawles, Colemans, Pembertons, Fishers, and Hollingsworths.