278 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[September, 



(the father of Bishop White), held at Suphia's 

 Dairy, on the Bush River, Md., June 7th, 1877,' 

 Mr. William White Wiltbank, in speaking of 

 the early settlers of Maryland, says:" 



"His artificial liijht was yielded by candles 

 made of a hard, brittle wax, of a curious green 

 color, that was gotten from the berry of the 

 myrtle growing at tlie mouth of rivers, and found 

 free from grease, and very pleasant to the smell 

 after a careful cooking. These tapers were some- 

 times extinguished, that the sweetly-perfumed 

 smoke might fill the room." 



Can you tell me the plant that was used, or 

 rather the plant that bore the berry that was 

 used in making wax for candles, and that was so 

 fragrant? 



[The wax referred to was prepared from the 

 Bav-berry. or Wax-berry Myrtle, Myrica ceri/era. 

 It is the wax to which recent reference was made 

 in a note on the colored candles used for Christ- 

 mas trees. As far as we know these wax candles 

 are still made from this species of vegetable 

 wax.— Ed. G. M.l 



Literature, Travels I Personal Notes. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE LATE 

 ALAN W. CORSON. 



BY DR. HIRAM CORSON. 



Alan W Corson was the eldest son of Joseph 

 Corson and Hannah (Dickinson) Corson, and 

 was born in Whitemarsh Township, half a mile 

 from Friends' Meeting at Plymouth, and only 

 one mile from his residence during the last 

 seventy years. When Louis XIV. was persecu- 

 ting the Huguenots and driving them from 

 France, a few of these Protestants, under the 

 leadership of Henri de la Jourette, fled in two 

 small vessels bound for South Carolina. One of 

 the vessels, says Weiss, in his " History of the 

 French Protestant Eefugees," was either cast 

 away upon the shores of Staten Island, or made 

 a harbor there in distress. One of the people 

 thus landed was Cornelius Corson, the oldest 

 ancestor of the present fiimily in this country. 

 There were also others of names well known in 

 Montgomery and Bucks Counties — the Larse- 

 leres, Kruzens, DuBois', LefFerts and others- 

 some of the name are still living in Staten 

 Island. In a chapter of " Local History" pub- 

 lished in Staten Island only a few years ago, and 

 headed " The Corson Family," it is stated that 

 "this is one of the oldest and, at one time, 

 amongst the most influential families on the 

 island." 



The above Cornelius Corson received a patent 

 for one hundred and eighty acres of land in the 

 island December 30th, 1680, in which it states 



that "he shall pay yearly, and every year, for 

 his Royal Highness' use, as a quitt rent, two 

 bushels of good winter wheat unto such officers 

 as shall be empowered to receive the same at 

 New York." In this patent the name is spelled 

 Corsen, while in some other papers it was spelled 

 Coursen, as it was in France. When the wiitten 

 name came to be read by English-speaking peo- 

 ple, it would naturally be pronounced and spelled 

 without the letter u. From Staten Island some 

 of the family went, after the death of the first 

 settler, to Hunterdon Co., N. J., to lands left 

 them by him, and in 1726 a son, Benjamin Cor- 

 son, of Staten Island, bought two hundred and 

 fifty acres of land in Northampton Township, 

 Bucks County, near to the present Addisville, 

 and settled there ; it was continued as the resi- 

 dence of the family till about fifty years ago. 

 This Benjamin, the great great-grand father of 

 Alan W., brought with him a son seven years of 

 age, who, after a time, married Maria Sedara, 

 and their son Benjamin Corson married Sarah 

 Dungan, a descendant of the Rev. S. Thomas 

 Dungan, a Baptist minister, who came to Provi- 

 dence, Rhode Island, to escape the persecutions 

 which were being meted out to the Baptists in 

 England, but who, finding much intolerance 

 even in the home of Roger Williams, sought 

 freedom in the land of Penn. He came in 1684 

 and established a meeting, the first of the kind 

 in Pennsylvania, at Cold Spring, three miles 

 above Bristol, in Bucks County, where he minis- 

 tered for four years, dying in 1688, and being 

 buried at that place. Joseph Corson, the father 



