1895.] 103 |-potts_ 



Francis Dudley, the eldest son, so tradition says, came over with Nathan 

 Middleton, and shortlj'" after married Rachel Wilkins in 1733, settled at 

 Evesham (the "Vale of Evesham," as the early settlers called it in mem- 

 ory of their old home in England), Burlington county, N. J. This pro- 

 genitor of the name in this Slate died in the early part of 1782 at Eves- 

 ham. We find his will on record in the Secretary of State's office at 

 Trenton, and that of his widow Rachel a few years later, in 1786. He 

 -leaves his three sons goodly farms, upon the metes and bounds of which 

 he dwells minutely with all the pride of a Saxon landholder. In this 

 connection we are reminded of the eloquent words of Mr. Blaine in his 

 oration on President Garfield, which are equally applicable to Mr. Dud- 

 ley. Mr. Blaine says he "was born beir to land, to the title of freeholder, 

 which has been the patent and passport of self respect with the Anglo- 

 Saxon race ever since Hengist and Horsa landed on the shores of Eng- 

 land." 



Thomas Dudley, son of Francis, married Martha Evans, 11th mo. 27, 

 1762, of an old and respectable family among Friends. They had ten 

 children. Evan Dudley was the ninth child ; he was born 1st mo. 1, 1783, 

 married Ann Haines and died 3rd mo. 21, 1820, aged thirty-seven years."* 



Tiiomas Haines Dudley, the subject of this biography, was the young- 

 est child of this marriage. His early youth was passed in Burlington 

 C(juuty, where he was born, working upon his mother's farm. She was 

 early left a widow with four children. She was a desceadant of Richard 

 Haines, of Aynlioe, Northamptonshire, whose children came to Burlington 

 county, N. J., in 1683 ; thus we see Mr. Dudley had a claim to early Ameri- 

 can ancestry on both sides of his family. For some years lie taught school 

 in the vicinity and saved sufficient money to begin the study of law under 

 William N. Jefiers, a lawyer of good standing in Camden. During this 

 period, while he was returning from a night school late in the evening, 

 an incident happened which we have often heard him relate without anj"- 

 thought of our application of it to himself. It showed the same determi- 

 nation and courage which was the ruling trait of his life and the cause 

 of his success. Passing at twelve o'clock at night over a lonely road by 

 a graveyard, he saw in the grounds what seemed to him, the more he 

 gazed upon it, to be the figure of a human being in white, moving and 

 bending toward him. Though so frightened that his teeth chattered and 

 his knees fairly knocked together, he determined to go forward and ex- 

 amine it. Climbing the fence, he was strongly tempted to go back ; he 

 sliook with fright, the thing seemed so supernatural in the moonlight, but 

 reasoning strongly within himself, "there is no such thing as a ghost," 

 he determined to push on, and conquering all his fears, pressed forward 

 and found that the weird figure was a sheep with its horns caught in the 

 bushes, moving up and down in its efforts to get free. 



* We are indebted to Miss Henrietta Haines, of Moorestown, N. J , and to Miss Martha 

 Evans Bellangee, of Asbury Park, N. J., for valuable genealogical data, and regret that 

 limited space does not permit us to give other details. 



