HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY, 



land, a short time before his departure 

 for America. Most of this land was sub- 

 sequently located in Bucks county. In the 

 following spring, 1683, Harrison and Pem- 

 berton brought their families and house- 

 hold goods from Maryland to this county, 

 Harrison stopping at Upland, now Ches- 

 ter, on the way south, to attend the first 

 Assembly, to which he had been elected. 

 Until Phineas could erect a house in Bucks 

 county, he and his family stayed at the 

 house of Lyonel Brittian, who had arrived 

 in Bucks, 4 mo. (June) 1680. On 11 mo. 

 ly, 1683, Phineas Pemberton purchased a 

 tract of 500 acres on the Delaware, oppo- 

 site Grecian's (later Biles') Island and 

 built a house there. It must have been a 

 satisfaction to him, after the storms at sea 

 and wanderings on land, to have his fam- 

 ily at last under his own roof-tree. This 

 plantation he called "Grove Place." He 

 appears, however, at first to have called 

 it "Sapasse." since letters to him from 

 friends in England in 16S4 were addressed, 

 . "Sapasse, Bucks County." It was part of 

 a tract of over 8,000 acres of land, pur- 

 chased by Penn from an old Indian king, 

 and had once been a royalty called "Sep- 

 essain." (On Peter Lindstrom's map of 

 1654, in Sharp and Westcott's "History of 

 Philadelphia," vol. i, p. 75, the name ap- 

 pears as "Sipaessing Land"). The old bury- 

 ing ground before referred to was located 

 on this tract. Being desirous of erecting 

 • a more comfortable home for his family, 

 Phineas Pemberton finished one in 1687. 

 •On the lintel of the door was this inscrip- 

 tion :, 



'P. 



P. 7 D. 2 mo. 1687. 



The initials signifying Phineas and Phebe 

 Pemberton. This lintel is now in the pos- 

 session of the Historical Society of Penn- 

 sylvania, Philadelphia. This house Pem- 

 berton moved after his second marriage to 

 another tract of land five miles distant 

 and more in the interior. It was taken 

 ' down in 1802 by his grandson, James Pem- 



■ berton. In the year 1687 a great deal of 

 sickness prevailed in the colony, and Phin- 

 eas Pemberton lost his father, Ralph Pem- 

 berton, and his father-in-law, James Harri- 

 son. Agnes Harrison, the mother of James, 

 also died. Three years later Anne (Heath) 

 Harrison, the widow of James died; and in 

 1696 Phineas lost his wife Phebe, who 

 died 8 mo. 30, i6g6, exactly fourteen years 

 after her arrival in Patuxent river, Mary- 

 land. 



On the i8th day of May, 1699, Phineas 



■ Pemberton married, at the Meeting House 

 at Falls. Alice Hodgson, "of Burlington, 

 in the Province of West Jersey, spinster, 

 daughter of Robert Hodgson, late of Rhode 

 Island, deceased." The following names, 

 as witnesses appear on the marriage certifi- 

 •cate : 



Ann Elett, 

 Ann Jennings, 

 Elenor Hoopes, 

 Mary Baker, 

 Abigail Sidwell, 

 Eliz. Browdon, 

 Sarah Surket, 

 Mary Webster, 

 Phebe Kirkbride, 

 Sarah Jennings, 

 Grace Lloyd, 

 Mary Badcoke, 

 Elizabeth Badok, 

 Ann Borden, 

 Elizabeth Stacy, 

 Sarah Stacy, 

 William Croasdell, 

 George Browne, 

 John Surket, Junr., 

 Joseph Large, 

 Peter Webster, 

 Seth Hill, 

 Edwd. Penington, 

 Tho. Brock, 

 Joseph Kirkbride, 

 John Jones, 

 Jeremiah Langhorn 

 William Ellett, 

 John Biles, 



Saml. Beakes, 

 Arthur Cooke, ' 

 John Simcocke, 

 Saml. Jennings, • 

 Thos. Duckett, 

 Jos. Growdon, 

 Mahlon Stacy, 

 Henry Baker, 

 Richard Hough, 

 Will. Dunkin, 

 Isaac Mariott, 

 Peter Worrall, 

 Edward Lucas. 

 Abraham Anthony, 

 John Cooke, -^ 

 John Sidwell, 

 Robert Hodgson, 

 Philip England, 

 Mary Yardley, 

 Abell Janney, 

 Jos. Janney, 

 Mary Williams, 

 Abigail Pemberton, 

 Eliz. Janney. 

 Joseph Pemberton, 

 Israel Pemberton, 

 Thomas Yardley, 

 Rand'l Blackshaw, 

 Joseph Mather. 



Alice Dickerson, 

 Martha Drake, 



Joseph Borden, 

 John Borradaill, 



The original certificate is in the posses- 

 sion of p descendant. Mr. Henry Pember- 

 ton, of Philadelphia. Phineas had no chil- 

 dren by his second wife. After his death 

 she married, in 1704, Thomas Bradford, 

 being also his second wife. She died Au- 

 gust 28, 1711. 



James Harrison was at an early date the 

 friend and confidant of Penn. "He was," 

 says Proud, "one of the Proprietor's first 

 Commissioners of Property, was divers 

 years in great esteem with him, and his 

 agent at Pennsbury, being a man of good 

 education and a preacher among the Quak- 

 ers." In the library of the Historical So- 

 ciety of Pennsylvania at Thirteenth and 

 Locust streets, Philadelphia, (Penn mss. 

 Domestic Letters) there are many original 

 letters from Penn to Harrison, some of 

 them written before Penn left England. 

 They undoubtedly belong to the collection 

 of Pemberton mss.* now owned by the His- 



*This collection, mounted in about one hundred 

 volumes, extends over a period of about two hundred 

 years from a date before the birth of Penn to within 

 modern times. It was presented to the Society in 

 1891 by Henry Pemberton, of Philadelphia, and com- 

 prises mss. of the Pemberton, Harrison, Galloway, 

 Rawle, Shoemaker, Clifford and other families. Two 

 volumes of letters now in the " Etting Collection" of 

 the same Society, belonged originally to this collec- 

 tion as they are docketed on the outside in the liand-. 

 writing of James Pemberton. Harrison was a member 

 of the first provincial council, which met in Philadel- 

 phia on tlie tenth day of the first month, 1682-3. In 

 the same year lie was a member of the committee to 

 draw up the charter of the colony. In 168.5 he was 

 appointed by Penn as chief justice of the supreme 

 court, but declined to serve: but the following year he 

 accepted the position of associate justice. He was 

 Penn's steward and agent in Pennsylvania until his 

 death, on October 6, 1687. His daughter Phebe mar- 

 ried Phineas Pemberton, the 1st day of 11 mo. ( Janu- 

 ary ) 16T6-7. at the house of John Haydock, in Coppull, 

 near Standish. Lancashire. England, under the super- 

 vision of Hardshaw Monthly Meeting of Friends. 



