HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



torical Society, since they contain an index 

 drawn in the handwriting of Phineas Pem- 

 berton. Many of these letters from Penn 

 are interesting in that they contain refer- 

 ence to matters current in the earliest days 

 of the colony, and also occasionally give a 

 picture of political life in England. 



Phineas Pemberton took an active part 

 in the public affairs of the colony as well 

 as of Bucks county. He was a member of 

 provincial council in 1685-7, 1695, and 1697- 

 9; was a member of assembly 1689, 1694, 

 1698 (the latter year he was speaker), and 

 in 1700, and a member of Penn's council 

 of state in 1701. But it was in the affairs 

 of Bucks county, where he lived, that his 

 activity and usefulness was the greatest 

 and his work of the most value. He was 

 beyond doubt the most prominent man of 

 his time in the county and the most ef- 

 ficient, as shown by the mass of records 

 he has left behind him in his own hand- 

 writing, and by the number of official po- 

 sitions he filled. In addition to filling the 

 local positions of register of wills, recorder, 

 and clerk of all the courts, he held for a 

 time the positions of master of the rolls, 

 register general, and recorder of proprie- 

 tary quit-rents for the province ; and the 

 records of the county up to the time of his 

 fatal illness are entirely in his handwrit- 

 ing, and are models worthy of imitation 

 by officials of our day. The records of the 

 different courts left by him are invaluable 

 to the historian, and greatly superior to 

 those of his successors in office in the matter 

 of lucidity and completeness. Many of our 

 historians have noticed and acknowledged 

 this fact, which is apparent to all that have 

 had access to them. Buck, in his "His- 

 tory of Bucks County," referring to the 

 records left by Pemberton, ;says, "they 

 comprise the earliest records of Bucks coun- 

 ty offices, and, though they have been re- 

 ferred to by different writers, comparative- 

 ly little has been heretofore published from 

 them. To us they have rendered valuable 

 aid and we must acknowledge our indebt- 

 edness for information that could, possi- 

 bly, from no other source have been ob- 

 tained." In like manner Battle, in his "His- 

 tory of Bucks County," writing on the same 

 subject, states. "From that period (i. e. 

 1683) until disabled by a fatal illness, save 

 an unimportant interval, the records of the 

 county were written wholly by his hand; 

 and in them he has left a memorial of him- 

 self that will not be lost so long as the his- 

 tory of the commonwealth which he helped 

 to establish shall be read."* 



Phineas Pemberton died March i, 1701- 

 2, at the age of fifty-two years, and was_ 



*The Records of Arrivals " published in vol. ix. of 

 Penna. Mae. of History and Biography, was compiled 

 by Phineas Pemberton. although through an editorial 

 oversight it is not accredited to him therein. Tin's 

 record has proved very vahiable in Keneali^siral and 

 historical research. The original Kecord of .<\rrivals 

 in Bucks County in Pemberton's handwritinK is in 

 possession of the Bucks County Historical Society, 

 while that of Philadelphia and elsewhere is in the 

 possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 



buried in the old graveyard above referred 

 to. "Poor Phineas," wrote Penn to Lo- 

 gan on September 8, 1701, "is a dying man, 

 and was not at the election, though he 

 crept, (as T may say) to Meeting yester- 

 day. I am grieved at it ; for he has not 

 his fellow, and without him this is a poor 

 country indeed." Again, in a letter from 

 London to Logan in 1702, Penn writes, "I 

 mourn for poor Phineas Pemberton, the 

 ablest as well as one of the best men in the 

 Province. My dear love to his widow and' 

 sons and daughters." Samuel Carpenter, in 

 a letter to Penn. quoted in J. Pemberton 

 Parke's niss., writes, "Phineas Pemberton- 

 died the ist mo. last, and will be greatly 

 missed, having left few or none in these 

 parts or adjacent, like him for wisdom, in- 

 tegrity, and general service, and he was 

 a true friend to thee and the government. 

 It is a matter of sorrow when I call to mind 

 and consider that the best of our men are 

 taken away, and how many are gone and 

 how few to supply their places." 



()f the nine children of Phineas and 

 Phebe (Harrison) Pemberton, but three 

 survived him for any length of time : Abi- 

 gail, who married, November 14, 1704, 

 Stephen Jenkins, and settled in Abington 

 township — her descendants being the 

 founders of Jenkintown — Priscilla, mar- 

 ried, 1708-9, Isaac Waterman, and set- 

 tled at Hohnesburg; and Israel, the 

 only son, who lived to manhood, mar- 

 ried 2 mo. 12, 1710, Rachel Read, 

 daughter of Charles Read, a provincial 

 councillor. He was an active and in- 

 fluential Friend, and for nineteen consecu- 

 tive years a member of colonial assembly. 

 He left three sons: Israel Jr., born 1715; 

 James, born 1723; and John, born 1727. Of 

 these, John, who was a prominent preacher 

 among Friends, left no issue, and James 

 left only daughters, one of whom married 

 Dr. Parke, and another Anthony Morris. 

 Israel Jr. married Sarah Kirkbride of 

 Bucks county, and had two* daughters, and 

 one son, Joseph, who married Ann Gallo- 

 way of Maryland, first cousin of Joseph 

 Galloway, the Bucks county loyalist, and 

 died at the early age of thirty-six, leaving 

 a large family, of whom John Pemberton' 

 born in 1783, was in 1812 the only male 

 representative of the family in America. 

 He married Rebecca Clifford, and left a 

 large family, of whom Henry Pember- 

 ton, of Philadelphia, referred to in this 

 sketch, was the fifth. A complete geneal- 

 ogy of the descendants of Phineas Pem- 

 berton will be found in Glenn's "Geneal- 

 ogy of the Lloyd, Pemberton and Parke 

 Families," Phila., 1898. Isreal, James and 

 John, the sons of Israel and grandsons of 

 Phineas. were prominent in the religious, 

 political, social and business life of Phlia- 

 dclphia, where their descendants are still 

 found. 



Further accounts of the Pemberton Fam- 

 ily, may be found in Appleton's "Cyclo- 

 paedia of American Biography," vol. iv, 

 p. 706; Westcott's "Historic Mansions of 



