38 



HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



^J^l^K^ 



JENKS COAT-OF-ARMS. 





THE J E .\ K S 

 FAMILY is of 

 Welsh origin and can 

 be clearly traced in 

 the county of Mont- 

 gomery, Wales, and 

 the adjoining couniy 

 of Salop, or Shrop- 

 shire, England, from 

 A. D. 900 down to the 

 middle of the seven- 

 teenth century. On 

 the records of the 

 College of Arms, Lon- 

 ^j^ don, England, there 

 '^ is an Act in the 

 year 1582, during 

 *i\\Q reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth, by which 

 "The Coat of Arms 

 of the Anciente Family of Jenks, 

 long in the possession of the same" at 

 Wolverton Manor, Wales, was confirm- 

 ed to them in the person of their repre- 

 sentative. Sir George Jenks. of Salop, 

 Gentleman, as certified by Robert Cooke, 

 alias Clarencieux. one of the two first 

 Provincial Kings-of-Arms, in England, 

 whose jurisdiction of Clarenceux ex- 

 tended to all of England south of the 

 Trent, Norroy holding a like jurisdic- 

 tion north of the Trent. 



The Jenks family of Bucks county, 

 Pennsylvania, trace their descent from 

 Thomas Jenks, of Shropshire, who, as 

 shown by the will of John Penn. of the 

 adjoining county of Montgomery, Wales, 

 dated 1660. was a son of Thomas Jenks. 

 Thomas Jenks the elder died 10 mo. 19, 

 1680, as shown by the records of the 

 Monthly Meeting of Friends in Shrop- 

 shire. He was one of the earliest con- 

 verts to the principles of George Fox, 

 and "Besse's Sufferings'' gives a rec- 

 ord of his arrest in 1656 as one of a 

 party of Friends while attending a meet- 

 ing of people of his faith. He was 

 again arrested and fined in 1660. Thomas 

 Jenks, son of the above, born in Shrop- 

 shire, was married there and is supposed 

 to have embarked for America with his 

 wife Susan, and infant son Thomas, born 

 January, 1699-1700. All that js definitely 

 known, however, is that Susan Jenks. 

 his widow, and her young son, Thomas, 

 arrived in Bucks county soon after 1700, 

 and located in Wrightstown. Susan 

 Jenks married Benjamin Wiggins, of 

 Buckingham, in 1708. and died soon after 

 the birth of her son, Bezeleel Wiggins, 

 in 1709. 



. Thomas Jenks was reared in the neigh- 

 borhood of Wrightstown. We have little 

 record of him until i mo. t, 1725-6. when 

 he applied for membership in Wrights- 

 town Meeting. He was doubtless a birth- 

 right "member of the Society, but the 

 death of his father while on the voy- 

 age to America, or immediately preced- 

 ing their sailing and the subsequent mar- 

 riage of his mother to a non-member 



and her early death leaving him an or- 

 phan at ten years of age, his birth- 

 right privilege was no doubt neglected 

 to be recorded. It was therefore neces- 

 sary for him to be regularly admitted 

 when he desired to become a member or> 

 reaching manhood. 



Thomas Jenks married, 3 mo. 19, 1731, 

 Mercy Wildman, daughter of John and 

 Marah (Chapman) Wildman, of Middle- 

 town. The former, born in Yorkshire, 

 England, in 1681, came to America with 

 his parents, Martin and Ann Wildman, 

 in 1690, and the latter, a daughter of 

 John Chapman, the pioneer settler of 

 W'rightstown, had married first John 

 Croasdale, John Wildman being her sec- 

 ond husband. Thomas Jenks, on his mar- 

 riage, settled first in his home in Buck- 

 ingham and three years afterward re- 

 moved to a tract of land in Middletown 

 township, two miles southeast of New- 

 town, along Core creek, containing 600- 

 acres. Upon this tract he erected prior 

 to 1740, a fulling mill one of the 

 first in the county which was operated 

 (by the family) until his death, doing a 

 large business in dyeing, fulling and 

 finishing the homespun goods of his 

 neighbors, the early settlers of lower 

 and middle Bucks. His ledger "C," ex- 

 quisitely written and kept still in good 

 preservation, is now in possession of his 

 great-grandson, William H. Jenks. of 

 Philadelphia. It covers the years 1743- 

 56, and contains his accounts with near- 

 ly all the early families of Bucks east 

 of the Neshaminy. He was an active 

 and energetic business man, and retained 

 his mental and physical faculties in a re- 

 markable degree to extreme old age. He 

 died at Jenks Hall (erected by him ir» 

 1734) from the effects of injuries re- 

 ceived in being thrown from a wagon, 5 

 mo. 4, 1797, in the ninetj'-eighth year of 

 his age. He had in the truest sense of 

 the word "grown up with the country."" 

 Arriving in Bucks county w^hen far the 

 greatest part of it was a primeval w-il- 

 derness, still inhabited bj' the Indians,, 

 he lived through its entire colonial per- 

 iod, and saw his country recover frorr» 

 the shock and trials of its war for in- 

 dependence, and become a thickly settled 

 prosperous and enlightened community. 

 He w-as six years older than Dr. Frank- 

 lin, and thirty-two years older than 

 George Washington, yet he survived the 

 former seven 3'ears. and the latter sur- 

 vived him but little over two years, 

 though both had lived to see the fruition 

 of their long and noble struggle for 

 their country's good. His wife Mercy 

 died 7 mo. 26. 1787. aged seventy-seven 

 years, after a married life of over fifty- 

 six years. They were the parents of six 

 children, as follows: 



T. Mary, born 4 mo. 20. ^JH- died 

 1803: married Samuel Twining. 



2. John, born 5 mo. I. 1736. died 1791, 

 married in 1785, Sarah W^eir. His son 



