HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY 



6i 



ably settled in Chester county. Isaac 

 James was a blacksmith, and resided in 

 Montgomery township. He married, No- 

 vember 26, 1729, Ann Jones. We have 

 no further record of him other than his 

 conveyance of his New Britain land 

 about 1742. Josiah had received 235 

 acres of the 1,000 acre purchase in 1722, 

 and conveyed it to his brother in 1725. 

 Of the daughters of John and Elizabeth 

 James, Sarah, .the eldest, as shown by 

 the records of Montgomery church, 

 s married Benjamin Phillips, March 2, 

 ^f 1727, but in the will of her father twen- 

 ty years later she is mentioned as Sarah 

 Lewis. Rebecca, we learn from the same 

 source, was married to a miner. Mary 

 ' was single at her father's death in 1749, 

 K^ ' and was requested to live with her 

 brother Thomas. Elizabeth James died 

 prior to her husband. 



Thomas James, eldest son of John and 

 Elizabeth, was born in Wales about 

 1690, and died in New Britain in April, 

 1772. As previously stated, he was one 

 of the original purchasers of the 1,000 

 acres of which he retained possibly 300 

 acres, and in 1731, purchased over 200 

 acres of the society lands of Joseph 

 Kirkbride, most of which, however, he 

 conveyed to his sons several years prior 

 to his death. He married. May 15, 1722, 

 Jane Davis, and she was baptized as a 

 member of Montgomery church, No- 

 vember 19, 1725. They had four sons 

 and two daughters, Thomas, the eldest, 

 lived and died on a portion of the old 

 plantation in New Britain, but is said 

 to have left no issue to survive him. 

 Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, married 

 Benjamin Butler about 1746, and had 

 one daughter, Ann, who married (first) 

 Thomas Morris, and (second) Moses 

 Aaron. Benjamin Butler died about 1750. 

 James James, second son of Thomas 

 and Jane, married Elizabeth Eaton in 

 1762. His father had conveyed to him 

 in 1755, 167 acres, part of which is now 

 the property of the estate of Eugene 

 James, deceased, one-half mile west of 

 New Britain, and here he lived until the 

 close of the Revolution, when he ex- 

 changed v/'th Peter Eaton for land in 

 Rov.c.n ccuirty North Carolina, and re- 

 moved thither taking with him three of 

 the children of his brother John. 



John James, third son of Thomas and 

 Jane, received by deed from his father 

 in 1 761 a farm of two hundred acres, and 

 lived thereon his entire life. He was a 

 member of the New Britian Company of 

 Associators in 1775, and a private in 

 Captain Henry Darrah's company, when 

 in service under Lieutenant Colonel 

 (later General) John Lacey, November 

 I, 1777. He died in March, 1779. John 

 James was twice married, first on Au- 

 gust 13, 1762, to Magdalena Keshlen, (or 

 Keshler) a German woman, by whom he 

 had two children; Margaret, born 1763, 



died March 3, 1821, married Morgan 

 Jame,'-.. son of John, and grandson of 

 William James; and Benjamin James, 

 born 1765, removed to Bryant's Settle- 

 ment, • Rowan county, North Carolina, 

 with his uncle James James about 1785. 

 John James married (second) June 14, 

 1766, Edith Eaton, a sister to his brother 

 James' wife, and had by her two children 

 Catharine and James. In his will dated 

 February 10, 1779, proved March 10,. 

 1779, he directs that Catharine's share 

 of his estate be left in the hands of her 

 "Aunt Elizabeth James;" this was the 

 wife of James James, with whom all 

 three of the younger children removed 

 to North Carolina. James, the young- 

 est son, was devised 200 acres of land 

 in Chestnut Hill township, Northamp- 

 ton county. 



Samuel James, youngest son of Thom- 

 as and Jane, received from his father a 

 farm of about 150 acres just northeast 

 of Chalfont, and died there in 1804. He 

 married, April 8, 1765, Anna Keshlen, a 

 sister to his brother John's first wife, 

 and had five children; i. Samuel, who 

 married Elizabeth Shewell, and removed 

 to Maryland, where he died in 1847; 2. 

 Levi, who married Rebecca Polk and 

 was the father of Samuel P. and grand- 

 father of Levi L. James, late a member 

 of the bar, and father of Robert James, 

 deceased, whose son Louis H. was also a 

 lawyer, and Lydia, who married John 

 G. Mann; 3. Elizabeth, married Isaac 

 Oakford; 4. Margaret, married John 

 Wolfe; and 5. Ann James. Levi married 

 late in life Mary Polk, nee Good, who 

 survived him many years. 



William James, son of the emigrant 

 John James and Elizabeth his wife, from 

 whom most of the family now residing 

 in Bucks county are descended, was born 

 in Pembrokeshire about 1692, and died 

 in New Britain township, Bucks county, 

 in 1778. He seems to have been the fa- 

 vorite son. and was the largest land- 

 owner of the family. In the year 1725 

 his father and brother Thomas con- 

 veyed to him 206 acres of the 1,000 acre 

 purchase, and in the same year he pur- 

 chased of his brother Josiah his allot- 

 ment of 235 acres of the same. In 1738 

 he purchased of John Kirkbride 207 

 acres of the society lands, part of which 

 is still the property of his descendants. 

 He also owned other tracts of land near 

 Chalfont. which became the property of 

 his sons-in-law. He conveyed practical- 

 ly all of his land to his children in his 

 life time — in 1749 to John the 206 acres, 

 and to Isaac the 207 acres; and in 1758 

 to Abel the 235 acres. William James 

 married in 1718. The name of his wife 

 was Mary, but nothing more is known of 

 her. She was baptized at Montgomery 

 church in 1719 as "Mary, wife of Will- 

 iam James." She died about 1765. Will- 

 iam and Mary James had five children; 







