HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



149 



whom he had five children: Thomas, a 

 prominent business man of Philadel- 

 phia ; John ; William ; Moses P., for many 

 years a merchant in Buckingham; and 

 Benjamin, the father of Squire Hall. Mr. 

 Hall married (second) Isabella Robin- 

 son, daughter of John Robinson, who 

 was a soldier in the war of 1812 and 

 stationed at Marcus Hook, by whom 

 he had twelve children, of whom eleven 

 survived him: Mary, who never married; 

 Hannah, who married her cousin, Al- 

 bert P. Hall, son of Edward H. and Jane 

 •(Paxson) Hall, who is a dry goods mer- 

 chant at West Chester, Pennsylvania; 

 Jane H., v/ho married William Seal; 

 Martha R., who married George Geil; 

 Edward D.; Isaac H., who lives on the 

 homestead in Doylestown township; Sa- 

 rah D., who married J. Gilpin Seal; 

 Matthias H., a prominent farmer of Up- 

 per Makefield township; Charles Henry; 

 George W., and Emma P. Hall. Isabella 

 (Robinson) Hall, widow of Mahlon Hall, 

 •died in Doylestown township, June 29, 



1879. 



Benjamin Hall, third son of Mahlon 

 and Hannah P. (Hampton) Hall, was 

 born in Bnuckingham, Bucks county. 

 Pennsylvania, September 30, 1823, and 

 resides with his son, William W. Hall, 

 at I.innboro. He went to Philadelphia 

 wlitn a boy, and for some time drove a 

 milk wagon for his uncle. Returning to 

 B;'cks county he clerked in the store of 

 "his brother Thomas at Mechanics Val- 

 ley until 1850, when in partnership with 

 his brother, Moses P. Hall, he purchased 

 the store at Buckingham, which they 

 conducted for four years. On April i, 

 1854, he purchased and removed to 

 the present homestead farm " at 

 Danboro, where he resided for the 

 following thirteen years. In April. 1867, 

 "he purchased a property at Smith's Cor- 

 ner in Plumstead township and opened 

 a store, which he conducted for two 

 years. He then removed to Mechanics 

 "Valley, where he conducted the store 

 ■for six years, and in 1875 returned to the 

 old homestead, where he has since re- 

 sided. Mr. Hall was the pioneer milk 

 shipper to Philadelphia market from 

 Doylestown. He married Sarah Carlile, 

 daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth 

 Carlile, of Plumstead, who was born on 

 the present Hall homestead, wliere her 

 father died January 9, 1833. Benjamin 

 and Sarah (Carlile) Hall were the par- 

 •ents of two sons and a daughter, of 

 whom William W., mentioned herein- 

 after, alone survives. 



MATTHIAS H. HALL, third son of 

 Mahlon and Isabella (Robinson) Hall, 

 was born in Doylestown township, 

 Bucks county, Pennsylvania, April 29, 

 1844. He was reared to the life of a 

 farmer and acquired his education at the 

 public schools of that vicinity. His whole 

 life has been devoted to agricultural 

 pursuits in the county of his birth. The 



following spring after his marriage he 

 began farming for himself in Wrights- 

 town township, and after five years' resi- 

 dence there he removed to Upper Make- 

 field, and in 1883 purchased his present 

 farm in that township, on the Ime of 

 Wrightstown, near the site of the his- 

 toric Indian village of Playwicky, where 

 he has since resided. While conforming 

 to the tenets of the Society of Friends, 

 in which faith his paternal ancestors 

 were reared, he is not a member of the 

 society. Though deeply interested in the 

 afifairs of his coi^mty, state and nation, 

 he has taken little part in partisan poli- 

 tics. He is an active member of the 

 Bucks County Historical Society, and 

 a regular attendant of its meetings. He 

 recently contributed a valuable paper to 

 its archives on the local history and 

 folk-lore of his locality, so rich in his- 

 toric interest as the border line between 

 the original settlement of the pioneers 

 of Penn's colony in America and the 

 land taken up by. their descendants and 

 the later arrivals. He married, Novem- 

 ber 18, 1874, Sarah Wiggins, daughter of 

 Jesse and Margaret (Hampton) Wig- 

 gins, of "Wrightstown. She is a de- 

 scendant of Benjamin Wiggins, one of 

 the earliest settlers in the locality in 

 which she lives, and who is said to have, 

 come thence from New England. He 

 married in 1708, Susan Jenks, widow of 

 Thomas Jenks, of Shropshire, England, 

 on the borders of Wales, who came into 

 Bucks county with her infant son 

 Thomas, about 1700, and is the ances- 

 tress of the prominent family of that 

 name in Bucks county. By her second 

 marriage with Benjamin Wiggins she 

 had one son, Benzaleel Wiggins, born in 

 1709, from whom the prominent family 

 of that name as well as numerous oth- 

 ers of Wrightstown, Buckingham, Sole- 

 bury and Makefield are descended. The 

 pioneer maternal ancestor of Mrs. Hall 

 was John Hampton, of Ephingstoun, 

 East Lothian, Scotland, who purchased 

 land at Amboy Point, East Jersey. No- 

 vember 23, 1682, and later settled at 

 Freehold, New Jersey, where he died in 

 February, 1702-3, leaving sons: John, 

 Joseph, Andrew, David, Jonathan and 

 Noah. Joseph Hampton, his son by a 

 second marriage with Jane Ogburn, 

 widow of John Ogburn, and mother of 

 Sarah Ogburn, wife of Edmund Kinsey, 

 was one of the first ministers among 

 Friends of Buckingham. Jane was four 

 times married and came to Buckingham 

 about 1720, then the widow Sharp, and 

 died there in 1731. Joseph Hampton 

 either accompanied or preceded hiS 

 mother to Bucks county and located in 

 Wrightstown. He married Mary, daugh- 

 ter of Thomas Canby and has left 

 numerous descendants. He died in I767> 

 leaving two sons, John and Benjamin, 

 and three daughters. The children of 

 Matthias H. and Sarah (Wiggins) Hall 



