HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



197 



<iied in Bristol, Bucks county, Febru- 

 ary 12, 1867. He was a man of much 

 more than ordinary intellectual ability 

 and of scholarly tastes and extensive 

 learning. He had an anticiuarian turn of 

 mind, and made extensive researches in 

 almost everything pertaining to history, 

 and made many valuable contributions 

 to the Historical Society of Pennsyl- 

 vania, of which he was one of the most 

 active and distinguished members. He 

 was for many years engaged in mercan- 

 tile business in Philadelphia, and during 

 the later years of his life held a respon- 

 sible position in the custom house at 

 Philadelphia. He was a prominent 

 member of the Masonic fraternity, and 

 at the time of his death was affiliated 

 with Bristol Lodge, No. 25, A. Y. M., 

 and that lodge and the grand lodge of 

 the order adopted resolutions com- 

 memorative of his worth as a man and 

 liis distinguished services in the order. 

 He married, November 17, 1829. Marj' 

 Linnington Shewell, born in Philadel- 

 phia, June 5, 1805, daughter of Thomas 

 and Sarah B. (Linnington) Shewell. The 

 former was born at Painswick Hall, 

 New Britain township, Bucks county, 

 July 13, 1774, and was a son of Robert 

 and Sarah (Sallows) Shewell, and a 

 grandson of Walter Shewell, of Pains- 

 vi'ick Hall, the founder of the familj-. 

 Thomas at the age of eighteen 

 years went to Philadelphia and en- 

 tered mercantile pursuits. In 1796 

 he went to the West Indies, and 

 from thence to England, where he 

 ■entered the house of Bonsfield & 

 Co., woolen staplers and army con- 

 tractors, London. He returned to Phila- 

 delphia and became a merchant there in 

 1802, and was a member of the board of 

 managers of the House of Refuge, and 

 held many other positions of honor and 

 trust. He retired from business in 1832, 

 and died in Philadelphia, March 23, 184S. 

 He was three times married. His first 

 wife was Sarah B. Linnington, born 

 March 10, 1784, whom he married March 

 TO, 1802. She was a granddaughter of 

 Dr. George de Benneville, of Bristol 

 township, Philadelphia county, near 

 Germantown. She died February 11, 

 1819. 



Daniel May. and Mary L. (Shewell) 

 Keim, were the parents of eight chil- 

 dren, the two eldest of whom died in 

 infancy. Those who survived were: 

 Thomas Shewell Keim, born January 

 3, 1834, in Philadelphia, died at Bris- 

 tol, Bucks county, November 9, 1866; 

 Joseph D. (Brown) Keim, (so signed as 

 administrator of fathe'r and brother) 

 born November 26, 1835, married April 

 17, 1868, Lillie Paxson; Esther de Benne- 

 ville Keim, born November 26, 1835, 

 -died January 24. 1874, married James P. 

 Wood; Augusta Shewell Keim, born Sep- 

 tember 6, 1840; Mary Shewell Keim. the 

 subject of this sketch, born December i, 



1843, married January 22, 1884. Francis 

 Abbott; Anetta Faber Keim, born De- 

 cember 29, 1845, died December 20, i860. 



MARTIN LUTHER SNYDER, 

 wholesale dealer in rubber goods,- at 

 Fourth and Market streets, Philadel- 

 phia, was born at Farmersville, North- 

 ampton county, Pennsylvania, July 2, 

 1850, and is a son of John H. and Anna 

 (Groover) Snyder, both of whom were 

 natives of Bucks county. 



Andreas Von Schneider (or, as he 

 signed himself in America, Andreas 

 Schneider), the great-grandfather of the 

 subject of this sketch, was born in the 

 year 17.39, in Zweybrucken, or Deux 

 Ponts. Rhenish Bavaria, and is said to 

 have belonged to the nobility of that 

 cosmopolitan town, but, having taken 

 part as a mere youth in an uprising 

 against the government, was stripped of 

 his nobility and property and forced to 

 flee from the countr}^ He sold himself 

 to the captain of a sailing vessel bound 

 for the port of Philadelphia, where R"e ar- 

 rived some time in the year 1759. He 

 bound himself to a merchant in Phila- 

 delphia whose name has not been ascer- 

 tained, by whom it is said he was em- 

 ployed in the capacity of a farmer in 

 the neighborhood of Germantown for 

 some years, and that later his employer 

 sold him sufficient stock and farming 

 impleiTients with which to embark in the 

 farming business for himself, taking his 

 note without security for the same. It 

 is probable that his employers and bene- 

 factors were Abel James and John 

 Thompson, of Philadelphia, prominent 

 merchants on whose plantation in Rich- 

 land township. Bucks county, we find 

 Andrew Schneider in 1775, and five years 

 later they conveyed to him 140 acres 

 thereof, on wjiich he lived and died. He 

 was a member of the first Associated 

 Companj^ of Richland township in 1775, 

 and is said to have rendered active serv- 

 ice in the defense of the rights of his 

 adopted country during the Revolutio'^ 

 and served as an officer under Washing- 

 ton when he crossed the Delaware to at- 

 tack the Hessians on that memorable 

 Christmas night. It is related of Mr. 

 Schneider that he was in such haste to 

 join the army in the time of his coun- 

 try's urgent need, that he left his team 

 in the field hitched to the plow. After 

 service in the army of five years he set- 

 tled on his farm in Richland, and de- 

 voted his energies to the tilling of the 

 soil, meanwhile rendering such service 

 to the public as the needs of the com- 

 munity in which he lived demanded. In 

 the latter part of the war he served as 

 a collector of militia fines, and, having 

 in his hands at different periods consid- 

 erable public funds, he kept the money 

 hid in places known only to himself in 

 order to protect his family from the dep- 



