HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



549 



welcomed and supplied with homespun 

 clothing, and remained for some weeks in 

 the neighborhood assisting the farmers in 

 threshing wheat, that they might earn suffi- 

 cient money to defray the expense of their 

 homeward trip. When they were ready 

 for their homeward trip, Mr. Woodman was 

 taken sick with camp fever, and was left 

 behind to be nursed back to health by the 

 kindly Quakers. On his recovery he re- 

 mained in the neighborhood and found em- 

 plo>-ment among the farmers. On January 

 I, 1789, he married Sarah Stephens, daugh- 

 ter of his benefactor, Abijah Stephens. She 

 was of Welsh origin, a descendant of Evan 

 ap Evan, who was the original owner of 

 the Valley Forge tract, on which she was 

 "born. Abijah Stephens conveyed to the 

 which was in Tredyffryn township, Chester 

 young couple thirty acres of land, part of 

 county, and part in Upper Merion, Mont- 

 gomery county, where they spent the re- 

 mainder of their lives. Edward Woodman 

 was killed by a fall from a mow in his barn, 

 December 22,, 1820, and he was buried at 

 the Valley Friends' burying ground on his 

 seventy-first birthday. Edward and Sarah 

 (Stephens) Woodman were the parents of 

 seven children : William, Ruth, Abisha, 

 Rebecca, Henry, Edward and iMary. 



Henry Woodman, the fifth child, was 

 born December 20, 1795. He obtained the 

 rudiments of an education in an old log 

 school house near King of Prussia, and at 

 the age of fourteen entered Benjamin 

 Moore's boarding school, where he was 

 taught surveying and the higher branches 

 ■of mathematics. Two years later he began 

 teaching school, which he followed for three 

 years, and then went to Philadelphia, where 

 "he was employed for five j-ears, and then 

 returned home. On 9 mo. 12, 1827, he was 

 married in Wrightstown Meeting House, 

 Bucks county, to Mary Smith, daughter of 

 Benjamin and Mary ( Worthington) Smith, 

 and granddaughter of Benjamin and Sarah 

 (Eastburn) Smith, who had settled on a 

 five hundred acre farm in Buckingham, 

 along the Wrightstown line, just east of 

 Wycombe, part of which has remained the 

 property of his descendants to this day, 

 and was the birthplace of the subject of 

 this sketch. Henry Woodman had joined 

 the Society of Friends prior to his marriage, 

 and at the age of twenty-four entered the 

 ministry and continued a recommended min- 

 ister of Wrightstown Meeting during his 

 long life. He followed surveying and con- 

 veyancing in connection with farming. He 

 was an intelligent and prominent man in 

 the community, and a great friend of educa- 

 tion ; was a member of the first board of 

 public school directors of Buckingham, and 

 served as its secretary for many years. He 

 ■died on the old homestead in Buckingham 

 December 24, 1879, at the age of eighty- 

 four years. The children of Henry and 

 Mary (Smith) Woodman were: Benjamin 

 S., born 8 mo. 22, 1828. residing in Middle- 

 town, near Langhorne ; Edward, born 8 

 mo. 19, 1830, died at the age of twenty-two 



years ; ]\Iary S., born 3 mo. 29,- 1833, un- 

 married, residing at Rushland ; Henry, Jr., 

 born 8 mo. 16, 1835 (see forward) ; Will- 

 iam, born 7 mo. 24, 1838, a merchant and 

 postmaster at Buckmanville ; Comly, born 

 12 mo. 30, 1840, a farmer in Buckingham ; 

 and Wilson M., born 10 mo. 3, 1845, resid- 

 ing on a portion of the old homestead. 



Henry Woodman, Jr., born on the old 

 homestead in Buckingham, August 15, 1834, 

 was educated in the public schools of the 

 neighborhood. He was a man of quiet, 

 studious habits, and a deep religious nature. 

 He was reared on his mother's farm, and 

 on his marriage purchased an adjoining 

 farm, part of the original Smith homestead, 

 and lived thereon until 1895, when he took 

 up his residence with his son, Dr. Wood- 

 man, at Morrisville, where he died in the 

 spring of 1904. He was a school director 

 of Buckingham township for sixteen years, 

 ten of which he was secretary of the board. 

 He was also a trustee of Wrightstown 

 Friends' school, of which meeting he was 

 a consistent member. In politics formerly 

 a Republican, he was for the past ten years 

 a Prohibitionist, but seldom voted a 

 "straight ticket." He married, 3 mo. 13, 

 1862, Margaret Neall, of Philadelphia, 

 daughter of Isaac and Rebecca (Miller) 

 Neall, by whom he had five children ; Ed- 

 ward A., residing on the old homestead ; 

 Agnes, wife of Professor Gregg, of Lincoln, 

 Virginia; Isaac N., the subject of this 

 sketch ; Lewis S., deceased ; and Edith 

 Roberts. 



ISAAC N. WOOD^IAN, M. D., was 

 born on the old homestead in Buckingham, 

 and received his education at the Concord 

 public school, Langhorne Friends' school 

 and Doylestown English and Classical Sem- 

 inary, after which he taught school in War- 

 wick and Warminster townships. He en- 

 tered Hahnemann Medical College, from 

 which he graduated in 1893, and located 

 at Morrisville. where he has since prac- 

 ticed his profession. He was a member and 

 secretary of the Morrisville board of health 

 for five years, when he resigned on account 

 of the press of his professional duties. He 

 is also a member of the Morrisville school 

 board, in which position he has served for 

 seven years, four years as the president of 

 the board. He is a member of Wrightstown 

 Friends' Meeting, and was for many years 

 active in First Day school work there as a 

 teacher and superintendent. 



He married, on August i, 1896, Matilda 

 Blaker, daughter of Achilles and Rachel 

 Anna (Twining) Blaker. Her father died 

 when she was three years old, and her 

 mother fifteen years later married Stephen 

 Tripp, of Atlanta, Nebraska. She was edu- 

 cated at the Wrightstown Friends' school, 

 Doylestown Seminary, and West Chester 

 Normal School, and taught school for sev- 

 eral years, beginning at the age of sixteen 

 years. They are the parents of four chil- 

 dren, all born at Morrisville, viz. : Henry, 

 Jr., born April 30, 1897; Rachel Anna, born 

 November 21, 1898; Isaac Neall, Jr., born 



