GENEALOGICAL AND FAMILY NOTES 5 
character of the fine library he possessed was evidently 
a good French scholar and a well-read man. He studied 
law in the office of John S. Hopkins of Lancaster. He 
entered into practice in Schuylkill, Lancaster, and Mont- 
gomery Counties as well as Berks, and was known among 
the Pennsylvania Germans of the region as “‘The Coun- 
sellor,”’ because he settled privately more cases than he 
took to court. He belonged to the Masonic order, but 
attended no meetings after the notorious Morgan episode. 
He was at one time a member of the State Senate and 
held other more local offices. He fixed his residence in 
Reading for the practice of his profession. Probably during 
professional visits to Philadelphia he met the lady, Miss 
Lydia MacFunn Biddle, who in 1815 became his wife. 
Through her mother and paternal grandmother Miss Biddle 
united strains of the most distinguished colonial ancestry 
traceable without uncertainty to the seventeenth century. 
The marriage was blessed with seven children: 
William McFunn (Aug. 4, 1817,-Oct. 19, 1872); Samuel 
(3) (Apr. 3, 1821,-1884); Spencer Fullerton (Feb. 3, 
1823,-Aug. 19, 1887); Rebecca Potts (1825-1907); Lydia 
Spencer (1827-1876); Mary Deborah (1829-1900); and 
Thomas (1831-1897). 
Samuel Baird (2) was required by his profession to 
spend more or less time away from his home, travelling, 
and in the “cholera year” 1833 was taken ill and died, 
July 27, at the early age of forty-seven. After his death, 
his widow with her family removed to Carlisle, where 
she died, June 3, 1871. After her death her husband’s 
remains were removed to Carlisle and placed beside hers, 
but the headstone to his memory still remains in the 
family burial ground at Pottstown, where all his brothers 
and sisters are interred. 
