Thomas Howell was an early Quaker immigrant to Bucks County who had two known children.1 He was in Pennsylvania by October 1683 when he went to Penn in Philadelphia and requested the rental of 200 acres of land. He actually went twice within two weeks and may have changed his mind about where he wanted to settle. If he arrived in late September 1683, it is possible that he is the Thomas Howell who shipped goods from Bristol on the Comfort of Bristol between 23 May and 6 June.2 People declared goods that were for resale, not personal use. This does not mean that Thomas was intending to be a merchant. Many early settlers brought small quantities of goods to sell or barter. It is clear that Thomas was not a rich man. He rented land instead of buying it, and could not pay the passage for his son.

When Thomas requested his land, he first asked for it in Providence Township, Chester County. Penn wrote a warrant directing that the land be surveyed. Two weeks later Howell went back to Penn and requested land in Philadelphia County near Poquessing Creek, and Penn wrote another warrant.3 The land was laid out in Southampton Township, Bucks County, and was shown there on the map made by Thomas Holme about 1687. Howell’s land was at the southern end of Southampton, just north of the Growdon land in Bensalem.4 At some time before 1697, Thomas gave his land to his son Job, possibly because Thomas was not longer able to farm it.5 By then Thomas owned the land and had gotten a patent for it.6

In 1686 Thomas Howell signed the wedding certificate when his daughter Hannah Howell married William Hibbs at the house of John Hart in Byberry. The record of the marriage kept at Abington Monthly Meeting showed that Hannah was Thomas’ daughter.7 Thomas was not active in Byberry Meeting, unlike his son-in-law William Hibbs. The name of his Thomas’ wife was not known and there is no record of her in Pennsylvania. She did not sign the marriage certificate when Hannah Howell married William Hibbs in 1686, suggesting that she died before then, possibly in England. Thomas died in 1702 and was buried at Byberry Meeting.8

Next generation: Job and Hannah

In 1682 Job Howell immigrated on the Friends Adventure as a servant to John Brock. They arrived in the Delaware River at the end of 7^th month 1682. To pay for his passage, Howell was to serve Brock for four years, being free in 7^th month 1686.9 In fact he was probably free before then, since in 5^th month 1684, a tract of land was surveyed for him, in Bucks County, between Arthur Cook and William Buckman.10This was northeast of his father’s tract, not the same land. In November 1697 Job sold 100 acres of his father’s tract to Hugh Ellis and another 50 acres to Francis Eileston (Elleston).11 In 11^th month 1699, William Rowles requested to buy the 200 acres “formerly laid out unto Job Howell upon rent”.12 This was Job’s own land, not the land he got from his father. Was he living on the remaining 50 acres of his father’s land?

Job Howell testified in Bucks County court in 7^th mo 1689, in a case of a colt of John Swift. Philip Conway was suspected of having something to do with shooting it, and Job testified that Conway told him he was there when it was shot.13 Philip Conway was not good company to keep. He and his brother Patrick were repeatedly in the courts for theft and were finally banished from the province.14

The 1697 deeds were Job’s last appearance in Bucks County records.15 There is no record of his death, or of marriage or children.

Hannah Hibbs married William Hibbs in 1686. He had immigrated to West Jersey in 1677 on the Kent, as a servant or apprentice. After he married Hannah they lived in Byberry, next to William and John Carver with whom Hibbs feuded over their boundary line. William and Hannah were members of Byberry Meeting, where William signed a paper with other Friends condemning the “spirit of separation” of George Keith and his followers.16 William and Hannah had eight children living at the time he made his will. The will, made in 1708, named his wife Hannah and eight children, Joseph, Jonathan, Jacob, William, Jeremiah, Sarah, Phebe and Hannah.17 He left a Negro man to his wife, and after her death to his sons Joseph and Jonathan. The plantation was shared between Hannah and the son Joseph. The other children received cash payments. William specifically allowed Hannah to raise the children at her discretion. “I leave the whole charge of bringing up my children to my dear wife she doing this according to her own discretion.” The overseers of the will were friends Daniel and William Walton; they were to assist Hannah in managing her financial affairs. Some of the children of Hannah and William married in Quaker meetings; others did not.

Even after William’s death in 1710, Hannah continued a feud he had begun with his Carver neighbors eight years before, over the precise location of the property boundary. Abington Meeting minutes reported that “Whereas there hath been a former difference between John Carver and Widdow Hibbs, about a former line between them; The meeting being willing to put an end to ye sd difference: have appointed Six friends, with two Surveyors to view ye land and ye lines and to endeavor to put an end to ye differ[ence].….”18

In 1712 Hannah married Henry English at Byberry Meeting. He was a widower, a Quaker, and a resident of Byberry.19 Henry and Hannah had no children together, and he died about 1724. He He Hannah died in 1737. In her will she named her children Sarah, Phebe, Jeremiah, Joseph and William, as well as two namesake granddaughters. She gave her sidesaddle to her grandddaughter Hannah Cooper and her “pilers” (pillows?) to her granddaughter Hannah Hibbs. She left her clothing to daughters Sarah and Phebe (the brown gown and petticoat and riding hood and bonnet), her bed and bolster and bedding to Phebe, and residue of property to sons Joseph and William and son-in-law Jonathan Cooper. She specified that her Negro servant Trail should be set free, to have his own mare and scythe and ox, and enough wool to make him a coat and waistcoat and britches.