Families related to Tysons

Thomas Williams and his two wives

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Thomas Williams appeared in Burlington, West Jersey, in 1686, when he sought to marry the widow Rebecca Bennett. There are no records to show when he immigrated, but circumstantial evidence that he was from Pembrokeshire, Wales. When the merchant Abraham Hardiman died of smallpox in Philadelphia in 1702, he left behind a will, naming among others his cousin Rebecca Williams, whose passage he had paid along with Samuel Carpenter. Carpenter was the richest man in the colony, but he had not paid Rebecca’s passage solely because he could afford it. He was married to Hannah Hardiman, Abraham’s sister.1 When Thomas William’s daughter Rebecca married Thomas Iredell in 1705, the certificate was signed, in the place for close family, by Hannah Carpenter, two of her children, and three Hardimans.2 It is clear that Rebecca Williams was a relative of the Hardimans, probably a first cousin.

The Hardimans were from Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. George Fox visited there in 1657 and held a large gathering for worship.3 By 1681 the Quaker community was large enough to have a monthly meeting and multiple meetings for worship.4 On the 24th day of the 6th month (August) 1681, Abraham Hardiman of Haverfordwest married Diana Thomas of Lowhadon.5 The certificate was signed, after Abraham and Diana themselves, by William Thomas and John Hardiman, almost certainly the fathers.6 Two women of the Hardiman family also signed, Rebecca and Hannah.7 When Hannah Hardiman immigrated in 1683, the meeting at Haverfordwest gave her a certificate, signed by Abraham Hardiman among others.8 Hannah also brought a certificate signed by her mother “Jone”, giving her consent for Hannah to depart.9

Abraham and Diana were married in the summer of 1681 and a year later, in 7th month 1682, John, son of Abraham, was buried at “Nesthook”.10 This was not the home of the Hardimans as some have assumed; it was the burying ground for the local Friends.11

“…The earlier West Hook was considerably closer to Haverfordwest town, near the farms now called East Hook and Honey Hook. An old Quaker burial ground is located on or near the older farm’s grounds. You probably won’t find the name of either farm site on most present-day maps, although you will find East Hook and Honey Hook, both of which are near to the place that it was located, and some maps show the burial ground.”12

On the Ordinance Survey map of 1898, Westhook Farm is shown west of Marloes, adjoining Easthook Farm.

Some time after the death of their son John, Abraham and Diana immigrated to Philadelphia where they both appear in records of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and where he worked as a merchant. Diana died in 1694 and in 1698 Abraham married the widow Rebecca Willsford.13

If Rebecca Williams was in fact a first cousin of the Hardimans, then her mother must have been a Hardiman, a daughter of John and Jane. Rebecca was not born in Pennsylvania; her cousins paid for her passage.14 From her marriage date of 1705, she was probably born between 1680 and 1685. Could her mother have been the Rebecca Hardiman who signed the marriage record of Abraham and Diana in 1681? If that Rebecca married Thomas Williams and had a daughter Rebecca, it would account for the family relationships. By this account, the mother died in Wales and Thomas immigrated without his daughter, presumably leaving her with relatives. He then remarried, and at some unknown date his daughter Rebecca came to Pennsylvania.15

When Thomas wanted to marry Rebecca Bennett, they needed permission from Burlington Monthly Meeting where he was living, and Falls Monthly Meeting in Bucks County where Rebecca was living near Cold Spring. Burlington Meeting gave him a certificate with no concerns.16 The Falls meeting appointed Phineas Pemberton to make sure that the estate of Rebecca’s deceased husband William Bennett was properly set aside for his daughters.17 This was settled, but Thomas still had to make satisfaction for his improper conduct. When he went before the women’s meeting to propose his intentions, he refused to remove his hat. He also said something disrespectful to the women’s meeting and its de facto leader, Margaret Cook, and was forced to acknowledge his error. He refused to write a paper at first, but complied the next month, removing the impediment to their marriage.18

Thomas and Rebecca lived in Burlington. At some point they had a daughter together, named Mary.19 The town had been settled early by Quakers, even before the tidal wave of ships to Pennsylvania in 1682 and 1683, and the meeting in the town of Burlington was founded in 1678. In 1693 Thomas bought a house and 40 acres of land in Burlington County from Bridget Guy, widow of Richard Guy. He and Rebecca probably did not live on this land, since in 1699 he gave a power of attorney to his wife Rebecca and Edward Burroughs to take possession of a 40-acre property above Burlington, bought from Bridgett Guy in 1693.20 If this was the same property, why did he wait six years to take possession of it? The land they might have lived on was the 160-acre tract bought in September 1694 from George Hutchinson, a distiller of Burlington.21 Did Williams combine these two tracts to make the 200-acre plantation that he sold to William West in November 1699?22

It’s possible that Thomas was selling off his property in order to leave West Jersey. In 1701/02 the grand jury in Burlington presented him for fornication. According to the records, the jury was “disturbed that Thomas Williams got his wife’s daughter with child.” He ran away but the daughter is “yet in the place and ought to answer for it.”23 The grand jury presented Rebecca Bennett, now wife of John Scholey. Her husband was fined five pounds to resolve the matter. Where had Thomas Williams gone? He disappears from the records until February 1706/07 when the will of Rebecca Williams, “widow of Thomas of Philadelphia, carpenter” was probated in Philadelphia.24 In the will she named her daughters Rebecca Schooly, Sarah Edwards, and Mary Williams.25 Mary was the executor. Rebecca Williams made no mention in the will of her step-daughter Rebecca Williams Iredell. Perhaps they were not close.

Child of Thomas Williams and a first wife, possibly Rebecca Hardiman

Rebecca, born about 1680 to 1685, possibly in Haverfordwest, Pembroke, Wales. She immigrated before 1705 when she married Thomas Iredell in Philadelphia. They moved to Horsham, where Thomas died in 1727. Children: Mary, Abraham, Rebecca, Robert, Rachel and Hannah.

 

Child of Thomas Williams and Rebecca Bennett, widow of William Bennett

Mary, born after 1686, unmarried in 170726

 

Step-children of Thomas Williams, children of William and Rebecca Bennett

William, in his father’s will of 1683, probably did not immigrate.

Mary, married to Thomas Chandler, in her father’s will of 1683, probably did not immigrate.

Rebecca, immigrated with her parents in 1683, married John Scholey Jr of West Jersey.

Sarah, immigrated with her parents in 1683, married Robert Edwards.27

Elizabeth, immigrated in 1683 on the Concord, married Richard Lundy, died before 1707.

Ann, immigrated with her parents in 1683, probably died before 1707.

 

  1. Hannah immigrated in 1683 and married Samuel Carpenter in 1684. They had seven children, including daughters Hannah and Rebecca, sons Samuel, Joshua, John, Joseph and Abraham. Samuel and Hannah lived in Philadelphia, where he was prominent as a merchant, as a Quaker, and in public affairs. He died in 1714. (Edward and Louis Carpenter, Samuel Carpenter and his descendants, 1912) ↩
  2. Wedding certificate of Thomas Iredell and Rebecca Williams, on Ancestry, US Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935, Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Marriages 1672-1759, image 55. Thomas Iredell also signed as a near relative when Abraham’s daughter Mary married George Fitzwater in 1707 (image 66), and when Abraham’s daughter Deborah married Gilbert Falconar in 1709/10 (image 72). ↩
  3. George Fox, Journal, 1827, vol. 1, p. 384. ↩
  4. Mary John, “From Redstone to the Welsh Tract”, on the website of the Pembroke Historical Society, accessed April 2020. ↩
  5. The certificate is on Ancestry, England and Wales, Quaker birth marriage death registers 1578-1837, Herefordshire Worcestershire, Wales, Piece 1365, Monthly Meeting of Pembroke, Marriages 1660-1771, image 20. Note that Piece 1365 also includes burials, in spite of its name. ↩
  6. Deborah Thomas also signed. Was she Diana’s mother? ↩
  7. Another Hardiman signed just above Hannah. The name is difficult to read and may have been crossed out. ↩
  8. The certificate, in a later copy book, is on Ancestry, Philadelphia Monthly Meeting Arch Street, Certificate of Removal 1681-1758, image 13. The copy book was made in 1878/79 by Gilbert Cope, the eminent genealogist who copied many of the Quaker records on the shelves of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. ↩
  9. The name of Hannah’s mother is always said to be Jane, but the handwriting in the copy book of certificates is quite clear and shows it as Jone. Gilbert Cope, who copied the original records, wrote in his introduction that he was careful to show the original spelling. Abraham Hardiman also signed Joan’s certificate. ↩
  10. Monthly Meeting of Pembroke, Marriages 1660-1771, image 48. ↩
  11. Many of the burials in the Pembroke Meeting records were at “Nesthook”. This probably should be West Hook. “A good many of the early Friends were buried at West Hook.” (David Salmon, “The Quakers of Pembrokeshire”, West Wales Historical Records, vol. 9, 1920-23, p. 27) ↩
  12. George Prothro Coulter, “Hardiman of West Hook, not Nest Hook”, post to message board, PA-Welsh-Early, 2 Dec 2006, in response to a question about the location of “Nesthook”. Coulter had seen minutes of the Quaker meetings, marriage records and old maps, at both local records offices and the national library of Wales. He must have been doing research into his Quaker roots. The Protheroe family appears in the records of Pembroke MM. ↩
  13. Abraham had three daughters with Diana—Rebecca, Mary (married George Fitzwater), and Hannah (married Gilbert Falconer). With Rebecca he had a daughter Deborah (married George Claypoole). He makes the relationship explicit in his will, where he called Deborah “the only child I have by her”. (Philadelphia County wills, book B, p. 189) ↩
  14. This fact alone shows that she could not have been a daughter of Thomas and Rebecca Bennett, as many researchers assume. In addition, if more evidence is needed, Rebecca and William Bennett had a daughter Rebecca who married John Scholey in 1697 at the house of her stepfather Thomas Williams. Thomas and the younger Rebecca were later accused of fornication (not incest) by the Burlington Court, and in the records Rebecca was referred to as “his wife’s daughter”. ↩
  15. Rather unfortunately for researchers, Thomas’ second marriage was to a woman named Rebecca (Rebecca Bennett, widow of William Bennett) who already had a daughter Rebecca (Rebecca Bennett, who married John Scholey). There is a precedent, even in this family, for adult children immigrating without their parents. When William and Rebecca Bennett came in 1683, their daughter Elizabeth came on another ship, the Concord, as a servant to James Claypoole. (Marion Balderston, James Claypoole’s Letter Book, p. 222) This seems odd, since William had bought 1000 acres of land in March 1682; he may have been cash-poor after that purchase. ↩
  16. Minutes of Burlington Monthly Meeting, 5th month 1686 and 7th month 1686. ↩
  17. In his will, written in 6th month 1683 in Middlesex County, England, William Bennett left 800 acres to his four daughters—Elizabeth, Rebecca, Ann and Sarah—and the residue of his estate to his wife Rebecca. (Bucks County wills, book A, p. 9; Philadelphia County deeds, book E3-5) The Bennetts arrived in Pennsylvania in 9th month 1683, and William died just four months later. ↩
  18. Minutes of Falls men’s meeting, 9th month 1686 through 12th month 1686. ↩
  19. Mary Williams would later appear at an executor of her mother’s will. It is odd that they named a daughter Mary, since William Bennett named a daughter Mary in his will, written in 1683 and proved in 1685. That Mary was married to Thomas Chandler, and since no land was bequeathed to her in Pennsylvania, it is likely that she stayed in England. When William Bennett registered the arrival of his family in 9th month 1683, he included his wife Rebecca and three daughters Rebecca, Ann and Sarah. (“The Philadelphia and Bucks County Registers of Arrivals”, edited by Hannah Benner Roach, in Walter Sheppard (ed), Passengers and ships prior to 1684.) ↩
  20. West Jersey, New Jersey Deeds 1676-1721, John D. Davis, part view on GB. Richard Guy is supposed to have come with Fenwick on the Griffith in 1675. ↩
  21. John D. Davis, West Jersey, New Jersey Deed Records, p. 156. ↩
  22. Deed on November 22, 1699. ↩
  23. The Burlington Court Book 1680-1709, edited by George Miller and Henry Reed, 1998, p. 261, 266, 271. ↩
  24. Philadelphia County wills, book C, p. 49. ↩
  25. There was no mention of her other daughters with William Bennett. They may have died without issue. Elizabeth Bennett married Richard Lundy; Rebecca married John Scholey Jr; Sarah married Robert Edwards; Mary married Thomas Chandler. Ann is not known to have married. ↩
  26. She was the executor of her mother’s will. ↩
  27. Named in her mother’s will and in a deed to Ezra Croasdale in 1702. (Minutes of the Board of Property, 1705) ↩

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