Family History Part 2
(Hint- Close the slide to return to this page)
Haworth Family History Part 2 by Sharon Castle
Slide 1: Title Page
Family History Part 2:
George in Bucks County, PA
Haworth Virtual Reunion Day
Sharon Castle and Marilyn Totten
Slide 2:
Map of Lower Bucks Co.
(Figure 19)
Script:
Thank you
Marilyn for Part 1. As we begin, we
know that George survived “The Sick Ship.” He had sister Mary already living in
Delaware and a cousin James living near Philadelphia. So he disembarked on the
shores of Delaware, weak and dehydrated, and made his way to his sister’s home.
There, he spent a week recovering, visiting, and grieving. He wrote to this
mother: “ I staid there one week, and then set sail in a sloop for
Philadelphia…and then came into the County of Bucks where my cousins James
Haworth dwells and dwelleth near to him.”
So in 1699, at age 23, our George had arrived in British America and
started his life in Bucks County.
So let’s look
at some locations on this map of Bucks County.
We see Philadelphia where he arrived.
We see (F) Bristol and Bristol Township, where George lived at first near
his cousin. Just to the east is (E)
Falls Township, home of William Penn’s Pennsbury Manor, and the Township in
George will be married. (A) In
Buckingham Township the black rectangle shows George’s farm.
(C and D) is Makefield Township where George lived while he was clearing
his land. (B) Solebury Township is where George’s wife, Sarah, was from and
where they lived until their own farm was cleared.
So this gives us a sense of George’s life in Bucks County.
Slide 3: In His Own Words
“I hired myself out for a year and had about L19 wages in the year and since I
was free [not indentured] I work by the piece or by the day.”
We are
extremely fortunate to have the text of 8 letters that George wrote home to his
family in England; I will quote from them and you can read them on the Haworth
Association website.
George worked
as a weaver and a farmer. (read quote) He said the land was good and bad with
hills and vales, he found great abundance. “Victuals is good and plenty . . .
and there is many sorts of wood.”
Slide 4: Map of George’s Land
(from website)
Script:
After two and a
half years, George had saved enough money to buy land; our Haworth family’s
first land in America. Think what this must have meant. In England, land was
divided into manors overseen by Lords and landed gentry, and sections of manors
were leased out to be worked by commoners and peasants. Most people never
dreamed of owning their own land. Therefore, buying his own land in America
would have meant a great deal to our George.
Slide 5:
Photo of George’s Land (website)
George wrote to
this family in England that “I live a single life and hath builded a Shop, and
doth follow weaving of linen cloth, but I have bought 450 acres of land in the
Woods, but doth not live on it yet.” In
the northern corner of Buckingham Township. The land was primeval forest and
would need to be cleared and have a house built on it before George could live
there. At some point he moved from Bristol north to Makefield Township which
would have been closer to his land.
Slide 6: Map of Haworth and
Scarborough
Land
(from Haworth Association website)
On
September 28, 1710 at Falls Meeting, George Haworth, age 34, married Sarah
Scarborough, age 16, daughter of John and Mary Scarborough. Her father, John,
was a farmer and a Quaker preacher, and owned 510 acres in Solebury Township.
When George and Sarah were married, her parents built a cabin for them on their
land , since George’s wasn’t ready. They lived there for 5-6 years.
Slide 7:
Photo of Scarborough Land (website)
The greatest share of people in our parts is called
Quakers and Meetings are kept in good order, there is a great many meeting
houses built. We make our own cloth both linen and wollen and sometimes I weave
for wages I clears land and plows I count I have 100 bushels of Corn this year,
very good wheat Rye and Barley and Indian corn, I plant trees and hath Apples
Peaches and Cherries and I have good land and wants more hands to help me. I
have 4 Cows and 4 Horses and 31 Swine. . . Philadelphia is our greatest town we
have . . . Bristol is a market town . . . We have a fine large country with
great conveniency in it . . . My Son is 2 years 5 months old his name is
Stephanus.
Between
1713 and 1724 George and Sarah had 7 children:
Stephanus, Rachel, Absalom, John, James, Mary, and George Jr.
Represented here today are Stephanus, Absalom, John, and James!
Sometime around 1722/1723, George and Sarah and their
children finally moved to George’s 450 acres in Buckingham Township. Their last
child was born there.
Slide 9: Buckingham Friends Meeting
(Figure 24)
George, Sarah,
and their children were originally members of Falls Quaker Meeting, the Meeting
in which they were married and that William Penn attended. Sarah’s family
attended Solebury Meeting. When
Buckingham Friends Meeting was organized in 1720, the Haworth and Scarborough
families followed the standard process, transferring their memberships to the
new meeting and becoming founding members. It is still a thriving Meeting today.
Slide 10:
George’s Will (Figure 25)
Sarah married
Mathew Hall in 1731. Subsequently, George’s land was divided among six of his
children. Sarah died in 1748, age 53, and records show that she was buried in
the Friends Burial Grounds at Buckingham Friends Meeting.
Slide 11:
George’s Signature
George and his children became landowners in British America. Some of them
stayed on their land, while others sold their parcels and moved.
His
children and descendants followed common Quaker migration routes, bought and
cleared land, started Quaker meetings and schools, until they covered the US
from PA to the West Coast.
Think about it.
In 1676, in a cottage in a small hamlet in the countryside of England, a
boy was born. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this occurrence.
He was not royalty, nor did his family belong to the class of landed gentry.
Perhaps his parents felt glad for another pair of hands for the farm. Yet, this
baby boy grew up to become one of the earliest Quakers and the original
immigrant ancestor to thousands of Haworths. His American descendants included a
U.S. President (Herbert Hoover) and a famous movie star (Rita Hayworth) just to
make a couple.
But, as Abraham Lincoln said, the real doing of history
will be accomplished by the great number of “plain people.” Our “plain people”
forged or followed major migration routes that took them to Virginia, the
Carolinas, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri,
California, and Oregon. In each place, some of these pioneers became the
settlers who cleared farms and built towns with churches, schools, businesses,
and post offices.
George Haworth’s birth may not have been remarkable at
the time, but his life and legacy are remarkable to us now. His life and the
lives of his descendants represent the stories of early immigration, of the
building of the United States from east to west, and of Quakerism in America. He
is our immigrant ancestor. These
“plain people” who did the work of history are
our people. We are who we are, because
of who they were and what they did.
Slide 12:
Questions?
James Haworth Part 2 (click for view of slides) by Marilyn Totten