Henry Jones (d. 1687) of Barbados, Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester Cos., PA
This is a brief introduction to a very complex subject, the settlement in Pennsylvania in the late 1600s of Quakers families who had lived in Barbados, often for decades, but who had originated largely in Bristol and London, England prior to about 1635.In particular, I will be focusing on Henry Jones, who died in Philadelphia, PA in 1687, his family, including brother John Jones, and the many families associated with these two brothers.I will give special attention to landholders who, after arriving from Barbados or Bristol, held large tracts of land in several areas of Colonial Pennsylvania - land which was adjacent or near the land holdings of this Jones family and especially the land of Henry Jones in Philadelphia City, Moyamensing [in South Philadelphia], and Tredyffrin, Chester Co., PA.Also important are landholders in Southampton and Bristol Twps., Bucks Co., and Abington, Cheltenham, and Oxford Townships in what was then Philadelphia Co. PA - areas in which the Barbados expatriates seem to have concentrated.I have been focussing my research over the past few months on Henry Jones' neighboring landholders, Richard Collins, Richard Wood, William Lovell, Joseph Kirle (Kirll, Carel, etc), as well as Philadelphia neighbors such as Bartholomew Penrose and Toby (Tobias) Leech. Amazingly, the aforementioned William Lovell of Wedmore, England, on 6 Dec 1658became indentured servant of John Jones for 3 years in Barbados. And the surviving Quaker record of Joseph Kirle's of Philadelphia's marriage to Mary Brett in Barbados provides evidence that many of the witnesses to said marriage are the same persons or relatives of many of these families who moved to PA.
I have found an overwhelming amount of evidence that members of this very early extended Jones family in Pennsylvania:
1. Left Bristol, England, either because they were merchants/traders or due to religious (they became Quakers) or political (they were on the wrong side of the English Revolution) persecution.
2. Settled in Barbados, eventually (by the 1680) ending up in St. Peter's Parish, where they became wealthy, some due to the trade in indentured servants from England, Ireland, and Wales, as well as from the African slave trade.
3. Left Barbados due to horrific death rates, religious persecution (en mass, as Quakers), and for economic opportunities offered directly, at least in Henry Jones' case, by William Penn himself.Penn bought at least one slave from Henry Jones.
4. That, Although Henry Jones died a Quaker, since he did not long survive his relocation to Pennsylvania, John Jones and other Jones relatives became supporters of George Keith and, after Keith's abandonment of Pennsylvania, became members of the Protestant Episcopal Church.Most of these Quaker families from Barbados became Churchmen, not Baptists or Seventh Day Baptists, and most probably attended, by the 1690s, either St. Thomas Church, Whitemarsh, or, even more likely, Trinity Church, Oxford, Twp.Unfortunately, the earliest Church records of these congregations were destroyed during or before the American Revolution, but what evidence does survive is very consistent with my belief that John Jones and some of his associates and descendants would have gone to these churches.
5.That Henry Jones, along with his friend and likely partner, John Weale (probably Jr., but perhaps Sr.) of Barbados, were the original owners of the Barbados Lot in Philadelphia proper and of part of the Barbados Tract which extended from Tredyffrin, Chester Co., PA (immediately adjacent on the west side to the property of Benjamin Davis, later of Timothy Davis -- son of Benjamin Davis "of Bristol," which I believe to be Bristol, England, not from "New Bristol Twp.," the name of the PA township -- and the son-in-law of the widow, Mary Jones [mother of wife Sarah Davis and of William Jones of VA], and just to the east, over the Chester/Philadelphia Co. border, to what must have been the property of Joseph Kirle in Merion, Later Upper Merion Twp., then Philadelphia Co., PA.Joseph Kirle was also an immediate neighbor of Henry Jones and John Jones in both Southampton Twp, Bucks Co., Bristol Twp, Bucks, and Cheltenham/Oxford Townships, Philadelphia Co., PA, and in Philadelphia itself.The presence and land ownership of those early settlers of PA who came from Bristol, England and Barbados was extensive, and appears to have been largely overlooked by those interested in PA genealogy.
And, for me, at least, the most exciting part of this short preview is the fact that:
6.Henry Jones' land in Moyamensing, Phialdephia Co. [No. 3, Philadelphia Co. on Holme's Map), where Jones stated in his will he wished to be buried, was, by 1759, owned by one William Jones, who I am inclined to believe was his grandson (possibly great-grandson) and identical to the William Jones (son of the widow, Mary Jones of Tredyffrin, d. 1747) who himself died in Loudoun Co., Virgnia in 1771 or that William's son, left behind in Philadelphia.See the Mapping of West Philadelphia website to compare locations of William Jones' land with Henry Jones' on Holme's map.http://www.archives.upenn.edu/WestPhila1777/view-parcel.php?pid=3194&popup=1http://www.archives.upenn.edu/WestPhila1777/view-parcel.php?pid=3194&popup=1Moreover, in Passyunk Twp., just over a mile west of William Jones' major parcel of land in Moyamensing,probably the younger William Jones owned more land which was less than 1000 feet away from land owned by Mary Penrose, great-granddaughter of Joseph Kirle, granddaughter of Bartholomew Penrose, and wife of Major General Anthony Wayne of Easttown, Chester Co., PA.The Waynes lived just over the Tredyffrin/Easttown border from the Barbados Tract of Henry Jones and the property of Timothy Davis, William Jones' brother-in-law.Moreover, less than a mile to the northwest of the Passyunk property of the younger William Jones and Mary Penrose Wayne, one can find property of Peter DeHaven.Abraham DeHaven (d. 1771) lived adjacent to William Jones in Loudoun Co., VA, but I have not yet determined how this particular Peter DeHaven is related.
There are several difficulties which arise in trying to trace these Barbados families.Many men of the same name, mostly related, came to Pennsylvania, and it is very difficult to determine ages, dates of birth, etc., which might aid in separating them out as particular individuals.For example, John Jones of Barbados had a son named John, born in Barbados, and that John had a son named John, born early on in Pensylvania.Henry Jones had a son named John as well.Henry also had sons name, Joseph [with whom he may be associated in early Chester Co. court records], Samuel [who might be the Baptist minister at the Lower Dublin, PA Baptist Church], Henry [who apparently inherited the Tredyffrin Property], Daniel, and Richard [said to be the given name of the father of William Jones of Loudoun, VA (erroneously stated as Evan Jones] in an early 19th century history of Wayne Co., Kentucky]. He also had a daughter, Sarah, who married first Philip Alford, who died soon after their marriage.But I have never seen anyone state a thing about her second marriage, to Robert Jacobs, or to her third to Richard Anthony. Most researchers in the past have failed to consider that many of the Barbados residents died very young, while others, who lived longer life-spans, had many spouses.If one tries to determine birth dates of spouses based on assumptions that they had only one marriage at a typical marriage age, about 21 or so in early PA, and, therefore, one comes up with birth dates which are much too late in the 17th century.For example, John Jones had at least three wives, which is almost never, if ever, mentioned.His first or second wife, in Barbados, was almost certainly a member of the prominent Yeamans family of Bristol and Barbados.He had several children before he married a woman named Rebecca, by whom he had another child in Pennsylvania.He then maried Margaret (Gibbs, Gibbes) Waterman, the widow of Humphry Waterman of the Watermans of Bristol and Barbados, and has children by her before his death in 1708.Most researchers assume Margaret to be his first wife and therefore place John's birth in the 1680s.But he necessarily had to be born decades earlier to account for the children mentioned in his own will.Margaret Gibbs, the third or fourth wife, was first married to a Waterman, then John Jones, and then Everard Bolton.If all the various married names of these Barbados immigrants are searched and their locations at various times are found, it is much easier to see family relationships.I will be presenting much more comprehensive evidence of these relationships, including what I consider some amazing relationships between the Jones descendants and the families into which they married (especially as they relate to land ownership in the southeastern part of Tredyffrin, including that of the Weale, Potts, George, and Fisher families) and about Jones places of residence and information regarding land ownership in counties where these persons probably never actually resided. I also will attempt to show that many members of the same Barbados families had multiple residences in New Jersey and PA, as well as residences, over time, in what became Delaware, in Maryland, and even in the very early years of South Carolina.Mariners and merchants are especially hard to track.
At this point in time, and after considering these Bristol and Barbados connections, I am no longer inclined to believe that the father of William Jones, the deceased husband of Mary Jones of Tredyffrin, was even Welsh, at least as far as his direct origin.I believe that his wife, Mary Jones, herself most likely was Welsh and that she was the person who had ties to many members of the Seventh Day Baptist and Baptist congregations in Chester, Philadelphia, and Bucks Counties.I suspect that this Jones family had migrated early in the 1600s or earlier from Wales to England, that they had abandoned Welsh naming practices, and always used the fixed surname Jones in Barbados and Pennsylvania.The fact that Timothy Davis and his mother, Patience Davis, have thoroughly NON-Welsh but very English given-names support an English origin for that family as well.Many, many names which are the same as traditional Welsh names appear in both Bristol England and Barbados in the 17th century, undoubtedly because of Bristol's proximity to South Wales and its position as a major seaport. This Jones family associates with the earliest English settlers of Bucks Co., Philadelphia Co., Chester Co., and Philadelphia City.They probably first resided in Philadelphia City with estates/plantations in Bucks Co. and South Philadelphia Co.They later, after the Keith Schism and because of investments in large tracts of property, migrated to the area which straddled the border of Philadelphia Co and southern Bucks Co., i.e., Bristol and Southampton, Bucks and Abrington, Cheltenham, and especially Oxford, Philadelphia Co.After Mary Jones' husband's death, she most likely moved to live with her daughter, Sarah, and son-in-law, Timothy Davis, in Tredyffrin, but that does not mean that all of her children necessarily resided there at some time {we do know that daughter Martha and son-in-law, John Best, lived on the Davis property after Timothy Davis and Mary Jones' deaths],I am now inclined to believe that William Jones lived in the same border area between Bucks and Philadelphia, later Montgomery Co., and that he inherited, at some point in time, the property in Moyamensing.He also owned land, for some time in the early 1730s, around New Britain and Hilltown, Bucks Co., as well as the land in Cumru Twp., Berks Co.But I now believe, due to the lack of significant evidence of residence in Berks Co., that he merely owned the land there, as did his brothers-in-law, John Morris and John Best.William Jones probably moved to Loudoun Co., VIrginia directly from the Philadelphia/Bucks border area.
I am writing all if this with the hope that others can contribute to the search for the origins of this English/Barbados Jones family, which was very prominent in early Philadelphia.Hopefully, some of the many facts I intend to present through several postings will spark some discussion which will lead to some solutions to the questions I have been posing for almost 4 years now.I would like to note that the facts which re-sparked this search of my own into the Barbados origins of the Joneses -- a search which I started several years ago but which initially seemed to provide no real answers for me -- were found on Mike Bertram's 17th Century Tredyffrin web page on the Tredyffrin Eastttown Historical Society website, in particular his interactive map re. original land owners.I only wish such material were available for the land to the north (Charlestown), west (Easttown and Newtown), South (Radnor - which is somewhat documented on Smith's map of early settlements of Delaware Co., PA), and east (Merion Twp and Providence Twp., to it's north).If that dream were to come true, I am almost certain that a great many genealogical mysteries could be solved.But, in the meantime, I am grateful for Mike Bertram's important work.
Craig Englund