Brushwood Biographies

John Love

d. 1696

John Love was a Bristol grocer and so-called First Purchaser, being among the very first individuals to buy Pennsylvania land from William Penn. He held property in Philadelphia and in what became Chester County. In August 1684, he sold a right to one thousand acres of land in Chester to William (1) Garrett and Samuel Lewis of Harby-the so-called Garrett-Levis Tract. He had faced persecution for his Quaker beliefs while in England, including a stint in Westgate prison, and he was a very active member of the Bristol Meeting.

Mentioned in Document: 0 , 1 , 4 , 8

John Smith

b. 5 Oct 1645, Harby?, Leicestershire, England

d. 11 Feb 1715, Upper Darby PA

John Smith was a hemp dresser who lived in Harby. He was converted to Quakerism at the age of 14. Like his fellow Quakers and townsmen William (1) Garrett and Samuel Lewis, he immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1680s, also settling in Upper Darby. In 1684, Garrett and Lewis used him as a second party in order to legally split up the joint deed to lands in Chester obtained by them from John Love.

Party to Document: 0
Mentioned in Document: 4

William (1) Garrett

b. 21 Aug 1648, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. 1724, Philadelphia, PA

Anne Kirke

b. 2 March 1642, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. 7 Feb 1722, Upper Darby PA

William Garrett was the son of John and Mary (Bible) Garrett. All the boys in his family migrated to the New World-his elder brother John went to Virginia in the 1660s, and his younger brother accompanied him to Pennsylvania and also lived in Upper Darby. A Quaker convert, William went into a partnership with fellow Friend Samuel Lewis for a 1,000 acre grant in Willistown from the Pennsylvania Proprietors. William also gained sole title to the 500 acres which Bryn Clovis was originally attached to. William married Anne Kirke, also a Quaker, in 1668 in the Leicester Monthly Meeting. They had nine children, including: Ann Garrett, Mary Garrett Noble, Samuel Garrett (m. Jane Pennell), Hannah (m. George Emlen & William Tidmarsh), Sarah Garrett Croxson, Alice Garrett Pennell, William (2) Garrett (m. Mary Smith),Thomas Garrett (m. Rebecca Vernon), and John Garrett. The family relocated to Pennsylvania in 1684 and settled in Upper Darby. William never lived on the Willistown grant. After Anne's death William moved to Philadelphia, likely to live with his daughter Hannah's family.

Party to Document: 1 , 2
Mentioned in Document: 3 , 4

Samuel Lewis

b. 30 Sept 1649, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. March 1734, Springfield Township PA

Sometimes rendered "Levis." Samuel was William (1) Garrett's partner in purchasing the Willistown grant. Like William, he was a Quaker from Harby, and, also like William, did not settle in Willistown. Instead, he settled on a farm in Springfield Township. In May 1710, Samuel Lewis assigned all of his rights to title and interest over to William (1) Garrett and his heirs executors.

Party to Document: 1
Mentioned in Document: 2 , 3 , 4

William (2) Garrett

b. 4 April 1679, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. 5 March 1727, Upper Darby PA

Mary Smith

b. 6 Nov 1686, Upper Darby PA

d. 11 Feb 1744, Upper Darby PA

Son of William (1) Garrett and Anne Kirke. Sold his right to the Willistown Garrett tract to his nephew William (3) Garrett in 1727, and died about a month thereafter. Lived in Upper Darby with his wife Mary (Smith, m. 1709), and had at least 8 children.

Party to Document: 3 , 4

Samuel Garrett

b. 8 May 1672, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. 4 March 1744, Upper Darby, PA

Jane Pennell

b. 13 July 1678, Broughton, Lincolnshire, England

d. 27 Aug 1736, Upper Darby, PA

Son of William (1) Garrett and Anne Kirke. Sold his right to the Willistown Garrett tract to his nephew William (3) Garrett in 1727. Lived in Upper Darby with his wife Jane (Pennell, m.1698), sister of his brother-in-law Joseph Pennell.

Party to Document: 3 , 4

Hannah Garrett

b. 23 June 1674, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. 26 Aug 1738, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

William Tidmarsh

b. 1 Oct 1668, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England

d. 12 May 1748, Philadelphia, PA

Daughter of William (1) Garrett and Anne Kirk. She first married George Emlen, an early Philadelphian Quaker and vinter who arrived with Penn in 1682. They lived on a large property on Chestnut St between 2nd and 3rd. George died in 1710. Six years later she married William Tidmarsh, a cordwainer and recent arrival from England. She sold her right to the Willistown Garrett tract to her nephew William (3) Garrett in 1727. Her Emlen stepchildren recalled her as "an entire friend to the poor and distressed."

Party to Document: 3 , 4

Mary Garrett

b. 4 Nov 1670, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. 16 Jan 1703, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Bucks County

Abel Noble

b. 12 June 1665, Bristol England

d. aft 1752

Daughter of William (1) Garrett and Anne Kirke. In 1692 she married Abel Noble, and they moved to Philadelphia. Abel was among the 48 Quakers who joined George Keith's alternative congregation in 1691, and advocated full-body immersion baptism and seventh-day Sabbath. He became a leader of the emerging Seventh Day Baptist community and had contacts with radical German Pietists and influenced the creation of the community at Ephrata. Several of Mary and Abel's sons followed in his footsteps. The family was one of the first European settlers at Warminster, Bucks County. Mary died in 1703, either at the family homestead or in Philadelphia, and is reputed to be buried at the family cemetery in Bucks County. She was therefore not a party to her siblings' sale of their rights in the Willistown Garrett lands. However, in 1739 her nephew William (3) Garrett bought out her rights from her children William, Joseph, and Job Noble and Susanna (Noble) Atherton.

See Document: 5 , 6

Sarah Garrett

b. 23 June 1676, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. aft. 1727

Randall Croxson

b. c. 1660 Cholmondeley, Cheshire, England

d. aft. 1744

Daughter of William (1) Garrett and Anne Kirke. She sold her right to the Willistown Garrett tract to her nephew William (3) Garrett in 1727. She married Randall Croxson (or any number of variant spellings) in 1702, and lived with him in Providence Township, PA. Randall Croxton, or his father of the same name, was a first purchaser and prominent man in Upper Providence, for a time serving as its constable.

Party to Document: 3 , 4

Alice Garrett

b. 24 June 1678, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. 13 Sept 1748, Edgmont Township, PA.

Joseph Pennell

b. 12 Dec 1674, Broughton, Lincolnshire, England

d. 30 Sept 1756, Edgmont Township, PA.

Daughter of William (1) Garrett and Anne Kirke. Sold her right to the Willistown Garrett tract to her nephew William (3) Garrett in 1727. She married Joseph Pennell 8 April 1702 in the Darby monthly meeting. Joseph was the brother of Alice's brother Samuel's wife, who he had married four years previously. The couple lived in Edgmont Township, PA.

Party to Document: 3 , 4

Thomas Garrett

b. April 1681, Harby, Leicestershire, England

d. Dec 1716, Willistown, PA

Rebecca Vernon

b. c. 1684

d. 23 Dec 1747 or 1748

Son of William (1) Garrett and Anne Kirke. Father of William (3) Garrett. The youngest of William and Anne's children born in England, he came to Pennsylvania when he was only three years old. In 1704 he married Rebecca Vernon. Shortly thereafter they took up his father's land in Willistown, although they did not receive a title. Thomas died in December 1716. Rebecca married Richard Jones of Goshen on September 20th, 1718, and died in either 1747 or 1748.

William (3) Garrett

b. 5 Feb 1705, Willistown, PA

d. May 1788, Willistown, PA

Lydia Lewis

b. 5 Feb 1709, Newtown PA

d. bef 1754, Willistown, PA

Abigail Williamson Yarnall

b. 16 Sept 1702, Newtown PA

d. 28 Dec 1775, Willistown PA

Son of Thomas Garrett and Rebecca Vernon and grandson of William (1) Garrett. William's parents took up the Garrett land at Bryn Clovis in 1704. However, they did not receive title for it from the elder William. Thomas died in 1717, and William was sent to Upper Darby to live with his uncle, Samuel Garrett. Once he reached the age of majority, however, he bought out his Garrett aunts and uncles. William m. first Lydia Lewis on 5 Feb 1729, the daughter of the delightfully named Lewis Lewis and Mary Powell (or Howell). Lydia died sometime between 1749, when their daughter Deborah was born, and 1754, when William married again. In that year he married Abigail (Williamson) Yarnall, the widow of John Yarnall and daughter of Daniel Williamson and Mary Smith. Abigail died at Bryn Clovis in 1775. William lived at Bryn Clovis until his death in 1788 and divided the estate among his children.

Party to Document: 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 8 , 9 , 11

Mentioned in Document: 7 , 14 , 34

Lewis Garrett

b. 15 Dec 1738, Willistown PA

d. 1779, near the Clinch River (modern Tennessee)

Mary Guinn

b. 15 May 1743, Lancaster PA

d. 1829, Garrard KY

Lewis Garrett was son of William (3) Garrett and Lydia Lewis. Lewis was given parts of his father's estate on both sides of what is now the Sugartown Road, including the future Brushwood tract. He married Mary Guinn (or Gwyn) of Lancaster in 1763. She was a Presbyterian, not a Quaker which led to Lewis's disownment from the Meeting after the couple was married by an Episcopal priest. His son Lewis became a noted Methodist preacher. In 1773, Lewis Garrett sold all his lands in Willistown and went west with his family and his wife's family. After briefly settling in western Virginia, the family headed west again for Kentucky; unfortunately, Lewis drowned in the Clinch River in 1779.

Party to Document: 7 , 8 , 10 , 11

Mentioned in Document: 12 , 14

William (4) Garrett Jr.

b. 27 April 1747, Willistown, PA

d. 7 June 1832, Willistown, PA

Debby Lewis

b. 15 July 1750, Newtown, PA

d. 5 Oct 1823, Willistown, PA

William was son of William (3) Garrett and Lydia Lewis. Like his brothers, William inherited parts of his father's estate. As the youngest son, he was also tasked with caring for his aging father and step-mother. He inherited the family homestead and the central part of Bryn Clovis, as well as buying out his brother Lewis's share of the lands on the east side of Sugartown Rd when Lewis moved west. In 1769 William married Debby Lewis, his second cousin through his mother, and they had several children, including: Nathan (1), Rebecca, Mites, William (5), and Levi. Like his father, he lived on the family's lands in Willistown until his death in 1832.

Party to Document: 9 , 10 , 11 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 17
Mentioned in Document: 16 , 18 , 27 , 28 , 32 , 34

Thomas Garrett

b. 12 June 1736, Willistown, PA

d. 3 July 1822, Willistown, PA

Hannah Yarnall

b. 4 Oct 1741, Edgmont, PA

d. 19 Dec 1818, Willistown, PA

Thomas was the eldest son of William (3) Garrett and Lydia Lewis. He inherited the northern section of the Garrett tract from his father. In 1759 he married his step-sister Hannah Yarnall, the daughter of Abigail Williamson Yarnall Garrett from her first marriage to John Yarnall. They had at least six children, including Abner Garrett, who inherited the farm.

Party to Document: 11

George Smedley

b. c. 1725, Willistown, PA

d. 1787, Willistown, PA

Patience Mercer

b. 31 Jan 1731, Westtown, PA

d. 19 Dec 1812, Willistown, PA

The Smedleys, like the Garretts, were one of the original grantees of Willistown. George Smedley purchased the Brushwood tract from Lewis Garrett in 1773, before Lewis went west. A Willistown fuller who ran a mill on Ridley Creek. It does not seem that he and his family ever lived on the tract. He died intestate in 1787 and the property was sold by his eldest son Thomas in 1789. Married Patience Mercer in 1750 and had several children.

Mentioned in Document: 12

Thomas Smedley

b. c. 1752 Willistown, PA

d. c. 1814 Willistown, PA

Susanna Hoopes

b. 11 Oct 1756, East Bradford, PA

d. 5 April 1836, Willistown, PA

Thomas was the eldest son of George Smedley and Patience Mercer. George and Patience purchased the Brushwood tract from Lewis Garrett in 1773. After his father's death in 1787, Thomas sold the tract to Amos Hoopes, his wife Susanna's first cousin, in 1789.

Party to Document: 12

Amos Hoopes

b. 9 June 1745, Goshen, PA

d. 14 Jan 1805, Goshen, PA

Margaret Meredith

b. c. 1743

Amos purchased the Brushwood tract from Thomas Smedley, the husband of his first cousin Susanna (Hoopes) Smedley, in 1789. At that time he and his wife Margaret (Meredith) Hoopes were living in Westtown PA, and, like the Smedleys, may not have lived at Brushwood. The Hoopes' sold the Brushwood Tract to Daniel Sinquet in 1795.

Party to Document: 12

Didymus Lewis

b. 16 Jan 1747

Brother of Debby Lewis Garrett and son of Nathan and Margaret (Thomas) Lewis. Co-executor of his youngest brother Peter Lewis's will along with his brother-in-law/second cousin William (4) Garrett Jr. William (4) had acted in the same capacity for the pay out of Didymus's share of £126 2/ 2d on 1 March 1804.

Party to Document: 13

Nathan (1) Garrett

b. 12 Oct 1770, Willistown, PA

d. 28 Feb 1827, Willistown, PA

Rebecca Green

b. c. 1769

d. 18 Sept 1823, Willistown, PA

Nathan was the son of William (4) Garrett Jr. and Debby (Lewis) Garrett. In 1797, he married Rebecca Green in the Quaker Meeting. They had four children, Eli, Debby, Hannah, and Nathan (2). In 1807, his parents granted him the majority of the Bryn Clovis tract for the token consideration of five shillings. He was named as an executor of his father's 1819 will, and was also made responsible for the well-being of his mother Debby. However, both he and his mother predeceased his father.

Party to Document: 14 , 15
Mentioned in Document: 16 , 27 , 28 , 32 , 34

William (5) Garrett

b. 11 Feb 1777

d. 1814

Anne Worrall

b. 25 Feb 1777

William (5) was the son of William (4) Garrett Jr. and Debby (Lewis) Garrett. He married Anne Worrall (daughter of Elisha and Mary Worrall). They had three children: Mary Anne (b. 13 Jan 1803, m. John Kirk of Darby); Jemima (b. 24 Sept 1805, m. John Massey of West Goshen); and William (6) (b. 7 Dec 1808). William (5), a Quaker, was written out of the Quaker Meeting upon marrying Anne Worrall, a non-Quaker.

William (6) Garrett

b. 7 Dec 1808, Willistown, PA

d. 10 Jul 1868

Son of William (5) Garrett and Anne Worrall and grandson of William (4). After his father's death in 1814, William became heir to his father's share of his grandfather's Bryn Clovis property. William (5) inherited the property after his grandfather's death in 1832 along with $1000. At this time William (5) was living in Haverford. He sold his Willistown inheritance to Thomas Cox and his wife Mary, who then sold part of it back to Nathan (2) Garrett.

Party to Document: 15 , 17 , 19
Mentioned in Document: 21 , 34

Jemima Garrett Massey

b. 24 Sept 1805, Willistown ,PA

d. 19 Dec 1887, West Chester, PA

Daughter of William (5) Garrett and Anne Worrall and granddaughter of William (4). Named as an heir in both versions of William's (4) will, and named as heir to her father's share of the property if her brother William (6) died. After her grandfather's death in 1832 she inherited $1000, a feather bed, and bedding. She married John Massey, a farmer in East Goshen, sometime in 1832 between the writing of her grandfather's will and receiving her inheritance in September of that year.

Party to Document: 15 , 17 , 18

Mary Ann Garrett Kirk

b. 13 Jan 1803, Willistown, PA

d. 3 Jan 1878, Upper Darby, PA

Daughter and eldest child of William (5) Garrett and Anne Worrall and granddaughter of William (4). In her grandfather's 1819 will she stood to inherit $250, but in his 1832 will this amount was lessened to only $150, possibly because he gave her some of that bequest in the interim. She married John Kirk, a prosperous farmer in Upper Darby. She was an active Quaker, unlike her sister Jemima.

Party to Document: 15 , 17 , 20

Debby Garrett

b. 13 Sept 1800, Willistown, PA

d. 3 Sept 1862, East Bradford, PA

Gerard Cope

b. 4 Sept 1802, East Bradford, PA

d. 19 May 1871, East Bradford, PA

Debby was the daughter of Nathan (1) Garrett and Rebecca Green Garrett. On 12 Jan 1826 she married fellow Quaker Gerard Cope, a farmer. They lived in East Bradford, Chester County. In later years, they were prosperous enough to hire Irish farm laborers. In 1830, shortly after the death of her father, her brother Nathan (2) Garrett purchased her share of the Bryn Clovis lands for $1000. Her grandfather William (4) Garrett left her his best bed, bedding, and a number of expensive pieces of walnut and maple furniture, which she inherited in 1832.

Party to Document: 16 , 17
Mentioned in Document: 32 , 34

Nathan (2) Garrett

b. 27 Feb 1809, Willistown, PA

d. 28 March 1881, Willistown, PA

Jane Lewis

b. 9 March 1809, Willistown, PA

d. 31 March 1862, Willistown, PA

Nathan (2) was the son of Nathan (1) Garrett and Rebecca Green Garrett. He became the primary heir to his grandfather William (4) Garrett's Bryn Clovis estate after his father's death in 1827, and acted as the executor of his grandfather's will in 1832. In March 1830, he married Jane Lewis. She was not from the same line of Lewises as Nathan's grandmother Debby, but rather a different branch descended from Henry Lewis who settled in Haverford in the 1680s.

Party to Document: 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21
Mentioned in Document: 26 , 27 ,28 , 34

Thomas Cox

b. 25 July 1793, Willistown, PA

d. 13 Oct 1867, Willistown, PA

Mary Smedley

b. 25 Feb 1792, Willistown, PA

d. 26 Feb 1864, Willistown, PA

Thomas Cox was Thomas Garrett's grandson. (Thomas Garrett's daughter Lydia married William Cox) . His wife, Mary Smedley, was the granddaughter of William (3) Garrett's second wife Abigail Williamson from her first marriage to John Yarnall, and therefore also Thomas's second cousin once removed through his grandmother Hannah Yarnall. In 1833, they purchased Thomas's third cousin William (6) Garrett's 35 acre portion of the Bryn Clovis tract, immediately to the north of Bryn Clovis. They then sold eight acres of the same tract to Nathan (2) Garrett later that year for $520, a sum that may suggest significant improvements were made on that part of the property. Their son Thomas Smedley Cox later purchased the bulk of the old Thomas/Abner Garrett farm in 1857. This complicated story illustrates, perhaps better than any other, the dense web of kinship, marriage, and neighborly ties that had built up in Willistown by the mid-nineteenth century.

Party to Document: 21
Mentioned in Document: 32 , 34

Daniel Sinquet

b. c. 1743, France

d. 16 Nov 1827, Willistown, PA

Dorothea "Dolly" [Burkhart?]

b. c. 1732, Germantown, PA

d. 1849, Willistown, PA

Daniel was a French veteran of the American Revolution. He arrived in Pennsylvania around 1778, although it unclear what side he fought for. He settled in Germantown after the war and married Dorothy "Dolly," possibly a Burkhart, from a Pennsylvania German family. They purchased the Brushwood tract from Amos Hoopes in 1795 and he lived on the farm until he died in 1827. Daniel left the farm to Dolly and she continued to live at Brushwood until her own death in 1849.

Mentioned in Document: 22

Samuel Sinquet

b. 10 Dec 1790, Germantown, PA

d. c. 1860

Son of Daniel and Dolly Sinquett, born while the family was living in Germantown. Samuel would have spent his childhood at Brushwood and was tasked with selling it in 1849 after the death of his mother. He was a veteran of the War of 1812. Later, he ran the Willistown Inn and served as the town's postmaster. He married Mary Nields.

Party to Document: 22

William Baker

b. 8 Sept 1808, Edgmont, PA

d. 31 March 1882, Willistown, PA

Abigail Griswold

b. 15 Oct 1812

d. 8 April 1890, Media, PA

William was the son of William and Sarah (Minshall) Baker. He married Abigail Griswold in 1838. In 1849, he purchased the Brushwood tract from Samuel Sinquet and moved his family there. Later his life the farm was taken over by his youngest son, Levis, the only child who had been born at Brushwood. William and Abigail moved to another house on the property, where he died in 1882.

Party to Document: 22

William Lewis Garrett

b. 26 March 1832, Willistown, PA

d. 3 Sept 1888

Eldest son of Nathan (2) Garrett and Jane Lewis Garrett. In April 1857, he married Hannah Ashbridge Hickman. The young couple moved to Philadelphia almost immediately and were admitted to the Green Street Meeting in May 1857. William worked as an insurance broker. He was predeceased by both his wife (d. 1873) and eldest son Percy (d. 1880). Around the time of the sale of the Bryn Clovis farm he moved to Media and lived with his sister Debby, dying shortly thereafter. He was buried in Willistown.

Party to Document: 23 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34

Debby Garrett

b. 10 Jan 1834, Willistown, PA

d. 9 Feb 1896, Wayne, PA

Daughter of Nathan (2) Garrett and Jane Lewis Garrett. Debby never married. She acted as a live-in housekeeper for her aging father after the death of her mother. In 1888, she was living with her brother William Lewis Garrett in Media. She died in 1896 at age 62 in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Her location of death suggests she may have been living with her sister Rebecca's family; one of her Worrall nieces, Helen, was given the middle name Debby.

Party to Document: 23 , 25 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 34

Wilmer Hicks Garrett

b. 1 Aug 1836, Willistown, PA

d. 13 Nov 1887, Willistown, PA

Martha Laycook Bartram

b. 9 Oct 1845, Springfield, PA

d. 12 Oct 1926, Narberth, PA

Elizabeth Bartram Garrett

b. 14 July 1871, Willistown, PA

d. 1961, Maine?

Anna Lewis Garrett

b. 5 July 1877, Willistown, PA

d. 9 Oct 1921, Philadelphia, PA

Debbie Lewis Garrett

b. 1 Aug 1879, Willistown, PA

d. 22 March 1920

Isaac Bartram

b. 18 Feb 1832, Springfield, PA

d. c. 1904

Wilmer was the son of Nathan (2) Garrett and Jane Lewis Garrett. He ran the farm after his father's death. Wilmer married Rachel Y. Paxon in 1863 who sadly died one year later. He then married Martha L. Bartram in 1869, and they had three daughters, Anna, Elizabeth, and Debbie. After her husband's death, Martha ran a boarding house in Lansdowne. Her brother Isaac Bartram acted as the court-appointed guardian for the girls. Martha was predeceased by two of her daughters. Anna became a teacher in Narberth. In 1921 Anna contracted typhoid fever on a visit to Atlantic City and died. Debbie married newspaper-editor-cum-car-salesman William R.D. Hall, but died in 1920. Elizabeth married George Otis Hamlin, the grandnephew of Lincoln's first vice president Hannibal Hamlin. George Hamlin had made a fortune in the rayon industry in Philadelphia. The couple moved to Manhattan and later split their time between there and George's home state of Maine. They had no children. Records indicate that they enjoyed many trips abroad, including a trip to Puerto Rico in 1934. They were good friends of the painter John Sloan and left a significant bequest to Bowdoin College Art Museum in Maine.

Party to Document: 23 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32
Mentioned in Document: 34

Rebecca Green Garrett

b. 24 Aug 1839, Willistown, PA

d. c. 1892

Thomas Thatcher Worrall

b. 2 Dec 1834, Willistown, PA

d. c. 1892

Daughter of Nathan (2) Garrett and Jane Lewis Garrett. In 1862, she married life insurance agent Thomas Thatcher Worrall. They lived Kennett but at the time of the sale of the Bryn Clovis farm in 1888 they were living in Rising Son, Maryland. Sometime afterward they returned to Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Party to Document: 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 34

Nathan Miller Garrett

b. 20 July 1846, Willistown, PA

d. 20 April 1925, West Chester, PA

Loulie Gilpin Baker

b. 30 Nov 1848, Pocopson, PA

d. Aft. 1930

Nathan was the son of Nathan (2) Garrett and Jane Lewis Garrett. As a young man he lived for a time with his sister Rebecca's family in Kennett and was listed in the 1870 census as keeping a shoe stand. Although living in Michigan at the time of the mortgage and sale of the Garrett Bryn Clovis farm, Nathan worked as a travelling shoe salesman mostly in the Chester County region. He married Loulie Gilpin Baker-who was not a relation of the Brushwood Bakers-sometime around 1870. He died in West Chester from a cancer in his ear and neck at age 78.

Party to Document: 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 34

Samuel Taylor

b. 27 Dec 1764

d. 14 July 1842

Abiah Taylor

b. 9 July 1772

d. 8 Jan 1852

Sons of Abiah and Ann (Trimble) Taylor and residents of East Bradford Township, PA. Neither brother ever married. On 30 March 1830, Nathan (2) Garrett took out a mortgage on his farm, held by Samuel and Abiah, for the sum of $1000. The mortgage was paid off in 1831, but irregularities in its recording led to it being investigated at the time of the mortgage of the Bryn Clovis farm in 1886. Evidently very prosperous farmers, the brothers secured several mortgages for their neighbors in the early 19th century. Samuel kept a diary in the late eighteenth century which is held by the Chester County Historical Society.

Mentioned in Document: 32 , 37

William Sharpless

b. 25 Oct 1803, West Goshen, PA

d. 10 April 1886, West Chester, PA

Son of Nathan and Sarah (Thatcher) Sharpless. William married Abigail Garrett in 1825. Son-in-law of the Garretts' close neighbor and kinsman Abner Garrett, and therefore Nathan(2) Garrett's second cousin by marriage. On 1 April 1848, Nathan (2) Garrett took out a mortgage on his farm, held by William Sharpless, for the sum of $4200. This mortgage was investigated at the time of the 1886 mortgage of Bryn Clovis but was found to have been satisfied. An active Whig in the 1840s, he developed a reputation as a writer of campaign songs and wrote some civic poetry. He was auditor of both West Goshen and West Chester townships and was considerably wealthy.

Mentioned in Document: 32

Edward Lewis

b. 28 Feb 1819, New Castle, DE

d. 23 May 1901, Philadelphia, PA

Born in Delaware to Quaker parents, Edward Lewis made a fortune in the iron and steel industry. He used the farm, which he renamed Bryn Clovis, primarily as a summer home. In many respects the purchase (and naming) of Bryn Clovis from the Garrett family, who had owned it for centuries, signaled a drastic break in the history of the land. Edward made extensive renovations to the house and landscaped the grounds to turn it into a fitting summer home for a member of Philadelphia's industrial elite. Edward was closer to the history of the land than may at first appear: Nathan (2) Garrett's wife Jane Lewis was his first cousin. Edward Lewis married Elizabeth Ivins in 1851. Among their children was Emily Lewis Roberts. Emily took over the farm after her father's death and turned it into a state of the art dairy farm. Moreover, her son Sidney Lewis Roberts purchased the Brushwood property, briefly uniting the two plots.

Party to Document: 34 , 35 , 36

Samuel (2) Sinquet

b. c. 1850, Willistown, PA

d. 21 Oct 1901, Willistown, PA

Sarah "Sallie" N. Edwards

b. 14 Nov 1846

d. 16 July 1923, Willistown, PA

Samuel Sinquet was the grandson of Samuel (1) Sinquet and great-grandson of Daniel Sinquet. He worked as a builder and lived on a small plot of land immediately to the north of Bryn Clovis. He married Sarah Edwards, daughter of George and Catherine Byard Edwards, in 1870. In 1891, Edward Lewis purchased ¼ acre from them along the Sugartown Rd.

Party to Document: 35

Amos Garrett

b. 21 May 1833, Willistown, PA

d. 30 Dec 1902, West Chester, PA

In the late nineteenth century, Amos Garrett occupied the farm between Bryn Clovis and Warren Ave. Amos was related to the Bryn Clovis Garretts through both his mother and father's family. Through his father Isaac Garrett, Amos was a descendant of William (2) Garrett and Mary Smith. Through his mother Lydia Garrett, he was a descendant of Thomas Garrett and Hannah Yarnall. Amos was therefore both the third cousin and second cousin once removed of Nathan (2) Garrett. He married Anna Marsh Chandler of Christiana Hundred Deleware in 1860. They had three children. In later life the couple moved to West Chester along with their unmarried daughter Lydia.

Party to Document: 36