September 14, 1734- My seventh great grandaunt, Jane Potts, dies at the age of 66 in Philadelphia. Jane was born in Wales to Thomas Potts and Elizabeth Baset.
Jane came to Philadelphia in
1683 with her widowed mother.
They came as indentured servants.
Among the early settlers who came into Pennsylvania were a very large number who were denominated as Servants. The liberal terms offered by Penn, greatly increased the number of those who came in this capacity, as they received 50 acres of headland, when their time expired, the same as others. The term did not necessarily imply a menial, but included mechanics, farm hands, agents, etc., employed by others, and were frequently relatives and those of equal social position. Sometimes their passage was paid in consideration of a specified term of service. On
December 7, 1684, Jane's mother Elizabeth was granted 100 acres of headland in Chester County. They were Quakers and in
1685 were under the care of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting.
In
1686, Jane married Quaker John Austin, a shipwright, at the home of her mother and stepfather, Edmund Bennett, in
Bucks County, Pennsylvania. John preceded Jane in death about
1708.
Jane Austin, being
'weak in body but sound mind and memory,' made her will
December 26, 1733, and died
September 14, 1734. The will is recorded in Will-Book E, page 309, at Philadelphia. She mentions son Samuel Austin; daughters Ann Robins, Elizabeth Chanel and Mary; grandchildren John Robbins, Mary Robins, John Austin, John Wood.
The executors were George Fitzwater, Anthony Morris, and Jacob Shoemaker. Witnesses, Ezekiel Potts and John White.
September 14, 1734- Nathan Cleaver is born to Peter Cleaver, Jr. and Elizabeth Potts in
Upper Dublin Township,
Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.
September 30, 1734- William Hallowell is born to William Hallowell & Margaret Tyson in Abington Township, Pennsylvania
.
September 1734- John Penn arrives at Philadelphia with his sister Margaret Penn and her husband Thomas Freame, and attends the meetings of the
Pennsylvania Provincial Council. John returned to London in a year, to support the colony's rights in the boundary dispute over Maryland with Lord Baltimore, but
Thomas Penn and the Freames remained at Philadelphia.The ultimate resolution of this dispute was the surveying of the Mason-Dixon Line. John Penn, his brother Thomas, and their agents were responsible for the infamous
"Walking Purchase", which swindled the Lenape Indians out of more than one million acres of Pennsylvania.
Thomas Freame had come over earlier, probably in
1732, and had returned to England. With some persuasion his wife Margaret Penn now accompanied him to Pennsylvania. She finally returned to England in
1741 with her brother Thomas.
Thomas Penn had established himself at Philadelphia in a residence between Bush Hill and the Schuylkill, with grounds esteemed handsome in that day, and long known as the "
Proprietor's Garden."
(John Penn was a proprietor of colonial Pennsylvania. He was the eldest son of the colony's founder, William Penn, by his second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn. He was their only child born in Philadelphia, and was called
"the American" by his parents.)
(Nathan Cleaver is my second cousin 7 times removed. Jane Potts is his grandaunt. Our common ancestors are Thomas Potts & Elizabeth Baset.
William Hallowell is my third cousin 7 times removed. Our common ancestors are Mathias Dohrs & Agnes Neesgen Op den Graeff and Coentgen Lenssen Coenis & Anna Entgen Thones.
John Penn is my third cousin 9 times removed. Our common ancestors are Pletjes Driessen & Alet Gobels Syllys.)
