 Abt 1660 - 1746 (86 years)
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| Name |
Thomas Owens |
| Born |
Abt 1660 |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
9 Dec 1746 |
Abington, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA  [1] |
| Person ID |
I5173 |
Paul's Tree |
| Last Modified |
2 Jul 2018 |
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| Event Map |
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 | Died - 9 Dec 1746 - Abington, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA |
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| Notes |
- Excerpt from: Morton L. Montgomery. Historical and biographical annals of Berks County, Pennsylvania, containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in Two Volumes, Illustrated. Chicago: J.H. Beers & Co., 1909. Volume 1, page 19.
Welsh. - Just as the Swedes settled in the county on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill, so the Welsh settled in the county to the west of this river. They migrated through Chester county till they crossed the South Mountain, and though some of them reached a point beyond the mountain before the purchase of the territory from the Indians in 1732, yet the most of them entered this district immediately afterward. The Swedes did riot have a township named after any of their places, but the Welsh were earnest in this behalf, having named three townships, Caernarvon, Cumru and Brecknock.
The Welsh had purchased from Penn in England, before 1700, a large body of land, aggregating 40,000 acres, to be selected in Pennsylvania ; and these acres they located to the west ot the Schuylkill. They settled the country so numerously that, before 1698, they had named six townships in the county of Chester.
Rowland Ellis was a prominent Welshman who induced a large emigration from Wales to this country. After having persuaded Thomas Owen and his family to emigrate and settle in Chester county, he, himself, in 1686, embarked with 109 Welshmen. Some of the settlers were named Thomas Evans, Robert Evans, Owen Evans, Cadwallader Evans, William Jones, Robert Jones, Hugh Grfffith, Edward Foulke and John Humphrey. The territory which lay to the south of the South Mountain and west of the Schuylkill was gradually settled by these Welsh people, and they migrated farther and farther up the river during the next fifty years. Before 1740, several hundred of them had settled in the district beyond this mountain. They were adherents of the Baptist denomination. Their lands were taken up mostly along and in the vicinity of the Wyomissing and Cacoosing creeks, and there they were most thickly settled, the many tracts they took up aggregating 20,000 acres, before 1752. They were enterprising, having a gristmill along the Wyomissing before 1740. This flowing stream was appreciated by them for its superior water-power, and they accordingly erected dififerent factories along its banks for the manufacture of gun-barrels, files, etc. Agriculture was the principal employment. Like the Swedes, they remamed in their first settlement, southward of the Schuylkill and Cacoosing. They co-operated earnestly with the Germans in obtaining a new county out of the upper sections of Lancaster and Philadelphia counties.
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According to Welsh Settlement of Pennsylvania By Charles Henry Browning
https://books.google.com/books?id=i_cMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=rowland+ellis+thomas+owen&source=bl&ots=N5EWWoHXKS&sig=FFtqk09rp55WtcvGlPnjHxRXfuw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcoPrR_aTRAhWL24MKHemYBSs4ChDoAQgZMAA#v=onepage&q=rowland%20ellis%20thomas%20owen&f=false
In 1683, Rowland Ellis sent ing Hugh Roberts' party his farmer, Thomas Owen, who was said to be a relative, and Thomas's family, to have his land properly laid out, some in Merion, and some in Goshen, and to make a settlement on his Merion land, build a house, clear some fields, and begin a farm, and make the usual preparations for the coming of himself and family when convenient. Four years later, Rowland Ellis, then a widower, bringing his son, came over to look over the situation, with a view or permanently removing with all his family.
p. 263
From the burial records of the Merion Meeting come the following particulars about other servants, white and black, or early times...
1718.10.14 "Rowland Ellis' tenant," (? Thomas Owen).
pp. 486-7
The church of Merion Baptist congregation, at the intersection of the Gulf Road and Robert's Road, on the Harrison-Morris-Vaux land, was not built till in 1800. Descendents of early Welsh Friends, and of the Gaskills, descendents of William Penn, have been buried in the graveyard of this church. But a much older Baptist congregation, all Welsh, build a church in Montgomery tp., before 1720, and of it's members were John Evans, William, Thomas, and Josiah James, James Lewis, Edward Willimas, and James Davis. And an older one that this was the Baptish congregation of Welsh in the English settlement of Plymouth, members of which, before 1703, were David Meredith, Thomas Owen, Isaac Price, Ellis Pugh, and Hugh Jones.
p. 490
Whiteland township (East and West Whiteland tps. after 1704), was originally a part of the Welsh Tract, and in 1704, David Jones was its constable, The extant tax list of 1715, shows the following Welsh were among its landowners, James Thomas, Richard Thomas, Thomas James, Owen Thomas, Thomas Owen, Llewellyl Parry, David Howell, Rees Hughes, Rees Prichard, James Rowland, Griffith Phillips, Evan Lewis, David Meredith, and John Martin.. Early township officers were James Thomas, Lewis William, David Meredith, Sr., Evan Lewis, Rees Richard, Thomas Owen, James Rowland, James David, Thomas James and Griffith Howell
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| Sources |
- [S534] The Era: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Literature and of General Interest.
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