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From:
Subject: [Q-R] Thomas Brown who married Ruth Large
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:30:49 EDT


To the Quaker-Roots List,

This is in reply to the e-mail of Amy Crump dated 08/06/2001 who is
researching Thomas Brown who married Ruth Large at Buckingham MM in Bucks
County, PA August 3, 1723. There seems to be good indication that Thomas
Brown was indentured prior to his marriage. He was received into membership
in Buckingham having produced a recommendation in writing from under his
master & mistress's hands of his faithful servitude.------ Amy's question is
this: Do any of the researchers in this family have any information that
Thomas Brown's family was in this country before 1680? Amy has cousins who
are publishing this fact, but so far, she sees no evidence to support this.
Has she missed something?

Through my Mendenhall ancestry, I seem to be a descendant of Thomas Brown
and Ruth Large. Their youngest son, Joseph Brown married a young widow, Ann
(Jones) Morgan. Their daughter, Ruth Brown, married John Mendenhall, son of
Richard Mendenhall and Jane Thornbury.

When I lived in the Philadelphia area and had access to the large Quaker
libraries, I did some searching for the parentage of Thomas Brown, but I
reached no satisfactory conclusion. Now that I am away from these source
references, I must rely primarily on the internet for information. I have
searched the Quaker-Roots archives and some Large Family websites, but I
still have not reached clarity. I can only offer certain observations which
might be helpful.

Nearly twenty-five years ago I began an intermittent correspondence with
another Mendenhall descendant, Opal Lousin of the vicinity of Northbrook,
Illiniois concerning this matter. She has sent me copies of a number of
wills, including that of Joseph Large, Jr., father of Ruth Large, --- of
William Dungan, probably father of Deborah, Ruth Large's mother, --- also of
Thomas Brown, husband of Ruth Large. She has also sent me a copy of "Bucks
County Tax Records, 1693-1778", compiled by Terry A. McNealy and Frances Wise
Waite for the Bucks County Genealogical Society, 1983.------ I am not sure
whether Opal Lousin is now living. She would be quite elderly, but was
carrying on genealogical correspondence a year or two ago.

There seems to have been a Thomas Brown and a Thomas Brown, Jr. who are
listed in the Buckingham Twp., Bucks County tax records of 1722 and also in
the Plumstead Twp., Bucks County tax records of 1731. It seems likely to me
that these men were not closely related to Thomas Brown the indentured
servant. Probably their descendants lived in the Plumstead Twp. for several
generations.

It might be well to sketch the settlement of the area, particularly the
Quaker settlement. ---- When a party of Quaker leaders, including George
Fox, travelled from the Quaker community on the Chesapeake Bay up to Long
Island and Rhode Island ca. 1672-1673, they travelled through the Delaware
Valley area and George Fox noted that it was only sparsely inhabited by
Indians and a few Finns. On their return trip toward the Chesapeake, they
passed through the new Friends settlement at Shrewsbury, New Jersey, some of
the settlers having moved down from Long Island.----- The first Quaker
settlement in southern New Jersey began in 1675, with Salem Meeting dating
from 1676. Other settlers came in 1677, with Burlington Meeting dating from
1678. It appears that there was some settlement of Quakers on the
Pennsylvania side of the Delaware from 16j78 to 1780, before William Penn
became Proprietor of Pennsylvania in early 1681. Robert Wade, a Quaker,
settled at Upland near present-day Chester, PA in 1676. There was probably a
Quaker settlement at Falsington, in present-day Bucks County, Pa. by 1679,
although Falls Monthly Meeting dates from 1683. Beginning in the autumn of
1682, when William Penn came to Pennsylvania on the ship "Welcome",
settlement from the British Isles increased rapidly.

Other Friends Meetings in Bucks County, PA have their origins with Falls
Monthly Meeting at Falsington. Buckingham Monthly Meeting dates from 1720,
although there were surely Friends living in the locality before that time.

If the Thomas Brown who married Ruth Large began his American
experience as an indentured servant, he seems to have accomplished a great
deal in his short life in order to become a large land-holder in Virginia by
the time of his death in late 1749. Perhaps he was assisted by his
father-in-law, Joseph Large, Jr. However, the Large family had evidently not
been strangers to poverty.-------
There is a story that Joseph Large, Sr. and his wife, Elizabeth, and their
fifteen children came to Falsington in the early 1680's after suffering
hardships in Amesbury, Massachusetts, in Long Island, and perhaps New Jersey.
At Falsington, someone left a fund for the care of the poor. The fund was
under the administration of the influential Quaker, Phineas Pemberton. When
Joseph Large, Sr. petitioned for aid, the haughty Phineas is said to have
ridiculed him.

This is about all that I can say concerning this matter. Perhaps, as
we examine all of the details available to us relating to the life and times
of this Thomas Brown, his parentage and background will become more evident
to us.

- Herbert Standing.

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