Rash's Surname Index
Notes for John Jr. WILKINSON
John Wilkinson, son of John and Mary Wilkinson, born (probably in Hunterdon county, New Jersey), in the year 1711, was reared in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where he was one of the most prominent men of his day and generation. He was chosen a representative in the Provincial Assembly in 1761, and served three terms, and at the organization of the Commonwealth, under the constitution of 1776, was again returned to the legislative body of the state and served until his death, May 31, 1782. He was commissioned a justice in 1764, and served until 1775, when the control of the state government passed into the hands of the Committee of Safety of which he was one of the most active members, and he was recommissioned.
With the inception of the struggle for redress of the grievances caused by the oppressive acts of the British Parliament and Ministry, John Wilkinson became one of the most active patriots of Bucks county. He was named as one of the delegates to the Provincial Conference held at Philadelphia, July 15, 1774; was chosen as one of the first Committee of Observation, December 15, 1774; was again a delegate to the Provincial Convention at Philadelphia, January 23, 1775, and a member of the Constitutional Convention to frame a constitution for the State of Pennsylvania, July 15, 1776.
Reared in the faith and principles of the Society of Friends, when it became apparent that a resort to arms in defence of the rights of the Colonies was inevitable, his religious training and the pressure put upon him by his close associates in the Wrightstown Monthly Meeting, induced him on July 21, 1775, to resign his membership in the Committee of Safety, as the representative from Wrightstown township, alleging "scruples of conscience relative to the business necessarily transacted by the Committee". His patriotism, however, got the better of his religious scruples, and he again united with the Committee of Safety, and was one of the most active in measures for prosecuting the war for independence. He was appointed, August 25, 1775, lieutenant-colonel of the Third Battalion, Bucks County Associators, and on the re-organization of the Assembly became one of its most important members, serving on the committees to consider and draft "such laws as it will be necessary should be passed at this Session"; one of the committee to consider an act for remitting the sum 200,000 pounds in Bills of Credit, for the defence of the State, and for providing a fund for sinking the same by a tax on all estate real and personal; and was constantly on important committees. He was commissioned September 3, 1776, by the Supreme Executive Council, a justice of the peace and judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks county, and filled many other important positions. His military service as lieutenant-colonel of militia was probably not very extensive, as his time must have been pretty fully occupied with the duties of the several positions he held in the civil department of the state and county. His portrait, in the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel, is in possession of his descendants.
The Pennsylvania Gazette of June 19, 1782, has the following obituary notice of Colonel Wilkinson.
On Friday the 31st ult. departed this life, at Wrightstown, in the County of Bucks, John Wilkinson, Esq., in the seventy-first year of his age, after a long and painful illness, and on the Sunday following his remains were interred in the Friends' burying ground; the funeral being attended by a very large concourse of people of all denominations. Mr. Wilkinson was a man of very reputable abilities, and of a sound judgment, scrupulously just in all his transactions, free from bigotry as to religion or to party, and a friend to merit wherever it was found. As a companion, a friend, a neighbor, a master, a husband, a father, a guardian to the orphan and widow, his life was amiable and exemplary. He served his people in different important offices with fidelity and applause, under the old constitution as well as the new. His conduct in the present Revolution was such as entitled him to the peculiar esteem of all the friends of the country, but it drew on him the rage of enthusiastic bigots.
He was born and educated among the people called Quakers and was a member, in full standing, in the Wrightstown Meeting. His life was an ornament to the Society.
He mingled not in idle strife and furious debates, but lived as became a Christian, studying peace with all men. His principles led him to believe that defensive war was lawful. He was strongly attracted to a republican form of government, and the liberties of the people, and when Great Britain, by her folly and wickedness, made it necessary to oppose her measures, from Judgment and principle, he espoused the cause of his country. He was unanimously chosen a member of our convention and afterwards served in the Assembly with zeal and integrity becoming a freeman and a Christian.
This unhappily aroused the resentment of the Society with which he was connected so that one committee after another were dealing with him and persecuting him to give a testimonial renunciation of what they were pleased to consider errors of his political life, though there was no rule of the meeting which made his conduct a crime.
This demand he rejected although as tending to belie his own conscience at length, worried with their importunities, weakened by the growing infirmities of age, and fondly hoping that his country might dispense with his services, he consented to promise that he would hold no other appointments under the constitution.
This seemed to be satisfactory for a time, but, when Sir William Howe began his victorious march through Pennsylvania, a more pressing sense of duty urged his brethren to renew their visit, while his dear son lay dying in his house, and to demand an immediate and peremptory renunciation of his past conduct.
Provoked by this indecent and unfeeling application, he gave them a decisive answer, and preferred the honest dictates of his conscience to his membership in the Meeting, and he was, for his patriotism alone, formally expelled as unworthy of Christian fellowship.
The testimony of the meeting against him on this occasion was heretofore published in this paper. We trust he is now in those mansions where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest".
Colonel John Wilkinson married (first) May 21, 1740, Mary Lacey, a sister to Colonel, later General John Lacey, who like his brother-in-law, Colonel Wilkinson, left the Society of Friends to become an ardent defender of the rights of his country. By this marriage Colonel Wilkinson had five children, four daughters and one son John, the latter being the "dear son who lay dying in his house" in 1778, referred to in the above obituary notice. He married Jane Chapman, and his descendants still reside on part of the estate taken up by John Wilkinson, the grandfather, in 1713. Mary (Lacey) Wilkinson dying, Colonel Wilkinson married (second) in February, 1770, Hannah Hughes, born May 7, 1742, died April 18, 1791. She was a daughter of Matthew Hughes Jr., lieutenant-colonel of the Associated Regiment of Bucks county, 1747-48, who died before the opening of the Revolutionary war, by his wife, Elizabeth (Stevenson) Hughes, married March 17, 1733, daughter of Thomas Stevenson, and his wife, Sarah (Jennings) Stevenson, daughter of Governor Samuel Jennings, of New Jersey, and granddaughter of Thomas Stevenson, of Newtown, Long Island, and his wife, Elizabeth (Lawrence) Stevenson, daughter of Colonel William Lawrence. Thomas Stevenson, first mentioned, was surveyor general of Pennsylvania, and a large landholder in Bucks county. Matthew Hughes Jr. was a son of Matthew Hughes Sr., of Buckingham, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, many years a Colonial Justice of Bucks County Courts and prominent in public affairs for half a century, by his wife, Elizabeth (Biles) (Beakes) Hughes, born in Dorchester, England, June 3, 1670, daughter of William Biles, a member of the first Assembly of Pennsylvania, many years a member of Provincial Council, and justice of the County Courts and far the largest landowner in Bucks county. Elizabeth Biles married (first) Stephen Beakes, who was also a member of Provincial Assembly at his death in 1699; and (second) in 1700, Matthew Hughes, above mentioned. By his second wife, Hannah Hughes, Colonel Wilkinson had three daughters, and one son, Colonel Elisha Wilkinson.
John married 1st Mary Lacy, May 27, 1740, and 2d Hannah Hughes, 1770. He had five children by his first wife and four by his second.
Samuel T. Wilkinson, a descendant of John, resident of Wrightstown, says, "My grandfather though a Quaker, was prominent Whig and Justice of the Peace, and took an active part in the revolutionary war, and the minutes of Wrightstown Monthly Meeting show that he was dealt with a number of times for taking too active a part in the war."
It will be remembered the Quakers denied all human authority, and regarded the power of the magistrate as delegated tyranny. Their members therefore were not to participate in building up, or sustaining any government. They preached purity of life, charity in its broadest sense, and denied the right of any man to control the opinions of others. To hold an office was a grave offence sic not to be passed by with impunity. "Hireling ministers," and "persecuting magistrates" were denounced particularly and personally. When Mary Fisher and Ann Austin arrived in Boston 1656, they were cast into prison for inveighing against magistrates and ministers, and the year following the legislature of that colony passed stringent laws punishing all who embraced their doctrines with fines, imprisonments, stripes, banishment and death. The federal commissioners recommended the enactment of this law by a small majority of one only. Soon the prisons were filled, and the old Elm tree on Boston common bore strange fruit, the bodies of suspended Quakers! The bloody law was not abolished till 1661. They had good reasons for denouncing magistrates.
Source: Memoirs of the Wilkinson Family in America, 1869
| HOME | EMAIL | SURNAMES |
Return to The Pennocks of Primitive Hall website.
The information in this database may contain errors. If you find any questionable data, or if you have something to add my findings, please feel free to e-mail me by clicking on the "E-MAIL" link above. Thank you!
Page built by Gedpage Version 2.21 ©2009 on 07 July 2020