ELIZA SIMS AND TWO LIBRARIES
By Clinton F. Cross
3. The Harlan Family in America
The first Harlan to come to America was George Harland (#3)(A.Harlan
2). Born in England, George was baptized on January 11th, 1650 at
the old monastery called the Monastery of
Monkwearmouth-Jarrow
Abbey in England.
The monastery was founded in 674 A.D. The “venerable Bede” studied
there, and he is buried there.
George Harland the first (references to “the first” or “the second”
are intended to assist the reader in distinguishing between
different individuals with the same name) converted to the Society
of Friends--that is the Quaker religion--and moved probably in early
manhood to the County Down in Northern Ireland, which was England's
first colony. In 1678 he married Elizabeth Duck. (Charles II was
King of England; in 1678 the English people were very agitated about
an alleged “Popish Plot” to kill the King--which turned out to be a
fraud). The marriage is recorded in the marriage registry in Lurgan
Meeting House, County Down, Ireland, as follows:
George Harland in the parish of Donna long, County of Down and
Elizabeth Duck of Lurgan in ye parish of Shank ell and County of
Ardmagh having intentions of marriage (according to God's ordinance)
did lay their said intents before ye mens and womens meetings who
taking it into their considerations desired of them to wait a time
in which time several friends were appointed to make inquiry of ye
several places where their residence are or of later yeare have been
whether ye man is free from all other women, and ye woman free from
all other men and whether their relations and parents are satisfied
with their said intentions. And they professing themselves a second
time before ye mens and women’s meetings and an account being bought
to ye meeting, where all things being found clear and their
intentions of marriage being several times published in ye meetings
to which they do belong, and nothing appearing against it, a meeting
of ye people of God was appointed at the house of the Marke Wright,
in ye parish of Shankell, on the 27th day of ye 9th month anno 1678,
where they being contracted the said George Harland declared
publicly and solemnly in the presence of God and of his people I
take Elizabeth Duck to be my wife and ye said Elizabeth Duck
declared in like manner, I give myself to George Harland to be his
wife, and I take him to be my husband, as witness our hands. Signed
George Harland and Elizabeth Harland (www.harlan.org).
Only seven years before their marriage, William Penn had been tried
for the crime of conducting a service for the Society of Friends on
the streets of London (the police having barred them from entering
their church). The jury refused to convict, in spite of the judges
instructing them to do so, thereby popularizing the right to trial
by jury.
In 1999, the New York Times ran a series of articles in which
scholars and authorities in science, entertainment, sports, and
politics opined on the most significant event in these areas in the
last one thousand years. Legal scholars were asked, “What was the
most significant legal case of this millennium?” The answer was
Bushell’s Case, which involved the trial of William Penn (Perdue
25).
George Harland migrated to America in 1687, two years after James II
ascended to the throne, and a few years after William Penn came to
America. He first settled at Centre in New Castle County, but soon
moved to the Brandywine and purchased 470 acres in Kennett, now Pennsbury, Township. He became a leader in the Pennsylvania Colony.
He was elected to the Provincial Assembly from New Castle County in
1695. Also that year William Penn appointed him to be the governor
of the three lower counties of Pennsylvania (which is now the state
of Delaware). In 1712 he was again elected to the Provincial
Assembly, this time from Chester County.
George Harland was one of the first of the Friends from Ireland to
settle in Kennett. While living in Kennett he had a settlement of
Indians for his neighbors, over the creek in a great bend. After
they went away, he obtained, in 1701, a warrant for two hundred
acres in this bend of the creek, the land being granted “in regard
of the great trouble and charge he has bore in fencing and
maintaining the same for the said Indians while living thereon.” (A.
Harlan 4).
George Harland the first attended many Quaker meetings, and the
minutes of those meetings still exist. Copies of a few of these
meetings are included in the Appendix to this paper, housed in the
Nicholas P. Sims Library. Interestingly, before they could marry,
Quakers had to have the approval from the Society, the congregation.
They also had to get permission from the congregation before they
could file a lawsuit against another member of the congregation.
Judges and lawyers today might consider that process a form of what
now we call in the legal field “mandatory mediation.”
George Harland was also instrumental in establishing a number of
Quaker Meeting Houses, including the
Old Kennett Meeting House,
which was built around 1710, and the Centre Meeting House,
constructed around 1711.
Old Kennett Meeting House
George Harland the first died on July 17th, 1714. His will, proved
August 2, 17l4, left his son Aaron his clock and great brass kettle;
he left his bother Michael Harlan, a young Susquehama mare; he left
his servant Mary Matthews, at expiration of time, a cow and calf and
mare. He directed that his body to be buried by his wife’s in new
burying ground on Alphonsus Kirk’s land (A. Harlan 5-6). (Alphonsus
Kirk was an old friend. He witnessed George’s marriage to Elizabeth
Duck in England in 1878 and he was one of the first of the Quakers
from Ireland who with George moved into the Kennett area).
The reports from the executors revealed a bit more property,
including a bed, wearing apparel, two pillows and pillow cases, two
sheets, one rug and one blanket, a bedstead, a chest, a table a
skillet, a frying pan, one gun, two cows, some horses, and a number
of other miscellaneous items (A. Harlan 6-7).
He is buried in the graveyard next to the Old Center Meeting House,
which was Alphonsus Kirk’s land (A. Harlan 2). His family did not
place an individual marker for George Harland in the graveyard. The
Quakers did not mark individual graves.
George Harland the first had a number of children, including Eliza’s
great-great grandfather, James (#11) (Harlan 19), who was born in
America in 1692. James the first grew up in Chester County,
Pennsylvania, and attended the Old Kennett Meeting House. In 1715,
one year after his father's death, he married a woman by the name of
Elizabeth.
James’ new wife, Elizabeth, may have been an Anglican. In any case,
James the first and Elizabeth were married by an Anglican priest
without prior approval by the Society of Friends. The Society of
Friends considered sanctioning James:
From the minutes of Center Monthly Meeting, 1, 2, 1716/17: Whereas
complaint having been made concerning James Harlan taking a wife
contrary to the good order established amongst Friends and hath been
labored from time to time to bring him to a sense of his weakness in
so doing but he yett seams to be insensible thereof, wherefore the
meeting appoints Robert Johnson and Dayen Miller to speak to him and
desire him to our next monthly meeting to see if he will condemn the
said action, and that he give account to the next meeting also (A.
Harlan 19).
James responded:
To the Monthly Meeting held at ye Senter this 4th Day of ye 3d
Month 1717: Whereas I Jeames Harlan have sometime agoe Married a
wife from amongst Friends Contrary to the good order established
amongst them which proceedings I am right sorry for and give
this as a Testimony against myself for said disorderly doings.
Given under my hand the day and year above said. JEAMES HARLAN
(A. Harlan 19).
The Quakers apparently forgave James Harlan,
probably because he acknowledged his wrongdoing. He was not
sanctioned or expelled from the Society (A. Harlan 19).
James and Elizabeth had ten children, eight boys and two girls:
George (Eliza’s great-grandfather), the second oldest, was born in
1718.
After the birth of his first five children, James the first moved
from Kennett Township to Nantmeal Township in the northwestern part
of Chester County, Pennsylvania. There James settled upon a tract of
500 acres. Although he did not secure a deed to it, he probably had
a legal claim to it as he conveyed his right to the land to one
James Gibbons by a deed in 1731 (M. Harlan 15). At that time George
Harlan would have been thirteen or fourteen years old.
Sometime between 1731 and 1744 James and his family moved to
Frederick County, Virginia (now near Martinsburg, Berkeley County,
West Virginia). Since James settled in the extreme north of the
Valley of Virginia, it is believed he and his family arrived early
in the migration, when the could find fertile land and a remarkably
valuable spring only three miles after crossing the Potomac River
(M. Harlan 15, 16).
James probably purchased the property in the lower Shenandoah
Valley, in what is now Spring Mills (near Martinsburg), West
Virginia (M. Harlan 18).
When James Harlan and his family settled in the Shenandoah Valley it
was a frontier. The early settlers often lived in primitive (by
today’s standards, at least) structures. The threat of Indian attack
was ever present. More than a few members of the Harlan family died
as a result of Indian attacks (A. Harlan 40, 105-106, 108).
During the Indian uprising in the 1750’s, and later during the
French and Indian Wars, many Quakers in Berkeley County began to
associate themselves with the Presbyterian Church. However, James
the first and his son George apparently remained faithful to the
Society of Friends as they did not participate in those struggles.
It is reported that both were subject to fines and imprisonment, but
steadfastly maintained the Friends’ unwavering stand for peace (M.
Harlan 16, 17).
James’ son, George Harlan the second, probably built the home at
Spring Mills, known as “Spring Hill,” which is located less than two
miles in a straight line to the Potomac River which today is the
boundary between West Virginia and Virginia, and which in modified
form still exists today (M. Harlan 18).
Eliza’s great-grandfather George the second (#45) (A. Harlan 40)
married Ann Hurst (Alpheus Harlan mistakenly identifies George’s
wife as Ann “Hunt”) (Norman 3). George the second and Ann had six
children, including Jehu the first (#212)(Harlan, 103), Eliza’s
grandfather; and James the second (#216) (Harlan, 106).
James the second, 1755-1816, was the grandfather of John Marshall
Harlan (#2969)(Harlan 658). President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed
John Marshall Harlan to the United States Supreme Court in 1877.
Jehu Harlan the first (1746-1806) was Eliza’s grandfather. He
married Sarah Johns in 1767-68, not long after the end of the
“French and Indian Wars.” Jehu the first and Sarah had eleven
children. The fourth, born in 1775, was Eliza’s father, Elijah
Harlan (#824)(Harlan 824).
On September 11th, 1777, almost fifty years after James the first
left the Brandywine area, British troops marched past the Old
Kennett Meeting House and engaged Generals Washington and Lafayette
in the Battle of Brandywine Creek. At the time, Eliza’s grandfather
Jehu the first was thirty-one years old and living at “Spring Hill”.
Eliza’s father, Elijah, was a baby.
When Jehu the first and his Sarah were fifty years old they deeded
land to the Falling Waters Presbyterian church for a church in
Falling Waters. The
Falling
Waters Presbyterian Church Hedgeville has served the Spring
Mills/Hedgeville community since its creation to this day. Sarah Harlan
died in 1805, and was the first of the Harlans to be buried at
Falling Waters Presbyterian Church. Jehu the first died in 1806, and
he was buried in the Friends Burying Ground of Falling Waters.
Falling Waters Presbyterian Church
In his will Jehu the first left Elijah the sum of $1,030 to be paid
at the rate of $200 annually by his executors which, with “what I
have already given him," he says he conceives to be his share of the
estate (M. Harlan 27).
Until recently, the descendants of Elijah’s brother, Jehu the
second, continued to live at “Spring Hill.”
Jehu the first died in 1806.
Shortly thereafter his son Elijah went to Tennessee.
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