The Cloud Family
Margaret Cloud married into the Carter line when she wed Joseph Carter (20). This page sets out what the records show about her Cloud family. Only facts labelled DOCUMENTED or SUPPORTED appear here, each with its source; open questions stay in the research archive until a record settles them. Only people who died before 1930 are named. See also the Cloud card on Allied Families and the Clayton family.
What the records show
Margaret Cloud m. Joseph Carter SUPPORTED
Margaret Cloud married Joseph Carter (20) (1749–1830), son of Abraham Carter and Lydia Clayton, at Old Swedes (Holy Trinity), Wilmington. The Delaware indexes give the date as 24 March 1776; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania gives 1775. Which year is right is still open.
Links: line of Joseph Carter · their son Cloud Carter
Delaware marriage indexes; HSP (Old Swedes register, 1775/1776)
Her parents: Robert Cloud & Magdalen Peterson SUPPORTED, strong
Margaret’s parents were Robert Cloud (b. 2 Feb 1723, d. 6 Apr 1801) and Magdalen (“Maudlin”) Peterson. Potts (1883) calls them “Robert and Madeline Cloud”; “Madeline” and Magdalen are the same woman, a difference of spelling only SUPPORTED.
Robert’s will (Brandywine Hundred, dated 20 Jan 1792, proved 20 Apr 1801, New Castle Co. Will Book O p.651) names “my daughters, Margaret Carter, Hannah Ford, Phebe Baldwin, and Susanna Cloud.” This rests on Potts’s published abstract of the will; the label will become DOCUMENTED when the original will in the Delaware Archives probate file is seen.
Potts 1883 p.~62; T. M. Potts, Genealogical Notes of the Cloud Family (typescript 1911–12), pp.34–35, 49–50
Robert & Magdalen married at Christ Church, 1749 SUPPORTED
Robert Cloud and Magdalen Peterson married at Christ Church, Philadelphia, on 16 November 1749. Because they married before a priest, Robert made an acknowledgement to Concord Monthly Meeting on 8 8mo 1750.
Potts 1912 p.49 (citing the Christ Church register and the Concord minutes)
Robert was the son of Joseph Cloud (d. 1745) SUPPORTED
Joseph Cloud’s will, dated 30 November 1745, names Robert as his eldest son and leaves him the home plantation. Joseph lived in Brandywine Hundred.
Potts 1912 pp.21–22, 34
The immigrant: William Cloud of Wiltshire SUPPORTED
William Cloud, a Quaker yeoman of Wiltshire, bought 500 acres from William Penn by lease and release dated 8–9 September 1681. The patent recital calls him “of Seene [Seend] in the County of Wilts”; other sources say “of Calne”. He arrived in Pennsylvania “in ’82” SUPPORTED (the ship is not known) and settled at Concord SUPPORTED. He belonged to Chichester Meeting and gave toward its first meetinghouse; he died in 1702, and his will was proved 25 August 1702 (Philadelphia Will Book B p.244) SUPPORTED.
Potts 1912 pp.10–11 (patent text via Gilbert Cope; Board of Property 11 12mo 1701); Futhey & Cope 1881; Smith 1862 p.453; Ashmead 1884 p.483
The western Chester County Clouds SUPPORTED
The Clouds of western Chester County come mostly through William’s son Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s sons Jeremiah Jr. and Mordecai settled in East Marlborough (now Pocopson) and Bradford.
Futhey & Cope 1881; Potts 1912
Carter and Clayton ties SUPPORTED
Clayton: by deed of 28 8ber 1698, William Cloud the immigrant assigned his 500-acre purchase right to William Clayton of Chichester. This is a land tie between the two immigrant families, not a marriage. See the Clayton family.
Carter: a Joseph Cloud signed as a witness to Nineveh Carter (6)’s marriage to Mary Clayton at Chichester in 1731. Which Joseph Cloud he was is not yet known.
Potts 1912 p.11 (Board of Property, 1 9br 1703); Potts 1883 p.44
A note on county lines
Chester, Chichester and Concord townships were in Chester County when the Clouds and Carters settled there. They passed into the new Delaware County in 1789 (Act of 26 September 1789, Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania). Older records for these families are therefore filed under Chester County.