The Carter land on Chester Creek, 1682 to today

This is the history of one piece of Pennsylvania land and the family that came from it. In the 1680s Jeremiah and Mary Carter settled on Chester Creek in Chester Township, then Chester County and now Delaware County. The neighbourhood became known as Cartertown, or Carterville, and a small family burial ground on the tract survives today as the Carter Graveyard.

Below, generation by generation, is who held the land, who lived and was buried on it, and where their descendants went. Each statement is labelled by the strength of its evidence.

The Carter Graveyard in 2023: rough grass, scattered low stones and a stone wall along Concord Road — The Carter Graveyard, present-day condition (2023). Photo: Kevin Timothy family collection.

How to read the labels. DOCUMENTED an original or contemporary record · SUPPORTED a credible published source or sourced tree; original not yet seen · FAMILY TRADITION a handed-down story, not yet proven · HYPOTHESIS a reasoned idea still to be tested · DISPROVEN-CORRECTED shown to be wrong, with the correction. “Potts” means Thomas Maxwell Potts, Bi-Centenary Memorial of Jeremiah Carter (1883); “Court Record” means Record of the Courts of Chester County (1910).

From Jeremiah to today

Jeremiah and Mary Carter · Generation 1

Jeremiah and Mary came to Pennsylvania in 1682 as “servants” SUPPORTED: immigrants whose passage was paid in return for a term of work. By December 1687 a road was laid “across Jeremy Carters land” DOCUMENTED. Between 1690 and 1703 Jeremiah, a linen weaver, built up 285 acres on Chester Creek SUPPORTED. Here he served as juror and constable, and Mary sat on the 1689 jury of women DOCUMENTED. He died about the end of 1736 and left the home plantation to Mary, then to their son Abraham SUPPORTED. Whether they were buried in the family graveyard on the tract is not known HYPOTHESIS.

Potts pp.26–33; Court Record pp.117, 123, 136, 152, 166

Abraham Carter · Generation 2

Abraham (b. 1700?, d. 1789) married Lydia (Clayton) Spruce, granddaughter of the Quaker settler William Clayton, who presided at the first Chester County court in 1681 SUPPORTED; see the Clayton line. He inherited the home plantation and, in 1777, his brother Edward’s Chester Creek land SUPPORTED. After his death about 265 acres were divided between his sons Joseph, Daniel and Edward SUPPORTED. His brothers and sisters carried the family elsewhere: Nineveh to Bucks County for a time, Sarah’s line to Marcus Hook and on to Alexandria, Virginia.

Potts pp.31–32, 48, 60–64

Edward and Eleanor (Dod) Carter · Generation 3

Edward (c.1743–1821) farmed 92 acres of his father’s land SUPPORTED. His first wife, Eleanor Dod, had come from near Chester, England. The 1936 survey of the Carter graveyard records “Elinor Carter, died 10 Feb 1810, aged 65, wife of Edward J. Carter”. She may be Eleanor Dod HYPOTHESIS; see The Graveyard. In 1819 Edward willed his remaining plantation, “fifty acres more or less”, to his daughter Ann SUPPORTED.

Potts pp.60–63; WPA 1936 survey

Ann (Carter) Roberts · Generation 4

Ann (1771–1863) inherited that plantation in 1821 SUPPORTED. She married three times; the family line descends from her second husband, John Roberts, a coppersmith SUPPORTED.

Potts pp.62–63, 84

Hannah (Roberts) Coppock · Generation 5

Hannah (b. 1807) married Israel Coppock, a farmer, in 1826 and lived in Chester Township SUPPORTED. A “T. Maris Coppock” grave is listed in the 1936 graveyard survey; his relationship to Hannah is not yet known HYPOTHESIS.

Potts p.110; WPA 1936 survey

Margery-Ann (Coppock) Phillips · Generation 6

Margery-Ann (b. 1835) married Samuel Phillips in 1851 SUPPORTED. Samuel served in the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, died at Shepherdstown in September 1862 and lies in Antietam National Cemetery, grave 3590 SUPPORTED. In 1864 she married William Curry and moved to Trenton, Iowa SUPPORTED. Her children William H. and Lavinia stayed in Delaware County.

Potts p.169; Antietam National Cemetery

The Phillips cousins and their children · Generations 7–10

William H. Phillips and his sister Lavinia each had a child in May 1884, Bessie and Howard, who later married SUPPORTED. Their descendants lived in Chester, Trainer, Upland and Boothwyn, a few miles from the old Carter tract SUPPORTED.

Potts p.169; family tree

Today · Generation 11

Living descendants are kept private on this site.

Branches that left the land

Sarah Carter’s great-grandson (generation count being checked), Dr Elisha Cullen Dick (1762–1825), practised in Alexandria, Virginia, and was a consulting physician at George Washington’s deathbed DOCUMENTED.
Robert Carter (b. 1778 at Cartertown) built the Cecil Paper Mills near Elkton, Maryland; his grandson Robert S. Brookings founded the Brookings Institution SUPPORTED.
Other Carters stayed: Edward Carter the potter (1787–1875) worked at Carterville, and Carter heirs still held a lot beside the graveyard in 1931 DOCUMENTED.

When did Jeremiah arrive?

A 1715 land warrant says Jeremiah and Mary came in 1682 SUPPORTED, and that is the date this site uses. The family has long said he came in 1680, before William Penn FAMILY TRADITION. No record yet supports the earlier date; it remains an open question (see Corrections).

Are you a Carter descendant? We welcome records, letters, Bible pages and photographs. Find out how to contribute. Every submission is checked and labelled before it is published.