People

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).

Jeremiah Carter (d. 1736/7, Chester Township)

Photograph to comeDocument image: the 1715 warrant, Jeremiah’s will or a deed (no likeness of him is known)From the Timothy family collection

Came to Pennsylvania in 1682 with his wife Mary; the 1715 warrant says “they came Servants into this Province in ye year 1682” SUPPORTED (Potts pp.28, 30 (Board of Property minutes and 1715 warrant, transcribed))
“Servant” here meant an immigrant whose passage was paid in return for a term of service, i.e. indentured. The family believes Jeremiah and Mary worked off their own passage; some later summaries say instead that he brought servants. The warrant wording favours the first reading, but the original has not yet been seen FAMILY TRADITION (Potts p.13 note; open question)
Arrived in 1680, before William Penn FAMILY TRADITION (Open question)
Born in England FAMILY TRADITION (Potts p.26)
Linen weaver (deeds); yeoman (will) SUPPORTED (Potts p.27; will)
Petty juror 1687 and 1688; constable of Chester 1689 DOCUMENTED (Court Record pp.123, 136, 152)
Will signed 17 Jan 1734/5, proved 6 Jan 1736/7 (Will Book B p.17) SUPPORTED (Potts pp.31–33)
Buried in the Carter graveyard HYPOTHESIS (Potts p.31; plaque)

Mary Carter (wife of Jeremiah; living 1734/5)

A Mary Carter sat on the 1689 Chester County jury of women DOCUMENTED (Court Record p.166)
That this juror was Jeremiah’s wife SUPPORTED (Potts p.27)
Maiden name “Babb” FAMILY TRADITION (Online tree only; no source)

Abraham Carter (b. 1700?, d. 1789)

Married Lydia (Clayton) Spruce SUPPORTED (Potts p.33)
Inherited the home plantation SUPPORTED (Potts pp.31–32, 48)

Edward Carter (c.1743–1821)

Son of Abraham and Lydia; farmer; assessed for 100 acres in 1784 SUPPORTED (Potts p.60)
1819 will left his plantation to his daughter Ann Roberts SUPPORTED (Potts pp.62–63)
His first wife Eleanor may be the “Elinor Carter” (d. 1810) recorded in the Carter graveyard HYPOTHESIS (WPA 1936 survey)

Ann (Carter) Roberts (1771–1863)

Photograph to comePortrait of Ann (Carter) Roberts, if one survivesFrom the Timothy family collection

Married Samuel Johnson (1791), John Roberts, and John McMichael SUPPORTED (Potts p.84)

Hannah (Roberts) Coppock (b. 1807)

Married Israel Coppock, son of Abner and Mary, in 1826 SUPPORTED (Potts p.110)

Margery-Ann (Coppock) Phillips Curry (b. 1835)

Government headstone of Samuel Phillips, grave 3590, Antietam National Cemetery — Grave 3590, Antietam National Cemetery, Sharpsburg, Maryland. Photo: Kevin Timothy family collection.

Married Samuel Phillips in 1851 SUPPORTED (Potts p.169)
Samuel died at Shepherdstown in September 1862 and is buried in Antietam National Cemetery, grave 3590 SUPPORTED (Family confirmation; headstone photograph)
Married William Curry in 1864 and lived in Trenton, Iowa SUPPORTED (Potts p.169)

Bessie Mae Phillips and Howard Edward Phillips (1884–1960 and 1884–1945)

Photograph to comePortrait of Bessie and Howard PhillipsFrom the Timothy family collection

Both born in May 1884 in Delaware County; first cousins SUPPORTED (Potts p.169; family tree)

The Clayton line

The Claytons are a direct line, not only an allied family. Abraham Carter’s wife Lydia (Clayton) Spruce (1716–1796) was a daughter of William Clayton Jr. and Mary (Marten) Clayton of Chichester, and a granddaughter of William Clayton and Elizabeth (Bezer) SUPPORTED (Potts pp.43, 46). Lydia’s elder sister Mary married Abraham’s brother Nineveh in 1731 SUPPORTED.

Generation	Person	What is known	Label
c.1588–1644	William Clayton the elder, Rudgwick and Boxgrove, Sussex	Burial 18 Apr 1644, Boxgrove parish register	SUPPORTED
c.1610–1659+	William Clayton, m. Joan Smith 1631	Will 1 Feb 1658/9, Chichester Consistory Court	SUPPORTED
bapt. 1632–1689	William Clayton, the immigrant, m. Prudence Lanckford 1653	Quaker carpenter; came on the Kent, 1677; presided at the first Chester County court, 13 Sep 1681; member of Penn’s Council	SUPPORTED
1655–1727	William Clayton, m. Elizabeth Bezer 1683	Chester County	SUPPORTED
—	William Clayton Jr., m. Mary Marten	Chichester Township; will 1757	SUPPORTED
1716–1796	Lydia Clayton, m. (1) John Spruce Jr., (2) Abraham Carter	Mother of Edward Carter (c.1743–1821)	SUPPORTED

Potts pp.43, 46–47; “The Clayton Family: The Branch from England to America” (family typescript, 2009, citing English parish research by Louis Jones).

Honour Clayton (b. 18 Jan 1662, Sussex), daughter of the immigrant, married James Brown in 1679 and lived in the Nottingham area SUPPORTED. She is Lydia’s great-aunt, not a direct ancestor.

Lord Thornhill, c.975. The family has handed down a descent from a “Lord Thornhill” of about 975 FAMILY TRADITION. What the sources show so far:

The Sussex Claytons can be traced reliably only to Thomas Clayton, baptised at Rudgwick in 1561/2. The step back to a Thomas Clayton who left a will in 1557 is a guess HYPOTHESIS.
The Thornhill name appears in a different Clayton family, of Clayton Hall, Yorkshire: Thomas Clayton married Agnes Thornhill of Fixby about 1560. Recent research finds no proven tie between that northern family and the Sussex Claytons HYPOTHESIS.
The Thornhills of Thornhill, Yorkshire are documented from Jordan son of Essulf, constable of Wakefield in 1174; nothing reliable reaches back to 975 SUPPORTED.
So the chain breaks twice: at Rudgwick about 1560, and between the Sussex and Yorkshire Claytons.

Photograph to comeClayton family document or portraitFrom the Timothy family collection

Allied families

Family	Connection	Label
Pusey	Caleb Pusey owned the land next to Jeremiah’s 215 acres (1703 plat) and witnessed Hannah Carter’s marriage in 1722. No marriage between a Pusey and Jeremiah’s line has been found.	SUPPORTED
Clayton	Abraham married Lydia (Clayton) Spruce; Nineveh married her sister Mary. See the Clayton line.	SUPPORTED
Dick	Sarah Carter married Thomas Barnard. Their daughter Mary Barnard married Archibald Dick and was the mother of Dr Elisha Cullen Dick (1762–1825), consulting physician at George Washington’s deathbed.	SUPPORTED
Brookings	Mary Eliza Carter married Dr Richard Brookings. Their son Robert S. Brookings (b. 1850) founded the Brookings Institution.	SUPPORTED
Martin	Mary Martin was wounded by British soldiers on 14 Sep 1777 near Cartertown. A family link to the Carters has not been documented.	FAMILY TRADITION
Roberts, Coppock, Phillips	The direct line; see The Family Line.	SUPPORTED

From the Archive

Thu 4 Nov 1880, p.3 · Delaware County Daily Times DOCUMENTED

“Carterville” No. 5: Robert Carter, the plough boy who built paper mills

Carterville's thrift and neighbourliness in 1800–1825, when "the borrower's word was as good as his bond", and how its sons went west or to Maryland's Eastern Shore. Robert Carter, "a Carterville boy, born in a log cabin on Chester creek, where six other brothers first beheld the light of day", learned paper-making on Darby Creek and settled in Cecil County, Md. His mills on the Elk River, four miles from Elkton, later became George W. Childs's paper mills, which made all the paper for the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Robert said his worst mistake was not buying the Upland mill-power before John P. Crozer. A grandson of his was then principal foreman of Childs's Marley mills. The series had five numbers (Nos. 3 and 4 are not in the archive).

Death of Priscilla B. Weaver, descendant of Jeremiah Carter

Priscilla B. Weaver, 81, widow of Samuel Weaver, died in Washington, D.C., on 9 Feb 1913 after a fall. She was the daughter of John Lloyd (soldier of 1812, Delaware County coroner for six years, born at Marcus Hook, died at Chester) and Ann (Carter) Lloyd. She was a sister of Mrs. Paul B. Carter and, on her mother's side, a descendant of "Jeremiah Carter, who settled at Cartertown in 1682". The notice adds a Lloyd pedigree back to Roderick the Great of Wales and Col. Hugh Lloyd (1761–1832?), associate judge.