John Hill Martin family history

This volume contains an extensive history of the Martin family of Chester County and Delaware County, Pennsylvania, created by John Hill Martin. Martin created the history during the 1870s-1890s, but included materials from both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

John Hill Martin originally created this family history in 1872, but as he noted in the volume, he had the “book rebound, St. Martin’s Day, November 11, 1894.” The original title page is transcribed: “Family Papers consisting of copies of Wills, and other important papers, or memoranda thereof; extracts from Family Bibles. Short sketches of personal history, and other interesting matters, relative to the families of Martin of Chester, and Philadelphia, and of the Crosbys of Ridley, in Delaware County in Pennsylvania, and their relatives and connections there and elsewhere. Written and collected and copied by J. Hill Martin. Of the Philadelphia Bar. Member of the Moravian and Pennsylvania Historical Societies. Apl. 10th-1872.”

The book chronicles Martin’s family, who lived primarily in Chester, Philadelphia, and Ridley, Pennsylvania. Other relatives resided in Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore, Maryland. Most of the volume—a combination of memoir, record book, and scrapbook—was handwritten by Martin, and includes many of his pen-and-ink drawings of family crests and homes. “Written, collected, and copied” items include letters, obituaries, family Bible records, wills, leases, deeds, diplomas, surveys, listings of births, marriages and deaths, family crests, inventories of family holdings, poems, personal documents, and the lyrics to ‘Martin, the Man at Arms’ by Bellamy. Also in their original form are advertisements, announcements, a business card, financial receipts, newspaper clippings, two portraits, and printed illustrations. The book is a compilation of miscellaneous family information, and has no overarching chronological arrangement. Eighteenth-century documents are interspersed among nineteenth-century ones, though the bulk of the volume consists of earlier documents copied or anecdotes written by Martin in the late nineteenth century.

The collection demonstrates Martin’s dedication to recording his family’s lineage. The book is filled with numerous genealogical records and historical notes. Several renowned local and national historical figures from the Mid-Atlantic region are chronicled: Jacob Broom (1752-1810), who was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and became a representative at the Constitutional Convention as well as the first Postmaster of Wilmington; and John Morton (c. 1724-1777), who was born in Ridley, and became a delegate for the First and Second Continental Congresses, as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

John Hill Martin created a compact and complex history of his family. He provided a list of 167 names that are interwoven into his ancestry. Although he did not complete genealogies for all of the families cited, he copied Bible records and other documents to substantiate relatives’ births, marriages, and deaths in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Personal notes are scattered throughout the text, often accompanied by drawings. He devoted considerable space to certain branches of the Martin family tree, including the Crosbys, Smiths, Bartrams, Bonds, Mortons, Welshes, Brooms, and Pierces. Other familial names can be found on pages 367-370. Martin was sure that his family was Quaker, but he was “never able to prove where the family came from.” His father told him that they were Irish Quakers from Dublin, but he found no evidence of his heritage (p. 321).

Within various sections of the volume Martin summarized his life (pp. 50-77, 165-168, and 247-249). He wrote about his childhood, and detailed the passage from early school days to a career as a lawyer. In this book he also wrote the history of Ridley School, which he extracted from the school’s meeting minutes (pp. 195-218).

Martin also wrote sketches of some of his immediate family, as well as ‘family servants.’ He wrote lovingly of both parents, describing their characters as well as their relationships to other relatives (pp. 309-310). Martin copied several other documents commemorating his brother, Dr. Ernest Dudley Martin, who was appointed by President Andrew Johnson to the position of Assistant Surgeon of the Navy (pp. 328-363). Dr. Martin served as Acting Assistant Surgeon in 1865, and from 1866-1868 he had a full commission. He died of yellow fever on the US flagship Powhatan. Martin’s brother was “aged 25 years and 16 days.”

From 1894-1896 Martin listed “some old family servants,” his “grandfather’s old servants,” his “father’s servants at Lenni Mills,” and their “servants in Philadelphia” (pp. 376-383). Two pages are filled with names and positions that included nurses, day workers, cooks, chambermaids, and waiting maids. Many of the workers were Irish. When Martin lived with his Hill grandparents in Ridley circa 1833, they hired Irishmen to work in their three quarries. Other workers were blacksmiths, quarry supervisors, night watchmen, and tailors.

The volume is bound with green cloth over boards. The text “MARTIN/LETTER AND RECORD BOOK” is stamped on the spine in gold lettering. The edges of the pages are marbled. The volume contains 480 pages, of which 84 are blank.