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An American Family History

The Grubb Family

 

John Grubb was christened in England on August 16, 1652.

When he was a boy, John apprenticed as a tanner.

On March 3, 1676, John signed the Plan of Government for the Provence of West Jersey.

In 1677, John Grubb came to America on the Kent.

His wife was named Frances.

Emanuel Grubb (1682, married Anna Hedge Koch),
John Grubb (1684, married Rachael Buckley),
Joseph Grubb (1685, married Sarah Elizabeth Perkins),
Charity Grubb (1687, married Richard Beeson),
Phoebe Grubb (1690, married Richard Buffington Jr. and Simon Hadley),
Samuel Grubb (1691, married Mary Bellerby),
Henry Grubb (1692),
Nathaniel Grubb (1693, married Ann Moore), and
Peter Grubb (1702, married Martha Bates and Hannah Mendenhall).

In 1682 he acquired a third interest in 600 acres on Naaman’s Creek in the Brandywine 100.

On September 3, 1691he bought land from Thomas Gilpin next to the Naaman’s Creek tract and built his tannery.

In 1692 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly.

In 1698, he was elected for a second term.

In 1700 John moved to Marcus Hook (Chichester Town), Pennsylvania .

John wrote his will in 1708.

After his death, Frances married Richard Buffington Sr..

A tanner treats animal skins to produce leather. After the tanning process, the currier dresses, finishes and colors the tanned hide.

tanner
 

 

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Will of Phebe Buffington Hadley

Be it remembered that I Phebe Hadley of the Township of West Bradford in the County of Chester & Province of Pennsylvania, Widow, knowing the uncertainty of Life do make this my Last will & Testament in the following Manner..

Imprimus: My Will is that all my Just debts and funeral charges be first paid and discharged as soon as may be after my decease by my Exectr hereafter named...

Item - I give to the Heir of my Late Husband Simon Hadley the sum of Five Shillings

Item - I give unto my daughter Phebe Wall the wife of John Wall all my wearing apparrel

Item - I give unto my son Nathaniel all the Bonds and Debts which are now due to me or payable from him in Leiu of all other Bequests

Item - I give unto my son Peter Buffington and my son-in-law John Wall the several obligations and debts that they are now indebted to me respectively to each their respective debts in Lieu of all other bequests.

Item - I give thirty pounds to be equally divided between all my children now living and my son in law Samuel O [Osburn] and my granddaughter Frances Buffington share and share alike it being for building a house on my land

And all the remainder part of my estate both real and personal not heretofore bequeathed I give to my sons John Buffington his heirs and assigns forever, he or they providing for me a good and sufficient maintainence during my natrual life and decently burying me when I am dead.

Lastly I do hereby constitute nominate and appoing my son John Buffington to be sole executor of this my last will and Testament and I do hereby utterly revoke and disannul all other and former wills by me heretofore made ratifying and confirming this and no other to be my last will and testament.

In witness thereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this second day of the ninth month anno domini 1767.

Signed sealed published and declared by the testator

Phebe Hadley

as her last will and testament in the presents of us

RichardBuffington,
Robert Buffington
John Snow

It was common for bequests in Colonial America to include wearing apparel.
 
 
 

from Colonial Families of Philadelphia, Volume 2 vy John Woolf Jordan

John Grubb, the most prominent of all these early settlers of the name and the ancestor of the now numerous family of the name in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and elsewhere, is said to have been born in Cornwall, England, 1652, and to have come to the Delaware river, in the ship Kent, 1677. He obtained a grant of land at Upland, now Chester, Pennsylvania, 1679, and at Grubb’s Landing, New Castle county, now Delaware, 1682, and subsequently elsewhere, in both the Lower Counties, as Delaware was then known, and in Pennsylvania...

John Grubb, the early settler on the Delaware, who was born in Cornwall, 1652, and whose wife was Frances Vane, of Kent county, England.

This John Grubb, son of John and Helen (Vivian) Grubb, the pioneer settler, with William Penn, Richard Buffington, and others, signed the Plan of Government for the Province of West Jersey, bearing date March 3, 1676, and at the age of twenty five years sought his fortune and a career in the New World. Whether he emigrated direct from Cornwall is not certainly known. As his father was buried in 1667, in the family Churchyard at Potterne, Wiltshire, it is possible that John may have lived in Wiltshire at about the time he came to America...

During his thirty years of rugged and arduous pioneer life on the Delaware he proved himself to be a man of enterprising, vigorous and sterling qualities, and of practical business ability. He was prominent and influential in his section, and successful in his career as legislator, magistrate, farmer and leather manufacturer. He not only cleared and cultivated the various tracts of land he owned, but he also, in practical recognition of the needs of a pioneer people, erected a tannery near Grubb’s Landing and was one of the earliest manufacturers of leather in Penn’s new Province. He also, conformably to the provisions of Penn’s very practical law and the custom of the most prominent settlers, had each of his sons taught a practical trade, in order that they might be prepared for every contingency incident to those early times.

In November, 1679, a tract of three hundred and forty acres of land on Chester creek, near Upland, now Chester, Pennsylvania, was conveyed to him and Richard Bufiington. He with this Richard Bovington or Bufiington, with whom he was closely associated, were defendants in a suit brought to the Court at New Castle, 1680, by Robert Wade, in reference to their tenancy or purchase of land belonging to Wade, and other matters in dispute.

On September 19, 1682, Stockdale’s Plantation of eight hundred acres in Brandywine Hundred, New Castle county, was surveyed to John Grubb, though a portion of it was in dispute between him and the Proprietary Government for a number of years, as shown by the correspondence of James Logan, Secretary of the Proprietors. It was located on Naaman’s creek and the Delaware river, and came to be known as Grubb’s Manor Lands. On May 9, 1691, there was surveyed to him by virtue of a warrant dated April 26, 1684, four and a half acres for a tan yard, on which he erected a tannery.

At the Court at Chester, January 6, 1684, he made a deposition in reference to a matter then pending, and is mentioned as "about thirty-two years of age." He was commissioned a Justice of New Castle county, May 2, 1693, and was elected a member of the Colonial Assembly, 1692-98-1700.

On June 3, 1698, Alice Gilpin, widow of Thomas Gilpin, conveyed to him one hundred and eight acres of land near Grubb’s Landing, on the Delaware, and in 1707 John French, Sheriff, conveyed to him one hundred and seventy-five acres in Brandywine Hundred. In 1703-4, he purchased land at Marcus Hook, Chichester township, Chester county. Pennsylvania, where he was living at the time of making his will in which he is named as of the county of Chester.

He died at Marcus Hook, March, 1708, in his fifty-sixth year, and was buried there in St. Martin’s Churchyard. He was not a Quaker, but like his ancestors adhered to the Church of England. His will was proved, filed and recorded in the Register of Wills’ Ofiice at Philadelphia, March 26, 1708, but as he was a large landowner in New Castle county a copy thereof was filed in the Wills’ Office at New Castle, Delaware.

Frances (Vane) Grubb, of Grubb’s Landing, married (second) Richard Buffington, her first husband’s friend and associate, as has been shown by deeds signed by them and by other circumstances, and thereafter lived in Bradford township, Chester county, where she died, prior to 1721.

 
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©Roberta Tuller 2024
tuller.roberta@gmail.com
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