Thomas Brassey of Pennsylvania
compiled by Edwin C. Dunn
The Conventicle Act of 1664 "forbade, under severe penalties, the meeting together for worship of more than five persons except in the case of the Church of England."1 The passage of this act by parliament resulted in ruthless persecutions of the Quakers in Britain. Thomas Brassey of Wilaston, Cheshire, was one such victim.
In 1674, he was deprived of goods valued at £26.0.0 for preaching at Willason.2 At about the same time, he and other persons were deprived of cattle and goods worth about £100 by Justice Mainwaring. Upon an appeal the sufferers were acquitted by a jury, but the Justices would not accept the verdict. "The chief Informer was one John Widdowbury of Hanklow, Esq., who being indebted £40, upon Bond to Thomas Brassey, a member of that Meeting, upon his demand of Payment was incensed against him, and then vented Wrath upon his Friends. He also had an old Excommunication revived against the said Thomas Brassey, and sent him to Prison, and swore he would send his Wife thither also."3
In 1679, there were 23 people who were convicted at the Quarter Sessions in Cheshire for being absent from their parish church for one month. They were fined £20 each and reported to the court of Exchequer as delinquents indebted to the King. These persons included Thomas Brassey.4
The result of this persecution was that Thomas Brassey joined the enterprise of William Penn in the establishment of a new colony in America. He signed the first frame of government drawn up in the colony. He was a member of the first Governor’s Council, a member of the first State Assembly, and a member of the first grand jury that convened in the colony.
William Penn was an early member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, as they were more commonly known. He was a son of Sir William Penn, a distinguished admiral, for whom King Charles II actually honored by naming the colony for him. The son decided to found a Quaker colony in America, and in 1679 he bought East Jersey, and then learning that the King was indebted to his father for £16,000 he accepted a charter for the tract called Pennsylvania in payment of the debt. In 1681, Penn was granted full legal authority over the colony.5
Penn offered land for sale in his new colony. In that same year, Thomas Brassey became a First Purchaser. "Deeds of Lease and Release, March 15, and 16, 1681, from William Penn to Thomas Brassie of Wilaston in the County palatine of Chester, England, Gentleman for 5,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania, for £100. Witnesses, Thomas Rudyard, Harbett Springett, Tho. Cox." This deed required that Thomas Brassey pay, in addition to the £100, one peppercorn annually to William Penn or his heirs. This land came to be in what is now Chester County, Pennsylvania.6
The Free Society of Traders was organized as a commercial company with plans for extensive colonization and improvement of the land. Penn granted this corporation 20,000 acres of land as a manor in Pennsylvania for their use. The first meeting of the company was held in London on 29 May 1682, and Thomas Brassey, who was named as one of the members in the charter from Penn, was elected part of a committee of twelve to reside in Pennsylvania.7
The Freeman of Liverpool with George Southern as master loaded on 7 June and dropped anchor in the Delaware River on 5 or 6 August 1682. On board was cargo belonging to Thomas Brassey as follows: 6 casks, 2 chests, 1 pann (equin), qty 60 lbs. Woolen cloth, 15 lbs. Norwich stuffs, 60 ells English linen, 6 doz. plain sheep leather gloves, 4 ordinary saddles, 2 cwt. cheese, 6 lbs. leather manufactured (skins dressed & ready for use), ½ cwt. brass manufactured, (per post in foreign bulk)9 6 cwt.8 wrought iron, 3 cwt. nails, 13 piggs,10 qty. 15 cwt. lead, (per post) 6 cwt. lead, 2 mill stones value £5.11
Thomas Brassey arrived in Pennsylvania several months before the president of the society. In September, Penn’s commissioners laid out 10,000 acres for a town, in which every purchaser of 5,000 acres was entitled to 100 acres. Fifty-four men took part in the drawing of lots on 19 September 1682. Thomas Brassey drew lot No. 30 on Second Street, lot No. 50 on Broad Street, lot no 44 on Fourth Street, and lot No. 36 on Back Street. This town was, of course, Philadelphia.12
Meanwhile, the ship Welcome sailed from Deal on 1 September 1682 with William Penn on board, who was visiting his new colony. Thirty people died of smallpox on the voyage. He landed at Upland (in Chester County), but Penn immediately changed the name of the place to Chester. He had soon laid out three counties: Chester, Philadelphia, and Bucks. By the time that Penn had arrived in the Delaware River and summoned a court to be held at New Castle on 2 November, Thomas Brassey was a member of the first Council and of the first court held in Pennsylvania.13
Following the creation of counties, elections were held for members of Assembly. No list of Chester County representatives exists, but Thomas Brassey is among those mentioned in the minutes of the first day as being on the committee of election and priviledges. The Assembly created a body of laws for the colony. It met first at Chester, then after a later election on 12 March 1683 at Philadelphia, with occasional meetings at New Castle, while the three "Lower Counties" (ie. the Delaware counties) were annexed to Penn’s colony. Brassey was a member of this Assembly, also.14
About 2,000 immigrants landed at Philadelphia in 1682, a good proportion of them Quakers.15 Thomas Brassey was "a justice of the courts for Upland and Chester County in 1682 and 1683." The first grand jury known to have sat in Pennsylvania was on 12 September 1682 at Upland, and Thomas Brassey was a juror.16
At the second Assembly in 1683, a second frame of government was adopted for the colony and the charter was signed by Thomas Brassey, as well as by Robert Bracy Sr., who was then living in Sussex County and represented that present-day Delaware county.17
Thomas Brassey was appointed a trustee when a Friend’s meeting house was proposed to be built in Chester in 1687. In 1690 he was named to receive a subscription toward the building of the meeting house, in the amount of £3.10.0.18
Thomas Brassey wrote his will as follows:19
Chester the 11th of ye 7th month 1690.
I Thomas Brace of ye town of Chester in ye Province of Pensilvania being by ye visitation of ye Lord sick of body but of perfect memory and not knowing how the Lord may Deal with me Do hereby dispose of all my Estate which ye Lord hath been pleased to intrust me with as followeth
Imprimis I order yt all my Just debtsf be first paid & my funerall Expences
Item all my Estate reall & personall I give to my two Daughters Rebecca Brace & Mary Brace & their heirs for ever Equally to be divided between them only my will is yt my daughter Rebecca Brace shall have & receive the first forty pounds yt can be raised out of my Estate & afterwards to be equally divided as above sd so yt the above forty pounds yt can be raised out of my Estate & afterwards to be equally divided as above sd so yt the above forty pounds may be accounted into sd shares or portions & if my Daughter Mary Brace should happen to dye before She come to marriage or one & twenty years of Age then her portion or share to fall to her sister Rebecca Brace & her heirs for ever & it is my will yt my Executors hereinafter named doo take ye care and guardianship of my daughter Mary Brace till she come to ye age of one & twenty years or day of marriage wich shall first happen then she to have & receive her portion or Equall share.
Item I give towards ye building of a meeting house in Chester for ye people of God called quakers to meet in three pounds
Item I appoint my trusty & beloved friends John Simcock Randall Vernon & John Bristow to be my Executrs of this my last will & testament revocking all other wills & testaments made by me they or any two of them to do all things of greater moment in witness whereof I have hereunto sett my hand & seale ye day & year first above written.
Thomas Brassie SS.
Sealed & delivered in the presence of
Caleb pusey.
Walter ffauset.
Proved: 9 mo. 18, 1690.
Thomas died on 16 September 1690 in Chester County, Pennsylvania.20
Brassey was married in England to Ann Scott,21 and he and his wife had three children:
1) Rebecca Brassey married Thomas Thompson, son of John Thompson of Elsenburg, Salem County, West Jersey, on "7th of ye 5th mo: 1690" (ie. 7 May 1690) at the monthly meeting held at Walter ffaucets.22
2) Mary Brassey married Francis Worley.23 They married on 3 February 1693 at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Mary died on 21 October 1728 in Pennsylvania.24 "Francis Worley was a prominent surveyor who moved from the Conestoga area which became Lancaster County to what is now York County Francis and Mary had at least sons Caleb and Daniel who are mentioned in Caleb Pusey’s will; a daughter Rebeckah who came back to Chester Meeting from Conestoga in 1718 to marry John Hendricks. The wedding certificate shows signatures by Francis & Mary Worley, of their son Bracey (Brassey), and also Caleb & Susannah."25
3) Achor Brassey, died "2,22,1683" (ie. 22 April 1683).26 The death in Chester County, Pennsylvania, was recorded in the records of the Chester County Monthly Meeting.27
1Anna Margaret Suppes Hay, Genealogical Sketches of the Hay, Suppes, & Allied Families (Johnstown, Penn.: Press W.H. Raab, 1923), p. 164.
2Joseph Besse, A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers … (London: L. Hinds, 1753), 2 vols., vol. 1, p. 105.
3Hay, p. 164.
4Hay, p. 165; Besse, vol. 1, p. 108.
5Hay, pp. 165-66.
6Hay, pp. 168-69, 411-415.
7Hay, pp. 170-72; Mary Maples Dunn & Richard S. Dunn (eds.), The Papers of William Penn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981-1987), Vol. 2, pp. 246-256.
8cwt. = hundredweight
9"Per post in foreign bulk" means the goods had arrived in Liverpool in a foreign vessel and might be subject to special duty.
10A pig was a block of lead weighing 100 lbs. or more.
11Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr. (comp. & ed.), Passengers and Ships Prior to 1684 (Baltimore, 1970), p. 38.
12Hay, pp. 173-74.
13Hay, pp. 176-79.
14Hay, pp. 179-81, 185.
15Hay, p. 181.
16Hay, pp. 184-85.
17Hay, pp. 185-86; Hay claims that Robert Bracy Sr. was the father of Thomas Brassey of Pennsylvania, but offers no evidence to support the claim. See the Braceys of Virginia-Delaware for more about Robert Bracey.
18Hay, p. 193.
19Hay, pp. 195-96; original recorded in Will Book A, Philadelphia City Hall, p. 182.
20 Brassey-Scott Family Group Sheet, prepared by Sandra McIntire, PO Box 27, Fairfield, IA (no date; sent to Ed Dunn, Albuquerque, NM, by Sandra McIntire, Naval Station, Box 500, Philadelphia, PA, on 9 Oct. 1983).
21Brassey-Scott.
22Hay, p. 194.
23Hay, p. 195.
24Brassey-Scott.
25George E. McCracken, The Welcome Claimants Proved, Disproved & Doubtful with an Account of Some of Their Descendants (Baltimore, 1970), p. 605.
26Hay, p. 195.
27Brassey-Scott
© 2000 Edwin C. Dunn
[Home][Pennsylvania]