The Wright Family of Bucks County Pennsylvania

  

Lower Bucks County Pennsylvania

I am not really sure how to do this.  I think I will first concentrate on the early Wrights of Bucks County (that in itself may take 2 Posts), then the later Wrights of Mercer County Illinois.  I may have to divide this up differently but will edit as I go.  
My Direct Male Wright line is My Brother's sons (1), My Brothers (2), My Dad, Robert Wayne Wright (3), My Grandfather Robert Burns Wright (4), My Great Grandfather, Traverse Rock Wright (5), My 2 Great Grandfather, James Monroe Wright (6), My 3 Great Grandfather Joshua Wright (7), My 4 Great Grandfather, Joshua Wright (8), My 5 Great Grandfather James Wright (9), My 6 Great Grandfather, Anthony Wright (10) The earliest known Wright ancestor is Anthony Wright who died in 1749 in Middleton, Bucks County PA.  He was a Farmer; we do not know if he was the Immigrant ancestor; we do not know who his parents were or when he was born.  The earliest ancestor I inherited from Grandpa Wright was James, the son of Anthony, but I have managed to prove one more generation.  
Many of Anthony's genealogically minded descendants have tied him to a Wright family known commonly as the Oyster Bay Wrights.   Anthony, Peter and Nicholas Wright, an Uncle and 2 nephews, members of the Kilverstone Wrights of Norfolk immigrated in 1636 and were instrumental in founding Oyster Bay on Long Island.  Both the brothers Peter and Nicholas had grandsons named after their childless Uncle Anthony.  Many have felt that Anthony, son of Gideon, son of Peter was our Anthony who died in 1749 in Bucks County.  DNA has proven that this is not so-I cannot stress this enough!!  Our male DNA does NOT match the DNA of descendants of this family.  Many insist however on ignoring this fact and you will find many family trees online that tie us to the Oyster Bay/Kilverstone Wrights.  This is probably because this line, thru a female descends from King Edward III of England.  Therefore many genealogists take it and run without verifying information and sources.  Apparently my family was not Royal, we were carpenters and farmers and I am very proud to say that I am of this Wright Line.  They are Non-Royal, Non-noble, hard-working, honest folk with more than their measure of integrity.

  More can be found about the Oyster Bay Wright Family at http://peterwrightfamily.blogspot.com/

Our Anthony married a Mary Bustill of Burlington, new Jersey.  She was the daughter of  Samuel Bustill (1690-1742) and Grace Gardner Bustill.  Samuel, an Attorney was a Quaker.  He was the son of William Bustill (11898635-1710) and Elizabeth Tonkin (1667-1714) 

The above is the abstract of the Will of Samuel Bustill-note that he was a Slave Owner, very unusual for a Quaker.  The Slave named Cyrus is our 7th Great Half-Uncle.  Cyrus was the son of Samuel Bustill and an unknown Slave Woman.  He was sold to a man named Prior who taught him the Baking Trade, then set him free.  Cyrus was quite active in the Quaker faith and helped free many other enslaved African-Americans. He also is considered A Revolutionary War hero as he used his Baking skills to feed the troop in and around the Burlington area.  You can read more about the amazing life of Cyrus Bustill at https://www.quakercloud.org/sites/default/files/attachments/Cyrus%20Bustill.pdf

One of the descendants of Cyrus Bustill was Paul Robeson, American activist, athlete and singer.  His biography can be found here http://www.biography.com/people/paul-robeson-9460451

His fabulous rendition of "Ol' Man River" from the 1937 play "Showboat" is shown below

Our Half 4th Cousin, 4 Generations removed

Paul Robeson (1898-1976)

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Anthony Wright and Mary Bustill Wright had nine children.  Our Grandfather James is not mentioned in the Will,  but he is mentioned in the Wills and other Court documents of several of the other siblings who were listed.  Three of the children are mentioned, Joseph and Benjamin, the 2 eldest boys as Executors and Lydia, the eldest girl who was bequeathed Anthony's bed and other furnishings.   The Will reads something like "and my other children..." .  We also have proof that our James is a son of Anthony and Mary in the DNA testing.  Our male DNA, which my brothers and their son's inherited from our Father, who inherited it from his father and so on back, matches the DNA of the descendants of Andrew, another of the sons of Anthony and Mary and a Brother of James.    Now, our DNA could have come from an Uncle or male Cousin of Anthony but there are no other Wright families in Bucks at this time with a son named James.  So Anthony becomes our most distant male Grandfather Wright.

Abstract and Will of Anthony Wright

New St Mary's Episcopal Church, Burlington, New jersey

James Wright (1715-1761, born in Middleton, Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Anthony and Mary Bustill Wright.  He married Mary Stackhouse  (1720-Unknown Death date) at St Mary's Episcopal Church in Burlington, N.J.in November 1744. 

I visited the graveyard briefly this past summer-there is a good chance that this couple James and Mary are buried there as they were married in this Church.  There was an Episcopalian Church, St James, In Bristol PA, across the Delaware River from Burlington and later generations of Wrights are buried in that Church yard.  The earliest Wrights however, seemed to belong to St Mary's.    I do not know the cause of James's death-he was 46.

 In 1763, a Mary Wright, widow married William Burroughs at St Mary's Episcopalian Church in Burlington, NJ/  I can find no trace of them after that.  Some of the trees on ancestry.com, have Mary dying in Virginia-I do not agree with this theory as she had young children (our Grandfather Joshua, the eldest boy was 13 and he had 3 younger brothers) when James died and they all were living in Bucks County as adults.  I believe she remarried and died in Bucks. I have no proof of this except the entry of Widow Wright and William Burroughs marrying in 1763.  I cannot find the couple listed in the Tax records or anywhere else.  Part of the problem is that Burroughs can be spelled so many different ways..Burroughs, Burrows Burrus, Burris, Burras.  Today, spelling is more standardized but back in the 18th Century you spelled a word or name, however you felt like it...sometimes differently in the same document.  In the County Records, Will Abstracts for Bucks County, there is a William Burroughs in the index-if you go to the page listed, it is William Burrass.  It is not his Will so that I might have other family names to go by.  He was a Witness to someone's will.  Who knows if this is the same guy I am looking for.  10 years after the Marriage, I do find a William Burris in the same Militia Company as our grandfather Joshua and his brothers Jonathon and Charles (Mary's sons, they would have been William's Step-sons).  He would have been in his 50's if this is he...it could also be a son.

Mary Stackhouse was a member of a very large Bucks County Family that came to Pennsylvania in 1682  .  They originated  in the Hamlet of Stackhouse, Parrish of Giggleswick, West Riding of Yorkshire.  It was a very ancient Saxon family.

 In 1682, members of the Quaker Stackhouse family sailed with William Penn on the Ship the Welcome for the New World and Pennsylvania.   Again, like the Oyster Bay Wrights, we have an Uncle,  Thomas Stackhouse who was childless  and his two adult nephews, Thomas and John Stackhouse who left numerous descendants. (Witness Stackhouse-Moore Funeral Service in Geneseo, Illinois.  These Stackhouses are most likely very distant cousins).   I have not been able to fit Mary into either of families of Thomas or John-I am sure she fits in there somewhere.  Many on ancestry.com have plugged her into the family of Benjamin, a descendant of Thomas but there is no Mary in his list of children and he is almost too young to be her Father.
Mary's oldest son, our Grandfather Joshua (Senior) was named a Guardian for the 6 children of Samuel Stackhouse, who died in 1829.    I am working to see if this Samuel was perhaps the son of one of Mary's brothers in the hopes that I can tie her to the correct Family Group.

James and Mary had 5 children that we know of..daughter Elizabeth who married Thomas Cheston and four sons, Our Grandfather Joshua, Charles, Jonathan and Thomas. 

The next Wright Line Blog Post will deal with Grandfathers Joshua and Joshua Wright and their families but I will take a break from the Wrights and post something about the Maternal side.    I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with your families and friends.