Person:Robert Wilkins (7)

Information on Robert Wilkins

From "A Brief History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania", by Israel Smith Clare, pg. 33:

Robert Wilkins. —Robert Wilkins, an English Indian trader, first settled along the Conestoga creek, next to Richard Carter, who afterward moved farther up the creek. In 1718 Wilkins took up 200 acres of land along the Susquehanna river, and in 1727 he sold it to the Rev. James Anderson, whose descendants founded the town of Marietta upon it.

From "The Scotch-Irish in America, pg. 212:

In the years 1718, 1719, and 1720 a large number of Scotch-Irish from Donegal and Derry, in Ireland, arrived at New Castle, Del. They were all Presbyterians, and evidently had been well educated. They were a stalwart race, and fitted to found a new settlement in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. They at once pushed forward to the Conestoga River, then the frontier line. After arriving there they forced the line ten miles far ther back into the wilderness, along Chicques Creek and the streams running into it. They selected from two to three hundred acres each, and immediately commenced the erection of log dwellings, after which the next and most important of their acts was the organization of the infant community into a Presbyterian congregation.

The following is the list of the settlers prior to 1722: James Galbraith, Sr., and his sons, Andrew, James, and John; Robert Wilkins and his sons, Thomas, William, Peter, and John; Gordon Howard and his sons, Thomas and Joseph; George Stuart, Esq., and his son, John; Peter Allen, James Roddy, and James and Alexander Hutchinson; John and Robert Spear; Hugh, Henry, and Moses White; Robert McFarland and his eons, Robert and James; James Paterson, Richard Allison, Patrick Campbell, Robert Middleton, Thomas Bayly, Jonas Davenport, James Smith, three Samuel Smiths, James Kvle, James Mitchell, Thomas Mitchell, John Sterrett, Benjamin Sterrett, Joseph Work, Ephraim Lytle, David McClure, Samuel Fulton, Alexander McKean, Robert Buchannan, Arthur Buchannan, James Cunningham, William Maybee, William Hay, Henry Bailey, John Taylor, William Bryan, John Karr, Malcom Karr, Edward Dougherty, John Scott, and Hugh Scott. These are the men who organized Donegal Church in 1721, and Donegal Township in 1722.

From "Papers Read Before the Lancaster County Historical Society", Volumes 18-19, by Lancaster County Historical Society:

Another of the early English traders of this section whose descendants attained great prominence was Robert Wilkins, who settled near Conestoga in 1718, as indicated by a letter written by James Steel, the surveyor for Chester county, which county at that time included all of our present Lancaster county. It read as follows:

Philada, 6th 1st Mo. 1727. “Loving friend Isaac Taylor:

“Some time in September, 1718 Robert Wilkins obtained a warrant for 150 acres of land near Conestoga as it was then called. Some time after he paid £10 of the purchase money, upon which he was allowed to add 50 more acres. Now, Robert Wilkins having sold his rights in the said land to James Anderson the Presbyterian minister of those parts, who, finding the survey begun but not finished, he desires the same to be completed and if there be any vacancy adjoining that may accommodate him, I desire thee to include it for him and send u. return into the Surveyor general's office.

“I am thy real well wishing friend

"JAMES STEEL."

In 1719 Robert Wilkins bought 300 acres along the Susquehanna and laid out the town of Waterford, now Marietta.

In 1727 he sold this tract to Rev. James Anderson. Thomas Wilkins, the oldest son oi.‘ Robert, in 1718 took up 200 acres along the river, which he sold to John Lowrey and which afterwards became part of the Duffy estate. He then purchased the tract adjoining the Donegal meeting-house, which he later sold to Gordon Howard. He died in 1747, leaving two sons and two daughters, viz: Andrew, John, Mary and Elizabeth.

Robert's son, Peter, located in the Cumberland valley, where he died in 1748, survived by his wife, Rachael, two sons, William and James, and one daughter, Margaret.

John, the third son of Robert, was an Indian trader who owned several hundred acres adjoining Gordon Howard's tract. He was the first man to take an aggressive stand against the Marylanders during the boundary difliculties1 He was wounded several times. The Governor of Maryland offered $50 for his arrest. John Hendricks, who had turned traitor to the Penns, led him into an ambush prepared by Cresap, where he was captured and imprisoned in a filthy cell for many months in the Annapolis jail. He died in 1741, survived by his wife, Rachael, and five children. In 1742 his widow married John Ramsey,an uncle of David Ramsey, the noted historian, and a distinguished General in the Revolution. John Ramsey died in 1746, and in 1751 his widow was again married to Gordon Howard by a Lutheran minister in Lancaster. in 1755 her third husband died, after which she lived with her stepson, Jos. Howard, until she died.

1.   Lynx2Ulster. The Scotch Irish in Donegal, Derry, and Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, after 1718. (http://www.lynx2ulster.com/ScotchIrishPioneers/014.php: Lynx2Ulster).

   Semple, Wilkins, Howard, Galbraith, Scott

2.   Bolton, Charles Knowles. Scotch Irish Pioneers: In Ulster and America. (Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States: Bacon and Brown, 1910)
   Page 217.

   IMMIGRATION: 1719-1722 PENNSYLVANIA, Chester County, Donegal Township. 1719 immigration to Chester County, Pennsylvania. On record in 1722 in Donegal Township: Robert McFarland and sons Robert and James (Presbyterian). Also
   families recorded were: Robert Wilkins and his sons Thomas, William, Peter, and
   John; Gordon Howard and his sons Thomas and Joseph; Hugh, Henry and Moses White.
   Came from lands west of River Foyle (Tyrone County?), Ireland.