John Snowden Jr

• General Notes
  • The North American, Philadelphia, Sunday, July 14, 1912
    Old Philadelphia Families
    by Frank Willing Leach
    
    This is part 2 (information on John Snowden b. 1685)
    
    It is with the other son, alone, John Snowden, with whom we have to deal, as the ancestor of the Snowdens of today.
    Of John Snowden, the younger, we have less detailed information than of his father, the colonist. He was born in 1685, probably at "White Hill," the Snowden homestead, in Burlington County, West New Jersy, or, according to another authority, in Falls township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
    The son removed to Philadelphia from Bucks County before his father. Like the latter, he was identified with the First Presbyterian Church for many Years.
    He established his home on Second Street-old number 141- below Walnut, his property extending from Second Street to Dock Creek. He had purchased it, March 19, 1705 of Edward Shippen, who, in turn, October 24, 1701, had bought it of William Penn. John Snowden devised the property to his son Isaac Snowden, and the latter, in turn, left it to his son of the same name, Isaac Snowden, Jr., who retained the ownership of it for many years. Indeed, for considerably over a century it remained in the Snowden family.
    A younger son of the first Isaac Snowden, Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden, who was born in the old house in 1770, left, in his diary, a very interesting description of the place. He wrote of the beautiful stream-Dock Creek-that flowed behind his fathers garden, with grand old trees on both sides, and recalled with fond memories his boyhood days, when he and his brothers went fishing in Dock Creek, and gathered quantities of fine blackberries that grew behind the stream.
    Like his father, John Snowden was twice married, first, November 10, 1709, at the First Presbyterian Church, to Mary Taylor, who died January 27, 1720. He remained a widower less than a year, apparently, marrying, October 4, 1720, at Princeton, New Jersey, Mrs. Ruth Harrison, Nee Fitz Randolph, widow of Edward Harrison, and daughter of Benjamin and Sarah (nee Dennis) Fitz Randolph.
    By this union, the Snowdens became identified with another Nottinghamshire family. Edward Fitz Randolph of that County, became a member of the Leyden Congregation, and was among the early emigrants to Massachusetts, he being mentioned as the owner of a house at Scituate in 1634.
    Having married Elizabeth Blossom, May 10, 1637, he removed, a third of a century or more thereafter, to East New Jersey, settling at Piscataway.
    Their youngest son, Benjamin Fitz Randolph, born at Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1663, accompanied his parents to Piscataway, and, in 1696, removed to Princeton, in the same Province, where he purchased one hundred acres of land of Richard Stockton. A son of his, Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, by deed dated January 25, 1750, presented four and a half acres of the above-mentioned tract, upon which Nassau Hall or Princeton University of the present day, was located.
    In a separate article hereafter, a more detailed history of the Randolph family-for so the name is generally known today-will be given.
    Ruth Fitz Randolph, above-named, a sister of Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, the patron of Princeton University, was born April 8, 1695. She was twice married as previously indicated, first, February 6, 1713, to Edward Harrison, who died November 30, 1715, and secondly, October 4, 1720, to John Snowden. She died September 24, 1780, and was buried at Maidenhead, New Jersey. John Snowden died in Philadelphia twenty-nine years previously- March 24, 1751.
    His will, dated February 5 1750/51, mentions his wife, Ruth, and five children, James, John, Jedidiah, Isaac, and Mary (Keen). He was, however, the father of nine children-by his first wife, Mary Taylor, five, to wit: James, Rebekah, Mary, Ann, and John: by the second, Ruth Fitz Randolph, four: Benjamin, Jedidiah, Isaac and Rachel. The baptisims of all nine of these children are found upon the records of the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia.
    The two elder daughters of John Snowden both married. Rebekah or Rebecca, born February 13, 1713, became the wife of Charles Edgar, September 22, 1730, while Mary, born in October 1715, married, first November 19, 1735, David Murray, and secondly, Matthias Keen. No attempt will be made to trace these female lines. The other daughter of John Snowden by his first wife, Ana Snowden, baptized July 23, 1717, died in infancy, as did also Rachel Snowden, the youngest child by the second wife, who was born January 22, 1734/35. Benjamin Snowden, the eldest son by the second wife, baptized September 17, 1721, is believed to have died single about 1748. The remaining sons, two by the first wife and two by the second, married and left issue.
    
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