Story
Chester, Pennsylvania, United States
William Brinton, son of Thomas Brinton and Ann Biddle, was from Nether Gournall, parish of Sedgley, Staffordshire, England. Sedgley was an ancient parish, located about four miles due south of Wolverhampton. The area was originally part of the ancient Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, in the Hundred of Seisden North. Sedgley was known as "Secgesleage" in King Ethelred's charter of 985, and as "Sedgleslei" in the Norman Domesday Book of 1086. "Ley" is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning meadow or clearing, so literally Sedgley means "the meadow of Sedge." In the pre industrial 1600's, this area was heavily populated and was described as a "heathenish place, where profaneness and ignorance abounded." Most common occupations were coal miner, laborer, a person who makes nails from iron rods, life digger, stone gatherer, etc. Dudley was the most important town in the area, complete with its own medieval castle. Dudley, however, was in the Country Worcestershire, while Sedgley, with its nine villages, was located in Country Staffordshire. Many of the early inhabitants of this area led miserable and desperate lives. It is not surprising, then, that this was fertile ground for religious dissent. Quakerism became very popular and the Brintons, Masons, Bagleys, and Biddles were early converts to this faith. (Hopkins, 1991)
He was born about 1630, and when a young man became a convert to the doctrines of the Society of Friends and married amongst them in 1659 to Ann Bagley, who was born in 1635. According to the records in England, they had five children: Ann, Edward (who died young), Elizabeth, William, and Esther.
With his wife, Ann, daughter of Edward Bagley, they came to Pennsylvania in the summer of 1684, and settled in the township since called Birmingham. As his home in England was near that town, it is supposed that he gave the name to the township. With them came their son, William, and daughters, Elisabeth and Esther. Their daughter Ann married John Bennett, 4, 18, 1684, and they may have accompanied her parents.
William Brinton had suffered persecution as a Friend, and in the year 1683 had his goods distrained to satisfy a fine imposed under the Nonconformity Act. Therefore, in the spring of 1684, William embarked with his wife and son William for William Penn's colony, leaving three daughters in England. In the new world they strove to help set up a holy commonwealth, based on peace and freedom.
The vessel had a safe voyage, sailing up the Delaware River and coming to anchor at a point known as Grubb's Landing, now in Brandywine Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware. William went seeking a location and quality soil which would be his permanent residence. He found this 12 miles back fromthe river, on an Indian trail which then led from the forks of the Brandywine to the Delaware. Here they found shelter in a cave and spent their first winter. The family suffered greatly and would have starved had it not been for the kindness of the Indians, who supplied them with game.
On his arrival in Philadelphia, and while detained there in making arrangements for a permanent settlement, he presented two certificates to a Friends' meeting "held at the governor's house" on the 4th of the 9th month (November), 1684. One of those certificates is from the Monthly Meeting of Dudley, and is dated the 15th of the 11th month, 1683. The other is from his "dealers & Correspondents," and is dated Jan. 14, 1683. In 1686 he received a patent for 456 acres of land, to which he made further additions by purchase. His death occurred in 1700, and that of his wife in the previous year. Their daughter Elisabeth married Hugh Harris soon after 2nd month (April) 12, 1686, by whom she had four sons and five daughters. Esther Brinton, her sister, married John Willis, of Thornbury, and had several children.
After his wife's death in 1699, he wrote, "As to the family she came of, they were not of the meanest rank as to worldly account; her father's name was Edward Bagley; he was accounted a very honest man and loving man; he died about fifty years ago. Her mother became an honest Friend and so continued till the day of her death. She remained a widow all the days of her life after the death of her husband, which was above thirty years. . . This is the 40th year since we were married."