Elizabeth Chapman (Wren) - Philip Chapman's wife.

I am uncomfortable with Elizabeth Wren as the wife of Philip Chapman who fathered James, Benjamin & 3 daughters in Bucks County PA..
Yes, I have seen the church records say Elizabeth Wren married a Philip Chapman in 1720. I'll come back to that.
I just can't see a couple married for TWENTY YEARS before the first child was born, and all 5 babies born between 1747 and 1756! That is implausible, even with a young bride(, and you show she was born i 1699.)
Did she have Benjamin at the age of 56?
Back to the wedding date, it IS possi8ble that the Philip Chapman that Elizabeth Wren married actually married " our" Philip Chapma's father! There were 4 children and "our" Philip was the second. It would be possible for the older 2 to have been born in the first couple of years of the marriage.
"Our" Philip came t NJ, and thence Bucks Co. PA after marrying in New Jersey, according to the biographies (2) of his grandson Rev. Alexander Chapman.(James' son).
I have collected bits and pieces of "Philip Chapman Information" in the last 23 years, assembling a decent profile for him, who he was kin to* and his work.
We know his father was a wool merchant in London. We know Phili and his older brother traveled to Scotland and Ireland on business for him., and were out of England when their father died( date unknown). I found that he was paid for carding wool in Hunterdon Co. N.J. in 1854. All this fits.( though all 5 children were born in Bucks C. PA.) Apparently he did business on both sides of the river separating Hunterdon & Bucks.
In various places I have found that he was referred t as" a cousin" to James Logan who came to Philadelphia with Wm. Penn. (Realizing "cousin" could actually be anything from a 3rd cousin, 2nd cousin, first cousin, stepson, son-in-law, etc. as it was common to call ANY kin " a cousin!... So take these "cousin" references with a grain of salt, but don't categorically dismiss them.)
He is also referred to as " A cousin" of The Reverend William Tennent Sr. This is plausible ( at least friends but likely kin) because he was a Presbyterian, as were both sons, and Philip's son Benjamin Chapman migrated to Campbell County VA. and joined Hat Creek Presbyterian church there, where Gilbert Tennent ( Son of William) was the minister.
In making information family trees for the Logan and Tennent families, I found they shared the families of Kennedy, Livingston, and Hume. Could Philip's mother or grandmother have come from those families?
Now, admitting that children are usually named for family but sometimes for people they admired...but Benjamin and his son William (a common name or possibly for Rev. Tennent) were named distinctive names :Wiliam Tennent Chapman, James Marshall Chapman ( James Marshal is a descendent of Philip's daughter Elizabeth), Theodore Frelinghuysen Chapman ( No connection to him yet, however someone of that name was a founder of Presbyterianism in America with William Tennent)....and the others can be attributed to family, ex: my great grandfather Benjamin Washington Chapman's twin Cicero Columbus Chapman was named for an uncle, brother of his mother Mary Smith Bond.
I have all this minutiae and imagining it spread out on a table, it makes fair start on putting together the puzzle of Philip Chapman.. Relying on other people's mention of him plus the family stories from Alexander's biography ( I found both in Bethel College Library 20 years ago) may not be solid proofs, and realizing some people tend to " gild the lily" in repeating family "facts", we have to go by "which is the more likely?".
Which is why I have never attached Eizabeth Wren as mother of Benjamin and James, Philip's wife, because she just does not fit any part of the time line. Not only is there that 20 year gap between marriage and the birth of the first child, it would make her 57 years old giving birth to Benjamin.
2 of Phili's 3 daughters were Mary & Elizabeth, so his wife may have had either of these names, and if Mary, his daughter Eliabeth COULD be named for his own mother, ( as in my supposition the Elizabeth Wren & Philip Chapman marriage was " our" Philip's parents.; as easily as if Eizabeth was his wife's (her mother's) given name.)
And I do nor swear to the veracity of ANY of this except that Benjamin was my 3rd great grandfather and my cousin Sarah Shaw descends in parallel from James. and we are solid on the descendant of Philip's sons Benjamin & James. ( possibly not complete, but accurate as far as we have it).
Has anyone found more to add to this or that contradicts any of it? I am 80 years old and would love to end this search for Philip's wife, and then who were his parents?
Catherine Fryer Cline, Cackycline@AOL.com,
@Philip Chapman,
@Elizabeth Chapman
@BenjaminChapman