Deborah Wharton

"Deborah Fisher Wharton (1795 – 1888) was an American Quaker minister, suffragist, social reformer and proponent of women's rights, and the mother of industrialist Joseph Wharton. She was one of a small group of dedicated Quakers who founded Swarthmore College. She was a contemporary and friend of Lucretia Mott and had many of Mott's sympathies but did not actively pursue the women's rights cause, rather she was a proponent of liberal Quaker spirituality." from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Fisher_Wharton]

Deborah Fisher's father was a man of ample means, and the family connection, which on each side was a large one, as well as many others, especially members of the Society of Friends, always found a warm welcome at the home of Samuel Rowland and Hannah Rodman Fisher. They were most liberal givers to those needing and worthy of their assistance, dispensing their charities quietly and without show. Surrounded by this unostentatious and Friendly simplicity of life and the hospitality and real benevolence that accompanied it, Deborah Fisher passed her girlhood. Her face of singular beauty, her manner, which had the charm of entire freedom from affectation, together with her education, so carefully looked after by her most excellent mother, well fitted her to be admired and loved, as she was by the family circle in which she moved and by all whom she met.

In 1817 she married William Wharton, a gentleman whose religious convictions had already compelled him to assume the plain garb of the Society of Friends, to the service of which Society he and his wife in the future devoted much of their time. Deborah Fisher Wharton was a minister in this Society for the greater part of her life, and her husband was perhaps equally useful to it by his counsel and example. Her great interest was in the care and education of her ten children, of whom but one died in childhood ; outside of the home and family circle, and, perhaps, that of the Society of Friends, nothing appealed more strongly to her feelings than the sufferings of the Indian tribes of this country. Many were her visits to the government at Washington and to the distant homes of these deeply-injured people in her endeavors to aid them in the simpler arts of civilization and redress their wrongs.

After her marriage her house was the home then given to her by her father, in Philadelphia, in Spruce Street below Fourth, and here as well as at her summer home, " Bellevue," her hospitality and charities were most freely dispensed, as she had learned the lesson from her parents. William Wharton died in 1856. As the years rolled by and her contemporaries left the scene, she shared the joys and soothed the sorrows of the younger generations. At her death she left but one of a group of between forty and fifty first-cousins to survive her.

Deborah Fisher Wharton was beloved by all those who were so fortunate as to know her, and they were many indeed. The great points of her character were her genuine kindness and goodness and her strong intelligence. The charm of her manner was the simple reflection of her truthful and guileless nature and her love for the Golden Rule, and arose from no artificial politeness or attempt for effect or show.

Deborah Fisher 5 (Samuel E, 4 , Joshua 3 , Thomas 2 , John 1 ), b. Oct. 24, 1795 ; d. at Newport, E. I., Aug. 16, 1888 ; m. June 4, 1817, "William "Wharton, b. June 27, 1790 ; d. Jan. 15, 1856 ; son of Charles "Wharton and Hannah Redwood, his wife.

Children :

• 272. Hannah "Wharton, b. Mar. 6, 1818; d. July 14, 1893; m. Robert Haydock.
• 273. Rodman Wharton, b. Jan. 26,1820; d. July 20, 1854 ; m. Susanna D. Parrish.
• 274. Sarah Wharton, b. Deo. 10, 1821 ; d. Dec. 29, 1866 ; in. Abraham Barker.
• 275. Charles W. Wharton, b. Dec. 3, 1823 ; m. Mary Lovering.
• 276. Joseph Wharton, b. Mar. 3, 1826 ; m. Anna Corbit Lovering.
• 277. Mart Wharton, b. Jan. 17, 1828 ; d. Oct. 27, 1856 ; m. Joseph D. Thurston.
• 278. William Wharton, Jr., b. May 19, 1830; m. Anna Walter.
• 279. Samuel Fisher Wharton, b. Aug. 11, 1832; d. Feb. 25, 1843.
• 280. Anna Wharton, b. Mar. 30, 1834; d. Nov. 20, 1863, num.
• 281. Esther Fisher Wharton, b. Jan. 20, 1836; m. Benjamin R. Smith.