Elizabeth Thompson

The only light that we can throw on the history of the first generation of the Thompson family in Pennsylvania is that of a family tradition, always rather vague as to chronology sometimes so vague and mysterious as to be almost worthless, to the honest historian. However the writer of these lines has frequently encountered traditions almost as mythical as those of Aladdin's Lamp and Fortunatus' Purse, that held the fortunes of the universe, yet in every case a careful investigation of recorded facts, proved, or at least strongly corroborated, the essential points of the tradition, though the dates and localities were very erroneously stated in most cases.

We are glad to say that in the case of the Thompson family, the tradition in reference to the arrival of the American progenitors in this province is so clearly stated and so fortified by known facts and records that there is no reason to question it.

The family had its origin in the north of Ireland, that is, came to Pennsylvania from the northern provinces of Ireland, but was of pure Scotch origin, their immediate forbears having removed to Ireland to escape the civil and religious turmoils that harassed Scotland in the closing years of the Seventeenth Century.

The Ulster Scots, or Scotch-Irish, as they are generally called, clannish by training in their native land, were true to this training in their exile in Ireland, and even on their removal to Pennsylvania. Therefore we find each consignment or shipload of these sturdy pioneers were more or less connected by ties of consanguinity, and insisted on settling in communities and in close association with each other.

Thus we find those arriving after 1725, when the open tract along the Neshaminy, from the forks northward and westward, had been settled almost exclusively by Scotch-Irish families arriving just previous to that date, took up adjoining land and affiliated with their compatriots. If the consignment was too large to be accommodated, they moved on into the wilderness to find sufficient open land to accommodate them, rather than settle among strangers to their faith and race.

married in County Tyrone

The tradition in the Thompson family is that one, Elizabeth McGraudy, having married in County Tyrone, Ireland, about the year 1719, one Thompson, whose given name the family tradition seems to have more lately decided to be Hugh, and about the year 1740," having been left a widow with four sons, the youngest a lad in his early teens, decided to emigrate to Penn's colony in America, accompanying relations and friends from the same locality The tradition states that when she was about to take ship, her aged father on his knees besought her to remain in Ireland, and on finding her obdurate, poured out an earnest prayer to God to preserve her and her family from the perils of the sea, and a life in the wilderness among wild beasts and without the accustomed environment of a civilized life.

We find that, between the years 1735 and 1742, the greater part of the land on the west branch of the Neshaminy in Warwick, Warrington and New Britain, was laid out to settlers who had recently arrived from the North of Ireland. At about the same time or a little later, small detached parties of Scotch-Irish made settlements in Newtown, Upper Makefield, Northampton, Warminster and Southampton, mostly on the edges of the settlement about Neshaminy Church of Warwick, founded in 1727, with a slight overflowing into Wrightstown.

Immediate Family

With Elizabeth Thompson and her family, came her brother, Samuel McGraudy, and doubtless, other relatives of herself and her husband. Samuel McGraudy, in the year 1753, purchased a tract of 301 acres of land in Warwick township, adjoining the Samuel Fairies Mill tract, located by the Mearns and Ramsey families, with both of which the second generation of the Thompson family became allied by marriage. As this tract had been held solely by land speculators up to the time of McGraudy's purchase, it is probable that it had been occupied for a number of years by some of the family, and it may have been the temporary home of Elizabeth Thompson, and her four sons, Hugh, Robert, William and John, all but the eldest of whom were millers, and, doubtless, learned their trade in some of the nearby

[Image for Genealogy of the Wilson-Thompson Families ]

Neshaminy mills. Whether the other two or three Thompson Scotch Irish families, who settled in this locality at about the same date, were relations of the family of the Tyrone widow is not known, but the similarity of names of at least one of these families that settled near the County line in Warrington, is significant. These are probably of the same line. Letters of administration were granted upon the estate of Robert Thompson of Wrightstown, October 3, 1745, to Thomas More, of Plumstead, and Hugh Thompson, of Wrightstown, their sureties being David Spear and Samuel McElhose, of Wrightstown. One item of the inventory in the estate of the deceased was, "Bond due from John Wilson œ10 13 sh." The estate was small, less than œ100, and the vocation of the decedent was given as laborer. He was possibly an uncle of the Thompson brothers with whom this narrative is concerned.

Samuel McGraudy apparently went with Henry Jamison (another pioneer settler on the Neshaminy in Warwick on a tract adjoining McGraudy's,) to Florida. His will dated at "Pensacola, Province of West Florida," January 31, 1765, was probated at Philadelphia, February 4, 1766. It devised his estate to his wife Margaret, and sons, Robert, Gaun,(1) and John; giving œ10 to "sister's daughter Elizabeth" without disclosing the name of either sister or niece. The son, Gaun, married a granddaughter of John Wilson, the founder of the Wilson family, with whom the Thompsons are allied, and an account of the family is given in the Wilson family.

Elizabeth (McGraudy) Thompson, born in Ireland (or Scotland), September 20, 1695, (2) died in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, September 29, 1768, and is buried at Neshaminy Presbyterian Church of Warwick.