John Wray, The Welshman

John Wray, born between 1710 and 1715 in Wales; died before 1742. He married Isabel Jordan before 1737 in Lancaster, now Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. She was born before 1718 in Ireland; died after 1750. She was the daughter of John Jordan and his wife Catherine.

They lived in Lancaster Co. PA. I located a John Wray in Hopewell Township in 1751 in "History of Cumberland and Adams County, Pennsylvania" p. 15.A James Wray is listed in Vol 3 p 191 and 343. and a Robert Wray is also listed on p. 343. Could they have been brothers?

Isabel Jordan, who was of Scot-Irish lineage arrived with her parents in Pennsylvania, from Ireland, at the age of 15. Her first husband was the Welshman named John Wray, whom she married prior to 1737. They had one child, a daughter named Mary Wray, born 1737 at Lancaster Co. Pennsylvania. Mary Wray is mentioned on her grandfather John Jordan's 1750 will of Lancaster Co. Pennsylvania. After the death of her husband, Isabel married again, to a Barber. The second husband also died, leaving Isabel with another child, John Barber, and in very strained circumstances. She and her two small children lived with her father until the children were old enough to be bound out. Mary Wray was thus raised by her uncle, Col John Jordan, brother of her mother and married John Wilson. Her husband, moved to Lincoln Co. NC, There the Wilsons and Barbers, from her son, lived on Crowder's Creek near their uncle John Jordan Jr. and Richard Venable.