Robert Heaton

Bucks county property of Robert Heaton is next to his in-laws (Thomas Stackhouse) on the east bank of the Neshaminy (see map attached to this profile)

Robert Heaton, son of Robert, was baptized in the Anglican church on 25 March 1642 in Wharf, Clapham Parish, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He died about 1717. He was married to Alice __.[2]

• Robert and Alice became convinced of the faith of Friends (also known as Quakers) sometime before 1668 when the birth of their daughter, Grace, was recorded by Settle Monthly Meeting. In 1670 and 1671 Robert suffered distraint of goods as punishment for attending Friends meetings for worship.[3]
• Robert and Alice and their five children decided to immigrate to Pennsylvania to try to make a better life for their children. With a certificate of removal from Settle Monthly Meeting they sailed on the Lamb out of Liverpool. They arrived in Pennsylvania on 22 October 1682.[4]
• The family settled in Bucks County, but Robert did not buy any land until May 1686 when he purchased from Robert HOLGATE, planter of Sussex County, 250 acres on the Neshaminy Creek in Middletown. Robert’s name appears on the 1687 Thomas Holme’s map, lumped in a bloc between Middletown and Newtown with “Walter BRIDGMAN, Thomas CONSTABLE, Widow Crosdal [sic: CROASDALE], Robert HOLDGATE, Alexander GILES, widdow BOND, and Thomas STACKHOUSE”. In 1693 his property was valued at only £20, the lowest assessment of any freeholder in the township.[5]
• Robert and Alice were active members of Middletown Meeting from its beginning, and meetings for worship were held in the Heaton home in rotation before the first meeting house was built. Robert served on committees six times to ascertain the clearness of specific men to marry. He was appointed to committees to help arbitrate disputes ("differences") between two Friends. He was named 5 Fourth Month [June] 1690 to the committee that set out and fenced the burial ground. He was appointed to receive contributions for the meeting house, graveyard, and so on, 1 Fourth Month [June] 1693. During the Keithian controversy, Robert Heaton and Nicholas WALN were asked on 5 Eighth Month [October] 1692 to speak with John SWIFT, who had become disaffected from the meeting. Robert contributed 5 shillings to the meeting house fund 2 Eighth Month [October] 1690.[6] See an explanation of Quaker and Old Style (before 1752) dating system.
• Alice was perhaps even more active in the Women’s Meeting. She served on marriage clearness committees at least 15 times.[7] Twice she was asked to serve on a committee to meet with women whose behavior gave the meeting cause for concern. During the Keithian controversy she was asked to speak with those women who had “fallen away”.[8] Alice was appointed to “oversee” the meeting, a forerunner of the more formal office of overseer.[9]
• Robert also participated in the affairs of the township and county. In 1686 he was named a fence viewer, and later an overseer of highways. He frequently served on juries—at least twenty times between 1686 and 1708. In 1686 and 1697 he was appointed to a committee to lay out a road. In 1698 and 1700 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly, where he played a “minimal role”, serving on one committee to audit claims of creditors against the government of Pennsylvania. He was also asked to serve as a messenger a few times. Not a bad public career for a man who was illiterate.[10]
• Robert's illiteracy did not prevent him from receiving, in turn, books that the meeting rotated among families. It is probable that other members of Robert’s family, namely his children, could read. When Alice witnessed the will of Anne CLARKE, widow, 1 December 1682, she signed with a mark, while her daughter Grace was able to write her own name.[11]
• Robert was also asked to serve as attorney in real estate deals, for example 9 Eighth Month [October] 1686 by Jedidiah ALLEN. On 17 First Month [March] 1689/90 he served in this capacity for Henry FLOWER of Philadelphia.[12]
• Robert and three prominent men posted bond for £212 so that two of them, William and John CROASDALE, would administer the estate of their late mother, Agnes.[13] With two others Robert was bound for £523 so that Thomas LANGHORNE could administer the estate of Arthur BORDALE, late of Kirkbride in Cumberland (12 Fourth Month 1687), in England.[14]
• His name and mark appeared fairly frequently in court records when he witnessed agreements, as on 20 Twelfth Month [February] 1693; and on 10 Sixth Month [August] 1695; 9 Eighth Month [October] 1697; 20 Twelfth Month [February] 1698/9; 2 June 1702; 12 December 1705; and 1 First Month [March] 1705/6.[15] If nothing else, this indicates that first, he was accustomed to be present on court days, and second, that his neighbors trusted his honesty.
• Beginning in 1697 Robert became very active in the real estate market. One might call him a speculator, as in the course of a decade he purchased about 3,950 acres in Bucks and Philadelphia Counties, most of which he eventually sold. His over 1,400 acres in Philadelphia he sold for very little profit. But that was mainly because he conveyed 600 acres to his son-in-law at about his purchase price, and 200 acres to his youngest son Ephraim for 5 shillings. Robert made a substantial profit on most of his Bucks County real estate dealings. He bought something over 2,500 acres for £813 and sold all but 250 acres for £1,747. He sold about 590 acres to his sons: 440 to Robert and the rest to James at cost or for a nominal price. Usually, though, Robert made shrewd bargains, buying property from executors of estates who were anxious to liquify the assets in order to settle the estates. He often sold large tracts to non-residents who may not have understood the low prices of land in Bucks County.[16]
• On 8 June 1706 Robert sold to his son Robert Heaton, Jr. and son-in-law Thomas STACKHOUSE land for building a mill in Middletown township between the Neshaminy Creek on the south, and Core Creek on the north. The agreement included the power (meaning legal permission) to dam Core Creek.[17] The Heaton grist mill at Bridgetown, was up and running by about 1709.[18]

*In his later years Robert became increasingly troublesome and cantankerous. Beginning in 1694 his involvement in Middletown Meeting “alternated between duty and contention.” That year he had a dispute with Quakers in Newtown over the location of a road. In 1696 he refused for seven months to acknowledge any wrong in permitting his son James to marry in a disorderly manner. When he finally did offer an acceptable paper of acknowledgment and condemnation, it included an apology for “intemperate discourse” towards Friends.[19]

*In 1699 Robert created “great dissatisfaction” when he managed to obtain legal guardianship of an orphan without waiting for the meeting’s permission. Thomas TROHAIT had asked the meeting’s advice as to whether Robert Heaton should be his guardian. Without waiting for the meeting to investigate and reach a conclusion, Robert went ahead. Apparently he borrowed money from the boy’s estate. Eventually, after pressure from the meeting, he promised in Orphans’ Court to repay it with interest.[20]

• Robert had a series of disputes with other Friends over money between 1698 and 1713. One altercation with Joseph KIRKBRIDE lasted two years and almost resulted in Robert’s disownment as exasperated Friends were frustrated in their attempts to resolve it. But even so, during this time he continued to be named to the small committees through which the meeting’s business was accomplished. Between 1698 and 1704 he was paid a small stipend for cleaning the meeting house, and making sure the fire was laid and wood furnished for it. The meeting house was built on his land, and on 1 December 1704 he sold to the meeting’s trustees for 5 shillings the two acres on which it was located.[21]]
• Perhaps the most serious difficulty he got in was the accusation that he committed adultery with a female servant. The case dragged on in meeting for eight months before his acknowledgement was accepted by Bucks Quarterly Meeting, to which he had appealed.[22]
• His contentiousness wasn’t limited to the meeting. In 1703 he was in trouble with the court when his slave Hugo was found guilty of fornication and begetting a bastard child. In 1704 William BILES sued Robert for debt. That year he was also fined for fencing a part of the king’s road. In 1710 he had to post bond for his son James who was accused of stealing a hog. In 1712 and 1713 he was involved in three more legal disputes. He was a plaintiff against Thomas CUTLER, and a defendant against Joshua HOOPES, and the estate of Edward SHIPPEN.[23]
• Robert’s will was dated 16 April 1716, and it was probated 16 July 1717. He gave 5 shillings to each of his three sons and two sons-in-law. To his “Dear and Well Beloved wife Alice” he left the residue, and named her executrix, with the help of his son Robert and son-in-law Henry COMLY.[24]