Quakers could be very good people, with benevolent religious beliefs, but they could also be sharp merchants. Most of them believed that there was no contradiction between being a good Quaker and being successful in business.  Samuel Cart was an active member of Abington monthly meeting, one of the trustees for the meeting house, and prominent in the early meeting minutes. Yet he was willing to cut a harsh deal with a poor man seeking to emigrate. In 1699 Samuel Hadden went before the Council and complained that Samuel Cart had encouraged him to immigrate, saying that if he could procure seventeen passengers, then his own passage would be free and his wife and four children would come for £15. So Hadden sold his effects, travelled 70 miles to Bristol with his family and the agreed-upon seventeen passengers, and loaded his goods on board, only to face a demand from Cart that he pay another £25. Hadden tried to remove his goods from the ship but Cart would not let him. He only had three pence left, and was forced to sell two of his children into indentured servitude or “stay in England, when his whole substance was Caried elsewhere”.  He petitioned the Council to return his children to him. Cart appeared and debated the issue with Hadden, and in the end the Council ruled that Cart had to return Adam Hadden to his father and pay £10 for the passage, while Hadden had to pay £8 to Cart.

Another of Cart’s neighbors also got into trouble with the Council for his business dealings. William Powell was a cooper from Southwark, Surrey. He immigrated, and did not live on his Abington land, but leased it out and lived on the Schuylkill River. The Council had granted Philip England the rights to ferry people and horses across the river, and erect landing places on both sides. Powell bought a boat and muscled into the business, violating the monopoly granted to England. The Council reprimanded him in the summer of 1693, and he tried to evade the restriction by selling the boat to a group of local Welshmen who hired Nathaniel Mullinax to be their ferryman. In 1694 England complained to the council again. The Council read Powell the minutes of the previous reprimand and made him promise to get out of the business; they threw Mullinax in gaol until he gave security for his good behavior.

The early merchants were often over-extended financially, with their money tied up in land or ships. If they happened to die early, as William Stanley did in 1689, they could leave substantial debts. Stanley had grand hopes for his 500 acres in Abington, calling it Mount Stanley. But he died before March 1690 when Walter King took Stanley’s widow Rebecca to court for a debt of £128. The sheriff according to the custom took twelve honest men and appraised Stanley’s various lands, awarding Mount Stanley to King to cover the debt. King promptly sold it to Peter Baynton, a scoundrel who cared more for his fortune than his family, and who specialized in marrying wealthy widows. Baynton first married Rebecca Stanley, but she died in childbirth in 1691. The next year he married Anna Keen, widow of James Sandelands, a merchant of Uplands. Baynton absconded to England in 1694 with the moveable proceeds of Sandelands’ estate, leaving Anna and the children in Pennsylvania. In 1698 he wrote a letter to her saying that he did not intend to return, that he had taken another wife in England, and that he planned to remove the remainder of the estate to England. She promptly went to the Council and pleaded to be allowed to sell the Pennsylvania properties in order to support herself and the children, which the Council granted. Baynton later returned to Pennsylvania, outlived Anna, and left his fortune to his daughter Rebecca.

There were four women who owned land in Abington in their own names: Catherine Martin, Sarah Fuller, Mary Broadwell, and Elizabeth Shorter. Three of them were widows, one was unmarried. At that time married women did not own property; any property a woman owned became her husband’s when they married. Widows, on the other hand, had some economic freedom if they inherited land at the death of their husband. In most cases they could dispose of it as they pleased, buying and selling in their own name.

Catherine Martin arrived in September 1682 with her husband Isaac and daughter Elizabeth. Isaac, a felt-maker from London, died the following May, leaving his land to Catherine. She shared it with their daughter Elizabeth, giving Elizabeth the tract in Abington. Elizabeth married Joseph Farrington, but died soon afterward, possibly in childbirth, and he sold the land.

Sarah Fuller and her stepfather John Barnes were from Sussex, two miles from Penn’s estate of Warminghurst. They probably worshipped with Penn there. Barnes was a tailor in Sussex and a farmer in Abington. He must have done well and is sometimes referred to as the wealthy tailor. He bought land for himself and for Sarah, perhaps as a dowry, She married a saddler, William Dillwyn, in 1687 and lived in the city with him. Barnes later donated part of his Abington land to Abington Meeting.

Another tract in Abington was owned by a woman at the time the map was finished, although the name on the map was William Chamberlin. He owned the land for a few years, and sold it to Mary Broadwell in 1685. She owned it for ten years. Mary Broadwell was remarkable. When she died on January 2, 1730 it was claimed that she was aged one hundred years and one day. The Pennsylvania Gazette noted that “Her Constitution wore well to the last, and she could see to read without Spectacles a few Months since”. At a time when many people did not live to see grandchildren, she named great-grandchildren in her will! A midwife, she also kept a shop in Philadelphia.

Elizabeth Shorter was a widow and a glover from London, who immigrated and settled in Abington. Her son-in-law John Rush also bought 250 acres, laid out in Abington adjoining her land. In the spring of 1687, he brought her a paper to sign, purporting to be a letter of attorney, but actually an extraordinary deed of gift conveying everything she owned to “my beloved son John Rush”. It read in part, “For my special naturall favour which I bear toward John Rush of Philadelphia my beloved son and for divers other good causes. I do grant all my lands, goods, chattells, leases, deeds, ready money, plate, household stuff, appearall, utensills, brass, pewter, bedding and all other my substances whatsover, moveable and immoveable, quick and dead, of what kind nature quality or condition … freely and quietly without any manner of challenge claim or demand.”  She signed with her mark.

It must have been a shock to her when she found out what she had signed. But she knew exactly how to deal with it. She went straight to the governing body for the province, the Council in Philadelphia. At their meeting on 3^rd month 1687, she appealed for help. “The Petition of Elizabeth Shorter, Widdow, was read, complayning that John Rush, her son in Law, instead of a Letter of Attorney that shee was to signe, prepared a Deed of gifft of all her Estate, with power of Atturney, to one Samll Atkins, to acknowledge the same in Court. The Wittness to y^e Deed were severally examined; They all Confest the writing was not Read to her, nor Could shee Ever write or Read herselfe, so yt it appeared to this board to be an Absolute Cheat.”  It is clear that she was able to get the fraudulent deed anulled, since later that year she sold one of her city lots, and she owned her Abington land until 1699. [1] There was a large family of Rush in Byberry, starting with John Rush, “the Old Trooper”, who had fought with Cromwell and who emigrated with his wife and sons about 1683. He apparently had a son John, and it is possible that John Rush of Abington was the son of the Old Trooper, but there are no records connecting them.

Rush had been accused of a serious crime several years before. In 1683 Charles Pickering and two accomplices were brought before the Council and questioned about counterfeiting—coining Spanish silver bits with copper added. They admitted to adding more copper alloy than usual, but said their money was “as good Silver as any Spanish money”. Pickering added that he heard John Rush swear that he spent half his time making bits. Rush was a blacksmith, who would have the skills to work with metal. When sent for and examined, Rush positively denied this, and he was not punished by the Council. Pickering was found guilty by a jury, and sentenced to make full restitution to anyone who brought in one of his “base and counterfitt coynes”, and fined forty pounds toward the building of a court house.