Nathan Hussey

  Research Notes:

The Friends were among the earliest settlers at York, the county-seat of York County, but a meeting seems not to have been held there until 1754. Under date of 12 Mo. 21st of that year, Warrington Monthly Meeting minutes tate: "Our Friends in and about York, living remote from any of our meetings, Requests the liberty of holding ameeting among themselves for this winter season, which this meting has good unity with." A regular meeting was established in 1764, and on October 29th of the following year a lot of ground on the north side of Philadelphia Street was purchased from Nathan Hussey and Edith his wife. (footnote marked number 1) Upon this lot a brick meeting house was erected in 1766. By will, dated 1 Mo. 25, 1773, Nathan Hussey bequeathed to the Meeting a lot adjoining on the west. About 1786 the meeting-house was enlarged to its present proportions, an addition being made to the west end. The Society in the city is now almost extinct and regular meetings have been discontinued. Among the most prominent of the Irish Friends to settle in York were the Loves and Kirks. We see, then, that the Irish Friends first located in the original counties of Philadelphia and Chester. Thence, with the expansion of the Province, many of them joined the southward and westward migrations of Friends, which during the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century began from the Quaker strongholds of the original settlements. For three-quarters of a century one of these streams of Quaker migration injected a new and vigorous element into Quakerism of the South. The movement reached the Monocacy region of Maryland about 1725. Here it rested for a time and then crossed the Potomac River and struck Hopewell, north of what is not Winchester in Drederick County, Virginia, in 1732. In that year a company of Friends from Pennsylvania under the leadership of Alexander Ross an Irish Friend, settled on a tract of 100,000 acres of land called Hopewell, on Opequan Creek, in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, obtaining a charter for the land from the government of Virginia. A meeting called Opequan, afterward Hopewell, was established two years later; and Hopewell Monthly Meeting, including the meetings of Hopewell and Monocacy, in 1735. Among the Pennsylvania Friends of Irish name who made their way to Hopewell we find the Kirks, Hollingsworths, Wilsons, Greggs, Hiatts and Steers. About the same time with the founding of the Hopewell settlement a branch of the same migration moved from Maryland into Loudon and Fairfax Counties, Virginia; thence to the southern counties of that colony; and by 1743 it had gotten as far as Carver's Creek in Bladen County, North Carolina. During the next twenty years Friends swarmed into the central sections of the latter state and founded Cane Creek, New Garden, and a large number of other monthly meetings. About 1760, the movement was once more on its way southward, and by the time of the Revolution had spent itself in the founding of a series of meetings in South Carolina and Georgia. The following Friends subscribed to a paper, dated I mo. 1, 1766, contributing to the building fund: Nathan Hussey, William Willis, Joseph Updegraff, Joseph Garretson, William Matthews, Harman Updegraff, Jesse Falkner, James Love, John Collins and Joseph Collins. At Western Quarterly Meeting, 8 Mo. 11, 1767, report was made that "Friends in and about York have now built a Meeting House." For the principal facts of the southward movement I am indebted to Dr. Stephen B. Weeks' Southern Quakers and Slavery, which is a most thorough and scholarly treatment of the subject.

Nathan married Anne Cox, daughter of John Cox and Rachel Embree, on 16 May 1728 in Kennett Mm, Chester, Pennsylvania.¹ (Anne Cox was born about 1694 in England and died about 1762 in Hockessin, New Castle, Delaware, USA.)

Nathan next married Susannah Heald, daughter of Thomas Heald and Joanna Pryor, on 26 Apr 1749 in Warrington MM, Bucks, Pennsylvania. (Susannah Heald was born about 1729.)

  Marriage Notes:

Marriage to Susanna HEALD: (4,5) 26 2nd mo. 1749, Newberry, York Co., PA. (5) Signing under the bridal couple were Christopher HUSSEY, John and Ann DAY, William and John GARRETSON, Robert and Theodate HODGEN, Mary (2 of same name) Garretson and Nathan HUSSEY Jr. Also witnessing were Alexander, Sarah UNDERWOOD; Petter STOUT; Joseph, William, Rebecah Bennett; Patrick, Margaret, Jane CARSON; William, Olwe COX; Archee MACKEY; James, Mary, Sarah MILLS; John WRIGHT; James FRAZOR; John Jr., Joseph DAY, James, Suda HEALD; Susana Jr., Mary HUSSEY; Hannah, Martha FINCHER; Sarah PACKWOOD; Martha GARRETSON. [NOTE: Nathan Jr. and Susanna were about the same age, and it would seem likely that it would be the son marrying Susanna, as stated by source 2, but Nathan HUSSEY Jr. signed the marriage certificate as a guest.]

Nathan next married Edith Way, daughter of Joseph Way and Sarah Pyle, on 6 Oct 1763.² (Edith Way was born on 27 Feb 1727 in Wilmington, New Castle, Delaware, USA and died in May 1772 in York MM, York, Pennsylvania.)