Phipps Family

THE PHIPPS FAMILY. — Among the pioneers of Venango county, who deserve prominent mention in its history is John Phipps, who came from Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, in 1797 and purchased a four hundred acre tract in what is now Clinton township, upon a part of which Robert Witherup now resides. His ancestors came from Bristol, England, with William Penn and settled in Chester, Pennsylvania. Joseph Phipps was one of the nine members elect, who represented Chester county in the first assembly convened at Philadelphia on the 10th of January, 1683. Samuel Phipps, Sr., born in Chester county, in 1735, was a man of remarkable vigor, and lived to the age of one hundred and three. He had eight children: John, a pioneer of Clinton township, Venango county; Sarah, who married William Wise; Samuel, who served under General Wayne and lost his life on the Maumee in the last campaign against the Indians; Rachel, who died unmarried; Joseph, who was accidentally killed; Mary, married to John Duncan; Robert, who married Miss Halferday, and Nathan, who married Edith Updegraff.

Prior to the time when Joseph Phipps embarked with the Quakers for the proprietaries in Pennsylvania, Solomon Phipps had cast his lot with the Puritans at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and James, the father of Sir William Phipps, had with others founded a colony near the mouth of the Kennebec in Maine, and as a gunsmith and shipbuilder was practically adapted to the necessities of the time and circumstance of his surroundings. As the father of twenty-one sons, of whom Sir William was the youngest, and five daughters, the blood of this remarkable man has been transmitted through many of the old New England families for more than two hundred and fifty years, and has contributed its vital force to the history and development of his adopted country.

When John Phipps first came to Venango county it was a wilderness, and he suffered the privations and hardships of early pioneer days. He married Catharine Haney of Westmoreland county, who bore him a family of thirteen children, ten of whom lived to maturity, five sons and five daughters: David; Samuel; John; Robert; Joseph; Mary, who married Levi Williams; Sarah, who married Allen McDowell, and after his death became the wife of a Mr. Sloan and removed to Ohio; Catharine, married to Robert Riddle; Elizabeth, who became the wife of Captain Abraham Witherup, and Nancy, married to George McKinley.