NameElizabeth BRINTON
3385
Misc. Notes
Sixth great grandmother of President Milhous Nixon.
Spouses
Misc. Notes
Hugh and his brother-in-law John Willis received from their father-in-law William Brinton (1635) a tract of land, of about four hundred and fifty acres, on the Brandywine in 1695.
____________
Elizabeth married Hugh Harris (now Harry).
1706
Family ID5408
Marr PlaceChichester Friends Meetinghouse, Delaware Co., PA, USA
Reside PlaceBirmingham Township, Chester Co., PA, USA1706
Misc. Notes
Original record indicated “At Chichester Meeting, Chester County, PA”
3There is a Chichester Friends Meetinghouse at 611 Meetinghouse Road, near Boothwyn, in Upper Chichester Township, Delaware Co., PA, USA.
This area, near Chester was one of the earliest areas settled by Quakers in Pennsylvania. The meetinghouse, first built in 1688, then rebuilt after a fire in 1769 reflects this early Quaker heritage. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
In the year that William Penn first arrived in Pennsylvania, 1682, the Chichester Meeting was first organized as an "indulged meeting" or subsidiary meeting of the Uplands Monthly Meeting of present day Chester. The Uplands Meeting had been organized by Robert Wade, who arrived in the area in 1675, from earlier Quaker settlements in New Jersey. Chichester attained the status of Monthly Meeting in March, 1684. This group of Friends met in member's homes until about 1688 when a 24-foot (7.3 m) square meetinghouse was built on two acres donated by James Browne. In January 1769 the meetinghouse burned down, and later that year a 33 by 38-foot (12 m) building was erected in its place.
The doors show bullet holes incurred from British foraging parties after the Battle of Brandywine in September, 1777. The Meeting has been "laid down" or discontinued for many years, and the meetinghouse is only used for special occasions. No Modern conveniences such as heat, plumbing or electricity have been added to the building, so it is considered to be in pristine condition.
It was illegal to build Quaker meetinghouses in England until the Act of Toleration of 1689. Because meetinghouses were built in this area of Pennsylvania at an earlier date, and because the 1769 meetinghouse is believed to reflect the style of the earlier meetinghouse, the Chichester Meetinghouse is believed to show an early "English" style of Quaker architecture.3387