from A Record of the Cope Family by Gilbert Cope
Oliver Cope's daughter Ruth, married Thomas Buffington, at what time is not known, but in 1710, Thomas Buffington and Ruth his wife, signed an indenture conveying to James Whitacre two hundred and sixty acres of land. This was part of a tract of five hundred and twenty-two acres, which Edward Shippen and others, William Penn's land commissioners, patented to Thomas Buffington, of the township of Bradford, and was situated in the forks of Brandywine creek.
Thomas' father Richard came from England some years earlier than William Penn, and settled near where the town of Chester now stands, in Delaware county, Pennsylvania. It is stated in a history of Pennsylvania, that Richard's son Richard, was the first child born of English parents in the province of Pennsylvania, being born in 1679.
The time of Ruth's death, I have been unable to ascertain. She left a daughter Ruth who is said to have lived with her uncle John Cope until her marriage.
Thomas Buffington married a second wife, and died in East Cain township, Chester county, in the month of December, 1739.
His children"s names, as mentioned in his will, are these: Richard, William, Rebecca Atherton, Ruth Ferree, Betty, Susanna, Rachel James, Anne Morgan, and Thomas Buffington.
The name of the second wife was Ann, and she afterwards married a Moses Gilpin, but how many of the above children were hers, is at present unknown. It is only from tradition that Ruth is supposed to be a child of the first wife, however it is so generally understood thus by her descendants as hardly to admit of any doubt as to the fact.
She was married fourth month, 10th, 1736, to John Ferree of Lancaster county, at which time her father was living in East Bradford township, Chester county. John Ferree, I am informed, was one of a family of several brothers, and one sister, who, with their widowed mother emigrated from France, in the reign of Louis XIV., during the persecution of the Protestants, and settled in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. John had several children by a former marriage, and by his last wife Ruth, a son and two daughters. Some account of Ruth's descendants will be given in the latter part of this book.
