Early Quakers were persecuted. In the Massachusetts Bay colony, Friends were banished on pain of death.
Nathaniel Walton was born about 1656 in Byberry Parish, Gloucestershire, England. His parents were William Walton and Alice Martin.
He came to America with his three brothers. They settled in Byberry, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania and were early members of the Byberry Friends Meeting.
He married Martha Bownall (Bownel, Bowling) on November 26, 1685 in Philadelphia. Martha was born about 1663.
They lived in Byberry Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. Their children, mentioned in Martha’s will, were:
Benjamin Walton (1686), Joseph Walton (1689, married Sarah Roberts), Nathaniel Walton (1690),
Malachi Walton (1692, married Mary Gandonett),
Mary Walton (1700),
Elisabeth Walton Waterman (1702, married James Waterman),
Esther Walton Roberts (1704, married Joseph Roberts),
Margaret Walton (1706),
Martha Walton Davids (1708), and
Lydia Walton Roberts (1710, married John Roberts).
In 1691, at the time of the Keithian Schism, the Byberry meeting went Keithian. Nathaniel was the only one of the Walton brothers who remained. The split apparently went deeper than religion. In October, 1713 he wrote to his brotherWilliam, and said that he had paid 5£ for his passange and demanded that 200£ (principal and interest) be repaid.
Nathaniel died on March 31, 1733 and Martha died on September 14, 1741.
The Society of Friends (Quakers) began in England in the 1650s, when they broke away from the Puritans. Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, as a safe place for Friends to live and practice their faith.
Europeans who made the voyage to America faced a difficult journey of several months.
Settlers often built log cabins as their first homes.
A History of the Townships of Byberry and Moreland in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Joseph C. Martindale
In the records of the Monthly Meeting of Friends, held alternately at Tacony and Poquessing, we find that Nathaniel Walton had their approbation to accomplish his marriage with Martha Bownall, of Philadelphia, which was accordingly done 11th mo. 26th, 1685.
When the Keithian controversy divided the Society of Friends, Nathaniel and his family joined the Keithian Church, of which John Hart was the minister. When Hart joined the Baptists, Nathaniel joined the Church at All-Saints. In a letter found
some years since, written by Nathaniel to his brother William, dated 7th of October, 1713, he reminds him
that he paid five pounds for his passage from England, which had not been repaid, and makes a demand for the money.
We have no other account of him. except that he lived on property now belonging to George Dehaven, and left two sons, Nathaniel and Benjamin.
Nathaniel and Martha Walton's Children.
Nathaniel [Walton], was a schoolmaster as early as 1727, and Thomas Chalkley speaks in his Journal of having sent his children to Nathaniel's school. He died in Moreland, back of Edge Hill, in 1784, aged about 80 years, and left two sons, Boaz and Joseph.
Benjamin [Walton], we have no account of, except that he left a son, Benjamin.
Joseph [Walton], son of Nathaniel, lived on property now owned by William Wenzell. He taught the school at Byberry for fifteen years, after which he moved to the Falls, in Bucks County, to follow his profession. It is said he was a teacher for sixty years. He died 10th mo. 4th, 1759. [Joseph's son, Boaz Walton was Daniel Bloss' partner.]
Baptist churches were found in early colonial settlements and grew out of the English Separatist movement and the doctrine of John Smyth who rejected infant baptism.
Byberry is a township in the northeast corner of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. The Walton brothers were early settlers. Moreland Township was just west of Byberry. When Montgomery County broke off in 1784, Moreland was divided into two townships, both called Moreland. In 1917 the Montgomery County Moreland split into Upper Moreland Township and Lower Moreland Township.
The Keithian Schism was a split within the Society of Friends in the last decade of the seventeenth century led by George Keith.
from Byberry Waltons
Boaz Walton born about 1737 in Byberry Twp, Phila. Co., Pa., died Aug. 2, 1823 aged 86 in Westmoreland Co., Pa., son of Joseph Walton & Sarah, probably Roberts of Byberry Twp. . .William Blose Reed says Daniel Blose's first mill was at a place known in 1939 as Oswald's Mill, near Best Station, about three miles west from Slatington Pa., and the mill owned by Daniel Blose and Boaz Walton was in the Mahoning Valley west from Lehighton and later known as Garber's Mills. . .
William Blose Reed writes that Boaz Walton and Daniel Blose or Bloss owned adjoining lands in Northampton Co., which later were in Mahoning Twp, Carbon Co., and seem to have been closely associated through a good part of their lives, having been in the same battalion if not the same company during several years of the Revolution. The History of Jefferson Co., Pa says
About 1790 Daniel Blose came to Westmoreland Co., with Boaz Walton, and he and his family lived in a round log house without any floor in it except the ground, with Boaz Walton and his family, about eight miles north of Greensburg. Daniel Blose, whose wife's name was Elizabeth, was the father of seven children: George, Michael, Barney, Mary married to Joseph Walton, Daniel, Ann married to Isaac Shuster and a daughter born 1783 whose name was Magdalena.
Of these George, Daniel and Magdalena, not Mary were the ones who married Sarah, Martha, and Joseph children of Boaz Walton.
ye is an archaic spelling of "the."
Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania by Historical Society of Pennsylvania published by M'Carty and Davis, 1827
Nathaniel Walton married Martha Bownel of Philadelphia, in 1685, and had several children.
In a letter which he wrote to his brother William, dated, "Bibury ye 7th of " October 1713," he says he paid for William's passage to this country, £5 sterling; that he laboured hard for this money in Old England at a groat a day; that the principal and compound interest which he had forborne thirty years and upwards, had almost come to £ 200 old currency; that William had got him nothing, but might see he had made a man of him to that very day; and that he most certainly expected him to pay some way or other to his content; not, he adds, because he could not do without it, for, he blessed God, he had plenty of every thing, but because it was his due, and William was able to pay it.
American colonists continued to use British monetary units, namely the pound, shilling and pence for which £1 (orli) equalled 20s and 1s equalled 12d. In 1792 the dollar was established as the basic unit of currency.
