He was born in the township of Edgemont, in Chester County Pennyslvania, the 27th of the twelfth month 1707-8, and continued a member of this monthly meeting to his end. In the days of his youth he had a strong bias to the diversions of the times, which when given way to, he felt the secret reproofs of divine grace accompanied with great fervency of spirit, to witness forgiveness through Jesus Christ, by the operation of whole spirit, he obtained so great a victory, that he was (after a season of probation) entrusted with a dispensation of the gospel ministry, in the exercise of which, his doctrine was sharp against a state of lukewarmness about religion as well as open profaneness, seasonably instructive to the sincere seekers, exhorting them not to be satisfied short of witnessing a state of regeneration.
He was often led to sympathize with the afflicted in spirit, unto whom his doctrine dropt as the dew, and was by many esteemed a nursing father in the Meeting to which he belonged. He several times, with the concurrence of his friends, visited the churches in this and the adjacent governments; was zealously concerned that meetings for discipline might be maintained in the same authority wherein they were first established; and divers times was engaged in visiting families, for which weighty service he was well qualified. His concern for his children was great, which at times he expressed under the power of divine love, adopting the language of David, viz."My children, know ye the God of your fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart and willing mind; if ye seek him, he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him, he will cast you off forever."
For several years of the latter part of his life, he was afflicted with weakness of body, but not so as wholly to prevent his attending meetings, in which he was at times, powerfully drawn forth in testimony, and publicly expressed at Middletown a few weeks before his confinement, an apprehension that his work was nearly over. He was confined at home near three months, in which time he was visited by many friends, often had refreshing opportunities in his room; in one of which, (being about a week after his confinement) he was led to speak of the precious effects of unity; at another time, divers friends being present, after some silence, he expressed himself on this wise, "How many opportunities of this sort I may yet have is unknown to me; this morning I lay in bed, meditating on the things of God, it appeared to me as tho' my time in his world would be but short;' earnestly exhorting those present to labour that they and their children might be prepared to meet with death. At several times he signified "He was like one that was waiting for his change, expressing his resignation, and said, "Whenever he turned his mind inward he felt great peace, and that the thoughts of the grave was no terror to him.'
He gradually weakened without much pain, till about two days before his departure, and continued sensible to the last, which was on the 10th day of the first month 1780, and on the 13th his body was interr'd in friends burial-ground at Middletown, attended by a large number of friends and neighbors; aged near seventy-two, a minister about 35 years.
Source: From a book called "A Collection of Memorials concerning Divers, deceased ministers and others of the People called Quakers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and parts adjacent, from nearly the first settlement thereof to the year 1787". Publication date is some time about 1790. The book is typewritten, the "s" looks like an "f".
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