Fothergill Family Papers

John Fothergill (1712-1780) was an esteemed Quaker physician who was born at Carr-end in Yorkshire, England, the son of John and Margaret (Hough) Fothergill. His brother, Alexander (1710-1788), farmed the family property at Carr-end, and sister, Ann, remained single and lived in her brother John's household at Warrington. Alexander married twice, the second time to Margaret Thistlewaite (1710-1798) of Harborgill, Dent Dale, Yorkshire. Their son, William (b.1748) married Hannah Robinson; William and Hannah had five children: John, Thomas, Alexander, Margaret, and Jane. Their youngest son, Alexander, married twice, Eliza Howarth and Jane Robinson.

Alexander had at least eleven children: Hannah (b.1816), Thomas (b.1817), Sarah (b.1819), Susanna (b.1821), Eliza (b.1824), Alice Haworth (b.1826), Ann (b.1830), Mary (b.1831), Margaret (b.1835), William (b.1835), and Henry (b.1837). In 1843, the couple and their minor children were granted a certificate of removal from Marsden Monthly Meeting in England to Chester Monthly Meeting (Orthodox) in the United States, but Alexander died the same year and was buried in Wilmington, Delaware. Jane died in 1874. Ann Fothergill became a school teacher in Wilmington, Delaware. Her youngest brother, Henry, was disowned by Friends in 1860; he married Rachel Poinsett in Wilmington, in 1868, and eventually moved to Steelton, Pennsylvania.

Henry and Rachel had several children including Henry Robinson Fothergill (1873-1917), Alexander Poinsett Fothergill, and William Greenwood Fothergill. Henry Robinson was wed to Eliza Groves Quigley. After her husband died prematurely in 1917, "Bessie" married Valentine Buford Mott, an actor. Henry and Bessie had three children: Elizabeth Fothergill Graves (1899-1974), Henry Robinson Fothergill Jr. (1903-1984), and Winifred Quigley Fothergill-Quinlan (1915-2006).