Stackhouse Family Papers

The Stackhouse family was a Pennsylvania and New Jersey Quaker family with roots in the earliest settlement of America. Amos Stackhouse (1757-1825) was the son of James and Martha (Hastings) Stackhouse, Philadelphia Quakers, who had five children including Amos and Hastings Stackhouse (1752-1800). Hastings Stackhouse married Margaret Robbins in 1774 by license and left the Society of Friends. Their son, Samuel Hastings Stackhouse (1779-1822), married Mary Hills. His widow and their son Hastings William Stackhouse moved to Copiah County, Mississippi, where they and other members of the family became plantation owners.

Amos Stackhouse married by license to Mary Powell, daughter of John and Susanna (Bryan) Powell in Mount Holly, New Jersey, but they were restored to membership. In 1790, they transferred from Mount Holly Monthly Meeting to Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of the Northern District. Amos operated a china business in Philadelphia. He and Mary had eleven surviving children: Susanna (1779-1856) married Abraham Lower, Philadelphia cabinetmaker; Hastings (1781-1840), married out of unity in 1806; Powell (1785-1863) married Edith Dilworth; Esther (1787-1819) married Elijah Bangs; Martha (1789-1840, member of Green Street, unmarried; James (1792-) married Hannah; Samuel P. (1794-1858) married Rebecca Shelden; Amos (1796-1818); Robert (1801-1881) married first Elizabeth Davis Kimber who died in 1839 and second, Ann Roberts Matlack of Moorestown Monthly Meeting; Mary P. (1805-1884); and John P. Stackhouse (1809-1883).

Powell Stackhouse (1785-1863) and Edith D. Stackhouse had ten surviving children including Susan (1821-1887) who married Daniel J. Morrell; Anna D. (1823-1893), unmarried; and Powell, Jr., (1827-1900) who married Emily Sharpless Townsend in 1851 under the care of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Hicksite). Powell Stackhouse, Jr., was a Philadelphia surveyor and conveyancer, a lawyer specializing in real estate. As such, he handled family estate matters, a vocation which grew into a passion for family genealogy.

Robert Stackhouse (1801-1881), a younger brother of Powell Stackhouse, Sr., had two surviving children by his first wife: Edward L. Stackhouse (1833-1911), a Fallsington, Pa., farmer who did not marry and Tacy Elizabeth Stackhouse (1839-1919) who married first Allen Lippincott and second Milnor Gillingham. Robert and his second wife, Ann R. Matlack Stackhouse (1810-1893) had one child, Asa Matlack Stackhouse (1845-1916). A.M. Stackhouse, known as Matlack in the family, was born in Philadelphia where his parents were members of Green Street Monthly Meeting. In 1851, the family transferred to Moorestown Monthly Meeting, NJ. A.M. Stackhouse received his early education in Moorestown, NJ. He received an A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1865 and an M.A. in 1868. The same year he was awarded an M.D. from the Homeopathic Medical College (now Hahnemann Medical College). He practiced medicine in Allentown, Pa., until 1871, where he married Ella Jane Romig whose father was a doctor at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He subsequently worked in the insurance business until 1891. The family moved to Moorestown where Matlack and his wife attended the Presbyterian Church. While he his did not resign from the Society of Friends, shortly before his death, he joined the Episcopal Church. In Moorestown, he was active in local history, a founder and curator of the Burlington County Historical Society and wrote genealogies and local histories until his death on October 6, 1916. His elder son, William Romig Stackhouse, became a Roman Catholic. His younger surviving son, Ernest Robert Stackhouse (1884-1958) became a member of Moorestown Monthly Meeting on request and married Willie Elizabeth Smith in 1907. Their son, E. Robert Stackhouse, Jr., was born in 1911 and was active in Medford Monthly Meeting and Seaville Meeting, NJ.