John Test
By Dr. Charles E. TestThe earliest known progenitor of the Test family in America was a John Test, a merchant from London, England who agreed to buy a thousand acres of land in America from John Fenwick, a friend of William Penn. He left London with John Fenwick and a group of Quakers on the ship "Griffin", and arrived in the Delaware River on October 5, 1675. The group landed on the river's east bank at the present site of Salem, New Jersey, where Fenwick's Colony was started. Apparently John Test became a land dealer and within a few years moved to Upland [1] (now Chester), Pennsylvania) where he opened a store. He served for a time as Sheriff of Upland and was appointed as the first Sheriff of Philadelphia when William Penn came there in 1692. [2]
Mrs. Hammitt says John Test was a gentleman who came to America in 1675 as a king's messenger to Sir Edmund Andros, then governor of the province of New York. He settled in Upland, on the Delaware River, and Mrs. Hammitt says that the "Upland courts are full of land purchases and land sales by John Test, merchant late of London. Among taxable persons, John Test listed himself and servant. As soon as William Penn arrived, he was made shire reeve, or sheriff, of Upland County. Upon division of Upland into three counties, he was made first sheriff of Philadelphia." [3]
Another account of the "first" John Test is given by Nathan Hall, [4] as follows:
John Test was born somewhere in England in 1651. Elizabeth Sanders was also born in England in 1651. John and Elizabeth were married in London, in the Episcopal Church, in 1673.
There were many Tests and Sanders in the Society of Friends in London and vicinity at the time. These two may or may not have been members there. When they came to this country, Elizabeth must have joined the Philadelphia Meeting, as she was buried in the burying ground of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia, and marked as a member.
The date of John and Elizabeth's removal from England to this country is not given, but it is known that John was a merchant. He opened a store in Upland (now Chester), Pennsylvania, and was appointed sheriff of Upland before William Penn came over. After Penn's arrival and redivision of his territory, John was sheriff of Philadelphia. Evidently he lived in the city for a while as he is said to have built a brick house on the corner of Third and Chestnut. As the records show, he sold lots to different people; he must have had a tract of some size.
John Test was sheriff for only one year and returned to his store in Chester. His name occurs many times in the Real Estate records as he seems to have bought large tracts and then divided them up and sold them in smaller amounts. His name is also found in the court records; we find him suing others for small amounts, perhaps store bills. In one case, we find John himself being sued for "one case of pork, 470 pounds, decided in favor of the Plaintiff!"
John's first wife, Elizabeth Sanders, had died December 12, 1689. She was survived by only one child, John, Jr., and her husband.
John then married, late in 1690 or early in 1691, Grace (Wooley) Lippincott, about whom there is no information previous to this marriage. Grace and six children apparently survived John Test when he died, in 1706. John's will was filed for record in New Jersey on January 1, 1709, by John Bacon who married the widow.
Records in New Castle, Delaware, show Grace Test, the widow, was married in her home in New Castle by R. DeHass (Justice) on April 6, 1708, to John Bacon, of Salem, New Jersey. Meeting records are very incomplete and evidently some of the clerks failed to get all of the items recorded, as Mr. Hall has examined the original books and failed to find anything about this Grace Test and her family becoming members, but from 1714 when her daughter Ann was married, we find account of their births, marriages, transfers, and deaths, on down until about 1925.
Grace's husband, John Bacon, also died. This item is reported in the Salem, New Jersey, Monthly Meeting, June 25, 1718. "Grace Bacon and Richard Woodnut published their intentions of marriage. The committee of inquiry was asked that care be taken concerning the child Grace had by John Bacon."
In commenting upon the career of this Grace Wooley Lippincott Test Bacon Woodnut, Mr. Hall remarked, "It seems that some of our ancestors were very much married."
Still a third description of the first John Test is given in an introduction to "Random Notes on Early Indiana Life," by Erastus Test, written by his son, Dr. Frederick Cleveland Test. [5]
Erastus Test, the sixth of seven sons of Samuel and Hannah (Jones) Test, was born November 12, 1836, in a pioneer home, at that time half log and half frame, adjacent to the family woolen mill about a mile and a half south of the center of Richmond.
The father, Samuel, was of the fifth generation of descent from one John Test, who with his wife Elizabeth came to the region of Philadelphia in 1675 from London, England, having previously purchased some 1,000 acres of land from a tract granted by King Charles II to William Penn. The purchasing of land upon which to settle, before starting the long voyage across the Atlantic, was a practice adopted at that time by a number of the immigrant Quakers, to which sect John Test and his wife belonged.
This John Test had been a "cordwainer" in London, the term indicating a worker in leather. But from his arrival in America, he busied himself largely with clearing various tracts of land, building a small house and barn, and putting a few acres under cultivation, and then disposing of the property thus improved, and continuing the procedure with other land. The early records of New Jersey and Pennsylvania cite numerous purchases and sales of this character by John Test.
The land he had purchased before emigrating was at or near what is now Salem, New Jersey, some 30 miles from Philadelphia but very shortly he obtained some at Upland, near Chester, and consequently so much closer to Philadelphia, and there established a general store, where the population was denser.
After a few years, he had acquired a sufficient standing in the community so that in September of 1681 he was appointed the first sheriff at Upland, and in 1683, having moved his home into Philadelphia, was by the governor made sheriff of three adjacent counties.
He did not continue in office, instead devoting himself to his real estate, and to an inn he owned in Darby, then a suburb of Philadelphia, but now in part occupied by the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Some of his descendants lived in Philadelphia, but perhaps more in the Salem area, where some of their old homes still stand.
John Test's wife, Elizabeth, died in 1689, leaving three children and the next year he married a young widow, one Grace (Wooley) Lippincott, who bore him nine more children before his death in 1706. It may be stated that after the death of John Test she married, lived with that husband ten years, and following his death in 1718, married for a fourth time.
Infant mortality was heavy in those days, but some four of John's seven sons left descendants, Daniel, the second son of the second married, being the ancestor of the Richmond Tests, by way of grandson, Samuel, who came west in 1805.
Daniel's younger brother, Francis, likewise a Salem resident, also had a grandson emigrate to Indiana, one John, who chose Brookville for a home, and served three terms as a representative in the congress, was a judge for a number of years, and incidentally was the grandfather of General Lew Wallace, the author of the novel "Ben-Hur."
The majority of the Tests in and about Philadelphia, and throughout the Middle West especially, trace their ancestry to these two sons of "Sheriff" John, although there are some who stem from one George Test, a Moravian preacher from Germany, who came to Pennsylvania in 1733.
Notes
[1] -- Meing, D.W., "The Delaware Before Pennsylvania", in "The Shaping of America," Vol. I, "Atlantic America 1492-1800." Yale University Press, New Haven, 1986. (Map on p. 132)
[2] -- Test, Merwin Dwight, Personal Communication. Merwin Test is engaged in working up a geneaology for all the Tests in the United States. His present address is 20002 Palo Verde Drive, Sun City, Arizona 85373. He is a descendant of Josiah Test (born 1826).
[3] -- Hammitt, Edmonia Test, articles in Richmond, Indiana Palladium-Item, 1945. Mrs. Hammitt was adescendent of Judge Charles H. Test. [Richmond Palladium newspaper -RWT]
[4] -- Hall, Nathan, notes on the descendants of Benjamin Test, son of Francis Test I and grandson of John Test, prepared by Nathan Hall of 81 Price Avenue, Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Many of the descendants of Benjamin Test settled in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska. These notes form part of Test family records compiled by Genevieve Test Peterson of 1633 Dover Street, Worthington, Minnesota 56187 and sent to Mrs. Jack H. Beatty of Indianapolis by Robert N. Test of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1984. The reference material used included copies of the records of Friends Meetings in London and vicinity, the extensive libraries of the Pennsylvania Historical Society and their Genaological Society. But the principal souce of information was William Wade Hinshaw's "Encyclopedia of Friends Monthly Meetings."
[5] -- Test, Frederick Cleveland, biography of his father, Erastus Test; Richmond, Indiana Palladium-Item, 1946.
