1689 - 1700 - 1904
Smedley Family, 1897
Family of Samuel Lightfoot Smedley (who died 21 July 1894), a descendant of George Smedley, an early Quaker settler who bought 250 acres in Chester County from William Penn in 1684, and was distantly related by marriage to the Wynne family. Samuel L. Smedley was born on 29 December 1832, at Edgmont, Delaware County, and was educated at Westtown Academy and at a school in Germantown. He left school at age 15 when, says an old source, "overstudy impaired his health". He was a teacher at the Edgmont Central Seminary for two years, but felt that his health required outdoor work; therefore, in the spring of 1853 he moved to Philadelphia to work for another Edgmont native, Joseph Fox, a Philadelphia surveyor, to learn drafting and civil engineering.
Fox had recently laid out streets in North Philadelphia and was contracted to develop a city plan for the west bank of the Schuylkill, where West Philadelphia Borough had been expanding inside old Blockley Township. The township spread from City Line to Baltimore and Woodland Avenues between the Schuylkill and Cobbs Creek.
Development increased after Philadelphia County's various townships and other municipalities united in 1854 to create the modern city. In 1856, Smedley was appointed by the commissioners of Blockley Township to plot streets there. In 1858, he became a member of the Board of City Surveyors and, in 1862, he published the first complete street atlas of Philadelphia.
City Councils named him Chief Engineer and Surveyor of Philadelphia in 1872, a position he held until his retirement in 1893. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of the Schuylkill bridges at Penrose Ferry, Market Street, Walnut Street, Spring Garden Street and Girard Avenue, and superintended much of the development of Fairmount Park's walks and drives. He supervised construction of the 116-foot aqueduct arch that crosses Cresheim Creek where it meets the Wissahickon Creek. On its completion in 1892 it was considered an engineering marvel and was said to be the second largest stone arch in America.
Samuel Smedley's sister, Hannah, resided at Wynnestay, where restoration and expansion were completed by 1904.
H. LeRoy Webb, about 1929
H. LeRoy Webb, a real estate executive, was born at Seaside Park, New Jersey, on 20 March 1888, the son of Howard I. and Lillian (Parker) Webb. His father was a boat builder. He was graduated from Island Heights High School and attended Temple University evening classes in Philadelphia, receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1914.
Starting about 1905, he worked at the John Wanamaker store for a year, then worked at the North American Lace Company. In 1907, he was hired as a secretary at The Land Title Bank & Trust Company. He rose in the firm, and in 1922 was made real estate officer, with a sales and management staff of 47.
Clarence Pennington, 1934
Jules Blechschmidt, 1937
Dr Jules Blechschmidt, pediatrician, Bible student and missionary, was born in 1872. He was a class of 1908 graduate of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and studied at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in London, England. From 1911 to 1913, he was a medical missionary at Carmel Mission in Haifa, the chief port city of Palestine, now Israel. He returned to Philadelphia, joined the staff of Jefferson, where he headed the Department of Pediatrics until his death on 6 September 1947, after an illness of two years. He had also been visiting chief of pediatrics at Philadelphia General Hospital from 1941, and medical director of the Baby Welfare Association. His wife, Dr Dorothy Case-Blechschmidt, was chief surgeon at Woman's Hospital.
Paul J. Jones, 1953
Paul Jones was an author, newspaper columnist, historian and aviator. He was born in Philadelphia in 1897, was graduated from Roman Catholic High School in 1915, and started studies at the University of Pennsylvania. When the United States entered World War I, Jones enlisted in the Army, was trained in Texas as an aviator, and served in France and Germany in 1918 and 1919. He returned to Penn, got his bachelor's degree, and went back to France and worked as an automobile salesman. Between 1920 and 1927, he earned a master's degree from Penn (1924), taught briefly at Temple University, studied at the University of Toulouse in France, and achieved a doctorate in romance languages from Penn (1927).
At Toulouse, in the summer of 1926, Jones met an acquaintance from Philadelphia, Katherine McCahey, a 25-year-old teacher at Frankford High School, who was there studying French. She was a Phi Beta Kappa Penn graduate, class of 1922, and had received a master's degree in romance languages from Bryn Mawr College. They were married in France. The bride did not get around to notifying the school district of her wedding until the end of 1927, and was fired for violating a rule that a female teacher must report her marriage immediately and begin usingher husband's name. The newspapers embarrassed the school officials by reporting the case, and Mrs Jones was penalized three days salary and reinstated.
Paul Jones wrote ÒAn Alphabet of AviationÓ, a book on how to fly an airplane, in 1928, and taught romance languages at Penn for eight years. He joined the Evening Bulletin newspaper staff in 1939, and in 1942 was given a leave of absence to work for Nelson Rockefeller in the Office of Inter-American Affairs as liaison to South American countries during World War II. Back at The Bulletin, he wrote a column, ÒCandid ShotsÓ, from 1946 until he retired in 1969, and on occasion toured Africa and Asia to report for The Bulletin. His short stories and articles appeared in such publications as The Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, Colliers, This Week, Human Events and Catholic Digest. After retirement, he taught at Villanova University and Immaculata College. He died at his home in Penn Valley on 9 October 1974.
Katherine McCahey Jones, after teaching languages at Frankford and Girls' High Schools, was on the public relations staff at John Wanamaker's for 15 years, and was founding editor of the store's employee publication. In 1952, she bought the Welsh Valley Herald, a weekly newspaper, and published it with her son. She died on 16 July 1977.
C. Taylor Whittier, 1964
Dr C. Taylor Whittier was Philadelphia Superintendent of Schools from March, 1964 to May, 1967. He was born in Chicago in 1912, received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the University if Chicago, and taught in Illinois and Iowa before becoming school superintendent in Oak Park, Illinois. He was then a principal of schools in Iowa, Indiana and Florida, before becoming superintendent of schools in Montgomery County, Maryland. From there, he came to Philadelphia. His wife, Jane, also from Chicago, earned bachelor's and master's degrees in history. They had four children.
Dr Whittier was a 10th-generation descendant of Thomas Whittier, who came to New England in 1620. He was distantly related to John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet, and also to President Zachary Taylor.
Lewis P. Rowland, 1967
Dr Lewis P. Rowland was named professor and chairman of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1967. He came from a professorship at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, bringing four other neurologists with him.
Dr Rowland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 3 August 1925. He was a 1945 graduate of Yale University, and a 1948 graduate of Yale Medical School. He was an authority on genetic disorders of the nervous system, and had previously worked for the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness at Bethesda, Maryland, and at the British National Institute for Medical Research, London.
In 1968, the Eastern Pennsylvania Multiple Sclerosis Society named Dr Rowland chairman of its medical advisory board; he was one of the first research fellows sponsored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In 1973, he returned to New York as director of neurological services at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center Neurological Institute.
George Soule, 1973
George Soule was an engineer. His father, George H. Soule Jr., had been a staff member of The New Republic starting in 1914, and was editor of the magazine from 1924 to 1947, taking time off, beginning in October, 1945, as postwar director of the National Bureau of Economic Research; in 1947, he became president of Pilot Press.
The Soules were descended from George Sowle, who came to America on the Mayflower in 1620 as a manservant of the Pilgrim Edward Winslow.
Robert Roach, 1987
Robert P. Jordan and Saul S. Weiner, 1994
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