The Brief Married Life of Isaac and Sarah Norris

THE BRIEF MARRIED LIFE OF ISAAC AND SARAH NORRIS By William T. Parsons* For a great many persons, springtime and wedding preparations form a natural combination of renewal and romance. Origin of this happy relationship is not especially important, but it existed just as surely in the eighteenth century as it does today. Isaac Norris and Sally Logan, Friends who were near neighbors just beyond Philadelphia , made their plans and preparations for marriage in the spring months of 1739. Many relatives and friends shared a happy anticipation of the event which the couple planned for the month of June. The marriage would join Norris and Logan families, a union of interest to domestic workers in these and related households. Like a halfdozen other local weddings of the decade, such as that of William Allen and Margaret Hamilton in 1734, it would help consolidate political, social, and economic leadership in a few of Pennsylvania's most prominent families, a major factor in the politics of the province. Furthermore, the Norris-Logan marriage involved two of the most prominent Quaker families of the time. The prospective bridegroom, Isaac Norris II of the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia, was a son of Isaac Norris I and Mary Lloyd Norris. The elder Norris, a prominent merchant and shipbuilder, was also a political leader who, in his later years, served as Clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The son was trained as copy clerk and agent in Isaac Norris and Company, the family enterprise.1 Company business trips led him to England and the Netherlands and to the Atlantic ports of Providence and Boston.2 Politics (and even poetry) interested young Isaac Norris more than business did; before he was thirty he served as a magistrate in Philadelphia. He succeeded his father in the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania , better known as the Pennsylvania Assembly. In that body he * William T. Parsons is Associate Professor of History at Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa. 1 Norris Ledger, 1724-1731, and Norris Letter Book, 1716-1730, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 2 See William T. Parsons, '"Journey to Rhoad Island,'" Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LXXXV (1961), 411-422. 67 68Quaker History assisted Speaker John Kinsey for a decade before he himself was elected Speaker in August, 1750.3 As a Quaker, Norris was active in some Friends affairs, but on several major principles of the Society, such as Negro slavery and military defense for the province, he insisted upon his right to an individual (and different) understanding. The Norris family lived at Fairhill, an attractive and impressive estate just off the road from Frankford to Germantown.4 Isaac Norris II accepted his mother's invitation to run the plantation for her immediately after the death of her husband. At Fairhill from 1736 to 1739 family activities involved Isaac, Deborah, Elizabeth, and the youngest brother, Charles. The girls, in particular, worried for fear Isaac would never marry, for he was now approaching forty years of age. Signs remain that he had earlier hopes, but his poems to mysterious and unidentified "L.M." produced no more results than his half-serious letters to Susanna Wright. When marriage eventually materialized, any thought of a partner outside the Society of Friends disappeared and Norris was fully orthodox. He married within the Society and followed all customary requisite forms. It would scarcely be appropriate to say that Sarah Elizabeth Logan suddenly appeared in the life of Isaac Norris, for he had seen her grow up in their native city of Philadelphia. Sarah Logan was the oldest child of James and Sarah Read Logan, born in December, 1715. In the Province of Pennsylvania, few men had achieved the political and intellectual prominence of James Logan, friend and defender of the Proprietors. Logan had a high regard for the abilities of Isaac Norris II, and on several occasions after the marriage declared himself content that Norris was the most learned man in the colony except Richard Peters. Logan may well have been less satisfied with the business and political tendencies of the young merchant, but he did give his blessing to the marriage. It was after all a marriage of social equals. Sally...