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2 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL SOCIETY. THE REVOLUTIONARY JOURNAL OF MARGARET MORRIS, OF BURLINGTON, N. J., DECEMBER 6, 1776, TO JUNE 11, 1778. Introduction. Margaret (Hill) Morris, the author of the following Journal , was the eighth child and sixth daughter of Richard Hill, of South River, near Annapolis, Maryland, and his wife, Deborah Moore, a granddaughter of Thomas Lloyd, the friend of William Penn. Richard Hill was a physician and also a trader (shipping merchant). Through bad debts, and losses at sea, tradition says by privateers, he became greatly embarrassed, and to mend his fortunes, moved (1739) to Funchal, Island of Madeira, entered into the wine and commission business, was very successful, and paid his old creditors principal and interest. He returned to America in 1761, his wife having died a short time before he sailed, and he himself died not long after his arrival in Philadelphia . On going to Madeira, the parents left six of their children including Margaret, then about two years old, to the care of their daughter Hannah, not sixteen years old, but already the wife of her cousin, Dr. Samuel Preston Moore, of Philadelphia. It was under the care of this sister and her husband that Margaret Hill was brought up. How well it was done the after lives of this young group testify. This sister, Hannah, had no children of her own. Margaret Hill was born in 1737, and was married in 1758 to William Morris, Jr., a descendant of the first Anthony Morris, who came to Pennsylvania in the time of William Penn. William Morris was a drygoods merchant in Philadelphia. He died in 1766 leaving three children to whom was added a posthumous child, making four children under the age of seven for the young mother to bring up. William Morris was not able to leave his family more than moderately well provided for, and in 1770 Margaret Morris moved to Burlington, New Jersey, to make her home with her sister Sarah who had married George Dillwyn. Her youngest sister, REVOLUTIONARY JOURNAL OF MARGARET MORRIS. 3 Milcah Martha Moore (married to Dr. Charles Moore) was at this time also residing in Burlington. Margaret Morris lived in the house on Green Bank fronting on the Delaware, which had been occupied by William Franklin,1 Governor of New Jersey. This house is the scene of the incidents related in the Journal. In addition to other accomplishments, Margaret Morris had a very considerable knowledge of medicine, and really practiced medicine, doubtless one of the first women in America to do so. It is related of her that at one time she had thirty patients with smallpox. Into the further life of Margaret Morris it is not possible to enter. It is sufficient to say that it was one of great beauty and usefulness. She died in 1816 aged seventy-nine. The " Revolutionary Journal," kept for the amusement of her sister, Milcah Martha Moore,2 is a fragment. Fifty copies were printed in 1836 for private circulation only, and it was again printed for private circulation in John Jay Smith's " Letters of the Hill Family," 1854. The original " Journal " is now in the possession of Haverford College. As the manuscript is considerably worn and the paper fragile, it has been thought advisable to reprint it in the Bulletin for preservation. The text here given is taken from that in the " Letters of the Hill Family," carefully compared with the original and corrected in accordance with it, with the exception of the punctuation which is irregular and sometimes wanting altogether. The spelling is in a few instances slightly modernized, but the proper names are given as they are written and any corrections are put in brackets or in notes. In John Jay Smith's text there are many slight differences 1 William Franklin was the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. It was never disclosed who his mother was, but he was brought up in his father's house and well educated. He was appointed Governor of New Jersey in 1762. He became a British sympathizer and was arrested in 1776, was imprisoned for two years, was finally exchanged in 1778, and went to New York. He...

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