My Genealogy Hound

ALGERNON BROOKE ROBERTS, attorney-at-law and senator from Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, was born at Pencoyd Farm, in that county, August 12, 1875. He is the son of George B. and Miriam P. (Williams) Roberts.

George B. Roberts (father) was for many years the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and was one of the best known residents of Montgomery county. He was born at Pencoyd Farm, on which he resided all his life, and received his professional training in the Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York. He immediately began life as a railroad engineer, working himself up to the high position which he attained by incessant diligence and superior ability as a civil engineer and railroad manager. He began work as a rodman on the mountain division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and in 1852, while he was still but nineteen years of age, was made assistant engineer of the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad, aiding in the construction and location of the Sunbury and Erie, the North Pennsylvania and other important lines, being employed as chief engineer on several of them. In 1862 he returned to the Pennsylvania Railroad as assistant to the president, J. Edgar Thomson, continuing in this position for seven years. His service was so valuable that he was made fourth vice-president of the road in 1869. He was soon afterward made a second vice-president, and on June 3, 1874, when Colonel Thomas A. Scott succeeded J. Edgar Thomson in the presidency, Mr. Roberts was promoted to the post of first vice-president. This was a very responsible position, great interests being confided to his care. Colonel Scott died in May, 1880, and Mr. Roberts was chosen to succeed him, and held the position by annual re-election until his death, in 1897. He was twice married, his first wife being Sarah Lapsley Brinton, and his second wife (mother of Senator Roberts) being Miriam Pyle Williams. George B. Roberts was the son of Isaac Warner Roberts, who married first Emily Thomas, and had four daughters, and married (second) Rosalinda Evans Brooke, and had two sons, Algernon, died November 5, 1868, unmarried, and George B. Roberts, born in 1833. George B. Roberts was of Welsh descent, his ancestor having come from Bala, in Wales, more than two centuries ago. He gave the name to the railroad station near the homestead.

Isaac Warner Roberts (grandfather), born March 15, 1789, died September 19, 1859. He was the son of Algernon Roberts and Tacy Warner, his wife, who had eleven children in all. Algernon Roberts was born in Merion, January 24, 1751. He was lieutenant colonel of the Seventh Battalion, Philadelphia County Militia, 1777, and justice of the peace for Upper and Lower Merion townships. He married Tacy Warner, daughter of Colonel Isaac Warner, of Blockley, January 18, 1751. She was descended from William Warner, of Draycott, Blockley parish, Worcestershire, England, son of John Warner, who came to Pennsylvania, prior to Penn’s proprietorship of the province. The parents of Algernon Roberts were John and Rebecca (Jones) Roberts, who had twelve children.

John Roberts (great-great-grandfather) was born 4th mo. 26, 1710, and died January 13, 1776. His wife died 12th mo. 8, 1779. He was the son of Robert and Sidney Roberts. Robert Roberts was the son of John and Gainor (Pugh) Roberts. This John Roberts was the immigrant, and he was also a very prominent man in the colony. He held the office of justice of the peace, and was elected to the colonial assembly. Where he settled he was almost surrounded by Swedes, who came to the country before he did. He built the old mansion which is still occupied by his descendants. He left for his posterity a very interesting account of his life, for which see Thomas Allen Glenn’s “Merion in the Welsh Tract.’’

Algernon Brooke Roberts was educated in the Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia, becoming a student at Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1896, at twenty-one years of age. He then entered the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania, completing the course and being admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1899. He was admitted to the bar of Montgomery county in 1903. Senator Roberts entered upon an active career at the bar, attracting favorable attention from the first. In 1900 he was elected a member of the board of commissioners of Lower Merion township, and the same year was presidential elector-at-large on the Republican ticket for McKinley and Roosevelt. March 18, 1901, he was appointed assistant United States district attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. In 1902 he was elected to the presidency of the Lower Merion board of township commissioners, in which position he has been very active in behalf of the public interests of the township in which the family have resided from the earliest colonial times. At the election in November, 1902, Mr. Roberts was elected senator, after a very active canvass, his Democratic opponent being John A. Wentz, who had been elected in 1898. The senatorial career of Mr. Roberts was exceedingly brilliant, he laboring zealously, not only for his constituents but for the interests of the people of Pennsylvania. As the author of the Sproul-Roberts Road bill, providing for state aid to highways, he was its champion in the senate and secured its passage through that body by a practically unanimous vote. He has also devoted much time and effort to the explanation of the workings of the law to the people of the county, making many public addresses at different points. He made also otherwise a splendid record in his first session at Harrisburg. He also took an active part in the Roosevelt campaign of 1904.

Mr. Roberts married, June 12, 1902, Elizabeth Binney Evans, daughter of Rowland Evans, Esq., of the Montgomery county and Philadelphia bars, and granddaughter of Horace Binney, of the Philadelphia bar. They have one son, Algernon, born April 6, 1903.