My Genealogy Hound

HUGH ROBERTS, a rising member of the Philadelphia bar who practiced law a dozen years or more in Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, was born in the twenty-third ward of Philadelphia, January 8, 1868. He is of Welsh Quaker stock on his father’s side, their ancestor, Edward Roberts, having come to America in 1699, when he was twelve years old. He settled first in Abington, where in 1714 he married Mary Bolton, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Bolton. In 1816 he removed to Great Swamp in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, and afterward successively to Richland and Quakertown. Edward Roberts was a minister of the Friends’ Society for forty years. He died in 1768, aged eighty-one years, and his wife in 1784, aged ninety-seven years, six months. He had a large family of children who married into prominent families of eastern Pennsylvania, thus establishing an extensive connection so that Edward Roberts became the founder of a very numerous and influential line of descendants.

His son, David, who was born in 1722, and died in 1804, married in 1754, Phoebe Lancaster, daughter of Thomas and Phoebe (Wardell) Lancaster, an eminent minister among Friends who died in 1750, while on a religious visit to the island of Barbados. Thomas Lancaster had eleven children, John, Phebe, Job, Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, Aaron, Moses, Elizabeth, Benjamin and Thomas, and his descendants are very numerous especially in the west, including, as a matter of course, all the descendants of David and Phebe Roberts.

David and Phebe Roberts’ children were: Amos, born Fourth-mo., 19, 1758, married Margaret Thomas, daughter of Edward and Alice, Eleventh mo., 30, 1775; Mary, Elizabeth, Nathan, Jane, Abigail, Nathan, David and Ivan.

Amos Roberts (great-great-grandfather), and Margaret, his wife, had the following children, Mordecai, Mary, Alice Matilda, Hugh, Andrew, George, Phebe, Margaret and Deborah, all natives of Richland except Deborah, who was born in Philadelphia county.

Hugh Roberts (great-grandfather), married Sarah Spencer, eldest daughter of Nathan and Rachel Pim Spencer, in 1806. He was a miller and lived near Branchtown, Philadelphia. Their children were as follows: Lydia died in infancy; Caroline, born in 1809 and died in 1872, married Charles S. Rorer; Spencer Roberts, born in 1811, died in 1885; Margaret, 1813-1891, married Gideon Lloyd; Edmund, born in 1815, died 1866; Alfred, born in 1817, and Maria, in 1819, died in infancy; Hugh, born Eighth-mo., 5, 1821, died Eighth-mo., 23, 1894.

Hugh Roberts (grandfather), married Alice Anna Gallagher, born Eighth-mo. 5, 1819, and died Fourth-mo. 10, 1902, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Their children: Charles H., born Sixth-mo. 18, 1843; Ellwood, born First-mo. 22, 1846, and married Mary L. Carter; Mary, born Tenth-mo. 25, 1847, and married Samuel Livezey. All of them are residents of Norristown.

Charles Henry Roberts (father), was educated in common schools in the vicinity of Wilmington, Delaware, where he was born, and in 1862 he began teaching, After following that profession for a number of years in Pennsylvania and Dakota, where he removed in 1877, he studied law, and has practiced that profession continuously since, in Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and other states, residing successively in Yankton, Sioux City and Kansas City, and removing in 1903 to Norristown. He married Third-mo. 20, 1865, Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel and Louisa (Blakey) Stradling, both of old Bucks county families. Their children: Alice Anna, born Fourth-mo. 16, 1866, followed the profession of teaching for fifteen years and accepted a position in the United States census bureau at Washington in 1900; Hugh; Samuel, born Eighth-mo. 5, 1871, has followed the occupation of a druggist and traveling salesman for a number of years; he resides in Chicago, married Third-mo., 1902, Edith Lillian Storey; and Louisa Elizabeth, born September 23, 1886, graduated at the Kansas City high school, Fifth-mo. 27, 1902, with high honors.

Hugh Roberts was educated in the Friends’ Schools taught by his father at Salem, New Jersey, and elsewhere, and followed the profession of teaching in Iowa for several years. He entered his father’s office as a student-at-law and was admitted to the bar in 1889, passing the best examination ever recorded up to that time in the state of Iowa. He has since practiced law continuously in the civil and criminal courts of Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, including the supreme courts of each state. In the fall of 1901, he left Kansas City and came to Norristown, was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in February, 1902, and has practiced law in the courts of that city ever since, his office being at No. 17 North Juniper street, opposite the City Hall. He has received many encomiums from members of the bench and bar and from others for the ability he has displayed in trying cases, winning them in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles in many instances. He has also been interested in building operations and real-estate enterprises in Norristown. During his practice in Kansas City; he achieved many successes and was recognized as a leading member of the Kansas City bar.