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Andrea J. Scherer Your Bucks County Connection
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Yardley Office |
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Office: (215) 493-5600
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HISTORIC YARDLEY On July 29, 1682 William Yardley (formerly YEARDLEY), who with wife Jane and three sons, Enoch, William and Thomas and a servant Andrew Heath, arrived from Ransclough, England (Staffordshire). They arrived via the Delaware River on the ship "Friends' Adventure." They located on five hundred acres of land purchased from William Penn on March 30, 1681.
In his will, William Yardley left the family plantation, Prospect Farm, to his three sons. Both Enoch and Thomas died on the same day November 23, 1702 probably the result of a smallpox epidemic that struck the southern townships that winter. Thomas married Hester Baker, the daughter of Henry Baker who had settled along the river in Upper Makefield in 1700. Thomas and Hester "Baker" Yardley had two children, William (1701) and Hester (1702); both died with their father in 1703. Enoch and Mary Yardley had three children. The first, Jane, died in infancy; Mary and Sarah died with their father, uncle Thomas, and two young cousins in 1703. Little is known of his youngest son, William, who died married that same winter of 1702-3. A nephew, Thomas Yardley, Jr. came to America to settle his uncle’s estate in 1704 and never returned to England. He opened a ferry line, which started operating in 1710 from Letchworth Avenue, the lower boundary of the village, and landed in New Jersey further downstream. This was an important link between West Jersey and the three roads leading to Philadelphia by way of Falls, Langhorne and Newtown. So any descendants would come from Thomas and his family.
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead ~ Benjamin Franklin |
