What added much to the hardship of his case was that merchandise was not the calling of his choice, but was accepted, or submitted to, out of deference to the wishes, and the explicit direction of his deceased father. He had a longing desire to study medicine; but his father-having a great dread of the associations of the medical lecture-room -had opposed the gratification of this desire; and had taken the precaution to insert a clause in his will, which would prevent it after his death. Ebenezer, in after life, “regretted that his early preference had been set aside, and those who knew him best believed that had he been permitted to follow his inclination, he would have been both a beloved and a successful physician."

While living with his cousin he had occasion to transact some business for her, that took him to the house of Mary Wetherill Jones, where he met, for the first time, her daughter Elizabeth, who afterwards became his wife.

Elizabeth Wetherill Jones was the "maiden name" of Samuel J. Levick's mother. Her ancestry was a remarkable one in many respects; and the family records have been preserved and arranged with a completeness, as well as accuracy, that we rarely find in our genealogical researches. Her father's ancestors were Welsh, and her mother's were English; so that we have on one side the names Jones, Lewis and Hayes [her father's grandmothers were both named Lewis]; and on the other those of Wetherill, Fearon, Noble, Smith, Garrett, Lovett and Yeates. We can name,

not only her eight great-grandparents, but in the Noble family can go back two generations beyond Joseph Noble who was her great-grandfather. The Smith line has been traced back to William Smith (Willelmus Smyth it is written in the old Latin Register of Graham Church), who was born about A. D. 1570. Elizabeth W. Jones would have had to prefix five greats, and her son Samuel six, to the word grandfather, to make it applicable to this ancestor. Again we find that William Yeates of Alborough, England, was the great-grandfather of her great-grandmother.

Many of these worthy ancestors, both the Welsh and the English, are alluded to in "Besse's Sufferings of Friends," as having been fined or imprisoned for their faithful adherence to the testimonies of Friends; and the certificates of removal that they brought when they came to this country, also the stations that they filled in the early Friends' meetings in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, show the esteem in which they were held by their friends both in the old and in the new country.

A considerable number of these prominent Friends held ciril offices, and one of them is spoken of as the "loved and trusted friend of William Penn." Of the Wetherill's, Christopher, his son Thomas, and his grandson Samuel, were members of the Council of Proprietors of West Jersey. David Jones, Elizabeth's great-grandfather, was one of the first elders appointed in Haverford Monthly Meeting. The name of his wife, Katherine Jones, appears on the record as

an "inspector of conversation," also as a "representative to the Quarterly Meeting."

Haverford, Merion and Radnor, seem to have been favorite localities with these early Welsh settlers. Tradition informs us that they were attracted by the fertility of the soil, and by the abundant supply of pure spring water. The English ancestors were drawn to Burlington County, New Jersey; though some found their way to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The family history is interspersed with numerous pithy notes as well as more serious items of interest; many of the latter having reference to the persecutions that the Friends of that day had to suffer for their faith, and their loyalty in the support of their testimonies.

David and Katherine Jones had a son James, who was born in Wales, and who came to this country with his parents in 1699. He married Hannah Hayes, lived to be ninety-two years old, and died at his home in Blockley. This worthy couple had a son named Isaac who married Mary Noble Wetherill; the marriage being accomplished in Friends' meeting-house at Burlington, New Jersey, on the twenty-sixth of Eleventh Month, 1778. The offspring of this marriage consisted of four children the youngest of whom was Elizabeth W. Jones, who became the wife of Ebenezer Levick.

We should have to go farther back to bring in the Garrett, Lovett and Yeates families. The mother of Joseph Noble was Mary Garrett Noble; and the mother of his wife

was Elizabeth Lovett Smith whose mother was Anne daughter of William Yeates of Alborough, England. The one last named is spoken of as "a worthy Quaker gentleman of Alborough."

To do justice to this family record it should be given in its entirety, which would encroach on the life of the one to be portrayed in this book; so we leave the remote ancestors of Elizabeth W. Jones, and refer to her parents, Isaac and Mary Wetherill Jones, whose marriage has already been noted. In speaking of her parents, Elizabeth says: "My parents were members of the religious Society of Friends, as their ancestors had been, from the days of George Fox. Sincerely attached to its doctrines and testimonies, for which their forefathers had suffered imprisonment and much loss of worldly goods, they were not in the narrow sense of the word sectarian, and numbered among their friends, even their intimate friends, many good people of other religious denominations."

When in her nineteenth year Elizabeth lost her father, very suddenly; and her young life heretofore so joyous was now overshadowed by a deep sorrow. She speaks of him as "a tall and very handsome man, with dark hair and eyes, tender and gentle to all, unwilling to hurt the feelings of anyone thoroughly honest himself, he was unsuspecting of others, and thus in more than one instance, became the loser, pecuniarily, where he had trusted others in business relations."

The other children had been married before the death of their father, so that after that sad event her mother and herself constituted the family in their home: thus it was until the time of her marriage, after which her husband and herself lived with "mother" one year, and then moved into their own house. Not long after their settlement in their new abode, "mother" came to live with them, and was one of their household for the remainder of her life.

Mary Wetherill Jones died at the home of her son-in-law, Ebenezer Levick, on the eleventh of Twelfth Month, 1829, and her remains were interred in Friends' Ground at Merion.

CHAPTER II.

HIS FATHER'S FAMILY.

Ebenezer Levick was the son of William and Susanna (Manlove) Levick, and was born at Little Creek, Delaware, on the sixteenth of Seventh Month, 1791. When about sixteen years of age he removed to Philadelphia, and entered upon the preparation for a mercantile life.

Elizabeth Wetherill Jones was the daughter of Isaac and Mary (Wetherill) Jones, and was born at No. 17 Pine Street, Philadelphia, on the fifth of Sixth Month, 1789.

Ebenezer Levick and Elizabeth W. Jones were married