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From: "Christie Russell" <>
Subject: [Q-R] Katharine Hepburn's Quaker Roots
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 08:32:45 -0500


With the passing of Legendary Film and Stage actress, Katharine Hepburn
[1907-2003], it may be of interest to some on this list that she was a
9th generation descendant of Quakers, Thomas and Margery (Heath) Janney
who emigrated from Cheshire, England to Bucks Co., PA in 1683. Thomas
Janney was a yeoman farmer of the "Midlands" and lived near Styall,
Wilmslow Parish, Cheshire.



Thomas Janney and his first cousin, Mary Janney and her husband, John
Bancroft, are said to have been converted to the Doctrines of the
Society of Friends by George Fox, by his first sermon preached in
Cheshire at the Market Cross in Stockport in 1654. Thomas was 21 years
old. He was imprisoned for two months in 1665 for attending a Quaker
meeting hear his home. He had goods distrained for refusing to pay
tithes on at least nine occasions. He was a Minister of the Quaker
faith, published religious papers and traveled extensively in England,
Ireland, and America.



Thomas Janney corresponded with William Penn. A letter from Penn to
Thomas Janney in October 1681 [the original is at the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia] reads, in part:

"Many whose eyes & minds are tow much abroad may imagin & talke, but
thats little to me. I shall not I thinke go till next spring; but a ship
goes soon next month: & those yt desire to have their land lye in ye
best places & be laid out wth ye first must deal before yt ship &
comissionrs goes, wch may be by ye 1st of next month so if any there
away desire to have land wth me, they must write to me what & how much &
I will have ye deeds prpared at Thomas Ruddyards whithr if they send
their money they may have it as ye rest have."



Thomas Janney's mother, Elizabeth Worthington, died in 1677, and his
father, Thomas Janney, in 1682. Two of his wife's sisters and their
husbands, Ann Heath and James Harrison and Jane Heath and William
Yardley, and other relatives had already emigrated to Pennsylvania.
Thomas initially purchased 550 acres from Penn and moved his family to
Bucks Co. The Janneys took Passage on the ship "Endeavor" from London
and arrived at the Delaware River 19 September 1683. Thomas Janney was
elected to a 4-year term on the Provincial Council in 1684, and was also
a justice of the peace for six years.



He continued in America the Quaker ministry that he had begun in
England. In 1690 he donated 72 acres of land to be used as the Quaker
burial grounds for Falls Monthly Meeting at Fallsington, Bucks Co., the
first MM organized in Pennsylvania. The meeting house there was built
in 1693. Thomas continued to publish papers in the interest of Friends
and corresponded with his sister, Martha [Janney] Burgess who remained
in Pownall Fee, Cheshire and with other Quakers.



He returned to England in 1695 as a Quaker Minister. He traveled
England for nearly two years meeting with Friends. He became ill, and
died at the home of his sister, Martha (Janney) Burgess, in 1697, just
two or three months before he planned to return to Pennsylvania. He was
buried in the old Quaker Cemetery at Mobberly in Cheshire.



Christie Russell




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