William Biles was an American judge, attorney, legislator, sheriff, land speculator and merchant.
34 Facts About William Biles
1.
2.
The Biles family had been persecuted for their religious dissension in England, and William became a prominent Quaker minister.
3.
William Biles owned large tracts of land in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and was qualified as a proprietor of West New Jersey.
4.
William Biles traveled back to England for Quaker interests in 1701 and 1702, and returned to Pennsylvania where he died in 1710.
5.
William Biles was born in 1644 at Dorchester, Dorsetshire, England, the son of Alexander and Dorothy Biles.
6.
William Biles's maternal grandfather, the Rev William Strong, was a respected preacher at Westminster Abbey who wrote a number of religious tracts and was a supporter of the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War.
7.
The William Biles family had lived at All Saints Parish, Dorchester, for generations.
8.
When Biles was seven, in 1651, his paternal grandfather, Alexander Biles, was summoned for criticizing Parson Benn and subsequently stripped of property and title and imprisoned; this undoubtedly influenced William's religious conviction and political attitude.
9.
An old history book of Burlington, New Jersey claimed that William Biles arrived there in 1677, inferring that he arrived on the ship Kent.
10.
Two years before William Penn was granted a charter for his colony, Biles purchased land in present-day Falls Township from Sir Edmund Andros, representing the Duke of York.
11.
The fact that William Biles had established his plantation and built a house on the west side of the Delaware River by late 1679 is corroborated by Dankaerts' journal, extracted and transcribed as follows:.
12.
William Biles called the houses built by the Swedes "block houses," but from the way they were constructed, actually closely resembled the log cabin found on the western frontier at a later date.
13.
William Biles began his correspondence with the Society of Friends in England in 1680.
14.
Shortly after William Penn opened his grant for settlement in 1681, other Friends began joined the Biles family, settling west of the Delaware River.
15.
On Biles' plantation, near Penn's Manor, a large brick dwelling had been represented by tradition and from the initials inscribed upon it as the homestead of William Biles, who is said to have built it of bricks he brought from England.
16.
William Biles held office before Penn's arrival as a member of the "Creekhorne Court" by 1680.
17.
William Biles was noted as one of the Justices of the Provincial Court, along with Edward Shippen and Cornelius Empsom, held at Chester on the 18th day, 2nd month, 1699.
18.
William Biles was a member of the Assembly and Council for most of his life in Pennsylvania.
19.
The act was not against any law, but was not favored by his associates and William Biles bowed to the wishes of other Quakers.
20.
William Biles lived as a widower with his children for 15 months.
21.
William Biles made his intention to marry Jane Atkinson known to the Men's Meeting of Falls MM on the 3rd day, 8th month, 1688 and he was liberated to marry by Falls MM on the 7th day, 9th month, 1688.
22.
Thomas Atkinson had been a Quaker minister and farmer whom William Biles had aided some years earlier.
23.
William Biles moved with her children to the Biles plantation within the compass of Falls MM where she continued her ministry.
24.
William Biles, proposes the sale of the plantation she formerly lived upon and her said husband declared his willingness, and desire the advice of this meeting.
25.
William Biles served his second term in the Assembly in 1689 and was appointed to the Commission of Peace in Bucks County.
26.
Between 1699 and 1701, William Biles was a Puisne judge and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Province of Pennsylvania.
27.
William Biles was an influential man in early America and had many political allies and powerful enemies.
28.
William Biles apparently was a supporter of the popular party led by David Lloyd who was an outspoken opponent of a number of schemes proposed by Penn and his colonial officers, as undermining the liberties of the residents of Pennsylvania.
29.
William Biles was thrown in jail and imprisoned for four weeks.
30.
Feelings in the province ran so high that William Biles was released and the suit was dropped.
31.
William Biles concerning a letter that was written by Harrison to William Biles about a servant of the governour's.
32.
William Biles continued to serve in public office, as a judge, and maintained a private law practice.
33.
Shortly thereafter, Wass sold all of his real estate holdings in America to William Biles, including 45,000 acres in Quohakin County and 10,000 acres in Salem County, West New Jersey, bordering the Morris River and Delaware Bay.
34.
William Biles was elected to his final service in the Assembly in 1709.