History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1887



Edwin Lacey Biography

Edwin Lacey, farmer, P. O. Wrightstown, was born In Wrightstown township, Bucks county, and is a son of Isaac and Ruth (Twining) Lacey, both natives of Bucks county, and of English Quaker descent.

William Lacey was the pioneer of the family in America. He came from the Isle of Wight and settled In Wrightstown.

His Son John married Rachel Heston in 1718, And had two sons that married : John, to Jane Chapman, in 1740, and Joseph, to Esther Warner, in 1749.

John Lacey and Jane Chapman had eight children, one of whom John (afterward General Lacey), became a noted man in his day, serving in the revolutionary war under General Washington. According to the church record kept by the Friends at Wrightstown he was born December 4, 1762. He married Anatasia Reynolds, daughter of Colonel Reynolds, of Burlington county, N. J.

The Lacey family was quite numerous at one time in this section of the country. The great-grandparents of Edwin Lacey were Joseph and Esther (Warner) Lacey, who were residents of Buckingham township at one time. Hls gradparents were John and Rachel (Wiggins) Lacey, the former born February 19, 1766, and the latter June 10, 1761. They were married March 20, 1792, and had four children : Warner, Benjamin, Isaac and Esther.

John Lacey died August 17, 1826. His wife died December 10, 1889.

Isaac Lacey was a carpenter by trade, also cabinet-maker and undertaker, and at one time a farmer. He was born and died in the house in which Edwin resides, his death occurring July 15, 1881. The mother was born November 30, 1797, and died July 4, 1867. They had five children : John and Silas, -deceased; Rachel, wife of William H. Birdsall, residing in Clinton county, Ohio; Edwin and Elizabeth T., who reside together. Edwin was reared to farming, and has always lived In Wrightstown township.

He takes an interest in politics, and posseses a pioneer spirit. He attended and took part in the first republican meeting held in the county. He attended the first national republican convention held in Philadelphia; also the second at Chicago, which nominated Lincoln.

He served over six years as school director, and was the first to advocate the rebuilding of its school-houses. He is the founder of the town of Ivyland, probably the first regularly laid-out town in the county.

August 12, 1878, he began to dig the first cellar, and completed the first house the following winter near the corner of Lincoln street and DuBois avenue. Ho erected several other buildings. He started the project of building a large temperance hotel there by a stock company in 1875. The company not furnishing enough money to finish it, Edwin, in his zeal to complete the building, indorsed for the necessary material and labor.

When it was done it could neither be sold nor rented to advantage, and his remaining lots were sold to pay his indorsements.

In 1868 he visited Omaha and bought thirty acres of land in its suburbs for $1850. The growth of the city in the last five years has been so rapid, that in 1887 he was offered and refused $26,000 for it. The value of this land, with the results of persistent toil on the farm, assumes the settlement of all claims against him, with a surplus of over $20,000.

Edwin has been a lifelong total abstainer from the use of intoxicating drinks and tobacco, and never indulges I profanity. He favors a constitutional amendment, with a party to enforce it, to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks.



Source: History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania; J.H. Battle; Warner & Co.; 1887.













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