History
Colonel Arthur Erwin is a well know name in Tinicum Township. The town Erwinna was named after this Revolutionary War hero and intrepid land speculator. His story can be discovered in any early history about Bucks County.
Herstory
It is not surprising that very little can be found in these same history books about his second wife, Mary Kennedy. What is written in the history books reflects only who she was in relation to the men in her life (Father, Husband, Sons).
This is the story of how Kate Flaherty, the Great, Great, Great, Great Granddaughter of Mary Kennedy Erwin, unraveled the mystery of Mary Kennedy's life one document at a time.
I would say that I became interested in Mary Kennedy Erwin while I was researching Colonel Arthur Erwin for a recent family reunion. While Colonel Arthur Erwin is an interesting character, I became very impressed with Mary through the documents I found that gave me insight into who she was as a woman.
Who is Kate Flaherty and who was Mary Kennedy Erwin?
I am a professionally trained archivist working for the National Archives in the D.C. area, and am profoundly aware that it is very difficult to find documents from the Colonial era that relate to the personal lives of women. I did some preliminary research from home and was able to find a book online from 1881 that has a history of the family of Rev William and Mary Kennedy (her parents), and through that history we can make some assumptions about her early life.
Mary was the daughter of William Kennedy (born in Londonderry, Ireland, not far from Belfast, in 1695) and Mary "Marian" Henderson. Their first son, Thomas, was about a year old when the Kennedys left Ireland in 1730, and settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Once arriving in Pennsylvania, the family had two more sons, James and Robert. Mary was born in Tinicum Township but sources on Mary's birth date differ, some say she was born in 1740 and others in 1747. The family were likely members of the First Tinicum Presbyterian Church which later became know as the Red Hill Church.
Marriage to Arthur
I reached out to the Spruance Library in Doylestown and was sent a number of documents. The earliest document I found that directly referred to Mary Kennedy Erwin was the announcement of her marriage to Arthur Erwin on July 27, 1771. However sources differ, some histories indicate they were married on July 27, 1769.
Mary met Arthur Erwin soon after he arrived in Bucks County. His first wife had died on board ship on the way over from Ireland in 1768. Mary Kennedy was likely in her twenties when she married Arthur, taking on his household and 6 children by his first wife. Together they had 6 additional children: Samuel, Mary, Rebecca, Arthur Jr., Francis and John.
In early letters, Arthur described Mary as “as virtuous as any woman…not at all given to liquor” and that she, “…did not have a lazy bone in her body.”
Problems in the Marriage
In the documents sent by the Spruance Library, there was included a newspaper ad from 1781, in which Arthur announced his separation from Mary and declared he would not be responsible for any debts she incurred.
According to this, after ten years together, their marriage had became a rocky one. Arthur wrote, "My wife, MARY ERWIN, having for these seven years past uniformly and invariably endeavoured, by every effort in her power, to destroy my happiness, comfort and peace of mind."
The Spruance Library also sent me a petition filed by Mary in the Court of Sessions about the separation, offering me a rare glimpse of the woman's side of this story. Mary's courage to file a petition against Arthur was very unusual for the time period, especially considering how influential he was in Bucks County. Seeing the actual document with her signature was very powerful for me.
According to the minutes from the Quarter Session held at the County Seat in Newtown, Arthur ejected Mary from their home, and she sued him for support. In the petition, she outlined her husband's poor treatment of her as well as her desire to tend to the needs of her young children from whom she had been alienated.
I believe she took a great risk to herself to do this and I attribute her determination to the fact that she was a first generation American with some education when she was married. She obviously believed she was entitled to some basic rights within her marriage which again was very unusual at the time.
The minutes shared, “your petitioner having had, some time ago, the misfortune to fall under the displeasure of her said husband, he took revenge of her in a most indecent and inhumane manner by beating and abusing her, driving her out of his house in the night time without shoes or stockings or necessary clothing, and publishing her in the newspapers that no correspondent should trust her upon his account and discharging tenants and near neighbors from taking her in and harboring her in their houses, meaning not only to deprive her of the comfort and satisfaction of enjoying the company of any of her children which she has had by him."
Compromise
There is some speculation in local histories, quoting letters between family members, that Arthur’s vast holdings led to the difficulties in his married life. They speculated that Mary had grave concerns for her children’s inheritance and on how to equally distribute Arthur’s wealth fairly amongst his heirs by his first wife and those children he had with Mary Kennedy.
According to these histories, in 1790, Arthur wrote to Mary’s brother Robert Kennedy that “he had fallen upon a plan to keep peace between his two families…He was preparing to move "Polly" and her children to the new countries; he had made large purchases there and would purchase more until his estate there was fully equal to the estate down here.” Arthur purchased some 45,000 acres of land up north, but before he could act on his plan to give the land to Mary and her children, he was assassinated by a squatter and died on June 9, 1791, intestate.
The estate was settled in Orphans Court, and I was able to find the document which showed that Mary received her 1/3 dowager portion of his estate and the decision was made that her children would inherit the lands in Luzerne County, while Arthur’s children by his first wife remained on his lands in Bucks County.
End of Life
Eventually I traveled to Bucks County to visit libraries and places related to my family History. I visited the Erwin Stover House, the Erwin Family Burying ground, The Spruance Library in Doylestown as well as the Easton Library and the Sigal Museum Collection.
This is the second time I found during my research a document signed in Mary's own handwriting. This signature seemed fainter, was it the ink or the quill? I can not help but wonder, if it was the manifestation of a woman ten years older with more experience with the world. Or perhaps the lighter hand reflected her feelings toward the document. The first signature was an act of defiance, the second an act of compromise.
The Dower release letter offered the compromise, that Mary would give up her 1/3 portion of the Bucks County estates to the children of Arthur's First Wife for a fair value for her and her children.
The below document is a copy of Mary Erwin's Last Will and Testament. I was moved by her obvious care for her children.
The will gives us a sense of her strong family relationships near the end of her life. Her care for her children was clear dividing Arthur's estates in Painted Post, Canesteo, and Tioga Point equally between her four boys (Samuel, Arthur, Francis and John) and provides her own Easton home for her Daughter Rebecca.
From Mary's will, I learned that at the time of its writing in 1812, she was residing in Easton, Pennsylvania in a house on the north side of Northampton Street .
As a part of my research I came across other Erwin family descendants who shared letters that showed Mary from other perspectives. One cousin from the Erwin, NY area sent me a copy of a letter that Mary's son, Dr. John Erwin of Easton, PA , wrote to his brothers living in Erwin, NY days after she died to inform them of her passing.
I visited Mary's grave in the Easton Cemetery in October of 2022 where she is buried next to her son John. Mary's grave inscription reads: In memory of Mary Erwin, widow of the late Col. Arthur Erwin of Bucks County. She died in Easton on the 29th July 1817, in the 70th year of her age.
I hope this collection of documents pays tribute to Mary's strength, determination, and deep love for her children. I am happy to affirm that Mary passed on these traits in the successive generations of women in my family. It seemed appropriate to share at the end of this post a photo of one of Mary's descendants, whose needlework was featured at the top of this blog.
Credits:
Documents were shared from the Spruance Library, the Easton Library and the Sigal Collection