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biography
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Wakefield, David, founder of the family in this country, married the
daughter of Jeremiah Wade, a wealthy landed proprietor and neighbor of
the Wakefields in Galway County, Ireland. He emigrated to America between
1768 and 1773. Traditions says that he was implicated with his brothers:
Robert Wakefield, beheaded; Gilbert Wakefield, arrested with Robert and
imprisoned for life; and Samuel Wakefield, who escaped in a rowboat to
Scotland; in the plot against Catholic rule in Ireland, and when detected
David Wakefield was hidden by his wife in a hogshead of clothes with
which she embarked to America and was three days out at sea before the
captain of the ship knew he was on board. By this means it is confidently
believed that he made his escape to this free country.
Upon his arrival in Baltimore, he first settled in Path Valley situated
between the Tuscaroras and Conococheague Mountains, in Perry County, then
known as Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, where some of the younger of
his children were born.
After residing there for about sixteen years, he settled on the north
side of the Connemaugh River, opposite Squirrel Hill, now New Florence,
then Cumberland but now Indiana County, at a point where now stands the
village of Centreville.
After remaining there some two years and finding the title to his land
was defective, they moved five miles to the northwest near the headwaters
of Richard's Run in Wheatfield Township, some time between 1788 and 1794,
and there they remained and there David Wakefield died and was buried in
the family burying ground on the farm site of the old homestead.
After his death the widow went to reside with her eldest daughter Joanna
Wakefield, who married William Carroll, a nephew of Charles Carroll of
Carrollton, Virginia, and who was one of the signers of the signers of
the Declaration of Independence, and who lived in the Wolf Creek
settlement, Mercer County, where she died and her remains were laid
beside her husband's.
The descendants of David Wakefield and wife were as follows:
1) Thomas Wakefield, born 1757, married Elizabeth Morton, niece of John
Morton, who signed the Declaration of Independence; died in 1844; was in
the Revolutionary War, and shared the hardships of the winter at Valley
Forge with General Washington;
2) Rev James Wakefield, born November 11, 1767; married Mary Clark; died
February 11, 1840; was the first Methodist minister in Indiana County;
3) John Wakefield married Elizabeth Newlon, 1803, who was his nurse while
ill at a hotel on a visit to Dublin, Ireland;
4) Jeremiah Wakefield married Isabella Lynn;
5) David Wakefield, born October, 1778, married Jennie C Carnahan;
6) Joanna Wakefield married William Carroll
7) Margaret Wakefield married Thomas Bracken;
8) Mary Wakefield married her nephew, Robert Wakefield...
A century and a half of Pittsburg and her people by John Newton Boucher;
illustrated. Vol. 3 p209,
Contributed by Marta Burns.
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