JOSEPH JENKINS ERWIN, of Spokane, Washington, though his lot is now cast far from the place of his nativity, cherishes a love of the good old county of Bucks where his ancestors on both maternal and paternal lines lived, loved and labored. He was born in the year 1844, and is a son of John and Martha M. (Jenkins) Erwin, both of whom came of Bucks county ancestry and are descended from early settlers in and near Bucks county, of Scotch-Irish Welsh, Holland, and English extraction. His maternal ancestry is given fully in the sketch of his cousin, Zachary Taylor Jenkins, which appears elsewhere in this work.

John Erwin, his great-grandfather, was of Scotch-Irish origin, and a resident of Southampton township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where he died February 7, 1823, at the age of fifty-three years. The Erwin family were early Scotch-Irish emigrants to Bucks county, and took a prominent part in the founding of the Republic, many of them taking an active part in the revolutionary struggle. Hugh Erwin was a member of the associated company of Southampton in 1775, and doubtless the pioneer ancestor of John Erwin, and probably also a kin to Colonel Arthur Erwin, of Tinicum, who came to Pennsylvania about 1760 and was assassinated while serving in the state assembly in 1790. John Erwin, of Southampton, married Susan Tomlinson, of English Quaker ancestry, who was born in Bucks county, in 1775, and died February 5, 1856. She was a descendant of Ralph Dracott, an early Huguenot settler in Southampton. John and Susan (Tomlinson) Erwin reared a family in Southampton, among whom was Joseph Erwin, born December 23, 1792, died October 8, 1870.

Joseph Erwin married Hannah Morrison, born February 10, 1796, died December 10, 1860, daughter of John and Hannah (Yerkes) Morrison, who came from the north of Ireland and settled on the Brandywine, and a descendant on the maternal side from Anthony Yerkes, one of the early burgesses of Germantown. (See "Morrison Family" in this work.) Joseph and Hannah (Morrison) Erwin lived for a time in Montgomery county, where was born to them a family, of whom two were as follows: John Erwin, the father of the subject of this sketch, and Martha Morrison Erwin, who married John Jenkins, brother of Martha Merrick Jenkins, whom her brother married.

John Erwin, son of Joseph and Hannah (Morrison) Erwin, was born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. As before stated he married Martha Merrick Jenkins, daughter of Joseph and Tacy (Martindale) Jenkins, of Bucks county, whose distinguished ancestry is given in the account of the Jenkins family in this work, and they were the parents of six children: Joseph Jenkins, the subject of this sketch, born June 16, 1844; B. Frank, residing in Philadelphia; Preston, of Westport, Missouri; Tacy, wife of William Sutton, of Philadelphia; and James and Charles Erwin, also of Philadelphia.