William Phillips (1785 - 1866)

Born 6 Feb 1785 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England

Died 11 Nov 1866 at age 81 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, United States

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Biography

• Fact: Immigration (27 Oct 1829) New York, New York, USA
• Fact: Emigration London, England

William's younger brother, James, was convicted of larceny (by servant) in Oct 1829 and this may have been the reason for his departure with his wife, children, sister-in-law & her children to America that same month. Why Charles did not accompany her is unknown (unless one speculates that he may have travelled under a pseudo name).

"A private school for boys, called by its eccentric head "The Sacred Classical Shades," was one of the features of early Cleveland. Many and many a time within the past 75 years gray-haired men---growing fewer and fewer as time elapsed---have exchanged reminiscences of the days when they were pupils of the famous school, and have laughed hilariously over the memories of their boyhood pranks, and of the speeches and eccentricities of their old schoolmaster.

He was the Rev. William Phillips of Leeds, England, a Baptist clergyman most proficient in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, who, at 45 years of age, had a varied experience, the most exciting of which was that upon several occasions, he had missed becoming a very rich man, his exceedingly impractical nature always preventing him from embracing opportunity.

He was the son of a prosperous manufacturer of military uniforms who was able to give his children exceptional advantages. In 1811, William Phillips married Elizabeth Pryor, who brought to him a fortune, the larger part of which he proceeded to lose through injudicious investment, and by the shrinking of values, caused by the Napoleonic wars, which absorbed what remained of it. . . ." ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Pioneer Families of Cleveland p627

• "Public Member Trees", database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/65667780/person/202398447703/facts : accessed 11 August 2022), profile for William Phillips.
• Pioneer Families of Cleveland p627