Abigail (Lightfoot) Wiley (abt. 1693 - 1767)

Born about 1693 in Lisburn, County Antrim, Ireland

Ancestors

Wife of Joseph Wiley — married 16 Mar 1716 in Waterstown, County Westmeath, Ireland

Descendants

Died 1 Apr 1767 at about age 74 in Maiden Creek, Maidencreek Township, Berks, Pennsylvania

Problems/Questions Profile manager: George Grazier [send private message]

Biography

Abigail (Lightfoot) Wiley was born in Ireland.

Abigail was a Friend (Quaker)

Abigail Wiley was a Quaker minister. She was born in the north of Ireland to Quaker parents and moved with them to central Ireland where she married another Quaker from a neighbouring farm. The young couple then immediately moved with her parents and some of her siblings to Pennsylvania, where they started a family and Abigail became a minister.

Birth and life in Ireland
Abigail was born in about 1693, to parents Thomas Lightfoot^{[1] [2]} and his second wife Sarah almost certainly in Lisburn, county Antrim Ireland, where her parents lived at the time. (See research notes and their profiles.)

Abigail's parents were arable farmers. Both were widows when they married in 1692/3. (See their profiles.) Her father had three children from a first marriage, and her mother two. Her father had recently become a Quaker (and went on to become a renowned minister); her mother had been one rather longer. The family evidently maintained close contact with the Wyly family of her mother's first husband, who were also Quakers and farmed land nearby, because in 1694 both families moved from Antrim to Westmeath, where they set up in neighbouring farms in Ballyheeran (the Lightfoots) and Annagh (the Wylys), both in the parish of Kilkenny West. When her half brother William Lightfoot married in 1706, he stayed at Ballyheeran and the rest of the Lightfoot family moved a couple of miles north to Benown or Bunown.

Marriage and emigration
Two of Abigail's half-brothers, Thomas Lightfoot's son Michael and Sarah's son John Wiley migrated to Pennsylvania together in 1712.^[3] Other members of the family plainly also planned to move there.

In 1715/16 Joseph Wiley of Annagh in the county of Westmeath and Abigail Lightfoot of Bunown went to the Moate monthly Quaker meeting and later the Leinster provincial meeting, seeking permission to marry. Noting the approval of the Moate meeting and of the couple's parents, the Leinster meeting gave its approval, but only after expressing concern about the couple's relatedness 'the young woman's mother being aunt by affinity [marriage] to the man she intends to marry.' ^[4]

The couple were married in a Quaker ceremony held in Waterstown, county Westmeath on the 16 March 1716. ^[5] Abigail was probably about 22 and Joseph about 23.

Joseph and Abigail migrated to Pennsylvania in 1716 shortly after their marriage, arriving in June of that year. They received a very fulsome removal certificate from the Moate monthly meeting on 28 1m (March) 1716 ^[6] which referred to the newly married Joseph Wyly son to John Wyly, a Friend of our meeting and Abigail shee daughter to said Thomas and Sarah Lightfoot. They travelled with Abigail's parents Thomas and Sarah Lightfoot and that couple's unmarried children. The two families were received by the Quaker meeting on 6 4m [June] 1716.^[3] Lightfoot's daughter Katherine and her husband and family followed in 1729. ^[3]

Family and life in Pennsylvania
Joseph and Abigail and the family of Thomas and Sarah Lightfoot established their homes near the newly constructed Newgarden Quaker meeting house, also close to where their relatives Michael Lightfoot and John Wiley had settled. ^[7] Joseph, describing himself as 'husbandman' (essentially the lowest grade in the heirarchy of the time after aristocrat, gentleman and yeoman) purchased 200 acres of land by deed dated 10 August 1716. ^[7] The couple sold this land to Michael Lightfoot fifteen years later for the sum of £200. They moved to Maiden Creek, now Berks county, which had recently been released by native Americans and which was being settled by Quakers. ^[7]

The couple had four children^[1][7][3]

• Sarah born 6 January 1717 who married Joseph Penrose in 1735
• Ann born 6 November 1718 who married William Penrose in 1738
• John born 19 January 1721/2 (named after his paternal grandfather) who married Mary Lee in 1755
• Jane who was under 21 in 1750 and married Jonathan Hughes in 1759.

Her husband, John Wily of Maiden Creek, yeoman, signed his will on 16 June 1750 and an inventory of his estate was taken on 26 September of that year.^[7]

Later life and ministry
Abigail Wily started to find a vocation in the Quaker ministry after her family moved to Maiden Creek, ^[2] which was in about 1731, when she was about 37. She continued as a minister until she died in 1767.

After her husband died in 1750, she probably continued to live at the family home at Maiden Creek with her son John and youngest daughter Jane - the two elder daughters having married previously. John married in 1755 and died shortly afterwards leaving an infant baby and a wife who re-married in 1759. Jane was married in scandalous circumstances in 1759. She and her husband removed to the Warrington monthly meeting, York county, in 1762, as did her sister Ann Penrose and her family. So, in April 1763, Abigail Wily sought leave from her meeting to visit Warrington to spend time with her daughters and pay a religious visit there and to other meetings. In October of the same year, our Ancient Friend Abigail Wiley being about to return to the Exeter monthly meeting, the Warrington meeting appointed someone to certifie by a few lines to that meeting our unity with her service & labour of love amongst us. She had returned to Exeter by 29 December 1763, when the meeting noted receipt of her certificate. ^[7]

Abigail Wiley died in 1767 and was buried at the Maiden Creek Friends' burial ground in Berks County, Pennsylvania.^[2] The site of this ground was flooded in 1926 when Lake Ontelaunee was created, and the meeting house and burials moved to a new site.^[7]

Testimony
After she died, the Exeter Quaker meeting adopted a testimony to her life ^[2]

Testimony of Exeter Monthly Meeting concerning our Friend Abigail Wiley Deceased

She was the daughter of our worthy Friend Thomas Lightfoot formerly of Benoun in the Kingdom of Ireland, at which place she was Married to Joseph Wiley. Soon after their Marriage they came over to Pennsylvania and Settled at New-garden in Chester County; from thence they removed to Maiden-Creek, now in the county of Berks and Province aforesaid, where she resided the remaining part of her Life. Sometime after her removal here, she appeared in the Ministry, in a few words tending to Edification and Comfort; which was generally well Received. She likewise visited some Neigbouring Meetings, and brought home satisfactory accounts of her services; and being Exemplary in Plainness herself, she was often zealously Engaged that the Heads of Families might be preserved from the alluring Vanities, Fashions and Customs of the World; that so, by Example and Precept, with a Divine Blessing attending their endeavours, they might be enabled to Train their Children in the same. She was a Dilligent attender of Meetings, both for Discipline and Worship, and often tenderly engaged therein to invite Friends to feel after the Current of Life, and not rest in the appearance or Shadow of things. In the decline of her Life, her public Testimony grew more lively and Powerful, which plainly Demonstrated that the Father and fountain of Goodness was near to support her in old age, whereby she was enabled to keep her Integrity to the last; being serviceable to Friends in divers respects; as a Nursing Mother in Israel, and a true Sympathizing Friend to those in Affliction; a loving Wife, a tender Parent and a kind and Charitable Neighbour.

On the 30th Day of the third month 1767, she was Seized with a Disorder, which pretty much deprived her of her speech, though her senses were Mercifully preserv'd, which evidently appeared by her being remarkably Loving to Friends who came to visit her; and on the first Day of the fourth month following, she departed this Life, aged seventy three years and upwards; and on the 3rd of the Same was buried at the Friends Burying Ground at Maiden-Creek aforesaid.

This same testimony formed the basis of a brief biographical article about her published in The Friend ^[8] .

Research notes

Various mistaken secondary accounts of the Lightfoot family state that Abigail was the daughter of Thomas Lightfoot's first wife, Mary. This confusion probably arises because the Quaker family list for Thomas Lightfoot and Sarah (his second wife) lists other children but not her. However, this document clearly states that it only shows children born after the couple moved to county Westmeath in May 1694, and Abigail was born before then. Her age at death clearly puts her birth at 1693 or 1694, and her parents married in 1692/3 (ie Jan 1 to March 25 of what would now be called 1693.)

The three children of her father's first marriage were born starting in 1678 and ending in 1693. The absence of children born to the marriage after that date suggests that their mother Mary might have died.

Various other mistaken secondary sources state that Abigail's mother had surname Pulford. This is also wrong as Pulford was the maiden name of Thomas Lightfoot's third wife, whom he married when he was already very old, long after Abigail had married, emigrated and started a family. The strengths and weaknesses of these secondary accounts are discussed under 'Research notes' in her father's profile. Much the best of the bunch, at least from a genealogical perspective, is Six Columbiana County, Ohio, pioneer families, by William Brooke Fetters ^[7] which has been cited extensively above.

The FindaGrave memorial cited as a source in previous drafts of this profile does not contain an image or transcripton of her grave; it simply consists of unsourced material uploaded by site users, and therefore does not qualify as a source.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935"
   Swarthmore College; Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry uk Record 2189 #2653053 (accessed 23 February 2024)
   Name Abigail Wily Birth Date1693 Birth Date on Image1693 Death Age 73 Death Date1 Apr 1767 Death Date on Image01 Fourth 1767 Death Place Maiden Cr Spouse Joseph Wily Event Type Death Monthly Meeting Exeter Monthly Meeting Historical Meeting Data Exeter Monthly Meeting Type (Orthodox or Hicksite) Orthodox Yearly Meeting Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Meeting State Pennsylvania Meeting County Berks Household Members Name Age Name Abigail Wily
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} "U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935"
   Haverford College; Haverford, Pennsylvania
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry uk Record 2189 #8221029 (accessed 24 February 2024)
   Testimony to Abigail Wily who died 1 Apr 1767, child of Thomas Lightfoot, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, aged 73 years and upwards.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3} Myers, Albert Cook, Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750 : with their early history in Ireland, the author, Swarthmore, Pa., 1902. Section on Thomas Lightfoot ff p 338 (https://archive.org/details/immigrationofiri00myer/page/338/mode/1up?q=Lightfoot&view=theater : accessed 11 February 2024)
4. ↑ Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Congregational Records, image, FindMyPast (https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FQM1A-2%2F0089&parentid=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FCONG%2F988417 : accessed 06 February 2024), minutes dated 3d 1mo (Mar) 1715 (1716), The meeting considered and approved the proposed marriage of Joseph Wiley and Abigail Lightfoot, which had already been approved twice by the Moate monthy meeting, despite expressing some concern about the couple's relatedness 'the young woman's mother being aunt by affinity to the man she intends to marry.' (Aunt by affinity means aunt by marriage.); citing Leinster Province 6-weeks Meeting Minutes 1706-1760, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
5. ↑ Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Family Lists, image, FindMyPast (https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FMM1VM-1%2F0149&parentid=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FMARR%2F3252B : accessed 06 February 2024), marriage of Abigail Lightfoot of Benown, co Westmeath and Joseph Wiley of Annagh, co Westmeath in Waterstown, co Westmeath on 16d 1mo (Mar) 1715 (1716); citing Moate MM family lists 1660-1782 with testimonies and minutes, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
6. ↑ Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Congregational Records, image, FindMyPast (https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FMM1VA-2%2F0195&parentid=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FCONG%2F453994 : accessed 02 March 2024), minutes dated 28d 1mo (Mar) 1716, Removal certificate for Thomas Lightfoot and family; citing Moate MM minutes of Men’s Meeting 1732-1755; Sufferings 1660-1687, Certificates 1715-1751, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7} Fetters, W. B., Six Columbiana County, Ohio, pioneer families, The author, Bowie, Maryland :, c1991-2003, v 5, pedigree chart image 4, Chapter VII 'The Lightfoot and Wiley Families' pp 264- 304 (notes pp 648-655) (https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/492279/?offset=0#page=4&viewer=picture&o=info&n=0&q= : accessed 16 Feburary 2024)
8. ↑ Biographical sketch of Abigail Lightfoot, The Friend, vol 33, issue 42, 23 June 1860, p 332 (https://archive.org/details/sim_friend-a-religious-and-literary-journal_1860-06-23_33_42/page/332/mode/1up?q=wiley&view=theater : accessed 24 February 2024)

Acknowledgments

• Thank you to George Grazier for creating WikiTree profile Lightfoot-304 through the import of Grazier Family Tree.ged on Jan 24, 2013.