Margaret Willett (ca. 1808 - 1876)

Margaret Willett, the wife of William Chappell and my 3x great-grandmother, was born somewhere around 1808. She married William on 18 March 1832 at the Old St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, and had at least five children. She lived the majority of her life in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, moving with her husband to Hunterdon County, New Jersey for a few years in the 1860's before moving to N. 2nd Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After her husband died, she moved in with her son, William Frederick Chappell, and his family. She died on 5 July 1876, her passage marked by a one line note in the Philadelphia Inquirer. And, like her husband, she was buried in American Mechanics Cemetery on July 9, 1876, in a plot owned by John H Chappell.

Margaret's life before she married William is somewhat of a mystery. Birth records for that period are hard to come by, and census records prior to 1850 list only the head of household and so they are of little help. Church records can be useful for that time period, but without other corroborating records it can be hard to definitively tie any particular record to a particular person, especially if there are multiple people with the same or a similar name, as is the case here: there are a lot of Willett's. There have been some genealogies written over the years that cover the period that Margaret and her parents lived, but none that I've found so far include this Margaret Willett.

A Bit of Willett History

Willett Coat of Arms at the
Fort Anne Museum in
Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia

The first Willett to come to the New World was Thomas Willett, sometime before 1643. He was an English soldier in the employ of the West India Company, and participated in Kieft's War, an effort by the Dutch to drive out the Native American population. He died in 1647, leaving two sons, William (b. 1643) and Thomas (b. 1645).

Beyond William and Thomas, the Willett genealogy becomes very complex and muddled. Although William had no known offspring, Thomas (b. 1645) had a large number of children, and each of them had a large number of children, and so on. The names William, Thomas, John, Sarah, Margaret, and others were all used and sometimes reused in every Willett family. And although many genealogies have been written about parts of the Willett family, often times there is conflicting, erroneous data with no source records to aid in resolution. So tho it is clear that my Margaret must have descended from Thomas (b. 1645), the line of parentage is not at all clear.

Regardless of the difficulties in tracing Margaret's (or my own) relationship to them, there are a few Willet's of historical significance that should be mentioned. By the time of the American War of Independence, there were a lot of Willett's inhabiting New York and Pennsylvania. Some Willett's chose to be Loyalists, remaining loyal to the British crown and in some cases withdrawing to Nova Scotia, Canada. The Coat of Arms on this page was donated by a descendant of one such loyalist. Other Willett's, including those I mention below, were Patriots that helped to secure American independence and afterwards, to govern the newborn country.

Marinus Willett

Marinus Willett was the great grandson of Thomas Willett (1645), born 31 July 1740 in Jamaica, New York. He served in the French and Indian War, and took part in the disastrous (for the British) expedition of General James Abercrombie to Fort Ticonderoga in 1758. He joined the Sons of Liberty, and when the US Revolutionary War broke out, joined the Continental Army with a commission of Captain. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and in 1778 joined General Washington's main army. After the war, he continued serving in the military for a number of years, and eventually was elected the 48th Mayor of New York City. Willett Street in Manhattan's lower east side is named for him.

Augustine Willett

Augustine Willett, a cousin of Marinus Willett, also served during the US Revolutionary War. At the outbreak of the war, Augustine took the oath of allegiance and raised an army at his own expense, which served in many battles including the battles of Trenton, Brandywine, and Monmouth. He remained involved in military affairs after the war, holding many positions including as a Captain of the Bucks County Dragoons in 1793. He also served in the Whiskey Insurrection in 1794. His time in the Dragoons and particularly his service in the Whiskey Insurrection are of particular note to me: Thomas Chappell, the father of Margaret's husband William Chappell, also served as a Dragoon (though in Philadelphia, not Bucks County), and served in the Whiskey Insurrection. Alas, though Augustine has a daughter, Margaret, she was born sometime between 1700 and 1799, too soon to be William's wife. But a granddaughter or a niece? Maybe.

The Children of William and Margaret

William and Margaret had several children together:

• John Thompson Chappell, born 1831, died 1915, married Angeline Scull
• William Frederick Chappell, born 1836, died 1917, married Emma Lentz
• Emma Chappell, born 1839, died 1866, married Willard Ward
• Charles L Chappell, born about 1842, died 1866
• Margaret Chappell, born 1845, died 1862
• Noah Chappell (maybe), born about 1849, died after 1860

Three of their children - John Thompson, William Frederick, and Charles L - served in the Union Army during the Civil War.