n' corner" of three generations of the Livezey family.

The old grist mill on Wissahickon Creek, originally a considerable
stream, was built by Thomas Shoemaker, and in 1747 conveyed by him to
Thomas Livezey, Junior, who operated it the rest of his life and lived
at Glen Fern near by. The builder's father, Jacob Shoemaker, who gave
the land upon which the Germantown Friends' Meeting House stands at
Coulter and Main streets, came to this country with Pastorius in the
ship _America_ in 1682 and became sheriff of the town in 1690. Thomas
Livezey, the progenitor of the Livezey family, and the great-grandfather
of Thomas, Junior, came from England in 1680, and the records show that
he served on the first grand jury of the first court held in the
province, January 2, 1681.

Thomas Livezey, Junior, the miller, was a public-spirited and
many-sided man. Something of a wag and given to writing letters in
verse, his life also had its more serious side. Besides being one of the
founders and a trustee of the Union Schoolhouse of Germantown, now
Germantown Academy, he was a justice of the peace and a provincial
commissioner in 1765. Being a Friend, he took no part in the struggle
for independence, although his provocation was great.

For safety's sake the girls of the family, with the eatables and
drinkables, were often locked up in the cellars during the occupancy of
Germantown by the British. On one occasion British soldiers came to the
house and demanded food, and being told by one of the women that after
cooking all day she was too weary to prepare it, one of the soldiers
struck off the woman's ear with his sword. An officer appeared
presently, however, demanded to know who had done so dastardly a thing
and instantly split the culprit's head with his saber.

Livezey cultivated a large farm on the adjoining hillsides, and a dozen
bottles of wine from his vineyard, forwarded by his friend Robert
Wharton, elicited praise from Benjamin Franklin.

Farmers brought their grain hither for miles around, and the mill
prospered. Gradually a large West Indian trade was built up in flour
contaminated with garlic and unmarketable in Philadelphia, the ships
returning with silk, crepes and beautiful china, so that Livezey's son
John became a prominent Philadelphia merchant. Another son, Thomas,
continued to run the mill, which about the time of the Civil War was
converted to the manufacture of linseed oil. In 1869 the entire property
was pu