My Genealogy Hound

MRS. EMILY NORRIS VAUX. Jacob Waln Vaux, son of Richard and Mary (Waln) Vaux, was born November 17, 1849, at Germantown, in Philadelphia county, Pennsylvania. He attended the school conducted by Rev. John E. Faires.

Early in life he engaged in the insurance business, and later became president of the Trust Company of North America. He married, February 1, 1877, Emily Norris, daughter of Henry and Sallie (Norris) Pepper. Their children: Richard, born December 13, 1877, attended Penn Charter and DeLancy schools, after which he engaged in banking, is unmarried, and resides with his mother on the Windridge Farm at Penllyn; Henry Pepper, born June 12, 1879, and attended Penn Charter and DeLancy schools, in Philadelphia, engaged in the banking business, and resides at Windridge Farm; Norris Wistar, born September 1, 1881, attended DeLancy school, and is a student in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania; Jacob, born July 21, 1883, died August 1, 1885; Emily Norris, born June 1, 1885, attended Miss Irwin’s school in Philadelphia, and resides with her mother at the family residence. Windridge Farm, the country seat of the family, near Penllyn, contains ninety-one acres of land and has been for a number of years the permanent home of the family.

Richard Vaux, father of Jacob Waln Vaux, was born in Philadelphia, December 19, 1816. He was the son of Roberts Vaux, an eminent Philadelphian and a prominent member of the Society of Friends, who married a member of the Wistar family, long prominent in Germantown and vicinity. Richard Vaux was at first a Whig and later a Democrat, and he became very prominent in his day in city, state and national politics. He attended Friends’ schools and a school for the acquisition of the French language at West Chester. He studied law in the office of William M. Meredith, one of the foremost lawyers of Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar April 15, 1837. Very soon after his admission to the bar he was designated by Presi dent Van Buren to bear important dispatches to Andrew Stevenson, United States Minister to England. Mr. Vaux was appointed secretary of legation at London, and it was while he was so engaged that he had the honor of being a partner of Victoria, the young Queen of England. He retained the position of secretary of legation until the following December, when Benjamin Rush was appointed American minister, when Mr. Vaux resigned, returned to Philadelphia, and resumed the duties of his profession, which had been temporarily laid aside during his sojourn in London. During a long life he remained almost constantly before the public, whether in the capacity of one of the leading lawyers of the city and state, as mayor of his native town, or in his later years as a member of the national congress. He was always to the end of his career an honored party leader, and one whose counsel it was always wise to heed. He brought to every position which he filled the high characteristics of honor and fitness which were natural to him, and he enjoyed to the last the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens of all parties. In his advanced years Mr. Vaux was everywhere regarded as a worthy of the period known as the Golden Age of the Republic, when Clay, Webster, Benton, Calhoun and a host of other statesmen worthy of the name were influential in congress, not only in the senate, but also in the house of representatives, and in other departments of the national government, enforcing the principles to which they were attached, and laying the foundations for the future prosperity and greatness of the country.

Mr. Vaux married, March 12, 1840, Mary Morris, daughter of Jacob Shoemaker and Sarah Morris Waln. Richard and Mary Vaux had six children, of whom Jacob W. Vaux was the fifth.