1. ROBERT WILLIAM (1647-1734) of Merion, a widower, married Gwen Cadwalader on April 19, 1691, at the house of Hugh Roberts. William had been born in Wales and immigrated to Pennsylvania, probably in the 1680s. Around 1700, Robert and Gwen settled in Goshen Township, Chester County, probably on lands then owned by a man named Griffith Owen, near the present site of Goshen Friends Meeting.
When William Penn’s surveyors laid out tracts for the Welsh investors in Pennsylvania in the 1680s, they gave each immigrant a strip of land along the Schuylkill River, which was accessible and close to Philadelphia, and a large chunk of wilderness in the western townships, like Goshen. Most of the first settlers lived on the easternmost section of the Welsh Tract, in Merion Township. Robert William was one of the first Europeans to pioneer into Goshen. He sometimes was called the “King of Goshen,” probably sarcastically, as he would have had few neighbors. A story has come down that tells of Robert and Gwen living in a cave before they built a log hut. This is a detail in the accounts of many early Welsh settlers; nonetheless it is probable that they passed their first months in Goshen in something like a cave, or a lean-to shelter set against a hillside. Even after their house was built, they had to walk seven miles to the nearest neighbor to get embers to rekindle their hearth fire if it went out.
Apparently, Robert and Gwen got off to a slow start. The Friends of Haverford Meeting, near Merion, lent them £19 in 1702 to build a new house. But by Jan. 21, 1703, Robert had enough cash to buy 75 acres in Goshen from one of the original Welsh Tract investors. He bought another 300 acres in Goshen in 1707. About 1700 a man named Ellis William, who probably was Robert's brother, came to Pennsylvania from Wales. He bought 53 acres in Goshen in 1720.
Robert and Gwen were not long alone in the wilderness. The Welsh settled rapidly in Goshen in the first decade of the 1700s. Goshen Friends meeting was first held in Robert’s house, but soon it had its own building.
Robert and Gwen had at least nine children: Elizabeth (married William Philips in 1708); Ellis (d.1756); Lewis; John; Ann (b.1700, married Griffith John); William (married Joan Pugh, daughter of James Pugh, at Uwchlan on Oct. 3, 1723; died in Vincent Township, July 14, 1744); Grace (March 12, 1707-Oct. 25, 1785, married John Meredith (1699-1769) and whose grandson was the noted scholar Enoch Lewis); Hannah (married John Morgan, Nov. 9, 1723); and Sarah (b.1712, married Timothy Kirk). In 1715, Robert and Gwen conveyed their homestead to their son, Ellis, and retired to Uwchlan Township, a Welsh settlement in central Chester County. Ellis and his son Ellis were sextons at Goshen Friends Meeting.
2. LEWIS WILLIAM (born c.1695) married Ann, daughter of James Thomas, about 1720. They had at least four children: Mary (Feb. 16, 1721-Aug. 1722); Nathan (b. Aug. 19, 1722); Lewis (married Miriam Lewis); and Abraham.
3. LEWIS WILLIAM Jr. married Miriam, daughter of Thomas Lewis at Goshen Meeting on Jan. 13, 1763. Lewis William may have died in March 1816. He and his wife lived on a 144-acre farm on Lancaster Pike in Willistown Township, across from what is now Paoli Memorial Hospital. They had six children: Issacher; George; Enoch (Aug. 13, 1775-July 20, 1854); Thomas; Anastasia “Tacey” (c.1765-c.1845, married Elisha Goodwin); and Abraham (Dec. 26, 1783-Sept. 13, 1850). Abraham was a miller who for many years operated Taylor’s Mill in East Bradford. He married Rachel White (1781-1850) and had five children, including Lewis White Williams, a mineralogist and western explorer.
4. ANASTASIA WILLIAMS (c.1765-c.1845), married Elisha Goodwin and moved to Londonderry Township.
