Travilla-Speakman Family Papers

Martha Ellison Newport Travilla (1828-1884), an acknowledged Quaker minister, was the daughter of Jesse W. Newport and Elizabeth Ellison, members of Green Street Monthly Meeting. In 1855 she married Jonathan Travilla (1823-1913), a farmer and West Chester, Pennsylvania, merchant. He was a member of Birmingham Monthly Meeting, and Martha transferred her membership from Green Street in 1857. They had four daughters: Elizabeth N. (1858-1921), Mary (1860-1947), Margaret (1865), and Anna (1866-1945).

Elizabeth Newport Travilla ("Bessie") (1858-1921) was unmarried and lived with her father and sisters in West Chester. She died in Friends Boarding Home.

Mary Travilla (1860-1947) attended the Swarthmore Preparative School. By 1920, she lived in Pasadena, California, alternating with a cottage in Buck Hill Falls,, Pennsylvania. She was well-known in Quaker circles as a powerful preacher. In her last years she resided in the Hickman in West Chester and died at the age of 86.

The youngest daughter, Anna (1866-1945), attended Swarthmore College in 1887 and in 1890 married William William Speakman (1865-1930), a prominent Philadelphia ophthalmologist. The Speakmans settled in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, members of Swarthmore Monthly Meeting. Anna also was a recognized minister. They had two daughters: Martha Travilla Speakman (1892-1970) who married L. Hollingsworth Wood in 1925, and Janet Speakman (1895-1971). William and Anna were founding members of Buck Hill Falls, a private resort community in the Pocono Mountains established in 1901 by a group of Quakers from Philadelphia.

The Speakmans were good friends of the Jenkins, Clothiers, Hayes, and other prominent Philadelphia area Quakers. John Russell Hayes (1866-1945) was a Quaker educator, poet, and Librarian of Swarthmore College, 1906-1927, and Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, 1927-1935. He was born in 1866, the son of William M. and Rachel (Russell) Hayes, and was descended from a long-time Chester County, Pa., Quaker family. He spent much of his childhood on the Hayes family farm on the Brandywine River. He married Emma Gawthrop of Wilmington, Delaware, in 1892. Both were graduates of Swarthmore College, Class of 1888.