Ancestors

Simon Hadley

Simon Hadley lived at Ballynakill in King's County, Ireland, now County Offaly, and styled himself a gentleman. What is known of him comes from Chalmers Hadley's Notes on the Quaker Family of Hadley, published in 1916. That book quotes a petition of his copied from the Public Record Office at the Four Courts in Dublin, and entries from the register of Moate Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends.

The petition is headed "The Peticon and Claime of Symon Hadly of Ballynakill in the Kings County, Gentleman." Edward Vernon, "late Lord of the Manor of Clantarfe in the County of Dublin," had given a custom "that any person or persons should have the liberty to build Shedds at Ballyscaddan, being part of the said Manor for Incouragemt of the ffishery there." Hadley said he had built four sheds under that custom. He had "enjoyed the same these seven or eight yeares past," two of them "builte by the Claimant with Lime and stone and the other two Shedds with Clay and Stone." He signed it "Simon Hadley," before the witnesses Ste. Duffe, Paul Lovelace and Richard Darling.

The petition went to the trustees for the sale of forfeited estates. After the war of 1689 to 1691 the English parliament appointed trustees to sell the Irish land forfeited by the defeated Jacobites. Anyone who held a right in such land had to lay a claim before them. The trustees sat from 1700 to 1703, so his claim dates from those years and his sheds from the 1690s. Chalmers Hadley dated it "about 1685," which is too early.

His wife Catherine was a Friend of Moate Meeting, in County Westmeath near the King's County line. The meeting's register, as Chalmers Hadley gives it, records that "Catherine Hadley, wife of Simon Hadley (and mother of Simon Hadley the second, who emigrated to Pennsylvania), died the 20th of 4th month 1710, and was buried four days later." The words in the parenthesis are the compiler's. In the Quaker reckoning of the time the fourth month was June.

He married again soon after, a woman named Elizabeth, and died the next year. On 6 June 1711 administration of his property was granted "to his son, John Hadley, to Elizabeth Hadley, the widow, Elizabeth Miller (nee Hadley), and Jane Kiernan (nee Hadley), the children." Administration was the court's grant of power to settle the estate of a man who left no will. The grant does not name his son Simon, who sailed for Pennsylvania in 1712. Chalmers Hadley wrote: "Doubtless he had already received his patrimony, as the administration was granted just before he left Ireland for Pennsylvania, if he had not already departed for America."

A note from the Office of Arms in Dublin, passed to Chalmers Hadley by a correspondent, says that Simon "owned an iron smithy in Kings County." It says his wife "seems to have been the first of the family to join the Society of Friends," and that her husband "seems never to have joined."

The family stayed at Ballynakill after him. The Moate records note an Elizabeth Hadley of Ballinakill who married Jonathan Hayes of Dublin in 1719, and a Ruth, daughter of John Hadley of Ballinakill, King's County, who married John White of County Westmeath at Moate in 1735.

That he was the father of the emigrant Simon rests on Chalmers Hadley's work, and he was the best informed of the Hadley compilers. Family trees give him the dates about 1640 to 1711. A later Hadley genealogy, of 1937, says his wife was Catherine Talbot, from a tradition that the first Hadley in Ireland married "___ Talbot." Neither has a source.

If Simon Hadley is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Simon Hadley", https://heirology.com/ancestors/simon-hadley-1992ec.