All of these brothers were possessed of a handsome competency, realized by their own economy and industry. The daughters were variously espoused, and lived, all but one, who died at the age of twenty, to be venerable and honored in years, and with a numerous offspring. On the maternal side, these children were descended from Lydia Harris, daughter of Richard Harris, who, like his ancestors, was a Quaker. His forefathers came to this country to escape the persecution of the seventeenth century in England, when the infatuated and tyrannical Charles was oppressing his subjects by restricting the freedom of industry, and billeting soldiers upon the people in times of peace; when the private papers of citizens were searched on mere suspicion, and when the bigoted Laud ruled with as high a hand and reckless a purpose in the church, as his royal master did in the state. Citizens claiming the right of freely uttering what they honestly believed to be true, on the subject of religion, were fined, whipped, and imprisoned. Ministers and educated citizens were branded on the forehead, their noses slit, and their ears cropped, for dissenting from Popish rites and ceremonies. To escape such intolerable persecution, Quakers crossed the ocean. But, alas! persecution followed them even in the wilds of America. Individuals who had left home, friends, country and all, to gain the privilege of worshipping the Almighty after the dictates of their own consciences, did not hesitate to deny others that privilege for which they had themselves sacrificed so much, simply because they differed from them in form of faith.