Answer: The "Old Philadelphia Families"

The group of families colloquially called the Old Philadelphians, or the Perennial Philadelphians, as the author Nathaniel Burt called them in his 1963 book The Perennial Philadelphians: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy, is comprised of many of the first ones to settle in Delaware Valley region (Southeastern Pennsylvania, Northern Delaware, Southern New Jersey). Some arrived with William Penn, while others traveled on their own, and most came from the United Kingdom or Germany. The wealth of the individual families varied, and some had access to significant family treasuries – much of this money was used to form the city of Philadelphia and the surrounding areas, as well as build up the region's cultural, political, and economic interests. Some of the surnames considered among the Old Philadelphians are Cadwalader, Logan, Morris, Chew, Drinker, Shippen, and Rush. Thanks to the work of Frank Willing Leach, there exist extensive histories of a number of these families.

Frank Willing Leach (1855-1943) was born in Cape May City, New Jersey, and he descended from one of the original passengers on the famous Mayflower. He was educated in law but instead chose a life in writing and politics. He wrote articles for a number of local publications, but found steady journalistic work in 1904 with The North American. In addition to his historical and genealogical sketches of nearly two hundred old Philadelphia families that were published in the early 1900s, he also wrote series on United States senators, historic duels, Philadelphia's colonial mayors, and reminiscences on Pennsylvania's political state under senator Matthew Quay during the period of 1880 to 1900.

Researchers can access the full set of Frank Willing Leach's Old Philadelphia Families series in HSP's library. We have a couple different collections of them, but they are fully cataloged in our genealogical card catalog. Old Philadelphia Families is just one of thousands of genealogical source materials that the society has on site.