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The Background
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clock and the cradle are with Jesse's son, Edward, in his home at Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.[1]

A sturdy clean Scotchman was the founder of the Williamson family in America. Dunck Williames, as he spelled his name in the earliest records, arrived in New England, probably in 1660. His name is to be seen on the list of passengers sailing from Taunton, Massachusetts, in 1661, to the Block Island Plantations, afterwards included in Rhode Island. Later, in 1667, with his wife, Wallery, he settled on the Delaware River below what is now Trenton, nearly fifteen years before the advent of William Penn. It was just after the Dutch rulers had been expelled from New Amsterdam. The Delaware Valley had long been a bone of contention between Swedes and Dutch, in which the Dutch got the upper hand.

But many English and Scotch settlers must have already been in the country, because the earliest records at Upland (now


  1. Edward Williamson died on October 10, 1911. The clock is in possession of a niece, Mrs. H. B. Harper, of Trenton; and the cradle is in the Frank Williamson home, in Lancaster.