acquaint him that the Trustees were endeavoring to obtain a new Charter confirming the former with some Additions, and were desirous to know whether it would be agreeable to him that his Name should be inserted therein.
Mr. Peters produced his reply at the next meeting, which was as follows; and which was
order'd to be enter'd on the Minutes.
Respected Friend, Richard Peters
I can have no Objection to the Qualification to the Govmt as we take it every year before we are instituted to our Seats in the Assembly, neither have I any objection to any other Part of the Academical Institution, but heartily wish you success in it My Distance from Town, and the Ails I have, make it very inconvenient to me to attend the Duty of a Trustee, and therefore I request the Gent'n will be pleased to accept my Resignation of that Trust.
I return them my Thanks for the Favours they have already shewn me by inserting my Name in their former Charter, and am Their and
Yr Assd Fr'd
Feby 25 1755Isaac Norris.
On a previous page was narrated his connection with the Friends Publick School, and the cause of their desire for his resignation from the Board of Overseers. Strong Friend as he always was, he was unwilling to confine his influence in the favor of a public education to the seemingly narrow limits his Society had marked out for the instruction of their Youth.
His two sons died in infancy. His daughter Mary became the wife of John Dickinson, the famous author of A Farmer's Letters, and whose Mother was sister of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader. It was while Dickinson was President of Pennsylvania, that he "presented Dickinson College, Carlisle, with the principal part of the library of the late Isaac Norris, Esq., consisting of about 1500 volumes upon the most important subjects."[1]
Dr. Thomas Cadwalader was born in Philadelphia in 1707 the son of John Cadwalader, who came to Pennsylvania from Pembrokeshire and married in 1699 the daughter of Dr Edward Jones of Lower Merion, then in Philadelphia County, one of the
- ↑ Penn'a Gazette, 27 Octo., 1784.
