FUSSELL, SOLOMON.--born in Yorkshire, England, 1704, son of William and Elizabeth Fussell, came to Pennsylvania, and settled in Philadelphia about 1721. He married Susannah Coney, daughter of Jacob Coney and wife Barbara (daughter of William Clinkenbeard). Their son, William Fussell, born 1728-9, married, at Abington, 8, 10, 1751, Sarah Longstreth, daughter of Bartholomew and Ann, and about 1761 settled in Chester County; died 1803 or 1804 at Phoenixville, and was buried at Pikeland Meeting. Sarah was born 11, 8, 1728-9, and died 9, 21, 1800. Their children were Susanna, b. 1, 29, 1753, married Aaron Dunkin; Bartholomew, b. 9, 28, 1754, d. 10, 17, 1838, near Yellow Springs, Chester Co., aged eighty-four; Solomon, b. 12, 220, 1755, d. 10, 22, 1793.
Bartholomew Fussel, born in Philadelphia, removed, when young, with his parents to near Phoenixville; lived also in Montgomery County, and afterwards removed to Maryland and became a member of Little Falls (now Fallston) Monthly Meeting of Friends. In old age he returned with his wife to Chester County; was for many years an esteemed minister of the society, and at the time of his death a member of Uwchlan Monthly Meeting, which issued a testimony or memorial concening him. He married, 6, 6, 1781, Rebecca Bond, daughter of Joseph and Esther (Jeanes) Bond, and granddaughter of Richard and Charity Bond. Esther Jeanes was the daughter of William Jeanes and wife Esther (Brewer), and was one of the "first" white children born in Philadelphia.
Rebecca Fussell, born 10, 9, 1751, near Kimberton, Chester Co., died 3 4, 1851, nearly one hundred years of age. Their children were:
William Fussell married, 9, 28, 1809, Jane, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth R. Foulke. Edward Foulke was the son of John, the son of Hugh, the son of Edward and Eleanor Foulke, who came from Wales. The children of William and Jane Fussell were:
Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, born in Chester County, 1, 9, 1794, removed in early life to Maryland, where he taught school and read medicine, and where he found means to give Sabbath and private instruction to great numbers of slaves, many of whom, with hundreds of other fugitives of their class, he afterwards protected and assisted at his home in Pennsylvania while on their way to freedom. Laboring in connection with the late Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Del., and with many others, at available points, about two thousand fugitives passed through his hands on their way to freedom, and among these he frequently had the delight of welcoming some of his old Sabbath-school pupils. The mutual recognition was sometimes touching in the extreme.
In later life his anecdotes and reminiscences, told in the vivid style resulting from a remarkably retentive memory, which could recall word, tone, and gesture, brought to life some of the most interesting of his experiences with these fleeing bondmen, whose histories no romance could ever equal.
After his graduation in medicine, being at one time called upon to deliver an address before the Medical Society of Baltimore in the midst of a pro-slavery audience and before slave-holding professors and men of authority, Dr. Fussell, with a courge scarcely to be comprehended at this late day, denounced "the most preposterous and cruel practice of slavery as replete with the causes of disease," and expressed the hope that the day would come "when slavery and cruelty should have no abiding-place in the whole habitable earth; when the philosopher and the pious Christian could use the salutation of 'brother,' and the physician and divine be as one man; when the rich and the poor should know no distinction; the great and the small be equal in dominion, and the arrogant master and is menial slave should make a truce of friendship with each other, all following the same law of reason, all guided by the light of Truth."
He was one of the signers of the "Declaration of Sentiments," issued by the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and he had the gratification of attending the last meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, called to celebrate the downfall of slavery in America, and for the dissolution of an organization whose purpose was effected.
But it was not slavery alone which occupied the thoughts and attention of this large-hearted man. He was well known as an advocate of common-school education, of temperance, and of every other interest which, in his view, pertained to the welfare of man.
As a practitioner of medicine he was eminently successful, his intense sympathy with suffering seeming to elevate his faculties and give them unwonted vigor in tracing the hidden causes of disease, and in suggesting to his mind alleviating agencies. His patients felt an unspeakable comfort in his presence, well knowing that the best possible remedy which his knowledge, his
judgement, or his experience suggested would be selected, let the difficulty or inconvenience to himself be what it would.
He believed in woman as only a thoroughly good man can, and from early youth he had been impressed with her peculiar fitness for the practice of medicine. In the year 1840 he gave regular instruction to a class of ladies, and it was through one of these pupils that the first female graduate in America was interesed in the study of medicine. In 1846 he communicated to a few liberal-minded professional men a plan for the establishment of a college of the highest grade for the medical education of women. This long-cherished plan, hallowed to him by the approbation of a beloved wife, was well received. Others, with indomitable zeal, took up the work, and finally, after a succession of disappointments and discouragements from causes within and without, the Woman's College, on North College Avenue,
Philadelpphia, starting from the germ of this thought, entered on the career of prosperity it is well entitled to receive. Though never at any time connected with the college, he regarded its success with the most affectionate interest, considering its establishment as one of the most important results of is life.*
Dr. Fussell married first, 5, 26, 1826, Lydia Morris, daughter of Morris and Jerusha
(Whitton) Morris, b. 7, 13, 1804, at Fox Chase, Montgomery Co., d, 7, 3, 1840. He married second, 2, 9, 1841, widow Rebecca C.
Hewes, daughter of Edward and Rebecca (Pierce) Churchman, b. 12, 13, 1804. He died at the residence of his son, Dr. Morris
Fussell, in West Pikeland, near Chester Springs, at the age of seventy-six years.