The Minor Family of Somerset

The Family of Priestley
Page 11
"Henry was the next and youngest brother. Hewas a genteel, per
sonable man, of very good parts, and could speak and discourse a
dmirable well; was educated with his uncle Bunney that married h
is aunt, a very good physician, with whom he got his skill in ph
ysic, which he practised with good success and reputation all hi
s life after. He was very frugal and provident; got a pretty es
tate; bought Priestley Green of Mr. Sunderland at same time uncl
e Jonathan bought the other farm near by, the first house. I li
ved in after I was married. He might have matched into as goo
d families as most in the country, and yet he was the stranglies
t inchanted and infatuated in his first marriage that I think ev
ery any wise man was. He married a woman of ill extraction wh
o whome he had neither portion nor good qualitires, a very profa
ne, ignorant woman. All the counsels and project of his friend
s could avail nothing to prevent it, though they were not awanti
ng in using their utmost diligence to that end; but he married h
er privately, ahd three children by her, I think all sons, one h
e called Daniel; they all died young, and the mother died also i
n a short time, so that in four or five years he was a single ma
n again, and did somewhat retrive his reputation by his second m
arriage to Ann Dean, widow, and nice of Isabel Denton, a rich ch
andlerof Halifax. This Isabel Denton was well pleased with he
r kinswoman marryingmy uncle; lived till Thomas and Francis wa
s born; made her Will, and left anestate in housing and land be
tter than 50l. per annum, and a great deal of money, to Johh, m
y aunt Dean's son by her first husband, and in case he died with
out heir, to Thomas and Francis, sons of Henry Priestley. Joh
n died, and his wife and his son, all in a short time; so all Is
abel Denton's estate fell to my uncle Henry's two sons in thei
r minority.
My uncle Henry died muchyounger than any of my grandfather's ch
ildren; I think he did not live much above 50. He went to Wakef
ield to meet one Mr Bunney, some relation to his uncle Bunney
; I was in Wakefield that Day; he sent for me to have my compan
yhomeward; we came together to Lightcliffe; he complained he wa
s not well, andthought he had some harm by some sour drink he h
ad drunk that Day; he had avery bad night; in the morning, as m
y aunt tole me, he put his own water in the urinal, and after i
t had stood awhile looked upon it, and presently threwthe glas
s from him on the bed, and said he was a dead man, or a gone man
.
I waited upon him the Day before he died, and I and uncle Timoth
y watched allnight with himl helping him betwixt two beds, as h
e had a mind, several times, and had occasion for all our streng
th, he being a corpulent man, but the last time we shifted him h
e said he would go himself; I said, "Uncle, you cannot;" but th
e pains of death being upon him, he went strongly between the tw
o beds, which he had not been able to do all night before, and d
ied about anhour and a half after, with great difficulty, bein
g not so weakened with ageas his other brothers; though he wa
s the youngest, yet he died the first.
Iremember my uncle Francis came to visit him the Day before h
e died. I was present. "brother," says he, "how doth God manife
st himself to you?" He answered, "I am afraid God is angry wit
h me." My uncle spoke very well to him, yetnotwithstanding, hi
s fear continued a great part of the night, as he expressed to m
e; yet many gracious expressions fell from his mouth before hi
s departure. He maintained the worship of God; though he was o
f a cheerful, yet asober conversation, so far as I could ever d
iscer, and was not the first goodman that hath gone to heaven i
n a cloud.
His first marriage was a blemish to his other parts, yet I am pe
rsuaded he was deeply sensible of that and hisother miscarraige
s and faults, and humbled for