Margaret MacDonald was born on June 22, 1760, one of Duncan and Sarah MacDonald’s four children.1 Her father, described as “the old Scotch highland piper,”2 likely served in one of the British regiments sent to Carlisle during the French and Indian War.
Dorothea McKenzie, the daughter of a Quaker ironmaster, became a widow at the age of 38, never remarried, and, until her death, ran a genteel boarding house in Carlisle with the help of her slaves. Dorothea’s father, Thomas Maybury, established the Green Lane Forge in the Perkiomen Valley in what is now Montgomery County, Pennsylvania as well as the Hereford Furnace. Her mother, Sophia Rutter, was a descendant of Pennsylvania ironmaster, Thomas Rutter.[1]
Born on May 9, 1801 in Carlisle, Watts was one of 12 children born to David and Juliana Miller Watts. Watts’ Cumberland County roots extended to nearly its founding when his grandfather Frederick Watts emigrated from Wales purchasing a large tract of land in 1760 on the banks of the Juniata River in present day Perry County. Watt’s father, David was a well-known lawyer in the county and a member of the first graduating class of Dickinson College in 1787.