Thomas Chalkey Neeld

1843 (?) -1863

Thomas Chalkley Neeld was born in about 1843 (date unknown) in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to Jesse Neeld and Rachel Hosier Neeld (1), the sixth of seven children (Elizabeth, Phoebe, Mary Jane, Barclay, and Rachel, all older, and Susanna, a baby) listed in the 1850 Census (2). His father, Jesse, was a painter (as was Thomas), his mother, Rachel, a homemaker. Although Jesse’s parents were Quakers and members of the Middletown Meeting, Jesse drifted away at the age of twenty, when documents note his lack of participation (3). He was admitted to the Newtown Meeting in 1843, but again seemed to lack an interest in participating throughout the 1850’s (4). Maybe he was just busy raising a growing family!

Unfortunately, Rachel would pass away sometime between 1851 (based on the birth of her youngest) and 1856, although records are scarce, and we could not locate any burial site for her to confirm (5). It’s possible she died of one or another flu epidemic in the area at the time. Or, she could have died in childbirth or due to complications after. Death records during the period were rarely recorded or recorded with much detail. However, losing their mother would have been hard on Thomas and his siblings, with at least three children still at home (older sister Rachel and younger sister Susanna) when Jesse remarried on January 1, 1857 (6) to a Methodist Episcopalian (7) by the name of Deborah Pidcock Phillips (widow of Montgomery Howell Phillips), with his two eldest daughters serving as witnesses. How they met or where is a mystery. Perhaps they were introduced through mutual friends, although Jesse was twenty-two years older. Maybe Jesse did business with her father or another relative.

Deborah had been living in Ewing, New Jersey, with her parents and young daughter Sarah Ellen (Sarah), after her husband died in 1851 (8). Sarah was eleven at the time. Again, tension would arise within Jesse’s Quaker Meeting as they attempted to admit Deborah, which it appears never happened (it’s assumed that, after numerous attempts to do so, all well documented, the Newtown Friends eventually abandoned further attempts to communicate with Jesse or his family.) (9)

And soon, as the family blended together, something happened between young Thomas and Miss Sarah. Again, we can only speculate, but having spent their formative years in the same household as step-siblings who were not related likely created its own set of problems.

By the time she was fourteen, Sarah was heavily pregnant, the father presumed to be Thomas Chalkley, barely sixteen. Although census records from 1860 list their respective ages as Thomas eighteen, Sarah seventeen, and their son Howell Montgomery (named after her beloved father) as age six months, per their marriage certificate and county documents, they were ages sixteen and fourteen when they married on December 15, 1859 (10). Their respective parents are listed as witnesses, and a notation was made “with consent of parents” because they were underage.

Howell, the only child of Thomas, was born on February 20, 1860 (11). It had to have been hard to be brand-new parents when you’re still children, and Sarah and Thomas continued to live with their respective parents as a married couple, raising Howell with help from their parents, no doubt. Yet when the American Civil War broke out in April 1861, something drove young Thomas to enlist voluntarily that September, even before the draft eventually took root. He was barely eighteen years old. (12)

Were the responsibilities of fatherhood too much for him? Was he unhappy being so young and tied down to a wife and family? Were there tensions in a multigenerational, mixed family, and did he seek a way out? Or was he simply deeply moved by the reasons for the war, or a deep sense of patriotism? It’s likely we’ll never know. Thomas joined the 104th Pennsylvania Infantry and shipped out from Doylestown in September 1861. Likely, he sent word to Sarah and perhaps had letters back from home for the two years he spent at war. Perhaps they both grew up very quickly during that time, with their own personal responsibilities. I’m sure both looked forward to an end to service or the war, but tragedy struck less than two years after he left.

Thomas Chalkley Neeld was discharged August 24, 1863 (13) due to disability contracted in the service of the United States at Folly Island, South Carolina, and returned to Yardley and his family by September 1963. His death from consumption (the source of his disability) occurred on October 18, 1863. He was just twenty years old. (14)

It’s a small comfort, but he didn’t have to suffer the death of his only child, Howell, who tragically died on September 18, 1865, and is buried in Yardley (15). Although we have not yet located Howell Montgomery Neeld’s grave, we will continue to update this page as information becomes available.

Losing a child is heartbreaking, as is losing a spouse, but Sarah was tough and carried on. At barely eighteen when Thomas Chalkley died, she remained single, continuing to live with her mother and stepfather, until she remarried in 1865 (16). Sarah and her new husband, Charles Edward Barber, lived in Bucks County for most of their lives and went on to have another 13 children. Sarah and C Edward moved to Trenton to live with their daughter, Louisa, and son-in-law, Wesley Evans, after the turn of the century, and until both of their deaths (17). C. Edward passed away on June 26, 1910 (18). Sarah passed away on May 15, 1913. She lies beside her lifelong husband in Morrisville Cemetery, a few short miles from her first husband, Thomas Chalkley Neeld.

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Thomas Chalkey Neeld

1843 (?) -1863

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