Eli Rigby was born in 1771, eleven years into his father’s clerkship at Marcus Hook. Every later Pennsylvania Rigby on this site descends from him, including the family that ran an undertaking business in Media for four generations. He worked as a nail maker.
His tradeThe Nail Maker of Doe Run
Two compiled genealogies give his trade as nail maker — the Harlan family history of 1914 and Gilbert Cope’s Sharpless genealogy of 1887. His son Seth followed him into it.
Before machine-cut nails, every nail in a house was drawn by hand from nail rod, a few hundred in a day being a good output. Chester County had both the iron and the water power for the work. Machine-cut nails displaced the hand trade over the first half of the nineteenth century, which is very nearly the span of Eli’s working life.
He began at Doe Run, in western Chester County, and ended in Concord Township, Delaware County, about twenty miles east and close to the townships his father had lived in.
21 April 1796Married “Near Doe Run Village”
He married Elizabeth Harlan, of a Chester County Quaker family: daughter of George Harlan, granddaughter of William Harlan, born 7 September 1775 in West Marlborough Township.
The Harlan genealogy says they married “near Doe Run village” — not at Doe Run Meeting. Friends marriages are recorded as taking place at a named meeting. The wording suggests a ceremony the meeting did not perform.
Elizabeth was very likely disowned for marrying out of unity, as her mother-in-law Hannah Brown had been in 1758 and as her daughter-in-law Lydia John would be in 1829 — three consecutive generations of Rigby wives read out of meeting for marrying Rigby men. The supporting circumstance is that the Concord burial register holds Hannah and no other Rigby, which suggests the later wives were not members at their deaths.
This is not proven. The test is specific and someone can run it: the women’s minutes, 1796–97, of whichever Chester County meeting covered West Marlborough and Doe Run — Bradford or London Grove. ⚠ There is another Elizabeth Harlan at Nottingham Meeting in the same year. Check the township before believing a hit.
29 July 1858The Will, and the Share That Went Missing
Eli made his will on 29 July 1858 and it was proved the following year. It divides his estate into eighths.
The recorded text accounts for only seven of them: William H., Seth, Eli Jr., Harlan, Elizabeth Eagan, Eber, and the three children of his son James E. — Henry, George and Evan Rigby, taking their father’s share between them. An eighth is declared and never distributed.
The Harlan genealogy supplies the missing name. Independently, and from family informants rather than from the will, it lists eight children of Eli and Elizabeth — and the one the will’s visible text does not name is George W. Rigby, born 7 August 1807, died 9 January 1879, married Ann Vernon.
George W. is the link on which the funeral-home descent depends: his son George H. Rigby (1837–1881) was the Media undertaker who founded the business, and his grandson William C. Rigby carried it into the twentieth century. Two documents made for different purposes point to the same missing share.
The will as recorded, with the probate following it. A full transcription is held in the family archive.
⚠ Still open: whether a line is lost or illegible at the eighth-share clause in the original, and confirmation of George W. from his own 1879 probate and the Vernon marriage. The identification is strong; it is not yet closed.
The estate is directed to be divided into eight equal shares. The shares the recorded text names: — my son William H. Rigby — my son Seth Rigby — my son Eli Rigby — my son Harlan Rigby — my daughter Elizabeth Eagan — my son Eber Rigby — “Henry Rigby, George Rigby and Evan Rigby, Children of my Son James E. Rigby” (one share between them) — ⟦ the eighth share is declared and not distributed in the text as recorded ⟧
1797–1815The Eight Children
| Born | Child | What is known |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Sep 1797 | William Harlan | d. 14 Aug 1873; m. Lydia Chandler 11 Feb 1821. Their son Enoch Harlan Rigby (1830–1887) served in the 97th Pennsylvania Infantry and lies at St Martin’s, Marcus Hook, under a military marker. |
| 2 Nov 1799 | James E. | d. 20 Jun 1835, Chester Co. ⚠ Harlan says unmarried — but the will leaves a share to “Henry Rigby, George Rigby and Evan Rigby, Children of my Son James E. Rigby.” One of the two is wrong. Open. |
| 25 Aug 1802 | Seth | d. 1875. A nail maker like his father; m. Lydia John in Philadelphia, 1829. This is the line that continues to the present day. |
| 9 Jun 1805 | Elizabeth | d. 6 Nov 1875; m. Robert Logan. ⚠ The will calls her “my daughter Elizabeth Eagan” — a remarriage, or an error somewhere. Open. |
| 7 Aug 1807 | George W. | d. 9 Jan 1879; m. Ann Vernon. ⭐ The missing eighth share, and the ancestor of the Media funeral-home Rigbys. |
| 29 Apr 1810 | Eli Jr. | d. Feb 1854, Delaware Co., unmarried. |
| 26 Jun 1812 | Harlan | d. 19 November 1873 in Savannah, Georgia, unmarried. Nothing further is known about him. |
| 3 Jul 1815 | Eber | d. 29 May 1888; m. Amy C. Sager, 3 Dec 1840. The name recurs: an “Eber S. Rigby” had a child baptised at Chester in 1891. |
March and April 1859Thirty-Seven Days
Elizabeth died on 7 March 1859. Eli died on 13 April 1859, thirty-seven days later, aged eighty-seven.
The will he had written the previous summer gave Elizabeth a life estate in his property. Because she predeceased him, that provision never took effect and the estate passed directly to the eighths.
Both were buried at Chichester Friends — the Harlan genealogy is explicit for each: Elizabeth “bur. there, in Friends’ Burying Grounds at Chichester Meeting House”; Eli “bur. at Chichester Meeting.” That puts three generations in one acre: Eli’s mother Hannah in 1824, then Eli and Elizabeth in 1859.
James Rigby’s grave has never been found. His wife, his son and his daughter-in-law are all in that burying ground.
This site previously gave Eli and Elizabeth’s burial as Middletown Methodist Episcopal, citing Cope 1887 p. 726. That was a misreading. The words “both buried at Middletown M. E. Ch.” fall inside the entry for Seth Rigby and Lydia John and refer to them; Cope does not state Eli’s burial at all. Middletown M.E. is correct for Seth and Lydia.
The boardStill Open
- Was Elizabeth Harlan disowned in 1796–97? Women’s minutes, Bradford or London Grove Monthly Meeting, 1796–97.
- James E. Rigby: married or not? Harlan says unmarried; the will names three of his children.
- Elizabeth — Logan or Eagan? Two sources, two surnames.
- Close George W. hard. His 1879 obituary and probate; the Vernon marriage; the 1850 census.
- Harlan Rigby in Savannah. A Delaware County nail maker’s son dying in Georgia in 1873. No other record of him has been found.
- The 1859 stones. Their markers at Chichester are thirty-five years later than Hannah’s and more likely to still be legible.
Sources
Alpheus H. Harlan, History and Genealogy of the Harlan Family (1914), entry 472. Gilbert Cope, Genealogy of the Sharpless Family (1887), p. 726. Will of Eli Rigby Sr., Delaware County Will Book pp. 573–578, dated 29 July 1858, proved 1859 — page images and full transcription held in the family archive. Concord Monthly Meeting births-and-burials register. ⚠ Both genealogies were compiled from family informants decades after the events they record; where one disagrees with a document, the document is followed and the disagreement is noted above.