Beeks line: Evan ap Owen, Welsh immigrant

 I hesitate to write this post, and I hesitate to post dates, because I actually know so little about this ancestor.  But he is part of the family, and even if I only know one or two facts, his memory deserves to be honored.  Also maybe this will be a bread crumb that will lead someone to more information about him.

I am not sure whether there were one or two men who went by the name of Evan ap Owen, Evan Owen, or even Owen (ap) Owen during the time frame that Owen was in Pennsylvania.  ("Ap" means "son of" and sometimes the "ap" was dropped, sometimes it was written ab and then changed to Bowen.  So there are a lot of ways to try to find this man, and Evan was good at dodging behind all of them, I think.  

The best information I have is that he was born sometime before 1645, in Wales or possibly Somerset in England.  His family was or became Quaker, and it may be our Evan ap Owen who was convicted of being a Quaker when he was nine years old.    His parents were Owen ap Evan and Gainor John Evan, and they both died in Wales.  So Evan was the immigrant, and likely arrived early in Pennsylvania colony, although not necessarily in the ships that came with William Penn.  

There was an Evan Owen who was a merchant of Philadelphia, who acted as a land agent of sorts for some land once granted to William Penn.  This was in 1724/25, and is noted in "Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Land Records 1729-1750 and Land Warrants 1710-1742",  by Marsha Martin.  I have found one or two other references to Evan Owen as a merchant in Philadelphia.  And I've found an inventory, that belongs to Evan Owen and is extensive enough to belong to Evan Owen, merchant.  It dates from 1727-1731 and refers to his widow, Mary.  

Our Evan was married to a Mary McMillan or McMillam, but she is reported to have died in 1699.  So either this is not our Evan ap Owen, or he married again, to another woman named Mary.  Evan and the first Mary are reported to have had at least two children, and there were likely more.  There is a death report of Evan Owen in 1699 in the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting Records, (he was from Lancaster meeting) and it is possible that this was our Evan.  Records for Evan Owen continue until about 1727 in the Quaker records on Ancestry, but there is nothing that identifies him as possibly being our Evan Owen, nor is there anything that says this was not our Evan.  

So, was Evan ap Owen the merchant of Philadelphia, the Quaker from Lancaster or another location, or someone else entirely?  The "information", unsourced and undocumented that I have, says that he died about 1725 in Haverford, Chester County, Pennsylvania.  If this is correct, then it seems that Evan, while in America, stayed entirely under the radar.  Will this man please stand up and identify himself? Incidentally, this line was Quaker down through Solomon Reese, who was disowned for marrying outside the Quaker community but apparently was re-admitted at some point. 

The line of descent is

Evan ap Owen-Mary McMillan

Moses Bowen-Rebecca Reese

Henry Bowen-Jane Carter

Margaret Bowen-Thomas Reese

Thomas Reese-Hannah Reese

Solomon Reese-Anna possibly McNeal

Owen Reese-Margaret Ellen Moon

Eliza Matilda Reese-Samuel Dunham

Margaret Catherine Dunham-Harvey Aldridge

Cleo Aldridge-Wilbur Beeks

Mary Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger

Their descendants