Few people had ever heard the word dinosaur in 1858, having been coined just seventeen years earlier. But one member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, William Parker Foulke, was not only familiar with the word but responsible for discovering this country's first dinosaur and the world's first dinosaur skeleton. Scientific expeditions throughout the western wilderness' great fossil beds suggested it was only a matter of time before one would be found there. Several models existed in Sydenham, England but based on a few scattered bones and teeth found some twenty years before throughout England. Even with the expertise of Sir Richard Owen, the models bore little resemblance to the creatures they were to portray.
While summering in Haddonfield, New Jersey, Foulke heard of an incident that happened some twenty years earlier. A neighbor of Foulke, a farmer named John Hopkins, was digging marl (a nutrient-rich clay used as fertilizer) when workmen unearthed a number of large bones. While Hopkins no longer had any of the bones, Foulke was able to persuade him to renew digging.
During the past twenty years, the marl pit had become choked with eroded debris from the banks, and so overgrown that finding the site was unexpectedly difficult. One of the original workmen was called on to help pinpoint the exact location but, after pondering the situation, he chose the wrong site. Fortunately, on only the second day of digging, the original marl pit was found. At a depth of about ten feet, the researchers found a jumble of large black bones heavily impregnated with iron, which constituted most of the left side of a skeleton, including part of the hip, nearly all of the fore and hind limbs, twenty-eight vertebrae and nine teeth. No skull was uncovered. Because many of the bones showed signs of fracture, great care had to be taken when removing them. Each bone was sketched, measured, placed on a board, wrapped in cloth and transported 3/4 of a mile to Foulke's residence by a straw-filled cart.
Dr. Joseph Leidy, the country's foremost vertebrate paleontologist at the time, a professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, was notified by Foulke of his find. Leidy arrived on the scene insisting that digging continue, which it did through October but, little else was found. Leidy, in honor of his colleague, christened the dinosaur skeleton "Hadrosaurus foulkii".
The bones were officially presented to the academy of Natural Sciences in December, 1858.
The dream of finding the very spot Edward and Eleanor Foulke left in 1698 finally came true for us. As we drove along through the rolling, partly wooded Welsh countryside we felt as if we had lived there before. Emigrants to America generally sought land that resembled home to settle in. Reversing the direction, we understood better why we had always loved hills and woods.
The year was 1960. My husband and I were living near London as he finished up his year on a Fulbright scholarship. We drove our little Simca up the road and stopped before an immaculate stone farmhouse called Coed-y-Foel Isaf tucked into the hillside and occupied by the Tom Thomas family. Their daughter Eirlys Thomas came out to welcome us and we went inside to meet her mother Morfudd. Eirlys spoke beautiful English and translated Welsh for us so we could talk with her mother. As we sat in the parlor, we couldn't take our eyes off her collection of lovely blue plates on the sideboard.
In 1977, we again visited Coed-y-Foel with my husband's father, Robert W. Foulke, his sister, Phebe Jane Foulke Smith, her husband Red Smith, and our children, David and Debbie Foulke. Robert and Bud posed for photos by the gate and Coed-y-Foel sign. Again, we were greeted warmly by Eirlys who by then felt like a member of our family. Later we went to Eirlys' home where she made an elegant dinner for us. David was most impressed by a potato cutter she used to make fancy french fried potatoes, so we got one to use in our house in Cambridge and he kept us supplied all year.
In 1984, my husband and I visited Coed-y-Foel for a third time and met Thomas and Morfudd Thomas as well as their children. We enjoyed seeing the house again and admired their beautiful black Angus cattle. Eirlys was there also, and the three of us went out for dinner after visiting the house.
Our next visit, in 1991, was the best ever. We picked up Eirlys at her house, went out for lunch and drove over to Coed-y-Foel. Luckily, Thomas and Morfudd had just arrived home and welcomed us inside. The same lovely blue plate collection rests on the sideboard and we had a chance to admire the other antique pieces they had recently purchased. An aerial photograph of the farm hangs on one wall.
Most recently the Thomas’ copied and sent us a guest book signed by many Foulkes who have visited Coed-y-Foel Isaf. Over the years, Eirlys, Thomas and Morfudd Thomas have opened their home to countless Foulkes wishing to experience their heritage. Each time they were gracious and hospitable, taking time to visit with each guest. We hope to be able to show them some of the same hospitality in 1998.
ADDRESSES:
Miss Eirlys Thomas — Gwynllys, Frowgoch
Bala, Gwynedd, North Wales LL23 7NR
Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Thomas —
Coed-y-Foel Isaf
Bala, Gwynedd, North Wales
LL23 7NR
Our Family (Foulke) is still growing. We found over 100 lost relatives and cousins since our last mailing. I am proud of the response to our Family Newsletter, "The Foulke Herald". We've received great reviews on it. It is great to know that we have a vast amount of family history in our blood. Enough of that!
Our last Committee meeting had over 40 people in attendance — a lot of new faces. It was a workshop type meeting where all of the Committees had a break-out session and discussed what their Committee should be doing in preparing for the Reunion and preserving our family heritage and genealogy.
One thing nice about this is that we are all descendants of Edward and Eleanor Foulke. We are a family trying to put an event together that will go down in history (Foulke history) as a momentous event. Everyone is donating their time and effort to make this event a success.
Under the Finance Committee, ideas are being put together for fund raising such as selling copies of the 200th year Memorial — The Howard Jenkins Book of Early Friends of Gwynedd which talks in depth about our family up to 1898, pictures of the Homestead "Coed-y-Foel Isaf" in Bala, North Wales and pictures of the Homestead in Penllyn, Pennsylvania, shirts, hats, needlepoints, etc. One of the main sources of fund raising is our Annual Family Contribution Campaign where all family members are asked to donate $10.00 or more to help defray the cost of developing the Newsletter, mailings, collecting Foulke artifacts and gathering information and just to help with the cost of the main event, the 1998 Reunion. We are currently asking for donations of $10.00 for single members and $20.00 for family members. If you wish to donate more, we will gladly accept it. For those donating $50.00 to $100.00 you can be a part of The Patron Club. For those who donate more than $100.00 you will be part of the Tricentennial Club. Your names will be published in the Foulke Herald Newsletter for both categories. Enclosed with the Newsletter is a return card for your contributions. Remember this is to help to keep the Foulke heritage alive for your children and their children even after we are all gone. Not one penny is used for personal use by any Committee. Expenses will be published in the Newsletter for everyone to see how the money is spent.
The Historical and Exhibition Committee is collecting and cataloging family artifacts and information so that if you want to know where something in the family is located, or who possesses it, you will have access to getting this important information. All donated family artifacts, books, etc. will be turned over to the Swarthmore College Historical Society, which, by the way, presently has a large portion of Foulke Family artifacts.
The Program Committee is looking into setting up activities, seminars, entertainment, housing and transportation, etc. for the Reunion. They have come up with a lot of good ideas such as Educational Seminars, a play about our Family heritage and possibly a trip to the old Homestead in Bala, North Wales "Coed-y-Foel Isaf".
The Genealogy Committee is in the process of updating their records. They will be sending out a new Genealogical Information sheet to everyone again so that your families genealogical background can be more easily updated. The information that is collected will be used for us to publish a book on our family up to 1998. So, when you receive your Questionnaire, please fill it out completely as this is where we will be getting our data from. Leave your Family mark in history.
We have also set up a By-Laws Committee, headed by E. Sidney Foulke to draft some by-laws for our organization. They will be earnestly trying to draft by-laws by our next meeting.
Our next meeting will be held June 20, 1992. Time and place will be discussed in the next Newsletter. Please put this on your calendar so that everyone can attend these important meetings. Remember this is open to all our family members. It is not a small group doing this. We want people from all over the United States involved with this project. Remember, it is your family and you can learn a lot of things about your family and see other cousins from all over the country. Again, I would like every one to become involved. All of these Committees could use 20-30 more people on each. So, we look forward to seeing you on June 20, 1992. More details will be advertised in our next Newsletter in the Spring.
On a personal note, I am proud to say that during the process of writing this Report, we had a new addition to our family — a baby daughter name Kellye Katherine. Mother and daughter are doing great.
I wish everyone in the family Happy Holidays and a happy and prosperous New Year.
Sincerely,
BRUCE K. FOULKE
The Committee had it's initial meeting in August so now the real fun begins. The group has come up with the following objectives for the Committee:
Goals number one and two must be in place before the 1998 Reunion whereas goal number three will obviously take much more time.
A family genealogical data form has been selected but will not be distributed until the next newsletter. This will give us time to examine and select the most versatile computer software package and to get the bulk of the family entered. Once completed, we can send the form and attempt to fill in any missing information.
A special note of thanks to William G. Foulke (Philadelphia, PA), Carol Laycock (Florissant, MO), Shirley F. Morris (Towson, MD), and Kenneth Schaffer (Bremerton, WA) for the splendid materials they have supplied. The opportunity to meet Bill and Carol has taken place at reunion meetings, but a pleasant surprise was to meet Shirley and Kenneth who happened to be "in the neighborhood" in late August. We shared notes and squeezed in a visit to the Quaker Cemetery here in Quakertown.
Calls and letters continue to arrive from all over and everyone's questions and contributions will be acknowledged as soon as the data has been reviewed, entered and checked. Recognizing duplicate data when so many ancestors (and their descendants) all bear the same name is our biggest challenge.
Send any genealogical information to:
Ann Hellmann
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Quakertown, PA 18951
All of us are Farm "Foulkes." From the farm near Gwynedd, Pennsylvania to the farm near Maroa, Illinois, we have all had a connection to fertile ground and hard-working agriculturalists. We're the branch of the family that still has ties to Maroa Township, Macon County, Illinois. Here's how we came to be from Pennsylvania by way of Illinois.
My generation, which are currently all less than 35 years of age, and is so far incompletely counted, comes from a previous "cousinry" of 21 members. The eldest of these 21, David Llewellyn Foulke is 58 this year and the youngest, Mark Edward Roberts is 34. They were all the children of my grandfather's family of 14 brothers and sisters. These 14 were born on the farm just south of Maroa, Illinois between the years 1902 and 1924.
The ambitious parents of 14 were William Llewellyn Foulke and Lelah Garfield Craig Foulke (my great-grandparents). They were married in 1901. William Llewellyn, called "Wellyn" by his friends, was born on the family farm in 1873. He was one of five children, preceded by Anna Foulke (who married Arthur Edward Pinkham of Indiana), John McIlvaine Foulke (who wed Ruby Maude Foster from Minnesota), and Edward L. (married to Gynietha Cox of Indiana). Wellyn's younger sister was Caroline Edith Foulke, who, at 19 years of age, attended the 200th anniversary celebration in and around Gwynedd.
It was the parents of these five, Edward Foulke and Adelaide Colladay Foulke, along with Edward's father, John M. Foulke, who acquired 240 acres of land from the U.S. government through the Illinois Central Railroad in 1856. Previously Edward had been a florist, first in Baltimore then in Cincinnati. He was born in Cincinnati, moved with his father and mother to Baltimore and then back to Cincinnati.
John M. Foulke was married to Anna Sinclair and worked in the pork packing business in Cincinnati. Perhaps for reasons of his wife's health, John moved his family back to Baltimore in 1840. Anna died in 1844, John and his son Edward went back to Cincinnati. From there he and Edward became interested in land in Macon County, Illinois, no doubt through contact with Edward's cousin Anna Foulke Colladay, who was married to Henry Stull Collady.
Anna's father and mother, Daniel and Elizabeth C. Foulke were the owners of farm ground in Gwynedd and Horsham Townships, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. They bequeathed their farm to their four children, Anna, Edwin M., Joseph T. and Abigail W. Foulke. The first three sold their three-fourths undivided interests to Abigail in 1892.
Elizabeth C. Foulke was a Foulke before and after her marriage! She was the daughter of William Foulke and Susanna Conard Foulke of Gwynedd. William, her father, was John M. Foulke's brother. They were sons of William Foulke and Margaret McIlvaine Foulke, born in the 1767 and 1771 respectively, both in Montgomery County.
So, my children are seven generations removed from the Montgomery County Foulkes. It's a lineage with many interesting characters, from soldiers to florists and meat-packers to clerks. All seven of their direct ancestor Foulkes were born on, or lived on the farm.
And maybe it's just a little wishful on my part, but I hope we will always remember that we're "Farm Foulkes." I am grateful for strong roots to farmers who survived and thrived, and the farms which remain long after they're gone.
*(We will always be indebted to Lelah Margaret Foulke for exhaustive work contributed to The Descendents of Jacob Woodward Colladay. Much of the above is taken from her records.)
One of the Finance Committee's responsibilities is to raise money for the Family Reunion in 1998. Our first fund raiser is selling reproduction photographs.
For a donation of $10.00 per picture or $27.00 for all three (3), you may order 8 X 10 copies of three different historical photographs suitable for framing and passing down to your descendants.
These pictures have been made from high fidelity reproductions of photographs which appear in the memorial book published in 1898 in commemoration of the reunion of the descendants of Edward and Eleanor Foulke. The cost of making the high fidelity negatives from the original photographs was donated by a family member.
Photograph No. 1 is of the Old Foulke Mansion at Penllyn, PA. It was built at the site of Edward and Eleanor's home. The mansion was torn down in the early 1980's. A brief history of the Homestead at Penllyn was given in the first issue of the Foulke Family Herald published in April, 1991.
Photograph No. 2 is of Coed-y-Foel Isaf near Bala, North Wales taken in 1888. It was in this home, still standing, that Edward was born and lived until he and Eleanor came to America in May, 1698.
Photograph No. 3 was taken at the Reunion of Descendants of Edward and Eleanor Foulke held in Gwynedd, PA, on May 30, 1898. Over 500 descendants met at the Gwynedd Meeting House on that date to celebrate the landing in America of Edward and Eleanor Foulke and their nine children. Your great-great-grandfather or great-great-grandmother may be in this picture.
You may obtain copies of any or all of these pictures by returning the right hand portion of the enclosed Contribution/Picture Order form. The proceeds from the picture sales, above the cost of reproduction, will be donated to the Reunion Fund. Please state clearly how many copies of each photograph you desire. Make your check payable to the Foulke Reunion Committee in the amount of $10.00 for each or $27.00 for all three photographs plus $2.60 for postage.
On November 24, 1990 there was $1,005 in the Reunion Fund.
| Credits since November 24, 1990 include: | ||
| Donations to 8/3/91 | $665.00 | |
| Interest Income to 8/3/91 | $42.84 | |
| Donations since 8/3/91 | $115.00 | |
| Interest Income since 8/3/91 | $21.30 | |
| Luncheon Collections on 8/3/91 | $220.00 | |
| TOTAL CREDITS - 11/24/90 to 10/4/91 | $1064.14 | |
| Debits since November 24, 1990 include: | ||
| Fee paid to Gwynedd Meeting House for meeting on 11/24/90 | $75.00 | |
| Expense of Conference Phone Call of Executive Committee on 1/23/91 | $40.04 | |
| Postage for mailing of Minutes of 11/24/90 Meeting | $221.52 | |
| Postage for April, 1991 Newsletter | $130.00 | |
| Luncheon Expense for August 3, 1991 Meeting | $272.00 | |
| TOTAL EXPENSES - 11/24/90 TO 10/4/91 | $738.56 | |
On October 4, 1991 there was $1,330.58 in the Reunion Fund.
Respectfully submitted,
Larry R. Foulke, Treasurer
Many of us have not been to our ancestral home in Bala, North Wales. We plan to change that next year.
We have set the date of June 11, 1992 to depart from New York, travelling to London, England, then on to Bala, North Wales. Plans are to return to New York on Thursday, June 18, 1992. We will be back in time to attend the "Descendants of Edward and Eleanor Foulke" meeting to be held in Gwynedd, PA on Saturday, June 20th.
Provided we can put together a large enough group, we can keep the cost low, enabling more to benefit. It should be fum to travel with like-minded "Foulke".
If you are interested in more details, please contact Edward Sidney Foulke, xxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxxx, Kissimmee, FL 34744. Home Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx; Office Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx.
A gathering of Foulkes will be held on February 1, 1991. Planned specifically for those from the Southeastern United States, this reunion is open to ANY descendant of Edward and Eleanor Foulke throughout the country and the world who can be in Central Florida on that date. We plan to lunch together and spend the afternoon visiting about our heritage. A brief program is planned. We will lodge and meet at the Holiday Inn, E. Irlo Bronson Highway, Kissimmee, Florida (near the Sunshine Parkway entrance).
Write or call Edward Sidney Foulke, xxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxxx, Kissimmee, FL 34744 (Home Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx, Office Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx) if you are interested in attending.
Executive Committee
Chairperson - Bruce Keller Foulke
Vice Chairperson - Edward Sidney Foulke
Treasurer - Lawrence Ray Foulke
Secretary - Melissa Taggart Foulke
Genealogist - Margaret Ann Foulke Hellmann
Members-At-Large - Carol Foulke Laycock
David Jenkins Morrison
Standing Committees
Genealogy - Margaret Ann Hellmann, Chairperson
Historian - Brent Edward Foulke, Chairperson
Communications - Melissa Foulke, Chairperson
- Linda Foulke White, Co-chairperson
Finance - Lawrence Ray Foulke, Chairperson
Exhibition - Edwin Gerhart Foulke, Jr., Chairperson
Program - Carol Foulke Laycock, Chairperson
Transportation - Terry Foulke, Chairperson
By-Laws - Edward Sidney Foulke, Chairperson
Treasury Balance
10/31/91 $1,330.58
All correspondence may be directed to:
300th Year Family Reunion Committee
Bruce K. Foulke
Box 768 Worcester, PA 19490
(xxx) xxx-xxxx