244                           HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

Newtown was the scene of a very painful occurrence the 28th of
July, 1817. A little son of Thomas G. Kennedy, then sheriff of the
county, while amusing himself fioating on a board on the creek at
the upper end of the village, fell off into deep water. His mother,
hearing his cries, rushed into the water, to his rescue, and sank
almost immediately. Mr. Kennedy was exhausted in his attempt to
save them. He and the child w^ere rescued by the citizens, who
fiocked to the spot, but the body of his wife was not recovered until
life w^as extinct.     She w^as Yioletta, the daughter of Isaac Hicks.

Among the leading citizens of Newtown, in the generation just
closing, Doctor Phineas Jenks and Michael H. Jenks were probably
the most prominent. They descended from a common ancestiy, the
former beino; a crpandson and the latter great-o^randson of Thomas
Jenks, the elder. Phineas was born in Middletown, May 3d, 1781,
and died August 6tli, 1851. He studied medicine with Doctor
Benjamin Bush, graduated in 1804, and practiced in Newtown and
vicinity.13 He was twice married, his first wife being a daughter of
Francis Muri'ay, and his second, Amelia, daughter of Governor Sny¬
der. He served six years in the state house of representatives, was
a member of the constitutional convention of 1838, and w^as active
in all the reform movements of the day. He was the first president
of the Bucks county Medical Society, and one of the founders of the
Newtown Episcopal church. Michael H. Jenks w^as born in 1795,
and died in 1867. Brought up a miller and farmer, he afterward
turned his attention to conveyancing and the real estate business,
which he followed to the close of his life. He held several places of
honor and public trust, was justice of the peace many years, com¬
missioner, treasurer, and associate-judge of the county, and member
of the twenty-eighth Congress. He was married four times. His
youngest daughter, Anna Earl, is the wife of Alexander Bamsey, the
first governor of Minnesota, and late .senator in Congress from that
state.

The Hickses of Newtown were descended from John Hicks, born
in England about 1610, and immigrated to Long Island in 1643.
His great-grandson, Gilbert, born 1720, married Mary Bodman in
1746, and moved to Bensalem in 1747 or 1748. He built a two-
story brick house at Attleborough in 1767, and moved into it.    He
 

13His thesis on graduating, "An investigation endeavoring to show the similaritv
in cause and efTcct of the yellow fever of America and the Egyptian plague," was pub¬
lished by the university and re-published in Europe.