Rowland Evans (209)

Rowland Evans (1718–8 August 1789) was a farmer, miller, and public officeholder, and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. Born into a Quaker family at Gwynedd in Philadelphia (now Montgomery) County, he became a farmer like his father. He also served as a justice of the peace for over a decade beginning in 1749, and in 1759 was appointed a judge of the Court of Common pleas, though he was removed from office two years later. Evans was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly almost continuously between 1761 and 1771 as a member of the anti-proprietary party. In 1771 he served on an Assembly committee with APS members Abel James and Samuel Rhoads that commissioned APS member David Rittenhouse to construct an orrery for public use. Shortly after his election to the American Society, Evans relocated to Providence Township, where he expanded his farm from 160 to 250 acres and founded grist and saw mills. But by 1776 he was so deeply in debt that he sold the farm to Pennsylvania Governor John Penn, who then leased it back to Evans. A year later, Evans watched in horror as British troops appropriated his grain; patriot troops soon matched these depredations on his farm and mills to provision their encampment at Valley Forge. Faced with impending financial ruin, he was able to renegotiate his lease on more advantageous terms via Penn’s agent (and fellow APS member) Edmund Physick. But by 1784 Evans’s debt had forced him to relocate to Philadelphia, where he made a modest living preparing legal documents as a trustee of the Loan Office. His brother Cadwalader Evans was an APS member. (PI)