Philip Syng Physick Conner

PHILIP SYNG PHYSICK CONNER. Philip Syng Physick Conner, one of the original Board of Managers of this Society, was born in Spruce Street below Fourth in this city on May 14, 1837, and was the eldest son of Commodore David Conner, U. S. N., and Susan Dillwyn Physick his wife, daughter of Dr. Philip Syng Physick. Dr. Physick's father, Edmund Physick, was Keeper of the Great Seal of the Province of Pennsylvania and one of the land officers, and afterwards agent for the Penns. Dr. Physick's wife, Elizabeth Emlen, was descended from some of the early Quaker immigrants, while Dr. Physick's mother's ancestry is traced to the Swedes. Commodore Conner and his family, during the youth of the subject of this sketch, lived in one of the handsome houses afterwards bought by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in Fourth Street below Willing's Alley, and had a country-seat on the Octorara Creek near Rowlandville, Maryland. It is not sufficient to say that Philip S. P. Conner had the manners to be looked for in one reared in the fashionable circle of Philadelphia in those days, and long continuing in the gay world ; he had the punctiliousness, proud self-control, and consideration for the sensibilities of others which legend attributes to a representative gentleman of anterior time and older country. He spent some years abroad, and, inheriting on coming of age what was then deemed a fortune, followed no profession, nor ever engaged in business until in middle life financial losses necessitated working in a small situation for a short period. He served in the Union army during a portion of the Civil War. He occasionally wrote poetry. He married Mary Darch Lewis, ( 383 ) 384 Philip Syng Physick Conner. daughter of David Lewis, of Philadelphia, and is survived by her and a son Edward Conner, and a daughter Camilla, wife of Arthur Hale, now of New York. Genealogy and the biography and history to which it led were the study of Philip S. P. Conner's lifetime. He was scrupulously careful in investigation, industrious and painstaking in the collection of data. He examined many church records, and compiled an account of the registers of the Anglican churches in Pennsylvania. In addition to various notes which have appeared in print, he published pamphlets on the Mexican War, but his most ambitious work was a life of "Sir William Penn, Kt., Admiral and General at Sea, Great Captain Commander in the Fleet," published at Philadelphia in 1876. From 1875 to 1880 he was one of the Council of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and he presented to the Society the valuable correspondence and other manuscripts known as the " PennPhysick Papers." He was a Founder and a member of the Board of Directors of the Genealogical Society from its foundation February 24, 1892, until March 6, 1905, when his continued absence from the city rendered it impossible for him to attend. He joined the American Catholic Historical Society almost at its organization, and in 1887 was its Second Vice-President, although his ecclesiastical affiliation was with the Protestant Episcopal Church. He wrote an article entitled "The Early Registers of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania," published in the Records of the American Catholic Historical Society, Vol. II, p. 22 et seq. He was a life member of the Swedish Colonial Society. Retaining his domicile in Philadelphia, he of late years spent his time at the seat on the Octorara, and he died there on November 27, 1910.