Note 67 — MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; ANTERIOR TO HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

This township derives its name (which it gave also to Mr. Rittenhouse’s patrimonial farm and his original observatory,) as does likewise the neighbouring town of Norriston, the county-town of the (now) county of Montgomery, from the respectable Pennsylvania family of Norris; of which Isaac Norris, Esq. was eighteen times chosen Speaker of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, during the term of half a century from the time of his first election, in the year 1713. Mr. Norris held many public offices in Pennsylvania with great reputation and honour. He is represented as having been “an ornament to his country;” and this gentleman, who died in the year 1735, then held the Chief-Justiceship of the Province.