The ancestors of General Hancock, on both sides, belonged to families of revolutionary fame, and were engaged in all the wars, from the French and Indian, before the Revolution, down to the war of 1812.

The father of General Hancock married against the will of his guardian, who was a Quaker, and joined the Baptists, to whom his wife belonged, and became a deacon in the Baptist church at Norristown. He was a constitutional man and a Democrat, but not a politician, and never sought or held any political office. When his son, the present General Hancock, at the age of sixteen, went to West Point, the Quakers attempted to induce the sister of his father's guardian, Miss Polly Roberts, to cut off young Winfield in her will, as the profession of a soldier, educated as a man of war, was not to be encouraged. She remained steadfast, however, until General Hancock had graduated and gone to Mexico and become engaged with the enemy, and, as she supposed, had "killed people." Then the "Friends" said it was impossible she could bestow a legacy upon a person who was killing men by wholesale, and this prevailed. Winfield was cut off in the will. But, as she suspected that the "Friends" wanted her money, she provided for the younger brother in place of Winfield.

In this old homestead his grandfather died, at 84, and was buried in the churchyard at Mont

gomery Square, and his father before him died in the same house. This very house was attacked by Indians and bravely defended by the women.

Nature cast Hancock in a mould of rare comeliness. He seems to have been physically fashioned for a soldier. Now in his fifty-seventh year (born February 14, 1824) he stands six feet two inches, nearly as tall and as broad as the gigantic hero of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, Winfield Scott, after whom he was named; and he resembles in speech and bearing that impressive and courtly soldier, who died at West Point, where Hancock was educated, on the 29th day of May, 1866, in the eightieth year of his age. Doubtless Hancock's father and mother, Benjamin Franklin and Elizabeth Hancock, were largely influenced by the fascinating incidents of the brilliant hero, who was still suffering from the wounds he had received in repelling the second British invasion of our northern frontier-then bearing the golden honors of Congress, after declining the generous proffers of high political office from the administration of President Monroe. All unconscious of the future military renown of their son, they called him Winfield Scott. His twin brother, Hillary Hancock, a member of the Minnesota Bar, is living much respected in the beautiful city of Minneapolis, Minnesota; his youngest brother, John Hancock, who was also in the army of the Potomac with the General, is now living in Washington City, D. C., an officer