GILPIN, Thomas, manufacturer, born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 18 March, 1728; died in Winchester, Virginia, 30 April, 1778. His grandfather, Joseph, emigrated from England in 1696. Thomas engaged in farming and manufacturing, became interested in science, and was one of the original members of the American philosophical society in 1769. He aided in establishing Wilmington college, Delaware, and labored for the construction of a canal between the Chesapeake and the Delaware. In 1777, with other members of the Society of Friends he was arrested by the Pennsylvania government on suspicion of being a loyalist, and taken to Virginia, where he died.--His son, Joshua, born in Philadelphia, 8 November, 1765 ; died there in 1840, early showed a love for historical investigation. He lived in England in 1795-1801, and married an Englishwoman. He urged forward the canal that his father had proposed, and witnessed its completion after many discouragements. He published "Verses written at the Fountain of Vaucluse" (1799); "Memoir on a Canal from the Chesapeake to the Delaware" (1821); and "Farm of Virgil, and other Poems" (1839).--Another son, Thomas, born in Philadelphia, 10 September, 1776; died there, 3 March, 1853, became an extensive paper-manufacturer, and in 1817 con-structed a machine for making paper continuously. His works were destroyed by fire in 1832. He published a collection of documents connected with the banishment to Virginia of his father and other Quakers (1850).--Joshua's son, Henry Dilwood, lawyer, born in Lancaster, England, 14 April, 1801; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 29 January 1860, attended school in England in 1811-'16. He was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1819, studied law with Joseph R. Ingersoll, and began practice in Philadelphia in 1822. He was United States attorney for his state in 1882, solicitor of the United States treasury in 1837, and attorney general of the United States in 1840-'1. In 1826-'32 he edited the "Atlantic Souvenir" (7 vols., 12mo), the first American literary annual. Mr. Gilpin was president of the Pennsylvania academy of the fine arts, and a director of Girard College. He bequeathed the sum of $57,000 to the Chicago historical society, and his extensive and valuable library to the Historical society of Pennsylvania, together with a bequest for the erection of a building in which the library should be preserved. Besides contributing to periodicals, he published " Reports of Cases in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1828-'36" (Philadelphia, 1837); " Opinions of the Attorney-Generals of the United States, from the Beginning of the Government to 1841," from official documents (2 vols., Washington, 1841), and many addresses, and edited " The Papers of James Madison," purchased from Mrs. Madison by the government for $30,000 and published by authority of congress (3 vols., 1840). See "Memorial of Henry D. Gilpin" (printed privately, Philadelphia, 1860).