By Yves Le Restif de la Motte Collas

Introduction, by Nancy Jennings: The daughter of Captain John MacPherson and his wife Mary Ann (neé MacNeal; portraits above), Amelia Sophia, was born in Philadelphia on 23 October 1776, just a few months after the signing of the United States of America’s Declaration of Independence in July 1776.

Amelia Sophia MacPherson married Edward Hamlin Adams in 1796. After a time in the Caribbean where Adams worked, among other things, as Island Secretary in Jamaica and as supplier of enslaved labour to the British state, they settled at Middleton Hall in Wales in 1825. Their son William (brother of Edward Abadam and grandson of Captain John MacPherson), who had been born in 1814, married Agnès Shakespeare Jump and moved to Brittany, France. Alice, the daughter of William and Agnès, married Alfred Le Restif de la Motte Collas and had two children: René and Yves, who married Anne. Yves and Anne had two children: Yvonne and Yann. Another Yves Le Restif de la Motte Collas, the son of Yann, wrote the article below about the life of John MacPherson. I have added some clippings from newspapers, and information about a seal representing three families: Adams, McPherson and Shakespeare.