Wood family.

Richard Wood of Bristol, England, was part of the 17th century Quaker migration to the lower Delaware Valley, his descendants settling eventually in what is now Cumberland County, N.J. Richard D. Wood (1799-1869) married Julianna Randolph (1810-1885) in 1832, and they became the founders of one of Philadelphia's great Quaker mercantile and manufacturing families.

Julianna Randolph was a seventh-generation descendant of Edward Fitz Randolph and Elizabeth Blossom, New England Pilgrims who settled first in Scituate, Mass., and later in Piscataway, N.J. Her grandfather, Edward Randolph (1754-1837), a Revolutionary War soldier who became a merchant at Philadelphia and elder in the Society of Friends, dropped the "Fitz," which many family members wrote as a middle name.

Richard D. Wood began his business career at the age of 21 when he opened a store at Salem, N.J. Two years later in 1822, he joined with William L. Abbott and his cousin Samuel C. Wood to form the Philadelphia dry goods house of Wood, Abbott & Wood. Wood became a central figure in the Quaker mercantile community, serving on the boards of banks, insurance companies, the Schuylkill Navigation Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. In 1844, Wood came to the aid of his older half-brother David C. Wood, whose iron furnace and foundry at Millville, N.J., was in financial difficulties. Richard became emeshed in his half-brother's affairs, the two quarrelled, and Richard finally bought the property at sheriff's sale in 1850. Soon after, Richard D. Wood began investing in other iron companies and coal lands, including the Cambria Iron Company, which Wood rescued from disaster, and the Allentown Iron Company. Richard's brothers, Charles Stuart Wood and Horatio C. Wood were associated with him in many of these enterprises. To better utilize the water power at Millville, he constructed a cotton textile factory, later incorporated as the Millville Manufacturing Company, and turned an old-fashioned iron plantation into a thriving manufacturing town. Wood also promoted railroads in the territory, including the Millville & Glassboro and Cape May & Millville railroads.

After Richard D. Wood's death in 1869, his six sons continued most of his business enterprises, and gradually, they divided them among themselves. The oldest, Richard and George, and to a lesser degree, Edward, eventually became the dominant owners of the textile manufacturing and wholesale business, while the younger sons Walter and Stuart controlled the pipe foundry, which had expanded from Millville to a modern facility at Florence, on the Delaware River above Philadelphia in 1867. The pipe foundry passed out of family ownership when Walter Wood died childless in 1934. George, in the meantime, had founded Wawa Dairy Farms some 20 miles southwest of Philadelphia, and his descendants in turn transferred their interests from textiles to develop Wawa as the region's dominant convenience store chain.