The first clear sign of John Lloyd’s presence that I have found is an 1822 conveyance of land in Ridley Township, Delaware County to “John Lloyd of the same Township and County Cordwainer.”374 The land was half an acre on “the Great Road leading to the City of Philadelphia.” The price was seventy-five dollars.

In the 1830 and 1840 censuses, he and his family appear to be living in the abutting township of Nether Providence.375

From 1829 though 1833, he appears as a cordwainer in the Philadelphia Directory at 258 N. 3rd Street, very close to Thomas Lloyd’s early location at 83 Vine. I suspect that the Philadelphia location represented a storefront for his apparently thriving shoe business headquartered to the south. An alternative is that there were multiple John Lloyds who identified themselves as cordwainers, which seems much less likely.

In 1832, a John Lloyd was a Trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is clear that there were a couple of John Lloyds around the area. A couple of circumstances could support identification of the Trustee John with the cordwainer John. One is that the latter’s wife, Ann, expressed in her will the wish to have a Methodist Episcopal funeral, when it was most common for the other Lloyds in the area to belong to the Society of Friends. A second is that cordwainer John was clearly familiar with the idea of trusteeship, as noted in the later court action with his son Isaac. On the other hand, the other Lloyds of the community included some of the movers and shakers, to whom trusteeships would be most likely assigned.

He owned real estate valued at $6,000 in 1850, which was quite respectable, and had a number of apparent employees in his shoemaking business.369