According to family tradition, John Starr served in the Parliamentary Army as an infantry Captain during the English Civil War around 1649, when Oliver Cromwell conquered Ireland. After the war he settled in Ulster and is the progenitor of the Starrs in Chester County, Pennsylvania. His son John had nine children, including six sons, five of whom immigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1700's: James and Isaac in 1712, John, Jeremiah, and Moses in 1717.
The Starrs were Quakers, and they were attracted by the promise of religious freedom in William Penn's new colony of Pennsylvania, obtained by a grant from King Charles II in 1681. From these beginnings are descended one of the large families of Starrs in America today.
