Excerpted from: History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania - 1905

By William Watts Hart Davis, Warren Smedley Ely, John Woolf Jordan

Page 649-650

WILLIAM R STAVELEY MD who in the years of an active practice was regarded as one of the most prominent and skilled physicians and surgeons of Bucks county was born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, his parents being William and Margaret Sheed Staveley. The deed which William Staveley had in his possession at the time of his death indicates the early connection of the family with colonial interests of America. This deed for seven hundred acres of land about 1682 was granted by Charles, absolute lord and proprietor of the province of Maryland, and Lord Baron of Baltimore, and a part of the original tract is still in possession of the Staveley family. Representatives of the name through successive generations continued residents of Maryland...

...Dr William R Staveley was provided with excellent educational privileges. He attended the school in West Chester Pennsylvania, and pursued his collegiate course in the Princeton University of which he is a graduate of the class of 1852. Having decided upon the practice of medicine as a life work he then matriculated in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia completing the full course by graduation in the spring of 1855. Locating in Solebury township he entered upon the practice of medicine for which his thorough preparation and continued private study well fitted him, making him one of the most capable practitioners that has ever represented the medical fraternity in Bucks county. He called his home Bleak House because of the fact that he built it upon an open field. However he planted trees and today has one of the best groves in the township, the trees having attained to magnificent size. In 1856 Dr Staveley was married to Miss Julia C Kelley of Frankfort Maine, and to this marriage have been born four children: Caroline at home, Albert, Margaret, and Sarah. The son, Dr Albert Staveley, is a noted surgeon of Washington DC. Completing his collegiate course at Princeton, he afterward attended the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in the medical department. Dr Staveley is a Democrat in his political allegiance, and fraternally is connected with Amwell Lodge No 12. F. and A.M., of Lambertsville. Having retired from active practice some years ago, he gives his supervision to cultivating and beautifying his fine estate covering one hundred and twenty nine acres, and to-day has one of the most attractive homes of Solebury township.