The Heacocks were a Quaker family of Bucks and Montgomery Counties, Pennsylvania. The Heacock family arrived in America from Staffordshire, England, about 1711. They settled in Rockhill Township, Bucks Co., and Wyncote, Montgomery Co., and were primarily farmers. Joseph Heacock, Jr., fell into debt as a man in his early 20's as a result of an unsuccessfully farming venture and had to work from 1871 to 1875 for hire as a farmhand in New York state and in an iron works in Pittsburgh in order to pay off his debt. In 1875 he rented his father's farm in Wyncote and began truck farming, later putting up heated greenhouses where he specialized in roses, carnations and palms. To furnish fertilizer for his flowers he had 200 head of pedigreed cows, producing 1600 quarts of milk daily from his dairy.

Joseph Heacock, Jr., served in the State Senate from 1910 to 1914. His unmarried sisters, Eliza, Annie, Jane, and Martha (known as Patty), as well as his wife, Elizabeth Walker Heacock, were all involved in teaching in various Quaker schools. One served as principal at the Green Street School, and the others operated the Chelten Hills School for many years. Earlier, Eliza and Jane Heacock were in charge of the Colored Orphans Home in Washington, D.C. In the 1860's, Annie Heacock taught in a school for African-Americans near Beaufort, S.C.