History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2), Part 13

Author: William Watts Hart Davis
Publication date: 1903
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 13

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7 This tract of 1,800 acres was part of the grant of 5,000 acres William Penn made to Margaret Lowther, Oct. 23, 1681, and was subsequently located in that part of Bucks county that became Northampton. Richard Peters, Philadelphia, granted it to William Allen and Joseph Turner.

8 From Me-na-gas-si, or Me-na-kes-si-a crooked stream.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

Doll, Roland Smith, Frederick Aldimus, Thomas Biers, Jonathan Kennedy, William McCaa, Jonathan Cock, David Kerr, James Kerr, Robert Dobbin, - Jonathan Boyd, Thomas Armstrong. John Clendinnen, John McCartney, Michael Clide, James Kennedy, Simeon Drom, Christian Miller, Joseph Biers, Frederick Miller, Joseph Brown.

We find conflicting records concerning the laying out of this township. One account states it was confirmed and recorded June 25, 1747, another, that it was confirmed in June, 1748, and still another, that the petition was dated June 10, 1748, and was signed by thirty-seven inhabitants of "the south branch of the Delaware," and accompanied by a map drawn by Nicholas Scull. With- out stopping to reconcile the discrepancy in the records, it is only necessary to state the township was granted under the petition of June, 1746, and, when first laid out, was called "Mill Creek," with an area of twenty-nine thousand acres. When the name was changed to Allen, we are not informed. . We find from an old record that in June, 1748, "sundry of the inhabitants of the south-west branch of Delaware" petitioned for their settlements to be in- cluded in a township to be called "Allen's Town township," which was con- firmed and recorded September 23, 1749. In September, 1750, the inhabitants of Allen township stated, in a petition to the court, they "are distressed upon account of not having a road to Philadelphia from James Craig's to where Solomon Jennings lives," which was returned endorsed. "said petitioners better express their request if they persist in desiring this road." The residence of William and Thomas Craig, the fathers of the township, is said to have been about four miles from Bath. General Thomas Craig, a son of Thomas, a sol- dier and officer of the Revolution, died in 1832, at the age of ninety-two years. He was born January 10, 1740, entered the Continental army in the war of Independence, was Captain, January 5. 1776, Major, September 7, 1776. and a Colonel, 1777. He commanded the Third Pennsylvania line, and served under Arnold in the expedition against Quebec : was present at Brandywine. Germantown, Valley Forge and Monmouth, in the latter being under Wayne on the right. He died at Allentown, Pennsylvania. General Thomas Craig was born in Warrington township. Bucks county.

MOUNT BETHEL .- Alexander Hunter, a Presbyterian from the north of Ireland. arrived in the Forks of Delaware with about thirty families. 1730. He took up three hundred acres of land on the North Branch, near the mouth of Hunter's creek."1/2 where he established a ferry. "Hunter's settlement." as then called, was planted at three points, near Martin's creek ;? at Richmond. on the road from Easton to the Water Gap and at Williamsburg, on the same road. These locations were all in Mount Bethel township. afterward divided into Upper and Lower Mount Bethel, which names they still bear. Hunter be- came an influential man in the "Forks," and was appointed Justice of the Peace, in 1748. A Presbyterian church was probably built in Mount Bethel as early as 1747, and the present congregation of that name is the child of the Bethel church founded by Brainard the Indian missionary. Near Hunter's settle- ment was the Indian village of Sockhamvotung, where David Brainard often preached. and where he built a cabin. 1744.

On the 8th of June, 1746, the inhabitants living on the "north branch" of the Delaware, embracing the Hunter settlement and other immigrants who had settled there subsequently, namely : Peter Schurs, Jonathan Miller, Arthur

81/2 By some called Allegheny creek.

9 Probably then called Hunter's creek.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

Coveandell, Thomas Roady, Joseph Woodside, George Bogard, James Ander- son, David Allen, James Simpson, Peter Mumbower, Jonathan Garlinghous, Jonathan Cartmichal, Richard Quick, Joseph Funston, Thomas Silleman, Lawrence Coveandell, Jeremiah Best, Manus Decher, Joseph Jones, Alexander Hunter, James Bownons, Jacob Server, Joseph Coler, James Miller, Joseph Quick, Joseph Ruckman, Thomas McCracan, Thomas Silleman, Coleus Quick, Joseph Corson, Edward Moody, Conard Doll, Thomas Clark, Jonathan Rickey, James Quick, Patrick Vence, and Robert Liles, petitioned the court of Quarter Sessions, to lay off into a township, a district of country with the following boundaries : "From the mouth of Tunam's10 creek up north branch of said creek upon the west side of Jeremiah Best's to the Blue Mountains; and thence by said mountains to ye north branch of said river ; and thence by said branch to the mouth of said Tunam's creek again." The same petition asked the court to lay out and open a road from Martin's mill to the Delaware. The court ordered the petitioners to produce a draft of the township at the next term. This movement led to the organization of Mount Bethel, within a year or so, although the records are silent on the subject. The two townships, into which it has been since divided, are generally hilly with a productive limestone soil. The creeks afford numerous mill-seats and a number of slate and stone-quar- ries have been developed.

In Mount Bethel was the home and the scene of many of the labors of David and John Brainard, missionaries among the Indians. David, the first upon this field of usefulness and hardship, was born at Haddam, Connecticut, April 20, 1718, educated at Yale, studied divinity, was licensed to preach July 20, 1742, and, the following year, appointed missionary to the Indians at the Forks of Delaware, by the "Society for Propagating Christian knowledge." He traveled through a howling wilderness from the Hudson to the Delaware. striking the river twenty miles above Stroudsburg, and arriving at the Forks the 15th of May, 1743, where he established himself in a cabin that was built for him on Martin's creek. Here he gathered about him a congregation of converted Indians, and spent his life traversing that region and administering to the spirtual and temporal wants of the savages. In the summer of 1745 Mr. Brainard rode down to Neshaminy, Bucks county, to assist Mr. Beatty in the great revival then going on in that congregation. He remained five days, dur- ing which he preached several times, and on Sunday to not less than three or four thousand people. Hundreds were moved to tears under his effective preaching. Tatemy was Brainard's interpreter, and was baptised by him. He died with the harness on October 9, 1747, and was succeeded by his younger brother, John Brainard, who arrived at the field of his labors in August, 1749, and occupied David's cabin. He was anxious to establish a school for Indian girls. and bought spinning-wheels for several of the women, but, as he was unable to purchase flax, the enterprise failed. John followed in the footsteps of his brother David in most things, made a visit to the Susquehanna, ran down to see Mr. Beatty at Neshaminy and was on social terms with the Moravians at Bethlehem. He was chaplain in the army in the war of 1759, and had charge of Indian schools at Bethel and Brotherton, New Jersey, and died March 15, 1781.

MOORE TOWNSHIP .- Settlers pushed their way among the hills of what is now Moore township, Northampton county, soon after crossing the Lehigh.

10 No doubt Martin's creek; Tunam possibly being the Indian name for it.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

When that county was cut off from Bucks and laid out, a tract of land, now included in this township, was known as the "Adjacents of Allen township," and comprising what is now Lehigh, Moore, Bushhill and Plainfield. At Oc- tober Sessions, 1752, some of the inhabitants of this district petitioned the court to lay out a township, which resulted in granting their prayer and Le- high and Plainfield were shortly surveyed and organized. Moore township followed, 1763, but the taxpayers in it were so few, the court was petitioned to change the original lines so as to include an additional number of taxables. This was done and thirty-four were added from Lehigh township. The popu- lation of the new township is not given. Its name was given to it in honor. of John Moore, who represented Northampton county in the Provincial As- sembly, 1761-62. This caused an influx of settlers.

The first church in Moore township, was a log, built near the site of the modern edifice at Petersville, 1723. It was still standing, 1773, but destroyed soon after. The congregation are said not to have owned the fee of the land which led to its being abandoned or otherwise disposed of, and it was a long time before a new church building was erected. We have heard of but two names connected with the erection of the log church, Bartholomew and Klep- pinger, but know nothing more of them. It was probably a Union church, as the first Reformed pastor is given as John Egidius Hecker, but we do not know when he took charge or how long he served the congregation. It is said he has been dead a century and a quarter, and that his remains are under the altar of the present church. A handsome new building was erected in 1873, and has two flourishing congregations. The earliest interment, marked by a stone, is that of Nicholas Heil, February 14, 1760. A number of Indian outrages were committed in this township as late as 1756. The author regrets he has not more information to give his readers of this frontier township.

Plainfield Township, which adjoins Moore, had a few settlers as early as 1730, but it was not organized for many years.

The first settlements in this township, were made along the branches of the Bushkill creek, and during the Indian wars the inhabitants were often obliged to flee for protection to Nazareth, Friedensthal and the Rose Tavern. Of the early inhabitants were Joseph Keller and wife, who removed to this frontier about 1740. On September 15, 1757, four Indians came to their house in the absence of the parents, and, finding their son, Christian, aged fourteen, at home, killed and scalped him, leaving a babe in the cradle unharmed. The mother, and two other sons at work on the farm were made prisoners and carried off, but the father, who was plowing on another part of the farm, knew nothing of the transaction until he returned home in the evening. The prison- ers were taken to Canada, and the mother was not released until October, 1760, and the son Joseph several years after. The other son, John Jacob, was never heard of. Shortly after this murder, Governor Denny was petitioned to erect a fort and garrison it for the better protection of the inhabitants of this frontier. A block house was consequently built, called "Dietz's Fort," in which a small garrison was kept for some time. Dietz, on whose property the block house was erected, kept a tavern in the vicinity before the erection of the county, the only one in the township. This section was frequently visited by Zinzendorf and the missionaries of the Moravian church. The Plainfield church was erected at an early period and the records, from 1763, are in existence. This township was mentioned as early as 1754, two years after Northampton county was cut off from Bucks, but was not organized until 1763.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

EASTON .- The land on which Easton stands, at the confluence of the Del- aware and Lehigh, was owned by Thomas Penn, son of William. The site of the town is supposed to have been the bed of a great whirlpool in a past age into which the debris, from the neighboring forest and hills, was precipitated, for, in digging wells, rocks and trees have been found, several feet under ground. David Martin was the first settler at this point, whose name has come down to us. In 1739, he obtained a grant and patent for ferrying at the Forks of Delaware, his privileges extending about thirteen miles along the Jersey side of the river, from the upper end of Tinicum island to Marble Mountain, a mile above the mouth of the Lehigh. He had the exclusive right to ferry over horses, cows, sheep, mules, etc. Martin's heirs owned a portion of the land upon which the town of Phillipsburg was laid out.

VIEW OF EASTON ABOUT 1800.

Sometime previous to 1752, Thomas Penn wrote to Dr. Græme and Richard Peters to lay out ground at the Forks of Delaware for a town. The town plat was surveyed by Nicholas Scull, assisted by William Parsons, in the spring of 1752, the ground being then covered with trees and bushes. Mr. Parsons left Philadelphia May 7th, in company with Mr. Scull, and proceeding by way of Abington, the Crooked Billet, Alexander Poe's and Durham, crossed the west branch at the Forks. The survey was begun on the 9th, and occupied about ten days. They lodged and boarded at the tavern of John Lefevre, about six miles up the Bushkill, the nearest public house. The workmen received eighteen pence a day, and boarded themselves, and Lefevre's bill, for boarding Scull and Parsons ten days, was £2. ITS. 9d. "inclusive of slings." William Parsons, the god-father of Easton, was living in Philadelphia in 1722, and that year he married. He was a shoemaker by trade and a member of Franklin's club. He was appointed surveyor-general about 1743, but resigned in June. 1748. and removed to Lancaster. He was appointed to fill the county offices of Northampton in the fall of 1752, and died at Easton, in 1757, where his remains lie in a neglected graveyard. From his tombstone we learn that he was born May 6th, 1701, but where is not stated. The town was called Easton,11

II The Indians called it Lechauwitonk.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

after the seat of Lord Pomfret, in Northampton, England,12 father-in-law of Thomas Penn. Several of the streets were named after his family-Fermor, Pomfret, Hamilton and Juliana, names long since discarded-and Penn gave two squares of ground on which to erect a court and prison, the consideration being the payment of a red rose forever, to the head of the house, annually, at Christmas. Some years ago, when Easton wished to build a new jail and court house in another part of the town, application was made to Granville John Penn, for his consent to use the ground for other purposes, which was granted for a valuable consideration.

The first house erected in Easton was David Martin's ferry-house, in 1739, on the point of land at the junction of the two rivers, and probably one or two others were put up before the county was organized. When Northampton county was erected there was a demand for town lots, which were sold subject to an annual ground rent of seven shillings, conditioned that the purchaser should erect thereon, in two years, a house not less than twenty feet square, with a stone chimney. The town plat surveyed embraced about one hundred acres. In December, 1752, there were eleven families, about forty persons in all, wintering in Easton, and the jail was building. The inhabitants were isolated; not a single wagon road led to or from the'place, and their only outlet was along Indian paths. The country between Easton and Bethlehem. was considered a desert waste, called "dry lands," and was thought to be unfit for settlement and cultivation. The court house was not finished until 1766, at a cost of $4,589.67. The first attorney-at-law at Easton was Lewis Gordon, member of the Bucks County Bar, admitted at Northampton June 16, 1752, and died at Easton, 1778. His daughter, Elizabeth, married James, the son of George Taylor, the Signer. Gordon came to this country from Aberdeen. Scotland, and in 1750 was employed in the office of Richard Peters, of Phila- delphia. He was the agent of the Penns at Easton, and was clerk of the courts for several years. Easton had two taverns at this early day. In 1763 there were eleven houses in the town, sixty-nine in 1773, nearly all one-story log, eighty-five in 1782, and 150 in 1795, but faint promise of the beautiful and thriving little city it has grown to be. The Penns still owned Easton in 1800. At an early day the Moravians erected a stone building there, intended for "a brethren's house," but was never occupied as such. They sold it to the Lutherans, who. occupied it until the completion of the Union Lutheran and Reformed church edifice on North Third street, in 1776. It was demolished, 1873, and previ- ously had been, for many years, a popular tavern, and last known as the "Wash- ington." Phillipsburg, on the opposite bank of the Delaware, was settled at an earlier date than Easton. It was the site of an Indian settlement when Van Der Donk's map was made, in 1654, and called Chinktewink. It is called by its present name on Evan's map, 1749, and it is thought to have been named' after Philip, an Indian chief and friend of Teedyuscung, who resided there. By the opening of the Morris canal, and the construction of the several railroads. which pass through it, Phillipsburg has become a large and flourishing town.

The Wageners, of Easton and Northampton county, are descended from David Wagener, born in Silesia, Germany, May 24. 1736. In 1740 his mother, a widow, came to America with her two sons, David and Christopher, and set- tled in Bucks county. David married Susannah Umstead, and had a family

12. "I desire that the new town be called Easton, from my Lord Pomfret's home, and whenever there is a new county, that shall be called Northampton." (Thomas Penn to. Doctor Græme and Secretary Peters, in a letter dated London, Sept. 25, 1751).

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

of four sons and three daughters. About 1773 he purchased a tract of the Penns, lying on both sides of the Bushkill above Easton, where he died, in 1796. David, the son of David Wagener, the immigrant, was five years old when his father removed to Easton, and lived seventy-nine years at the old homestead that was in the possession of the family a few years ago, and may be at this time. David Wagener, the elder, had thirty-seven grown up grandchildren, of which five were living in 1878, and the great-grandchildren numbered about one hundred. David Wagener, the younger, became a prominent man, was an extensive merchant at Easton, and represented the district in the House of Representatives of the United States.

The Arndts, of Northampton county, are descended from Jacob Arndt, son of Bernard, who was born at Baumholder, Lichenberg, Germany, March 25, 1725, came to America with the family, 1731, and first settled in Rockhill. The son was born in Bucks county. He was prominent in civil and military life, especially in the Revolution. A further account of the family will be found in Rockhill township.

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CHAPTER VIII.

BETHLEHEM: NAZARETH: CARBON COUNTY.

1746 TO 1752.

The Moravians .- Site of Bethlehem .- William Allen .- Nitschmann settles at Bethlehem .--- First house .- Other buildings .- Count Zinzendorf .- His arrival .- Settlement named .. -Church organized .- Congregation house built .- Girls' school .- Mill built .- Water works .- Gnadenhutten .- Nain .- Indian converts .- Community system .- Severity of discipline .- Cultivation of music .- Moravians and education .- Grant of ferry .- Town- ship organized .- Dr. Matthew Otto .- Sun Inn .- Spangenberg .- Edwards .- Horsfield, et al .- Nazareth : Grant to Letitia Penn .- George Whitefield .- Tract purchased by Moravians .- First house finished .- Ephrata, etc .- Mill built .- Rose tavern .- Nazareth Hall built .- Roads laid out .- Healing waters .- Indians in the Forks .- Carbon county settled .- Northampton county, from Bethlehem to "Forks of Delaware," cut off from Bucks .- Townships taken with population.

The Moravians, who settled in the wilderness north of the Lehigh, were an important accession to the sparse population of that region and introduced a higher culture than any other class that had pre- viously settled in the coun- ty. When they were noti- fied to leave the Whitefield tract at Nazareth, where they had spent the winter of 1740-41, they purchased five hundred acres of Will- iam Allen, on the north bank of the Lehigh, where Bethlehem was built.

William Allen, who played an important part in the settlement of Bucks county, and was one of its largest land holders, was the son of William Allen. a leading merchant of

WILLIAM ALLEN.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

Philadelphia. The son, who acquired a large fortune in real estate specu- lations, was appointed chief-justice of the Province, 1750. His wife was a daughter of Andrew Hamilton. In the Revolution Allen took sides with the mother country and went to England, where he died, 1780, but his son James remained true to the colonies, and died in Philadelphia, 1775. In 1728 William Penn, the younger, granted ten thousand acres in Bucks county to William Allen, part of it in Forks of Delaware. He built "Trout hall," where Allentown stands, before 1755, for it is marked "William Allen's house" on a draft of the road from Easton to Reading drawn that year and what remains of the old hall is incorporated with the buildings of Muhlen- berg college. Allentown grew up around the hall. William Allen was one of the three gentlemen of the Province who kept their own carriages, and it was a landau, drawn by four black horses and driven by a driver imported from England.

Bishop David Nitschmann, who landed at Philadelphia, 1741, with a few immigrants, commissioned to found a Moravian settlement in America, re-

T.P.O.

FIRST HOUSE IN BETHLEHEM.

moved with his little flock from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the spring of 1741. The first house,1 of hewn logs, forty by twenty-one feet, one story high, with peaked gable and projecting eaves, was completed early in the spring; and the corner-stone of a more commodious building was laid the 28th of Septem- ber, in the presence of seventeen brethren. This was also built of hewn logs, two stories high, forty-five by thirty feet, chincked in with clay, and is still standing, the west wing of the old row on Church street. Two rooms were finished for Zinzendorf in December, and the building occupied in the summer,

I It stood until 1823, when taken down to make room for the Eagle hotel. The accounts of the building of this house are conflicting. Some authorities say the little band of Moravians left Nazareth December 20, 1740, and felled the first tree to build the house on the 22d, while Bishop David Nitschmann says in his autobiography, that they all passed the winter at Nazareth, and in the spring "we went out into the forest and began to build Bethlehem."

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IHISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

1742. An addition was built to the east end that gave it a front of ninety- three feet. The remainder of the quaint old pile, somewhat in the style of the manor-houses of Europe, was built at several times, the centre, 1743, and the third side of the square between 1744 and 1752. The west wing was not com- pleted until 1751, and the extreme east wing as late as 1773. It constituted the settlement for a number of years, and all divisions of the congregation lived in it.

Count Zinzendorf, founder of the Moravian colony north of the Lehigh, and descended of a noble Austrian family, was born at Dresden, May 26, 1700, educated at Halle and the University of Wittenberg and afterward spent some time in travel. In 1732 he married the Countess Erdmuth Dorothea Von Reuss, and shortly afterward became a convert to the Moravian faith. He visited England, 1736, the West Indies in 1739 and came to America in 1741, accompanied by his daughter, Benigna, and others on their way to join the colony at Bethlehem. He spent little less than a year in the Province, traveling and preaching, passing through several parts of this county. In June, 1742, he organized the Moravians at Bethlehem into a congregation. He preached his farewell sermon at Philadelphia December 31, and left the same evening for New York to embark for Europe, where he passed the remainder of his life, dying May 9, 1760.

Zinzendorf arrived at Bethlehem the evening of December 21, 1741. On Sunday morning, the 24th, the immigrants celebrated the Lord's Supper, and, that evening the festival of Christmas eve, at which the new settlement was named Bethlehem. John Martin Mack says, in his autobiography, that as the services were about closing, between nine and ten o'clock, the count led the way into the stable adjoining the dwelling, singing the beautiful hymn which begins, "Not Jerusalem, but from thee, oh Bethlehem," etc., from which in- cident the new settlement received its name. Mack, who was born at Wurtem- berg. 1715, and died in 1784, was a Moravian missionary among the Indians. He came with the Moravians from Georgia, 1740, and was employed by White- field to erect his building at Nazareth. He assisted to fell the first tree and to erect the first house at Bethlehem, and his daughter died there 1851, in her ninetieth year. The church was organized June 25, 1742, in presence of Zinzendorf, Nitschmann and Peter Bæhler in the upper story of the large stone house on Church street, next above the present Moravian church. The settlers then numbered one hundred and twenty, and there was only one other building, the log cabin that stood on the site of the Eagle hotel stables.

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History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2), Part 13

Author: William Watts Hart Davis Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: William Watts Hart Davis
Publication date: 1903
Publisher:
Number of Pages: