USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 3
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8 De Witt Clinton Hough, son of General Joseph Hough, was born at. Point Pleasant, Dec. 31, 1826, and died at Rahway, N. J., 1897. His mother was a Simpson, and sister of General Grant's mother. He was educated at the Newtown Academy and graduated in Medicine at the Jefferson School, Philadelphia, 1847. Beginning active practice elsewhere, he settled at Rahway, 1857, and there passed his life. He served through the Civil war as surgeon of the 7th New Jersey regiment, and in civil life, held several places of public trust; was mayor of the city from 1866 to 1868; member of the first board of water commissioners, and served three terms in the assembly. He was prominent in every walk, and his life full of kindly benevolence. At his death a son took up his professional work.
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HISTORY OF. BUCKS COUNTY.
by an iron one. It was on the north side of the Tohickon. Geddis' run empties into the Tohickon just above its mouth, and the Delaware canal crosses the creek a short distance below 'on a wooden aqueduct. From the hills, back of Point Pleasant, is presented one of the finest river views in the county. Uhler- town, opposite Frenchtown, is an enterprising place, and large quantities of hay, grain and straw were formerly shipped on the canal from there, also a succcessful business carried on in building and repairing boats and lime-burn- ing. A new grist mill was erected, 1877. It has a brick school-house, and dur- ing the winter, a literary society is a feature of its social life.
Erwinna on the Delaware nearly opposite Frenchtown, was founded about 1856, the ground on which it stands being bought of John Williams and wife in the spring of that year. The ferry, established early, was called London ferry for many years and then Prevost's ferry, 1808. It has a population of three hundred with mechanics, stores, a graded school, churches and other evi- dence of village life. Head-Quarters, on the road from Erwinna to Ottsville, is a hamlet with a store and tavern, and Ottsville, formerly "Red Hill," is on the Durham road near the line of Nockamixon. A post-office was opened at Otts- ville, 1814, with Michael Ott as postmaster. The post-office at Erwinna is probably the oldest in the township, having been established, 1807, with Joseph Erwin, postmaster, followed by H. Erwin, 1834. The post-office on the Durham road has frequently changed location, and been at two or three points in the distance of two miles.
There were several fisheries on the Delaware between the Tohickon and Tinicum creek in olden times. Cowell's near the "Point" was a lucrative one, but Ridge's was more profitable and probably the oldest. About 1810 as many as 1,500 shad were caught in one day upon a small island opposite the Ridge house. The Cabin fishery was half a mile above Ridge's; the Drive fishery on the Jersey side of the large island, and the Sweet Briar on the Jersey shore opposite, are all productive, or were a few years ago. Shad, caught in these waters, were of the finest kind, and in abundance down to 1825, and in fair quantities to 1842, but since then, the catch has not been so good. The season of 1875 was the best for several years.
Although we have said that Barcroft's mill was probably the oldest in the township, the honor is disputed by Joseph Drissel's mill on the Tohickon, a mile northeast of Keichline's tavern, in Bedminster. This is thought to be one of the oldest mills in the upper end of the county, and is still in good running order. Jacob Fretz's mill on the Tohickon was built about the same time, or soon after Barcroft's. Jacob Stout had a grist-mill on the Tohickon, 1755. Wilson's tavern,' one of the oldest in the township, stood on the road from the Brick church to the river, about half-way between them. It is a long one- and-a-half-story stone house, still standing. The license was taken away many years ago, because a lot of drunken fellows hanging about on a Sunday morn- ing abused old James Carrell on his way to church. When a tavern was first licensed at Head-Quarters we can not tell, but it was kept a century ago by Jacob Shupe, and by him sold to Jacob Barndt, who died in it, in 1799, whose son, Peter T. Barndt, moved into it, in 1800. A public house is still kept there, but the present building is about three hundred yards from where the old one stood. The township and general elections have been held at this house many years. John I. Carrell, son of the James Carrell mentioned above, and Jane his wife, became a minister of note in the Presbyterian church. He was one of
9 A tavern was kept there, 1767.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the first graduates of Lafayette college; married Leonora Hickman, 1839, and was chaplain of the 9th New Jersey Infantry in the Civil war, in which his son, a captain, was killed. Mr. Carrell died at Easton, Pennsylvania, June, 1877.
In area, Tinicum is one of the largest townships in the county, as well as one of the most populous. The surface is very rolling in some parts, but not broken, and along the Delaware an abrupt ledge lifts the general level of the surface from seventy-five to an hundred and fifty feet above the river. It is well-watered by the Tohickon, Tinicum and Mill creeks and their branches. A good deal of the soil is sandy and gravelly, but in general productiveness it is about the equal of the neighboring townships. The Delaware Division canal, which runs along the river front of the township, gives the inhabitants great facilities for transporting heavy goods to market, and in importing lime and coal. Besides the bridge across the Delaware at Point Pleasant, another spans the river a mile above Erwinna.
Opposite. Tinicum township on the left bank of the Delaware, in Hunter- don county, New Jersey, is the flourishing borough of Frenchtown. About a century ago, the land was purchased by Colonel George Piper, and General Paul Mallet Prevost,1º who laid out the town. The early growth was slow. Seventy-five years ago there were not more than two or three houses. One of them, of logs, on the Baptisttown road, was occupied by Abraham Wyker and family, a carpenter by trade, but sometimes served as a hand on Durham boats that plied on the river. Their bound girl was said to be "possessed of an evil spirit," and people flocked to the house, from ten miles round, to witness her "manifestations." Aged people still have stories to tell of "Wyker's" ghost. Another house was inhabited by a man named Peltz and his family. He occu- pied his time drinking whiskey and the wife enjoyed the privilege of support- ing him, herself and the children. One of the sons swallowed a snake's egg, on a wager of whiskey; which hatched, a snake in his stomach, but a strong emetic relieved him. It was preserved in alcohol and is said to have been ex- hibited in Peal's Museum, Philadelphia, among. the curiosities.
The first enumeration of the inhabitants of Tinicum was in 1784, when the township contained 769 whites and 9 blacks, 87 dwellings, and 144 out-houses. In 1810, the population was 1,017; 1820, 1,249; 1830, 1,643; 1840, 1,770; 1850, 2,047; 1860, 2,396; 1870, 2,401, of which 117 were of foreign birth; 1880, 2,346; 1890, 2,098.
Tinicum is a German township.
10 The Prevosts are an old Huguenot family, whose records go back over seven hundred years. Upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes they took up their resi- dence in Switzerland, where Paul Henri Mallet Prevost was a banker of Geneva, whose uncle, General Augustin Prevost, distinguished himself in the defence of Savannah, in the Revolution. He was a cousin of Sir George Prevost, at one time commander of the British forces in Canada, and Governor of Nova Scotia. At the breaking out of the French Revolution, Paul Henri Mallet joined the French army, but came to this country 1794, and settled at Alexandria, Hunterdon, N. J., and as several of his family and army friends followed him, the place became known as "Frenchtown" the name it bears. The son and grandson of General Paul Mallet Prevost were prominent citizens of Philadelphia, and his great-grandson, Sutherland M. Prevost, was general superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and third vice president.
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CHAPTER II.
UPPER MILFORD; SAUCON; MACUNGIE; SALISBURY; WHITEHALL.
1738 TO 1750.
A twin sister .- Upper Milford .- Township movement .- Names of petitioners .- Boun- daries. - Township laid out. - Settlers. - Swamp church. - Pastors. - Anecdote. - SAUCON .- The Lehigh comes into notice .- First land taken up .- William Allen, Reverend John Philip Bohm, John David Behringer, George Hartman, Adam Schaus .- Township organized .- First tavern on the Lehigh .- The landlords .- Set- tlers thereabouts .- Graveyard .- Boarding-school opened .- The river .- Surface of township .- MACUNGIE .- Now divided .- When settled .- Township laid off .- Names of petitioners .- Road asked for .- Settlers' names .- Surface level .- SALISBURY .- The Turner and Allen tract .- Other grants .- First settlers .- Emaus settled .- The town- ship laid out .- WHITEHALL .- Earliest settlers .- The Mickleys .- Lynford Lardner .- Origin of name .- The Reformed church .- Township organized .- Heidelburg and Williams townships.
Upper Milford, the twin sister of Milford in Bucks, originally embracing the territory of Upper and Lower Milford, Lehigh county, was the first town- ship organized of all those now lying outside our present county limits. It was cut off from Bucks with Northampton, 1752, but fell within Lehigh county upon its formation, in 1812. It lies immediately northwest of our Milford township, having Montgomery on the south-west. We know but little concern- ing its early settlement, but it appears the same flood of German immigration that flowed into Lower, reached Upper, Milford, about the same time. In a few years quite a German population was settled there. The two townships were under the same municipal jurisdiction until they were regularly laid off into separate geographical subdivisions.
No doubt the organization of Lower Milford, now Milford in Bucks, and by which name it was known within the memory of men now living, hastened the inhabitants of Upper Milford in organizing that township. At what time they commenced the movement is uncertain, but we find that on the 10th of January, 1737, a petition, signed by Peter Walher, and twenty-two other in- habitants of that section of country : Ulrich Kirster, A. Mathias Ochs, Johannes Meyer, Joseph Henckel, Daniel Rausch, Heinrich Willim, Hienrich Ris, Will- iam Bit, Gristian Bigli, Jacob Wetel, Johannes Betlzart. Duwalt Machling, Johannes Hast, Melchior Stecher,1 Michael Kehler, Felix Benner, Jacob
1 Melchior Stecher later settled in Forks township, Northampton county, Pa. He was the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Ethan Allen Weaver, assistant engineer, Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Derry, Michael Zimerman, - Longhurst, Mirwin Weihnacht, Johannes Ban- gerner and Hannes Ord, was presented to the court of quarter sessions sitting at Newtown, asking to have the country they inhabited laid out into a township, with the following metes and bounds: "Beginning at the northern corner of Milford township and then running up to Lawick hills, then along the said hills to the county line westward, then down the county line to the other corner of Milford township, then along the line of said township to the place of beginning." The prayer of the petitioners was probably granted immedi- ately, for the new township was surveyed and laid out by John Chapman on the 13th of the following March, (1738). As laid out it was in the form of a square, six miles long by five wide, containing twenty-one thousand one hun- dred and twenty acres. With few exceptions the petitioners for the new town- ship were Germans. In addition to those already mentioned, as petitioners for the organization of the township, we find among the families settled there before or at that period those bearing the names of Dubbs, Eberhard, Hoover, Mumbauer, Roder, Spinner, Stahl and Weandt. A little later came the Dickenshieds, Hetricks, McNoldies, Millers, Schellys, Kipers, Sny- ders, Rudolph, Dietzes, Heinbachs, Derrs and others. Peter Walbert was ap- pointed constable of Upper Milford in 1737, the year before the township was organized, and was the new constable in 1739.
The first church built in Upper Milford was the Swamp church just over the line of Bucks. Its origin antedates all existing records. The first log building was probably erected prior to 1736, soon after the German and Swiss immigrants settled in that wilderness region, for the church register opens April 24 of that year. A patent was obtained for one hundred and thirteen acres the 27th of September, 1738, consideration £17. 3s. 7d, and the tract is still owned by the church. From that date the congregation has been Re- formed. In 1772 the log building gave way to a substantial stone structure; the flooring was flag-stone and brick, the pews rough and inconvenient for napping during the sermon, and a stove never obstructed its aisles. A third building was erected 1837 at a cost of $1,700, and a fourth in 1872. The latter is a handsome stone edifice, seventy by fifty feet, cost $30,000, and is adorned with a tall spire. The basement is divided into Sunday-school rooms, pastor's room and broad vestibule, and the audience-room is handsomely finished with frescoed walls. In the loft is an organ with twenty-three stops, and cost $2,300. There is no record of pastors prior to 1736, but since that time the line is unbroken. They are, in regular succession, John Henry Goetschy, whose end is unknown, George Michael Weiss and John Theobold Faber, who died in charge and lay side by side in a neighboring graveyard, Frederick William Vondersloot, who died in Northampton county, John Theobold Faber, jr., Frederick William Vondersloot, Jr., who died in York county, Albert Helfen- stein, died at Shamokin, Daniel Weiser, pastor from 1833 to 1862, and was succeeded by his son, C. Z. Weiser, the present pastor. Besides these regular pastors the following ministers have served for brief periods: the Reverends Jacob Reiss, Philip Jacob Leydick, Philip Jacobs, Michael and Nicholas Pomp.
During the pastorate of the Reverend Daniel Weiser the good work of the church was advanced. The Sunday-school was inaugurated in 1841 amid the cry of "innovation," and fierce outside opposition, but they availed not, and it numbers three hundred scholars. The church has five hundred mem- bers, and since 1869, service has been held every Sunday, which was the case with but one other country German church in eastern Pennsylvania. Since
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
1872 it has been known as Trinity Reformed church, but, down to that period, was called the "Swamp church."
The following coincidences present themselves in the lives of some of the pastors connected with this church. Three ministerial sons, Vandersloot, Faber, and Weiser succeeded reverend fathers. Both the Fabers began their pastoral life at this church; both left, after several years' service, for a parish in Lan- caster county ; both returned to this church and assumed its pastorate, died and were buried in the same yard. The Messrs. Weiser, father and son, were born at Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania; both entered on their youthful ministry in their native place, and both, in turn, became pastors of the Swamp church.
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Tradition, through the mouths of the fathers of the church, tells the fol- lowing anecdote in connection with obtaining the patent for the land now belonging to the Swamp church. The Reformed and Lutherans each ap- pointed an elder to go to Philadelphia and obtain the title for the joint con- gregation. We shall designate them as R and L, who agreed to meet at a cer- tain place and ride down together. Elder R was punctual at the place of meeting, but found that L had proceded instead of waiting. The astonished R pushed on, reached the city and stabled his horse, and, as he passed out the alley to go to the land-office, saw elder L sitting in the bar-room taking a little creature-comfort, feeling entirely secure in having stolen a march on his brother. Elder R hastened to the office, and secured the land for the Re- formed congregation exclusively. On his way out he met elder L going in. The meeting produced an embarrassing silence, which tradition says was broken by 'a dialogue, in which elder R explained to his brother, over a bottle of wine, wherefore he had taken the title out in the name of the Re- formed congregation. He wound up the interview by saying: "Now mark, neighbor ! the Lutheran drinks his wine before he attends to his duty, and the Reformed attends to his duty before he drinks his wine." The rebuke was unanswerable.
As Upper Milford passed out of the jurisdiction of Bucks county, within a few years after its organization, its history would be brief were we able to relate the whole of it. We do not know at what time the township was divided but not until after it has been separated from Bucks.
SAUCON .- Saucon township, now Upper and Lower Saucon in North- ampton county, was the first territory on the Lehigh to be organized, four years after Upper Milford which it joined.
The Lehigh1% region was first brought into notice in May, 1701, when William Penn sent John Sotcher, Falls township, and Edward Farmer, White- marsh, to that river to ascertain the intention of the Indians. White men were on the river at that early day. On March 21, 1701, Penn informed his council that a young Swede, who had just arrived from "Lechy," reported that on the 5th of the month, while some young men were out hunting they heard frequent reports of fire-arms, and suspected the presence of Seneca Indians. No doubt Sotcher and Farmer were sent on this information. The same month Penn caused the goods of John Hans Stiehlman, of Maryland, who had been endeavoring to open trade with the Indians at the "Forks of Delaware," to be seized. Of course the Proprietary had knowledge of this
11/2 The original name was Lechan-wek-i, shortened and corrupted by the German settlers into Lecha, signifying "where there is a fork in the road." The name was given by the Delawares to the west branch of the Delaware river. because, at a point below Bethlehem, several trails forked off from the great highway of Indian travel.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
fine country before that time, as he traversed a portion of it in his journey to the Susquehanna. We are unable to tell in what year the pioneer immi- grants pushed their way over the present limits of our county, but some adventurous Germans and Scotch-Irish were there before the Indian title was extinguished, and by 1750, there was considerable population scattered throughout the wilderness up to the foot of the Blue mountains,2 and even beyond.
Three tracts are known to have been taken up on the south bank of the Lehigh prior to 1740. In the spring of 1736 William Allen confirmed two hundred acres to Solomon Jennings two miles above Bethlehem. It was held as part of the manor of Fermor, or Drylands, and paid an annual quit-rent of a silver shilling for each hundred acres. This tract passed into the possession of the Geisinger family in 1757, and is still owned by them. On the 12th of April, 1738, Nathaniel Irish purchased one hundred and fifty acres near the mouth of Saucon creek, who bought other lands at different times, and in 1743, he was the owner of six hundred acres in a body. The same year he conveyed the whole tract to George Cruikshank, from the West Indies, who settled on it and built a cabin near the mouth of Saucon creek. He was a man of learning and taste, and his location a delightful one, with beautiful scenery, an abundance of game on the hills and fine trout in the streams. Himself and family became almost hermits living so far from civilized society. It was at his house William Satterthwaite, John Watson and Pellar used to meet to talk poetry and otherwise enjoy themselves, while Watson was, sur- veying public lands in that section. Irish erected the first mill on the Lehigh, about where Shimersville stands, the ruins of which are still to be seen. He was commissioned a justice of the peace, in 1741, and was a leading man of that region. The third tract, although the first to be located, was the farm of Isaac Martens Ysselstein, of Low Dutch parentage, who lived at Esopus in 1725, and immigrated to the Lehigh in 1737. In the spring of 1739 a sudden rise in the river washed away his cabin. He died July 26, 1742, and was buried on his farm. He left six daughters. When the Morav- ians arrived on the Lehigh in 1740, Ysselstein treated them with great kind- ness. One of his daughters married Philip Rudolph Haymer, and at his death, she was again married, to John Frederick Shoffer, in 1746, the seventh land-
lord of the "Crown Inn." The maiden-name of Mrs. Ysselstein was Rachel Bogart. In 1734 one hundred and seventy-eight acres, and an island of ten acres, were surveyed to David Potts, of this county, which he assigned to Ysselstein in December, 1738, who received a deed from William Allen in 1740, consideration fioo. It lay just west of the Irish tract, and is now cov- ered by the flourishing town of South Bethlehem. In December. 1739, Ysselstein bought seventy-five acres of Irish, and in 1749 his widow con- veyed the whole tract to the Moravians.
In 1740 the Proprietaries conveyed two hundred acres on Saucon creek to Reverend John Philip Boehm, Whitpain, Montgomery county, who deeded it to his son Anthony in 1747 and he settled upon it. In the autumn of 1743 a shoemaker. John David Behringer and his wife Gertrude, settled where South Bethlehem stands, living in a log house on the edge of what is known as the Simpson tract. He was appointed ferryman in 1746, and was assisted by one Matthew Hoffman late from Berks county. Behringer was one of the first shoemakers on the Lehigh and had customers from the Minisinks.
2 The lands in the Lehigh valley were thrown open to settlement, 1734.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
In 1744 George Hartman bought eighty acres of mountain land south of the Lehigh, and known within a few years as the Hoffert farm. John Lischer, an old man from Oley, in Berks county, built a cabin and cleared and im- proved about three acres on the side of the mountain in 1750, now included in the grounds of the Lehigh University. Two years after the Moravians purchased the whole tract when Lischer moved away. Conrad Ruetschi, a Swiss, who sailed from England in May, 1735, was one of the earliest squat- tters on the south bank of the Lehigh. He was there before 1741, and the -Moravians bought his cabin and improvements two years later. About 1743 Adam Schaus removed from Falkner's swamp, Montgomery county, to Sau- 'con township, below Bethlehem, where he opened the first house of entertain -. ment on the Lehigh. In it a son, Gottlieb, was born in 1744. He removed to Bethlehem about the spring of 1746 to take charge of the mill, and afterward to Easton where he kept tavern in . 1760. Adam Schaus, the ancestor of the Schauses of Northampton, immigrated from the Lower Palatinate, with his wife and three children about 1735. He was a millwright by trade, and assisted to build the Bethlehem grist-mill, in 1743, and was the first ferryman at Bethlehem. His tavern on the Lehigh was a mile below Bethlehem, and the 24th of June, 1745, he went to Newtown to take out his license. A slate- quarry was opened on the north side of Saucon creek, near Lawick hill, as early as 1742. Among the earliest settlers, besides those named, were Chris- tian Ludwig, Stoffel and Simon Heller, and John Wister was an early land- owner in the township, but there is no record of the date of their coming. Wister's tract recently owned by John Knecht.
In the spring of 1742 the settlers, on the south bank of the Lehigh, be- lieving they had population enough to be organized into a township, and which their necessities required, several of the inhabitants "on and near Saucon" petitioned the court to confirm a township they had laid out and surveyed in April. They had agreed unanimously to call it "Saucon ;" but, on the back of the petition, is endorsed what is, no doubt, the Indian name, "Sawkunk," while on the draft of the township the name of the creek is spelled "Socunk."3 The township, as laid out, and which was not confirmed until the spring of 1743, contained but four thousand three hundred and twelve acres. It was nearly square, and touched the lines of Milford, Lower Milford and Springfield. An entry, in an old docket, says the petition, with draft of township, was presented at March term, 1743, and confirmed. The names of the petitioners are, Christian Newcomb, Philip Kissinger. George Sobus, Henry Rinkard, John Yoder, John Reeser, Christian Smith, Henry Bowman, Samuel Newcomb, Benidick Koman, Felty Staymets, Henry Rinkard, Jr., George Troon, Adam Wanner, Owen Owen, Thomas Owen, John Williams, John Tool, John Thomas, Joseph Samuel, Isaaac Samuel, William Murry, Michael Narer, John Apple, Jacob Gonner, Henry Keerer, George Bockman, George Marksteler and Henry Rumford.
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