USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 30
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The commissioners met at the public house of William Rufe, Nockamix- on Saturday, November 30, 1889, having given public notice of the time and
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place of meeting. Before entering upon the discharge of the duties assigned them, the commissioners were duly sworn, or affirmed, whereupon they pro- ceeded to inquire into the prayer of the petitioners, and the propriety of grant- ing it. After due consideration they agreed to lay off a new township sub- stantially on the lines given in the petition, which was duly set forth in a report to the court, accompanied by a plat or draft, saying, among other things, they "are of opinion the creation of a new township, according to the aforesaid lines, would be to the convenience of the inhabitants thereof ; that the prayers of the petitioners should be granted, and said new township should be erected to be known as Bridgeton township." The report was signed by Jacob Hagerty and William Shepherd, a majority of the commissioners, confirmed nisi, Dec. 4, 1889, and filed. At the same term of court Daniel Gotwals, the third com- missioner, presented a minority report against a division of the township, bas- ing his opposition on the testimony offered, "proving that all, or nearly all, the heavy tax payers in Bridgeton district are opposed to a division on that line, it being shown by statistics, said to have been taken from the assessors' books, that the average wealth of the taxables in Bridgeton is $709, and in Nocka- mixon $1,102; for these, and other reasons, it would be unjust to the tax payers in Bridgeton district to force a separation against their consent."
At the following term of the Quarter Sessions, January 14, 1890, Michael McEntee, and other citizens of Nockamixon, by their attorneys filed eight ex- ceptions to the confirmation of the commissioners' report. In order to reach the sense of the people, as to the division of the township, the court, on March 4. ordered a popular election to be held in both election districts of Nockamixon, on March 25, 1890, which resulted as follows: For division, 250, against divi- sion, 150, majority for division, 100. The result of this vote was filed March 26, 1890, and settled the question of the new township, and, on May 29, 1890, the court decreed the division of Nockamixon, and ordered elections for town- ship officers to be holden on Saturday, June 28, A. D., 1890, of which fifteen days notice were to be given. The court also fixed the place for holding said elections : that for Bridgeton, in the school house at that place, and appointed Edward Twaddel judge, and David Hilbert and Sloan Lear majority and min- ority inspectors ; for Nockamixon, at the public house of William Rufe, and Seymour Rufe was appointed judge, James H. Trauger, majority, and John S. Hager minority inspector.
It is impossible, at this late day, to give the names, and time of settlement. of the pioneers who located in that part of Nockamixon now embraced within the boundary of Bridgeton. The Pursells were one of the earliest families to settle in the new township whose descendants remain. Recent investigations satisfy us the original name of the family was not Pursell, but "Purslone," and was among the earliest settlers in Penn's Colony. Among the arrivals in the Delaware in the Phoenix. Captain Shaw, August, 1677, was John Purslone, a farmer from Ireland. He probably settled in Bensalem, although his name is not on Holme's map, where it would have been had he been a land owner. On the 9th of 7th month, 1685, he was appointed constable for the "further side of Neshaminah," which brought his residence in Bensalem. He appears as a witness at the court of Quarter Sessions I mo. 9. 1689, when his age is given as 60 years. His wife's name was Elizabeth.1 In the Quarter Ses- sions docket his name is written Purslone and Pursley. On May
I The maiden name of John Purslone's wife was Elizabeth Walmsly, widow of Thomas Walmsly, who died 1684, leaving sons Henry and Thomas.
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12, 1726, Thomas Pursell, or "Pursley," Wrightstown, bought 225 acres in that township of John Cooper, on Randall's run. Prior to 1745 Dennis Pursell, or Pursley, father of John Pursell, appears in Musconetcong, Hunterdon county, New Jersey. His wife's name was Ruth, daughter of Henry Cooper, Newtown, married 1728, and her mother a daughter of William Buckman, also of New- town. She was married twice, the first time to Henry Cooper, and, upon his death, to Launcelot Strawhen. There were Pursells in Bristol township early, the will of John Pursell being proved April 8, 1732, leaving a daughter Ann, and the will of Mary, his widow, was proved April 7, 1786. We do not know at what time Dennis Pursell, or Pursley, died on the Musconetcong, but his son John removed to Nockamixon about 1775, and died there. The names of the children of the two generations of Pursells are about identical, as far as they go. All the Pursells of Bucks county are descendants of John the elder, of Nockamixon, now embraced in Bridgeton.
There is a difference of opinion as to the time the Pursells, or Pursleys, removed from the Musconetcong to Nockamixon, the date being fixed between 1750 and 1775, but we think the latter date the nearest correct. About 1773, John Pursell purchased of Dr. John Chapman 100 acres lying on the Delaware below Bridgeton for £450, the deed being witnessed by John Beaumont and Thomas Ross. He had four sons, John, Thomas, Brice and Dennis, and at least six daughters; Ruth, who married Daniel Strawhen, Elizabeth, Benjamin Holden, Ann, Margery, Jane, married John Houseworth, and Mary who mar- ried a Henry. John Pursell died 1805, and his wife, Anna, 1820. Thomas Pursell, who located at Narrowsville in the last century, and had a ferry there, is thought to have been a brother of the first John. Of the sons of John, Thomas settled at Bridgeton and held the first Methodist service there. Brice M. Pursell, a man of influence in his day is well remembered by many friends. We regret we have not more reliable data concerning other settlers who came early into Bridgeton, for doubtless this part of Nockamixon had its pioneers when the country was a wilderness and their descendants are still with us, but we have no means of telling when their ancestors settled here. The first family we strike is that of Stull or Stoll, and of them but a single member has come down to us, the son Andrew Stull. His patriotism probably saved the name from oblivion. After the Revolution was under way he enlisted in the Continental army, a private in Captain John Davis' company, Colonel Nagle's regiment, Pennsylvania Line. He entered the service March 6, 1777, and was discharged at Philadelphia, June, 1783, after serving more than six years. Among the his- toric battles he was in, were Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and the siege of the British at Yorktown, followed by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. This was October 19, 1781. He received a pension of eight dollars per month, and died in 1846. He lived in Haycock, at one time, and we believe died there. The author has a piece of his certificate of discharge, signed by the Adjutant of his regiment.
The Williams family are said to have come into the township at a very early day and to have bought land of the Indians, the farm subsequently owned by Jacob Stover; while such purchase was possible he doubtless took title from William Penn when the colony came into his possession. The Anders, Smiths, McTerrents, Heavnors, Scheetz. Ruples, Rynard, Wim- mers, Trumbores, Templetons, Coxes and Majors. Jacob Scheetz died in fifties and Hugh Major in the thirties. Jacob Stover, a successful farmer, was a mem- ber of the Stover family of Tinicum, and father of Albert, Kintnersville, and Lewis, attorney at law, Philadelphia. Peter Lear, who bought a farm of John
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Pursell, 1816, died on it, 1866. Peter DeRoche, a Frenchman, brother-in-law of Peter Lear, was drowned in Philadelphia, 1836. A number of the early settlers on the Delaware front, were watermen, among them Henry Sigafoos and John Fisher. Jacob Harwick was a potter and lived to a very great age, dying in 1866. The disuse of the canal, and building of the Belvidere-Delaware railroad, have almost entirely destroyed the occupation of "watermen." In its day, quite a fleet of Durham boats and coal arks were seen on the Upper Delaware. The first public house licensed at Bridgeton was that owned by Thomas Gwinner, subsequently kept by Thomas Elton, who died 1834. John Adams was justice of the peace at Bridgeton for many years under the old order of things, first by appointment from Governor Wolf and subsequently elected 1840-45. The bridge across the Delaware was built 1842, the year after the great freshet. Tradition says the river road through Bridgeton was never laid out by order of court, but the Indian trail was only widened and constant use wore it into a highway.
The only village in the township is the one it was named after, Bridgeton, on the bank of the Delaware, with a population of a few hundred. A post office was established here 1830, and David Worman appointed the first postmaster. It was called "Upper Blacks Eddy," retaining that name until the new township
PURSELL HOMESTEAD.
was erected, when it was changed to the name it now bears. The oldest house in Bridgeton is the one occupied by William Gwinner, a half tone of which illus- trates the chapter. The easterly frame end of the main building to the right in the picture, was built by John Pursell, who died 1808, over one hundred years old. The stone part was built by his son Brice in the first decade of the last century, and the lower attached building to the right, 1853, by the late Brice M. Pursell. The figures in the photo are the late Brice M. and his wife, Martha Poor Pursell, standing outside the fence, and their niece, Ollie Poor Bach- man, inside. This house, the home of three generations of the family, is one of
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the oldest dwellings in the upper end of the county. A member of the family was a remarkable mathematician, John M. Pursell, son of the second Brice. He worked out problems of the most complex character, and the calculation of time, latitude, eclipses and other astronomical phenomena, were common with him. It is said no solvable problem was ever given him of which he did not find the solu- tion. The river freshet of January 8, 1841, was nine inches higher at Bridgeton? than ever known before or since, except that of June 4, 1862; both were very destructive of property, the latter leaving the canal banks in such a condition that boating was not resumed until late in the fall. The "Pumpkin freshet," 1808, was so destructive it was much talked about by people of that period.
On the eastern side of the township, near the Delaware, on the farm form- erly owned by a Mr. Lippincott, is a peculiar geological formation known as "Ringing Rocks," occupying a space of about four and a half acres, of irregular shape, branching out as it were from a common centre in four directions. The. rocks vary in size from a few pounds to several tons in weight, and, when struck with a hammer, give out a peculiar metalic sound, the tone of each differing from the other. They are doubtless of igneous origin. The Eastern part of the formation is several feet higher than the western. The rocks are. piled on each other to an unknown depth, not a particle of earth being found. between them, nor is there a tree, bush or a spear of grass to be seen. A moderate-sized dog could easily creep down among them to the depth of ten or fifteen feet. The formation inclines to the north and west, and no other rocks of the same kind are to be found in that vicinity. About three hundred yards east of the Ringing Rocks is a beautiful waterfall thirty feet high and fifty wide. The course of the creek, for a short distance above the falls, is north 22 degrees, 30 minutes west, but changes at the falls to due north and continues in that direction some distance. Bridgeton township is connected with the New Jersey shore at Milford on the Delaware, by a wooden bridge built 1842. The following statistics relating to Bridgeton will be read with in- terest. The area is 4,419 acres of which 4,068 are cleared land and 351 tim- ber; assessed valuation of real estate, both houses and lands, $151,483; occu- pations at $36,400; horses and cattle, 251, and money taxed for state purposes, $70,520. The population of Bridgeton is about 1,100, and the voters, 222, or one in five; number of children between the ages of 6 and 16 years, 194, and the township has five schools. The following was the vote of Bridgeton, be- ginning with its organization ; 1890, 179; 1891, 146; 1892, 181; 1893, 171; 1894, 154; 1895, 137; 1896, 170; 1897, 87; 1898, 125, and in 1899, 121. In 1836 Rafinesque, the celebrated Swedish botanist and naturalist, visited the river front of Bridgeton and Nockamixon, to study some of its remarkable plants and admire the beautiful prospects from the top of Prospect Rock, which he describes as follows: "But the greatest natural curiosity on the Delaware are Nockamixon Rocks in Pennsylvania, where they give name to the township. This ledge is nearly perpendicular, two and one-half miles long and four hun- dred feet high. The base is red shell, or paleopasemite, but overcapped by a brown trap. They face the south and have a level top with only two fissures, made by rain falling in cascades. The road and canal have been made by cut- ting and banking. The river is full of little islands. Opposite in New Jersey there are gravel hills, the highest seven hundred feet high. It is a romantic. spot. I found here adoumia and many other rare plants.'
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CHAPTER XVII.
CLEARING LAND; FARMING; DRESS; MODE OF LIVING, &c.
County heavily timbered .- Land cleared .- Labors of men and women .- Primitive farm- ing .- Horse trains .- Meadow land .- Golden age .- Grand religious festival .- Indian .corn .- Produce carried to Philadelphia .- Privit-hedge .- Settlers lived well .- Luxuries introduced .- Professor Kalm's account .- Costume .- The fashions .- Social .customs .- Marriage .- Manners .- Spinning-wheels .- Price of land and produce .- Wages .- Pennsylvania currency.
Bucks county was heavily timbered at its settlement, and much of the land was cleared by co-operative labor.1 On a given day a number of neighbors would assemble, armed with grubbing-hoes and other implements, the ground was staked off, and at a signal they fell to work grubbing up the saplings with great skill. They were felled with the tops together, so they could be more .easily fired. The trees were girdled and left to fall in course of time, when the trunks were rolled together and burned. The bodies and branches of the sap- lings were hauled off, but the ground was plowed with the trees standing. The log-rolling was made another season of fun and frolic. At these times the amount of labor done was prodigious, which the descendants of the early set- tlers are hardly equal to. A great deal of the other hard labor of that day was -done by companies, which made the heaviest job comparatively light. While the fathers and sons cleared the land and made the crops, the mothers and ·daughters attended to in-door work. They picked, carded and spun the wool for clothing, and swingled, hatcheled and spun the flax, quilted, and did many other things that fall to the lot of woman in a new country, besides frequently -assisting the men in their farm work. The beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury saw the children of the first settlers entering upon the stage of life. They were accustomed to hardship and noted for their strength and vigor. In that ·day there were few or no barns, the grain was stacked and threshed with the flail on the ground.
For many years, while it was a question of bread for themselves and families, our Bucks county ancestors farmed in a primitive way. Wheat, the main crop, was carried a distance on horseback to mill through the woods along Indian paths. The horses traveled in trains, tied head and tail, like pack-mules
I DeVries, who sailed up the Delaware, 1631, says the trees on the banks were not close together, and there was very little underwood. At that early day the Indians .cultivated corn, peas and beans, and grapes grew wild along the river.
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among the Andes, with a man riding or leading the foremost mule. Wheat. was the only article for market until there was a demand in Philadelphia for butter, cheese and poultry. By 1720 most of the original tracts were settled,. and, to some extent, improved. The farms were divided into large fields, and. pretty well fenced. Low and swampy ground was always cleared for meadow,. but the plow was seldom used to prepare new land. But little grass was raised. for years, and then red and white clover were propagated to the exclusion of all other kinds. The domestic animals were so badly housed and fed in winter, by spring they were in almost a starving condition. In the summer they lived in the woods, and, in the spring, were not infrequently lost in the bogs hunting for early pasture. Cows were, scarce and high for a number of years, selling for thirty or forty dollars a head when wheat was only thirty cents a bushel. The horses used for all purposes were of the "Wood breed," raised from those brought originally from New England, gentle, hardy and easy keepers. The English horse, introduced at a later day, was larger and more elegant in carriage.
During the quarter of a century, from 1735 to 1760, times were so pros- perous it was called the "golden age," and said to have been the happiest period since the settlement of the Province. Industry, fertile fields, and favor- able seasons blessed the farmer's labors with large increase, and while riches. sensibly increased, the people lived without any appearance of luxury. Good dwellings and comfortable barns had been built, and comforts and conveniences were added by degrees, but dress and furniture were plain. The wooden. trencher and pewter spoon were used by the wealthiest, and simplicity prevailed everywhere. For pastime men hunted and fished, while women, who married young and raised large families of children, were principally occupied with household duties. During the "golden age" a grand religious festival, lasting three days, was held at the Wrightstown meeting-house to give thanks for the bounties of Providence. People came to it from a long distance, and were known to travel ten or twelve miles on foot to attend. The inter- course with Philadelphia was then limited, and the luxuries of the cities had. not yet found their way into the country.
There was no rivalry in dress, nor did the people strive to acquire money to purchase superfluities, but as fashions and luxuries gradually spread into- the country, manners and customs changed. Indian corn was not raised in large quantities before about 1750, when it became an article of trade, and the- grain-cradle and grass-scythe were introduced about this time.
Down to the Revolution much of the transportation was done on horse -. back, and that was the most frequent way of traveling. Produce was carried to Philadelphia market in wallets, or panniers, slung across horses, and, in early days, jurymen attending court at Newtown carried forage for horses. and rations for self in the universal wallet. Carts were in general use by the- middle of the century, and a few had wagons for one and two horses. There were wagons in the north-west part of the county as early as 1739. Their in- troduction did much to increase the wealth and comfort of the early farmers, as they were enabled to do their work with greater convenience, while the labor of going to market decreased. John Wells was the only person in Buckingham and Solebury at that day who owned a riding-chair, said to have been the first in the county, a vehicle that remained in use about a hundred years.2 John
2 At this time there were only eight four-wheeled carriages in the province, one- of which was owned by Lawrence Growden of this county.
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Watson tells us the building of the new stone meeting-house in Buckingham, about 1731, stimulated the erection of a better class of dwellings in that section, and several of the old log houses gave way to stone, or frame and clapboard, and an occasional one is standing to this day. At the settlement of the county many of the farmers planted the privit-hedge around their fields, like their ancestors in England, but in the summer of 1766, from some unexplained cause, it all died, and was never replanted. The old Watson property, Buck- ingham, had upward of two miles of this hedge planted upon it.
The early settlers lived well in their log cabins as soon as the era of necessity had passed. They were well-fed and well-clothed, but not in fine gar- ments. The woman manufactured the clothing of the family from wool and flax, and milk, butter and cheese became plenty for domestic use when fodder could be procured to keep stock through the winter. Hogs were raised and fattened and the forest furnished game. Mush and milk were an universal dish. Pancakes made of a thin batter of flour and eggs and other ingredients, baked in a pan over the fire, were in every house. The housewife, or maid, prided herself on the dexterity with which she could turn the cake by tossing it up the wide chimney and catching it in the pan as it came down. But little tea or coffee were drunk for the first seventy years, and they did not come into common use until between 1750 and 1760. At first they were only used by the wealthy, and then on Sunday. In their stead a tea was made of garden herbs and a coffee of rye and wheat burned to a brown. Children went barefooted half the year and farmers through the summer. Indian meal was first ex- ported to the West Indies and wheat to France, about 1767, which stimulated their production. About this period potatoes began to be raised in quantities, and fed to both cattle and hogs. The destructive Hessian fly made its appearance about 1780, and previous to that time the wheat crop was seldom, if ever, known to fail.
The war between France and England, 1754, changed the situation of things in several respects. A more plentiful supply of money stimulated trade and improvements and raised prices. Wheat went up to a dollar a bushel. Taxes were raised to pay off the war debt, but the burden was not felt because of the increased ability to pay. The importation of foreign goods was largely increased, and many luxuries brought into the country, among them calicoes and other expensive articles for women and men's wear. Fashion now in- truded itself among the rural population, to change with each year, and house- hold furniture was increased in quantity and improved in quality. With this improved style in living and taste in dress was introduced the distinction, be- tween rich and poor, which grew up almost insensibly, and was maintained with considerable rigor in colonial times. Those who had the means now bought foreign goods and homespun was discarded. Habits of luxury were thus introduced, and the simple, virtuous, society of our ancestors split upon the rock of fashion.
From accounts handed down to us, this county at the middle of the seven- teenth century was a land literally "flowing with milk and honey." A distin- guished foreigner,3 who traveled through the lower part of Bucks between 1748 and 1750, and elsewhere in the Province, gives a glowing account of what he saw, and the picture is a delightful one to contemplate at this day. He says : "Every countryman, even a common peasant, has commonly an orchard near his house, in which all sorts of fruits, such as peaches, apples, pears,
3 Professor Peter Kalm, Sweden.
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cherries, and others are in plenty." Peaches were raised in great quantities and of delicious flavor, and were cut and dried for winter. The stock had greatly degenerated, and the professor mentions there was great decrease in the water in streams, because the country had been cleared of so much of the timber. Seed-time and harvest were the same time of year as now, and the manner of putting in crops the same where machinery is not used. Land being plenty and not manured, it was cultivated until the virtue had gone out of it, when another piece was seized upon and the former allowed to lay fallow to recup- erate. In the fall of 1748, the professor traveled through the river townships, en route from Philadelphia to New York. He crossed the Neshaminy by ferrying, paying three-pence for each person and his horse, and, continuing up the river, he says : "About noon we came to New Bristol, a small town in Pennsylvania on the bank of the Delaware, about fifteen English miles from Philadelphia. Most of the houses are built of stone and stand asunder. The inhabitants carry on a small trade, though most of them get their goods from Philadelphia. On the other side of the river, almost directly opposite New Bristol, lies the town of Burlington. We had now country-seats on both sides of the roads. Now we came into a lane enclosed with pales on both sides, in- cluding pretty great cornfields. Next followed a road, and we perceived for the space of four English miles nothing but woods and a very poor soil. In the evening we arrived at Trenton, after having previously passed the Dela- ware at a ferry." The Professor described, with minuteness, how the farmers trailed the water of springs upon their meadows to raise grass, a practice fol- lowed seventy-five years later. Hay was not then raised upon upland, and the value of farms was rated according to their quantity of meadow land.
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