USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 52
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The problem of the navigation of the Delaware above the falls at Trenton is still unsolved, and a great river that flows through the heart of a rich and populous country is almost worthless and unused. While the Indian canoe glided on the bosom of our beautiful river, the Durham boat came into use to carry the iron made at Durham furnace to market. For many years these boats, and others called arks, carried all the commerce of the upper Delaware and Lehigh to tidewater, and their usefulness was only supplanted by steam. They floated down the stream with the current, the Durham boats being pro- pelled up stream by "setting" with long poles shod with iron. The arks were broken up at Philadelphia and the lumber sold. William Turnbull built the
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first ark at Mauch Chunk, 1806, and she made her first trip to Philadelphia that year, loaded with three hundred bushels of hard coal. The discovery by Judge Fell, in 1808, of how to burn hard coal in a grate, increased its ship- ment to tidewater. Charles Miner and Jacob Cist, the pioneer operators in an- thracite coal in Pennsylvania, leased the mine where coal was first discovered, in 1791. Jacob Warner,1 then in their employ, started from Mauch Chunk August 9, 1814, for Philadelphia with an ark loaded with two or three hundred tons of coal. After many vicissitudes in going down the Lehigh, among which was staving a hole in the bottom into which the men stuffed their clothing to keep the boat from sinking, she reached the Delaware and floated safely down to tidewater. After steamboats were on the river, large fleets of Dur- ham boats and arks were towed down to Philadelphia from the head of tide, and Durham boats made occasional trips on the Delaware down to 1850. The last trip was made by Isaac Vanorman, in March, 1860. As early as 1758 boats went down the river from Delaware Water Gap to Philadelphia carrying twenty-two tons, but the dangers and labors of the navigation were very great.2
Rafts commenced running down the river at an early day. The first that navigated it was run by a man named Skinner, of Wayne county, from Cochecton, in 1746.8 He was assisted by one Parks, and on reaching Phila- delphia they were given the "freedom of the city," and Skinner was created "Lord-high-admiral of the Delaware," which title he bore to his death.3% Previous to the Revolution seven hundred and fifty pounds were expended in trying to make the falls at Trenton navigable for boats and rafts, which they succeeded in doing. Of this sum four hundred and seventy-eight pounds were subscribed by the citizens of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the corporation of Philadelphia, because of the importance of the work to the city, voted a gratuity of three hundred pounds for the purpose. In the fall of 1824 an invention of a Colonel Clark was tried on the Delaware to improve its navigation from Philadelphia to Easton, with considerable success. It was intended for a tow-boat and was propelled by the action of the water on a number of buckets attached to a wheel on each side of a barge. It drew a Durham boat and a large ark containing sixteen persons up the rapids at Trenton at the rate of one and one-third miles an hour, but it was supposed it could make three miles an hour with the machinery properly adjusted. It could not have proved a success, for we do not hear of it afterward.
The navigation of the Delaware underwent but little change as to the conveyance of passengers and goods until the introduction of steamboats, in
I Died in 1873, at the age of ninety-one.
2 So says a letter of Colonel James Burd. We have been told that the compart- ments of the arks that brought the first coal down to market were hauled back on wagons by the farmers.
3 So says a newspaper account.
31/2 Skinner died in 1813, and was buried at a place called "Skinner's," now known as Bush's Eddy, a mile below Callicoona Depot on the Erie railroad. The first raft con- sisted of six pine trees, or logs, 70 feet long and to be used for masts for ships then building at Philadelphia. A hole was cut through the end of each log and the logs strung on a pole, called a "spindle," with a pin through each end of the pole outside the logs, to prevent them spreading apart. A raft on the Delaware would now be almost a curiosity.
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1812. In that year a large boat called the Phoenix was put on the river to. carry passengers from Philadelphia to Bordentown. She was followed by the Philadelphia, 1815, facetiously called "Old Sal," which ran up to Bristol; by the Pennsylvania, which ran to Bordentown; the Trenton and other boats until the building of the railroads on either banks monopolized the carrying of pas- sengers. When the Delaware Division Pennsylvania canal+ was constructed and put in operation, 1828-32, it almost entirely superseded the carrying of heavy freight on the river. In 1852 an attempt was made to navigate the upper Delaware by steam, when a boat, called the Major William Barnet, Captain Young, one hundred and fifty feet long, made several trips between Lambert- ville and Easton, arriving at the latter place March 12th.5 After running part of the summer the enterprise was abandoned. The opening of the Belvidere- Delaware railroad, in 1854, and the completion of the North Pennsylvania road, in 1856, were still further hindrances to future commerce on the Delaware above Trenton.6 But the time will come when the navigation of the Delaware will be so improved that goods and passengers can be carried with safety and dispatch far toward its source. It is quite surprising that such a fine stream is entirely abandoned for purposes of commerce.
When our English ancestors settled upon its banks the Delaware swarmed with shad and other fish which were caught without difficulty, but of late years they have become scarce." There has been a material falling off in the last sixty years. William Kinsey says that when a boy he frequently went fishing with others, with a drift-net and caught as high as ninety in a night, while some caught as many as one hundred and sixty, and he has seen shad caught that weighed eight and three-quarters pounds. The late Anthony Burton said that shad were frequently caught at his fisheries near Tullytown that weighed eight pounds, and that one weighing nine pounds was caught and presented to L. T. Pratt, of the Delaware house, who had a drawing of it made which hung in the bar-room. The heaviest shad known to be caught in the Delaware was taken at Moon's ferry, near Tullytown, which weighed fourteen pounds. In 1819 one was caught below Trenton that weighed fourteen and one-quarter pounds, was two feet eight inches long, and sold for seventy-five cents. As high as four thousand shad have been caught in a day at Burton's
4 It is sixty miles long, forty feet wide, five feet deep, and has twenty-three locks ninety feet long by eleven feet wide, and from six to ten feet high. It cost one million three hundred and seventy-four thousand seven hundred and forty-four dollars. There have been material alterations in it.
5 On her first arrival at Easton there was a general turn out to welcome the stranger. Speeches were made and a collation served at the American hotel to the captain and crew, whither the citizens escorted them. Subsequently the Reindeer, a small steamboat from the Schuylkill, ascended the Delaware some distance above Easton, but returned to Philadel- phia after a few trips.
6. The little steamboat Kittating, six days from Bristol, Rhode Island, bound for the Delaware Water Gap, arrived at Easton the evening of May 7, 1879. The next morning it continued up the river on its voyage and broke a paddle wheel going up. It was intended to run between the Water Gap and Port Jervis, a distance of forty miles. It created quite an excitement and people flocked to the river bank to see it. It was sixty feet long, 6 feet 6 inches beam, 12 feet wide and drew II inches of water loaded .- Easton Express, May 8, 1879.
7 In 1688 Phineas Pemberton saw a whale in the Delaware as high up as the falls.
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ferry, and forty thousand in a season, while sixty thousand have been caught at Hay's fishery opposite. The fishing season begins in March and ends the Ioth of June. Of late years the run of shad has fallen off to such an extent that few fisheries catch over five hundred in a day, and many not more than one hundred. Drift-nets seldom catch thirty in a night, and they are small, and not five caught in a season averaging six pounds in weight. In the spring of 1873 a son of A. W. Stackhouse put the roe of a shad into a creek running through the Burton farm. In a few weeks Mr. Barton went to see what had become of it, when he found the water alive with young shad. They re- mained in the creek until a heavy rain raised the water, when they were swept by the current down into the Bristol mill-pond. The run of herring, like- wise, has fallen off so that the shore-nets do not catch five hundred a day. Thousands have been known to be caught in one day at a single fishery. Of late years efforts have been made to stock the Delaware with shad.7%
The first election in Bucks county was held at the Falls the 20th of twelfth- month, 1682, which, according to the present reckoning would be February 20, 1683. In the writ of election "freeholders" only were summoned to vote. The elections were probably holden at the Falls until 1705, when the place was changed to the court-house at Bristol, by act of assembly, which required they should be held there annually without further notice, except in case of special elections, when the sheriff was to issue his proclamation. The frame of gov- ernment adopted, 1696, fixed the pay of members of the assembly at four shillings per day when in attendance, and two pence per mile going and re- turning.8 The new charter, 1701, provided for a double number of persons to be elected for sheriff and coroners, from whom the governor must select and commission one. The elections were held at Bristol until the county-seat was removed to Newtown, 1725, when they were changed to the latter place and continued there for many years. The first division of the county into election districts was by the court in 1742, but no places were fixed for the polls. The districts were eight, namely : First, Bristol, Falls, Middletown; second, North- ampton, Southampton, Warminster ; third, Newtown, Wrightstown, Makefield; fourth, Solebury, Buckingham, Plumstead, and lands adjacent, and Bed- minster ; fifth, Warwick, Warrington, Hilltown; sixth, Richland, Rockhill, Lower Milford and lands adjacent; seventh, Upper Milford, Macungie, lands adjacent, and Saucon; eighth, Durham, Allentown, Smithfield and lands ad- jacent. The county was divided into two election districts by the act of June 14, 1777. The first district comprised the townships of Milford, Richland,
71/2 The shad fisheries on the Bucks county coast of the Delaware continues a pro- ductive industry. They extend from Torresdale on the south to the utmost limit of our boundary, twenty-five in all, ten in tide water and fifteen above. These are all that are enumerated on our schedule, but there may be more. The fisheries are a source of profit to the fishermen, besides furnishing a supply of healthy food and giving employment to many persons. The number of hands at a fishery will average from ten to twelve each, the aggregate reaching about 800. We have no figures to show the annual catch at the Delaware fisheries, nor the value, but it is safe to say the fishery interest has appreciated since Pennsylvania and New Jersey took an interest in shad culture, when the state was settled the Delaware and its tributaries were fairly alive with fish of various kinds, but they have fallen off both in quantity and quality. The fisheries on the Pennsylvania side are licensed. The season of 1900 was better than the average for shad fishing.
8 In 1718 the pay was six shillings a day, and the speaker received ten. In 1710 the county judges received twenty shillings per day.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Springfield, Durham, Haycock, Nockamixon, Tinicum, Bedminster, Rockhill, Hilltown and Plumstead, and the place of elections fixed at the public house of Abraham Keichline, Bedminster. The remaining townships, with the borough of Bristol, composed the second district and held the election at Newtown. New Britain was added to the upper district, 1785. With but two polling- places the vote was necessarily small in proportion to the population, on account of the distance to travel, the bad roads and the want of bridges. At the election of 1725, only three hundred and twenty-five votes were polled in the county, and four hundred and four in 1734. In 1800, at the election for State Senator, the district being composed of Chester, Bucks and Montgomery, the vote of this county was but three thousand eight hundred and thirteen and ten thousand nine hundred and twenty-five in the district. The candidates were both from this county, William Rodman, Bensalem, and John Hulme, Middletown. Rod- man, the Democratic candidate, had a majority of five hundred and eighty-one in Bucks. In 1804, the election was held between ten and two o'clock, and the only county officers elected were assembly and commissioner. Since then popular government has made wonderful strides.
In 1794, for greater convenience to voters, the county was divided into five election districts, namely : The first district comprised the townships of Newtown, Middletown, Wrightstown, Northampton, Southampton, Upper Makefield, Lower Makefield, Warminster and Solebury, the elections to be held at the court-house in Newtown; the second, Springfield, Haycock, Rock- hill, Richland, and Milford, and the elections to be held at the house of Jacob Fries, in Milford; third, Tinicum, Nockamixon and Durham, and the elections to be held at the house of Jacob Young, Nockamixon ; the fourth, New Britain, Plumstead, Buckingham, Warwick, Warrington, Bedminster and Hilltown, the elections to be held at the house of William Chapman, in Buckingham ; and the fifth district comprised Bensalem, Falls, Bristol and the borough of Bristol, the elections to be held at the old court-house in said borough. In 1804 a sixth district was formed, comprising the townships of Rockhill, Bedminster, and . Hilltown, the elections to be held at the house of Henry Trumbower, in Rock- hill. By 1818 all the townships in the county had become separate election districts with the exception of Bristol township and borough, whose elections were held in the old court-house, Bristol; Falls township and Morrisville, at Fallsington; Warrington, Warwick and Warminster, at Joseph Carr's, Cross Roads, now Hartsville; and Richland and Milford, at the Red Lion, Quakertown. For many years each township and borough was a separate election district, except Rockhill and Nockamixon, which were divided into two each on account of the size of the townships. The county is now divided into seventy-eight election districts. In 1805 the polls were kept open from ten A. M. to two P. M. During the Proprietary government the salaries of county officers were small- sheriff, fioo, coroner, fro, prothonotary, fio.
In 1727 Bucks county was represented in the assembly by the most dis- tinguished man and greatest lawyer in the Province, Andrew Hamilton, who was returned for twelve consecutive years. He was probably the most ex- traordinary man, intellectually, that lived in Pennsylvania during her early colonial history. He was born in Scotland, in 1676, but nothing is known of his family or youth. It is not known at what time he came to America, but we find him settled in Maryland with a good practice at the bar, in 1712. He was probably involved in some political difficulty at home, for he took the name of Trent when he first came here. He settled in Philadelphia soon after 1712, where he gained the first position at the bar, and held several important offices.
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ANDREW HAMILTON.
Besides being in the council and assembly he was ten years speaker of the house, and the fifth attorney-general of the Province, being appointed, 1717. He made the designs for the state-house, Philadelphia, and had charge of its building and disbursement of the money. He died at Bush Hill, his summer residence, 1751. His wife was Mrs. Ann Brown, of Maryland, and one of his daughters married William Allen, a large landed proprietor in this county, and Allen's daughter married John Penn, the last Proprietary Governor of Penn- sylvania. In an obituary notice of Andrew Hamilton, attributed to Doctor Franklin, it is stated that "he feared God, loved mercy and did justice." He was one of the earliest and boldest asserters of the liberty of speech and freedom of the press. His argument in the case of the printer, John Peter Zenger, before the supreme court of New York, in 1736, procured for him a prominent place in the history of liberty. Gouverneur Morris called it the "day-star of the Revolution," because it awakened the public mind throughout the Colonies to a conception of the most sacred rights of citizens as subjects of a free country.º
For the first half century of the county the vote was light, probably from two causes, want of interest in politics and the property qualification for voters. We give the vote for a few years in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, which exhibits considerable fluctuation : 1725, 512; 1727, 339; 1728, 530; 1730, 445 ; 1734, 794; 1738, 821 ; 1739, 571. The following is the popular vote in the county during the nineteenth century from 1812: 1812, 5,064; 1820, 4.931 ; 1830, 5,586 ; 1840, 8,729; 1851, 10,139; 1860, 12,771 ; 1870, 13,230; 1880, 17,012: 1890, 16,569, and 1899. 17.976; while the vote largely increased
9 Although Andrew Hamilton represented the county many years in the Assembly it is not known that he ever lived in it.
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with the increase of population there was a large falling off at some elections. The vote of 1880 was the largest ever polled in the county, and the increase from 1812 was almost 350 per cent. There was evidently a change in public sentiment at the election, 1739, for the candidates, who had been returned to the assembly for several years, almost without question, were now left at home. Down to about 1756 the Friends were the ruling power in the assembly, and they shaped the destiny of the Province, but a change was now at hand. The excitement caused by the defeat of Braddock, 1755, enabled the war party to carry twenty-four out of twenty-six members of assembly. Because the assembly refused to take any steps to protect the frontiers of the Province from the Indians, the British Parliament had a bill prepared making every member take a test oath.1º This would have excluded all Friends, but it was withdrawn on condition that they would decline being chosen to the as- sembly. From that time forward they persuaded their members not to stand as candidates, and but few, of any religious standing, were afterward found in the assembly of the Province. In 1759 Mahlon Kirkbride and three other members from this county vacated their seats, as it was not desirable there should be any Friends there during the war. Before 1750 the Irish of this county commenced to exercise considerable political influence by joining the Friends and supporting their ticket at the polls. Northampton county was cut off from Bucks, no doubt for political purposes. The Proprietaries had be- come alarmed at the growing numbers and increasing political influence of the Germans, and it was thought that by cutting off Northampton from Bucks and Berks from Philadelphia, the members of assembly they could control would be reduced. The Friends, with whom the Germans had formed an alliance, were now generally opposed to the interest of the Proprietaries. At a later date the influence of the Irish caused them as much alarm as the Germans.
In taking political leave of the Friends we cannot forget the debt the State owes them. They were its founders and its parents at a time the young Province needed a father's tender care, and they have left their impress upon all our institutions. They laid the foundation of civil and religious liberty broader and deeper than any other sect on these shores, and, from that time to this, they have been the pioneers in all great social and moral reforms. They led the column in education, temperance and the abolition of negro slavery without having the eye fixed on the reward of office at the other end of the line. Their conduct in the Revolution has been severely and unjustly criticised. Viewing it in the light of history, their opposition, as a religious society, was in keeping with their previous conduct and consistent with their faith and belief. The doctrine of opposition to war and strife was the corner- stone of their edifice, and to surrender that would have been giving up every- thing. To the Friends, Pennsylvania is indebted for the conservatism that distinguishes her people, and from them the State gets her broad charity that is as open as the day.
At the beginning of the last century Bucks county formed a congressional district with Montgomery, Northampton, Wayne and Luzerne, and elected
10. An effort was made in 1703 to have all judicial officers in the Province take an oath, when several members of the council wrote to Penn that if this were "enforced in Bucks it would be almost impossible to find a sufficient number of fit persons to make a quorum of justices that will take an administration oath." At this time the population of Bucks county was almost exclusively Friends. The taxables, 1751, were three thousand two hundred and sixty-two.
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three members, who were, in 1804, John Pugh, Frederick Conrad and Fred- erick Brown. That year the vote for congress in this county was but 4,563, and fell to 3,255 for coroner, in 1806. The taxables, in 1814, were 7,066, and the vote 4,379, its smallness because of the number of men in camp where a separate election was held. Ten years later the vote was 4,913, and since then there has been a gradual increase down to 1872, when the vote for coroner was 14,924. In 1800 the opposing political parties were known as "Constitutional Republicans" and "Democratic Republicans," the former led by Samuel D. Ingham, William Milnor, John Hulme, Nathaniel Shewell and others, the latter by William Watts, Samuel Smith, George Harrison, George Piper, Robert T. Neely, etc. It is not within our province to give the mutations of party names from that time to the present, as we are not writing the history of party politics. We are glad to record, in conclusion, that our county politics is not marked by the same bitterness that prevailed in years gone by, and it is a rare thing that personal attacks are made on candidates. Sixty years ago cannon and gunpowder played no mean part in the politics and elections of Bucks county. The guns were political pets. Among the most popular pieces were the "Nockamixon Coon Skinner" and the "Tohickon Bull Dog." The "Bull Dog" made its appearance, 1847. These were Democratic guns, the Whigs not indulging in such pets. The Democrats of Plumstead also had a gun, but we do not recall its name. The "Coon Skinner," bought in Philadel- phia, was four feet long, mounted on wheels, weighed eleven hundred pounds and cost $12. It was a tradition that the gun was brought here by Lafayette. We do not know what became of this political artillery, but it doubtless passed to the junk shop, when there was no more demand for such weapons. Politics was much more picturesque fifty years ago than at the present day, and we are pleased to record that in the change there has been an improvement in political morals.
Tax laws were in force along the Delaware before the English settled there. The earliest step to tax the settlers was in 1659, when the Dutch authorities proposed to lay one on the Swedes and Finns in the jurisdiction of the West India colony. At the November term, 1677, the Upland court laid a poll-tax of twenty-six guilders upon each taxable inhabitant between sixteen and sixty years of age, to pay its accumulated expenses. It was to be collected by the sheriff before the 25th of the following March, and owing to the scarcity of money he was authorized to receive it in kind, the price of wheat being fixed at five, rye and barley at four, and Indian corn at three guilders per schepel.11 Of the whole number of taxables under the jurisdiction of Upland, sixty-three were in the Tacony district, which included Bucks county up to the falls. About the same time Governor Andros declared real and personal estate liable for debt, the first time the English law on the subject was enforced on the Delaware. In 1678 a tax of five guilders was laid on each taxable inhabitant.12
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