USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 6
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Bridgetown, on the road from Sellersville to Hagersville, two miles froma the former, was incorporated into the borough of Perkasie, and known as South Perkasie, is a prosperous village of some forty dwellings, two churches, an hotel and a store. St. Andrews church, Lutheran and Reformed, was built, 1867, with a membership of one hundred and Rev. F. Berkemeyer was Lutheran pastor for some years, and was succeeded by Rev. M. J. Kuehner, who also officiates at Hilltown.
The thriving village of Telford, on the line of Bucks and Montgomery counties, and partly in the township of Rockhill and Hilltown in Bucks and Franconia in Montgomery, with the North Pennsylvania railroad running through it, was named after Telford, the celebrated English Engineer. The site was purchased of James Hamilton, by Christian Dettra, 1737. He sold it to Abraham Gerhart, 1785, and it thence passed to his son John, 1810, and then through various hands to the present owners. The first house was built by Isaac G. Gerhart, 1857, and occupied for a dwelling, and the same year Thomas B. Woodward erected the steam mills and a large tavern known as the "County Line Hotel," which Jacob Souder opened January 1, 1858, and Mr. Gerhart opened the first store in the new village on April I, of the same year. The mills were destroyed by fire in 1861. Telford has had a steady growth since its foundation, the census showing a population of 73 in 1865: 83 in 1866; 1867. 105: 1875. 421, with 87 dwellings. It is regularly laid out, the streets broad and straight, crossing each other at right angles, and the surrounding
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country populous and charming. It has the complement of mechanics, stores, lumber, coal and lime yards, three public halls, churches and a post- office. The Trinity Reformed church was erected, 1897. The preliminary meeting was held February 27, eleven persons being present ; the contract was .awarded June 9, corner stone laid July 25 with appropriate ceremonies, and the first sermon preached Dec. 5, by the Rev. Jacob Kehn in the Sunday- :: school room in German. A Sunday school was organized with ninety-one scholars, January 2, 1898, and the church dedicated May 29. The style of architecture is Gothic, built of Rockhill granite with blue stone trimmings. The main building is 36x55 feet with Sunday school annex, 42x31, and base- ment for Society meetings. The whole cost was six thousand dollars.
Among the persons, deceased in Rockhill, the past century, whose lives ran back into the infancy of the county, and beyond the birth of the township, were Valentine Nicholas, who died October 1, 1807, aged ninety-six years, five months and five days and Ann Haycock, probably Heacock, February 16, .same year at the age of eighty-nine.
On the Ridge road, between Tylersport and Sellersville, a mile from the latter place, is a Lutheran and Reformed church, built, 1826, of which the late Rev. William B. Kemmerer was pastor for thirty years. He was succeeded by Mr. Berkemeyer, Lutheran. The congregation was reorganized 1867, and there are now over two hundred in attendance. The location is known as "Schlichter's" store, and is the seat of a post office. It used to be called "Indianfield," and possibly the church goes by this name yet. It is the oldest "in the township, probably antedating the Mennonites ; was organized prior to 1746, and in October, that year, was visited by the Reverend Mr. Schlatter. "The Ridge Valley church, on the Allentown road, four miles from Sellersville, :was founded the first quarter of the last century. There the Mennonites, iLutherans and Reformed beg 1 worshipping in an old school house that was inear a graveyard, and enlarged it by tearing down the partition. This was "continued until 1854, when a church building was erected. The Lutherans then called the Reverends M. and O. F. Waage, father and son, who served #them until 1873, and since then the pastors have been the Reverends S. A. . Zeigenfus, J. S. Beckner, and J. H. Waidelich, the latter the present incum- bent. The church has prospered and the congregation increased. On Sunday, June 25, 1899, the corner-stone of a new building was laid with appropriate ceremonies, costing five thousand dollars.
The surface of Rockhill is much broken. A broad, rocky ridge runs en- tirely across the township, from northeast to southwest, curving to the south toward Sellersville. The broken surface impedes cultivation, but fine farms abound in many sections and good crops produced. It is well watered by branches of the Perkiomen and Tohickon, their tributaries affording numerous mill sites.
Rockhill is noted for aged persons. In the fall of 1882, Mrs. Catharine Keil, living at Keil's corner, at almost ninety-eight, was in full mental and physical vigor. The year before she walked six miles without resting, and about the same time employed herself husking corn "just to keep out of mis- chief." She was the third daughter of Abraham Souder, Hilltown. Her mother died at ninety-one, and of her four sisters, one died at eighty, the next in her ninety-sixth year, and of two others living in 1882. one was in great vigor at ninety-one. . Mrs. Catharine Watts, doubtless the oldest person in the county at her death, died in Rockhill, February 15, 1900, in her one hundred and fourth year. She was born October 3. 1796, married. William Watts,
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1811, who died 1880, at the age of ninety ; they lived together sixty-nine years and were the parents of eleven children. Of her five living children ( 1892), the eldest was eighty-three and youngest fifty-seven. She had two hundred living offspring, forty-eight grandchildren, one hundred and twenty-nine great- grandchildren, and twenty-three great-great-grandchildren. She enjoyed ex- cellent health and could see to thread a needle without glasses. Her maiden name was Nace,3 possibly a sister of Henry Nace, of Rockhill, who on Febru- ary 3, 1790, bound himself to Henry Barndt, Upper Salford, Montgomery county, for two years with consent of Abram Kober, his guardian. The indenture was acknowledged before Michael Croll. This recalls another aged woman, Mrs. Catharine Snyder, of Lower Bucks, birth-place unknown. She died at the Lower Dublin, Oxford Alms House, 1895, at the age of eighty- seven. She was the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier, wounded at Tren- ton, and was twice married, the first time at fifteen and is survived by a son at ninety. The name of Catharine seems a lucky one for longevity. On the North Pennsylvania railroad, a mile above Rockhill station, is a log house built in 1754, in which Jonas Frank lives.
In August, 1783, a Hessian surgeon, who had participated in the Revo- lution, on the side of the British, set out on a journey from Philadelphia to the Lehigh and beyond, before returning home. We begin to quote from his journal at the time he entered Rockhill township, when he says :
"The same afternoon we arrived at another farm in a very uneven and stony region called "Rocky Hill," situated in Bucks county. At this place we met a young man who pays but ten shillings tax for seventy-four acres, of which considerable is woodland. Among other taxes, which are assessed in Pennsylvania, is one styled the "bachelor's tax;" every male person who is twenty-one years of age, and not married, pays a yearly tax of twelve shil- lings, six pence, Pennsylvania currency. Inconsiderable as this tax is, it, how- ever, has its desired effect, as the liability to derision, to which the young men are open, and the ease with which industrious hands can support a family, soon causes them to change their social status. This is an old established tax here, as well as in Maryland, and lately established in South Carolina, as they have been convinced of its usefulness to arrive at a desired result.
"The farmers here use a seed plough, called the "Bucks County plow." The wheat is scattered on the fallow ground and then plowed under. It is customary to reckon from one-half to one bushel of seed to the acre, according as the land has before been cultivated. Generally it is expected to harvest ten or 'fifteen bushels of wheat per acre, from land that has been manured; in the neighborhood of Reading and the Tulpehocken valley, the average is forty to fifty bushels. A wagon with four horses will haul forty or fifty bushels of
3 Mrs. Catharine Watts, Rockhill township, the oldest inhabitant of Bucks county, died on Thursday evening, February 15, 1900, in her one hundred and fourth year. She was stricken with paralysis, Sunday, January 28th, but such was her vitality she lived nearly three weeks. She lived with her son William, two miles north of Sellersville, was born October 3, 1796, and, had she lived until January 1, 1901, would have seen three centuries. Mrs. Watts, during her long career, scarcely knew what it was to be sick. She was a woman of remarkable vigor and strong constitution. Down to the day of her last illness she was scarcely ever idle, assisting with the house work. Her faculties were all well preserved and her eye sight remarkable, being able to notice a pin on the carpet that would escape the notice of other members of the household .- Daily Democrat, February 17, 1900.
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wheat to the city, and it is sold there for one Spanish dollar a bushel. As many persons own a large quantity of land, they cannot make use of it all, and con- sequently many acres remain uncultivated for five, six or seven years. Fre- quently, for the first year a crop of rye is sown, the second year wheat and English grass seed, and after the wheat is harvested, it is used for five years as pasture. For a second crop it is customary to sow buckwheat.
"Most of the lime used in Philadelphia comes from the neighborhood of Whitemarsh or Plymouth, fifteen or seventeen miles distant. Nearer than. that there is no pure limestone, and wood is also very scarce. From there, up to within five miles of Bethlehem there are no traces of limestone. 'Formerly the lime was delivered in Philadelphia for one shilling per bushel. A four horse team can haul from forty to fifty bushels. Every farm has its orchard, when the trees becomes old a new one is started, at a new spot, as the general belief is that young trees will not thrive where the old ones stood. People also have land enough and do not like to engage in the labor of plowing up the land, and improving it with manure or other mixture. There is no at- tention paid to the variety of fruit ; apples and peaches are about all that are cultivated, the former, however, might be greatly improved.
"After leaving the foregoing host and traveling through a continuous forest, we reached 'Rocky Hill' township, but we only saw a few scattered houses. The road is fitly called 'Rocky Hill.' A blue basaltic and also a slaty gneiss rock covered the surface under which, however, the red, Jersey soil is found. We passed through a devastated forest of at least two thousand acres, which had been cut down for fuel at a charcoal furnace. After the owner had used up all the wood it was abandoned. The forest consists of oak, beech and birch. The bark of the latter is used for tanning. On this dry unproductive soil, we saw nothing but small trunks of all kinds of trees. None of them appeared very old. Most of, the thickets we met with are composed of young trees, as the first settlers have a custom of clearing their lands with fire, but the fire often spreads too far, and the original forests were destroyed. Nowhere will you meet with such a diversity of fencing as in America ; al- most every minute you will see a different style, and people cannot help won- dering at the inventive genius of the inhabitants. Generally there are dry enclosures, either thin stakes of cleft trees, which are entwined in various ways or laid one on the top of the other, or upright posts are placed against each other and interlaced. The so called worm fences were the most frequent. They are made of chestnut wood, as it makes the lightest fence, and when the bark is off will last a long time. Green hedge are rarely met with, and then only in a few towns, as the labor of planting and taking care of them is too great.
"From Rocky Hill the road leads to a broad plain which is known as the Great Swamp, which formerly covered this entire region, but has now been transformed into excellent wheat land. The low situation, however, causes it to be overflowed fall and spring, and the farmers find it best to raise summer instead of winter wheat, as the latter, on account of the wet soil, is often dam- aged by frost. Quakertown is a small village of about twelve houses. The inhabitants are mostly English and German Quakers. The inn keeper here pays for his license and about five acres of land twelve pounds Pennsylvania currency taxes. He certainly has not much to pay, but he has the more to ask, as we were not safe for a moment from his inquisitiveness. He was incessant in his endeavor to ascertain from us, or our servants, the object of our travels, but he was not able to accomplish it and we did not feel obliged to
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satisfy his curiosity, as his ignorance prevented him from answering our questions relative to the condition of his neighborhood. After leaving this Quaker colony on the 8th of August, we again came into a rough hilly country, full of the fragments of the before mentioned hard blue stone, and traveled many miles through wild and uncultivated forests; only occasionally did we meet with small cultivated spots on which Germans were settled. We passed through 'Phillips Dale' and 'Richardstown,' without knowing it, as these rising towns only existed in name, or were composed of only a few huts. Six miles from Quakertown we came to a small village of ten or twelve houses, and a mill, named after its first settler, Stoffel Wagner. After we had trav- eled between and over more high hills and through desolate forests, and passed Saucon creek, we came to a beautiful valley, with rich mellow soil and then to the calm but beautiful Lehigh."
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CHAPTER IV.
NOCKAMIXON.
1742.
First settlers .- Population, 1742 .- Names of settlers and landowners .- Settled by Eng- lish .- Township organized .- Old couplet .- McCarty brothers .- Abraham Goodwin. -John Praul .- Casper Kolb .- The Stovers .- John Pursell .- McLeroys .- The Kint- ners .- Overbecks .- John George Kohl .- The Shick family .- Traugers .- The Buck family .- Nicholas .- Nockamixon church and pastors .- Charles Fortman .- Music taught .- Rafinesque .- Campbell graveyard .- The Narrows .- Rich Flora .- Roads .- Streams .- Villages .- Population .- Bridgeton township cut off from Nockamixon now a German township.
On the organization of Tinicum, 1738, a large tract of country, immed- iately north of it, was left without local government. The Durham iron works had been established since 1727, and although there was no organized town- ship north of Tinicum, settlers had taken up land and built cabins here and there in the woods as high up as Forks of Delaware. They were generally found on the river side of the county. The Durham road had been a trav- eled highway several years prior to this date and no doubt its opening invited emigrants to push their way up into the woods of Nockamixon,1 settling on, or near the road. As the names and date of the coming of the first settlers can not now be told, we are unable to tell our readers when the pioneers pene- trated that wilderness country.
We have reason to believe settlers located in Nockamixon as early as in Durham still higher up the river, and that before 1730 the pioneer was felling the trees in her woods. In 1737 Bartholomew Longstreth purchased two hun- dred and fifty acres of the Proprietaries, on or near Gallows hill run,2 which tradition says, took its name from a suicidal traveler found suspended from the limb of a tree on its bank. By 1742 it contained quite a respectable popu- lation for a frontier district. the following names of settlers, or land-owners, having come down to us as living there at that time; Richard Thatcher, Joseph
I The name Nockamixon is first met with as early as September 8. 1717, when a patent was issued, to Jeremiah Langhorne and John Chapman, for several tracts of land. one of them in this township.
2 The Indian name of Gallows Run was "Perelefakon" creek, and occurs on the original deed of the Durham tract.
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Warford, Christian Weaver, John Henry Hite, William Morris, John Har- wick, Uriah Humble, David Buckherd, Bartholomew Longstreth,3 Samuel. Cruchler, Jacob Richards, Thomas Blair, William Ware, John Anderson, Ed- mund Bleney, John Doran, John Wilson, George Ledley, William Dickson,. James Johnson, Richard London, John Colvan, Ralph Wilson. Jacob Trimbo and Thomas Ramsey. These names prove the original settlers of Nockamixon: were English-speaking people and, as was the case in Tinicum, and, in other parts of the county, the Germans overran the township subsequently.
By the spring of 1742 the inhabitants of Nockamixon thought themselves numerous enough to be organized into a township. At the June term, twenty- five citizens, who styled themselves "inhabitants .of the adjacents of Plum- stead," whose names we have already given, petitioned the court to allow a township "to be laid out joining Durham, then descending the river to the London tract," with the following boundaries: "Beginning at a black oak on the bank of the Delaware river, being a corner of Durham tract; thence by the said tract, and land of Thomas Blair, south seventy degrees, west one thousand and forty perches ; thence by land of William Ware, southeast two hundred and forty perches; thence southwest five hundred and forty perches to Haycock run; thence down said run to Tohickon creek; thence down the said creek to a tract of land laid out to James Sterling; thence by that and the London company's land, north-east two. thousand one hundred and forty perches to the river Delaware; thence up the same to the place of beginning-containing by computation six thousand acres." The boundaries were never changed, that we are aware of, until' Bridgeton was cut off in 1890, and the original area was now computed at twelve thousand five hundred acres. The court, at the same term, ordered the town- ship laid out in accordance with the prayer of the petitioners. It was surveyed September 9, 1743, by Nicholas Scull and confirmed at the April term, 1746. Like Tinicum, the name of Nockamixon is of Indian origin and has been retained, much to the credit of our name-changing race. Heckewelder says, "Nockamixon" signifies, in the Delaware language, the place at the three houses ; but what connection there is between "three houses" and the town- ship's name, is not explained. On the back of the petition to the court, ask- ing for the township's organization is written the following couplet :
"As rocks in Nockamixon mate the skies, So let this town to Nockamixon rise."
which fails, however, to throw any light on the subject. In a deed of 1762,. the township is spelled "Nockiminson."
Among the settlers who came into the township soon after its organization were Thomas and Patrick McCarty,' brothers, from Ireland, who settled on
3 Bartholomew Longstreth lived and died in Warminster, and was never a resident of Nockamixon, though he owned land there.
4 There is some difference of opinion as to when the McCartys arrived. William J. Buck says Edward McCarty bought two hundred and fifty acres of Thomas and Richard Penn, April 19, 1738, on a warrant of March 11, 173-, but a subsequent sentence same paragraph, says "a research, in the Bucks county records, states the aforesaid two hundred and fifty acres were bought of Thomas Penn by Nicholas McCarty, March 5, 1761.". This Nicholas was probably the son of Thomas or Patrick McCarty men- tioned in the text.
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Haycock run about 1748, where they purchased two tracts of the Proprie- taries, their land extending into Haycock. June 4, 1753, seventy-nine and three-quarters acres were surveyed to William Dixon, on warrant of No- vember 9, 1752, and one hundred and four acres and forty-nine perches to Abraham Goodwin, by warrant dated December 8, 1749. Two tracts contain- ing one hundred and seven acres and fifty-one perches were surveyed to Peter Young, June 1 and 2, 1753, by virtue of warrants dated 1749-50 and on Decem- ber 3, 1754, eighty-nine acres and allowance to Herman Younkon. He was the ancestor of the Youngken family and came from the Palatinate in the ship Charming Polly, landing at Philadelphia October 8, 1737. He was natural- ized, 1743, settled in Nockamixon on the Durham road and was living in 1781. Adam Meisser was an early settler at the Narrows. In the spring, 1746, thirty acres were surveyed to him, adjoining lands of Matthew Hughes, by Robert Smith, by virtue of a warrant of Surveyor-General Lukens. The same year John Praul already a land-owner in the township, obtained a warrant for forty acres and one hundred and seven perches, adjoining John Meisser at the Narrows, but the land was not surveyed until Dec. 17, 1753. In May, 1748, ninety and one-half acres were surveyed to David Maynes and June, 1754, one hundred and forty-two acres patented to Michael Meisser and other lands were surveyed to him in 1766. He was an early settler and the owner of a tract prior to 1753, located on the hill at Ferndale. The Centre Hill school house is built on part of it. In 1749, Peter Michael, perhaps "Mickley," took up twenty- five acres on Nockamixon and Peter Young thirty acres. Among the early Germans who settled in this section of the county about this period, the town- ship not being mentioned in several cases, were Christian Fry at Tohickon, 1738, Casper Kolb, 1738, Frederick Kraft on Tohickon. 1741, Solomon Ruch- stuhl, one hundred acres near a branch of Tohickon, 1742, and George Hart zell, one hundred acres adjoining the above, same year Christopher, twenty five acres at Tohickon, 1749. and Valentine Nicholas, 1749." All of these hardly settled in Nockamixon, but as the Tohickon and one of its branches formed its southern boundary, some of these early German immigrants made their homes in this township. There was considerable unseated land in the township years subsequent to this. It is probable the numerous family of Keyser, now living in Nockamixon, are descended from Peter Keyser, who was constable of the township, and settled in Gallows Run valley north of Bucksville, 1750. In 1785 there was a re-survey of some of the lands in Nockamixon, when a tract of Benjamin Williamson was re-surveyed under a warrant of April 1, 1768, by Samuel Preston, deputy-surveyor of the county. It was found to contain five hundred and fifteen acres and one hundred and thirty-one perches, fifty- five acres and fifty-seven perches more than the warrants called for. In 1751 William Deil and Daniel Mench bought land in the township, the former fifty acres.
5 Valentine Nicholas was born in Germany, April 8, 1711, and landed at Phila- delphia. October 25. 1738. He settled in Rockhill, was one of the founders of Keller's church, and died October 1, 1807. aged ninety-six years, five months and five days. He had the following children: Catharine, married Henry Emich or Amey. December 4, 1759; John married Christina, daughter of Michael Hartzell of Haycock, May 20. 1760: Abraham, born February 17. 1752. died February 21. 1762; Elizabeth. born February 6. 1754. died February 22. 1754: John Henry, born February 20, 1755; George. born December 3. 1758: Daniel, born August 13. 1761 ; Valentine, born - , married Anna Maria Young ; Christian, born August 4, 175 -.
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The McLeroys were early settlers of Nockamixon but we do not know the date of their arrival .. The will of William McLeroy was admitted to probate October 31, 1765. Among his daughters were Agnes Scott, with whose name is connected a bit of interesting history. She was the great-grandmother of the late Mrs. Carrie Scott Harrison, the first wife of ex-President Harrison, and stands in the same relation to his second wife, as his two wives were sisters. Agnes McLeroy married John Scott. She and her husband lived and died near Easton in Northampton county, Pennsylvania. The romance is only half ended here, for a brother of John Scott was the great-grandfather of the wife of the late President Hayes. John McElroy supposed to be a grandson of William, married a sister of Commodore Richard Dale, and lived and died near Bristol, this county. The modern spelling is McElroy, but the name to the will is signed "McLeroy" in a plain hand. Warren Scott Dungan, Lieuten- ant Governor of Iowa, is a great-grandson of Agnes Scott.
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