USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 12
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Adam Hoops, of Falls. owned three hundred and twenty acres along the river. in Lower Makefield. He probably died 1771, as his will is dated the 7th of June of that year. His daughter, Jane, married Daniel Clark, the uncle of Daniel Clark, jr., first husband of Mrs. Gaines." The heirs of Adam Hoops sold the plantation to Clark, who disposed of it by sale in 1774. when he prob- ably left the county. David V. Feaster, a captain in the Third Pennsylvania Reserves, Civil War, 1861-65, spent the latter years of his life on this farm, Lower Makefield, dying there December 6, 1894.
The Livezey family, of Lower Makefield and Solebury, of which the late Doctor Abraham Livezey, of Yardley, was a member, came to Bucks county at an early day. Jonathan. the immigrant, settled in Solebury soon after Penn's second visit, where he took up a tract of land that included the old Stephen Townsend farm-on which was built a one-story stone house, 1732, and torn down, 1848-and the farms of Armitage, Paxson and William Kitchen. He married Esther Eastburn, and had children Jonathan, Nathan. Benjamin and Joseph, and was the great-great-grandfather of Robert Livezey, father of the present generation. The great-grandfather married a Friend named Thomas; the grandfather. Daniel Livezey, married Margery Croasdale. . whose eldest son, Robert. born February 22, 1780, married Sarah Paxson, who died at the age of ninety-three. Robert Livezey lived with one wife the whole of his mar- ried life of sixty years on the old Stephen Townsend farm. His children are Cyrus. Elizabeth, Ann. Albert, Allen, Elias, Abraham. and Samuel, who died in 1863. Previous to Samuel's death this family exhibited the remarkable fact that both parents, at the ages of eighty-three and eighty-four, and the entire family of eight children. living. the youngest being aged forty. Robert Livezey died. 1864. at the age of eighty-four. He was a Friend, and many years filled the office of justice of the peace.
Henry Marjorum (present form Margerum) and wife Elizabeth. county Wilt. England. arrived in the Delaware, I mo. 2. 1682, and settled on a 350-acre tract two miles below Yardley. He then bought 281 acres in Falls. They had two children. Sarah born.7. 17, 1685. and Ilenry born 12. 7. 1683. On the death of his wife, 8. 2. 1693. he married Jane Riggs, a widow, the first marriage in Bur- lington outside the meeting: we do not know when he died. but his will was recorded 1727. The name of Henry Marjorum appears as the owner of cat- tle. 1684. and the car mark given ; and one of the same name, son or grandson, was one of the first directors of the Newtown Library, 1760. The same year. he, or another Henry, went on a "voiage" to South Carolina with a certi- ficate from Falls Monthly Meeting; but there being no monthly meeting near
6 On the authority of Gilbert Cope, Mrs. Gaines is thought to have been the daugh- ter of Daniel Clark, Jr., and that her first husband was W. W. Whitney, New York.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
where he was he "could not deliver his certificate nor get an endorsement .: his behavior." In 1765 John Margerum "was much overtaken and disordered with strong drink in a public manner ;" and 1766, a committee was appointed! to treat with Henry Margerum, who was accused of "unlawful conversation with a young woman. Both were dismissed from meeting because they were ::. "an indifferent and unconcerned" frame of mind. They needed disciplinirg and got it. The homestead was occupied by William Margerum, who died there October 9. 1830. His wife's name was Elizabeth, and their son, Enos. born June 30, 1782, married Rachel Vansant, whose brother John was an Ensign in the Pennsylvania Line of the Revolution. The latter had three sons, Reading. a second son, born February 18, 1811. died December 20, 1857. and Garret, born January 22, 1813, went south in his youth, led an active busi- ness life and was killed at Memphis, Tennessee, 1801. The Rev. William Allibone Margerum, Ocean Grove, N. J., a prominent Methodist Episcopal minister, is a descendant of the pioneer, and his youngest son, Winfield L .. born 1861, is engaged in business in Philadelphia. Several members of the family served on the side of the colonies in the Revolution. Joseph and William in Capt. Stillwell's company. Colonel Keller's regiment. Bucks county mili- tia. The names of Benjamin and Jonathan Margerum were on the rolls at different periods.
The Slack family of Makefield are descendants of John and Abraham Slack, grandsons of Hendrick Cornelisse Slecht, who emigrated from Hol- land in 1652 and settled on Long Island. Abraham, born 1722. settled in Lower Makefield. He first occupied the farm in the northeast corner of the township, on the Delaware, subsequently owned by William Piaff. deceased, but afterward moved to the farm immediately north and adjoining. recently owned by a Smith. He lived there many years and died. 1802. Slack's island, in the Delaware, was named after him. He probably married soon after his arrival, and his children were Abraham, Cornelius, James and Sarah. all of whom married and left descendants. Abraham. the elder son. left but three chil- dren, who are deceased. and their descendants live in Philadelphia. The second son. Cornelius, died. 1828. leaving a number of children, some recently living. among them Mrs. James Larue, Lower Makefield, Mrs. Charles Young. Edge- wood, and Mrs. Balderston, Newtown. James, the third son, born in 1736. died on his farm, 1832, at the age of seventy-six. leaving one daughter. Alice. and three sons. Abraham, Elijah and James. Sarah, the daughter of Abraham the elder, married Moses Kelley, whose descendants are to be found in New- town. Fallsington and Philadelphia. The late Mrs. Jane Harvey, wife of Jo- seph Harvey, of Newtown, and Doctor Lippincott, Philadelphia, husband ni Grace Greenwood. were two of her descendants. Abraham. the elder son of James, died. 1835, leaving a large family of children, several of whom reside in Bucks county. Among them are Sammuel M. Slack. Upper Makefield. John Slack Keith, Newtown, and Elijah T. Slack, Philadelphia. Abraham's de- scendants married into the families of Rich. Stevens, Torhert. Emery. McNair. etc. Elijah Slack, second son of James, graduated at Princeton, studied divin- Itv. was licensed as a Presbyterian minister, and removed to Cincinnati. ISI ;. where he died. 1868, leaving a large family of children, most of whom live in the southern states. The daughter Alice married David McNair, Newtown township, and died 1830, leaving six children, a number of whose descendants live in the county. James, the youngest son of Abraham the second. familiar!y known in the lower end of the county as Captain Slack, resided on the farm where his father died until 1837, when he immigrated to Indiana, and settled
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
on White river, Delaware county, where his wife died in 1845, and he in 1847. He left six sons and three daughters, of whom but three survive: Doctor George W. Slack, of Delaware county, Indiana, Anthony T. Slack. Independ- ence, Missouri, and James R. Slack, Indiana. The latter went to Huntingdon, Indiana, 1840, with his license as an attorney in his pocket, and began life in the wilderness. In turn he was schoolmaster, clerk in the county-clerk's office, county auditor, and State Senator. On the breaking out of the Civil War, he espoused the cause of the Union, raised the forty-seventh Indiana regiment. of which he was appointed Colonel. He participated in most of the campaigns and battles in the West, from Island No. 10, in March, 1862, to the surrender of Mobile, April, 1865. He was appointed brigadier-general, 1864. and brevet major-general. March, 1865. for gallantry in the field. In October. 1873. he was elected judge of the Twenty-eighth Judicial district by eight hundred ma- jerity, in a district in which the Republican candidate for President had one thousand two hundred majority, in 1872.7
The Janneys, Bucks county and elsewhere, are descended from Thomas Janney, and Elizabeth his wife. Cheshire, England, where he was born, 1633, and died 12 mo., 17, 1677. His son Thomas joined the Society of Friends shortly after it was organized, and was frequently punished for attending meet- ing. He became a minister about 1654. In 9th mo .. 24. 1660, Thomas Janney was married to Margery Heath, of Horton, at the home of James Harrison, his brother-in-law. They came to Pennsylvania in the Endeavor, with four chil- dren, landing, at Philadelphia 7 mo., 29, 1683. Jacob, Thomas. Abel and Jo- seph settled in Lower Makefield on the river below Yardley. He located a five hundred acre patent here, and another of one thousand acres near the Newtown line. He was a member of the Provincial Council and returning to England. 1695. died there, 1696. at the age of sixty-one. He has numerous descendants in this county. Stephen T. Janney, who died in Newtown town- ship, November 12. 1898, at the age of eighty-one, was the son of Jacob and Francenia Janney, and the fifth in descent from the immigrant. His father had ten children and there was no death among them for the period of fifty years. In 1842 Stephen T. Janney married Harriet P. Johnson, daughter of William H. and Mary ( Paxson ) Johnson, and is survived by five children. This branch of the family made their home in Newtown township, and the home- stead farm is still in their possession.
There are but two villages in Lower Makefield-Edgewood. on the road from Yardley to Attleborough, consisting of a store, postoffice. established 1858, and Samnel Tomlinson appointed postmaster, and a dwelling ; and Yard- leyville on the Delaware, at the site of Thomas Yardley's ferry. of ve olden time. now incorporated into a borough named Yardley. Dolington, on the line between Lower and Upper Makefield, will be noticed in our account of the latter township. Yardleyville began to develop into what Americans call a village about 1807. An old map of the place of that date . shows a number of building lots, and streets laid out above the mouth of the creek, and running back from the river, and on the sonth side were several lots.at the intersection of the Newtown and Upper River roads. The only buildings
7 General Slack died at Chicago, suddenly. July 28, 1881, from a stroke of paralysis. Ile was buried at Huntingdon, his home, the following Sunday, July 31, followed to the grave by a very large concourse of mourning relatives and friends. Distinguished men were present from all parts of the state and the sermon and eulogies pronounced over his remains bespeak the high esicem in which General Slack was held.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
there were the old tavern near the river bank, and the dwellings of Brown. Pil- cock, Eastburn and Depue. At this time the ferry was half-a-mile below the bridge. and boats landed opposite the farm house of Jolly Longshore. One Ilove'. kept the ferry on the New Jersey side, and it was as often called Howell's :. Yardley's ferry. The first store house in the place was built by the widow ... Thomas Yardley. An oll tavern stood at this side of the ferry, kept by John, Jones, and subsequently. Benjamin Flemming. When the ferry was move: up to the site of the bridge, a tavern. now the "White Swan," was built there. and first kept by one Grear. The house was refused license, 1892, and since then has been kept as a summer boarding house, and a "Cyclers" roadhouse. Neill Vansant bought the old Yardley mansion, with mills and some two lium- dred acres of land, which then included the whole of the village. The mansion and the mills were subsequently owned by Richard Mitchell. Atlee and Mahbei Dungan. The latter sold the property to William Yardley, whose heirs still own it. Among the earliest houses in the place, were the small frame tenement on John Blackfan's land near the creek, the three-story stone house called the "Wheat Sheaf." because there was a sheaf of wheat cast in the iron railing in front of the second story, and a small frame and stone house east of the cana! above Bridge street. Charles Shoemaker was the first lock-tender on the canal at Yardleyville. appointed in 1831. In 1893. a county bridge was built across the canal at the foot of College avenue. The third store was kept by Aaron LaRute in the "Canal storehouse." He joined church, emptied his liquor into the canal and set it on fire. His son, James G. LaRue, killed a negro in this storehouse for abusing his mother and the grand jury ignored the bill. \ gen- eral store was once kept in this house by the late Josiah B. Smith of Newtown. but was burned down in 1891. The great freshet of 1841 carried the bridge away. The Yardley of today is a much more pretentious village than its ancestor of seventy-five years ago, and the word "ville" has been knocked off its name by the age of improvement. It now contains several industrial estab- lishments, made up of a steam spoke and handle factory, steam sawmill. plate and plaster mills, steam felloe works, two merchant flour mills, several dry goods stores and groceries, coal and lumber yards, four public houses, a graded school, three churches and Friends meeting house, and a Catholic congrega- tion worship in the Odd Fellows Hall. The Bound Brook railroad from Phila- delphia to New York crosses the Delaware just south of the village. A post- office was established in 1828. and Mahlon Dungan appointed postmaster.
In the immediate vicinity of Yardley are two valuable stone quarries, from which many valuable buikling stones are quarried and shipped to various parts of the country. In a letter written by James Logan to Phineas Pember- ton. about 1700, he mentions that William Penn "had ordered a memorandum entered in the office that ve great quarry in R. Hough's and Abel Janney's lands be reserved when they come to be confirmed, being for ye public good of ye county." What about "ye great quarry," and who knows about it now ? Does it refer to the quarries at Yardley? In the same letter Logan asks Pem- berton where he can get "three of four hundred acres of good land and pro- portionable meadow. in your innocent county." In olden times, the children from the vicinity of Yardley went to school at the Oxford school house : but in the course of time, an eccentric man, one Brelsford. a famous deer hunter of that section, built an eight-square on the site of the present Oak Grove school house on the lot left by Thomas Yardley for school purposes. At one time a general store was kept in this house by Josiah B. Smith of Newtown, and was burned down in 1891.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
In 1897, the "Oak Grove Improvement Company" was organized for the purpose of planting ornamental shade trees on the school lot, about one hun- dred dollars being raised and expended by a few persons, resulting in a well shaded, cool and convenient park of three acres, and frequently used for relig- wous, political and other public meetings. Other desirable improvements. are a public road along the Bound Brook railroad just south of the borough, and the formation of "Hampton Lake" covering ten acres, by dammiing a small creek and using the water for the engines of the trains stopping at Yardley station. It is convenient for boating, fishing and getting ice. Besides the im- provements mentioned. others have been made at Yardley in recent years, no less important. In 1876 a new Episcopal church, St. Andrews, was erected on the site of the old one built 1837 and used as a free church. The following year tle Rev. John W. Stephenson, colored, collected funds and built an African Methodist Episcopal church, the corner stone being laid September 9, and dedi- cated November 4. In 1889-90 the Yardley National Bank was organized and built : and opened for business with a capital of $50,000, January 20, of the lat- ter year. The comptroller's certificate was dated January 13, 1890. The bank building is a tasteful structure in the center of the village. Buckmanville, a hamlet of a few dwellings. a store and post office, is on the road from Pine- ville to Dolington. The population of Yardley was 820 by the census of 1880, but at the present time is about a thousand.
Yardleyville's name was changed to Yardley about the time of its incor- poration as a borough, 1895, but we do not know the date. The same year the public lighting of its streets was introduced, first by naphtha lamps, which were replaced the following year by an electric light plant, which supplies Morris- ville with a four mile current. The borough is connected with Doylestown, Newtown. Bristol, Trenton and other points by trolley. In 1897 the Yardley Delaware Bridge was repaired and strengthened, and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad filled up the great tressel of the Bound Brook railroad across the Delaware from the canal to the river, on the Pennsylvania side, requiring one hundred twenty-two millions, three hundred sixty-two thousand cubic feet of earth. The gap to be filled was twenty-two hundred and thirty-five feet long. fifty-five feet high. thirty feet wide at the top and three hundred at the bottom. The late George Yardley of the William and Thomas branch, had a handsome place called "Linden" below the village in the long past, but its remains are overthrown and ruined by the embankment of the Reading rail- road approach.
The surface of Lower Makefield is gently rolling, with scarce a hill that deserves the name. The eastern end of Edge Hill, reaching from the Schuyl- kill to the Delaware, runs along the southern line of the township, and marks the northern limit of the primary formation. Here the surface is somewhat broken. It is not so well watered as most of the townships, and has but few creeks. The largest is Brock's creek, named after John Brock, an original Settler. whose land lay along it, and empties into the Delaware at Yardley. Core- creek rises in the northwest corner of the township, but soon enters Newtown, thence flows through Middletown to Neshaminy. Rock run, which flows through Falls and empties into the Delaware below Pennsbury, rises in the southern part. The township is traversed by numerous local roads, which ren- der all points accessible to the inhabitants. The soil is fertile and .well-culti- vated, and the population is almost exclusively employed in agriculture. The area is nine thousand nine hundred and forty-seven acres, with but little waste land.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
In 1693, the next year after the township was organized, the assessed taxes of Makefield amounted to £II. I4s. 3d. In 1742, sixty years after it. settlement, it had seventy-six taxable inhabitants, among whom were eleven single men. The next year there were only fifty-seven, but had increased t, ninety-four in 1764. In 1742 the poor-rate was three pence per pound, and nine shillings on single men. Thomas Yardley, the heaviest tax-payer, was assesse ! at fioo. In 1784 the population was 748, of which twenty-six were black .. and one hundred and one dwellings; 1,089, 1810; 1,204, 1820; 1,340, 1830, with taxables; 1,550, 1840; 1.741. 1850; 1,958, 1860; and 2,066, of which two hundred and twenty-seven were foreign-born, in 1870. In 1786 the joint com- missioners of Pennsylvania and New Jersey confirmed to Lower Makefield Dunn's, Harvey's lower, and Slack's three islands in the Delaware.
The first loss by fire in the township of which we have any record, was 1736, when John Schofield had his dwelling burned. Collections, to cover the loss, were taken up in the monthly meetings.
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CHAPTER IX.
BRISTOL TOWNSHIP.
1692.
Interesting township .- Only seaport in county .- Original name .- Present name appears .- Richard Noble .- Reverend Thomas Dungan .- Cold Spring .- Elias Keach .- His History .- Thomas Dungan's descendants .- Samuel Carpenter .- Bristol mill .- Bristol island meadows .- Fairview and Belle meadow farms .- Captain John Clark .-- Ferry to Burlington .-- Act to improve navigation of Neshaminy .- Bessonett's rope ferry .- Line of stages .- Christopher Taylor .-- Captain Partridge .- The Dilworths .- The Taylor family .- Anthony Taylor .- Anthony Newbold .- Bristol College .- Captam. : John Green .- China Retreat .- Van Broom Houckgeest .- Bath Springs .- Pigeon swamp .- The "Mystic well."-Daniel Boone .- William Stewart, his schoolmate .- Bolton farm .- Landredth's seed-farm .- Hellings's fruit establishment .- Newportville. -Bela Badger .- Surface. area, population.
Bristol, next to Falls, is the most interesting township in the county. It played a leading part in the settlement of the Province, and here was located the first county seat, and justice administered for forty years. Being the only seaport in the county, many of the early immigrants landed here, either coming up the river in boats or crossing over from Burlington, where some of the ships discharged their living cargoes. As there was sufficient depth of water, possi- bly some of the smaller vessels landed on the bank at Bristol.
In the report of the jury, fixing the boundaries of the five townships laid out, 1692. Bristol is located below Pennsbury, and was "to follow the river to Neshaminah. then up Neshaminah to the upper side of Robert Hall's planta- tion, and to take in the land of Jonathan Town, Edmund Lovet. Abraham Cox. etc., to Pennsbury, and by the same to the place of beginning." The name given to it was "Buckingham." no doubt after the parish of that name in England, and was so called in the court records as late as 1697, and "New Buckingham" in the meeting records as late as 1705. Its present name first appears 1702, when a constable was appointed for "Bristol." The reason for dropping the original name and assuming one less pleasant to the ear, is not known, probably because the township gradually came to be called by the name of the borough growing up within its borders. If we except the few "old renters" from the time of Andros, and still a few others who came when the Swedes and Dutch.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
held rule on the Delaware, the original settlers of Bristol township were English Friends.1
Our knowledge of the first English settlers is not extensive, and possib !. not always accurate. Thomas Holme, Penn's surveyor-general, owned land in this and other townships, but he never lived in the county. His occupation enabled him to pick up tracts worth having, and he appears to have availed himself of the opportunity. Richard Noble, the first sheriff, appointed in 1682. owned an extensive tract on the Neshaminy, above its mouth. William White. Richard Noble and Samuel Allen owned tracts on that stream in the order they are named, and eight proprietors owned all the land bordering on the Neshaminy, from its mouth up to the Middletown line. Thomas Holme being the largest owner, five hundred and forty-seven acres. whose land lay on the stream but a short distance, and then ran along the Mid- dletown line nearly to Falls. John Clark. husband of Ann Clark, received his grant from Governor Andros. May 12, 1679. embracing three hundred and nine acres, and dying. 1683. left it to his widow. The court took charge of Clark's estate at his death, and sold one hundred acres to Richard Noble, which Pent confirmed to him in 1689. Samuel Allen's daughter, Martha, was married to Daniel Pegg. of Philadelphia, at her father's house, Bristol township. April 22, 1686. Her husband gave the name to Pegg's run, and a street in Phila- delphia.
The Dungans came from Rhode Island, and some of them were in Bristol before Penn arrived. William, who was probably the eldest son of the Rev- erend Thomas, who came in advance to the Quaker colony where there was neither let nor hindrance in freedom to worship God, had two hundred acres granted him in Bristol, by William Markham. 4th of 6th month, 1682, and con- firmed by Penn the 5th of 5th month. 1684. He is denominated an "old renter." About the same time there came a small colony of Welsh Baptists. from Rhode Island. who settled near Cold Spring. This spring. one of the finest in the county, is near the river bank three miles above Bristol, and covers an area of about fifty feet square. It is surrounded by a stone wall, is well shaded and constantly discharges about one hundred and fifty gallons per minute. In 1684 the Welsh inumigrants were followed by the Reverend Thomas Dungan and his family, who settled in the immediate vicinity. He soon gathered a congre- gation about him and organized a Baptist church, which was kept together until 1702. But little is known of its history. If a church building were ever erected it has entirely disappeared, but the graveyard, overgrown with briars and trees and a few dilapidated tombstones, remains. It is fifty feet square, and near the turnpike. The land was probably given by Thomas Stanaland, who died March 16, 1753, and was buried in it. Thomas Dungan. the pastor. died in 1688, and was buried in the yard, but several years afterward a handsome stone was erected to his memory at Southampton.12 Two pastors at Pennypack were
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