USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 28
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John Burrows, the grandfather of Charles l'. Burrows, of Pineville, came to Bucks county from New Jersey. He settled about Morrisville, where he lived in a cave, and, on selling his property to Robert Morris, removed to New- town township, on the road to Yardleyville. When the Revolutionary war broke out, John Burrows carried the mail from Philadelphia, but the mail carrier from Princeton to New York siding with the British, Burrows was appointed to carry the mail through to New York. Great difficulty was ex- perienced, and sometimes his son carried the mail in a little bag around his neck, frequently swimming the Delaware, and creeping through the grass to escape enemies. Burrows was elected either door-keeper or Sergeant-at-Arms of Congress, when it sat at Philadelphia. He accompanied it to Washington,
and was highly entertained by the pohte and affable behavior of the Judge and his lady. Mr. Innes is a Federal Judge with a salary of 1,000 dollars per annum."
8 Mrs. Innes, the mother of Mrs. Crittenden, was visited at her home near Frank- fort, Ky., June, 1840, by the Rev. Robert D. Morris, who was instrumental in her conver- sion and baptized her. lle also baptived Mrs. Crittenden's early friend, Mrs. Hapenny, at the age of seventy-five She was a daughter of Amos Strickland, who built the old end of the brick tavern, Newtown.
9 Tlannah and Rachel Harris died unmarried. The Hannas lived near Newtown, belonged to the Presbyterian church and Ikkewise removed to Kentucky.
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where he died at the age of ninety-six, after many years service. His son, Na- thaniel Burrows, was born at Newark, in 1756, and came to the county with his father. He married Ann, daughter of Lamb Torbert, Newtown township, and «lied, 1840, at the age of eighty-four. He was a soldier in the Revolution, and he and his father both drew pensions to their death. Nathaniel Burrows had eight children, Samuel. William, John, Joseph, George, Margaretta, Charles and Mary. Charles and one sister are still living. The wife of Nathaniel Bur- rows died, 1838, at the age of seventy-nine, and she and her husband were both buried in the Presbyterian graveyard, Newtown.
The original Presbyterian church of Newtown stood on the "old Swamp road" a mile west of the village on the farm owned by Alexander German, and was probably founded before 1740. A new church was erected near the borough limits, in 1769, on a lot given by John Harris, when the old frame building was abandoned. It was afterward sold and converted into a wagon house at the John Thompson farm near the Chain bridge, in Northampton. A number of tombstones are still in the old grave yard, bearing dates from 1741 to 1756, some of them of quite elaborate workmanship. There is a tradition that a wicked sinner, named Kelley, hired a negro to fetch him a marble slab from the old grave yard to use for a paint stone, and that when his act of vandalism became known, public opinion drove him from the neighborhood. About 1750 sixty acres of land on the west bank of the Neshaminy, below Newtown, with a dwelling upon it, were given to the Presbyterian church for a parsonage. It was sold about the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, and the proceeds invested in six per cent. state warrants. These were stolen from the house of John Thompson, the treasurer, and lost to the church. Many years ago the fol- lowing lines on the "old grave yard." were suggested by a remark of the late Doctor Phineas Jenks, in a lecture before the Newtown Lyceum, and published in the Newtoren Journal :
Overgrown and neglected, deserted, forlorn, A thicket of dogwood, of briar and thorn, Is that home of the dead, that last place of rest For the mouldlering clay of the good and the blest.
Where once, up to heaven, upon the still air. Rose the music of praise and the murmur of prayer ; Where crowds came to worship, from valley and hill. Rests a silence like death, 'tis so quiet and still.
Not a vestige remains of the temple, whose roof Echoed oft to the loud earnest preachings of truth -- Time's pinions have swept every fragment away, And the people who listened, oh where now are they ?
The stones which affection once placed o'er the dead, Their names to preserve, and their virtues to spread; Displaced and disfigured, the eye should, to see, Have the aid of thy chisel, "Old Mortality."
Soon the plough will o'erturn the root and the blade Of the sod once upheaved by the mattock and spade ; And the place, once so sacred, will then be forgot. With the beings who wept and rejoiced on this spot.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Among the inhabitants of Newtown township, of a past generation, was one who attempted to shuffle off this mortal coil by jumping down a well forty feet deep when a little deranged in his mind. He repented the act when he reached the bottom, cried lustily for help and was fortunate enough to be drawn out alive, Some people were uncharitable enough to say that his insanity was a dispensation of Providence in punishment for driving off his neighbor's cattle to the British during the Revolutionary war.
Newtown township is bounded by the Neshaminy on the west, which sep- arates it from Northampton, north by Wrightstown, east by the two Make- fields and south by Middletown. The area is six thousand two hundred and forty-six acres, a trifle more than ten times the quantity in the original townstead. We believe the boundaries to be the same as when it was first laid out. The surface slopes to the south, and the soil is productive. It is watered by Neshi- aminy and its tributaries, Newtown creek running the entire length of the town- ship, and Core creek flowing through its southeast corner into Lower Make- field. On the Neshaminy is a valuable quarry of brown stone, used extensively for ornamental building purposes. The main industry is farming. Jenks's sulling-mill, two miles southeast of Newtown, is probably the oldest mill of its Gass in the county, and was raided by the British during their occupancy of Philadelphia in the Revolution.
The first enumeration of inhabitants of Newtown that we have seen, is that of 1742, when there were forty-three taxables and nine single men. The tax raised was £12. 18. 9d., and Samuel Carey the heaviest payer, was taxed ten shillings. In 1754 the taxables were 59; So in 1761, and 82 in 1762. In 1784 it contained 497 whites, 28 blacks, and 84 dwellings. The population in 1800 was 781 : 1810, 982 : 1820, 1,060; 1830, 1,344, and 233 taxables ; 1840, 1,440; 1850. 765 whites, 77 blacks ; 1860, 933 whites, 67 blacks, and in 1870 the number of the whites was the same, of whom 95 were foreign-born, and 50 blacks : 1880, 970 ; 1890. 759: 1900, 715. The apparent falling off in the population after 1840 was caused by the incorporation of the village of Newtown into a borough, and the separate enumeration of its inhabitants.
The borough of Newtown has possibly borne its present name longer than any other village in the county. The exact time of its founding, and the origin of its name, are both involved in doubt. Tradition tells us that, on one occasion, as William Penn, with a party of friends, was riding through the woods where the village stands, he remarked to those about him, "this is the place proposed for my new town :" and a new town in very truth it was, to be founded and built in the depth of the Bucks county wilderness. Whether the village took the name of the township, or the township of the village, we are left to con- jecture, but the probability is in favor of the latter. The last course in a tract of two hundred and twenty-five acres, laid out to Shadrack Walley, October 25. 1683. runs northeast by east by "New Town street, twenty-eight perches." and twenty-five acres in "New Town-stead." In the patent to Thomas Rowland. dated 12th of 12th month, 1684. for four hundred and fifty acres, on the "east- ermost side of Noshaminoli ( Neshaminy) ereck." calls for fifty acres in the "village or townstead." one side of which is "bounded on the street or road of said village." The 12th month, 17th. 1698. Stephen Twining. carpenter, of Burlington. New Jersey, sold two hundred and fifty-two acres of the Rowland tract to Stephen Twining, yeoman, "being in the county of Bucks, at a place called New Town." These are the earliest mention of the name we have been able to find, and they carry us back to within a year after the arrival of Willian
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Penn. On the map of Oldmixon, 1741, it is spelled "Newtowne," and "New- ton" in Scott's Gazetteer of 1795.
On the authority of John Watson, in a communication to the Philosophical Society, there was a white man, named Cornelius Spring, living at Newtown in 11x)2. He was possibly one of the very oldest and earliest inhabitants of this ancient village, but probably he and others were there before that time. The farmhouse of John Tomlinson is supposed to have been built near the close of the century, but the dwelling of Silas C. Bond, in the lower part of the village, is thought to be the oldest house in it. The kitchen, more modern than the main building, was built in 1713. As late as 1725,10 when the county seat was removed from Bristol to Newtown, it consisted of a few log huts built along the Durham road, now State street. This event gave it an importance not hitherto enjoyed, and for almost the ninety years it remained the shire-town it was considered the first village of the county. The five acres bought of John Walley to erect the public buildings on, and for other county purposes, lay on the east side of State street, and extended from Washington avenue down to Penn street, forty perches, and twenty perches east. The present Court street cut the lot in twain from north to south. In 1733 the ground was laid out into six squares of equal size, one hundred and ninety by one hundred and forty- two and a half feet. and streets opened through it. The court house and prison were erected on square number one, bounded by land of John Walley, that ex- tended to Washington avenue. State, Sullivan and Court streets. The same year the commissioners sold a lot in the fifth square, sixty feet on Court and one hundred and forty-two and a half on King street. to Joseph Thornton, on which the Court inn was subsequently erected. Gradually the whole of the five acres, not occupied by the public buildings, were sold to various parties long before the county seat was removed. When that event took place there was only that por- tion of plot number one where the court house, jail and little old office stood to be disposed of. The five acres are now in the heart of the town and covered with buildings. We have no means of even guessing the population of Newtown when it became the county seat. Eighty years ago it contained about fifty dwellings, and tradition tells us that at that time one house in ten
10 Newtown was made the seat of justice of Bucks county in 1725, by an act of Assembly of 1723; and William Biles, Joseph Kirkbride, Thomas Watson, M. D. and Abraham Chapman were appointed commissioners to purchase a piece of land in Newtown township, in trust, for the use of the county and build thereon a court house and prison. The same act provided for holding the elections at Newtown. The trustees were author- ized to sell as much of the land purchased as would not inconvenience the court house and other public buildings. The prison proving too small, a new one was built under an act passed. 1743-45. The fire-proof office was not built until 1772. It was designated a "strong and commodious house," was 12 by 16 feet in size, of stone masonry two feet thick. brick arch 12 inches deep, with chinmey and fireplace in west end. Prior to this the county records were kept at the private homes of the officers. The act for building the fireproof provided that "the papers and records shall be deposited and kept in the said house under a penalty of f300, any usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." One of the jailors at Newtown was "Paddy" Hunter, who kept a har and sold rum in the prison office, and prisoners and others who had the money could always buy the article. Asa Carey succeeded "Paddy" at the latter's death and stopped the sale of rum and the escape ni prisoners. He was the last jailor at Newtown and the first at Doylestown On returning to Newtown he married Tamor Woorstall, celebrated for her cakes and pie -.
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had license to sell liquor, besides the keeper of the jail. and the only known buildings along the west side of Main street were the academy and that occu- pied by the National bank. The built-up portion of the town was on the cast side of Main street, between Penn street and Washington avenue. Robert Smock's estate owned all the land on that side of the street, including the Brick hotel, from the avenue up to the bridge across the creek, except one lot. A map of that period gives but nineteen building lots on the east side of Main, between Penn street and Washington avenue, and only twenty real estate owners on that side as far as the street extends, not including the county. Of the streets, that on the west side of the creek was known as the "Other" street, while those crossing the common, from the lower to the upper end, bore the names of Lower, Bridge, Middle, now Washington avenne, Spring, Yonder, and Upper streets. At that day Newtown had four taverns. The property ou State street, in recent years. T. Wilson Miller's, was owned by John Torbert, and kept by Jacob Kessler, who married Doctor DeNormandies' widow. It next came into the possession of Asa Carey, who called it "Bird in Hand. "11 then to his widow Tamar, whose ginger cakes gained great celebrity. To his duties as landlord Mr. Carey added those of postmaster. The temperance house was kept by one Dettero, then by Samuel Heath, and next by Samuel Hinkle, a German, who was the standing court-interpreter, and, in his absence, his wife officiated.1114 The property at one time belonged to General Murray but the name under which it was kept is lost. Hinkle moved from there to the Brick hotel, whose history
BRICK HOTEL, NEWTOWN.
II This house is called in ancient conveyances "Old tavern" and the "Old house." The house next north of it is called "the Justice's house." In ollen times, "Bird in Hand" occurred among the trades tokens, and represented the proverb "one bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." It was literally rendered by a hand holding a bird.
11'i When Hinkle made application for license for this house. August term. 1821, it was spoken of as "The sign of coach and. horse." The western end had not yet beer, built and the eastern or main part was only two stories high.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
will be given elsewhere. The fourth tavern stood on the east side of Court street, near the court-house, and is now a private dwelling. It was built, 1792, and called "Court Inn." It belonged at one time to Joseph Thornton, but the last keeper was a Wilkinson, who gained celebrity in nicking and setting horses tails. One large room, known as the "Grand Jury Room," was used as a ball room, and in it the late Colonel Elias Gilkyson first met the lady he married. Joseph Briggs bought the Court Inn, 1817, and used it as a dwelling ; though large, his family found it none too large, as lie had five or six children of his own, two unmarried sisters and one of his wife's lived with him.
In early life Joseph Briggs owned a hat manufactory, possibly left him by his father, but while quite young, had retired with a comfortable fortune, and the rest of his days lived the life of a country gentleman. He was something of a student, spending much of his time in reading, and for his day, had quite a good library, the books relating mostly to the Society of Friends. Besides several other town lots, he owned farm lands in Newtown township, which he kept in charge of overseers. He was a son of Jolin and Letitia Buekman Briggs, and descended from several prominent families of the neighborhood, the Croasdales, Hardings, Penquites, etc. His wife, Martha Dawes, was a daughter of John and Alice ( Janney ) Dawes, of Lebanon township, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, but of Bucks county descent, among her ancestors being the Wilkinsons, Goves. Mitchells, ete. The Court Inn was sold after his death, by his heirs. In his time the lot ran along Bridge street, afterward Sullivan, now Centre avenue, the eastern end, beyond Court street, being then called "Back Lane," by those living along it up to Congress street. The Inn, itself, was subsequently used for a school room, but within the last ten years, was turned into a store.
Ninety years ago Newtown was still the county seat, with the stone jail, court-house, and "row offices" on the green. It was the polling-place for the middle and lower end of the county, and the second Tuesday of October was made a day of frolic and horse-racing, accompanied by many free fights. The streets were lined with booths, where cakes, pies, and beer. large and small, were freely sold. Newtown in early times, was the seat of public fairs, at which the whites and blacks from the surrounding country gathered to make merry, in large numbers. Isaac Hicks, justice of the peace for many years, lived on Main street below Carey's tavern, and dressed in breeches. Charles Hinkle kept the Brick hotel, and was succeeded by Joseph Archambault about 1825. The two principal stores were James Raguet's, 1112 a French exile, who died suddenly in Philadelphia in 1818, and Joseph Whitalls, who kept where Jesse Heston did. and failed before 1820. Count Lewis, another French exile, died at Raguet's house in 1818. James Raguet's son Henry, born February 10. 1796. died at Marshall, Texas, December 1, 1877. lle settled at Cincinnati, Ohio, early in life and was a merchant several years. Ile went to Texas, 1832, and settled at Natchitoches, When the Texan war broke out with Mexico, 1835, he was prom- inent in the movement in Eastern . Texas, and General Houston's celebrated letter of April 19. 1836, announeing his intention of meeting the enemy, was addressed to Raguet. This was on the eve of the battle of San Jacinto, the decisive action of the war. He was one of the leading and most patriotic citi- zens of the state, and noted for his generosity and enterprise. He left a widow and several children. it a later period Jolly Longshore became a famous New-
1112 Raguet was in Newtown as early as 1785 He married Anna Wynkoop. August 17, 1700
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town storekeeper. He bought out Raguet's sons immediately after the war of 1812, and continued in the business many years. The Raguet store was in the two-story brick where Paxson Pursell kept, and what was later known as the "Middle store" was Raguet's wagon-house, on the opposite side of the street. The leading physicians were Doctors Jenks, Moore, Plumly, and Gordon, all men of note in their day. Moore was as deaf as an adder, Plumly fond of spirits, and Gordon, who lived two miles from town, and was a tall, handsome man, was a zealous advocate of temperance. Doctor Jenks practiced medicine in Newtown about forty years, and died there.
The Newtown library, one of the oldest institutions in the village, was es- tablished, 1760. August 9, a meeting was held at the public house of Joseph Thornton, and Jonathan Du Bois, Abraham Chapman, Amos Strickland, David Twining and Henry Margerum were chosen the first board of directors, with John Harris, treasurer, and Thomas Chapman, secretary. The books were first kept at Thornton's house, and he was made librarian. On the list of original subscribers, twenty-one in number, who paid one pound each, is the name of Joseph Galloway. The library was incorporated March 27, 1789, under the name of the "Newtown Library Company," and it is still kept up. In 1824. a new building was erected at an expense of $106.66. by subscription. the bal- ance appropriated from the treasury. Dr. David Hutchinson was the most active man. The mason work was done for ninety cents a day, and Edward Hicks, whose bill was one dollar, doubtless painted the sign with Franklin's likeness on it, and a latin motto over the door. The latter we have not been able to find. It is thought the books were kept in the old court house, and when that was taken down necessity compelled the crection of a new library building. A new one was erected. 1882, at a cost of $1,600. By the will of the late Joseph Barnsley, the library company will receive $15,000 at the widow's death for the purpose of establishing a free reading room; $5.000 to be used for the erection of the building. In 1897 the library company held its one hundred and thirty-seventh annual meeting. attended by one hundred and forty-one share- holders. A Masonic lodge was instituted March 4th, 1793, by authority of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. The officers were Reading Beatty, master ; James Hanna, senior, and Nicholas Wynkoop, junior warden. The members numbered fifty-seven. Authority was given to hold the lodge at Newtown, or within five miles of that place.
The Newtown academy played an important part in the cause of education in that section, and was the first school of a high grade established in the county." It educated many teachers, and for a number of years, with the Presbyterian pastor at its head, was the right arm of the church.13 It is said the first teacher of grammar in Buckingham township was educated there. The pastor and other friends of education applied for a charter, 1794, the site was bought, 1706, and the building erected, 1798, at a cost of four thousand dollars, The charter was surrendered; 1852, and the building sokl. Previous to its erection the public buildings were used for school purposes. The Academy lan- guished in the first thirty years of its existence, but it was revived about 1820. In
12 The Newtown academy was the ninth in the state, and $1.000 were appropriated toward its erection. The charter provided that the trustees shall cause ten poor children to he taught gratis at one time.
13 From the church and school there went forth about 25 ministers of the gospel, to all parts of the country .
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 217
1806 it was in charge of one P. Steele, who made great pretensions to teach elocution, but it amounted to little. The Reverend Alexander Boyd was prin- cipal for several years, and among other names who taught there may be men- tioned Messrs. Nathaniel Furman, Doak, Fleming. Trimble, Mckinney, Wil- liam B. Keyser. Lemuel Parsons, James I. Bronson,14 president of Washington (Pennsylvania) college, and others. Three quarters of a century ago the teacher of Latin was Josiah Scott, a young graduate of Jefferson college, but a distinguished lawyer, and a judge of the supreme court of Ohio. Josiah Chap- man opened a select boarding-school for girls in Newtown, IS17. July 10, 1829, Jolin Taylor Strawbridge, student at the Academy. was drowned in Nesha- miny while swimming across with his preceptor, Mr. Fairfield.13
The land of Amos Strickland. an early owner of the Brick hotel, lay out along Washington avenue, then called Strickland's lane, a well-known race course when the courts and elections were held at Newtown. In 1784, after his death, eight acres of his real estate, divided into twenty-seven lots, were sold at public sale by Sheriff Dean. They embraced that part of the town south of Washington avenue and east of Sycamore street. Strickland was a farmer in Newtown township several years. He bought the Brick hotel, then called Red Lion, 1760, and 1763 built a two-story brick, which he kept.
Joseph Archambault, many years owner and keeper of the Brick hotel, which he bought of Joseph Longshore, an ex-officer of the great Napoleon, came to Newtown about 1821. At first he worked at the trade of tin-smith in the old Odd Fellows' hall, but afterward studied dentistry and practiced it sev- eral years while he kept the hotel. He was an enterprising business man, and acquired considerable real estate in the village, including the large square bounded by Main. Washington avenue. Liberty, and the street that runs west over the upper bridge. In 1835 he laid out this square into building lots, fifty- three in number, and sold them at public sale. On it have since been erected some of the handsomest dwellings in the village. He gave the land on which old Newtown hall stood, and was instrumental in having it built. It grew out of the excitement that attended the preaching of Frederick Plummer in the lower part of the county in 1830-35, whose followers were called "Christians" and "Plummerites." It was built for a free church, 16 and was maintained until recent years, when it was taken down and a public hall built on its site. Fred- erick Plummer first made his advent in this county at Bristol, coming by invita- tion of Edward Badger. father of Bela Badger, who was acquainted with hin in Connecticut and was one of his followers. This was about 1817. About 1820 a church was built for him half a mile above Tullytown. He first preached in
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