USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 33
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Samuel A. Smith and wife, Oxford, Chester county, Pennsylvania, son of General Samuel Smith, celebrated their golden wedding, November 6, 1877. There was a large company present, embracing four generations of the Smith family. At that time Samuel A. Smith had three brothers living, George A., Zion Hill, Maryland ; Andrew J., United States Army, and Jenks Smith, Phila- delphia. Among the guests was a Mrs. Waddleton, New York, a sister of Mrs. Smith, and bridesmaid at the wedding fifty years before. The occasion was one of great family interest. George A. Smith died at Zion Hill, January 7, 1879, in his 85th year. The deceased was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati.
Thomas Canby, son of Benjamin, of Thorn, Yorkshire, England, born about 1667, came to Pennsylvania in 1683, as an indentured apprentice of Henry Baker, and was in Buckingham before, or by, 1690. He bought part of the 1.undy tract, near Centreville, and married Sarah Jarvis, in 1693. He was mar- ried three times, and was the father of seventeen children. Selling the Lundy property to Samuel Baker, he purchased part of the Scarborough tract in Sole- bury, including the Stavely farm, which he sold to his two sons, Thomas and Benjamin, and afterward bought Heath's mills on the Great Spring creek, near New Hope, where he died in 1742. His descendants are nearly numerous enough to people a state. Among the families who have descended, in part, from this ancestry are the Laceys, Hamptons, Smiths, Elys, Fells, Staplers, Gillinghams, Paxsons, Wilsons, Eastburns, Johnsons, Watsons, Pickerings, Parrys, Newbolds, Magills, Duers, Prices, Tysons, etc., etc.
William Cooper,"12 one of the earliest settlers of Buckingham, was descended from an ancestor of the same name, of Nether, sometimes called Low Elling- ton, a hamlet on the river Vre, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. He was born August 16, 1649, and in the registry of his marriage at Masham the name is written, "Cowper." He immigrated to Pennsylvania, 1699, and probably came first to Falls, but settled in Buckingham the same year. His wife's name was Thomasine, whom he married about 1672, three years before he joined the Friends, by whom he had eight children, all of whom came to America with him. He purchased five hundred acres from Christopher Atkinson, who died before the deed was made, but, under the will. the title was confirmed by his widow, Margaret, "of Belmont, of Bensalem." In this conveyance the name is written Cowper, as it is in the parish record of England. Friends' meeting, in Buckingham, was first held at his house. This carly settler died, 1709. His children mar- ried into the families of Buckman, Huddleston, Hibbs, Pearson and Bond. The family here recorded is not identical with that of Cooper, the novelist. His ancestor, James Cooper, settled in Philadelphia in 1683, and then owned the lot on which the deeds office stood on Chestnut street, opposite the custom- house. He was probably a brother of William Cooper, of Coleshill, Hertford- shire, England, born 1632, died 1710, who settled at Pine point, now Camden, New Jersey, in 1679. with his wife Margaret and five children. Some of his descendants and relatives married into Bucks county families, his daughter Hannah to John Woolston. 1681, and his nephew, William Cooper, to Mary Groom, of Southampton. Their son James married Hannah Hibbs in 1750,
was. Captain, 1848, and served through the Civil war reaching the rank of brevet major. general. He was appointed colonel 7th U. S. Cavalry after the war, and was retired 1889.
(': In "Bessies' Sufferings," vol. 2, p. 171. we read that in 1690 William Cooper, of Yorkshire, was fined es, 6d. This was our Buckingham William.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and another of their sons, Thomas, married Phoebe Hibbs, and lived many year- in Solebury, where he died at the close of the nineteenth century. Hannah Hibbs was the grandmother of James Fenimore Cooper, who thus descends of a Bucks county family in the maternal line. In 1723, and for some years iol- lowing, his ancestor owned one hundred and fifty acres of land near Quaker- town. James Cooper, the grandfather of Fenimore, took by bequest, under the will of his uncle Samuel, in 1750, "ye plantation att Buckingham that Nathan Preston did claire out of ye woods ;" and his brother Thomas took by the same will "the plantation that William Preston did claire out of ye woods." These were grandsons of James Cooper, who died in 1732, having lived fiity years after his arrival in America, and descendants of two Bucks county mothers. The first wife of James Cooper. of Philadelphia, was Sarah Dunning. of Southampton. More recent inquiry proves that the ancestor of the novelist was probably born in 1645, at Bolton, in Lancashire.10
The Byes were in the township before the close of the century. In 1699 Thomas Bye bought some six hundred acres of Edward Crews, Nathaniel Park and others, laid out by John Cutler, October 6, 1701, It ran down to the mountain. The land Crews and Park conveyed to Bye was granted to them, 1681, but they were probably never residents of the township. He received two hundred and fifty acres from each of them, and one hundred acres from Samuel Martin, part of three hundred acres that Park conveyed to him. The Bye tract was bounded by lands of Richard Lundy, James Streater, John Scarborough, and vacant lands. The 5th of March, 1702. Nathaniel Bye, son of Thomas, bought two hundred and fifty acres of Edward Simpkins, of South- wark, England, for fo, lying in Buckingham, and, in 1706, Thomas conveyed the six hundred acre tract to his son Nathaniel. but it was not to be sold during the lifetime of the grantor and his wife. The grandson of the first Thomas Bye, also Thomas, died in Buckingham, December 27, 1827, in his 88th year.
Hezekiah Bye married Sarah, daughter of William Pettitt, who owned the mill at. or near, the Ingham spring. Some years after they removed to Centre county, where their daughter, Charity, born 1780, married James Packer, and became the mother of several children, one of whom. William F. Packer, was elected Governor of Pennsylvania, 1857. Hezekiah Bve was a noted hunter. Late in life he and his wife removed to Ohio, where they died. A daughter of Governor Packer married Elisha Ellis, member of the Easton bar. The late Mary Bye, of Buckingham, was thought to have been a lineal descendant of Thomas Bye, the immigrant.
The 3d of May, 1702, three hundred acres were laid off in Buckingham to Edward Hartly, by virtue of a warrant dated December 31. ITOI. This was
10 The Oswego (New York) Times, of May 3, 1849, contains the following obi- tuary notice of a Bucks county Cooper : "James Cooper died at eight o'clock last even- ing at the residence of his son, C. C. Cooper, esquire, of this city, after a short illness, in the ninety-seventh year of his age, having been born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the 6th of March, 1753. He was a brother of the late Judge William Cooper, and uncle of James Fenimore Cooper. Till within a few days Mr. Cooper retained in a remarkable degree the powers and faculties of an athletic frame and strong intellect. He emphati- cally belonged to the iron race of the Revolution, to an age gone by, and was the friend and intimate acquaintance of Washington. At the commencement of the Revolution he served in the navy of Pennsylvania, and subsequently in the militia of his native state, participating in the hard fought battles of Monmouth and Germantown."
1
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
part of a twenty-five hundred aere tract that Penn conveyed to John Rowland, who, dying intestate, his brother took the land and conveyed to Hartly. Before 1702 Paul Wolf. Stephen Beaks and John Scarborough were landholders in the township. A thousand acres were surveyed to Isaac Decow11 as early as about 1688, which bounded Richard Lundy's land on the eastern line at its upper corner, and, 1689, three hundred acres were surveyed to Henry Paulin, unkler a warrant dated May 3. 1686.
The Paxson family came into Buckingham from Solebury, where the an- cestor, Henry,12 settled in 1704. His father, William Paxson, from Bucking- hamshire. settled in Middletown in 1682, whence the son removed. Thomas Pax- son, of Buckingham, was the fifth in descent from Henry, who settled in Sole- bury, through Jacob, his fourth son and second wife, Sarah Shaw, of Plum- stead, whom he married in 1777. But two of Jacob Paxson's large family of children became residents of Bucks county, Thomas, who married Ann, a granddaughter of William Johnson, and was the father of ex-Judge Edward M. Paxson, of the State Supreme Court, and Mary, who married William H. Johnson and died, 1862. William Johnson was born in Ireland, and received a good education. He came to Pennsylvania after his majority, bringing with him an extensive library for the times, settled in Bucks county, married Ann Potts, and removed to South Carolina, where he died at the age of thirty-five. His sons were all cultivated men, Thomas becoming an eminent lawyer. and dying at New Hope, 1838. Samuel, the youngest son, spent his life in Buck- ingham, married Martha Hutchinson, and died, 18.43. He was a poet of con- siderable distinction.
The Watsons came into the township the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury. Thomas Watson, the first of the name, a malster from Cumberland, England, settled near Bristol, at a place called "Honey Hill," about 1701. with his wife and sons Thomas and John. He brought a certificate from Friends' meeting at Pardsay Cragg, dated 7th month, 23d, 1701. He married Eleanor Pearson, of Robank, in Yorkshire. In 1704 he removed to Buckingham on four hundred and fifty acres bought of the sons of John Hough (who were devisees of Francis Rossil. the Philadelphia merchant), bounded on the northwest by the York road.1212 Being a man of intelligence he turned his attention to medicine, and there being no physician within several miles, he grew into a large practice before his death, in 1731 or 1732. He was interested in the education of the Indians, and. it is said, kept a school for them, but lost his most promising pupils by small-pox. Of his sons, Jolin. a man of strong and well cultivated intellect, and of greater medical knowledge, took his father's place, was a suc- cessful practitioner, and died in 1760. He was sixteen years a member of As- sembly. Thomas, the eldest son, died before his father. His son John, born about -1720, finished his education at Jacob Taylor's Academy, Philadelphia, and became one of the most eminent men in the Province. He was a distin- guished mathematician and surveyor, and assisted to run the line between Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, and was noted for his elegant penman- ship. He died, 1761, in his forty-second year, at William Blackfan's, and was buried at Buckingham. The newspapers of the day expressed great regret at
11 Probably a misnomer. Surveyed by Christopher Taylor.
12 Was in the Assembly in 1705-1707.
1216 He refused to survey the tract on Penn's warrant without consent of the Indians.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
his death.13 John Watson was secretary for Governor Morris at the Indian treaty, Easton, 1756. Franklin had promised to find the Governor a good pen- man, and mentioned Mr. Watson. When the Governor's party passed up the York road, Mr. Watson was out mending fence, barefooted, but, on invitation to accompany them, threw down his ax and walked to Easton without prepara- tion for the journey. He engrossed the treaty on parchment, and his penman- ship elicited great admiration. Franklin says that after the treaty was engrossed the Governor took off his hat to Watson and said to liim: "Since I first saw you I have been trying to make out what you are. I now have it. You are the greatest hypocrite in the world." He was a large, heavy man, with a forbid- ding appearance. He was both a scholar and a poet and spoke good extempore verse. It is stated that on one occasion an Irishman, indicted for stealing a halter, asked Mr. Watson to defend him, who consented. The testimony was positive, but he addressed the jury in fine extempore poetry, beginning :
"Indulgent Nature generously bestows All creatures knowledge of their mortal foes," etc.,
and the fellow was acquitted. A memorandum of John Watson states that he grafted two apple trees with the "New York syder apple" in February, 1757, on his farm in Buckingham. Thomas Penn wanted him to accept the office of Surveyor-General, 1700, but he declined.
On the back of one of the sheets of "Cutler's Survey," 1703, found among the papers of Jolin Watson, Jr., was the drawing of a bee hive with a recipe to keep millers from the bees -- "induce them to light on the end of a pole," but nothing more; also a recipe to preserve the taste of cider-"put four ounces of pearl ash into a barrel of cider when pretty well worked, and it will not turn sour." Watson also made use of the back of a surveying book for a good deal of general scribbling, and, on one of them, we found a copy of Dr. John Wat- son's famous pastoral of the "Jolly Boatman :"
"The jolly boatman, down the ebbing stream, By the clear moonlight, plies his easy way. With prosp'rous fortune to inspire his theme, Sings a sweet farewell to the parting day."
These were among the Longstreth papers placed in our hands while pre- paring the revised edition of Bucks county. The Longstreths and Watsons were warm friends.14
13 The coast-survey office is now engaged in collecting material to publish the biography of the surveyors who run Mason and Dixon's line, of which John Watson was one. He had previously run the line between the Penns and Maryland, but while engaged on the Mason and Dixon line he contracted the influenza that proved fatal. He caught a severe cold on a warm day, and such was his anxiety to reach home he dropped everything and hastened to William Blackian's. Solebury, riding over 60 miles in one day, where he died. His will is dated Sth, 1th month, 1760, and probated Sept. 1, 1761. There was a pathetic side to John Watson's last illness. He was engaged to Mr. Blackfan's daughter, Hannah, and his anxiety to see her induced him to make the ride that hast- ened his death. He left to her a large share of his estate, out of a sincere friendship, and honorable esteem he entertained for her."
14 In Buckingham. May 5, 1816. Euphemia, wife of John Watson, and daughter of the late Dr. Jonathan Ingham, aged 40 years.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Among those who came into the township about the time of Thomas Wat- son were Matthew Hughes, Joseph Fell, the Lintons, John Hill, Ephraim Fen- ton, Isaac Pennington and William Pickering. Matthew Hughes was in the Assembly for several years, was a member, 1725, and commissioned a justice in 1738. He was a man of ability and great integrity of character, and much esteemed.
Joseph Fell, ancestor of the Fells of this county, son of John and Margaret l'ell, was born at Longlands, in the parish of Rockdale, county of Cumber- land, England, October 19, 1668. His father died when he was two years old. lle learned the trade of carpenter and joiner with John Bond, of Wheelbarrow hill, near Carlisle, and worked at it as long as he remained in England. He married Elizabeth Wilson, of Cumberland, at the age of thirty, and in 1705 immigrated to America with his wife and two children. They sailed in the Cumberland, making the capes of Virginia in twenty-nine days from Belfast. Landing at the mouth of the Potomac, they made their way by land and water via Choptank, Frenchtown and New Castle, where they took boat for Bristol in this county. He lived in Upper Makefield a few months, and then removed to Buckingham, 1706, where he died. About 1709 he married his second wife, Elizabeth Doyle, of Irish and New England. parentage, but born in this county, with whom he lived the rest of his life. He was the father of eleven children, and left thirty-five grandchildren, his children marrying into the families of Scarborough, Kinsey, Watson, Haines, Kirk, Church and Heston. He was the ancestor of Joseph Fell, of Buckingham.
J. Gillingham Fell, long a resident of Philadelphia, where he died October 27, 1878, was born at Mechanicsville, Buckingham township, November, 1816. He was the son of William Fell and Mary Gillingham. At his father's death his mother married Dr. John Wilson, who was a father to the two orphan children of William Fell. After receiving his education, Gillingham Fell turned his attention to civil engineering, and, among his early work, was estab- lishing the lines and grades of Doylestown at its incorporation, 1838. After spending some time on the Island of Cuba, he went into the Lehigh coal region, and formed a business connection with the late Ario Pardee, which continued to Mr. Fell's death, and resulted profitably. He accumulated large wealth, and was highly esteemed. His private charities were numerous. Mr. Fell married Amanda, daughter of John Ruckman, Solebury, and they were the parents of two children, a son and daughter. The former is deceased, the lat- ter is the wife of the son of the late Bishop Howe. Mrs. Fell died February 7, 1900, in her SIst year.
Jesse Fell, son of Thomas and Jane, and a descendant of Joseph Fell, the elder, born in Buck- ingham, April 16, 1751, was the first person to make a successful experiment of burning anthracite coal in a grate. About 1790 he removed to Wilkes- Barre, Luzerne county, where he became a respected citizen, held several county offices, including Asso- ciate-Judge, and died August 11, 1830. He had CREST OF THE FELLS. burnt hard coal in a nailery, and was satisfied it would burn in a grate if it were properly constructed. He and his nephew, Edward Fell, made an iron grate, that was set in the fire-place of his bar-room the afternoon of February It. 1808. His attempts had attracted considerable attention, and created no little merriment among his neighbors. Ile invited
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
several of them to come and witness the experiment, but only two came from fear of being hoaxed. Among others he invited the Honorable Thomas Cooper, then President-Judge of the Courts, and afterward president of South Carolina College, to stop at his tavern on his way home. He did so and saw a nice coal- fire burning in the grate. Judge Cooper, it is said, became angry on seeing he had been anticipated in the discovery, and walked the floor, muttering to himself, that it was strange an illiterate man like Fell should discover what he had tried in vain to find out. Mr. Fell made a memorandum of the successful experiment on the fly-leaf of "The Mason's Monitor," which he signed with his name and date.
The Carvers, who came into the township early, are probably descended from William, the second of three brothers who came over, 1082, and settled in Byberry, Philadelphia county. John, the eldest brother, took up six hundred and ninety acres on Poquessing creek, in the northeast part of the township. The homestead remained in the family for six generations, until 1864. It is claimed that his eldest daughter, Mary, was born in a cave on the site of Phila- delphia, the first white child born of English parents in the Province. John Carver planted two pear trees which he brought with him from England, which are said to have been standing a few years ago. Several of John Carver's descendants married into Bucks county families, his grandson John to Rachel Naylor, Southampton, one great-grandson, John, to Mary Buckman, Wrights- town, and another, Mahlon, to Amy Pickering, Solebury. The latter was born, 1754. and kept the Anchor tavern at one time. William Carver traded his farm in Byberry to Silas Wahnsly for land in Buckingham, near Bushington. Ilis eldest son, William, married a daughter of Henry Walmsly and removed to Buckingham, but we do not know whether the father did. The latter's wife dying. 1692, he married again and had four children. Either the father or son is supposed to have built the Green Tree tavern at Bushington. Among the descendants of William Carver and Elizabeth Walmsly is Elias Carver, of Doylestown. Thomas Parsons took up five hundred acres, which were sur- veyed to him April 6, 1700. George Claypole owned eleven hundred acres, mostly in Buckingham, which formerly belonged to one Mary Crap. This tract probably extended into the eastern edge of Doylestown township.
In 1700 the quarterly meeting granted leave to the Buckingham Friends to hold a meeting for worship, which was first held at the house of William Cooper, alternating at John Gillingham's. James Streater's and Nathaniel Bye's. In 1705 Streator conveyed ten acres, in trust, to build a meeting-house on, and for a burying ground, with the privilege of roads to get to it. This was the lot where the meeting-house now stands. On the west side of the road that wound up the hill, and near the lower side of the graveyard, a small log meeting-house was soon afterward built." On the establishment of a monthly meeting, 1721. a new frame house was built a little further up the slope of the hill. In 1731 a stone house, with a stone addition one story high for the use of the women. was built still higher up the hill. Some wanted to build where the present house stands, but prejudice for the old spot was too strong. In this house, 1732.
15 In June, 1705, Buckingham Friends notified Falls meeting they intended to bull a meeting-house, and asked their advice, when Stephen Wilson and John Watson were appointed to collect money among Friends af Buckingham The house was commence. thet year, but not being finished by September. 1708. Falls meeting appointed Thomas Greater and Thomas Watson "to get done with speed."
BUCKINGHAM MEETING HOUSE.
Buckingham Friends held their first monthly meeting. It caught fire April 8, 1768, from a stove during meeting, and was burned down. The present house was erected the same season at a cost of £736, 14s, 172d., a fine old-fashioned stone edifice, forty by seventy feet, two stories high, with a panel partition to separate the women from the men. 16 Until the new house was built and ready to occupy, First-day meetings were held at the house of Benjamin Williams, near by.17
The meeting-house was used as a hospital a portion of the Revolutionary war, and several soldiers were buried about where the turnpike crosses the hill, some of whose remains were uncovered when the pike was made. On meeting days the soldiers put one-half the house in order for Friends. many of them attending service. The only monthly meeting held out of the house during the war was February 1, 1777. in Thomas Ellicott's blacksmith shop. Buckingham Friends were among the earliest to see the evil effects of the use of whiskey at vendues, and the monthly meeting of April. 1724, reported against the prac- tice. In 1756 the meeting bore testimony against war by advising all Friends "not to be concerned in a military match, by attending in person or paying toward it." Two years afterward John Love was "dealt with" for enlisting as a soldier in the king's service. The two old horse blocks remaining, one at each end of the meeting-house, were built at the time the house was. 1768. Then the young people of both sexes went to meeting on horseback, the general way of traveling from home.
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The record of births, deaths and marriages go back to 1720. From 1725 to 1734 Buckingham and Wrightstown had a joint meeting at the house of the former, where the marriages of the two meetings were celebrated. The first was that of Thomas Lancaster to Phoebe Wardell, both of Wrightstown. Oc- tober 10. 1725, and the second. Zebulon Heston, uncle of General Lacey, to Elizabeth Buckman. Newtown. During these ten years there were fifty-five marriages, and, among the parties, are the familiar names of Large, Paxson,
16 The mason work and plastering were done by Mathias Hutchinson, of Solebury, and the carpenter work by Edward Good, of Plumstead, father of Nathan Good.
1; The farm belonging in recent years to Robert Ach, and an hundred years ago to Benjamin Kinsey, was part of the Bars us treet. It is related that a wild deer one day allied ato the old meeting house, Locked round at the people and walked out again.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Fell, Chapman, Preston, Janney, etc, etc. Among the members of this meet- ing, who were active in the ministry in former times, may be mentioned John Scarborough, born in Buckingham, about 1713, and died, 1769, Jolin Simpson, born in Falls, 1739, removed to Buckingham when an infant, and died, 1811, on a ministerial visit to Ohio; Samuel Eastburn, Benjamin Fell, Elizabeth Fell, Phoebe Ely and Ann Sehofield. Ann Moore, a native of Bucks county, but we do not know that Buckingham was her birthplace, liv- ing in Byberry, about 1750, was one of the most celebrated preachers of the day. She was brought up without much education, and married unfortunately, but she conquered all difficulty in the way and became a powerful preacher. Doctor John Watson said of her that the "truths of the gospel flowed from her tongue in language, accents and periods somewhat resembling the style of the poems of Ossian." She and her husband moved to Byberry, 1750, where they resided four years when they removed to Maryland.
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