USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 34
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While the yellow fever prevailed in Philadelphia, 1793, Jesse Blackfan and Benjamin Ely, merchants of that city, brought their goods up to the Bucking- ham school-house, still standing on the mecting-house lot, in the second story of which they opened and kept store until it was safe to return to the city. The meeting to form the first agricultural society organized in the county was held in this school-house.
William Lacy, the immediate ancestor of the family in Bucks county bcar- ing this name, was an early settler in Buckingham near the line of Wrights- town. He came from the Isle of Wight. England. but we neither know the time of his arrival nor where he first settled. He was a member of the Society of Friends. In 1701 William Penn granted to William Parlet and William Derrick, a tract of 292 acres, but this grant not having been confirmed, and Parlet and Derrick meanwhile dying, Penn granted the land to William Lacey, the son-in-law of Parlet, the conveyance being dated 1718, and the land was surveyed to him. The original order of Penn, to Parlet and Derrick, dated at Pennsbury located the "tract" near "Wrightstown." Their names appear on Cutler's resurvey, 1703. In 1718 William Lacey conveyed to his son John, seventy-three acres, and an additional one hundred and twenty acres 1733, and in 1726, one hundred acres to his son Thomas, making in all two hundred and ninety-three acres. The stream known as "Randall's Run," runs through the tract. We are not informed as to the names of other children of William Lacey, if he had any besides the two sons mentioned. A mill was built on the property, 1743, by John and Thomas Lacey and is now known as the "Vande- grift" mill. It was owned many years by the Carver family.
In 1718. John Lacey, son of William, married Rachel Heston, of New Eng- land descent, whose family had come to Bucks county a few years prior. John and Rachel ( Heston) Lacey had a family of eleven children, five dying in their minority and three marrying : Rachel to John Terry, 1738, John to Jane Chap- man, 1746, and Joseph to Esther Warner. December 7. 1748. John Lacey, son of John and Jane (Chapman) Lacey and grandson of John and Rachel Lacey, was the most conspicuous member of the family. During the Revolution he was in both the military and civil service of the Colonies, being a captain in the Continental army, and Brigadier General of militia in active service, and member of Assembly, and of the State Executive Committee, and held other places of public trust. He married a daughter of Colonel Thomas Reynolds, Burlington county, New Jersey, and one of their daughters, Kitty, became the wife of Dr. William Darlington, the distinguished botanist of Chester county.
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 257
General Lacey was born in Buckingham, 4th of 12th month, 1752, and died at New Mills, Burlington county, New Jersey, February 17, 1814.
The Lacey homestead, built either by William Parlet, William Derrick, or William Lacey, was in the Lacey family until within about fifty years. It was standing until 1877, on the farm of Charles T. Bewley, part of the original tract, and at that time was probably the oldest house in the county. It was built 1705 or 1706, was still used as a dwelling, and quite comfortable. It was built of logs clapboarded, with a great chim- neystack in the middle, the eaves coming down al- most to the ground and all the rooms on one floor. Mr. Bewley, a descend- ant of Williamn La- . p.Q. cey, was the owner OLDEST HOUSE IN BUCKS COUNTY, WRIGHTSTOWN. of the old family bible printed at Cambridge, England, 1630. If this old dwelling had possessed "the gift of tongues," it could have told a more interesting story of the past than any pen can write. This venerable dwelling was taken down on a Saturday after- noon in the spring of 1877. Mr. Bewley invited a number of his neighbors to as- sist at the obsequies, and after it had been laid low, a lunch was served. The main timbers were of black oak, and the boards, used inside, of the toughest red cedar. The timbers were generally sound. The property is now owned by John B. Malloy. I visited the Lacey house twenty years ago accompanied by the late Thomas P. Otter, artist, who made a correct drawing on the spot, painted it on canvas from which the picture that illustrates this page was made. In this house General John Lacey was born.
The earliest boundary of Buckingham that we have seen is that entered of record the 15th of September, 1722, and was substantially as at present. How long the township had been laid out with this boundary is not known. The only change noticed is on the southwest side by the formation of Doylestown, and the taking in of some lands across Little Neshaminy. The following is the boundary given : "It shall begin at a corner by a street which lies between the said Buckingham township and Solebury township, and to run from thence S. W. by line of marked trees, 1.493 perches to a corner by Claypole's land ; thence N. W. by the said Claypole's 430 perches to a corner ; thence S. W. 210 perches to a corner ; thence N. W. by John Rodman's land 1.oGo perches to a corner by the Society land : thence N. E. by the said Society's land 390 perches to a corner ; thence N. W .. by the same, 547 perches to another corner ; thence N. E. by Richard Hill's and Christopher Day's land 953 perches to another corner : thence N. W. 80 perches to a corner by Thomas Brown's land ; thence N. E. 300 perches to another corner ; thence by the said street 2.484 perches to
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the first-mentioned corner, the place of beginning." We met with an old map of Buckingham, dated 1726, which embraced the whole of the township from the Solebury hne to the west end of the mountain. On it is marked the York road, "falsely so called," the Durham road to "Ephraim Fenton's land" above Centre- ville, and a few other things of no special interest. All but a single tract of land is marked with the owners' name, twenty in all.1> Another old map, drawn a few years later by John Watson, the surveyor, of the Israel Pemberton tract, embraces the territory from about Bushington to the Warwick line. The only two enclosed portions are those of A. Mckinstry, three hundred and twenty-seven acres and twenty-eight perches, and Mr. Watson's, four hundred and seventeen acres and one hundred and thirty-four perches. The tract is now divided into twelve or fifteen farms. Doctor John Rodman bounded it on the Warwick side, and William Corbet and Ely Welding in Wrightstown. The quality of the soil is marked in several places, and the map has on it "a branch of Hickory Ilill run," and Roberts' now Robin run. Like all of Mr. Watson's work, the map is elegantly drawn. The Street road which separates Bucking- ham from Solebury, was projected about the time the lands on the line of the two townships were surveyed, and was probably run by Phineas Pemberton, county-surveyor, 1700.
The Idens had been in the county many years before they made their ap- pcarance in Buckingham. Randall Iden, the first of the name we meet with, was probably married as early as 1690. In 1710 his daughter Dorothy married William Stogdale, an ancestor of the Buntings on the female side, and, on the 16th of June, 1724, a Randall Iden, Bristol township, probably the son of the former, married Margaret Greenfield, "Middle township." Randall Iden, grand- father of the late James C. Buckingham, son of Jacob, Rockhill, married Eleanor, daughter of Samuel Foulke, Richland, March 9, 1772. Their mar- riage certificate contains the names of twelve Foulkes and thirteen Robertses. The great-grandfather of James C. Iden, on the maternal side, was John Chap- man, of Wrightstown.
The Worthingtons1 claim descent from three brothers, John, Samuel and Thomas, who settled in Byberry about 1705. John married Mary Walmsly. 1720, who died 1754. and he 1777. They had eleven children : Elizabeth, born I, 15, 1721 ; Mary ; Thomas; Hannah ; John ; William; Isaac, Joseph, Martha, Benjamin, and Esther, who married into the families of Tomlinson. Duncan, Homer, Carver. Malone and others. William, Isaac and Joseph Worthington removed to Buckingham, where William died, 1816; Isaac went to Chester county, 1783 ; and died there 1800, and Joseph, born 1737, died 1822, and his
18 Names of land-owners: Ephraim Fenton, Samuel Hough, John Preston. George Howard. Joseph Fell. T. Worral, Isaac Pennington, Mercy Phillips, John Harford. Jacob Holcomb. Thomas Gilbert, Thoms Parsons, John Fell, Joseph Large, Edmund Kinsey, Matthew Hewes, James Lenox, Richard Lundy and Nathaniel Bye.
19 The name "Worthington" in an old one in Lancashire, England, whence the family came. The etymology is said to be three Sakon words, Worth-in-ton, i. e., Farm- in-Town. There is a town of Worthington in Lancaster, 20 miles north of Liverpool, where the family lived many generations. It can be traced to Worthington de Worthing- ton, zoth of Henry ill. There are many Worthingtons in Ohio, possibly descendants of Thomas, son ci Richard, who settled there. The town of Worthington, a few miles from Columbus, was intended to be the State capital, but influence located it on the bank of the Sciota.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
wife, Esther, 1828. The Buckingham Worthingtons claim immediate descent from Richard, who settled in the township, 1750, purchased land of Thomas Lacey and died 1806. Their children were Mahlon, born 12, 19, 1750, John, Joseph, Mary, Thomas, Sarah . Elizabeth, Tamer, John, Hannah, Letitia, William and Isaac, born 1, 20, 1773. The will of Richard Worthington, dated March 21, 1803, was probated August 26, 1806. A Samuel Worthington brought his certificate to Buckingham meeting from Abington, 1736, and settled in New Britain, where he died, 1775. In his will, probated March 20, are men- tioned his wife Mary, sons, Jonathan, David, and Samuel, and daughters, Sarah, llester Kimble, Rachel Rue, and Pleasant Lap. The descendants of Samuel Worthington are known as the "Plumstead Worthingtons," the late Aaron Worthington being a grandson of Jonathan. Thomas Worthington was re- ceived as a member of Buckingham monthly meeting, 1732, but shortly removed to Abington.
Doctor John Wilson, one of Buckingham's most distinguished citizens, three quarters of a century ago, was the son of Thomas and Rachel Wilson, Southampton, where he was born, 1768. After leaving the ordinary country school. he went to Philadelphia, then taught and after attended a classical school at Southampton Baptist Church kept by Jesse Moore, subsequently a Judge in Pennsylvania and where Judge John Ross and Doctor Charles Meredith were pupils. Here he was a close student, studying eighteen hours out of twenty- four. He next taught classics in a school where the late Samuel D. Ingham was a pupil, where a friendship was contracted that lasted through life. He graduated at Dickinson college, 1792. He commenced reading medicine with Doctor Jonathan Ingham, and, after his death by yellow fever, 1793. entered himself a student with Doctor Casper Wistar, Philadelphia, and attended lee- tures at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated, 1796, being one of the first medical graduates from Bucks county. Ile worked his own way through college and his medical studies by teaching and surveying, his father, being averse to his studying medicine, refused to assist him. After graduating he married Margaret Mitchel. daughter of Richard Mitchel, Middletown, and settled at the place known as "Walton's mill," just below Ingham's paper-mill. Within a year he purchased. of the late Samuel Johnson, the place known as Elm Grove, Buckingham, where he resided until his death. October, 1835. His first wife died in 1821. In 1824 he married Mary Fell, the widow of William Fell, and daughter of Joseph and Phobe Gillingham. By these two marriages he left four children. Richard and Sarah were chfdren of his first wife. Rich- ard studied medicine and settled in St. Jago de Cuba, where he acquired a large estate, and died in Philadelphia during a visit in 1854. Sarah married Elias Ely, New Hope, and died of cholera, 1850. By his second wife Doctor Wilson had two sons, Elias and Henry. The first is supposed to have been murdered December 24, 1868, at the head of the Red sea, while making a visit to the "Fountain of Moses," in Arabia.
Doctor Wilson possessed a rare combination of desirable qualities. In stature he was tall and straight, light but vigorous. and with an excellent phy- signe. In all out-door exercises, of which he was very fond, he had few su- periors. Ile was a fine horseman, as rider, driver, and judge of the animal, and in his youth was celebrated as a skater and swimmer. He had great quickness of perception, an intrepid spirit. and, was equal to any emergency in his profes- sion or out of it. He was a fine surgeon, and performed capital operations with great success. But few men equalled him in the best combination of learn-
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ing, practical skill and common sense. The late Lewis S. Coryell, a shrewd observer of human nature, and an extensive acquaintance with prominent men of his day, once retterked of him: "Doctor Wilson knew more, from a potato-hill up, than any other man I ever knew." He was handsome and courtly, his wives elegant and graceful women : and, for many years, his home at Ehn Grove was the seat of a refined and generous hospitality.
Buckingham has been fortunate in the quality of her schools, some of which were well endowed before the common school system was adopted. In 1755. Adam Harker, a benevolent and prominent Friend, left fo by his will toward settling and maintaining a free school in Buckingham, under the care of the monthly meeting. In 1789. Thomas Smith conveyed to the township a lot of land for a school house, on the northwest side of Hyrl's run, for a term of thirty years at an annual rent of a pepper corn. This was on condition that the town- ship build a house twenty-two by twenty feet, on the lot before the expiration of the year, the school to be governed by a committee of four. This was known as the "Red school house," which stood on the Street road, one hundred yards northwest of the creek. A new house was erected on the northeast side of the road many years ago, and is now used as a dwelling. Toward the close of the last century, the Buckingham meeting raised a school fund of $2,072, by subscrip- tion, the interest to be applied to educating children of members of monthly meet- ing in the first place, then to the children of those in straitened circumstances, and afterward all other children of members of the meeting. The heav- iest subscribers were Andrew Ellicott and Oliver Paxson, twenty- five dollars each. When the society divided the money was loaned in small sums, to the two divisions. A school is still supported by the fund.2º About ISOS the school fund of Bucking- ham and Solebury amounted to £758, IOS, near $3.000, but we are not informed of its pres- ent amount and condi- tion. In 1790, several of the inhabitants of the township subscribed £99, ISs. 312d. for building and furnishing a school house erected
TYRO HALL. A FAMOUS SCHOOL.
20 Jonathan Longstreth, Warminster, taught this school 1705-6, the contract being executed 3 ed month. for 3 months at 125 6d. per scholar. At first he had only four subscribers, Mathias Hutchinson, Joseph Wilkinson, Thomas Bye and Thomas Black- ledge, 612 scholars. There was some friction between Long-treth and Joseph Harold, a patron. The latter wrote him Feb. 15, 1700: "I have sent my son to pay you for his
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
on the cross road just above Greenville, on a lot given by David Gilbert in trust.21 It was governed by three trustees elected by the contributors. A constitution for the government of the school was adopted May 16, 1792. It was given the name of Tyro Hall, and was at one time in a flourishing condi- tion. The building is still standing, but the school was closed in 1859. The last board of trustees was Jesse Haney, John C. Shepherd and Joseph Beans, in 1854. Some good scholars were graduated at Tyro Hall. Among those who taught there were William H. Johnson, Joseph Price, Albert Smith, afterward a member of the bar, and died about 1833, and Joseph Fell.
A noted school in Buckingham in the past was the boarding school for girls at Greenville, now Holicong, established 1830, by Martha Hampton and Hannah Lloyd, sisters. Boarding schools were then rare in the county, and this venture by two women comparatively little known, one a widow with four chil- dren and slender means, was an enterprise of great risk. They bought the long white house still standing on the northwest corner of the cross roads, opened school and went to work, one taking charge of the household, the other the school, each eminently fitted for her task. The school soon became a success and the house was filled with pupils from Bucks, Montgomery, Phila- delphia and New Jersey. A day school was subsequently opened in connection and Elizabeth and Sarah Ely, sisters of the late State Senator Johathan Ely, Solebury, were given charge. A few boys were admitted to the day school, among them the late Judge Richard Watson, ex-Chief Justice Edward M. Paxson, John Ruckman, Albert S. Paxson and Samuel E. Broadhurst, presum- ably the "gilt-edge" boys of the neighborhood. The school was discontinued upon the death of Hannah Lloyd at the end of several years.
Amos Austin Hughes, at his death, 1811, left, by his will, the plantation on which he resided in Buckingham, and the remainder of his personal estate, amounting to $4.000, and $2.000 more, at the death of his sister, to create a fund for the erection and maintaining a school, to be called "Hughesian free school." It was to educate the poor children of the township, and such others as stood in need, forever, and, when necessary, they were to be boarded and clothed. A charter was obtained, 1812, and a building erected soon afterward, in which a school is still maintained, governed by a board of trustees. The amount of funds, held in trust, is $21.450. Mr. Hughes, who died at the carly age of forty-four, was an invalid from his youth. He was a quiet, patient sut- ferer, was confined to his room for many years, and spent his time chietly in reading and meditation. He contributed freely to the relief of the poor and adlicted during his life, while his generous bequests are evidence he did not for- get them at his death.
It is said that when the Hughsian school house was built the township was canvassed to make up a school of "poor children" to be educated in it, but none could be found, and, by advice of counsel, a public school was opened. This was in 1851. The first board of trustees was composed of John Ely. Nicholas Austin, John Watson, Jr .. Wi. Ely, Thomas Bye, John Wilson, M. D., Samuel Johnson, Joseph Shaw, Isaiah Jones, Joshua Anderson, Joseph Watson and Stephen Wilson, all of Buckingham. When Pennsylvania passed the public school law the will of Amos Austin Hughes became inoperative, as it was in-
schooling, but not for whipping him." Longstreth replied that he considered himself "possessed of full powers, both legislative and executive, to deal with his scholars for misbehavior in school, and referred the matter to the committee.'"-Longstreth MS.
21 The deed is in possession of the family of the late Watson Fell, Buckingham.
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tended that his estate should only benefit those who could not afford to go to a pay school, and there was none such now in the township, all being frec. What action was taken to change the direction of the bequest we are not informed. but the school was reorganized, 1841. This resulted in an increase of scholar- and the doing of better work, the trustees cquipping the school to meet modern requirements. The school is graded in three departments, primary, inter- mediate and grammar. with an average of forty scholars in each, or one hundred and twenty in all. It has three teachers, two paid by the trustees, and one by the township school board. The branches taught include Latin, German, Book- keeping, higher Algebra, Geometry and Astronomy. The candidates for grad- nation are examined by the county superintendent. In 1897. the graduates of the Hughesian Free School, thirty in number, organized an association at the dwelling of Charles P. Large, Buckingham, and completed it. January 3, ISOS. Only four males were eligible. Annual reunions are held. A Icaffet, published 12, 11, 1841, says the middle room of the Hughesian Free School was rented of the trustees, furnished and school opened by Miss Burson, the 12 day. I mo .. 1842. The teachers were paid 3 cents per scholar per day, and $15 per month. and later increased to $20, the teachers furnishing pen and ink, the pens made of quills. Joseph Fell was the first teacher paid by the trustees, 1851, and to December 31. 1898, there had been twenty-six principals and eighteen assistants connected with the school.
Althoughi Justice Cox came into the township at a recent date. he can trace his ancestry back among the earliest in the state. He is a descendant of that Peter Cock who settled between the Delaware and the Schuylkill in 1660, who was commissioner on the Delaware in 1662, a counsellor, in 1067, and in Html. Governor Lovelace confirmed to him the patent for Tinicum island. In the course of centuries the name has been changed from Cock to Cox.
Doctor Arthur D. Cernea, a prominent practitioner of medicine, as well as a leading citizen of Buckingham, was a resident of the township over forty years. His history is an exceeding romantic and interesting one, sufficiently su. we think. to warrant the sketch of his life and adventures found in the inte below .22 Thomas Cernea, son of the Doctor, was one of the most skilled archi-
22 Doctor Cernea was born in Philadelphia, of French parentage, about 1806. Ilis father, an officer of the French army, came to the United States near the close of the tyth century with his wife. She was likewise of a French family, which had lost a large portion of their estates in the West Indies during the Revolution of 1791. Contemplating a visit to France, from which they intended to return in a short time, they placed their eldest son, Arthur, a lad nine years of age, at the Moravian school at Nazareth. To the present time no tidings of them have been received, except information obtained from the records of a lodge of French Masons lately discovered in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It is there stated that his father arrived in Philadelphia about 1793; the time of his departure on his visit to France, a few years later, his mother': name before marriage, parentage, etc., etc. The anxiety felt by the over-absence of the parents was kept from the son until discovered by the failure to receive his regular stipend of spending money. It was the opinion of those to whom young Cernea had been en- trusted that the vessel had been lost at sea. or some other unknown calamity befallen them. It was supposed he would remain at the school until cared for, but the spirited boy. sensitive that a portion of his dues remained unpaid, left the school unknown to the faculty, with a small sum of money in his pocket realized from the sale of a box of paints. Thus alone in the world he started on foot for Philadelphia in search of his parents, stopping for the night at the inn Jenkintown. Here he met one who proved
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tects of Philadelphia, and planned a number of handsome buildings, including lenape building. Doylestown, 1874.
The Buckingham library was organized October 31, 1795, and the by- laws revised in 1820. For a number of years it was a flourishing institu- tion. and the means of disseminating intelligence throughout the neighborhood, Int interest in it gradually decreased until 1853, when the corporation was dis- Mivel and the books sold at public sale. In this connection we must mention the "Buckingham lyceum," a literary society of some local note sixty-five years agro, and which enabled many a fledgling in literature to get his productions before the public.
In a letter Joseph Erwin, Tinicum, wrote to Geo. Wall. Solebury, tinder date of September 10, 1801, he says that Mr. Smith (probably Joseph Smith, who founded Smithtown, tells him "Goodwine's Political Justice," that had been purchased for the Buckingham library, had been condemned to the flames by the board of directors, "as containing damnable heresies, both in religion and politics."
In 1806 Moses Bradshaw had a nail factory near Pool's corner, a mile from Doylestown, but in 1807 it was removed to Thomas Fell's smith-shop, on the road between what was then Rodrock's and Vanhorne's tavern. now Centre- ville. In 1817 a peace association was formed in Buckingham, with William H. Johnson as president and John Parry secretary. In June. 1819. the farmers held a meeting at Buckingham school house to fix wages for hay and harvesting.
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