USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 47
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The first enumeration of inhabitants, in 1784, gives Hilltown 941 whites and 154 dwellings. In 1810 the population was 1,335; 1820, 1,501; 1830, 1,669, and 378 taxables; 1840, 1.910; 1850, 2,290 whites and II blacks; 1800, 2,726, all whites, and in 1870, 2,869, of which 2.764 were whites, 5 blacks, and 129 were foreign-born : 1880, 3.152; 1890, 3,022; 1900, 3,170.
The surface of Hilltown is rolling and hilly, and is watered by the branches of Neshaminy and Perkiomen.
Hilltown was the birthplace of two members of the House of Repre- sentatives of the United States, John Pugh and Matthias Morris.
In 1897, a pipe line to convey coal oil from Millway, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, to Bayonne, New Jersey, was laid across Bucks county. Enter- ing the county at Telford it passes through the townships of Hilltown, Plun- stead and Solebury, leaving below Center Bridge and crossing the Delaware into Hunterdon county, New Jersey. The pipes are eight inches in diameter and laid below the frost line ; and the time occupied in laying them was four months. A telegraph line follows the pipe line. When full they have a capacity of three hundred and twenty barrels to the mile, and, when in full working order the company can pump from eight thousand to ten thousand barrels a day. At Millway is the largest and most complete pumping station in the world. The oil is delivered at Bayonne by force pumps and thence distributed to the refineries. The line is the property of the "National Transit Company."
CHAPTER XXIII.
NEW BRITAIN.
1723.
Thomas Hudson's grant .- Colonel Mildmay .- Free Society of Traders .- Joseph Kirkbride. -Earliest settlers .- Welsh families .- Perkasie .- Settlers on West Branch .- Simon Butler .- Grist mill built .- Simon Mathew .- Old houses .- Thomas Jones .- John Mathias .- Owen Rowland .- The Griffiths .- Aarons .- Jameses .- John O. James .- Boorums .- Joseph Kirkbride .- Thomas Morgan .- Riales .- Township organized .- Mathew Hines .- Nicholas Haldeman .- Germans arrive .- Abraham Swartly .- John Haldeman .-- Atherholts .- Donaldson homestead .- Jacob Geil .- Detweilers .- The Booncs .- The Drinkers .- Garners .- Recses, Wiers, and Wigtons .- Bachmans .- Jacob Reed .- Shults .- New Britain, a Welsh settlement .- Settlers generally Baptists .- New Britain church .- Line Lexington church .- Mennonites .- Universalists .- David Evans. -Roads .- Tammany .-- Villages .- Chalfont, Prospectville .- Morgan's ford .- Popula- tion .- Colonel Kheidt.
The formation of Hilltown, 1722, left a considerable tract of country un- organized to the southeast, extending eastward to Plumstead and Bucking- ham. The following year part of it was formed into New Britain, and a con- tury later, Doylestown township, with slices from Warwick and Buckingham, was carved out of it. We learn from Holmes' map that the country north- west of Buckingham, embracing parts of the three townships named, had been granted to Thomas Hudson, "a gentleman of Sutton, England," Colonel Mild- may,1 of whom little is known, and to a corporation called the "Free Society of Traders." whose lands were sold to several purchasers some years later, and the corporation dissolved.
1 Colonel Mildinay's grant was west of the Society's land. the Hudson traet, and join- ing them, according to llone's map, 1684. We do not believe Mildmay was ever in Penn- sylvania, at least there is no evidence of it. The family is an old one in England, descended from a "very ancient gentleman." Hugh Mildmay, who lived about King Stephen's time, "now 430 years past, prior to the certificate of Robert Cooke, alias Clarencieux, Roy D. Armes, dated at London the 20th of August, Anno D'ii, 1583, and in ye 23d year of the Idien of our Suaigne lady Elvaleth by se grace of God, tte." Hugh Mildmay is tin ught to have come with King Stephen. The grant of arms to Sir Walter Mildmay was by Edward VI. These abstracts are from the Herallie Collection of R. Glober, relating to the Mildmay family. Hart. in Mos. No. 243.
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356
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Hudson's grant from Penn, dated April 23, 1683, for five thousand acres, was among the very first land located by an individual in what is now New Britain. Its boundaries are hard to define but it probably lay southwest of the Society lands on I'me run, and extended to the county line. It appears to have conflicted with the grant of Dennis Rotchford, and when the patent was issued it called for only four thousand acres. March 1, 1689, Hudson sold to William Lawrence, Joseph and Samuel Thorn, John Tallman and Benjamin Field, Long Island, and in a few years the whole of the tract passed into the possession of several individual proprietors." The Society grant contained originally eight thousand six hundred and twelve acres. Subsequent to the patent, T. Steven- son made a survey which cut off one thousand two hundred and thirty-two acres, probably the amount bought by him. In 1706 another survey, no doubt a sale, cut off two thousand three hundred and ninety acres more, leaving about four thousand nine hundred and eighty-four acres in the hands of the corporation. This T. Stevenson was probably the Thomas Stevenson, who, 1719, purchased the Hudson tract of the five Long Island owners. The Society tract in this county ran one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight perches along the Buckingham and Plumstead line, and southwest of that line one thousand three hundred and sixteen perches after the Stevenson survey was cut off. These two tracts, so far as we know, furnished no settlers to the town- ship until several years after 1700, although some of our local antiquarians tell us that Lewis Evans was in New Britain as carly as 1695. This is just possible, although we have seen no confirmation of it. A Lewis Evan was an early settler in Hilltown, whose daughter, Elizabeth, was married to Jolin James, the grandfather of the late Isniall James, 1740, and we learn from the books of the surveyor-general that, 1735, Lewis Evan or Evans, purchased one hundred acres of the Proprietaries' land in "North Britain."
New Britain, like Hilltown, was peopled by immigrants who came up through Philadelphia, now Montgomery county, part of the flanking column that met the English from the lower Delaware. Between 1700 and 1715, a number of Welsh families settled in the upper part of Philadelphia about Gwynedd and North Wales, and naturally enough, they soon found their way across the county line into the fertile territory of New Britain and Hilltown. the latter then bearing the name of Perkasie, or Perquasy. Among the early settlers, on the west branch of Neshaminy and its affluents, were the families of Butler, Griffith, James, Lewis, Evans, Pugh, Williams, Owen, Davis, Mere- dith. Jenkins, Phillips,. Mathews, Morris, Thomas. Jones, Mathias, Rowland and others, whose descendants still inhabit this and neighboring townships in large numbers. This whole region was then traversed by bands of Indians. who lived in huts in the timber along the streams and subsisted by hunting and fishing. They gradually removed except the few which remained to die on the lands of their fathers. A few Germans came into the township soon after the Welsh; some bought land. others leased of the Proprietaries, while others still less enterprising, worked by the day or bound themselves for a term of years.
Of these early immigrants to New Britain. Simon Butler was probably the foremost man. He was one of a number which immigrated from Wales
2 In 1,21 John Sotcher. Falls, conveyed 2.850 acres to Joseph Kirkbride, and, 173S. William James bought 277 acres of it. This was part of the Hudson tract. Sotcher's. conveyance was a matter of form to complete the conveyance from the executors of Thomas Stephenson to Joseph Kirkbride, the latter being one of them.
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357
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
about 1712, accompanied by his cousin, Simon Mathew. Landing at Phila- delphiia they settled for a time on the "Welsh tract," in New Castle county, whence they removed to New Britain between 1715 and 1720 and took up land at the confluence of Pine run and the northwest branch of Neshaminy, just east of Chalfont. There they built a grist-mill on the site of Samuel Funk's sawmill, the first in the township and one of the carliest mills in middle Bucks3 county. In a few years Butler bought Mathew's interest in the tract, and he built a new grist-mill on the site of what was Shellenberger's. He became a large land owner in the township. In 1745 he bought four hundred and sixty-tive and a half acres of James, son of Andrew Hamilton, to whom it had been granted, 1718. He was the only justice of the peace in this section of the county for several years. Simon Butler was a man of ability, and transacted a large amount of public business. He not only settled disputes between neigli- hors, but wrote their wills, surveyed their lands, settled their estates and as- sisted to lay out the public roads, etc. Such men are especially useful in a new community, and for several years, he was the leading man in all this section. lle was likewise an active Baptist, and promoted the erection of the New Britain Baptist church. His two sons, Simon and Benjamin, intermarried with the Jameses, and their descendants are numerous in the township. Simon Butler died August, 1764.
Simon Mathew, who came with Butler, and was the ancestor of all bearing the name on the west side of the county, was the son of Thomas Mathew, Wales, and a Baptist. He was also accompanied by Anthony Mathew, Arthur Melchoir and Margaret David. They arrived, 1710, and first settled on the Welsh tract, New Castle county, Delaware. He remained in Delaware ten years, and part of his children were born there, and came to New Britain, 1720. On November IS, 1731, Simon Mathew bought one hundred and forty- seven acres of James Steel, and subsequently one hundred and sixty-seven acres of Jeremiah Langhorne. This was part of the Society's lands, laying between Chalfont and the village of New Britain, and intersected by the Doylestown and Bristol roads. His residence was at the late Mathias home- stead, near the Butler mill. where he died 1755. He was partner of Butler in the milling business. The homestead went to his son Thomas, and is still in the family. The late Dr. Charles H. Mathews, Doylestown, was a grand- son, and the farm of the late William Steckel, Doylestown, was part of their tract. The children of Simon Mathew were Joli, Simon, Benjamin, Thomas, Margaret, Ann, wife of Simon Morgan, and Edward. Benjamin, Simon and Edward settled in the valley of Virginia, and John received that portion of the homestead farm that embraced the last purchase. He was born, 1713. He built the one-story stone house on the north side of the Upper State road. 1744. to replace the one that was burned down in September of that year, and it stood until about ISSS, and was the oldest in the neighborhood. His wife was Diana Thomas, born in Wales, 1718, and died, 1799. He died 1782.
John and Diana Mathew were the parents of seven children : Benjamin. Margaret married John Young. Mary married John Barton, Rachel married
3 It is a disputed point whether this mill or Dyer's mill, at Dyerstown, a mile above Doylestown, was the first in middle Bucks county. However this may be, these two were the carliest, and the only ones for a number of years.
4 The last mill that stood on the site of the old Butler mill was burned down at the close of the Civil war, winter of 1865, and not rebuilt.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Thomas Meredith, Aun married John Doyle, Susannah married Owen Thomas, and Joseph, born 1739, died 1759. Benjamin, who was the oldest son, enlisted, at sixteen, in Benjamin Franklin's regiment for the defense of the frontier, and served five months. John Mathew was the last justice of the peace under the Crown, holling the office from 1764 to 1776. His wife was a daughter of Ephraim Thomas, Hilltown, and granddaughter of Rev. William Thomas. Ile was a deacon at New Britain, and died 1821. Their children which grew to man and womanhood, married into the families of Hough, Dungan, Morris, Mathias, McEwen, Drake, Meredith, Swartz and Bitting. These marriages took place between 1769 and 1789, and the descendants are numerous. In 1814. Benjamin Mathew served in the campaign on the lower Delaware, when Philadelphia was threatened by the British, and Oliver, another de- scendant. was a member of the Assembly. Among the members of this numer- ous family were the following who belonged to the medical profession: Drs. John and Joseph, sons of Joseph Mathews, Dr. J. Mathews, Dr. Washington, and Dr. Charles Mathews. Edward Mathews, the historian, is also a descend- ant from the same ancestry. Joseph Mathews, a descendant of Simon, died in 1842, at the age of ninety-seven.
The old hiproof house at the end of the lane of the late John W. Griffith, on the road from Chalfont to Montgomeryville, is the oldest house in this part of the township. It was owned. 1769, by Joseph Hubbs, who then kept store in it. The father of Mr. Griffith, who remembered it in 1775, said it was an old house then. The Griffith homestead, when rebuilt about the close of the Civil war, was thought to be about one hundred years old. Thomas Jones born in Wales. 1708, came to this county at eighteen, and settled in New Brit- ain or Hilltown. He was twice married. first to Martha West, who died. 1759, and then to Jane Smith, and was the father of about twenty children. He ac- quired a large landed estate and settled his sons around him. The mother of the Rev. Joseph Mathias was a daughter of Thomas Jones. The Roberts family. also Welsh, in New Britain from 1721 to 1790. owned a tract half a mile square near Spruce Hill. John Roberts, the first purchaser, bought land of Joseph Kirkbride. They disappeared before the close of the century.
John Mathias, ancestor of this large and respectable family in Bucks county, was born in Pembrokeshire, South Wales, near the close of the seven- teenth century, and came here at the opening of the eighteenth. They settled in Franconia township, then Philadelphia (now Montgomery) county, near the line of Bucks, northwest of Line Lexington. The settlement was called "Welsh- town" for many years. He was twice married before leaving Wales, his sec- ond wife being a daughter of Thomas Morgan, and his third Jane Simons, a widow. He died 1747-48. The late Rev. Joseph Mathias, grandson by his second wife, was born May 18, 1778, baptised September 29. 1799. ordained July 22, 1806, and died March 11, 1851, in his seventy-third year. During his ministry he attended upwards of seven hundred funerals and preached . 6,8;5 sermons. The children of John Mathias intermarried with the families of Griffith. Jones. Thomas and Pugh. The Houghs, of New Britain, connected by marriage with the Mathiases, were descended from Richard, whose son Joseph, married Elizabeth West. Her parents were carly settlers in Warwick. and she was a sister of Joseph Mathias's grandmother on the maternal side. Joseph and Elizabeth Hough had two sons. Joseph and John, and seven daugh- ters. The late General Joseph Hough, Point Pleasant, was a descendant of Joseph the elder.
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359
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Owen Rowland,5 with his first wife Jane, four sons and one daughter, anne from Pembrokeshire, Wales, 1725. first settling on the Welsh tract, New Castle county, and removing to Bucks, 1727-28. He took up land on the North Branch of Neshaminy. A majority of his descendants removed to the west many years ago, a grandson being one of the settlers at Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His fourth son, Stephen, from whom those bearing the name in this township are descended. lived, and died in New Britain at the age of ninety, in ISHI. He was twice married, his first wife being Anna, daughter of Reverend William Thomas, and the second Rebecca Davis, an English immigrant. They had five sons and two daughters, who married into the families of Brittain, Thomas. Morris, Norton, Evans, Mathias and Bitting.
The Griffiths of New Britain are descended from Benjamin Griffith, born in the county of Cardigan, Wales, October 16, 1688, came to America, 1710. baptised. 1711, settled at Montgomery, 1720, called to the ministry, 1722, and ordained, 1725. He was pastor of the church at that place to his death, 1768. The wife of Benjamin Griffith was a Miles and they had several sons and daughters. By close application he became a fine scholar, and among other accomplishments, was a remarkable penman. He was pastor, lawyer and physician to his congregation, and preached in Welsh or English, to suit his learers. His son Benjamin became a Baptist minister, and settled near the Brandywine, Chester county. Griffith Griffith, son of Amos, born February 25. 1728, canie to New Britain, 1767. He was county treasurer in the Revolu- tion, and dying childless, about 1812, left his plantation to his nephew Amos, who became Dr. Amos Griffith. He died 1863. at the age of ninety-three. Abel M. Griffith, a former member of the Bucks county bar, and member of the Legislature, and the late John W. Griffith, New Britain, were son and nephew of Dr. Amos. Three of his sons were physicians. David Griffith, another member of this family who removed to Somerset, Ohio, when a young inan, and thence to ludiana, died at Lafayette, Indiana. January 30, 1899, and would have been ninety-nine years old had he lived until the coming February 15. He was a Baptist like his ancestor : was probably born in New Britain, and a descendant of Benjamin Griffith.
The Jameses, a numerous and influential family in New Britain. belong to this same Welsh stock." In 17tt John James and his sons Josiah, Thomas, William, Isaac and probably Aaron came from Pembrokeshire and settled in the eastern edge of Montgomery county. When the Montgomery Baptist church was organized. in 1710. with but ten members, John James with his wife and three eller sons constituted one-half of the membership. In 1720 John and his sons, Thomas and William, purchased a thousand acres, part of the Iludson traet, New Britain, on Pine run and North branch, and probably came into the township to reside about the same time. Josiah. Isaac and Aaron, whose wife was a member at Montgomery, remained on the other side of the county line, where Isaac became the owner of a thousand acres. John James probably . died about 1726. as we hear no more of him after that date. In 1731 Thomas purchased one hundred and seventy-six additional acres of
5 The Rowlands first appear in Bucks county the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, when Thomas Rowland located 500 acres in Newtown township, extending from Newtown ereck to Neshaminy, and probably included the ground occupied by the New- town Presbyterian church.
6 The James family is a very old one in England, and appears in the Doomsday book as landowners. William James was probably born in 1692.
360
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Society lands from Joseph Kirkbride. In 1738 William James bought two hundred and seventy-seven acres of John Kirkbride, north of Pine Run and east of the Alms-house road extending over Iron hill nearly to North branch. This tract was part of two thousand eight hundred and fifty acres which John Sotcher, of Falls, conveyed to Joseph Kirkbride, 1721. Kirkbride, who died, 1736, left his real estate to his son Jolin by will. William James divided his property between his children before his death, John, probably the eldest son, getting the homestead where Thomas C. James lived. The two brothers were now large land-owners. Soon after the first purchase William James built a house near where the dwelling of Thomas C. James stands. Thomas lived to be a very old man, and died about the time of the Revolution, on the farm owned by Adam Gaul. on the south side of Pine run. He probably had but two sons, Samuel and James. The former went to the western part of the State, and at the close of the Revolution, the latter sold the farms owned by the late Eugene James and James E. Hill, to Peter Eaton and migrated to North Carolina. The mother of Thomas C. James, of New Britain, was a Williams, likewise of a Welsh family, whose uncle, of that name, was educated for the ministry, and settled at Providence, Rhode Island, where he died. His grand- mother was a Maitland, member of a Scotch family of Wrightstown. Several of the Maitlands were in the French and Indian war and six of the Jameses were in the Revolution. The late John O. James, Philadelphia, was the young- est son of Abel H. James, great-grandson of John James, the first, and his mother was Catharine. eldest daughter of .Owen Owen, of Hilltown. Abel James, the father, was a farmer of Hilltown, but engaged in exporting produce from Philadelphia, and died at Dover, Delaware, while there on a visit in the fall of 1-69. His son, Abel H. James, was born at Newtown. Jan- uary 1, 1770, and died in Hilltown. 1839. He lived for a time in Maryland and Virginia, but returned to Bucks county, and married Catharine Owen, 1803. The late Isaiah James, New Britain, married Caroline, a younger daugh- ter of Abel H. James. All the Jameses of New Britain are descended from Thomas and William James, most of them from the latter. The late Levi L. James, of Doylestown, was a descendant of Thomas, and Nathan C. of William. Previous to the Revolution the farm of Samuel Oakford belonged to John, the son of Thomas James. the elder. Ile left it at his death to his son Ben- jamin, who sold it to Doctor Hugh Meredith in 1789, on his removal to North Carolina. In 1792 it was bought by Moses Marshall, Tinicum, son of him who made the Great Walk in 1737, who sold it in ISio, and removed to Bucking-
The Boorums. New Britain, came into the township as carly as 1761, and probably earlier. There were three of them, two bore the name of William. the other Aaron; what relation they were to each other, we do not know. The first William to come was an ensign in Captain Henry Darrah's company of militia. 1777, and dropped out of sight after 1780. The family name seems to have disappeared.
We have already mentioned Hudson's tract. and how, in 1698 it fell into the hands of five gentlemen from Long Island. In 1719 they sold it to Thomas Stephenson, when they found it contained a thousand acres less than the grant
7 Robert James, at His death, April 13, 1998, in his 88th year, was the head of the family. He was a son of Levi and descen lant of John James, the pioneer. He was a prominent citizen ; clected to the Legislature, 1844, and served one term; jury commissioner IS, and director of the poor 1880.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 361
called for. Stephenson died the same year, when his widow, Sarah, and Joseph Kirkbride, the executor, sold the property, as follows: Two thousand eight hundred and fifty acres to Joseph Kirkbride, of Falls, John Sotcher figuring as "straw man" to complete conveyance; one thousand to John, Thomas and William James, and the remaining one hundred and fifty to Alex- ander Rees and Thomas Edwards. The farm of Abiah R. James is part of the kirkbride purchase. In some old deeds, the "Kennedy tract" is recited, "as Iving along the North branch and between the Hudson tract and Hilltown," but we know nothing more of it. Of the Society lands, which Joseph Kirk- bride purchased in 1729, he sold two hundred and twenty-seven acres to David Stephens in 1731, probably the time this family came into the township,
Thomas Morgan, a Welshman, bought one hundred and fifty acres of 1-aac James, 1731 ; in two years the tract in two parts fell into the possession of William Jones and John Thomas, of which sixty-five and a half acres now belong to Abiah R. James, whose grandfather bought it of the Thomas family. He was the eldest son of Isaac and grandson of William, and was born in 1745. Remains of the old dwellings are still seen in this tract, probably the houses of the carly Thomases, and Morgans. Thomas Morgan was probably the father of David Morgan, who, in 1760, owned the land on both sides of the Neshaminy where it is crossed by the Street road, when the crossing was known as Mor- gan's ford. The Riales" were among the earliest settlers in New Britain, but we have not the date of their arrival. The tombstone of John Riale, the progenitor of the family, is the oldest in the New Britain graveyard with a legible inscription, who died in 1748 at the age of sixty, which makes his time of birth 16SS. He was the great-grandfather of David Riale, who married a daughter of David Evans, the Universalist. The name of Patrick Kelley. a Welsh settler, is found on the carly deeds but he could do no better than make his mark. The members of this family were noted for their intellectual activity.
Moses Aaron came into New Britain in the period of which we write, but do not know the year. He became a farmer and was a Baptist. He mar- ried Hannah Kelley, the daughter of Patrick Kelley for his first wife, but the name of his second wife is not known. On some of the carly deeds on which the name of Kelley is found he made his mark. Moses Aaron was the father of four children by his second wife, three daughters and one son, the youngest child, Samuel. born October 19, 1800. His parents dying when be was six years of age, he was placed under the care of an uncle and brought up on his farm. He first attended a day school in New Britain, where he was noted for his intellectual ability and learned rapidly. He had a clear, musical voice. At sixteen, young Aaron entered the Union Academy, Doyles- Down, of which the Rev. Uriah DuBois had charge. IFere he began the study of the classics, and made marked progress. It is related that the Academy boys looked on him with admiration, as he had been "through the arithmetic." At twenty. he connected himself with Gummere's Classical and Mathematical School at Barlington, N. J., as student and assistant. Having completed his ducation he returned in the spring of 1821, to the Doylestown Academy to assist Mr. Du Bois. After a few months, he went back to Burlington to assist
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