USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 5
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William Penn's first act, dated April 8, was to write a letter to the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, and on the moth he appointed his cousin William Markham Deputy Governor and Commander-in-chief of the Province, clothing him with full powers to put the machinery of the new government in operation. At what time Markliam sailed for America is not known, but we find him in New York, with the king's letter, in June, which, with his com- mission, he laid before the Council and Commander in the, absence of Governor Andros. On the 21st the authorities at New York addressed a letter to the jus- tices and other magistrates on the Delaware notifying them of the change of
2 William Penn. under date of 5th of ist mo .. 1081, wrote as follows to his friend, Robert Turner, concerning the name of the new province (see Hazzard's Annals, 590) : "This day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with large powers and privileges, by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the king would give it in honor of my father. 1 chose New Wales, being as this, a pretty hilly country, but Penn being Welsh for a head, as Pennanmoire in Wales, and Penrith in Cumberland, and l'enn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land in England. called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or head woodland; for 1 proposed, when the secretary. a Welshman, refused to have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it: and though I was much opposed. to it, and went to the king to have it -truck out and altered. he said it was past and would take it upon him: nor could twenty guineas move the under secretary to vary the name; for I feared lest it should be looked on as a vanity in me. and not as a respeet in the king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with praise.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
government. In a few days Colonel Markham repaired thither to enter upon his duties, bearing with him Penn's letter to the inhabitants, assuring them they should be governed by laws of their own making, and would receive the most ample protection to person and property. Markham was authorized to eall together a Council of nine, which met and organized August 3, from which time we may date the establishment of a civil government for Pennsylvania. There was very little interference in the established order of things and the people found a mild ruler in the Deputy Governor. The seat of government was fixed at Upland, the present Chester. The old court closed its session Sep- tember 13, and the new Court opened the next day. Among the business trans- acted was the appointment of William Biles and Robert Lucas, who lived at the falls, Justices of the Peace, and pounds, shillings and penee were declared to be the currency of the country. But it was difficult to get rid of the guilders after they had been so long in eirculation. On November 20, the Deputy Gov- ernor sat upon the bench and administered justice for the first time. It does not appear that any immigrants accompanied him to Pennsylvania.
Markham was instructed by William Penn to select a site, and build for him a dwelling. and it was probably he who chose the spot whereon Pennsbury house was erected in Falls township. We can imagine him prospeeting along the west bank of the Delaware for a suitable location for the home of the Proprietary that afterward became historical. We have no doubt he came over- land from New York, and possibly, as he traveled along the western bank of the Delaware, or sailed down its broad bosom from the falls, he was struck with the extensive and fertile tract still known as "the manor." then covered with a growth of giant timber, and returned thither to fix the site of Pennsbury house. To hasten the work on his arrival, he brought the frame with him and mechanics to put it together.
September 30, 1681. William Penn appointed William Crispin, John Bergar and Christopher Allen. Commissioners, to go to Pennsylvania with power to purchase land of the Indians, and select a site for, and lay out. a great city. About the same time he appointed James Harrison his "lawful agent," to sell for him any parcel of land in Pennsylvania of not less than 250 acres. Peun, in a letter of September 4, 16St, gives the conditions upon which land is to be sold, and the quantity, to each purchaser. Settlers were to receive fifty acres for each servant they took out, and 50 acres for each child. Those too poor to buy could take up land at a rent of one penny an acre, 200 acres to each head of a family, and 50 acres to each servant at the same rent. The rent of peor servants was afterward reduced to one-half penny per aere. Penn agreed to buy the passage of those too poor to pay their own, but they must pay double rent. William Penn pledged himself that this rent should never be raised, and it was not.
It is current history that Penn appointed his cousin, William Crispin,3 the first Surveyor-General of the Colony, but no proof of this has been found, his only known commission being for "Commissioner." It is said the vessel he sailed in, was blown off the Cape of Delaware and carried to the West Indies where he died. However this may be, Captain Thomas Holme was appointed
3 Capt. William Crispin married first, 1650. Annie Jasper. daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam, Holland. and a sister of Margaret Jasper. the wife of Admiral Penn, and mother of William Penn. Some authorities state that John Jasper was a native of Rotterdam, and others that he was an Englishman by birth. Had Captain Crispin lived Penn intended appointing him Chief Justice.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
his successor April 18, 1682. He was a native of Waterford, Ireland, and when a young man, had served in Admiral Penn's fleet in the West Indies. He was accompanied to Pennsylvania, by his two sons and two daughters, Silas Crispin, son of his predecessor and John, eldest son of James Claypole. There is a dispute as to the time Captain Holme sailed. He resided in Philadelphia but owned land in Bristol township, though it is not known he ever lived there. His two sons died in his life time. His daughter Esther married Silas Cris- pin, who came with him to America, and their daughter, Eleanor, became the ancestress of the Harts, of Warminster, the Davises of Southampton, Blackfans, Iloughs, and other county families in the female line
Among the earliest acts of Markham and the Commissioners was the selection of a site for a great city resulting in the founding of Philadelphia. They were instructed by Penn to make careful soundings along the west side of the Delaware and creeks, to ascertain. "where most ships may best ride, of deepest draft of water." It is not known how far up the Delaware was ex- amined, but there is a tradition that Pennsbury, at one time, was selected as the site for the capital city, but it was finally fixed where it stands, between the Delaware and Schuylkill .. We are told that within a few months Philadelphia contained eighty houses and cottages, and more than three hundred farms were laid out and partly cleared. In the summer, 1684, the city contained three hundred and fifty-seven houses, many of them large and well-built, with cel- lars. In 1685 the houses had increased to six hundred. Within little more than two years from its settlement, ninety ships had arrived, bringing seven thousand two hundred passengers. Oldmixon says that in 1684 Philadelphia contained two thousand five hundred inhabitants.+
Before P'enn left England, many persons had purchased land in Penn- sylvania to whom deeds were given, the surveys to be made after their arrival. Markham and the commissioners issued a number of warrants for the survey of land, which may be found by consulting the records. The oldest deeds on record in Bucks county are those of Fenn to Thomas Woolrich, of Shalford. county Stafford, for one thousand acres, dated April 1, 1681; and from Penn to James Hill. of Beckington, county Somerset, shoemaker, dated July 27, 1081. for five hundred acres. In each case it is mentioned that the quit-rent is one shilling per one hundred acres, It is not known that either of these pur- chasers settled in this county.+12
+ The following, on the subject of the location of Philadelphia, is from Watson's Annals: "Samuel Preston says of his grandmother, that she said Phineas Pemberton surveyed and laid out a town intended to have been Philadelphia up at Pennsbury, and that the people who went there were dissatisfied with the change. On my expressing doubts of this, thinking she might have confused the case of Chester removal, Mr. Preston then further declared, that having nearly forty years ago (about 1786) occasion to hunt through the trunks of surveys of John Lukens, Surveyor General of Pennsylvania, he and Lukens then sowe a ground plat for the city of Philadelphia, signed Phineas Pemberton, Surveyor-General, that fully appeared to have been in Pennsbury manor; also another for the present town of Bristol, called Buckingham." The theory of Samuel Preston is easily overturned by the two facts, that Pemberton did not reach Pennsylvania until after I'iladelphia was laid out, and that he was never "Surveyor-General."
412 The deed of John Hart, ancestor of the author, in the female line, is a case in p mit. Penn executed a deed to him for a thousand acres at Worminghurst, England, in 161, and after his arrival, 1082, he located five hundred in Byberry, and the same in Warminster township. Bucks county. The author has the deed.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Several immigrants arrived in 1682, previous to William Penn, and settled in Bucks county. Among these were Richard Amor, Buckelbury, Berkshire: Henry Paxson, Bycot honse, parish of Slow, county of Oxford. He embarked with his family, but his wife, son, and brother Thomas died at sea, and his daughter Elizabeth only survived to reach her father's new home on the Dela- ware. He settled in Middletown, and married Margery Plumley August 13, 1684; Luke Brinsley, of Leck, county Stafford, mason, arrived September 28. and settled in Falls. He was probably a servant of William Penn, for he was in his employ as "ranger ;" John Clows, jr., Gosworth, county Chester, with his brother Joseph, sister Sarah, who married John Bainbridge. 1685, and servant. Henry Lingart, and settled in Lower Makefield. Clows died, 1083, and Lingart soon after his arrival. Another immigrant, named Clows, arrived about this time bringing three children, Margery, Rebecca and William, and servants Joseph Chorley, Daniel Hough and Jolm Richardson. Clows married Mary Ackerman. August 2, 1686; John Brock, or Brockman, Stockport, County Ches- ter, with two servants, one named Eliza Eaton, and followed by a third in au- other vessel, who settled in Lower Makefield. He was possibly the ancestor of the Brocks of Doylestown. One authority says he came from Bramall, Chester. He had two grants of land, one for one thousand acres, dated March, 1681. and another March 3, 16SI, the acres not mentioned ; William Venables, Chat- hil, County Stafford, came with his wife Elizabeth, and children Joyce and Franeis, settled in Falls and died December, 1683 ; George Pownall and Eleanor his wife, Laycoek, County Chester, farmer, with five children and three ser- vants, John Breasly, Robert Saylor and Martha Worral. Pownall was killed by the fall of a tree, the first accidental death known in the county, one month and two days after his arrival, and a son, George, was born twelve days after- ward. These and other immigrants came in the ships Samuel, and Friends Adventure. The servants, who accompanied them, were indentured to serve four years, and, at the end of the time, each was to receive his freedom and fifty acres of land-the condition of all indentured servants brought from England at that period.
The settlement of new countries is governed by a law as well defined as that of commerce or finance. From the time the human family first went abroad to found colonies to the present day, civilization has traveled up the valleys of rivers and their tributaries, while the wealth, developed by labor and capital. has as invariably flowed down these same valleys to the sea. This law was ob- served by our ancestors. Planting themselves upon the Delaware they grad- ually extended up its valley and the valleys of the Poquessing. Pennypack and Neshaminy and penetrated the interior. At the end of the second year after Peun's arrival. we find settlers scattered here and there through the wilderness as high up as Wrightstown. Warrington and Upper Makefield.
Bucks county was settled by three distinetly-marked races, whose peculiari- ties are seen in their descendants -- the English, the German, and the Scotch- Irish. A fourth race, the Welsh, followed the other three, and settled some portions of the middle and upper seetions of the county, but their descendants are not so distinctly marked. They were generally Baptists, and, while they did not introduce that worship into the county, they added largely to its com- munion and strength. This mixture of peoples gives our population a very composite character. The first to arrive were the English, mostly Friends, who immediately preceded, came with, or followed William Penn, and settled in the lower parts of Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks. They were the fathers and founders of the commonwealth, and have left their lasting impress upon our
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
society and laws. They were followed by the Germans, who transferred the language and customs of the Rhine to the Schuylkill, the upper Delaware and the Lehigh. They were of several denominations, the Lutherans, Reformed and Mennonites predominating. The Germans came close upon the heels of the English Friends. who had hardly seated themselves on the banks of the Dela- ware before the language of Luther was heard on the Schuylkill. As early as 1082-83 a few settled where Germantown stands, and to which they gave the name. They were followed by a number of German Friends, from Cresheim," near Worms, 1686, having been convinced by William Ames. They came in considerable numbers soon after 1700. In the fall of 1705, two German agents came to view the land, and went pretty generally through the country, but re- turned without buying. In the winter of 1704-5, Penn writes to James Logan that he has an hundred German families preparing to go to Pennsylvania, which will buy thirty or forty thousand acres of land. In the summer of 1709 Penn announces to Logan the coming of the Palatines (Germans), and charges him to use them "with tenderness and care ;" says they are "a sober people, divers Mennonites, and will neither swear nor fight" -- a great recommendation with the founder. Tender and considerate William Penn !- he wants these strangers treated with tenderness and care when they come to their new homes in the wilderness! Between 1708 and 1720 thousands of Germans arrived from the Palatinate. About 1711 several thousand, who had immigrated to New York, left that Province and came to Pennsylvania because they were badly treated. After this no Germans would settle there. In 1717 James Logan deprecates the great number of Germans that are coming, which he says "gives the country some uneasiness." He writes, in 1714, that Sir William Keith, the governor, while at Albany, two years before, invited the New York Germans to come to l'ennsylvania to increase his political influence ; fears they may be willing to usurp the country to themselves; and four years later he is glad the influx of strangers will attract the attention of Parliament. There may have been gen- uine fear on the part of the authorities, which complained of the Germans as bold and indigent, and seized upon the best vacant tracts of land without paying for it. To discourage their coming here the Provincial Assembly laid a tax of 20s, a head on each newly arrived servant. The government had become so jealous of the Germans and other immigrants, not English, by this time, that all attempts at naturalization failed until 1724, under the administration of Governor Keith.
The third race to arrive was the Scotch-Irish, as they are generally called, but properly Scotch, and not the offspring of the marriage of Gael and Celt. They were almost exclusively Presbyterians, the immigration of the Catholic- Irish setting in at a later period. The Scotch-Irish began to arrive about 1716- 1%. Timid James Logan had the same fear of these immigrants he had of the Germans. They came in such numbers, about 1729, he said it looked as if "Ireland is to send all her inhabitants to this Province," and feared they would make themselves masters of it. He charged them of possessing themselves of the Conestoga manor "in an audacious and disorderly manner," 1730. The 20s. hvad-tax laid the year before had no effect in restraining them, and the stream flowed on in spite of unfriendly legislation. No wonder-it was an exodus from a land of oppression to one of civil and religious liberty !
The Scotch-Irish have a history full of interest. In the sixteenth century the Province of Ulster, Ireland, which had been nearly depopulated during the
5 The name "Cresheim" is spelled in two, if not, three, ways.
3
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Irish rebellions in the reign of Elizabeth, was peopled by immigrants from Seot- land. The offer of land, and other inducements. soon drew a large population. distinguished for thrift and industry, across the narrow strait that separate, the two countries. They were Presbyterians, and built their first church in County Antrim, 1613. The population was largely increased the next fifty years under the persecutions of Charles Il. and James II., in their effort to establish the church of England over Scotland. There has been but little inter- marriage between the Irish and these Scotch-Saxons, and the race is nearly a- distinct as the day it settled in Ireland. In the course of time persecution foi- lowed these Scotch-Irish into the land of their exile, and, after bearing it a- long as it became men of spirit to bear, they resolved to seek new homes in America, where they hoped to find a free and open field for their industry and skill, and where there would be no interference with their religious belief.
Their immigration commenced the first quarter of the eighteenth century. six thousand arriving in 1729; and it is stated that for several years, prior to the middle of the century, twelve thousand came annually. A thousand fam- ilies sailed from Belfast in 1736, and it is estimated that twenty-five thousand arrived between 1771 and 1773. Nearly the whole of them were Presbyterians. and settled in Pennsylvania. Many of them came into Bucks county in que .: of homes, and, in a few years, we find them scattered over several sections. from Neshaminy to the mountains north of the Lehigh. They were the found- ers of all the old Presbyterian churches in the county. We had no class of immigrants that excelled them in energy, enterprise and intelligence.
A considerable number of Hollanders settled in the lower section of the county in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, principally on the Ne- shaminy and its branches, but their descendants have quite lost their character- istics of race, in the hotch-potch of many peoples. These several races came t. the wilds of Pennsylvania for a two-fold object, to better their worldly con- dition, and for freedom to worship God. Religious persecution in Europe drove to the new world the best immigrants that peopled this county. The Catholic- Irish, now found in large numbers in the county, began their migration at a. much later period, although from the earliest time an occasional Irishman made his home in Penn's new Province.
Before the arrival of Europeans, Bucks county was occupied, and the soi: owned by Indians known as the Lenni Lenape, or original people, who dwelt on both banks of the Delaware from its mouth to its source, and reaching t the Susquehanna in the interior. They were divided into a number of mine: tribes, speaking as many dialects of the same common language. The English: called them the Delaware Indians because they lived upon that river. Thic greater portion of those who lived within the present limits of the county wers known as Neshaminies, probably from the name of one of our largest and mos! beautiful streams. The Lenni Lenapes originally came from the valley of the Mississippi, whence they were driven by more powerful neighbors, and songi .: a quiet home on the banks of the Delaware. Europeans found them a mil! amiable and kindly-disposed people ; and, on their first arrival, the Indians as- sisted to feed them. and in some instances, the carly settlers would probably have starved without the friendly help of their red neighbors. Gabriel Thoma .. in his early account of Pennsylvania, says of the Indians :---
"The children are washed in cold water as soon as born, and to harde !! them they are plinged into the river. They walk at abont nine months. Tl :. boys fish until about fifteen when they hunt, and if they have given proof (: their manhood by a large return of skins, they are allowed to marry, usually a'
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
about seventeen or eighteen. The girls stay with their mothers and help to hoe the ground, plant corn and bear burdens. They marry at about thirteen or fourteen. Their houses are made of mats or the bark of trees set upon poles not higher than a man, with grass or reeds spread on the ground to lie upon They live chiefly on maize or Indian corn roasted in the ashes, sometimes beaten and boiled with water, called hominy. They also eat beans and peas. The woods and river furnish the greater part of their provisions. They eat but two meals a day, morning and evening. They mourn a whole year, but it is no other than blacking their faces." Proud says: "The Indians along the Delaware, and the adjacent parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so far as appears by the best accounts of the early settlement of the provinces, when clear of the effects of the pernicious poison of strong liquor, and before they had much imbibed, and, to their unnatural depravity, added such European vices as before they were strangers to, were naturally, and in general. faithful and hospitable."
1755141
Before the settlements along the Delaware fell into the hands of the Eng- lish, the Dutch authorities prohibited the selling of powder, shot and strong liquors to the Indians, under pain of death. Isaac Stille was a celebrated Indian, of good education, and the leader of the last remnant of the Delaware tribe adjacent to Philadelphia. His only son, Joshua, was educated at Germantown. In 1771 Isaac Still moved up into Buckingham where he collected the scattered remains of his tribe, and in 1775. he, with 40 persons, started off to the Wabash. These were mostly females, the men having gone before. He is described as a fine-looking man, wearing a hat ornamented with feathers. The women marched off in regular order, bareheaded, each with a large pack on her back fastened with large straps across the forehead.
Among the prominent Indians, natives of the county, were Captain Har- rison, born in Buckingham and intended for the Delaware chieftain, and Teedy- uscung, a man of superior natural abilities, who spoke English and could read and write. The bones of the great Tamany, the affable, are said to repose in the valley of the beautiful Neshaminy. Captain Harrison refused to leave his aged mother when she was seized with the small-pox, and he fell a victim to it. and was buried on the Indian tract. In 1690 there were several settlements of Indians in Buckingham and Solebury, on the Fell, Pownall and Streaper tracts. They were peaceably inclined and sometimes supplied the settlers with meats and vegetables. Their children and those of the whites played together. On the farm of the late Henry Beans, Buckingham, is a spring that still bears the name of "Indian Spring." from the fact that Indians encamped about it many years after the country was well settled. Peg Tuckemony, who lived on the Street road above Sand's corner, and employed herself making baskets, is said to have been the last of her race in Buckingham. She is remembered by the present generation, and she made a school basket for the late Simon Meredith, Doylestown, when a school-boy. Isaiah, her husband, died about 1830.
6 In 1679 the following Indian chiefs were living along the Delaware from Cold Spring up to about Taylorsville : Mamerakickan, Anrichtan. Sackoquewano, and Van- neckos.
7 Samuel Preston.
CHAPTER IV.
PENN SAILS FOR HIS NEW COLONY.
1682.
Penn sails for .Pennsylvania .- Arrives at New Castle .- Meets the inhabitants .- Visits Philadelphia .- The First Assembly goes to New York .- The Welcome passengers. John Rowland, Thomas Fitzwater. William Buckman. Nicholas Waln, John Gilbert. Joseph Kirkbride .- Condition of the country .- First purchase from the Indians .- Penn buys more land .- Treaty of 1686 .- The Walking Purchase .- Tamany .- Lands Granted .- The Great Law .- Population on Penn's arrival .- Assembly of 1683 .- Seal of Bucks county .- House of Correction .- The county court .- Sumptuary Laws .- Marking cattle .- Ear marks .- Owners of cattle in Bucks county, 1684.
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