USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 51
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The Hoover family of Bucks and Montgomery counties, are descended from Jacob Huber, who came from Germany about 1732. He was the youngest of four brothers, and a minor at the time of his arrival. The family is believed to have been Swiss. He settled in Plumstead, but we are not informed of his exact location. In 1797 tile son, Henry Huber, removed to Gwynedd township Montgomery county, purchasing two hundred aeres of the farm of George Maris for £1800. Henry Huber or Hoover, as the name was spelled, by this time, is said to have removed from Hilltown to Gwynedd. He had a son Philip, who married Mary, daughter of Frederick Conrad, of Worcester, who represented the county in Congress. Henry Hoover died April 9, 1809, but the Montgomery homestead remained in the family down to 1885, a period of ciglity-six years, from the first purchase. He was born, Dec. 1, 1751, and his wife. Margaret, died November 27, 1813, in her sixty-second year. The descendants of Jacob Huber are numerous in Bucks and Montgomery and hold an annual family reunion.
The Doanes of Plumstead descended from John Doane of Plymouth, England, who settled in Barnstable county, Massachusetts, prior to 1630. The name is Norman French, was spelled in various ways, and the first ancestor probably came over with William the Conqueror. The family was prominent in Massachusetts, one member being a Lieutenant at the siege of Louisburg. Daniel Doane (3), grandson of John the immigrant. married MIchitable Twining. united with the Friends at Sandwich, 1696, and with their four, children came to Bucks county, settling at Newtown. He died here August 8, 1743. Israel Doane was in Pluinstead as early as 1726 and settled near the meeting-house. Joseph Doane, an excellent man and citizen, was the father of the Doane outlaws of the Revolution. They, who were not killed or hanged, made their escape to Canada. Joseph Brown, probably a son of Thomas an original settler, bought two hundred and fifty acres, 1734. John Boyle, three hundred aeres, 1736, and Joseph Large, probably a son of Henry, twelve or fifteen years a settler, bought land but the quantity is not given. Philip Hinkle, who. settled in Plumstead soon after the middle of the eighteenth century, is thought to have been a descendant of the Rev. Gerhard Henkel, a Lutheran minister who settled at Germantown about 1740. His paternal grandmother was Mary Johnson, an English Quakeress, whose ancestors, on both sides were Scotch Presbyterians. and came to Bucks county, 1716. Philip's brother Joseph went to North Caro- lina. and both served in the Revolution. December 16, 1766, Robert Mac-
. There were several of this name in the province, principally in Philadelphia. + Clement Plumstead was mayor of that elty, 1741, and his son William filled that office 1750-54-55. and died 1769.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Farland, Plumstead, and Elizabeth, his wife, conveyed to Philip Hinkle one hundred and fifty-three acres and fifty-two perches, which James Polk had conveyed to MacFarland, 1759. In the record of Bucks county we find that Peter Hinkels was naturalized August 26, 1735, but he was hardly of the same family as Philip. In 1771, Philip Hinkle had a contention with Thomas Shewell, New Britain, in relation to a warrant that Shewell laid within his survey. Among the descendants of Philip Hinkle were Philip, born October 24, 1811, died October 26, 1880, and Anthony Hughes, born March 19, 1815, and died June 25, 1883, both grandsons of Philip, the elder. They spent their business life in Cincinnati and died there. The Hinkle descendants are to be found in New Britain, Richland and other townships. The home of Philip Hinkle, the elder, was at Hinkletown with his cultivated acres spreading around him.5
The Carlisles and Penningtons settled in the township considerably before the middle of the eighteenth century. John Carlisle and Sarah Pennington were married at Plumstead meeting, July 5, 1757, and she died in 1785. They were the grandparents of Mrs. Carr, Danborough, she and Rachel Rich being their only two surviving grandchildren. The MeCallas were in Pluinstead before 1750,. William, the first comer, being an immigrant from Scotland, but it is not known whether he was married when he came to America or married here.& His son Andrew, who was born in the township the 6th of November, 1757, removed to Kentucky where he married and had six children. One of his sons was the Reverend William Latta McCalla, a distinguished Presbyterian min- ister, and General Jackson's chaplain in the Seminole war, and another the late John Moore McCalla, adjutant-general of the American forces at the massacre at the river Raisin. William McCalla removed, before the Revolution, from Plumstead to Philadelphia where he formed the acquaintance of General La- fayette who was a frequent visitor at his house. We do not know at what time he died. Henry Huddleston owned land in Plumstead, 1752, and the same year John Watson surveyed forty-eight acres to Robert McFarlin, on a war- rant dated June 17.
The Dunlaps were early in Plumstead. John and Jane Dunlap, Protestant Irish, first located at the Forks of the Delaware, now the vicinity of Easton, and there all their children were born, but, when the Indians became trouble - some, removed down to Plumstead. The wife's maiden name was Hazlett. but, whether they married before coming to America, we are not informed. They were the parents of seven children, John. Elizabeth, Mary, Andrew, Moses, James and Robert. John, the eldest, died December 4. 1809, at the age of ninety-two, and his wife. January 17, 1775. aged fifty. Another son died September 17, 1777. of sickness contracted while serving in the Continental army, and Robert. March 12. 1806, at the age of thirty-six. The Hendrie family, formerly of Doylestown, are descended from John and Jane Dunlap, in the female line. Andrew Dunlap, probably the son of Andrew. bought a farm in Doylestown township early in the last century, where he died. He had several children, and among the names were Phebe, who married a llazlett,
5 Departed this life June 24, 1821, at Plumstead. Joseph Hinkle, aged fifty-six years. Hle has left an affectionate wife and children to lament the loss of an indulgent father and kind husband. He was afflicted with a lingering illness which he bore with Christian. fortitude, and died calmly resigned to the will of God.
6 Mrs. Mary McCalla Evans, Philadelphia, says William McCalla was born on a faim rented of the Logans, on the York road, and that his father came from Scotland.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Lydia, Mary, Eliza, Robert, the youngest, a Presbyterian minister, who mar- ried a Miss Rutter, Wilke-barre. Andrew Dunlap built a home in Doylestown .on what is now Court street, for his two daughters, where they died many years ago. James Dunlap, son of Andrew, was a merchant in Philadelphia.
George and Hezekiah Rogers, Scotch immigrants, settled in Plumstead sometime in the last century, but we have not the data, taking up six hundred and forty acres covering a site of Benner's corner, fifty acres being still in the family. Ann Rogers, daughter of George, married Thomas, son of George Geary, Montgomery county and township, about 1794. They had nine chil- dren, Charles, born 1796, died 1798; Harriet, born 1802; Maria, 1804; Mary, 1806; Sarah E., ISog; Julia, 1812; Susan, 1814; Emilla, 1817, and Isabella,
the youngest, born -, lives in Doylestown with her nicce, Mrs. Lettie B. Farren. George Geary kept store awhile at Greenville, Buckingham town- ship, then removed to Muncy, Lycoming county, subsequently returning to Plumstead, where he taught school and kept store until his death, 1840. His wife, born 1777, died at Doylestown, 1871, at ninety-four. Of the daughters of Thomas and Ann Geary, Emilla married Elias Benner, Plumstead ; Maria, married Anthony Heaney, Tinicum, and Susan, James Bleiler, the two latter living at Doylestown. Hiram Rogers, son of llezekialı, settled in Minnesota and was one of the pioneers of St. Paul. George Geary settled near Mont- gomeryville. and took up a large tract, married Sarah Evans, Gwynedd, 1,82, and wife died September 25, 1808. He had seven children, Thomas, David, Elizabeth, Mary, Hannah, Ann and Catharine. David Geary was the ancestor of the late Governor John W. Geary, probably his grandfather, and, when at Doylestown, 1866, a candidate for Governor, he called to see Mrs. and Miss Geary, then living here. The daughter, Isabella, was long a teacher in the public school.
We have a tradition that the first meetings of Friends, at private houses, were heldl sometime in the winter of 1727. However this may be, we find that on the 2d of October, 1728, Plumstead Friends asked to have a meeting for worship every other First day, which was granted, and it was held at the house of Thomas Brown. The first meeting-house was ordered to be erected in 1729, and the location was fixed near where the present house stands by the previous opening of a graveyard at that spot. The ground, fifteen acres, was the gift of Thomas Brown and his sons Thomas and Alexander, in considera- tion of fifteen shillings. The deed bears date the 19th of January, 1730. and was executed in trust to Richard Lundy. Jr .. William Michener, Josiah Dser. and Joseph Dyer. The spot on which the first log meeting-house was erected. 1730, was selected by Thomas Watson, Thomas Canby, Abraham Chapman. Cephas Child and John Dyer, committee appointed by the monthly meeting of Backingham and Wrightstown. This house stood until 1732, when it was torn down and the present stone meeting-house was built. During the Revo- lutionary war this building was used as an hospital, and marks of blood are still upon the floor. Some who died there were buried in a field near by."'s
613. In the fall and winter of 1777 a number of the wounded of the Continental aring were sent to the Illumstead meeting-house. A return of the sick and wounded in the boxeri admitted November 25. 20, 27, 30, and December in. 1;27. were go-dad. 2. discharged in, remaining 28. Sametime that December Dr. France's Allison. seni for- gen. Mohlo Department, Continental Army, removed the wounded of the battle of Germa Own to Maister Ft. cone house, but were removed Da ne . to lititz by ordu .i
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Judge Huston, when a boy, went to school in the old meeting-house, his father at the time keeping the tavern at Gardenville. On a handrail inside the building is dimly seen, written in chalk, the name of David Kinsey, the car- penter who did the wood work. The old building was partly torn down and rebuilt in the summer, 1875. From the yard one obtains a beautiful view down into the valley of I'ine run and of the slope beyond.
The Greir or Grier family, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, made their appear- ance in Bucks county about 1735-40, and their descendants in future years, were found in Plumstead, New Britain, Warrington and Warwick. The first to come were Mathew and John Grier from County Tyrone, Ireland. They settled in New Britain township, and in 1743, purchased one hundred and fifty acres jointly, on the east side of the Swamp road, now the Dublin turnpike, and erected a dwelling at what is Grier's Corner. These two immigrants were born 1712 and 1714, respectively. They later extended their holdings up the Swamp road to the present line of Broad street in Hilltown township. In 1744 Mathew purchased two hundred and fifty acres on the east side of the Swamp road, in Plumstead, and in 1752, Mathew conveyed his interest in the New Britain and Hilltown lands, to his brother John, who extended his purchases until he owned at his death, about five hundred acres in contiguous tracts.
Mathew Grier, the elder, ancestor of the late James II. Greir, of Warring- ton township, married Jean Caldwell, born 1717, daughter of James Caldwell, who owned an adjoining farmi fronting the Stump road, and his brother John Greir married her sister Agnes Caldwell. Mathew Grier died 1792, leaving three sons and three daughters: John, born 1743, and died 1814, married Jean Stuart ; Susannah, born 1749, married Joseph Greer, supposed to have been a cousin, died 1823 and Joseph Greer died in Hilltown, 1822; Mathew married Sarah Snodgrass, died 1811; Agnes, married first Major William Kennedy, who was killed in the capture of Moses Doan, and second Cephas Chikl; Mary, born 1760. married Josiah Ferguson, 1779. died 1844: John and Agnes Caldwell Greir were the parents of eleven children: Mathew, born October, 1743, died September 11, 1818; Martha, married John Jamison, 1768; Jane married Joseph Thomas, 1768; Rev. James Grier, born 1750, died 1791 ; Joseph, born 1752: John died in infaney : Nathan died in infancy ; John, born, 1758, died 1831: Rev. Nathan born 1760, died 1814; Cornelius died young, and Frances, born 1762, married James Ralston.
While the descendants of Mathew and John Grier are generally engaged in agricultural pursuits, the family is represented in trade and the learned pro- fessions, and is especially noted for the number of sons it has furnished the gospel ministry. John Grier, probably the descendant of Bucks county an- vestry, who removed to Chester county, 1796, had three sons in the ministry, the oldest, John llaves Grier, born February, 1788, and died 1880, at ninety- two, graduated at Dickinson College in the class of James Buchanan. In 1814 he took charge of the Pine Creek and Lock Haven churches. Clinton county, and was the first minister of any denomination to settle at Jersey Shore, Lycoming county. He was a successful teacher, and several of the lead- ing men of the West Branch were educated by him. lle was married four times and the father of cleven children, seven surviving him. James Grier,
7 This name has three spellings, Grier, Greir and Greer. The first to spell the name "Grei" was John Stewart Greir, of Warrington, and is so spelled in the signature to his will. The Warrington family still spell the name Greir. The Plumstead family spell the namie Greer.
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son of the first John, was pastor of the Deep Run church and died there. His son, John Ferguson Grier, born 1784, graduated with first honors, 1803, studied theology with his uncle Nathan, opened a classical school at Brandy- wine Manor, and was licensed to preach by the New Castle Presbytery. Na- than Grier, brother of James of Deep Run, born 1760, graduated at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, 1783, and was licensed to preach, 1786, married a Miss Smith, a great aunt of General Persifer F. Smith, one of the most dis- tinguished officers in the Mexican war, 18446-48. He died at Brandywine about 1815, leaving two sons, both of whom entered the ministry, Robert and Jolm. The latter succeeded his father at Brandywine, where he officiated for half a century, the former dying in Maryland, while pastor of a church near Emmettsburg. Joseph Grier, a brother of Nathan, had two sons, Mathew and John; the former was a physician, and died at Williamsport, the latter studied for the ministry, was thirty-five years a chaplain in the United States Navy, and father of the Reverend M. B. Grier, one of the editors of the Presbyterian. The late Justice Grier of the Supreme court of the United States, is claimed as a member of this family. In the old burial ground at Princeton, New Jersey, is a grave stone bearing the inscription, "In memory of Jane, relict of Mathew Grier, of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, died December 31, 1799, aged eighty- three years."
The members of the family were prominent in Revolutionary times. The young men enrolled themselves with the militia, or associators and some of them saw active service. John Grier, Sr., was a Colonial Justice of the Peace, 1764-67, and, after the colonies took up arms against the mother country, he was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1776. His son, Col. Joseph Grier was active in the pursuit and capture of the Doane outlaws, and it is related that owing to his activity against them, on one occasion they made him a visit at night, took him prisoner, and foreibly held his manicled hands in the flames until burned to a blister.
On the corner of the farin now belonging to Andrew Shaddinger, at the intersection of the River and Durham roads, two miles from Smith's corner, there stood a smail log church an hundred years ago. It is spoken of as the "Deep Run church," the name of an older and larger congregation, in Bedmin- ster. Its history is wrapped in much mystery. It was probably an offshoot of the Bedminster congregation, and the division is said to have been caused by some disagreement among the Scotch-Irish members on doctrinal points. We have a tradition that some held to the tenets of the Kirk of Scotland which others of the congregation did not assent to, and hence the separation. The Plumstead congregation was called "Seceders," and when there was a division in the church this organization joined the New Brunswick Presbytery. This little church was probably organized before, or about 1730, and held together for half a century, but the names of only two of its pastors have come down to us. In 1735 Reverend Hugh Carlisle preached there and at Newtown, and two years after he refused a call to become the pastor at Plumstead, because these two churches were so far apart. How long he served them, and by whom succeeded, is not known. Carlisle came from England or Ireland, and was admitted into the New Castle Presbytery before 1735. He removed into the bounds of the Lewes Presbytery in 1738, but is not heard of after 1742. The last pastor was probably Alexander Mitchel, and when he left. the surviving members probably 'returned to Deep Run. Mitchel, born in 1731, graduated at Princeton in 1765. was licensed to preach in 1767. and or- dained in 1768. It is not known when he was called as pastor, but he left af ont
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1785, and went to the Octoraro and Doe Run churches, in Chester county where he preached until 1808. Mr. Mitchel did two good things while pastor at Octoraro, introduced stoves, and Watts's psalms and hymns into his churches, both necessary to comfortable worship. On one occasion his congregation took umbrage at a sermon against a ball held in the neighborhood, and, on Sunday morning, the door was locked and the Bible gone. Nothing daunted, he sent his negro servant up a ladder to get in at a small window over the pul- pit. As he was about to enter, the negro stopped and said to his master : "This is not right, for the good book saith, 'He that entereth not by the door into the sheep-fold, but climeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.'" Some remains of the Plumstead meeting-house are still to be seen ; a portion of the foundation can be traced, and a few gravestones, without inscription, are lying almost buried in the earth. The house was about twenty- eight by seventeen feet, and the lot contained near half an acre. The late John L. Delp, of Norristown, remembers when the log house was standing.
A Menonnite meeting-house stands on the Black's Eddy road, a mile southwest of Hinkletown, where a branch of the Deep Run congregation as- sembles for worship once a month. The pulpit is supplied from Deep Run, Doylestown, and New Britain. The first house, stone, twenty-four by twenty- seven feet, was erected in 1806, on an acre of land given by Henry Wismer and wife. It was enlarged in 1832, and is now twenty-seven by forty-three feet. It was occupied by English and German schools for twenty-five years. The graveyard is free to all outside the congregation who wish to bury there, and the remains of several unknown drowned are lying in it.
On the old Newtown road, at the top of the hill after passing Pine run. a mile above Cross Keys, is an ancient burial-ground, in the corner of the fifty acres that Christopher Day bought of Clement and Thomas Dungan in 1708. By his will dated September 1. 1746, and proved March 25, 1748, Day gave "ten perches square for a graveyard forever." It is now in a ruined condition, but some forty graves can still be seen, with few exceptions marked by unlet- tered stones. The donor was the first to die and be buried in his own ground, March ye 6th. 1;48. Another "C. Day," probably his son, died in 1763. The other stones with inscriptions, are to the memory of J. Morlen, 1749-50. Abra- ham Fried. December 21, 1772, aged thirty-two years, and William Daves, "a black man," who died February 22. 1815; aged sixty-eight years. Fried and Daves have the most pretentious stones to mark their resting-places. both of marble. The owner of the adjoining land has cut the timber from this ground, and laid bare the graves of the dead of a century and a quarter. Is there no power to keep vandal hands from the spot reserved for a burial-place "forever"? The early Welsh Baptists of New Britain, probably buried their dead in this graveyard until they established their church, and opened a burial- place of their own, a tradition handed down from the carly settlers.
Charles Huston, judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and one of the most distinguished jurists of the country, was born in Plumstead. 1771. llis grandfather came from Scotland, and he was Scotch-Irish in descent. He probably finished his studies at Dickinson college. Carlisle, where he was professor of Latin and Greek in 1792. He was studying law at the same time, and while there he completed his legal studies, was admitted to the bar in 1795, and settled in Lycoming county, cut off from Northumberland the pre- ceding winter. Among his pupils in the languages was the late Chief Justice Taney, who placed a high estimate on the character of Judge Huston. In his autobiography the chief justice says of him : "I need not speak of his character
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and capacity ; for he afterward became one of the first jurists of the country. He was an accomplished Latin and Greek scholar, and happy in his mode of instruction. And when he saw that a boy was disposed to study, his manner to him was that of a companion and friend aiding him in his difficulties. The whole school under his care was much attached to him."
Judge Huston was commissioned justice of the Supreme Court April 7, 1826, and retired from the bench in January, 1845. The last time he sat on the supreme bench at Pittsburgh he boarded privately with the sheriff, who kept house in jail. He was much annoyed by a correspondent writing to one of the newspapers, "one of our Supreme Judges ( Huston) is in jail," which put him to the trouble of writing to his friends and explaining how he happened, on that particular occasion, to be on the wrong side of the bars. With a rough ex- terior, he was as gentle as a child with all its truthfulness and fidelity. After he retired from the bench he wrote a work "On Land Titles in Pennsylvania." which was published in 1849. He left his finished manuscript on his table, by the side of a candle, one evening while he went to tea. It caught fire, and. when he returned, he found his labor of years nearly consumed. But, with his accustomed determination, he re-wrote the work, almost entirely from memory. Judge Huston died November 10, 1849, in his seventy-eighth year. Ile left two daughters, one of whom married the late James Hale, member of Congress and judge of the Clearfield district, Pennsylvania, and the other the wife of the late General Sturdevant, of the Luzerne county bar.8
Indians remained later in Plumstead than in most other parts of the county, and their settlement can be traced by their remains. There was probably a village near Curly hill, and within the last three- quarters of a century a number of flint arrow-heads, bottle-green, blue and white, have been found there. They were two or three inches long, nar- row, sharp and well-shaped, and appear to have been made by a people some- what advanced in the arts. Indian axes, well-finished of hard stone. not now to be found in that vicinity, have been picked up there. Also, a large stone. hollowed out, and probably used for cooking. AAn arrow-head, of white flint, four inches long, was found near Phimsteadville. Tradition tells us there was a village of nine huts, or lodges, of Indians near the headwaters of the south- cast branch of Deep run, which remained there long after the township was settled by whites. They went to Neshaminy to catch fish, then abundant in that stream, and paid frequent visits to the houses of the settlers on baking days, when the gift of pies and cakes conciliated their goodwill. They often dropped in on "grandmother Hill." the ancestor of the late William Hill. Plumstead. who lived on the farm recently owned by Samuel Detweiler, on such occasions and hardly ever went away empty-handed. The shape of arrow -heads
S Hugh Huston. the grandfather of Judge Huston came from Ireland and married Jean, widow of Robert Mearns. of Warwick, and died in a few years. They had one son, Thomas, and two daughters, who married William and John Thompson. Thomas Huis- ton married Jeannett Walker and had eight children, Charles being the eldest son. He was a captain in the Revolution and died at the age of 9 ;. The British came near captur- ing him while living at Newtown, on the occasion of their visit there, 1778. They reached the house, frightening the family, but did not find him. The place of Judge Huston's birth is somewhat uncertain. It is not known where the grandfather settled, but the father is said to have kept tavern at Newtown, and removed to Plumstead where he is known in have kept a tavern. Our authority says Thomas Huston was born in Bucks county, mar- ried and had five children. three daughters and two sons.
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