USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 54
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The Stewarts were among the earliest Scotch-Irish settlers in Bucks county-John of Northampton and Warwick, Robert of Warwick and Thomas of Tinicum. Charles Stewart, who first appears in Phimstead, 1738, was probably a son of John, who was in Northampton, 1729. In 1757. April 1. he bought one hundred and sixteen aeres in Plumstead of William Allen. His children were George. Charles and Rachel. This Charles Stewart is probably the same who afterward removed to Upper Makefield, which a comparison of signatures, from 1,38 to 1791, makes quite conclusive. Charles Stewart mar- ried the widow of David Lawell, Newtown, 1756-57. At that time his residence is given at Plumstead. This was probably a second marriage. as John Harris married his daughter Hannah about the same time. While it is thought she went to Kentucky for good. 1797, she appears to have been in Bucks county, 1803. where she acknowledged a power of attorney to Robert Frazier, author- izing him to convey her interest in the Mansion Home. Newtown, as the instrument was executed. there. In a letter of attorney, dated June 30. 1707, which Hannah Harris and Mary Hunter executed, they are spoken of as "late of Woodford, in the State of Kentucky, but now of Bucks county." When Charles Stewart went to Upper Makefiekt we do not know, but he was there February 5. 1773.
The Reverend Nathaniel Irwin, both eccentric and able. officiated many years at Neshaminy previous to his death. 1812. It is related of him, that
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
during his pastorate, he made an effort to introduce Watts's hymns in the place of Rouse's version of the Psalms of David. Sometimes he would give ont from one book, and then from another. On one occasion he opened with a Rouse and closed with a Watts, which so greatly displeased a hearer, named Walker, he took up his hat and walked out of the house when the Watts was given ont. He went straightway up to Craig's tavern. now Warrington, where he found several topers around the fire nursing their cups. On being asked why he was not at church, he replied they were "doing nothing but singing Yankee Doodle songs and play-house tunes, down at Neshaminy," and to cool his anger and assuage disgust, he cried out to the landlord, "Gee us a gill o' rum."
In 1742 Reverend William Dean, county Antrim, Ireland, was sent to preach at Neshaminy and Forks of Delaware, but the length of his stay is not known. He was ordained pastor at Forks of Brandywine, 1746, and died there, 1748.
William Allen was a large owner of real estate in Warwick, and in 1756 he conveyed one hundred and thirty-four acres to John Barnhill, bounded by lands of Margaret Grey, James Wier and other lands of William Allen. In addition to the families already mentioned, we know that the Bairds, Craw- fords, Walkers, Davises, Tompkins and others came into the township carly, all probably in the first third of the century. The name of Andrew Long is affixed to the petition for the township, but we believe he always lived on the south side of the Bristol road in Warrington though we know he owned land in Warwick. The Mckinstrys probably came into the township later, at least they do not appear to have been inhabitants when it was organized. These names are still found in this and adjoining townships. A daughter of Henry Mckinstry, Christiana, a young lady of twenty years, met her death, by acci- dent, the 19th of April, 1809. under painful circumstances. She was return- ing from Philadelphia up the York road in a wagon with John Spencer. He got ont at Jenkintown for a few minutes and meanwhile the horses started on a run. Her dead body was picked up on the road just below Abington, where the horses were stopped uninjured. It is supposed she attempted to jump out of the wagon, and fell, the wheels running over her head. The event created great excitement in the neighborhood where she lived.
The Wallaces came into Bucks with the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian immi- gration the first quarter of the eighteenth century, but we do not know where they first settled. They were in Tinicum, Plumstead and Warrington, 1739-40, and 1762. James Wallace purchased three hundred acres on Neshaminy near Hartsville, but was probably in Warwick earlier. He first appears in public life. 1768, when elected Coroner, serving four years. He was active against the Crown during the Revolution, and was at the meeting at Newtown, July o. 1774, and joined in the protest against the oppressive measure of the Parlia- ment ; was a delegate to the Carpenter Hall Conference, July 15. 1774: member of the Bucks county committee of safety, and his name heads the roll of the Warwick Associators. In January, 1776. he was appointed a member of a com- mittee to go to Philadelphia to learn the process of making saltpetre : in June, 1776, was a member of the Carpenter's Hall Conference that led to the forma- tion of a State government and one of the three judges to hold the election for delegates to the first constitutional convention. When the State govern- ment was organized, James Wallace was appointed one of the Judges of the criminal court, his commission hearing date March 31. 1777. He was equally
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... tive in church affairs, serving as trustee at Neshaminy from his first election, ruf, to his death. Ile died 1777 and his widow was living 1810.
James Wallace married Isabella Miller, daughter of Robert and Margaret Graham ) Miller, Warrington, 1754-55, and was the father of five children : William, Jane, Margaret. Robert and Isabel. William and Isabel died single. Line married John Carr, son of Joseph and Mary ( Long) Carr. Margaret mar- ried Samuel Polk, son of James : and Robert Wallace married Mary Long, unghter of Hugh and Mary Corbit Long. Of the eight children of Robert and Mary Wallace, Priscilla married William Hart; Isabella, Joseph Ford; Mary Mark Evans; Jane, Charles Shewell, New Britain, and Rebecca, William Ward; Margaret died in infancy, and James, the only son, married Mary Ford.
Warwick is well provided with roads, being cut by three main highways, the York. Bristol, and Alms-house roads, and a number of short lateral roads, affording easy communication from one portion of the township to another. The road from the top of Carr's hill down to the Bristol road at Neshaminy church was laid out in 1756 between the lands of William Miller and James Boyden. In 1750 a road was opened from Henry Jamison's mill," on the south-west branch of Neshaminy, to the York road. A stone bridge, on the York road, over the Neshaminy, above Hartsville, was built in 1755.3% It was replaced by another stone bridge in 1789, which stood until within recent years, when it was destroyed by a freshet. The datestone had cut upon it a human heart. The present bridge is an open wooden one. Warwick is one of the best watered townships in the county. Two branches of the Neshaminy form part of its east and northern boundary, which, with their tributaries, supply almost every part of it with abundance of good water. This condition is very favorable to the building of mills, and their erection was begun with the first settlement of the township. Before 1760 there were four flour-mills in Warwick, Henry Jamison's, now Lewis Ross's, Mearns', Hugh Miller's, and Faries's. Fifty years ago the late Admiral Dalghren, then a lieutenant in the United States navy, owned and occupied the farm later in possession of Mr. Ramsey on the Warwick side of the Bristol road, half a mile below Hartsville. He lived there several years to recover his shattered health.
In Warwick there are no villages deserving the name. All of Hartsville but the tavern and two dwellings are on the Warminster side of the Bristol road. Bridge Valley, at the crossing of the Neshaminy by the York road, is the seat of a post-office, with an unlicensed tavern and three or four dwellings, and Jamison's corner, at the intersection of the York and Alins-house roads, consists of a tavern, a store, and a few dwellings. Warwick's three taverns, wlien that at Bridge Valley was in commission, lay on the York road in the distance of four miles. Before canals and railroads were constructed they had an abundant patronage from the large teams that hauled goods from Phila- delphia to the upper country. Hartsville and Jamison's corner were so called as early as 1817, when Bridge Valley bore the name of Pettit's The town- ship has two post-ofices, that at Hartsville, established in 1817, and Joseph Carr appointed postmaster, and at Bridge Valley, in 1869, with William Har-
3 Now known as Mearns lower mill, and is owned by Lewis Ross.
312 This bridge was built partly by subscription and partly by money contributed by the county. The previous bridge was too low in time of a freshet and there was trouble from overflow of the stream. George Hughes and John Wilkinson superintended its erection.
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vey the first postmaster. The classical school of Reverend Robert B. Belville was followed by schools of the same character, kept in turn by Messrs. Samuel, Charles and Mahlon Long and for nearly a quarter of a century were quite celebrated. The first-named, Samuel Long, was killed by a limb falling from a tree under which he was standing, giving directions to wood-choppers, it December, 1836. Some of the carly settlers of Warwick lived to a green old age. viz: John Crawford, who died September 4, 1806, aged eighty-eight, Mrs. Elizabeth Baird, widow of John Baird, November 9. 1808, aged ninety-five years, John Ilough, January 6, 1818, aged eighty-eight years, and Charles McMicken, December 24, 1822, aged eighty-two, who was born, lived and died on the same farm. A later death shows greater longevity than the fore- going, that of Mrs. Phoebe Taylor. widow of Jacob Taylor, who died October 27, 1867, at the age of ninety-nine years, five months and four days. She was a daughter of Jeremiah and Mary Northrop. Lower Dublin, Philadelphia county. Among the local societies of the township is the Fellowship Horse Co., organized 1822.
In 1784 Warwick-then embracing a portion of the territory now be- longing to Doylestown, contained six hundred and nine white inhabitants, twenty-seven blacks and one hundred and five dwellings. In 1810 the popu- lation was 1,287; 1820. 1,215; 1830, 1,132, and 216 taxables; 1840, 1.259: 1850, 1,234: 1860, 881, and 1870, 775, of which 19 were of foreign birth ; 1880. 722: 1890. 700; 1900, 631. We cannot account for this constant shrinkage of the population of Warwick on any other theory than the incompetency of the census takers. If the figures be correct, it does not speak well for the growth of a township which had 350 less population in I870 than it had forty years before.4
The surface of Warwick is not as level as the adjoining townships. In the vicinity of Neshaminy it is considerably broken in places with steep. abrupt banks and rolling. The soil is thin on some of the hillsides. The Arctic drift, evidence of which is seen in Warrington, extended into Warwick.
Warwick lay in the track of the Continental army at one of the most critical periods of the Revolution. Washington passed the winter, spring and most of the summer of 1777 near Morristown. New Jersey, watching the Brit- ist in New York ; but. when he heard of the British fleet sailing south, in July, 17-8. believing their destination to be Philadelphia, he put his army in march to intercept them. He crossed the Delaware at New Hope, then Coryell's Ferry, the 30th and 31st of July, marching down the York road to the vicinity of Germantown, where he halted to await further tidings. As the movements of the British fleet were uncertain and deceiving. the Continental army re- traced its march to the Neshaminy hills, half a mile above the Cross roads. now Hartsville, where they went into camp August 10. While the Con- tinental army lay on the Neshaminy hills. Washington quartered in the farm house of John Moland. then lately deceased, and the family probably lived there. The dwelling was surrounded by a plantation of one hundred and thirty-four acres, which Daniel Longstreth purchased. 1,89. He sold it. 1,90.
4. The shrinkage in the population of Warwick, is said to have been due to two causes, incompetency of the census takers, and adding portions of it to Doylestown, once. if not twice. When Doylestown was organized. in 1818, it was taken from the three ad- joining townships of Buckingham, New Britain and Warwick, the latter giving 3.515 acres. Some 40 years ago the Alms House and farm was taken from Warwick and added to Doylestown. This reduced the population over 100.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
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to John Richards, a Philadelphia merchant, who probably never lived there, as he conveyed the property to Elijah Stinson April 1, 1792. The latter spent the remainder of his life there, dying March 5, 1840, at the age of eighty-nine. The dwelling, with about half the original plantation, was sold by William Bothwell's executors, to Mrs. Sarah R. Campbell, April 3. 1889. The Moland house. still standing, in good preservation, is on the east side of the York road, facing south and three hundred yards north of Neshaminy. It is a sub- stantial stone building, thirty-five feet square, two stories and attic with a stone kitchen at the east end. 16 x IS feet. A porch runs in front of each building
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MOLAND HOUSE, WARWICK. Washington's Headquarters. August. 1777.
on the south side. The end of the main building stands to the road on a bank a few feet high. . As when Washington occupied it, the first floor of the main building is divided into two rooms with the entry near the kitchen; the larger room being on the south side and entered from the porch, the smaller, back. The latter is thought to have been used by Washington as an office, the larger a reception room. In each there was an open fire place and then as now a door opened into the kitchen. There has been no change in the porches in sixty years, and similar ones may have been there 1777-8. Here Lafayette reported for duty and first took his seat at the council board. The whipping post was on the west side of the York road, opposite the house. The army was again put in march for Philadelphia on the 23d to intercept the enemy, the battle of Brandywine and Germantown shortly following.
The Hareste were among the carly settlers in Warwick, George Hare being in the township prior to 1724, but whether he came single or married is unknown. We have not been able to learn the name of his wife. but she is known to have had five children: Joseph, Mary, who married a Macfarland : Jean, wife of John Robinson ; Benjamin and William. Among the records of the Bensalem Presbyterian church is the following entry: "George Hare and his wife had a son baptized. named Benjamin, 8th month, ye ist day, 1724," probably their oldest child. George was one of the trustees in the deed for the lot on which the "New Light church" was erected, 1744. AMthough himself and
412. This name is spelled both Hare and Hair.
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wife were Presbyterians there is no record of them in the archives of Nesham- iny, not even of their death or burial.' His will was executed January 2, 1768, and probated July 29. 1,69, his death taking place between these dates. His son Benjamin was his executor. In his will he bequeathed a legacy of f21, for the "support of the Gospel at the new meeting house at Neshaminy," and another of £50 to his son Joseph. William Hare, son of George, died before his father, July, 1756, his will being executed January 22, and probated July 6. In it he directs that "Father be provided for." William lived in New Britain and probably died there. Benjamin Hare was probably the longest-lived child of the family, dying March 31, 1804, aged about eighty. His death is in the Neshaminy records. The name of William Hare appears on the rolls of Cap- tain Henry Darrah's company of militia, 1778, and the second lieutenant of Captain William Magill's company of riflemen was a Hare, the first name not given. This company belonged to Colonel Humphrey's regiment of riflemen, called out for the defense of the Lower Delaware, 1814. One at least, of the Hare family, kept public house, probably a son of Benjamin. In the issue of January 15, 1805, the Pennsylvania Correspondent, published . at Doylestown by Asher Miner, says. in speaking of the public house of the village, "that noted tavern stand, 'sign of the ship,' in the tenure of Mathew Hare, situated in Doylestown, afronting the Easton and New Hope roads." It occupied the site of Lenape Building, south-cast corner of Main and State streets. In 1822 Joseph Hair (Hare) was captain of the Independent Artillerists, Doyles- town, organized the previous fall, and officers elected January 24.5
5 The records relating to the Hares, are somewhat conflieting. George Hare, prob- ably a son of William, is said to have removed to New Jersey, but the place of his settle- ment is not given. He died, 1783. A Benjamin Thornton Hare, whose wife was a daugh- ter of Jacob Krider, a soldier of the Revolution, is mentioned, but that is all. It is just possible he was the Benjamin, son of George, who was baptised at the Bensalem Church, 1724.
CHAPTER XXVI.
WARRINGTON.
1734.
Land-holders in 168.4 .- Richard Ingelo .- Devise to William Penn, Jr .- William Allen .- Division of his tract .- Joseph Kirkbride .- The Houghs .- Dunlaps .- Old map .- Land- owners .- Township organized .- The Millers, Craigs, Walkers, et. al .- The Longs .--- The Weisels .- Nicholas Larzelere and descendants .- Roads .- Township enlarged .- Craig's tavern .- Sir William Keith, and residence .- Easton road opened .- Pleasant- ville church .- Traces of glaciers .- Boulders found .- Mundoeks .- Pine trees .- Valley of Neshaminy .-- Post-offices .- Population .- Nathaniel Irwin.
Warrington is the upper of the three rectangular townships bordering the Montgomery County Line. When Holme's map was published, 1684, there were but four land-owners in the township, none of them living there, Rich- ard Ingelo, R. Sneed. Charles Jones, jr., and R. Vickers. At this time War- rington was an umbroken wilderness.
There must have been some authority for putting Richard Ingelo on Holmne's map as a land-owner in Warrington, 1684, although the records say he did not become an owner of land until the following year. January 22, 1685, Wiliam Penn granted to Ingelo six hundred acres, which he located on the county line below the lower state road. In 1719, Ingelo conveyed it to Thomas Byam, of London, and, in 1726, Byam sold one hundred and fifty acres to Robert Rogers. The farms of James and Lewis Thompson were in- cluded in the Ingelo tract.
By the will of William Penn ten thousand acres in the county were de- vised to his grandson, William Penn, jr., of which one thousand four hundred and seventeen lay in Warrington, extending across to the county line and probably into Horsham, and was surveyed by Isaac Taylor by virtue of an order from the trustees of young Penn, dated November 16, 1727. On August 25, 1728, the tract was conveyed to William Allen, including the part that lay in Warrington, making him a large land-owner in the township. August 31. 1765, Allen conveyed three hundred and twenty-three acres to James Weir. who was already in possession of land and probably had been for some time. He owned other lands adjoining as did his brother John. Weir and his heirs were charged with the payment of a rent of "two dung-hill fowles" to William Allen, the 16th of November yearly, forever. The three hundred and twenty- three acre tract lay in the neighborhood of Warrington, a portion of it being
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
owned by Benjamin Worthington. In 1736, Allen conveyed one hundred and five acres, near what is now Tradesville, on the lower state road to Richard Walker, and, in 1738, one hundred and forty-eight acres additional, adjoining the first purchase. This tract was lately owned by several persons, among them Philip Brunner, eighty-eight acres, Jesse W. Shearer, Lewis Tomlinson and others. The quit-reut reserved by Allen on the first tract was a bushel of oats, with the right to distrain if in default for twenty days, and one and one- half bushels of good, merchantable oats on the second tract, to be paid an- nually at Philadelphia, the sixteenth of November. The first of these tracts ran along Thomas Hudson's grant the distance of one hundred and twenty perches. In addition to these lands, Allen owned five hundred acres he re- ceived through his wife, the daughter of Andrew Hamilton, in 1738. This he conveyed to James Delaney. and wife, also the daughter of Allen, in 1771. In 1793 Delaney and wife conveyed these five hundred acres to Samuel Hines. William Hines, Matthew Hines the younger, and William Simpson, for £1,500, each purchaser taking a separate deed.1 This land lay in the upper part of the township, and extended into the edge of Montgomery county. There was an old dwelling on the tract. on the upper state road, half a mile over the county line, in which a school was kept many years ago. The road, from the Bristol road to the Bethlehem pike, at Gordon's hill, was the southern boundary of the Allen tract.
In 1722 Joseph Kirkbride owned a tract in the south-west corner of New Britain, and. when Warrington was enlarged, some thirty-five years ago, two hundred and fifty-eight acres fell into Warrington township. In it were in- cluded the farms of Henry, Samuel, and Aaron Weisel. Joseph Selner. Charles Haldeman. Benjamin Larzelere and others. In 1735 the Proprietaries con- veved two hundred and thirteen acres, on the county line to Charles Tennent. of Mill Creek in Delaware, and in 1740 Tennent sold it to William Walker of Warrington. The deed of 1735, from the Proprietaries to Tennent. state the land was reputed to be in "North Britain" township, but since the division of the township. it was found to be in Warrington. John Lester was the owner of one hundred and twenty-five acres prior to 1753, which probably included the ninety-eight acres that Robert Rogers conveyed to him, in 1746. and lay in the upper part of the township adjoining the Allen tract. The 12th of August. 1734. the Proprietaries conveyed to Job Goodson, physician, of Philadelphia. one thousand acres in the lower part of the township. extending down to Neshaminy for part of its southern boundary and across the Bristol road into Warwick. The 27th of May. 1735. Goodson conveved four hundred acres to Andrew Long of Warwick for {256. This was the lower end of the thousand acres and lay along the Neshaminy, and the farm of Andrew Long, on the south-west side of the Bristol road is part of it.
Among the settlers in Warrington in the eighteenth century, were the Houghs, descendants of Richard Hough, who came from England. 1682, and settled in Lower Makefield. He was highly esteemed by William Penn and
I. At the extreme west corner of the tract, where the State road and county line intersect, stands an old stone house built over a century ago. It is now the property of Allen White and a part of the hamlet formerly called "Harp's Corner." In this house once resided John Simpson, grandfather of General Grant, and his daughter Hannah, mother of the renowned General and President. The residence of the Simpson family there was only temporary, during the year iStS. Simpson had sold the present Dudley farm in northern Horsham. September, 1817, and left Warrington for Ohio, May, 1819.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
enjoyed his confidence. Joseph Hough, the immediate ancestor of the Houghs of Warrington and other parts of Bucks county, and grandson of Richard, was born in the township. He married Mary Tompkins and was the father of several children. In 1791 his son Benjamin married Hannah Simpson, daugh- ter of John Simpson, a soldier of the Revolution. The substantial stone dwell- ing at the southeast corner of the Easton and Bristol roads, at Newville, and known for many years as the "Hough homestead," with the tract belonging to it, embracing the pres- ent farm and that form- erly Robert Greir's, was bought by Benjamin Hough. 1804, of John Barclay,-for several years its owner and oc- cupant, who built the house, 1799. It still stands apparently as sub- stantial as when erected. Benjamin Hough and wife had nine children, who married and settled in Bucks: John, Joseph, Anne, married George Stuckert; Benjamin; Silas; Hannah married Daniel Y. Harman : Wil- liam ; Samuel MI., and Mary married John Barnsley. Benjamin Hough and wife both died, 1848, his will being executed August II. 1847, and probated May 20, 1848. The property was bought by Robert 1 Radcliff, 1855, and by him conveved, 1804 .- to his son, Elias H. Rad- cliff, the present owner. This semi-colonial home- stead has become some- HOUGH HOUSE. Where Grant spent his vacation while at West Point. what famous, from the fact that Ulysses S. Grant, while a cadet at West Point, spent his vacation in it. The Houghs were cousins of young Grant, through Hannah Simpson, niece of Benjamin Hough's wife, whom Jesse Grant married. The Hough mansion" adorning this volume, is four miles below Doylestown. the county seat of Bucks.
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