USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 55
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From an old map of Southampton, Warminster and Warrington, repro- duced in this volume, this township appears to have had no definite north-west and south-east boundary at that time. It had already been organized, but, in the absence of records to show the boundaries, it is not known whether they
2 It was taken for the author, by Miss Hines, a young lady of Doylestown, 1890.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
had been determined. The names of land-owners given on the map are Andrew Long, J. Paul, - Lukens, - Jones, R. Miller, T. Pritchard, the London company, the Proprietaries, Charles Tennent, - Nailor, and Will- iam Allen. That these were not all the land owners in the township, 1737, can be seen by referring to the previous pages. AAllen was still a considerable land-owner along the north-eastern line, coming down to about Warrington, and the Penns owned two tracts between the Street road and county line, above the Eastern road. The land of Miller, Pritchard, and Jones lay about War- rington Square, the seat of Neshaminy post-office.
Our knowledge of the organization of the township is very limited, and the little we know not very satisfactory. The records of our courts are almost silent on the subject. It is interesting to know the preliminary steps taken by a new community toward municipal government, and the trials they encounter before their wish is gratified, but, in the case of Warrington, we know nothing of the movement of her settlers to be clothed with township duties and responsibilities. At the October session, 1734, the following is en- tered of record: "Ordered that the land above and adjoining to Warminster township shall be a township, and shall be called Warrington." It was prob- ably named after Warrington, in Lancashire, England, and the first constable was appointed the same year. We have not been able to find any data of population at that period, and are left to conjecture the number. In 1850, the south corner of New Britain was added to Warrington, and the James Dunlap farm was part of it. He was an early settler, taking up land about 1750. It also included part of the Kirkbride tract. This became the Larze- lere farm of two hundred and twenty-five acres. James Dunlap died, 1791, and Larzelere bought the farm, 1855 for $11,000. The Dunlaps were Scotch- Irish. The McEwens, "sons of Ewen," early settlers in Warrington, are de- scended from James McEwen, born in the North of Ireland, 1744, and set- tled in the township in 1762-07. He married Mary Ann Dennison, who was born, 1748, and settled on the Bristol road a mile above Newville. He was an ardent foc of Great Britain and served his adopted country during the Revolu- tion. His wife died July 27, 1806, and he April 24, 1825. They left eight children from whom have come many descendants.
Toward the close of the first quarter of the eighitecenth century there was a valuable accession to the spaise settlers in the territory afterward erected into the townships Warwick and Warrington, the Craigs, Jamisons, Stewarts, Hairs, Longs, Armstrongs. Wallaces, Millers, Grays and others, and a little later, the Walkers. These immigrants, Scotch-Irish, and Pres- byterians in faith, were the fathers and founders of the "Presbyterian church of Neshaminy in Warwick." They formed a group of pioneers that would have done credit to any state. William Miller and wife Isabella, born in Scotland, 1670-71, came with three sons, William, Robert and Hugh, about 1720. On March 26 he purchased of Joseph Kirkbride, four hundred acres in Warwick, dedicating one acre to the use of a church and graveyard, and here the first Presbyterian church building was erected. While William Miller was a leading man 'in the community. he held no public office except member of the Grand Jury, commissioner of highways and eller in the church. He diul 1758, at the age of eight-seven, his wife preceding him a few months. His children married into the families of Jamison, Graham, Long. Earle. Curry and Wallace. William Miller. Ir. become a large laul- owner : his children and ground hildren intermarried with the Keres. Craig's, and other Scotch-trish families, and he died, 1-80. Robert Miler was a land-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
owner in Warrington as early as 1735, owning three hundred acres in all and dying. 1753.
The Craig's were in Warrington about the same period, the family con- sisting of Daniel and wife Margaret, with children Thomas, John, William, Margaret, wife of James Barclay, Sarah, wife of Jolm Barnhill,21: Jane, wife of Samuel Barnhill, Mary Lewis and Rebecca, wife of Hugh Stephenson. Daniel Craig located a considerable tract on the west side of the Bristol road including the site of the tavern at Newville, subsequently built upon it, and was known as "Craig's tavern" for many years. Two of his brothers, Thomas and William Craig, settled in Northampton county and formed what is known as "Craig's" or the "Irish Seulement," Presbyterian, in Allen township. This was the first permanent settlement north of the Lehigh. Thomas Craig, son of Thomas, of Northampton, took a prominent part in the Revolution. Ile was commissioned Captain, October, 1,76, and rose to the command of a regiment, serving to the end of the war. His cousin, John Craig, was captain in the 4th l'a. Light Dragoons. Thomas Craig and his eldest son, Daniel, married into the Jamison family, Warwick.
John Gray, from the North of Ireland, was an elder in the Presbyterian church, 1743, and one of the trustees in the deed of trust, 1741. He owned a plantation on the north-west side of the Bristol road extending north-west- wardly from the village of Nowville. He died April 27, 1749, at the age of fifty-seven, leaving a widow and two sons, John and James, and two daugh- ters, Mary and Jean, the latter being married to a MacDonald. His sons are not mentioned in his will, but, after making some bequests to nephews and nieces, among the latter being Margaret Graham, "late wife of Robert Miller." and to some cousins in Ireland, he devised the whole of his estate to his wife Margaret for life, then to "Brother" Richard Walker, Revd. Charles Beatty and Reyd. Richard Treat in trust for the church and kindred purposes. John Gray's son John removed to the Tuscarora Valley, Juniata county, 1756, where his wife and child were captured by the Indians and taken to Canada. Ile returned to Bucks county, 1759. where he died broken hearted. The wife made her escape and came to Warrington shortly after his death. She mar- ried again, and returned to Juniata county with her husband. The settlement of the estate of the first husband gave rise to some important and interesting litigation that was in the courts for fifty years.3 The child was never heard of.
The Walkers settled in Warrington about 1730, taking up land and going to farming. The immigrant's name was William, with wife Ann, sons John, Robert and Richard, and daughters, Christian and Mary. John, born 1717, married Mary Ann Blackburn and died 1777; Robert died unmarried in Northampton, 1758. Christian married John McNair, and Mary. James King. William Walker, Sr., died 1738, aged sixty-six years, and his wife, 1750. aged seventy. Richard Walker, third son, was the most prominent
212 President Theodore Roosevelt is descended from Warrington ancestry. Koh- er: Barnhill, Ins great-grandfather, who was born in Warwick township, Bucks county, 1754. was a son of John Barnhill, who married Sarah Craig, daughter of Daniel Craig. of Warrington The wife of Robert Barnhill was Elizabeth Potts, Germantown, and their daughter. Margaret. born 175. married Cornelius Van Schaick Roosevelt, grand- father of Theodore Romevolt.
3 The suit is Known to the legal profession as "Gray Property Case," and is one of the most celebrated ejerment shi- ever tried in the state, being reported in 10 Sergeant and Vel, page 182. Frederick vs. Gray.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
member of the family. Ile was born, 1702, married Sarah Craig, and died April 11, 1791, aged eighty-nine, his wife dying April 24, 1784, at the age of seventy-eight. He was a man of note before and during the Revolution. He served in the Provincial Assembly, continuously from 1747 to 1759, commis- sioned captain in the Provincial militia, February 12, 1749; was a Justice of the Peace, and sat on the bench frem 1749 to 1775, a member of the Committee of Safety for Bucks county and an elder of Neshaminy church. He probably died without children, as his estate was divided among his collateral heirs, descendants of his brothers and sisters. His wife was a sister of Elder Thomas Craig, founder of the "Irish Settlement" in Northampton county. Richard Walker's plantation was on the Lower State road, extending west- ward from the Bristol road to Tradesville, two hundred and fifty-seven acres.
Of the old families of the township, the Longs still occupy their ances- tral homestead, and we can not call to mind another family which owns the spot where their fathers settled over a century and three-quarters ago. Andrew Long came to Warwick between 1720 and 1730, but the year is not known. He and his wife, Isabel, daughter of William Miller, Sr., were both immigrants from Ireland. His son Andrew bought the four hundred acres in Warring- ton, part of the Goodson tract, and moved on it and built a log house, just south of the late Andrew Long's dwelling, on the Bristol road. He had three children, sons, William, Andrew and Hugh, and died November 16, 1738. His son, Andrew, born about 1730, and died November 4, 1812, married Mary Smith, born 1726, died 1821, about 1751, and had children, John, Isabel, Andrew, William, born March 26, 1763, and died February 5, 1851, grandfather of Andrew Long. Mary, Mar- garet and Letitia Esther. The two latter married brothers, William and Harman Yerkes, Warminster, and Margaret was the grandmother of ex- Judge Harman Yerkes, of Doylestown. After the death of Andrew Long, senior, the brothers and sisters of Andrew Long, junior, re-leased to him, 1765, their interest in two hundred and twenty acres in Warrington. This was part of the original four hundred acres bought in 1735. The present Long homestead on the Bristol road was built between 1700 and 1765. The north-west room was used as an hospital at one time, during the Revolution. probably while Washington's army lay encamped on Neshaminy hills, 1777. Andrew Long, the second, was a captain in Colonel Miles's regiment of the Continental army. In 1735 Andrew Long bought fifty-eight acres, on the east side of the Bristol road, of Jeremiah Langhorne and William Miller.
The Weisels of Warrington, members of a large and influential German family are descendants of Michael Weisel, who immigrated from Alsace, then part of France, now belonging to Germany and settled in this county about 1740. He brought with him three sons, Michael. Jacob and Frederick, who were sold for a term of years from on shipboard, to pay the passage of the family, customary at that day. In what township the father or sons setttled, we are not informed. About 1750 Michael. the oldest of the three sons, mar- ried Mary Trach, and bought land in Bedminster on the Old Bethlehem road. near Hagersville, which was owned by his grandson. Samuel. Michael Weisel the second. had four sons and three daughters, Henry, John, Michael, George, Anna, Maria and Susan. Henry married Eve Shellenberger, and settled on the homestead. Bedminster, and his children and his children's children inter- married with the Fulmers. Harpels. Detweilers. Leides. Flucks, Louxes, Sol- lidays and Seips, and settled principally in the townships of Bedminster, Hill-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
town and Rockhill. From them have sprung numerous descendants. Some have removed to other counties in this State, and few to other states, but the great majority are living in Bucks, the home of their ancestors. Nearly all the Weisels in the county are descendants of Michael, the late Henry Weisel, of Warrington, being a great-grandson. Jacob, the second son of Michael the elder, married about 1755, but to whom is not known. He had five sons, George, Jacob, Peter, John and Joseph, and all settled in Rockhill, Richland and Milford townships. George, Peter, Jacob and John afterward removed to Bedford county. Joseph had three sons who married and settled in Milford township. What became of Frederick, third son of Michael Weisel, the elder, is not known. Michacl Weisel, jr., and his son Henry, served as soldiers in the Revolutionary army. The Weisels of New Britain and Plumstead are of this family. The family of Henry Weisel, Warrington, has in its possession a stove plate with a number of unintelligible letters upon it, and the date,. 1674. Richard Walker, a contemporary of Simon Butler, a justice of the. peace, and a prominent man in his day, lived on land now owned by the. W'eisels.
Benjamin Larzelere, who settled in the township half a century ago,. comes. of an old Huguenot family, nearly a century and a quarter resident of the county. Toward the close of the seventeenth century. Nicholas and Johnv Larzelere immigrated from France to Long Island. Nicholas subsequently removed to Staten Island, where he married and raised a family of four chil- dren, two sons, Nicholas and John, and two daughters. In 1741 Nicholas, the elder, removed with his family to Bucks county and settled in Lower Make- field. He had eight children, Nicholas, John, Abraham, Hannalı, Annie, Mar- garet. Elizabeth and Esther, died at the age of eighty-four, and was buried in the Episcopal graveyard, Bristol. The eldest son, Nicholas, born on Staten Island about 1734. married Hannah Britton, Bristol township, and moved into Bensalem, where he owned a large estate, and raised a family of ten children. Benjamin, one of his sons, died in Philadelphia, about the age of ninety. The father fought in the Revolution, and died at the age of cighty-four. Nearly the whole of this large family lived and died in this county, and left descendants. Benjamin, the eldest son, married Sarah Brown, Bristol, moved into that town- ship, had eight children, and died at eighty-four. Part of Bristol is built on his farm. John, the second son, married in the county where he lived and died, and a few of his descendants are living in Philadelphia. Abraham, the - third, married Martha VanKirk. Bensalem, removed to New Jersey, raised a family of eight children, and left numerous descendants. Nicholas, the fourth son, married Martha Mitchel, eldest daughter of Austin Mitchel, of Attle- borough. now Langhorne, had two sons and three daughters, and lived and died in Bristol Borough. One of the sons, Nicholas, settled in Maryland and reared a family of nine children, of which the late Mrs. Thomas P. Miller, Doylestown, was one. Alfred, another son, removed to Kansas many years ago. Thomas Britton, the youngest son of the third Nicholas, who fought in the second war for independence, 1812-15, was born in Bucks county, 1790. but died in Philadelphia, 1896. at the age of eighty-six. of injuries received from a fall while crossing a culvert, leaving a widow and one daughter. Of the daughters of the third Nicholas, Mary married Nicholas Vansant, of Ben- salem, and had three sons and five daughters: Elizabeth married Asa Sutton, Tullytown, and had five children : Sarah married Andrew Gilkyson, Lower Makefield, and had five chibiren : Hannah married Thomas Rue, who removed to Dayton, Ohio; Nancy married John Thompson, Bensalem, who removed to
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. HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Indiana ; Catharine married Aaron Knight, Southampton, had five children, and died at the age of eighty-four. Margaret never married.
The late Benjamin Larzelere, Warrington, was a grandson of Benjamin, the eldest son of the third Nicholas. His father was Nicholas and his mother a daughter of Colonel Jeremiah Berrell, Abington, Montgomery county. He was one of twelve children. The Reverend Jacob Larzelere, long pastor of the North and Southampton Dutch Reformed church, was a descendant of Jolm, brother of the first Nicholas.
Warrington is surrounded by roads, except the elbow running into Doylestown and several others cross it. Elsewhere will be found a history of the Bristol, Street road, county line, and the Easton road which crosses it diagonally through its lower end. Of the lateral roads, that which leaves the Bristol road at the Warrington school-house and runs via Mill creek school- house to the Butler road, was opened before 1722. It afforded the settlers in the upper end an outlet toward Bristol and Philadelphia before the Bristol road was opened the length of the township. In 1737 a road, called "Bare- foot alley," was opened from the Street road terminus, above Neshaminy, across to the county line, in a zigzag course. It is more in the nature of a private lane than a public road.
About 1849 the north-west boundary of Warrington was extended to the Upper State road, cutting off from New Britain territory about a mile in length, and adding fifteen hundred acres to the township. This addition was made because the township was a small one. At Warrington, the township line leaves the Bristol road and forms an elbow up into Doylestown.
The tavern at what is now Warrington, but still known and called by many, Newville, is much the oldest public house in the township, and for many years was the only one. It was probably opened by John Craig, at least he is the first landlord we have note of, who kept the house as early as 1759, but how much carlier is not known. He was there, 1764, and the same year was one of the petitioners for a bridge across Neshaminy, "on the road from William Doyle's to Jolin Craig's." It was under this petition the first bridge was built at Bridge Point. It was still called "Craig's tavern" 1806, although the cross- roads was known as Newville as early as 1805. The original name probably fell into disuse after Craig ceased to keep the house. It was owned and kept by John Wright, 1813. Afterward the tavern was kept for many years by Francis Gurney Lukens. During his administration it was a great stopping place for the heavy teams that passed up and down the Easton road, and as many as thirty wagons have been known to be there over night. It is told of one of the leading teamsters from the upper end who was stopping there, that after making a square meal on meat, bread and butter, coffee, etc., he pulled up a preserve dish and ate its contents with his fork, remarking: "Well, dat is as good apple-butter as ever I tasted." There are two other taverns in the town- ship. one on the Willow Grove turnpike, south of Neshaminy, at a place known as "Frog Hollow," the other on the county line, at Pleasantville, the seat of Eureka post-office and was formerly called the "Eells Foot," now Green Trec.
On the edge of Montgomery county, near where the Doylestown and Willow Grove turnpike crosses the county line, and on the very confines of Warrington, stands the baronial country home of Sir William Keith while Lieutenant Governor under the Proprietaries. The demesne originally con- tained some twelve hundred acres, a small part of it being in Bucks county. The greater part of it was maintained as a hunting park, roads were opened through
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
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the woods in every direction from the dwelling, the wood cleared of under- brush, and the whole surrounded by a ditch with the bank planted with privet hedge, something after the manner of the parks of England. It was stocked with deer and other game.
Governor Keith arrived at Philadelphia May 31. 1717, with William Penn's commission as Lieutenant-Governor, and the oath of office was administered to him the next day. He was accompanied by his wife, the widow of Robert Driggs, England, his stepdaughter, Ann Driggs and Doctor Thomas Grame. The Keiths were knighted. 1063, and Sir William was probably the last of the family to bear the title. He succeeded to it after he became Lieutenant-
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SIR WILLIAM KEITH.
Governor, on the death of his father, about 1721. He was a man of popular manners, and, notwithstanding his eccentricities of character, made one of the best governors under the Penns.
Sir William commenced a settlement on the county line about 1721, al- though we believe the contract, which bore the Keith coat-of-arms, for the erection of the buildings was not executed until the following year. The buildings consisted of the mansion, several small structures for offices and domestic purposes, and a malt-house where he intended to manufacture the barley of the farmers. There is a tradition, not sustained by any documentary evidence that we have seen, that he built a grain-mill on Nailor's branch in the meadow, on the Bucks county side of the line.
The mansion, still standing, and in good repair, with its north end to the county line, and a sloping lawn falling to the creek, is fifty-six feet long by twenty-five feet wide, and the stories are fourteen feet in the clear. The drawing-room at the north end is twenty-one feet square, and the walls hand-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
somely wainserted and paneled from floor to ceiling. The fire-place is adorned with marble brought from England, and those of the other rooms with Dutch tile plates after the fashion of that day. Above the mantel of the drawing- room is said to have been a panel bearing the arms of the Keith family, but it has been removed and something plainer put in its place. In the fire-place of one of the upper rooms is an iron plate bearing the date, 1728, said to have been placed there by Sir William's son-in-law, Doctor Græme. The stairs and banisters are substantially built of oak. The house is of sandstone, such as is found in that vicinity, and its joists, beams, rafters and other timbers are of white oak, as solid and strong as the day they were put into it. The kitchen and other offices were detached from the main structure, and so placed that when viewed from the front they had the appearance of wings, and being but one story gave the general effect of grandeur to the mansion. There is said to have been a lock-up at the park, in which the Governor tem -. porarily confined offenders. When Keith returned to England, 1728, the prop- enty passed into the hands of Doctor Græme, who placed the iron plate in the chimney corner bearing that date.+ The tract is now divided into several farms, but the mansion, which belongs to the Penrose family, has always borne the name of Græme park. It was the summer residence of the Keiths and the Granics, these families residing alternately in the city and at the park, with some interrup- tion. from the time the house was built " . to the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson, ISO1. On the west front are the remains of a wall, probably once enclosing the court-yard, and of a ditch, said to have been the race to the mill whose remains we are told can be traced in the meadow. PR. GRY ME. Two large sycamore trees stand at what was probably the western limit of the court-yard. No doubt they are as old as the mansion, and stood sentinel at the gateway.
This building is the only remaining "baronial hall" in this section of the State, and its history is loaded with memories of olden time, when the provincial aristocracy assembled within its walls to make merry after a hunt in the park. Many a gay party has driven out there through the woods, from the infant metropolis on the Delaware and partaken of the hospitalities of Sir William and Lady Keith.
At the meeting of Provincial Council. March 28, 1722, Governor Keith stated he had made considerable advancement in the erection of a building at Horsham, Philadelphia county, in order to carry on the manufacture of grain, etc., and asked that some convenient public road and highway be opened through the woods, to and from it. Accordingly Robert Fletcher, Peter Chan- berlin, Richard Carver, Thomas Iredell, John Barnes, and Ellis Davis were
Dr. Græme introduced the so-called daisy as a garden flower, which has been a world of trouble to farmers. It soon became a nuisance. It was given the name of "Park werd," from Grame Park. When the author was a boy it was the most troublesome weed farmers had to deal with, but modern sentiment has canonized it.
KEITH HOUSE, GR.EME PARK.
Front view.
appointed to lay out a road from the Governor's settlement to the Horsham meeting-house, and thence to a small bridge at the Round Meadow run, now Willow Grove; also to lay out a road from where the York road intersects the county line, northwest, on that line as far as shall be convenient and necessary to accommodate the neighborhood. These roads were surveyed by Nicholas Scull, the former April 23, the latter April 24. 1722. The county line was then opened from the York road twelve hundred and seventy-four perches to a black oak tree standing by a path leading from Richard Sander's ferrys on Neshaminy to Edwin Farmer's, miller."
Governor Keith died in the Old Bailey debtor's prison, London, November 18, 1749. His widow survived him several years, and lived in a small frame house on Third street, between Market and Arch, Philadelphia, poor and Secluded from society. The house was burned down, 1786.
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