USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. I > Part 9
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The rate of wages in this county, and elsewhere in the province. at that early day, cannot fail to interest the reader. From the first English set- tlement. down to the close of the century, carpenters, bricklayers and masons received from five to six shillings a day ; journeymen shoemakers two shillings per day for making both men's and woman's shoes: tailors twelve shillings før week, with board ; cutting pine boards six or seven shillings the hundred ; weaving cloth a yard wide, ten or twelve pence a yard ; green hides three half- pence, and tanners were paid four pence per hide for dressing: brick at the kiln twenty shillings per thousand; wool twelve to fifteen cents per pound ; plasterers eighteen cents per yard. A good fat cow could be bought for about three pounds, and butchers charged five shillings for killing a beef. and their board. Laboring men received between eighteen pence and half a crown per day, with board; between three and four shillings during harvest. and fourteen or fifteen pounds a year, with board and lodging. Female servants received between six and ten pounds a year, and their wages were higher in proportion because of their scarcity, usually getting married before they were twenty years of age. Gabriel Thomas tells us there were neither beggars nor old maids in the county.
The farmers raised wheat. rye, barley, buckwheat. Indian corn, peas, beans, hemp, flax, turnips, potatoes and parsnips. Some farmers sowed as high as seventy and eighty acres of wheat, besides other grain. A consider-
13 Rutter baptized Evan Morgan, in 1697.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
able number of cattle was raised, individual farmers having as high as forty or sixty head, and an occasional one from one to three hundred. The country was favorable to stock raising, the woods being open. ften covered with grass. and the cattle roamed at will. The wheat harvest was finished before the middle of July. the yield being from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre. The farmers used harrows with wooden teeth, and the ground was so melles that twice mending plow irons sufficed for a year. The horses commonly went unshod. Land had increased considerably in value, and some near Philadelphia that could be bought for six or eight pound the hundred acres. when the country was first settled, could not be bought under one hundred and fifty pounds at the close of the century. This province was a happy commonwealth : bread and meat, and whatever else to drink. food, and rai- ment that man required, were cheaper than in England, and wages were higher.
Among the notable events along the Delaware, before the close of the century, was the "great land flood and rupture" at the falls in 1687, which was followed by great sickness. There was another great flood in the Delaware in April, 1692,14 when the water rose twelve feet above the usual high-water mark, and caused great destruction. It reached the second story of some of the houses built on the low ground at south Trenton, and the inmates were rescued by people from the Bucks county shore, in canoes, and conveyed to this side. Several houses were carried away, two persons and a number of cattle drowned, and the shore of the river was strewn with household goods. This freshet was known as the "great flood at Delaware falls."1ª Phineas Pember- ton records, in 1688, that a whale was seen as high as the falls that year.
At that day people of all classes dressed in plain attire, conforming to English fashions, but more subdued in deference to Friends' principles. Even among the most exacting the clothing was not reduced to the formal cut of the costume of a later period. The wife of Phineas Pemberton, in a reply to a letter in which he complains of the want of clothing suited to the season. says: "I have sent thec thy leather doublet, and britches. and great stomacher."
In the course of our investigations we have met with several references to the difficulty William Penn had in collecting quit-rents in this county and elsewhere. In 1702, James Logan wrote him: "of all the rents in Bucks county I have secured but one ton and a half of flour." He says. "Philade !- phia is the worst. Bucks not much better." On another occasion Logan writes: "Bucks, exceedingly degenerate of late, pays no taxes, nor will any one in the county levy by distress." The county is again mentioned in 1704, as being "slow in paying her taxes."
14 Pemberton says "the rupture" occurred the 20th of May, and some suppose it refers to the separation of the island opposite Morrisville from the main-land. This 15 an error, as the island referred to was Vurhulsten's island, where the Walloon families had settled nearly three-quarters of a century before.
15 When the first settlers, about the falls on the New Jersey side, built their homes on the low ground. the Indians told them they were liable to be damaged by the freshets, but they did not heed the advice.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ORGANIZATION OF TOWNSHIPS.
FALLS, 1692.
Organization of townships .- Reservation .- Jury Appointed .- Five townships ordered .- Falls .- Its early importance .- First Settlers .- John Acreman .- Richard Ridgeway .- William Biles .- Meeting established .- First marriage .- Meeting house built .- The discipline. - Crewcorne. - Pennsbury. - Mary Becket - Thomas Stewardson. - The charities of Falls .-- Earliest ferry .- The Croziers .- Kirkbrides .-- General Jacob Brown .- His appointments .- Fox Hunter John Brown .- Anna Lee .- Manor Baptist church .- Falls library .- Old graveyard .- Cooper homestead .- Charles Ellet .- Joseph WInte .- Isaac Ivins .- The swamp .- Indian field .- Roads .- Villages .- Surface of township .- Crow scalps .- Population .- Bile's island.
The organization of the townships, with some account of the pioneers who settled them-transformed the native forest into productive farms, opened roads and built houses, with a sketch of their gradual expansion and growth in civil- wation, are the most interesting portion of a county's history.
It is stated in one of Penn's biographies, that when he sailed, on his return vange to England, 1684, the Province was divided into 22 townships : but this cannot have reference to Bucks county for her boundaries were not yet fixed, nor were townships laid out until eight years after.1 There is evidence that William Penn intended to lay out this county. according to a system of town- ·Fips. that would have given them much greater symmetry of shape than they now possess, and bounded them by right lines like the three rectangular townships un the Montgomery border, with an area of about five thousand acres each. In 17 he directed that one-tenth in each township, with all the Indian fields." should be reserved to him : but this reservation was not observed, and the plan vi laying out right-angled townships was abandoned. There were no legal sttblivisions in this county earlier than 1692. although for the convenience of collecting taxes, and other municipal purposes. limits and names had already been given to many settlements. At December term. 16go. the following per- sons were appointed overseers of highways for the districts named: "For
All the information concerning the laying out of townships was obtained from 1 he original records in the Quarter Sessions office. Doylestown.
2 Patches of land cleared by the Indians.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
above the falls, Reuben Pownall; for below the falls, Joseph Chorley; for t lower part of the river, Richard Wilson; for the lower part of Neshamina!, Derrick Clawson ; for the upper part of Neshaminah, William Hayhurst ; t! middle lots," John Webster ; for the lower end of Neshaminah, on the sout side, Walter Hough and Samuel Allen ; for above, south side, Thomas Har :. ing." Some of the present geographical subdivisions were called townshii, . and by the nanies they now bear, several years before they were so declared 1 : law: Southampton and Warminster were so called as early as 1685, in the. proceedings of council fixing the line between Bucks and Philadelphia counti. - Newtown and Wrightstown are first mentioned in 1687. The names of ou early townships were the creatures of chance, given by force of circumstance or location. . Falls was called after the falls in the Delaware; Newtown because it was a new town or settlement in the woods, and Middletown because it was midway between the uppermost inhabitants and those on the river below. Others again were named after the places some of the inhabitants came from :. in England, with which they were acquainted or where their friends lived.
The first legal steps, toward laying off townships, were taken in 1600. when the Provincial Council authorized warrants to be drawn, empowering the magistrates and Grand Juries of each county to sub-divide them into hun- dreds, or such other divisions as they shall think most convenient in collecting taxes and defraying county expenses. Bucks did not take advantage of this act until two years later, when the court, at the September term, 1692, appointe.I a jury, consisting of Arthur Cook, who settled in Northampton and was ap- pointed a Provincial judge in 1686; Joseph Growden, Jolin Cook, Thomas Janney, Richard Hough, Henry Baker, Phineas Pemberton, Joshua Hoops. William Biles. Nicholas Walne, Edmund Lovet. Abraham Cox and Jame- Boyden, and directed them to meet at the Neshaminy meeting-house, in Mid- dletown, the 27th, to divide the county into townships. They reported, at the December term, dividing the settled portions into five townships, viz: Make- field, Falls, Buckingham, now Bristol. Salem, now Bensalem, and Middletown. giving the metes and bounds. Four other townships are mentioned, but they are not returned as geographical subdivisions.
The following is the text of the report: "The uppermost township, being called Makefield, to begin at the uppermost plantations and along the river to the uppermost part of John Wood's land, and by the lands formerly belong- ing to the Hawkinses and Joseph Kirkbride and widow Lucas' land, and so along as near as may be in a straight line to - in Joshua Hoops' land.
"The township at the falls being called - is to begin at Pennsbury and so up the river to the upper side of John Woods' land, and then to take in the Hawkins, Joseph Kirkbride and widow Lucas' lands, and so the land along that creek, continuing the same until it takes in the land of John Rowland and Edward Pearson, and so to continue till it come with Pennsbury upper land. then along Pennsbury to the place of beginning. Then Pennsbury as its laid out.
"Below Pennsbury its called Buckingham, and to follow the river from Pennsbury to Neshaminah, then up Neshaminah to the upper side of Robert Hall's plantation, and to take in the land of Jonathan Town, Edward Lovet. Abraham Cox, etc., etc., etc., to Pennsbury, and by the same to the place of beginning.
"The middle township called Middletown to begin at the upper end of
3. Middletown.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Robert Hall's land, and so up Neshaminah to Newtown, and from thence to take in the lands of John Hough, Jonathan Scarfe, the Paxsons and Jonathan Smith's land, and so to take in the back part of White's land, and by these lands to the place of beginning.
"Newtown and Wrightstown one township.
"All the lands between Neshaminah and Poquessin, and so to the upper side of Joseph Growden's land in one and to be called 'Salem.'
"Southampton, and the lands about it, with Warminster, one."
It was a feature of the townships of Bucks county that they were formed in groups, at shorter or longer intervals and as the wants of the settlers called for them. Subsequent groups will be treated, as they present themselves, in the chronological order of our work. At present we have only to deal with the five townships formed at Neshaminy meeting-house, more than two centuries ago.
Falls, of which we first treat, is, in some respects, the most interesting township in the county, and may be justly called the mother township. Within its borders, at "the falls of Delaware" the first permanent settlement was made, and there the banner of English civilization was first raised in Bucks, there the great founder had his Pennsylvania home, and there his favorite manor spread its fertile aeres around Pennsbury house. The feet of many immi- grants pressed its soil before they took up their march for the wilderness of Middletown, Newtown and Wrightstown. A few settlers had gathered about the falls years before the ships of Penn entered the Capes of Delaware. and the. title to considerable land can be traced back to Sir Edmund Andros, the Royal Governor of New York. The overland route from the lower Delaware to Manhattan lay through this township when it was only traversed by Swedes, Hollanders and Finns; and, while neighboring townships were trodden only by the feet of Indians, its territory was explored by travelers and traders, and an occasional pioneer seeking a home in the woods. For a time its history was the history of the county, as found recorded in the interesting records of Falls Meeting.
It will be noticed, that the report of the jury, to lay out these townships. leaves the name of Falls, blank, a matter to be determined in the future. Buit the location gave it the name it bears, and for years it was as often called "the townshin at the Falls." or "The Falls township." We doubt whether its orig- inal limits have been curtailed. and its generous area, fourteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight acres, is probably the same as when first organized.
Of the original settlers+ in Falls, several of them were there before the country came into Penn's possession.3 They purchased the land of Sir Ed- mund Andros, who represented the Duke of York, and were settled along the
4 Names of original settlers: Joshua Hoops, John Palmer. John Collins, William and Charles Biles, William Darke. John Haycock, John Wheeler, Jonathan Witscard, John Parsons. Andrew Ellet, William Beaks, Wilham Venables. John Luff. Jeffrey Hawkins. Ann Millcomb, James Hill, John and. Thomas Rowland. Thomas Atkinson, Thomas Wolf, Ralph Smith, John Wood, Daniel Brind ly, John Acreman. Joshua Boarc, Robert Lucas. Gilbert Wheeler, Samuel Darke. Daniel Gardner, Lyonel Britton. George Brown, James Harrison and George Heathcote.
5 Of the English settlers who came into the Delaware, 1677, but three are known to have settled in Bucks county: Daniel Brinson, Devon, England. September 28; John Purslone, Ireland. August ; and Joshua Boare, Derbyshire, September.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Delaware from the falls down: John Acreman, Richard Ridgway, the tailor. probably the first in the county, William Biles, Robert Lucas, George Wheeler. and George Brown, whose lands bordered on the river. Lucas came from Deverall. Loughbridge. Wiltshire, and arrived 4th mo., 4th, 1679, with William Biles in the ship Elizabeth and Sarah from Dorchester. These grants were made in 1678 or 1679, that of Biles embracing three hundred and twenty-seven acres. for which Penn's warrant is dated gth, 8th mo., 1684, surveyed 23d, same month and patented 31, tith month. William Biles was one of the signers of the cele- brated "testimony" against George Keith, and went to England on a visit, 1702. Biles became a large landowner. He sold five thousand acres in this county, near Neshaminy, to William Lawrence, Samuel and Joseph Thorne. John Tallman, and B. Fiekl, but the purchasers could find only two thousand acres. In 1718 James Logan issued an order to survey three thousand addi- tional acres, not already settled or surveyed. Gilbert Wheeler called his house "Crookhorn," a name long forgotten. In the bend of the river below Bile's island, Lyonel Britton6 and George Heathcote seated themselves, both Friends : the former an early convert to Catholicism, probably the first in the state, while the latter was the first Friend known to be a sea-captain. Thomas Atkinson. Thomas Rowland and John Palmer, names yet well known in the county. settled in the western part of the township. James Harrison. Penn's agent. owned land in Falls, adjoining the manor, and in Lower Makefield. His son- in-law, Phineas Pemberton," who likewise settled in Falls, was called the father of Bucks county, and he and Jeremiah Langhorne, of Middletown, and Joseph Growden, of Bensalem, were relied upon as the staunchest friends of William Penn. For some years the men of the Falls controlled the affairs of the infant county.
We learn from subsequent research, that the little settlement below the falls was given the name of "Crewcorne," probably after the market town and parish of Crewkerne, Somersetshire, near the border of Dorset. England. In 1680 official papers speak of it as "Ye new seated towne." and the first court in the county was held there, called the "Court of Crewcorne (spelled Creeke- horne) at the Falls." April 12, 1680, the inhabitants settled about the falls addressed the following petition "to ye worthy governor of New York," viz. : "Whereas we ye inhabitants of ye new seated Town neare ye falls of Delaware. called Crewcorne, finding ourselves agrieved by the Indians when drunk. in- formeth that we be and have been in great danger of our lives, of our home, burning, of our goods stealing : and of our wives and children affrighting, etc." and desire that "se selling of brandy and other strong liquors to ye Indians may be wholly suppressed," etc. This petition was signed Win. Biles. Samuel Girifield, Robert Lucas, Thomas Schooly, William Cooper, Rich. Reynerson. John Acreman, Robt. Schooly, Darius Brinson and George Browne.
On April 21. Wm. Biles, "member of the new Court at the falls of the Delaware," appeared at New York and on that day obtained a warrant to summon Gilbert Wheeler "to appear here for selling drink to Ye Indians." The same day a petition from "the inhabitants at the falls." dated the 12th and a return from the "Court of Creekhorne at the falls," sending in the names
6 September 13. 120. Britton jomed with others in petitioning the court at New York, charging Gilbert Wheeler with selling rum to Indians.
7 May, 1085, Pemberton complains to the council that the Indians are killing hoz. about the falls.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
of four for magistrates. "according to order" was read before the Governor and council, whose names are given in the record of these transactions. September 13 following. 1680, the petition of the "inhabitants of Crewcorne on the Dela- ware" was received: They charge Gilbert Wheeler with selling rum to the Indians and state they suspect William Biles to sell rum himself. This petition was signed by Robert Lucas. Geo. Browne. Samuel Griffield, Nancy Acreman, Richard Ridgeway. Lyonel Britton and Robert Schooly. The petitioners were all residents of Bucks county. As the jurisdiction of New York government only extended from the west bank of the Connecticut to the east bank of the Delaware, jurisdiction was assumed over all who lived on the west bank. and was obeyed because there was no other authority to look to. In truth, at that time the settlers in Bucks county lived "nowhere" so far as legal jurisdiction was concerned.
When we recall to mind the first English settlers. on the Delaware, were men and women of strong religious convictions and had left the homes of their birth to worship God in peace in the wilderness of the new world. we appreciate their early and earnest effort to establish places for religious meet- ings. Before Penn's arrival. they crossed the Delaware and united with their brethren at Burlington, who met in tents and where yearly meeting was first held. 1681. Friends probably met this side the river at each other's houses for worship as early as 1680. and attended business meetings at Burlington. The first known meeting of Friends, in this county, was held at the house of William Biles,s just below the falls, May 2. 1683, at which were present. be- sides Biles. James Harrison. Phineas Pemberton. William Beaks. William Yard- lev. William Darke and Lyonel Britton. This was the germ of the Falls Meet- ings. The first business transacted was the marriage of Samuel Darke to Ann Knight, but as the young folks did not have the "documents." they were told "to wait in parience." This they declined doing and got married in a "dis- orderly manner" out of meeting. They were probably "dealt with." but to what extent has not come down to us. Thomas Atkinson. of Neshaminy? asked help to pay for a cow and calf and got it. The first Quarterly Meeting was held at the house of Thomas Biles. May 7. 1683. The first meeting house. Built about where the present one stands, on a lot given by William Penn. 1683. was finished April. 1692. The size was 20 by 25 feet. of brick burned by Randall Blackshaw. The carpenter work was done by contract and cost £41. It had a "gallery below with banisters." and one chimney lined below with sawn boards". In 1686. Thomas Janney gave an additional lot. "on the slate pit hill." 30 yards square. A stable was built and a well digged. 1701. The meeting house was partly paid for in wheat. 9s. 3d. per bushel. It was en- larged in 1600-1700. by adding a lean-to of stone. and repaired. 1700. A new house was built. 1728. at a cost of about frooo, and the old meeting house was
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8 It is thought the house of Andrew Crozier, on the river road below Morrisville. was built by William Biles, of brick imported from England, and in it was held the first Friends' meeting.
o Middletown.
to A letter from Friends in Pennsylvania to brethren in England, dated March 17. 1623, says: "There is one meeting at Falls, one at the governor's home, Fennsbury, and one at Colchester river. all in Bucks county." The author pleads ignorance of the location of "Colchester river" in Bucks county.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
fitted up for a school-house, 1733. In 1758, a dwelling was erected for ty school-master, a second story added to the meeting house, and an addition :.. the north end, 1765. A "horsing block" was got for the meeting, 1703.11
The mother meeting of Falls watched over its flock with jealous care, at : looked after both secular and spiritual affairs. Their discipline was necessar :.. strict. In 1683 Ann Miller was "dealt with" for keeping a disorderly house. and selling strong liquor to English and Indians, and her daughter Mar. for "disorderly walking," and William Clows, John Brock and William Beak- and their wives, for "being backward in coming to meeting :" William Sha !!- cross for his "extravagant dress and loose conversation :" William Goforth, "who had frequently engaged in privateering :" Isaac Hodson for "loaning money at 7 per cent .. when the lawful interest was only 6 per cent. : " Henry Baker "for buying a negro;" and William Moon "for marrying his cousin Elizabeth Nutt." This strictness in discipline was offset by "melting charity. In 1695 the meeting contributed £49 toward repairing the loss of Thomas Janney by fire :1= and. in 1697, £15. 6s. 6d., no mean sum at that day, for dis- tressed Friends in New England. When John Chapman, of Wrightstown. was "short of corn." in 1693, he applied to the mother meeting, and no doubt got it, for it was not their habit to turn the needy away empty handed. The first year but one couple was married in Falls meeting-Richard Hough an . Margery Clows; and 523 couples in the first century.
Penn's favorite manor of Pennsbury, containing about eight thousand acres, lay in Falls township13. It is now divided into nearly three hundred different tracts, ranging from three hundred and eighty to a few acres ; the lan : is among the most fertile in the county, the farms well kept, and the buildin _- good. Tullytown is the only village on the manor, in the southwest corner. near the line of Bristol, and it is cut by the Delaware division canal and the Philadelphia and Trenton railroad. In 1733, Ann Brown, of New York. daughter of Colonel William Markham, Penn's Deputy Governor, claime ! three hundred acres in the manor. The claim was rejected, but, out of regar .: to her, Thomas Penn granted that quantity to her elsewhere. Richard Durdin.
II The earliest known title conveying property to Falls monthly meeting bears dat" the 4th of 4th mo., 1690, by deed of Samuel Burgess, for six acres, then supposed to i" the same now occupied by Falls meeting house and other improvements at Fallsingt but by some unaccountable mistake, the bearings and distances mentioned in the dec ! embraced a plot of ground entirely beyond the castern boundary of the intended con- veyance. This oversight was a source of annoyance for years, and not corrected unt. 1724. when Daniel Burgess, who had inherited his father's real estate, conveyed :he originally intended six acres to the trustees of Falls monthly meeting, subject to the yearly quit rent of one grain of Indian corn .- "George W. Brown's Historical Sketches"
12 The name of the beneficiary and amount were both wrong in the first edition. according to the original minute book of Falls monthly meeting, which reads: "At a monthly meeting at ye meeting house, ye 5th 12th mo., 1695, Henry Baker reported to the meeting ye loss yt Thomas Canby had by his house being burnt by fire, and requeste ! ye meeting's assistance, whereupon there was f49 10s collected and paid to Henry Bak. : towards his loss."
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