USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of four famous old families of lower Bucks County. > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
his adopted country in which his lot was cast.
On March 16. 1695, Anthony Bur- ton, with Thomas Brock, purchased the land on which the town of Bristol is erected and laying a portion of it out into ' building lots, petitioned the Governor's Council to incorporate it
2
THE BURTON FAMILY.
as a market town. As a result of this petition the Provincial Council at a session held in the house of Phineas Pemberton in Falls township, June 10, 1695, it was
"Resolved by the Governor and Council that a town be there erected and the ways and streets to be accord- ing to ye model agreed upon."
This model may be seen among the old files of papers in the office of the clerk of Quarter Sessions to this day.
This embryro metropolis of Bucks county grew in such proportions that its originators had dreamed of a rival of the great maritime port of their native country and named it New Bristol, believing it was destined to become a seaport. Wharves and docks were erected, manufacturing plants established and roads opened to bring the products of the farm and wilderness alike to this port.
By 1718 the town had grown to such importance that Anthony Burton and other lot holders petitioned the Council to erect the market town into a borough, which was done.
From its inception to his death, in 1739, Anthony Burton was one of the most ardent promoters of the town. He donated the land upon which the Episcopal Church of St. James was erected and contributed to its erection in 1712, and by many other public acts signified his interest in the town. He was comissioned a Justice of the peace on May 13, 1715, and was regu- larly recommissioned until his death.
Anthony Burton married December 18, 1687, Sarah Gibbs, a widow. She died without issue June 28, 1718, and he married second July 28, 1720, Susan Keene, by whom he had two children, Martha, who died un- married, and Anthony Burton, Junior.
Anthony Burton, Junior, born July 17, 1721, was not a resident of the borough. He was a farmer and re- sided in Bristol township on the road to the Falls. He married February 12, 1752, Mary Hough, daughter of Richard Hough, Junior, and grand-
daughter of Richard Hough, who was a member of the council that granted the first petition for the erection of the town of Bristol. She was a member of the Society of Friends and though Burton had been reared in the faith of the Established Church, he became affiliated with the Falls Meeting where his wife held membership and the family have gen- erally held to that faith in successive generations to this day. He died in 1798, leaving
three sons, John, Anthony and Jonathan, and a daugh-
ter Martha, who married John Min- ster and became the ancestress of the Ministers of Bristol.
Anthony Burton, 3d, born August 9, 1758, died April 1838, married Jane Gregg, daughter of Sheriff John Gregg by his wife Deborah Watson, a sister to Dr. Amos Gregg, one of Bris- tol's early and eminent physicians, and a descendant of Thomas Watson of "Strawberry Howe," one of Bucks county's early legislators and justices. Anthony and Jane Burton had chil- dren John G., Amos, Deborah and William. The latter a very brilliant man, was first a successful mercha.lt in Philadelphia and later a physician.
Jonathan Burton, the third son of Anthony, Jr., born August 21, 1765, married Letitia Williamson, March 11, 1790, and died in 1840, leaving chil- dren William, Sarah, Peter, Ann L., and Elizabeth. A grandson Jonathan Burton, was a successful iron manu- facturer and died in Ohio.
John Burton, eldest son of Anthony and Mary (Hough) Burton, born September 17, 1753, like his father was a farmer and inheriting the homestead, resided thereon for many years, removing later to Falls town- ship, where he died September 3, 1835. He was twice married, first to Rachel (Sotcher) Wilson, widow of Henry Wilson and granddaughter of two very distinguished Colonial legis- lators and Justices of Bucks county, John Sotcher and George Brown, the latter being the first English Justice commissioned in Bucks county in 1680. She died in 1781 leaving him two sons Joseph and John, the former of whom became a large land holder in Falls and was for thirty years Justice of the Peace. John Burton married second October 9, 1789, Han- nah Watson, another descendant of
Thomas Watson of "Strawberry Howe," and she bore him five chil- dren, Benjamin, Mary, Rachel, Anthony and Charles.
Anthony Burton, 4th, fourth child of John and Hannah (Watson) Bur- ton, and for twenty-four years presi- dent of the Farmers' Bank of Bucks county, was born in Bristol township in 1797. He received an excellent education and for several years was a school teacher, and later a farmer, but was indentified with many and various business enterprises. He owned and operated for many years, an extensive shad fishery on the Delaware, was for many years presi- dent of the Upper Delaware River Steamboat Company, and besides his active association with the Farmers'
3
THE BURTON FAMILY.
Bank, held many other positions of trust and honor.
He became a director of the Farm- ers' National Bank of Bucks county in 1849 and in 1850 was elected to the presidency, filling that position until 1874, a period of twenty-four years. Few men were better or more favor- ably known in lower Bucks county. He died in 1874 near Tullytown.
Anthony Burton, 4th, married first Mary Headley, and second Anna Pax- son. His children, all by his first wife, were Caroline, the wife of Pier- son Mitchell who was another presi- dent of the Farmers' National Bank, Hannah, John, Anna, Elwood and . Joshua.
John Burton, eldest son of Anthony Burton, 4th, born August 3, 1829, was also long a director of the Farmers' Bank. Like his father he filled ac- ceptably many positions of trust and honor. He was president of the Bris- · tol Improvement Company, treasurer of the William Penn Mutual Building and Loan Association, director of the Delaware River Steamboat Transpor- tation Company, and of the Cape May and Delaware Bay Navigation Com. pany. During the Civil War he serv- ed in Anderson's Cavalry, participat . ing in eighteen engagements. He married February 7, 1867, Elizabe h Headley and had children Franklin, Elwood, Horace H., and A. Russell, the latter at present a director of the Farmers' National Bank.
Elwood Burton, youngest son of Anthony Burton and Mary (Headley) Burton, and brother to John mentio.1- ed above, was born near Tullytown February 28, 1836. He entered the store of his brother-in-law John W. Paxson, at Tullytown on leaving school and with his brother John pur- chased the store on coming of age and two years later purchased his brother's interest and operated the store until his death in 1896. He too was a director of the Farmers' Na- . tional Bank, from 1874 till his death
and was a man of supreme business ability. He was also a director of Bristol Rolling Mill Company, the Bristol Improvement Company. tue Standard Fire Insurance Company of Trenton and filled many other posi- tions of trust and honor. Elwood Burton like his father was a consist- ent member of the Society of Friends.
He married September 00 1859, Anna Bailey, daughter of John W. Bailey of Falls and his wife Phoebe Brown, a descendant of two promin- ent families of that section. They had five children Ida C., wife of A. Brock Shoemaker of Tullytown, a present member of the board of di- rectors; John Jr., who succeeded his father as merchant at Tullytown, and who was at one time a director of the Farmers' National Bank; Lillian C., wife of Alan Corson, a civil engineer and business. man of Philadelphia, and Raymond A. Burton, of Newark, N. J.
Anthony Russell Burton 5th, youngest son of the late John and Elizabeth (Headley) Burton was borr. July 17th, 1881. He was elected a member of the present board of dir- ectors of the Farmers' National Bank on September 17tl1, 1907 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of the late Charles S. Vandegrift. Mr. Bur- ton resides with his brother Horace H., upon the old homestead at Tully- town where they are engaged in farm- ing and dairying. On December
18th, 1908, he married Marion W. Stuckert, daughter of the late John C. Stuckert, who was for a number of years a member of the board of directors of the bank and prominent lawyer of Bristol. Anthony Russell Burton 5th and Marion W., have had three children of whom Anthony Bur- ton 6th was born August 2nd, 1914 survives thus closing a long line of the Burton family who
from the founding of Bristol and the settling of this community have been promin- ently identified with all its activities.
THE PAXSON FAMILY.
2021145
JOHN PAXSON.
The Paxson family was founded in Bucks county, Pennsylvania by Henry, James and William Paxson, who with their families came from the County of Bucks, England, arriving in the river Delaware in the ship Samuel, in September 1682. Another brother, John, died on the voyage. The three brothers were accompanied by their wives and older children, but the wife and only son of Henry died on the pas- sage. They were all members of the Society of Friends though all seem to have been recent converts to the faith, the record of Friends' meetings in
England giving no account of their marriages and an account only of births of such children as were born within a year or two of their leaving England. An examination of parish records of Buckinghamshire, recently made for one of the descendents of James, shows his marriage and the baptism of his eldest child under forms of the established church while his second child's birth is recorded on Friends registry.
All three families settled in Middle- town, Bucks county, and deposited their certificates from Friends meet-
2
THE PAXSON FAMILY.
ings in England at Middletown Month- ly Meetings, but Henry and most of the family of James soon after, settled
in Solebury township where large tracts of land were laid out to them, some of which still remain in the tenure of their descendents. The family belonged to the dominant office holding class in Bucks county, in Colonial times almost wholly made up by members of the Society of Friends, and two of the brothers, Henry and William soon became members of the Colonial Assembly, and Justices of the Colonial Courts, then made up of laymen and not lawyers. Several members of the families later filled like positions for several generations.
William Paxson, with whom and his descendants this narrative is chief- ly concerned, appears to have been the youngest of the three . brothers. His wife, Mary, accompanied him to Penn- sylvania and they settled on a large tract of land in Middletown surveyed to him in right of his purchase of William Penn, most of which remain- ed in the family descending from father to son for several generations. It was located on the south side of the road leading from Four Lanes End, (now Langhorne), to Trenton. William Paxson was elected to the Colonial Assembly in 1692, and served in that body under successive re-elections, un- til his death on January 2, 1709, having been elected the last time in the fall of 1708.
William Paxson (2d), son of William and Mary, was born in Middletown township, Bucks county, Pa., March 4, 1685-6. He succeeded to the greater part of his father's lands and lived thereon until his death, taking, like his father, a prominent and active place in the councils of his native county and Province. He was elected to the Colonial Assembly in 1714, and by suc- cessive re-elections served until hls death, that event being entered in the records of the Assembly. He was bur- ied at
the Middletown Meeting grounds, December 18, 1733. He was also for ten years a Justice of the Peace and of the courts of Bucks county, being first commissioned on February 18, 1723, and last recommis- sioned on December 1, 1733, but two weeks before his death. His wife Mary survived until 1750 and was buried at Middletown September 28, 1760.
The children of William Paxson (2d) and his wife, Mary, were William; Mary, who became the wife of Joseph Richardson, Langhorne's first mer- chant, and a large land owner, who has left numerous descendants; Thom-
as, who succeeded to part of his fath- er's lands, but died comparaticely young; John; Henry; James, who died in 1769 leaving a son, Joseph, and daughter, Mary; and Deborah, the youngest, born March 23. 1725.
William Paxson (3d) son of William and Mary was born on the old home- stead in Middletown, April 29, 1712, and died there August 29, 1767. : He mar- ried in 1740, Anna Marriott, who was born in .Bristol, Bucks county, a daughter of Thomas Marriott for many years a prominent resident of
Bristol, representing Bucks county in the Colonial Assembly from 1734 to 1738, and filling a number of other positions of trust and honor. His
wife, the mother of Anna (Marriott) Paxson, was Martha, daughter Joseph Kirkbride, the elder, founder of that distinguished family in Bucks county, by his first wife Phebe, daugh- ter of Randolph Blackshaw, who with her father, mother and brother Nehe- miah and several sisters came from Hollingee, Cheshire, England in the ship, Submission, in 1682. Joseph Kirk- bride came to Pennsylvania with Wil- liam Penn in the Welcome in October 1682, and always had the confidence and esteem of the great founder, from whom he received many favors. He was a man of sterling parts and was one of the most prominent figures of his day, became a very large land owner in Bucks county and the Prov- ince of New Jersey and filled many prominent positions in the councils of both provinces. He was one of the principal and leading justices of the courts of Bucks county for many years and a member of the Colonial Assembly from 1698 to 1722 when he was succeeded by his son, Joseph, Jr., who, as well as his other son, Mahlon, and their descendants for several generations were very prominently identified with the affairs of lower Bucks.
The Marriott family was founded in America by Isaac Marriott, a son of Richard Marriott of Wappingham, Es- sex, who came to West New Jersey in 1680, from London, and was one of the proprietors of West Jersey, and later a merchant at Burlington. His wife and the mother of Thomas Marriott of Bristol was Joyce Olive, daugter of Thomas Olive another West Jersey proprietor and a prominent Colonial official.
Willliam Paxson inherited a portion of the homestead farm in Middletown and acquired another part thereof that had been devised to his brother, Thom- as. He does not seem to have been called to the service of his province
3
THE PAXSON FAMILY.
and county in the proniinent positions held by his father and grandfather, following the even tenor of his ways as a farmer and active in the local affairs of his section.
William and Anna (Marriott) Pax- son were the parents of twelve chil- dren, eleven of whom survived him, viz. William, Joseph, Phineas, Thomas, Mahlon, Samuel, Isaac, Joshua, Mary, Anna and Israel. Nearly all of these children married and reared families, and were more or less prominent in the affairs of Bucks county, some of whom, however, found spheres of use- fulness outside the borders of their native county and state. Mary mar- ried David Landis and Anna married Simon Gillam and her descendants are still active in the affairs of her native county. Harvey H. Gillam, of Lang- horne, is a lineal descendant.
Joseph Paxson, the second son of William and Anna (Marriott) Paxson, born on the old homestead in 1745, married Sarah Rodman, of the promi- nent Bucks county family of that name, a daughter of John and Mary (Harrison) Rodman, of Bensalem, and took up his residence in that township, at Brookfield, the old Rodman estate, where he died in 1793. The Rodmans were early and extensive landowners in Bucks county. Dr. John Rodman, born in Barbadoes in 1679, died in New Jersey about 1758, was the owner of nearly 3000 acres in Warwick town- ship, and also one half that amount in Bensalem which he devised to his sons and daughters several of whom found homes in our county, where they filled a prominent place and have left numerous descendants.
Joseph and Sarah (Rodman) Pax- son were the parents of at least 7 chil- dren, John, Richard, William, Joseph, Anna, Mary, and Margery, of these William and Joseph located in Phila- delphia where they were active. busi- ness men; Anna became the wife of William Richardson, Jr., of Bucks county; Mary the wife of Asa Walms- ley of Byberry, and Margery married her step brother, Edward Tatnall, of Wilmington, Delaware.
Sarah (Rodman) Paxson, inherited under the will of her father, John Rodman, a tract of 240 acres and 100 perches in Bensalem. She married second time, February 16, 1809, Joseph Tatnall, of Brandywine Hundred, New Castle county, Delaware, of a family long prominent in that sectioni. He was a widower with children, 'one of whom, Edward, married his second wife's youngest daughter Margery, born 1791. On her marriage to Joseph Tatnall, and removal to New Castle county, Sarah conveyed to her
children by Joseph Paxson her land in Bensalem, a goodly portion of it to her son, John, and the balance to the other children and John subsequently acquired it from them.
John Paxson, son of Joseph and Sarah (Rodman) Paxson, was born at Brookfield, in Bensalem township, Bucks county, April 17, 1777, in the midst of the turmoil of the struggle for independence, in which his pater- nal relatives took little part, being of the non-combatant Quaker stock,
taught for generations to bear all sorts of ills rather than take up arms; the principle of peace being a cardinal one with the Friends from George Fox down. However some of the sect let their patriotism get the better of their relgious principles and fought valiant- ly in defense of American rights and independence; among them a few of the Paxsons and the Rodmans of Ben- salem.
John Paxson inherited the sterling qualities of an exceptionally strong line of ancestry and was rocognized as a man of force and ability in the sec- tion in which he lived. He acquired the greater part of his mother's real estate in Bensalem owning and operat- ing a fine farm of 187 acres. He was frequently called on to act as executor, guardian and trustee in the settlement of estates having as many as fifty estates to be responsible for and filled a number of local positions of trust and honor. It was natural therefore
when a bank was organized in lower Bucks that he should become a stock- holder and supporter of that institu- tion and be selected as one of its ex- ecutive officers. He was one of the original board of directors of the Farmers' Bank of Bucks County or- ganized at Hulmeville in 1814 and twenty years later was called to the position of president which he filled with marked ability for sixteen years until his death in 1850.
· John Paxson married May 12, 1802, Sarah £ Pickering, of Buckingham, Bucks county, like himself of a family prominent in the annals of Bucks county and a member of Buckingham Monthly Meeting of Friends of which society he was a life long and consist- ent member.
John and Sarah (Pickering) Paxson were the parents of twelve children, viz: Joseph, Mary, Anna, Sarah, Jona- than, Samuel H., Elihu, John Rodman, Margaret P., William H. and Margery. Most of these children married and found homes in Bucks county, and contributed their mite to the develop- ment of its varied interests, and many of their descendants still uphold the high standard set by their ancestors.
4
THE
PAXSON FAMILY.
No effort has been made to trace their special history in this brief nar- rative.
The oldest son of John Paxson is now living in Bristol.
Samuel H. married Sarah Richard- son, and lived and died on part of the old family homestead of the Richard- son family, some of which is included in the borough of Langhorne, and it descended to his son, William Rod-
man Paxson, who married a descend- ant of James Paxson the emigrant, and lived thereon until his death a few years ago. Dr. John Paxson, another son of Samuel H., was an eminent physician at Langhorne. Margaret and Margery, daughters of John, Bensalem, successively became the wives of Joseph Canby, of Bensalem and have descendants still living in that township.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.