USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 11
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Richard Hough was married to Margery, daughter of John Clows, the 1st month, 17th, 1684, in the presence of many Friends. This was among the earliest marriages among the English settlers after their arrival, and William Yardley and Thomas Janney were ap- pointed to see that it was "orderly done and performed." Five children were born of this marriage, Mary, Sarah, Richard, John and Joseph, who intermarried with the families of Bainbridge, Shaircross, Brown, Gumbby, Taylor and West. They have a numerous progeny. John Hough, from Chester, England, who arrived in 1683, with his wife, Hannah, was probably a brother of Richard, or at least a cousin. Doctor Silas Hongh, son of Isaac Hough and Edith Hart, was a great-grandson of Richard. Among the old marriage certificates that have fallen into our hands is that of "Robert Smith, of Makefield township, carpenter," and Phœbe, a daughter of Thomas Canby, of Solebury, married at Buckingham meeting, September 30th, 1719. It is formally drawn on parch- ment, and the signatures well executed. It bears the names of Bye, Pearson, Canby, Eastburn, Fell, Paxson, and many others whose descendants still worship at the meeting.
Of the old Makefield families the Briggses can trace their descent, on the paternal side, nearly two centuries back through the Briggses, Croasdales, Storeys, Cutlers and Hardings, to Ezra Croasdale, who married Ann Peacock in 1687. On the maternal side the line runs back through the Taylors, Yardleys, etc., to John Town, who mar- ried Deborah Booth in 1691. Barclay Knight's male line, on the paternal side of the house, in so far as the Makefield family is con- cerned, runs but three generations to Jonathan Knight, who married Grace Croasdale in 1748 ; while his mother's ancestry, on the pater-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
nal side, runs back to Job Bunting, who married Mary, daughter of Henry Baker, in 1689, and on the maternal to William and Margaret Cooper, through the Idens, Walnes, the Stogdales and Woolstons. The Stocktons, more recent in the township, are a collateral branch of the Princeton family. The first in this county was John, born June 15th, 1768, who was the son of John, a New Jersey judge, a nephew of Richard Stockton, the signer. The latter descended from Richard, a Friend, who came to America between 1660 and 1670, first settled on Long Island, and afterward purchased a large tract of land near Princeton. John's father and brothers, owning large landed estates, remained loyal to the crown in the Revolu- tionary struggle, and lost their lives in the war and their property by confiscation. John Stockton settled near Yardleyville, in Lower Makefield, and married Mary Vansant in 1794, who died August 19th, 1844. They had ten children, Ann, Joseph, Sarah, Eliza, Mary Ann, John B., Charity, Isaiah and Eleanor, who intermarried with the Hibbses, Leedoms, Derbyshires, Browns, Palmers and Houghs. The descendants are numerous in the lower end of the county, and among them is Doctor John Stockton Hough, of Philadelphia. He is a son of Eleanor, who married William Aspy Hough, of Ewing, New Jersey. The Meads were in Makefield as early as 1744, when Andrew Ellet conveyed to William Mead two hundred and twenty acres on the Delaware adjoining Richard Hough. He sold his land to Hezekiah Anderson in 1747, and left the township. Ellet was also an early settler, and his patent is dated September 26th, 1701.
Makefield had been settled near three-quarters of a century before the Friends had a meeting house to worship in-in all those long years going down to Falls. In 1719 the "upper parts " of Makefield asked permission of Falls to have a meeting on first-days, for the winter season, at Samuel Baker's, John Baldwin's, and Thomas At- kinson's, which was allowed. In 1750, the Falls monthly gave leave to the Makefield Friends to hold a meeting for worship, every other Sunday, at the houses of Benjamin Taylor and Benjamin Gilbert, because of the difficulty of going down there. A meeting-house was built in 1752, twenty-five by thirty feet, one story high, which was enlarged in 1764, by extending the north end twenty feet, at a cost of £120.
The township presents us a relic, of her early days, in an ancient burial place, called the " old stone graveyard," half a mile below Yardleyville. The ground was given, June 4th, 1690, to the Falls
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
monthly meeting, by Thomas Janney, before his return to England, where he died. There is but one stone standing, or was a few years ago, to mark the last resting place of one of the "rude forefathers" of the township, a brown sandstone, twenty-seven inches high, eigh- teen wide and six thick, the part out of the ground being dressed. On the face, near the top, is cut the figures "1692," and the follow- ing inscription below : "Here lies the body of Joseph Sharp, the son of Christopher Sharp." For upward of a half century the two Makefields were included in one township organization, and known by the name of Makefield. They were still one in 1742, but for the convenience of municipal purposes they were divided into two divisions, and called " upper" and " lower" division.
Adam Hoops, of Falls, owned three hundred and twenty acres along the river in Lower Makefield. He probably died in 1771, as his will is dated the 7th of June of that year. His daughter Jane married Daniel Clark, the uncle of Daniel Clark, jr., first husband of Mrs. Gaines. The heirs of Adam Hoops sold the plantation to Clark, who disposed of it by sale in 1774, when he probably left the county.
The Livezey family, of Lower Makefield and Solebury, of which Doctor Abraham Livezey, of Yardleyville, is a member, came to Bucks county at an early day. Jonathan, the first comer, settled in Sole- bury soon after Penn's second visit, where he took up a tract of land that included the old Stephen Townsend farm-on which was built a one-story stone house in 1732, and torn down in 1848-and the farms of Armitage, Paxson, and William Kitchen. He married Esther Eastburn, and had children Jonathan, Nathan, Benjamin and Joseph, and was the great-great-grandfather of Robert Livezey, father of the present generation. The great-grandfather married a Friend, named Thomas ; the grandfather, Daniel Livezey, married Margery Croasdale, whose eldest son, Robert, born February 22d, 1780, married Sarah Paxson, who died at the age of ninety-three. Robert Livezey lived with one wife the whole of his married life of sixty years on the old Stephen Townsend farm. His children are Cyrus, Elizabeth, Ann, Albert, Allen, Elias and Abraham, living, and Samuel, who died in 1863. Previous to the death of Samuel this family exhibited the remarkable fact, of both parents, at the ages of eighty-three and eighty-four, and the entire family of eight children, living, and the youngest aged forty. Robert Livezey died in 1864, at the age of eighty-four. He was a Friend, and many years filled the office of justice of the peace.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
About 1750 three brothers, of the name of Slack, immigrated from Holland to America. Two of them settled in New Jersey, while Abraham, the third, born in 1722, settled in Lower Makefield. He first occupied the farm in the north-east corner of the township, on the Delaware, lately owned by William Paff, deceased, but after- ward moved to the farm immediately north and adjoining, now owned by a Smith. He lived there many years, and died in 1802. Slack's island, in the Delaware, was named after him. He probably married soon after his arrival, and his children were Abraham, Cornelius, James and Sarah, all of whom married and left descend- ants. Abraham, the elder son, left but three children, who are deceased, and their descendants live in Philadelphia. The second son, Cornelius, died in 1828, leaving a number of children, some of whom are yet living, and among them are Mrs. James Larue, of Lower Makefield, Mrs. Charles Young, of Edgewood, and Mrs. Balderston, of Newtown. James, the third son, born in 1756, died on his farm in 1832, at the age of seventy-six, leaving one daughter, Alice, and three sons, Abraham, Elijah and James. Sarah, the daughter of Abraham the elder, married a Mr. Kelley, whose de- scendants are to be found in Newtown, Fallsington and Philadel- phia. Mrs. Jane Harvey, wife of Joseph Harvey, of Newtown, and Doctor Lippincott, of Philadelphia, husband of Grace Greenwood, are two of her descendants. Abraham, the elder son of James, died in 1835, leaving a large family of children, several of whom reside in Bucks county. Among them are Samuel M. Slack, of Upper Makefield, John Slack Keith, of Newtown, and Elijah T. Slack, of Philadelphia. Abraham's descendants married into the families of Rich, Stevens, Torbert, Emery, McNair, etc. Elijah Slack, the second son of James, graduated at Princeton, studied divinity, was licensed as a Presbyterian clergyman, and removed to Cincinnati in 1817, where he died in 1868, leaving a large family of children, most of whom live in the southern states. The daughter Alice mar- ried David McNair, of Newtown township, and died in 1830, leaving six children, a number of whose descendants live in the county. James, the youngest son of Abraham, the second, familiarly known in the lower end of the county as Captain Slack, resided on the farm where his father died until 1837, when he immigrated to Indiana, and settled on White river, in Delaware county, where his wife died in 1845, and he in 1847. He left six sons and three daugh- ters, of whom but three survive : Doctor George W. Slack,
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Delaware county, Indiana, Anthony T. Slack, of Independence, Missouri, and James R. Slack, of Indiana. The latter went to Hun- tingdon, Indiana, in 1840, with his license as an attorney in his pocket, and began life in the wilderness. In turn he was school- master, clerk in the county-clerk's office, county-auditor, and state senator. On the breaking out of the civil war, he espoused the cause of the Union, and raised the forty-seventh Indiana regiment, of which he was appointed colonel. He participated in most of the campaigns and battles in the West, from Island No. 10, in March, 1862, to the surrender of Mobile, in April, 1865. He was ap- pointed a bigadier-general, in 1864, and a brevet major-general, in March, 1865, for gallantry in the field. In October, 1873, he was elected judge of the Twenty-eighth Judicial district by eight hun- dred majority, in a district in which the Republican candidate for President had one thousand two hundred majority, in 1872.
There are but two villages in Lower Makefield, Edgewood, on the road from Yardleyville to Attleborough, consisting of a store, post- office, established in 1858, and Samuel Tomlinson appointed post- master, and two or three dwellings; and Yardleyville on the Dela- ware, at the site of Thomas Yardley's ferry, of ye olden time. Dol- ington, on the line between Lower and Upper Makefield, will be noticed in our account of the latter township. Yardleyville began to develop into what Americans call a village about 1807. An old map of the place of that date shows a number of building lots, and streets laid out above the mouth of the creek, and running back from the river, and on the south side were several lots at the intersection of the Newtown and Upper River roads. The only buildings there were the old tavern near the river bank, and the dwellings of Brown, Pidcock, Eastburn and Depue. At this time the ferry was half-a- mile below the bridge, and boats landed opposite the farm-house of Jolly Longshore. One Howell kept the ferry on the New Jersey side, and it was as often called Howell's, as Yardley's, ferry. The first store-house in the place was built by the widow of Thomas Yardley. An old tavern stood at this side of the ferry kept by John Jones, and subsequently by Benjamin Flemming. When the ferry was moved up to the site of the bridge, a tavern, now the " Swan," was built there, and first kept by one Grear. Neill Van- sant bought the old Yardley mansion, with mills and some two hun- dred acres of land, which then included about the whole of the vil- lage. The mansion and mills were subsequently owned by Richard
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Mitchell and Atlee, and Mahlon Dungan. The latter sold the pro- perty to William Yardley, whose heirs still own it. Among the earliest houses in the place were the small frame tenement on John Blackfan's land near the creek, the three-storied stone house called the " Wheat Sheaf," because there was a sheaf of wheat cast in the iron railing in front of the second story, and a small frame and stone house east of the canal, above Bridge street. Charles Shoemaker was the first lock-tender on the canal at Yardleyville, in 1831. The third store, was kept by Aaron LaRue, in the " canal store-house." He joined church, and emptied his liquor into the canal, and set it on fire. His son, James G. LaRue, killed a negro in this store-house for abusing his mother, and the grand jury ignored the bill. The great freshet of 1841 carried the bridge away. The Yardleyville of to-day is a much more pretentious village than its ancestor of seventy years ago. It now contains a population of about one thousand, with several industrial establishments, consisting of a steam spoke and handle factory, steam saw, slate and plaster mills, steam felloe works, and two merchant flour mills, several dry goods and grocery stores, coal and lumber yards, four public houses, a graded school, Episcopal, Methodist and Advent churches, a Friends' meeting-house, and a Catholic congregation worshiping in the Odd Fellows' Hall. The new railroad from Philadelphia to New York crosses the Dela- ware just below the village. A post-office was first established at Yardleyville in 1828, and Mahlon Dungan was appointed postmaster.
In the immediate vicinity of Yardleyville are two valuable stone- quarries, from which inany fine building stones are quarried and shipped to various parts of the country. In a letter James Logan wrote to Phineas Pemberton, about 1700, he mentions that William Penn "had ordered a memorandum to be entered in the office that ye great quarry in R. Hough's and Abel Janney's lands be reserved when they come to be confirmed, being for ye public good of the county." What about "ye great quarry," and who knows about it now ? Does it refer to the quarries at Yardleyville ? In the same letter Logan asks Pemberton where he can get "three or four hun- dred acres of good land and proportionable meadow in your innocent county." In olden times the children from the vicinity of Yardley- ville went to school down to the Oxford school-house. But in course of time an eccentric man, named Brelsford, a famous deer- hunter of that section, built an eight-square on the site of the present Oak Grove school-house, on a lot left by Thomas Yardley for school purposes.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The surface of Lower Makefield is gently rolling, with scarce a hill that deserves the name. The eastern end of Edge Hill, reach- ing from the Schuylkill to the Delaware, runs along the southern line of the township, and marks the northern limit of the primary formation. Here the surface is somewhat broken. It is not so well watered as most of the townships, and has but few creeks. The largest is Brock's creek, named after John Brock, an original settler, whose land lay along it, which empties into the Delaware at Yard- leyville. Core creek rises in the northwest corner of the township, but soon enters Newtown, and thence flows through Middletown to Neshaminy. Rock run, which flows through Falls, and empties into the Delaware below Pennsbury, rises in the southern part. The township is traversed by numerous local roads, which render all points accessible to the inhabitants. The soil is fertile and well- cultivated, and the population is almost exclusively employed in agriculture. The area is nine thousand nine hundred and forty- seven acres, with but little waste land.
In 1693, the next year after the township was organized, the as- sessed taxes of Makefield amounted to £11. 14s. 3d. In 1742, sixty years after its settlement, it had seventy-six taxable inhabitants, among whom were eleven single men. The next year there were but fifty-seven, but had increased to ninety-four, in 1764. In 1742 the poor-rate was three pence per pound, and nine shillings on single men. Thomas Yardley, the heaviest tax-payer, was assessed at £100. In 1784 the population was 748, of which twenty-six were blacks, and one hundred and one dwellings ; 1,089 in 1810 ; 1,204 in 1820 ; 1,340 in 1830, with two hundred and sixty-four taxables ; 1,550 in in 1840 ; 1,741 in 1850 ; 1,958 in 1860, and 2,066, of which two hun- dred and twenty-seven were foreign-born, in 1870. In 1786 the joint commissioners of Pennsylvania and New Jersey confirmed to Lower Makefield Dun's, Harvey's lower, and Slack's, three islands in the Delaware.
The first loss by fire in the township, of which we have any re- cord, was in 1736, when John Scofield had his dwelling burned. Collections, to cover the loss, were taken up in the monthly meet- ings.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER IX.
-
BRISTOL.
1692.
Interesting township .- Was only sea-port in county .- Original name .- Present name appears .- Richard Noble .- Reverend Thomas Dungan .- Cold Spring .- Elias Keach .- His history .- Thomas Dungan's descendants .- Samuel Carpenter .- Bristol mill .- Bristol island meadows .- Fairview and Belle meadow farms .- Captain John Clark .- Ferry to Burlington .- Act to improve navigation of Ne- shaminy .- Bessonett's rope ferry .- Line of stages .- The Taylor family .- Anthony Taylor .- Anthony Newbold .- Bristol college .- Captain John Green .- Bath springs .- Pigeon swamp .- The "Mystic well."-Daniel Boone .- William Stew- art his schoolmate .- Bolton farm .- Landredth's seed-farm .- Hellings's fruit establishment .- Newport ville .- Bela Bodger .- Surface, area, population.
BRISTOL, next to Falls, is the most interesting township in the county, and it played a leading part at the settlement of the province, In it was located our first county-seat, where justice was administered for forty years. Then, as now, it contained the only sea-port in the county, where many of the early immigrants landed, either coming up the river in boats or crossing over from Burlington, where some of the ships discharged their living cargoes. As there was sufficient depth of water, very likely some of the smaller vessels landed their passengers on the bank at Bristol.
In the report of the jury fixing the boundaries of the five town- ships laid out in 1692, Bristol is located "below Pennsbury," and
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
was "to follow the river to Neshaminah, then up Neshaminah to the upper side of Robert Hall's plantation, and to take in the land of Jonathan Town, Edmund Lovet, Abraham Cox, etc., to Pennsbury, and by the same to the place of beginning." The name given to it was "Buckingham," no doubt after the parish of that name in Eng- land, and it was so called in the court records as late as 1697, and "New Buckingham" in the meeting records as late as 1705. Its present name first appears in 1702, when a constable was appointed for "Bristol." The reason for dropping the original name and as- suming one less pleasant to the ear, is not known ; it is probable, however, that the township gradually came to be called by the name of the borough that was growing up within its borders. If we ex- cept the few "old renters" from the time of Andros, and still a few others who came when the Swedes and Dutch held rule on the Delaware, the original settlers of Bristol township were English Friends.1
Our knowledge of the first English settlers is not extensive, and possibly not always accurate. Thomas Holme, Penn's surveyor- general, owned land in this and other townships, but he probably never lived in the county. His occupation enabled him to pick up tracts worth having, and he appears to have availed himself of the opportunity. Richard Noble, the first sheriff of the county, ap- pointed in 1682, owned an extensive tract on the Neshaminy, above its mouth. William White, Richard Noble and Samuel Allen owned tracts on that stream, in the order they are named, and eight pro- prietors owned all the land bordering on the Neshaminy, from its mouth up to the Middletown line, Thomas Holme being the heaviest owner, five hundred and forty-seven acres, whose land lay on the stream but a short distance, and then ran along the Middletown line nearly to Falls. The husband of Ann Clark received his grant from Governor Andros, May 12, 1679, and embraced three hundred and nine acres, and dying in 1683, he left it to his widow. The court took charge of Clark's estate at his death, and sold one hundred acres to Richard Noble, which Penn confirmed to him in 1689. Samuel Allen's daughter, Martha, was married to Daniel Pegg, of Philadelphia, at her father's house in Bristol township, April 22,
1 Names of original settlers: Thomas Holme, John Spencer, John Boyden, Sam- uel Allen, John Swart, Jacob Pelisson, Richard Noble, Ann Clark, Samuel Clift, William Dungan, Mordecai Bowden, John Tully, Thomas Dungan, Clement Dungan, Richard Lundy, Thomas Bowman, Thomas Rudeyard, William Hange, Christopher Taylor, Francis Richardson, Griffith Jones and Edward Bennet.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
1686. Her husband gave the name to Pegg's run, and a street in Philadelphia.
The Dungans came from Rhode Island, and some of them were in Bristol before Penn arrived. William, who was probably the eldest son of the Reverend Thomas, came in advance to the Quaker colony, where there was neither let nor hindrance in freedom to worship God, had two hundred acres granted him in Bristol, by William Mark- ham, the 4th of 6th month, 1682, which was confirmed by Penn the 5th of 5th month, 1684. He is denominated an "old renter." About the same time there came a small colony of Welsh Baptists, from Rhode Island, who settled near Cold spring. This spring, one of the finest in the county, is near the river bank, three miles above Bristol, and covers an area of about fifty feet square. It is sur- rounded by a stone wall, is well-shaded, and constantly discharges about one hundred and fifty gallons per minute. In 1684 the Welsh immigrants were followed by the Reverend Thomas Dungan and his family, who settled in the immediate vicinity. He soon gathered a congregation about him and organized a Baptist church, which was kept together until 1702. But little is known of its his- tory. If a church building was ever erected it has entirely passed away ; but the graveyard, overgrown with briars and trees, and a few dilapidated tombstones, remains. It is fifty feet square, and near the turnpike. The land was probably given by Thomas Stana- land, who died March 16th, 1753, and was buried in it. Thomas Dungan, the pastor, died in 1688, and was buried in the yard, but several years afterward a handsome stone was erected to his memory at Southampton. Two pastors at Pennypack were buried in this old graveyard, the Reverend Samuel Jones, who died December 16th, 1722, and Joseph Wood, September 15th, 1747.
The Reverend Elias Keach, the first pastor at Pennypack, was ordained by Mr. Dungan. The history of this able minister of the gospel is full of interest. He came from London in 1686, repre- senting himself as a minister, and was asked to preach at Pennypack. Many flocked to hear the young London divine. In the midst of his sermon he suddenly stopped as if attacked by sickness, burst into tears and confessed that he was an impostor. He dated liis con- version from that moment. He now retired to Cold spring, to seek counsel and advice of Mr. Dungan, where he remained a considerable time. He probably studied divinity with Mr. Dungan, who baptised him. He became the pastor at Pennypack in 1687, but returned to 9
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
England in 1692, where he preached with success until his death, in 1699. He married a daughter of Judge More, after whom More- land township was named. His only daughter Hannah married Revitt Harrison, of England, whose son, John Elias Keach Harrison, came to America about 1734, settled at the Crooked Billet, now Hatborough, and was a member of the Southampton Baptist church. The Reverend Thomas Dungan left five sons and three daughters, but divided his real estate between Thomas, Jeremiah and John, after the death of their mother, they paying their sisters, Mary, Rebecca and Sarah, five pounds each. The sons and daughters married into the families of Wing, Drake, West, Richards, Doyle and Carrell. William, the eldest son, married in Rhode Island, probably before he immigrated to Pennsylvania. We have the an- thority of Morgan Edwards for saying, that by 1770 the descendants of Reverend Thomas Dungan numbered between six and seven hun- dred. The 2d of April, 1698, Clement, Thomas, Jeremiah and John Dungan conveyed two hundred acres, above Bristol, near the Dela- ware, to Walter Plumpluey. They probably left Bristol at that time, and removed to Northampton township, where members of the family still reside. In March, 1774, the Cold spring farm was sold at public sale by Thomas Stanaland. Samuel Clift was an "old renter," of whom more in another place.
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