USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 12
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Samuel Carpenter, born in Surry, England, who came to the pro- vince from the island of Barbadoes, in 1683, and now a wealthy ship- ping merchant of Philadelphia, was the largest land-holder in Bristol township at the close of the century. He purchased some two thou- sand acres contiguous to Bristol and including the site of the borough. Among the tracts he bought were those of John Otter, Samuel Clift, Edward Bennet, and Griffith Jones, running down the Delaware nearly to the mouth of the Neshaminy, and afterward that of Tho- mas Holme, running back nearly to the Middletown line, making about one thousand four hundred acres. He likewise owned two islands in the river. He propably built the Bristol mills which stood on what is now Mill creek, a quarter of a mile from the river, and up to whose doors small vessels came to load and unload freight. The saw-mill was seventy feet long by thirty-two wide, and was able to cut about one thousand five hundred feet in twelve hours, while the flour-mill had four run of stones, with an undershot wheel. We do not know at what time Mr. Carpenter built the mills, but in 1705 he speaks of them as being "newly built." They earned a
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clear profit of £400 a year. The mill-pond then covered between two and three hundred acres. The pine timber sawed at the mill was brought from Timber creek, New Jersey, and the oak cut from his own land near by. At that day the mills had about fifteen feet head and fall, and there was water enough to run about eight months in the year. About 1710 or 1712, Mr. Carpenter removed to Bris- to!, and made his summer residence on Burlington island, his dwelling standing as late as 1828. He was the richest man in the province in 1701, but lost heavily by the French and Indian war of 1703; and in 1705 he offered to sell his Bristol property to his friend Jonathan Dickinson, of the island of Jamaica.2 He married Hannah Hardman, an immigrant from Wales, in 1684, and died at Philadelphia in 1714. His wife died in 1728. His son Samuel married a daughter of Samuel Preston, and a granddaughter of Thomas Lloyd. Samuel Carpenter was largely interested in public affairs ; was a member of the council and assembly, and treasurer of the province. He is spoken of in high terms by all his contempo- raries. The Ellets, who distinguished themselves in the late civil war, were descendants of Samuel Carpenter, through the intermar- riage of the youngest daughter of his son Samuel with Charles Ellet.
The Bristol island meadows, on the Delaware below Bristol, forming a tract of rich meadow land, were patented to Samuel Car- penter. They were then called Burden's island, said to contain eight hundred and fifteen and a quarter acres, and were described as lying between Mill creek and Hog run. In 1716 Hannah Carpenter and sons conveyed the island to a purchaser. In 1774 an island near this, containing about forty acres, called Lesser island, was conveyed by John Clark to John Kidd. In 1807 Bela Badger bought the Fairview and Belle meadow farms, lying south of Bristol, and after- ward Bristol island, then called Yonkin's, and subsequently Badger's, island. The tide ebbed and flowed between the island and main- land. Mr. Badger, at great expense, banked in about three hundred and fifty acres of the meadow, making one of the most productive islands in the Delaware. The portion not banked in is covered with water at every high tide. A small part of the meadows, adjoining Bristol, was wharfed in to form the basin of the Delaware division canal.3 Before the Revolution Captain John Clark, of the British
2 At one time Mr. Carpenter offered to sell his Bristol mills to his friend William Penn.
3 Possibly these island meadows are the same as Alricks' island of two centuries and a quarter ago.
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army, came to America for his health, and lived on the Fairview farm, where Badger died. When a party of British horse came from Philadelphia to Bristol, in 1778, to burn the grist-mill, word was sent to Captain Clark, who rode into the village and forbade the destruction of the property, on the ground that he was a British officer and part owner. The mill was not burned, and he soon afterward resigned his commission. He was the worshipful-master of the Bristol lodge of Masons, and remained a member to his death.
A ferry across the Delaware, from where Bristol stands to Bur- lington, was first established by the provincial council in 1709. A petition from the county-magistrates was presented by John Sotcher, who then owned the land on this side of the river, and on which the landing was to be. In 1714 an act of similar import was passed by the New Jersey assembly, which fixed the rate for ferrying over, and prohibited all but the licensed ferryman acting, under a fine of twenty shillings. Of course people crossed the river between these two points many years before it was a recognized ferry. It is not known that the landing of the original ferry was on the spot of the present one. About 1729 Simpson Carey petitioned to be granted the ferry from Burlington to Bristol.
An act of assembly was passed in 1771 to improve the navigation of Neshaminy creek, which bounds Bristol township on the south- west. The stream was declared a public highway, as far up as Barnsley's ford, now Newportville, but the navigation was not much improved. At certain stages of the water vessels of light draught can come up to that point. In olden times there was a floating bridge and rope ferry across the Neshaminy about a hundred yards above the turnpike bridge at Schenck's station, the foundation of which can still be seen. They were owned by Charles Bessonett, who then ran a line of stages from Philadelphia to New York, and kept tavern in Bristol. In 1785 he and Gersham Johnson were authorized to lay out a road, from the sixteenth mile-stone, on what is now the Philadelphia and Trenton turnpike, through the lands of J. Vandygrift, and William Allen, to and across Neshaminy ; thence through land of John Edgar, and Joseph Tomlinson, and on to the nineteenth mile-stone, and to build a bridge and establish a ferry. These were the floating bridge and rope ferry. As early as 1700 the grand jury presented the necessity of a bridge over this stream, and William Moore was appointed to view and select a site, and the ex- pense to the county was not to exceed £80. Whether it was built,
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and if so, where, the author is not informed. An carly act of assem bly sought to open lock navigation from tide-water to Bridgetown, but nothing came of it. The bill provided for the incorporation of the "Neshaminy lock navigation company."
On the banks of the Delaware, three miles below Bristol, stands what is known as Bristol college. About 1787 the farm belonged to one Benger, an Irish sporting gentleman, who imported the famous horse Messenger, which he purchased of a brother of the Duke of York. It was then called Benger's mount. He sold it to Andreas Evarandus Van Braam Honchgust, the governor of an East-India island who retired to this country on the island being taken by the British. He erected an elegant mansion and called it China retreat. . The marble used in the construction of this build- ing was brought up the river by Samuel Hibbs, of Bensalem, in a shallop. In 1798 he sold the property, containing three hun- dred and sixty-one acres and thirty perches, to Captain Walter Sims, for £10,706, whose son-in-law, Captain John Green, who lived on the Roberts' farm, near Newportville, was the first Ameri- can sea-captain who carried our flag to China. He made the round trip in about a year, passing through the straits of Sunda. He was also the first to import a full set of china-ware direct from China into the United States, about 1772, and to import Shanghai chickens, from a cross with which comes our celebrated Bucks county chickens. Captain Green died in 1797, and was buried in Saint James' church- yard, Bristol. China retreat was turned into a seat of learning in 1833, and organized as Bristol college, with the Reverend Chauncey Colton, D. D., president, and under the patronage of the Episcopal church. Additional buildings were erected, and at one time as many as eighty or one hundred students were in attendance. It ran its course in a few years, and was succeeded by a classical school. In 1842 the late Captain Alden Partridge, one of the carliest superin- tendents at West Point, opened a military school in the China retreat building, which was kept up for about three years. During the late civil war the buildings were occupied as a military hospital, and at the present time they are used for a state school for the education of colored soldiers' orphans.
The Bath springs, known from the earliest settlement of the coun- try, and for years a fashionable watering-place, are situated on the edge of the borough of Bristol. The waters are chalybeate, and had celebrity as early as 1720, when they were a summer resort. In
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1773 the distinguished Doctor Rush read a paper on the mineral waters of Bristol before the Philadelphia Philosophical Society, and the following year a Philadelphia newspaper says, "the Bris- tol baths and chalybeate wells are completed in the most com- modious manner." Before buildings were erected the visitors boarded in Bristol, most of the families taking boarders, and walked out to drink the waters. General Mifflin and family were among those who frequented the springs, and visitors even came from Europe. The present buildings were erected in 1810 by Doctor Minnick, who laid out a race-course on the western part of the tract. More fash- ionable and attractive summer resorts have turned the tide of visitors in other directions.
There were, originally, three swamps in Bristol township, cover- ing more than a thousand acres of her territory. The most con- siderable of these is "Pigeon" swamp, probably named after Joseph Pidgeon, of Falls, who died in 1728, extending from the head of Mill pond to within two miles of Morrisville. It is three hundred yards wide, and contains about eight hundred acres. As it cannot be drained and made productive, without heavy outlay of money, it is kept in bushes and used as a pasture ground. It is crossed by several country roads In 1772 the legislature chartered "The Pigeon swamp company," when some effort was made to drain it. Hugh Hartshorne and Joseph Hall, of Bristol, were appointed to view and survey the swamp, and Christian Minnick, Aaron Wright and William Bidgood, managers for the owners. At this time it appears that one hundred and fifty-two acres and one hundred and eight perches were divided among the owners of contiguous lands, of which Thomas Middleton received forty-six acres, Benjamin Swain, seventeen acres, William Bidgood, thirty-two acres and seventy-two perches, Aaron Wright, sixteen acres and twenty-seven perches, Christian Minnick, thirteen acres and one hundred and thirty perches, Thomas Stanaland, four acres and sixty-one perches, Israel Pemberton, sixteen acres and fifty-nine perches, and William Bidgood, jr., six acres and seventy-three perches. The other two swamps were Biding's,+ two miles northwest of Bristol, and Green's, three miles southwest, which have been drained and cleared, and are now good farm land. In 1809 a road was opened across Pigeon swamp, and as early as 1723 a road was laid out from Green's swamp to Bristol. On the edge of Pigeon swamp, near the Mill pond,
4 This spelling is probably not correct.
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is what is known as the "Mystic well," whose discovery, it is claimed, was brought about by spiritual influences. It is related that Daniel B. Taylor, of Lower Makefield, was directed by the spirits to pur- chase a farm, owned by Malachi White, on which he would find a spring of wonderful medicinal properties, by digging down at a cer- tain spot, just one hundred and one feet six inches. The farm was bought, some obstructions cleared away, the digging commenced in September and completed the following December. They dug sixty feet through loom, gravel and sand, and bored forty-one feet nine inches through a hard blue rock, when water, chaly beate in character, was reached. The well was tubed with an eight-inch iron pipe to the rock. Mr. Taylor built a boarding-house near by, at a cost of $13,000 and for a time there was some demand for the water, at fifty cents per bottle, and a few visitors came to the well. In 1869 the water was subjected to chemical analysis by Doctor Gaunt, of Philadelphia, and one gallon was found to contain the following : Carbonate of the protoxide of iron, 3.60, sulphate of the protoxide of iron, .25, carbonate of lime, 1.40, sulphate of lime, .75, car- bonate of magnesia, .57, sulphate of magnesia, .51, sulphate of potassa, .46, hydrated silica, .86, organic matter, a trace ; total, 8.40. Several parties certified that the waters had benefitted them, and one old lady went so far as to say that it seemed to be "both meat and drink" to her.
Daniel Boone, the great hunter and pioneer of the west, is thought to have been born in Bristol township. The Boones were in the county early. In 1728 we find that Squire Boone, 5 a weaver, pur- chased one hundred and forty acres in New Britain township, of Thomas Shute, of Philadelphia. Solomon "Boon" or "Boom" lived in Bristol township before 1743, and died between the 16th and 20th of December of that year, leaving sons, Ralph, Joseph and Solomon, and daughter, Elizabeth. In 1745 Solomon was a signer to a petition to the court to lay out a road from his plantation to Bris- tol. These Boons were probably of the lineage of Daniel. George Boone, the grandfather of Daniel, immigrated with his wife and eleven children from Exeter, England, in 1717; settled on the banks of the Delaware,6 where he purchased a tract of land. His son, Squire Boone, was married to Sarah Morgan in September,
5 As this person bears the same christian name as Daniel Boone's father, it is more than probable they were one and the same person.
6 John S. C. Abbott.
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1720, and their son Daniel, the great pioneer, was born October 28th, 1734. When about ten years of age his father removed with his family to Berks county, near Reading, then a frontier settlement, where Daniel became an expert hunter. When sixteen or eighteen years of age the family went to North Carolina, and settled on the Yadkin. From about this time we date his great exploits as a hunter and frontiersman, and his career is too well known to need repeating here. No other Bucks countian of the last century be- came so famous. He died in Missouri, September 26th, 1822. We do not think there is any doubt about Daniel Boone being a native of Bucks county, although the location of his birthplace may not be entirely accurate. At the time of his death, the newspapers of Mis- souri, published in the vicinity of his home, stated that he was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, about 1730. William Stewart, son of Charles Stewart who lived and died in Upper Makefield, who was brought up in that township, accompanied Daniel Boone on his second visit to Kentucky, and was killed at the battle of Blue Licks, declared, in his lifetime, that he was a schoolmate of Boone, and his descendants assert it to this day.
The Taylors, of Bristol township, are descended from Samuel Taylor, husbandman, of the parish of Dore, county of Derbyshire, England. In the summer of 1677 he immigrated to America, and landed where Burlington, New Jersey, now stands. He was one of the proprietors of West New Jersey, and owned one thirty-second of seven undivided ninetieth parts. In the spring of 1678 he settled upon one thousand two hundred acres in Chesterfield township, Bur- lington county, the whole of which remains in the family. To his second son, Robert, he gave five hundred acres of the tract, now known as Brookdale. From him it came to his son Anthony, an ardent patriot during the Revolution, who died in 1785, and from Anthony to his eldest son, Michael. Our Taylors are immediately descended from Anthony, the third son of Anthony, who was born at Brookdale farm in 1772. In 1789 he was apprenticed to John Thompson, an extensive shipping merchant, of Philadelphia, and in 1793 he entered into the same business with Thomas Newbold, under the firm-name of Taylor & Newbold. In 1802 he married Mary, the daughter and tenth child of Caleb Newbold, of Spring- field, New Jersey. He retired from business in 1810, to Sunbury farm, Bristol township, which he had purchased in 1808, where he resided to his death, in 1837. The family, from Samuel Taylor
0
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down, have been Friends. He took great interest in farming, and was the largest land-owner in the county. Upon the failure of the Farmers' bank of Bucks county, at Hulmeville, he, with others, restored its capital and caused its removal to Bristol. He was elected president, and continued such to his death. Anthony Taylor had eleven children, all of whom grew up, and nine survived him : Robert, Sarah, William, Edward L., Michael, Caleb N., Thomas N., Emma L., and Franklin. Caleb N. Taylor, the sixth son of his father, was born at Sunbury, where he has resided nearly all his life. He has always been an active politician of the Whig and Republican schools, and was elected to Congress in 1866 and 1868, having been defeated at three previous elections. He is president of the Bristol bank. Michael Newbold, the ancestor of Caleb Newbold, whose daughter Anthony Taylor married, and like- wise an English Friend, immigrated from Newbold manor, county of Derbyshire, in 1680. He settled near the Taylors, in Springfield township, Burlington county, where he bought one thousand acres of land, still held by the family. Thomas N., the sixth son, lately deceased in Philadelphia.
About 1830-31, Anthony Morris, of Philadelphia, founded an agricultural school at the Bolton farm, on the road from Oxford Valley to Tullytown, a mile and a half from the former place. It was placed under the superintendency of F. A. Ismar, a pupil of the celebrated school of Hofwyl, in Prussia, to be conducted on the Fellenberg system. The school did not prove a success and was soon abandoned. On the same farm is the "Morris graveyard," a round plat of ground, surrounded by a stone wall, and shaded by a grove of fine trees. Several of the Morris and Pemberton family have been buried in the old yard. This farm was originally the Pemberton homstead, and is yet in the family. The farm adjoining is called Wigan, and both that and Bolton were named by the origi- nal proprietors after towns of the same names they came from in Lancashire, England.
In Bristol township is the heaviest seed producing establishment in the world, owned and conducted by David Landredth & Son. It is located on the bank of the Delaware, above Bristol, and is called Bloomsdale. The estate, comprising five hundred acres, is exclu- sively devoted to the raising of seeds, which are shipped to all parts of the world. There are a number of buildings for the convenience of the business, and cottages for the employes. The most improved
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methods of cultivation have been adopted, including the use of steam. Numerous plantations in other states are made tributaries to Bloomsdale in the product of seeds. Below Bloomsdale, and on the bank of the river, is located the extensive establishment of Nathan Hellings, for the preservation of fruit. The main building is eighty by fifty feet, with thick walls, and is so constructed as to avoid the outside changes of temperature, which is maintained within at from thirty-four to thirty-six degrees, while a current of dry air passes constantly through the building, to prevent moisture. A large ice- bed under the centre of the building cools the atmosphere in sum- mer. Here large quantities of foreign and domestic fruits, in season, are stored for preservation. The storage capacity of the establish- ment is about ten thousand barrels.
Bela Badger, for thirty years a prominent citizen of Bristol, came from Connecticut in 1807. He bought the Hewson farm in the township, just over the borough line, the Island farm, opposite Bur- lington, and the Marsh farm, adjoining. He owned eight hundred acres, in all, fronting on the Delaware. He spent several thousand dollars in banking out the river from part of his land, and recovered three hundred and fifty acres of very fine meadow-land, and also spent a large sum to improve his fishery, known as the Badger fishery, which he made one of the best on the river. Mr. Badger was a breeder of blooded horses, and dealt largely in fast stock. He made the first match against Eclipse with Sir Walter, and was beaten. He was connected with Colonel William R. Johnson, of Virginia, in the famous match of Henry against Eclipse, for $20,000 a side, run on Long Island, in May, 1823, and others of equal note. He was the owner of Hickory, the sire of some of the finest colts since Mes- senger's day. He imported the celebrated horse Valentine, and was interested in the ownership of some of the best blooded horses of that day. Mr. Badger stood high in the sporting-world, and was considered by all as a man of integrity. He was a brother of Samuel Badger, of Philadelphia, and died in 1839, without family.
The only village in the township, except the incorporated borough of Bristol, is Newportville, a mile and a half below Hulmeville, where the Durham road strikes the Neshaminy. The creek is spanned by a wooden bridge, one hundred and ninety feet long, resting on three stone piers. The site of the village was laid off into town-lots as early as 1808, but it has not grown to great pro- portions. It was called "Newport" at first, but somebody, with the
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genuine American genius for naming places, added the syllable "ville," and the post-office, when established in 1836, was given this name, which it bears to this day and is likely to bear to the end of time. There is properly an upper, and a lower, town, a portion of the houses being built along the creek, and others on the high ground above. It has a large saw and grist-mill, extensive carriage- works, a hall that will seat about three hundred persons, a public library, a fire company, two stores, and a tavern. The population is about two hundred. In the early days of the county, the crossing of the Neshaminy at this place was known as Barnsley's ford. A little cluster of houses, in the south-east corner of Middletown, on a road running from the Delaware to Newtown, lies partly in Bristol township, and is called Centrville.
Bristol, like all the lower river townships, has little broken land, neither is it level, but has the gentle undulating surface, after you leave the river bottom, best suited to farming. It is watered by a few small tributaries of the Neshaminy, and Mill creek and its branches, the main stream taking its rise at the base of the Primary formation in Middletown. The farmers of the lower part of Bristol have turned their attention to raising tobacco, and there and in Falls a large crop is produced yearly. According to a government return, made in 1871, Bucks county has within its limits four hun- dred and seventy manufactories of cigars and one snuff-mill, the latter being at Bristol. These factories employ from thirty to fifty hands each and pay a duty of $180,000 a year to the government. For a number of years, and until one was established in the borough of Bristol, the Friends of this township went to Falls meeting, where many of them still attend.
So far as we have been able to learn the area of Bristol township has neither been enlarged nor decreased since its organization, in 1692, and contains now, as then, nine thousand four hundred and fifty-nine acres. The earliest enumeration of taxables, we have met with, was in 1742, when they numbered eighty-three, of whom fifteen were single men. By 1763, a period of twenty-one years, they had increased to one hundred and four. At the same time the heaviest assessment against any one man was that of Lawrence Growden, who was taxed on £130. The average valuation was from five to ten pounds, evidence there was but little wealth in the township. In 1784 Bristol had a population of seven hundred and sixteen whites and forty-one blacks, and one hundred and fourteen
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dwellings. In 1810 it was 1,008; 1820, 1,6677; 1830, 1,532, and two hundred and two taxables ; 1840, 1,450; 1850, 1,810; 1860, 2,187 ; 1870, 2,040, of which two hundred and four were of foreign birth, and one hundred and twenty-seven colored.
Bristol township has one of the most valuable shad-fisheries in the county, that known as the Badger fishery. It was established as early as 1790, and was rented for a number of years at $1,800 for the season. As high as seventeen hundred shad and twenty thou- sand herring, besides a large number of smaller fish, have been caught in one day. On one or two occasions sharks, of the shovel- nosed species, have been caught. The rent for some years past has not exceeded $800. Anthony Burton's fishery has rented for $1,000 the season, but of late years for not over $400. Cash Point fishery, now Doctor Sallman's, adjoining Burton's, rents for $300 a year, Barclay Ivins's, in Falls, $500, Betty's Point, owned by C. Ellis, $300, Birch fishery, S. Collins, $300, John Thompson's, $200. David Moon's fishery, where the largest shad have been taken known to have been caught in the Delaware, weighing fourteen pounds, rents for $400.
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