USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 2
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In taking leave of the Swedes we confess to kindly feeling toward this amiable people. Although few in number, they made their mark upon the future of the state, and their descendants are among our most respectable citizens. They subsisted principally by hunt- ing, fishing, and trading with the Indians, and lived in the simplest
7 "D'Assinpink la place même s'appellee Alummengh."
8 Dr. Smith says there were but six able-bodied Dutchmen on the river in 1648.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
manner in log cabins of a single room, low doors, and holes cut in the sides for windows, with sliding boards. The chimney, of stone, clay and grass, occupied one corner of the room. The men dressed in vests and breeches of skins ; the women in jackets and petticoats of the same material. Their bedding was likewise of the skins of animals. They tanned their own leather and made their shoes. Their condition was improved after the arrival of the English. We are indebted to the Swedes for the introduction of domestic ani- mals and the various European grains. They had stables for their cattle before the English came, but after their example allowed them to run at large all winter. They were the first to lay ax to the forest. Gordon says: "Many improvements were made by this industrious and temperate people from Henlopen to the falls." They built the earliest church, and introduced Christian worship into the wilderness west of the Delaware. The first minister of the gospel on the Delaware was Reverend Reorus Torkillus, a Swedish professor from Gottenberg, who died in 1643.
Jacob Alricks, a trader on the Delaware, was one of the earliest Dutch vice-directors, commissioned in 1657. He was accompanied by his wife, who soon died a victim to the climate. His nephew, Peter Alricks, a native of Groningen, Holland, who probably came to America with his uncle, was the first known land- holder in this county, but probably never lived here. He be- came prominent in public affairs. Beginning life as a trader, he was commissary of a fort near Henlopen, in 1659; the first bailiff and magistrate of New Castle and settlements on the river, his jurisdiction extending to the falls ; commandant of the colonies under the English in 1673; one of the first justices com- missioned by Penn after his arrival ; member of the first assembly, held in Philadelphia in 1683, and was repeatedly a member of the provincial council. He lived at New Castle, and had a large family of children. He owned an island in the Delaware below the mouth of Mill creek, at Bristol, near the western shore, which bore his name many years, but no longer exists. It was separated from the main-land by a narrow channel that drained a swamp that ex- tended up the creek. The island was granted to Alricks, by Gov- ernor Nicholls, in 1667 ; by Alricks to Samuel Borden in 1682, and to Samuel Carpenter in 1688. The last conveyance includes two islands on the west side of the Delaware, "about southwest from Mattinniconk (Burlington) island"-the largest, once known as
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Kipp's island and by the Indian name of Kaomenakinckanck, was a mile long by half a mile wide; and the smaller, to the north of the larger, half a mile long by a quarter wide. No doubt these islands have both been joined to the main-land by draining the swamp, and now form the valuable meadows below Bristol. In 1679 Alricks' island was occupied by a Dutchman named Barent. Hermanus Alricks, of Philadelphia, grandson of Peter Alricks, then a young man, settled in the Cumberland valley about 1740. When Cum- berland county was organized in 1749-50, he was the first member of the legislature. He filled the offices of register, recorder, clerk of the courts, and justice to his death about 1775. He married a young Scotch-Irish girl named West, whose brother Francis was the grandfather of the late Chief Justice Gibson. Her- manus Alricks had several children, all of them born in Carlisle, the youngest, James, in December 1769. Hamilton Alricks, of Harris- burg, is a descendant of Peter Alricks, as probably are all who bear the name in the state.
The 12th of March, 1664, Charles II. granted to his brother, the Duke of York, "all New England from the St. Croix to the Dela- ware," and directed the Dutch to be dispossessed. An expedition sailed from Portsmouth in July and arrived before Manhattan, now New York, the last of August. The town and fort surrendered the 8th of September, and a bloodless conquest was made of the settle- ments on the Delaware the 1st of October. Among the Swedes who took the oath of allegiance to the conqueror were Peter Alricks, Andries Claesen and Claes Janzen. There was no violent shock when power passed from the hands of the Dutch to the English. Sir Robert Carre was made commander, with his seat of govern- ment at New Castle, and was assisted by a temporary council of six, of whom Peter Alricks was one. The laws established were sub- stantially the same as prevailed in the other English colonies ; the magistrates were continued in office on taking the oath of allegiance, and the inhabitants were promised liberty of conscience, and pro- tection to person and property. In a few cases Carre confiscated the goods of the conquered Dutch, to reward his favorite followers. The settlers received new deeds from the authorities at New York, but some refused them, preferring to trust to the Indian grant in case their titles were called in question. There was but little change in affairs for several years, and but few immigrants arrived to swell the population. Colonel Robert Nicholls, the first governor, was a
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
mild ruler, but his successors, Lovelace and Andros, were more severe. Lovelace believed "in laying such taxes on the people as might not give them liberty to entertain any other thought but how to discharge them." He imposed a tax of ten per cent. on all goods imported into, or exported from, the Delaware, the first tariff en- forced on that river. The rent of that day was a bushel of wheat for every hundred acres. The inhabitants lived in great quiet and indolence, and there was neither agriculture nor trade beyond what was necessary to subsist the sparse population.
William Tom was one of the earliest English officials who exercised authority in this county. He came to America in the king's service, probably with the troops that reduced the Dutch. In 1666 he was appointed commissary on the Delaware, and 1669 collector of quit-rents, his jurisdiction in both cases extending to the falls. The killing of two of his servants, on Burlington island, by the Indians, in 1668 or 1669, came near producing an Indian war, and was the first blood shed by the Indians in this county.9 In
Walts Wharton
1671 Walter Wharton was appointed surveyor on the west bank of the Delaware. He married a daughter of Governor Printz ; was judge of the court at New Castle, and died in 1679. He was succeeded by Richard Noble,10 a settler and land-holder of Bensalem township.11
An overland communication from the Delaware to Manhattan, via Trenton falls, was opened soon after the river was settled. The route was up the river in boats, or more frequently along the west- ern bank to the falls, where the stream was crossed, and thence through the wilderness of New Jersey to Elizabeth, and to Man- hattan by water. The trip occupied two or three days. In 1656 the captain of a Swedish ship came over the route to get permission of the Dutch authorities to land passengers and goods in the Dela- ware. The same year ensign Dirck Smith came overland with a small party of soldiers to quell a disturbance with the Indians ; and in April, 1657, Captain Kryger, with a company of forty soldiers and
9 Down to a much later period Burlington island was in Bucks county. 10 Commission dated March 15, 1679.
11 At this time the settlements on the west bank of the Delaware extended up the river sixty miles above New Castle, and were mostly of Swedes, Dutch and Fins .- (Massachusetts Historical Collection.)
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
a few settlers, crossed at the falls and continued down the river to New Amstel. These parties passed down through the woods of Bucks county. It was likewise the mail route of the Dutch authori- ties, and frequent letters were sent across by Indian runners. This overland route was continued by the English as their main channel of communication with the government at New York.
By 1670 civil government had become so well established on the Delaware, and the country was found to be so attractive, that stran- gers began to come in and take up land with a view to permanent settlement. In the next ten years a number of immigrants located themselves along the river between the Poquessing and the falls. In 1670-71 Richard Gorsuch patented a considerable tract in the southwest part of Bensalem, and in Philadelphia, extending from the Pennepack across the Poquessing, and north to a creek the Indians called Quiatcitunk, believed to have been the Neshaminy. Governor Lovelace disposessed Gorsuch of this tract, for in August, 1672, he ordered his surveyor-general to seat and clear the land for his own use. Lovelace, who succeeded Nicholls as governor in May, 1667, came overland to visit the settlements on the Delaware in March, 1672, accompanied by an escort and several private per- sons, and captain John Garland, with three men, was sent ahead to make arrangements for their entertainment. He probably struck the river at the falls, and followed down the east bank to about Bristol, where he crossed to the west bank, and continued down to the lower settlements. During the war between England and Holland, which broke out in 1672, New York and the Delaware again fell into the hands of the Dutch, which they held about eighteen months, but restored possession to the English at the conclusion of peace in 1674.
One of the earliest English travelers down the Delaware was George Fox, the eminent Friend, in the fall of 1672, on his way from Long Island to Maryland. Starting from Middletown harbor, New Jersey, he traveled through the woods, piloted by Indians, to- ward the Delaware. He reached the river the evening of the 10th of September; staid all night at the house of Peter Jegou, at Leasy point, and the next morning crossed over to Burlington island, and then to the main-land just above Bristol. Himself and friends were taken over in Indian canoes, and the horses swam.
Major, afterward Sir Edmund, Andros succeeded Lovelace as governor, the 11th of July, 1674, and remained in office until Wil-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
liam Penn became Proprietary, in 1681. In his proclamation assuming the duties of his office, he confirmed all previous grants of land, and all judicial proceedings. Sir Edmund was born at London, September, 1637. His father was master of ceremonies to Charles I., and the son was brought up in the royal family. He began his career in arms during the exile of the Stuarts, and at the Restoration was appointed gentleman in ordinary to Elizabeth Stuart, queen of Bohemia. He bore a distinguished part in the Dutch war that closed in 1667, and in 1672 he commanded the English forces at Barbadoes. At the death of his father, in 1674, he succeeded to the office of bailiff of Guernsey. The same year he was commissioned to receive the surrender of New York from the Dutch, and was appointed governor-general of the colony. He remained here until 1681 when he returned to England, and was knighted by Charles II. He was appointed to the governorship of Massachusetts in 1686, where he had a stormy and unsuccessful administration. In 1692 he was appointed governor of Virginia and Maryland. Subsequently he held several other posts of trust. He was married three times, and died without children in 1713. Andros introduced reforms in the courts, and we are indebted to him for the introduction of English jurisprudence on the Delaware. Governor Andros visited the settlements on the river, the first time in May, 1675, accompanied by a numerous retinue. He came overland to the falls, where he was met by sheriff Cantwell on the 4th. Here he crossed the river and traveled through the woods of Falls, Bristol and Bensalem townships, down to New Castle where he held court on the 20th. During the session of the court it was ordered that some convenient way be made passable between town and town, the first road law in the state. A ferry was established at the falls, on the west side of the river, a horse and man to pay two guilders-twelve pence, currency-and a man ten stivers. At this time there was no place of religious worship higher up the river than at Tinicum island, and the court ordered a church to be built at Wiccacoa, to be paid for by the people of "Passyunk and so up- ward," but Penn's arrival prevented this bad precedent.
In 1675 and 1676 William Edmonson, a traveling Friend from Ireland, made a religious visit to the brethren on the Delaware. His journal gives us some account of his journey through the county. In it he says : "About nine in the morning, by the good hand of God we came to the falls, and by his Providence found an Indian
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
man, a woman and a boy with a canoe. We hired him for some wampumpeg to help us over in the canoe ; we swam our horses, and though the river was broad, yet got well over and, by the directions we received from Friends, traveled toward Delaware town along the west side of the river. When we had rode some miles, we baited our horses and refreshed ourselves with such provisions as we had, for as yet we were not yet come to any inhabitants. Here came to us a Finland man, well horsed, who could speak English. He soon perceived what we were and gave us an account of several Friends. His home was as far as we could go that day ; he took us there and lodged us kindly." The next day Mr. Edmonson and party proceeded down the river to Upland. The Fin, with whom they tarried over night, probably lived in Bristol or Bensalem, and the " several Friends" of whom he spoke lived in that section of the county.
At the time of the English conquest the circulating medium on the Delaware included beavers, the government value being fixed at 8 guilders each-equal to $3.20 currency. Wampum passed as money almost down to the arrival of Penn, at established values. Eight white, or four black wampums were worth a stiver, and twenty of them made a guilder, equivalent to 40 cents. The first land tax west of the Delaware was laid by the Upland court in No- vember, 1677. It was called "poll money," and 26 guilders were assessed against each taxable person, which could be paid in grain or provisions, at fixed prices.
The systematic administration of Governor Andros invited immi- gration to the Delaware, and considerable land was taken up while he was in office. In 1675 the governor purchased of four Indian chiefs-Mamarakickan, Anrickton, Sackoquewano, and Nanneckos- for the Duke of York, a tract on the river extending from just above Bristol to about Taylorsville, embracing the best lands in the town- ships of Bristol, Falls, and Lower Makefield. It is described as : " Beginning at a creek next to the Cold spring somewhere above Mattinicum island, about eight or nine miles below the falls, and as far above said falls as the other is below them, or further that way, as may be agreed upon, to some remarkable place, for more certain bounds ; as also all the islands in Delaware river within the above limits above and below the falls, except only one island called Peter Alricks' island." It included what was afterward Penn's manor. The deed was executed the 19th of October and witnessed by twelve
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
white men. As nothing further is known of this purchase, it was probably never consummated. The next year Ephraim Herman
Pr Ephi Herman.
was appointed clerk of Upland court, whither the few inhabitants of Bucks county resorted for justice, two centuries ago. In 1679 he married Elizabeth VonRodenburg, daughter of the governor of Curaçoa, an island in the Caribean sea. He brought his bride over- land from New York to the falls, where a boat met him and conveyed them down the river. He abandoned her shortly aferward and joined the Labadists, a new religious sect lately sprung up, but repented and returned to his family. Herman was one of the commissioners to deliver the province to William Penn. He held other places of public trust. He was the son of Augustus Herman, a Bohemian, who came to New Amsterdam in 1647, and settled in Maryland, where the son was born in 1654.
We have no record of settlers coming into the county in 1676, but the following year there was some addition to our sparse popu- lation, and a little land taken up. In the fall of 1677 the court at Upland made the following grants of land in this county, which no doubt it was authorized to make by the authorities at New York : Three hundred acres each to Jan Claesen, Paerde Cooper and Thomas Jacobse, on the east side of the Neshaminy two miles above its mouth, in Bristol township ; four hundred and seventeen acres to James Sanderland, probably the same whose mural tablet stands in Saint Paul's church, Chester, and Lawrence Cock, extending a mile along the Delaware above the mouth of Poquessing, and called "Poquessink patent ;" two hundred acres next above on the river to Henry Hastings, and called "Hastings' Hope;" one hundred acres each to Duncan Williamson,12 Pelle Dalbo, Lace Cock, Thomas Jacobse and William Jeacox, on the south side of the Neshaminy,
12 He was known as Dunk Williams, but the inscription on his tombstone was Duncan Williamson.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
in Bensalem, and one hundred acres to Edmund Draufton and son. Williamson and Draufton were members of the jury at Upland court, November term, 1678, the first jurymen known to have been drawn from this county. The authorities at New York directed the Upland court to purchase a tract reaching two miles along the river above the falls, and Governor Andros authorized sheriff Cantwell and Ephraim Herman to purchase of the Indians all the land below the falls, including the islands, not already sold, but we hear notli- ing more of them. The 23d of November, 1677, a number of Swedes petitioned the court for permission "to settle together in a town at the west side of the river just below the falls." They rep- resented that they were natives of the county and brought up on the river and parts adjacent, and asked for one hundred acres each, with a fit proportion of marsh, and a suitable place to lay out a town. What action was taken on the petition is not known. 13 Governor Andros made easy terms in the purchase of land. Actual settlers, with families, were allowed fifty acres to each member, and a patent issued on the certificate of the court, and approved by the governor, and quit-rent on all newly seated land was remitted for three years. If the land were not settled upon within that time it vitiated the title. The earliest lands surveyed in this county ex- tended back a mile from the river. When Andros came into authority the whites who had purchased land of the Indians about the falls were in arrears for purchase money. It was found to amount to "five guns, thirty hoes, and one anker of rum," which the governor ordered to be paid, forthwith. The earliest receipts for quit-rent on the Delaware that we have seen are-one dated 1669, signed by Governor Lovelace, and another by Ephraim Her- man, April 27th, 1679. Otto Ernest Cock, who paid quit-rent in 1672, was still paying it to James Logan in 1709. Down to the arrival of William Penn, every acre of land, whether cultivated or not, paid a quit-rent of one and a fifth schepel of wheat.
The descendants of Duncan Williamson, one of the earliest land- owners and settlers in this county, claim that he came to America from Scotland, with his wife, as early as 1660 or 1661. We first
13 The following are the names of the petitioners: Lawrence Cock, Israel Helin, Moens Cock, Andreas Benckson, Ephraim Herman, Casper Herman, Swen Loon, John Dalbo, Jasper Fisk, Hans Moonson, Frederick Roomy, Erick Muelk, Gunner Rambo, Thomas Harwood, Erick Cock, Peter Jockum, Peter Cock, jr., Jan Stille, Jonas Nielson, Oole Swensons, James Sanderling, Mathias Mathias, J. Devos and William Oriam.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
hear of him in 1669, when land was granted him on the east side of the Schuylkill from the mouth up. He probably settled in Bensa- lem in 1677. In 1695 he bought one hundred acres adjoining his former tract, of Thomas Fairman, for £11 silver money-part of four thousand acres which Fairman bought of William Stenly and Peter Banton in 1689. Dunk's ferry was named after him. He died about 1700, and was buried in the Johnson burying ground, Bensalem. Of his wife we know nothing. His son William, who died in 1722, left a widow and five sons-Jacob, Abraham, John, William and Peter. Peter, the great-grandson of Duncan, was the grandfather, on the mother's side, of Robert Crozier, of Morrisville. A sister of Peter Williamson, who married Abraham Head, died in Solebury in 1834, aged 101 years. The descendants of Duncan Williamson intermarried with the families of Vandygrift, Walton, Burton, Crozier, Brewer, Vansant, Thompson and many others. A large number of his posterity live in this state and county. Among them is Peter Williamson, grand treasurer of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Pennsylvania; as was also the late Mahlon Williamson, merchant, of Philadelphia.
The population on the Delaware increased very slowly. It had now been forty years since the Swedes made the first settlement, and there were but six hundred 14 inhabitants in all of Upland county, which extended up the river to the Trenton falls, two hundred of which resided in what is now Delaware county. Wolves along the Dela- ware became so troublesome before 1680, that the Upland court authorized forty guilders to be paid for each scalp, but becoming worse the court ordered the setting of fifty-two " wolf pitts or trap houses."
Burlington island in the Delaware opposite Bristol came early into notice. It was recognized as belonging to the west shore from its discovery, and was included in Markham's first purchase. The Indians called it Mattiniconk, which name it generally bore down to Penn's arrival. It is so called on Lindstrom's map of 1654 When the English seized the Delaware, in 1664, it was in the possession of Peter Alricks, but was confiscated with the rest of his property, and restored in 1668 by order of Governor Lovelace. During the confiscation it got into the possession of Captain John Carre,15 probably a brother of Sir Robert-and for a time was called
14 Dr. Smith.
15 A record says that Governor Lovelace granted the island to Andrew Carre, and
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Carre's island-in consideration of his " good conduct in storming and reducing fort Delaware." The earliest public use made of the island was the establishment on it of frontier trading and military posts. In a letter of Governor Lovelace to Captain William Tom, who had charge of affairs on the Delaware, written October 6th, 1671, he recommends "a good work about Mattiniconk house, which, strengthened with a considerable guard, would make an ad- mirable frontier." It was here that Alricks' two Dutch servants, Peter Velts Cheerder and Christian Samuels, were murdered in 1672. The expense of burying the two Dutchmen, one hundred and six guilders, was paid by Jonas Nielson, and which Upland court refused to refund.
The 14th of November, 1678, Sir Edmund Andros leased the island for seven years to Robert Stacy, brother of Mahlon, one of the first to settle West Jersey, and sheriff Cantwell put him in pos- session two weeks afterward. Stacy, and George Hutchinson, who appears to have become associated with him in possession, conveyed the island to the town of Burlington, but he only conveyed his title under the lease. The deed could never be found. Danker and Sluyter, who passed down the Delaware in 1679, say of Bar- lington island. "This island formerly belonged to the Dutch governor, who had made it a pleasure ground or garden, built good houses upon it, and sowed and planted it. He also dyked and cultivated a large piece of meadow or marsh, from which he gathered more grain than from any land which had been made from wood- land into tillable land. The English governor at the Manhattons now held it for himself, and had hired it out to some Quakers, who were living upon it at present. It is the best and largest island in the South river."
Among the earliest acts of the assembly of Pennsylvania after the organization of the province, was to confirm this island to Bur- lington, the proceeds to be applied to maintain a free school for the education of youth in said town. In 1711 the legislative council of New Jersey authorized Lewis Morris, agent of the West Jersey society, to take up this island for Honorable Robert Hunter, the war- rant for which was granted in 1710. It was surveyed by Thomas Gardner, and found to contain four hundred acres. Hunter purchased
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