USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 21
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The first post-office in the township was established in 1823, and Joseph Warner, who lived on the Street road just above Davisville, was appointed postmaster. The office was removed to Davisville about 1827. Among the aged people who have deceased in War- minster during the last half century may be mentioned Mary, the widow of Andrew Long, who died January 17th, 1821, aged ninety- five years, and John Harvey, who died the 31st of the same month, at the age of eighty-seven. Warminster is the middle of the three rectangular townships bordering the Montgomery line, and is four miles long by two wide. After rising from the valley where some of the headwaters of the Pennypack have their source, the surface of the township is generally level, with but little broken or untillable land. There is no better land in the county than the plains of Warminster, which extend eastward to the hills of Neshaminy, and the inhabitants are employed in agricultural pursuits. It can boast of good roads, rich and well-cultivated farms, and an intelligent and happy population.
Just over the south-west border of Warminster, in Moreland township, Montgomery county, is the flourishing village of Hatbor- ough, lately incorporated into a borough, with a bank, weekly newspaper, an academy, two churches, a valuable library, and a population of five hundred souls. It is thought to have been first settled by John Dawson, of London, who, with his wife Dorothy, daughter Ann, then five years old, and possibly two sons, immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1710. He was a hatter, a Friend, and carried on his trade there several years. The place was then called "Crooked Billet," from a crooked stick of wood painted on the sign
228
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
of the tavern, which he probably kept at one time. He built a stone house, his daughter Ann carrying the stone and mortar for him in her tow apron. It is said she was engaged in this occupation when Bartholomew Longstreth decided to marry her. She rode to Hors- ham meeting on a pillion behind her father, and after the marriage rode behind her husband to his home in Warminster. John Daw- son had seven children. In 1742 Dawson lived at the south-west corner of Second street and Church alley, Philadelphia, in the first brick house erected there. The present name, Hatborough, is said to have been given to the village out of regard to the occupation of its earliest inhabitant. In 1759 the public house was kept by David Reese, whose daughter, Rebecca, born 1746, married John Hart, of Warminster. This village was the scene of a conflict between the American militia, under General Lacey, and a detachment of the British army, May 1st, 1778. The retreating militiamen were pur- sued across Warminster to the Bristol road, a few killed and wounded on both sides marking the track of war. The descendants of John and Dorothy Dawson number about two hundred names. The Dawson family is an old one in England. The first of the name, Sir Archibald D'Ossone, afterward changed to Dawson, was a Nor- man nobleman who accompanied William the Conqueror to Eng. land in 1066, and received the grant of an estate for services rendered in battle. It is not known that John was descended from him, and probably was not.
229
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XV.
NEWTOWN.
1703.
Main stream of settlement .- Called Newtown in 1687 .- Lands taken up in 1684 .- Christopher Taylor .- John Martindale .- William Buckman .- Map of 1702 .- Townstead .- The common .- Durham and other roads .- John Harris .- James Hanna .- Charles Stewart .- First site of church .- Area of township .- Population. -Tradition of borough's name .- What called in 1795 .- Newtown in 1725 .- Laid out in 1733 .- Tamer Carey .- Samuel Hinkle .- Newtown in 1805 .- James Raguet .- Newtown library .- Academy .- Brick hotel .- Joseph Archambault .- Death of Mrs. Kennedy .- Edward Plummer .- Doctor Jenks .- The Hickses .- General Francis Murray .- Presbyterian church .- Episcopal .- Methodist, and Friends' meeting .- Newtown of to-day .- Incorporated .- Population.
IT will be found, on investigation, that the main stream of English settlement flowed up the peninsula formed by the Delaware and Neshaminy. For the first forty years, after the county was settled, the great majority of the immigrants settled between these streams. West of the Neshaminy the territory is more circumscribed, and the current of English Friends did not reach above Warminster. The pioneers, attracted by the fine rolling lands and fertile valleys of Newtown, Wrightstown, and Buckingham, early pushed their way thither, leaving wide stretches of unsettled wilderness behind. Newtown lay in the track of this upward current east of the Ne-
230
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
shaminy, and the smoke of the English settler was hardly scen on the Delaware before the sound of his ax was heard in the forest north of Middletown.
It is not known when Newtown township was laid out, or the name first given to it, but it is possible it was so known and called some years before the date given to it at the head of this chapter. It was probably surveyed by Thomas Holme, and on his map of 1684 its boundaries are nearly identical with those of the present day. This district of country was called "Newtown" as early as 1687, in the inventory of Michael Hough, near which he had two hundred and fifty acres of land, valued at £15. Samuel Paxson was appointed "overseer of highways" for Newtown, in 1691. In the early day it was called " New township," a new township laid out in the woods, and no doubt the origin of its name, and it is probable the syllable "ship" was dropped for convenience, leaving it " New- town" as we now have it.
In 1684 its lands were pretty well apportioned among pro- prietors, some to actual settlers, and others to non-residents. Rich- ard Price owned a tract that ran the whole length of the Middletown line. Thomas and John Rowland, and Edward Braber (probably a misspelling) along the Neshaminy, Thomas Revel, Christopher Tay- lor, and William Bennet, on the Wrightstown border, Arthur Cook, John Otter, Jonathan Eldrey, Abraham Wharley, Benjamin Roberts, Shadrick Walley, William Sneed, Israel Taylor, and a tract laid out to the "governor," along what is now Upper Makefield. All these several tracts abutted on the townstead. Some of the parties had land located for them before their arrival. Of these early proprietors we know but little.
William Bennet, of Middlesex, England, came with his wife Re- becca, in November, 1685, but he died before the year was out, and she was left a widow in the woods of Newtown. On the 9th of September, 1686, Naomi, the daughter of Shadrick Walley, was married, at Pennsbury, to William Berry, of Kent county, Maryland. In 1709 Walley owned twelve hundred acres in the township, prob- ably the extent of his original purchase. Christopher Taylor owned five thousand acres in the county, in several townships, a considerable tract in Newtown towards Dolington. He died intes- tate, leaving two sons and one daughter, Israel, Joseph and Mary. The five hundred acres of Thomas Rowland, extending from Newtown creek to Neshaminy, probably included the ground the
231
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Presbyterian church stands upon. It was owned by Henry Baker in 1691, who conveyed two hundred and forty-eight acres to Job Bunting, in June, 1692, and in October, 1697, the remainder, two hundred and fifty-two acres, to Stephen Wilson. In 1695 Bunting conveyed his acres to Stephen Twining, and in 1698 Wilson did the same, and Twining now owned Thomas Rowland's whole tract. In 1757 part or the whole of this land was in the possession of Benja- min Twining. In 1702 Stephen Twining owned six hundred and ninety acres in Newtown, which John Cutler surveyed March 10th.
John Martindale, born in England in 1676, settled in Newtown before 1700, and married Mary Bridgeman, daughter of Walter Bridgeman and Blanch Constable, of Middletown. She died in 1726, leaving six children, from whom have descended a numerous family. Of these descendants we can trace John, of the second generation, born in 1719, and married Mary Strickland, Amos, of the third, born in 1761, married Martha Merrick, Charles, of the fourth, born in 1801, married Phoebe Comly, and Doctor John C., the fifth in descent from the progenitor, born in 1833 in Philadelphia county. The latter achieved considerable distinction. Without the advan- tages of early education he took a respectable position in the walks of literature and science. His active life was spent in teaching and practicing medicine. In his hours of leisure he wrote, A History of the United States, for schools, of which seventy thousand were sold in the first six years, History of Byberry and Moreland, A Series of Spelling Books, First Lessons in Natural Philosophy, and a volume on Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene. He left unpublished at his death, in 1872, "A Catalogue of the Birds, Animals and Plants" found in the vicinity of Philadelphia. Doctor Martindale was a man of great industry, and accomplished much under adverse circum- stances.
A map of Newtown township, as surveyed and laid out by John Cutler in 1702, gives us the names of the land-owners at that time. They had changed since 1684, with some new-comers; Stephen Twining, already mentioned, William Buckman, who died in 1716, Michael and Samuel Hough, Ezra Croasdale, Henry Paxson, Israel Morris, Thomas Hilborn, who died in 1720, James Eldridge, Mary Hayworth, and James Yates. By this time Shadrick Walley, who had become the largest land-owner in the township, owning one thousand three hundred and ninety-seven acres, had absorbed most of the land that Richard Price owned on the Middletown line, in
232
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
1684. A small portion of Price's land was now owned by Yates. Israel Morris was the smallest land-owner in the township, one hun- dred and seventy-eight acres, if we except Edward Cowgill, who owned a few acres adjoining the north-west corner of the town com- mon. James Yates died in 1730, and was probably the father of the James Yates who took part in the Great Walk of 1737. John Frost, who gave the name to Frost lane, on the northern edge of the borough, was there in 1711, and died in 1716. There were either Germans or Hollanders settled in the township as early as 1724, for in the survey of the road from Newtown to Falls meeting- house of that year, there is mention made of "the Dutchman's plan- tation."
When the township was laid out there was reserved and surveyed, at about the middle of it, a "townstead" of six hundred and forty acres on which the borough of Newtown stands. To encourage purchasers, Penn allowed each one to locate a lot in the townstead equal to ten per cent. of the quantity he took up in the township. There was left of this reservation, lying on both sides of Newtown creek and nearly one half within the present borough limits, a vacant strip containing forty acres, and known as the "common." The 16th of August, 1716, this piece of land was patented to Shadrick Walley, William Buckman and John Frost, for the use of them- selves and other inhabitants of the township.1 These parties died without perfecting their title, and the vacant strip of land lay as common until the close of the century. The 1st of April, 1796, the inhabitants authorized William Buckman, Francis Murray, James Hanna, Thomas Story, William Linton and John Dormer Murray to procure the title to this property from the state, with authority to sell or lease, and the proceeds to be equally divided between the academy, a free school in the village, and schools in the township, in such manner as the trustees might direct. The patent was issued July 8th, 1796, and the consideration was of £79. 6s., with a reser- vation of one-sixth of all the gold and silver found on it. The fol- lowing were the metes and bounds of the common : "Beginning at a stone, an original corner, etc., thence crossing Newtown creek, along lands of Aaron Phillips, formerly James Yates, south eighty- three and one-half degrees east thirty-five perches to a stone in Bristol road, in line of Joseph Worstall's lot, thence along the same
1 It was conveyed to the inhabitants of Newtown township "for the convenience of roads, passages to ye water, and other benefits to ye said township."
1703.
Israel Morris ILMOL Henry Paxon 732 Acres. 44 Wrightstown Township Line Samuel Hough
Thomas Hilborn
980 Acres
178 Acres
40
Edwi
Town Common~
---
Town IoZ $ 59A.251w
2/Aires
26 Acres
Shadrach Walley
in Right of War. Snead 335 Acres
John Houghs Land
Town Lot 23ac 172 Right of Israel Taylor 240 Acres
James yates
Thos, Musgraves Land
295 Acres
6904
rock.
hos, Constables Land
Middletown
Robert Bond
26. 17. 34 2892.0 . 5810.
Country Lot
278 Acres Land Town Iot Jamies Eldridge, 262a. 37-2 Vacant Land. Thos. Jenneys Mary Hayworth 413 Acres Benj Roberts
Shadrach Walley in Right of
Shadrach Walley
409 Acres
Town"
727-Ac
Neska
sham
Stephen Twining Country Lot 629A Town" 61A.
Newtown,
Creek
Ezra Croasdale'sTract
Country Lot 400
Michael Hough
William Buckman
Wrightstown Boad
Country Trot 668
Map of Newtown. 0 ney
Vacant Land
Shadrach Walley
233
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and sundry lots of said town, of lands originally Shadrick Walley, Mary Hayworth and Jonathan Eldridge, north eight and a quarter degrees, east two hundred and eleven and four-tenths perches to a stone set as a corner of Samuel Carey, originally Thomas Hilborn, and a corner of the seven acres belonging to and surveyed to Fran- cis Murray, thence by the same, re-crossing the creek, north eighty degrees west twenty-nine eight-tenths perches to a stone, now set as another corner thereof, on the westerly side of Taylor's ferry road, at its intersection of the Durham road about the corner of Moses Kelly, originally Ezra Croasdale, and Jacob Buckman, origi- nally Samuel Hough's, thence by said Buckman, James Hanna, Esq., Thomas Buckman and Jesse Leedom, and others, originally Michael Hough's, William Buckman and Stephen Twining, south nine de- grees thirty-eight minutes west two hundred and thirteen and four- tenths perches to the place of beginning, containing forty acres and ninety-seven perches." The common was two hundred and twelve and three-tenths perches and two hundred and twelve and five- tenths perches on the east and west lines, respectively, and twenty- nine and nine-tenths perches and thirty-five and five-tenths perches on the north and south lines. It was divided into fifty-five lots, of unequal size, thirty-seven, fifty-five and one hundred and thirty feet front, and from one hundred and sixty-eight to two hundred and forty-two feet in depth, which were put up at public sale the 1st day of August, 1796, and most of them sold. Those numbered from one to twelve, inclusive, were sold in fee-simple, and the remainder on ground-rent, payable on the 1st of August, forever, with the right of redemption. Those sold in fee brought from £32 to £104, while those on ground-rent ran from £5. 12s 6d. down to 18s. 6d. The common embraced all that portion of the present borough of New- town lying between Main street on the east and Sycamore on the west, and Frost lane on the north down to a line a little below Penn street on the south, and the titles are held under the several acts of assembly relating thereto. As many of the purchasers under the act of 1796 did not comply with the conditions of sale, and the old trus- tees being dead, with no persons capable of acting in their stead, the legislature cured the defect in 1818. By this act Enos Morris, Thomas G. Kennedy, Jacob Janney, Phineas Jenks, Joseph Wor- stall, jr., and Thomas Buckman were made "trustees of the New- town common." They had power to sell and lease, previous titles were confirmed, and the same disposition was to be made of the
234
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
proceeds as under the act of 1796.2 When the common lots were sold Main street was left open, but in 1798 a jury laid it out along the east side of the common sixty-six feet wide, and likewise Bridge and another cross street forty-nine and one-half feet wide. In 1795 the common was called "graveyard field." Main street was declared a public road in 1785.
Down to 1723 the Durham road appears to have been the only traveled highway by which the inhabitants of the township could reach the outside world. Necessity was now felt for wagon com- munication with their neighbors, east and west. The road to Taylorsville, via Dolington, was opened in 1723, and that from Newtown to Fallsington, via Summerville, in 1724. At the June term, 1730, the court was petitioned for a road "from Thomas Yardley's mill, and the ferry at the said Yardley's landing."3 This road was opened in 1734,+ and that to Addisville about the same period.5 In 1760 a road was laid out from McKonkey's ferry 6 to Newtown. In 1748 several of the inhabitants of Newtown and Makefield petitioned for a road "from William Croasdale's lot" along the line of John Croasdale and others into what is now the Durham road. This road probably started about Dolington, or in that vicinity. The road to the Buck tavern was laid out in 1809, and ordered forty-five feet wide.
John Harris came to Newtown and settled at the townstead, probably as early as 1750. Seven years later he was keeping store there, when he purchased sixty acres of Benjamin Twining, part of the Thomas Rowland tract, on the west side of the creek, which cost him £320. The 21st of September, 1767, he purchased of Nelson Jolly what was called his " upper farm," on the west side of the common. The Presbyterian church stands on the south-west corner. The greater part of this tract is now owned by Alexander German, and the old yellow house, known as the "Washington headquar- ters," was the homestead of Harris. Gradually John Harris became a considerable land-owner, owning over five hundred acres in all. Two hundred and fifty-seven acres lay in Newtown, and as much
2 In 1716 ten acres were granted to Thomas Mayberry, out of the "vacant land in the townstead of Newton, in the county of Bucks," for a settlement to carry on his trade.
3 Now Yardleyville.
+ It was re-laid in 1795 two poles wide.
5 Relaid thirty-three feet wide in 1787.
6 Formerly called Baker's ferry.
235
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
more in Upper Makefield, part of which was bought of the trustees of the London company, and the remainder from the manor of Highlands. He grew to be a man of note among his fellows, and before 1770 he was written, "John Harris, merchant," and "John Harris, Esqr." He died the 13th of August, 1773, in his fifty-sixth year, and his widow administered to his estate.7 Mr. Harris was a leading member of the Newtown Presbyterian church. He married Hannah, a daughter of Charles and Sarah Stewart, of Upper Make- field, and had seven children. Of the children of this marriage, Anne, the eldest, married Doctor Shields, of Philadelphia, and at his death Judge Harry Innes, of Kentucky. Their child, Maria Knox, first married her cousin, Jack Harris Todd, and at his death she became the second wife of Hon. John J. Crittenden.s Sarah Harris married Captain Charles Smith, of Wayne's army, Eliza- beth, Judge Thomas Todd, of the United States Supreme Court, whose second son, Charles Stewart Todd, was aid-de-camp to Gen- eral Harrison in 1812, and represented this government at Saint Petersburg and at Columbia, South America, and Mary Harris married James Hanna, a lawyer of Newtown, a man of considerable prop- erty, and had four children. Commodore Spotts of the navy is a grandson. Jack Harris married Jane Hunt, of New Jersey. His son William was a commander in the navy, and drowned off Vera Cruz during the Mexican war, trying to save the life of a brother officer. Hannah and Rachel Harris died unmarried. The Hannas lived near Newtown, belonged to the old church, and likewise re- moved to Kentucky.
After the death of Charles Stewart, in 1794, Mrs. Stewart, with her daughters, Mrs. Hunter, Mrs. Harris, and Mrs. Shields, a daughter of Mrs. Harris, and all widows, with their children, immi- grated to Kentucky, where their descendants are numbered among the most distinguished people of that state. Charles Stewart, the father of Mrs. Harris, had four other children, Robert, who died, unmarried, at Trough Spring, Kentucky, William, a schoolmate of Daniel Boone, who accompanied him on his second visit to Kentucky, and was killed at the battle of Blue Licks, Mary, who married
7 John Harris was a tanner as well as mereliant, and fifty years after his death, in digging the foundation for a milk-house on the German farm, they came to an old wall, vats, bark, and other remains of the tannery. The oldest inhabitants could tell nothing about the tanyard.
8 Mrs. Crittenden was baptised at the age of seventy-five by the Reverend Robert D. Morris.
236
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
James Hunter, and Charles, who died at Newtown in 1773, at the age of thirty-seven. Charles Stewart, the father, died September 26th, 1794, aged seventy-five, and was buried in the Presbyterian yard at Newtown.
John Burrows, the grandfather of Charles P. Burrows, of Pine- ville, came to Bucks county from New Jersey. He settled about Morrisville, where he lived in a cave, and on selling his property to Robert Morris, removed to Newtown township, on the road to Yardleyville. When the Revolutionary war broke out, John Bur- rows carried the mail from Philadelphia, but the mail carrier from Princeton to New York siding with the British, Burrows was ap- pointed to carry the mail through to New York. Great difficulty was experienced, and sometimes his son carried the mail in a little bag around his neck, frequently swimming the Delaware, and creep- ing through the grass to escape enemies. Burrows was elected either door-keeper or sergeant-at-arms of Congress, when it sat at Phila- delphia. He accompanied it to Washington, where he died at the age of ninety-six, after many years service. His son, Nathaniel Burrows, was born at Newark, in 1756, and came to the county with his father. He married Ann, daughter of Lamb Torbert, of Newtown township, and died in 1840, at the age of eighty-four. He was a soldier in the Revolution, and he and his father both drew pensions to their death. Nathaniel Burrows had eight children, Samuel, William, John, Joseph, George, Margaretta, Charles and Mary. Charles and one sister are still living. The wife of Nathaniel Burrows died in 1838, at the age of seventy-nine, and she and her husband were both buried in the Presbyterian grave yard, Newtown.
The original Presbyterian church of Newtown, stood on the " old Swamp road" about a mile west of the village, on the farm now owned by Alexander German, and was probably founded before 1740. A new church was erected near the borough limits, in 1769, on a lot given by John Harris, when the old frame building was abandoned. It was afterward sold and converted into a wagon house at the John Thompson farm near the Chain bridge, in Northampton. A number of tombstones are still in the old grave yard, bearing dates from 1741 to 1756, some of them of quite elaborate workman- ship. There is a tradition that a wicked sinner, named Kelley, hired a negro to fetch him a marble slab from the old grave yard to use for a paint stone, and that when his act of vandalism became known, public opinion drove him from the neighborhood. About 1750 sixty
237
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
acres of land on the west bank of the Neshaminy, below Newtown, with a dwelling upon it, were given to the Presbyterian church for a parsonage. It was sold about the breaking out of the Revolu- tionary war, and the proceeds invested in six per cent. state war- rants. These were stolen from the house of John Thompson, the" treasurer, and lost to the church. Many years ago the following lines on the " old grave yard," were suggested by a remark of the late Doctor Phineas Jenks, in a lecture before the Newtown Lyceum, and published in the Newtown Journal :
Overgrown and neglected, deserted, forlorn, A thicket of dogwood, of briar and thorn, Is that home of the dead, that last place of rest For the mouldering clay of the good and the blest.
Where once, up to heaven, upon the still air, Rose the music of praise and the murmur of prayer ; Where crowds came to worship, from valley and hill, Rests a silence like death, 'tis so quiet and still.
Not a vestige remains of the temple, whose roof Echoed oft to the loud earnest preachings of truth- Time's pinions have swept every fragment away, And the people who listened, oh where now are they ?
The stones which affection once placed o'er the dead, Their names to preserve, and their virtues to spread ; Displaced and disfigured, the eye should, to see, Have the aid of thy chisel, " Old Mortality."
Soon the plough will o'erturn the root and the blade Of the sod, once upheaved by the mattock and spade ; And the place, once so sacred, will then be forgot, With the beings who wept and rejoiced on this spot.
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