USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 23
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14 Edward Worstall, of Newtown, is the fifth in descent from John Worstall, who married Elizabeth Wildman in 1720. In his veins he carries the blood of the Hes- tons, Hibbses, Halls, Warners, and Andrewses.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
town, to be extended to New York. A railroad, to run from Bristol to Newtown, was chartered in 1836, but has never been built.
The residence of the widow of the late Michael H. Jenks is one of the few ante-Revolutionary landmarks at Newtown, and was for- merly called the " Red house," from the color it was painted. It was built by the Masons for a lodge, before the war,15 who sold it to Isaac Hicks for a dwelling. Since then it has been occupied, in turn, for school, store, and private residence.
Sixty-five years ago, while the courts were still held at Newtown, Enos Morris was a leading member of the bar. He was a grandson of Morris Morris, who came to the county about 1735, and settled in New Britain. Mr. Morris studied law with Judge Ross, of Eas- ton, and was admitted to the bar about 1800, at the age of twenty- five. He was twice married, to widows of great personal beauty, Mrs. Elizabeth Hough and Mrs. Ann Leedom. He was a member of Southampton Baptist church, where he was buried.
We have no means at hand of giving the population of Newtown borough before 1850, when it was 546 white and 34 black inhabi- tants. In 1860 it had grown to 652, and 859 in 1870. The population is slowly, but steadily, increasing. Eleven public roads lead to Newtown, nearly all of them opened at an early day, evidence alone that it has always been an important centre in that section of the county. There is probably not another point in the county to which there is access by the same number of roads.
Newtown was incorporated in 1838. There have been several newspapers printed there during the present century, but none earlier. Among these were the Bucks County Bee, in 1802, Farmers' Gazette and Bucks County Register, in 1805, The Star of Freedom, 1817, Newtown Journal, 1842, Newtown Gazette, 1857, and the Newtown Enterprise, in 1868, the youngest, and only living of all the newspapers established there, the others having gone, one by one, to that undiscovered country, the last resting-place of de- funct journals. The post-office was established in 1800, and Jacob Fisher appointed postmaster.
Newtown was one of the most important points in the county dur- ng the Revolutionary war. It was, at one time, the headquarters of Washington, several times troops were stationed there, and it was a depot for military stores. The captured Hessians were brought direct from Trenton to Newtown the same day of the battle. The
15 Was possibly built by the lodge organized in 1793.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
robbery of John Hart, at Newtown, while county-treasurer, by the Doans and their confederates, in October, 1781, was an event that made great stir at the time. After they had taken all the money they could find at his dwelling, they went to the treasurer's office at the court-house, where they got much more. The robbers divided their plunder at the Wrightstown school-house. In a subsequent chapter there will be found a more extended account of this affair.
There are but few, if any, of the descendants of the original land- owners in the township at the present day. Of the present families, several are descended from those who were settled there in 1703, among whom are the Buckmans, 16 Hilborns, Twinings and Croas- dales. The draft of the township at that date will show to the reader that several of the old families have entirely disappeared. The old public buildings were pulled down about 1830.
The Buckmans were early settlers in Newtown, no doubt before 1700. William, the ancestor, was an English Friend, who owned six hundred and sixty-eight acres in the township and fifty-nine acres in the townstead of Newtown at the time of Cutler's re-survey in 1703. He died about 1716, leaving sons, William, David and Thomas, and daughters, Elizabeth and Rebecca. The oldest sor., William, died about 1755, the owner of considerable land, leaving six sons and one daughter, Jacob, William, John, Joseph, Thomas and Isaac, and Sarah. Thomas, the youngest son of the first Wil- liam Buckman, married Agnes Penquite, of Wrightstown, had three children, Thomas, Rebecca and Agnes, and died about 1734. Eliza- beth Buckman, the oldest daughter of the progenitor, was married to Zebulon Heston, at Wrightstown meeting, in 1726. Her husband became a famous minister among Friends, and was the uncle of General John Lacey. The Buckmans were members of Middle- town meeting until a monthly meeting was established at Wrights- town in 1724. The family is now large and scattered, and the descendants numerous. They have always been large land-owners, and a considerable percentage of the land owned by the first Wil- liam Buckman in the township is in the possession of the present generation of Buckmans. Monroe Buckman, of Doylestown, is a descendant of the first William.
The map of Newtown appended to this chapter gives the distribu tion of land as it was at Cutler's re-survey in 1702-3.
16 Buckman is probably a compound word, and had its origin in "Bock," which, in Saxon, meant a freehold, and with the addition of man, makes BOCKMAN, changed to Buckman, the holder of a freehold, or a freeman.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The most ancient relic at Newtown is in the possession of Mrs. Alfred Blaker, in the shape of a very old Bible. At the beginning of the New Testament is the following : "The New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. Translated out of Greek by Theodore Beza, with brief summaries and expositions by J. Tomson, London, 1599." This Bible was brought to America in 1773 by Susannah Gain, of Belfast, Ireland, who became the grandmother of Mrs. Blaker. Miss Gain married James Kennedy, an Irishman, the father of Thomas G. Kennedy. In the old book is the memoranda: "Thomas Hunter bought the book," "Edward Hunter, 1745," and "David Hunter," without date. Possibly the grandfather of Miss Gain was a Hunter. The old Bible has descended on the maternal side, and will so continue.
On the 4th of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of American independence, a civic and military celebration was held at Newtown. The troops were commanded by John Davis, then colonel of the first regiment of Bucks county volunteers. The exercises were held in the Presbyterian church, of which Reverend Mr. Boyd was pas- tor, and afterward a dinner was given at Hinkel's tavern. The company was quite large, and among those present was the Hon- orable Samuel D. Ingham. The band, of sixteen pieces, was led by Adin G. Hibbs, now a prominent citizen of Ohio, and the only sur- vivor of it.
De
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XVI.
WRIGHTSTOWN.1
1703.
A small township .- John Chapman first settler .- First house erected .- Death of John Chapman .- William Smith .- John Penquite .- Francis Richardson .- James Harrison .- Randall Blackshaw .- William Lacey .- General Lacey .- Township organized .- Townstead .- When divided .- Effort to enlarge township .- Richard Mitchell .- Settlers from New England .- Friends' meeting .- Meeting-house built. -Ann Parsons .- Zebulon Heston .- Thomas Ross .- Improvements .- Croasdale Warner .- Charles Smith .- Burning lime with coal .- Pineville, Penn's Park and Wrightstown .- The Anchor .- Population .- Large tree .- Oldest house in county. -First settlers were encroachers.
WRIGHTSTOWN, one of the smallest townships in the county, lies wedged in betwen Buckingham, Upper Makefield, Newtown, North- ampton, and Warwick, with the Neshaminy creek for its south- west boundary. The area is five thousand eight hundred and eighty acres. It is well watered by a number of small streams which inter- sect it in various directions, the surface is rolling, and the soil fertile. A ridge of moderate elevation crosses the township and sheds the water in opposite directions, toward the Delaware and the Nesha- miny. The ground was originally covered with a fine growth of
1 We acknowledge the assistance received from Doctor C. W. Smith's history of Wrightstown township, and from the Chapman MS. kindly loaned us by Judge Chap- man.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
timber, with but little underbrush, which greatly reduced the labor and trouble of clearing it for cultivation. At first the settlers did little more than girdle the trees, plant the corn, and tend it with the hoe. The favorable location, the good quality of the soil, and its easy cultivation had much to do, no doubt, with its early settle- ment.
Two years and three months after William Penn and his immedi- ate followers had landed upon the banks of the Delaware, John Chapman, of the small town of Stannah,2 in Yorkshire, England, with his wife Jane, and children Mara, Ann, and John, took up his residence in the woods of Wrightstown, the first white settler north of Newtown. Being a staunch Friend and having suffered numer- ous persecutions for opinion sake, including loss of property, he resolved to find a new home in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Of the early settlers of Wrightstown, the names of John Chapman, Wil- liam Smith and Thomas Croasdale are mentioned in " Bessies' Collections," as having been frequently fined and imprisoned for non-conformity to the established religion, and for attendance on Friends' meeting. Leaving home the 21st of June, 1684, he sailed from Aberdeen, Scotland, and reached Wrightstown sometime toward the close of December. Before leaving England Mr. Chapman bought a claim for five hundred acres of one Daniel Toaes, which he located in the southern part of the township, extending from the park square to the Newtown line, and upon which the village of Wrightstown and the Friends' meeting-house stand. A portion of this land lay outside of the purchase made by William Markham in 1682, and to which the Indian title had not been extinguished, when John Chapman settled upon it. Until he was able to build a log house, himself and family lived in a cave, where twin sons were born February 12th, 1685. Game from the woods supplied them with food until crops were grown, and often the Indians, between whom and the Chapmans there was the most cordial friendship, were the only reliance. It is related in the family records, that on
2 There is neither town, nor parish, by the name of Stannah in England at the present day. It is thought that this place is identical with the present Stanhope in the valley of the river Wear, in Durham county. The church records of Stanhope show that the Chapmans belonged to that parish before John joined the Friends, and there he was baptised. As the family records give Yorkshire as the last county he resided in before coming to America, he probably changed his dwelling place after he became a Friend. Durham and Yorkshire are adjoining counties. As Stanhope is in Durham, and not in Yorkshire, the confusion of locality remains.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
a certain occasion, while riding through the woods, his daughter Mara overtook a frightened buck, chased by a wolf, which held quiet until she secured it with the halter from her horse. The first house erected by him stood on the right-hand side of the road lead- ing from Wrightstown meeting-house to Pennsville, in a field now belonging to Charles Thompson, and near a walnut tree by the side of a run. After a hard life in the wilderness John Chapman died about the month of May, 1694, and was buried in the old grave- yard near Penn's Park, whither his wife followed him in 1699. She was his second wife, whose maiden name was Jane Saddler, born about 1635, and married to John Chapman, June 12th, 1670, and was the mother of but two of his children. A stone erected at his grave bore the following inscription :
" Behold John Chapman, that christian man, who first began, To settle in this town ; From worldly cares and doubtful fears, and Satan's snares, Is here laid down ; His soul doth rise, above the skies, in Paradise There to wear a lasting crown."
The children of John Chapman intermarried with the families or Croasdale, Wilkinson, Olden, Parsons and Worth, and have a large number of descendants. The late Doctor Isaac Chapman, of Wrightstown, and Abraham Chapman, of Doylestown, were grand- sons of Joseph one of the twins born in the cave.3 The descendants of John Chapman have held many places of public trust. We find them in the assembly, on the bench, at the head of the loan-office, county-surveyors, county-treasurers, etc., etc .. In the early histo ry of the county they did much to mould its public affairs. Ann Chap- man, the daughter of John, became a distinguished minister among Friends. She traveled as early as 1706, and made several trips to England. The family added largely to the real estate originally held in Wrightstown and elsewhere, and about 1720 the Chapmans owned nearly one-half of all the land in the township. In 1734 John Chapman's son John bought one hundred and ninety-five acres on the Philadelphia road, adjoining the Penquite tract, which is now owned by John Thompson, the grandson of the first settler of that name in the township.
3 Some remains of this cave were to be seen as late as 1768.
4 In 1811, Seth Chapman, of Newtown, was appointed president judge of the eighth judicial district.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Although John Chapman was the first to penetrate the wilderness of Wrightstown, he was not long the only white inhabitant, for within two years William Smith, of Yorkshire, came to dispute with him the honors and hardships of pioneer life. He bought one hundred acres of Mr. Chapman, and afterward patented several hun- dred acres adjoining, extending to Newtown and the Nesliaminy. His dwelling stood near where Charles Reeder lived. He was twice married, first to Mary Croasdale, of Middletown, in 1690, and after- ward in 1720, and was the father of fourteen children. He died in 1743. His son William, who married Rebecca Wilson, in 1722, purchased nearly all the original tract of liis brothers, and consider- able in Upper Makefield, and died wealthy in 1780. The land re- mained in the family down to 1812. The original tract embraces several of the finest farms in that section. A century ago several of William Smith's children and grandchildren removed to South Carolina and Virginia. He was the ancestor of Josiah B. Smith, of Newtown. John Penquite, who came over in September 1683, and died in 1719, was the third settler in the township, where he took up three hundred and fourteen acres between the park and Neshaminy. It was originally patented to Phineas Pemberton, in 1692, but se- cured to Smith in 1701. In 1690 he married Agnes Sharp, who probably arrived in 1686, and died in 1719, his wife dying in 1758, upward of one hundred years of age. He was a minister among Friends for nearly seventy years. His son John inherited his estate, and at his death it was divided between his four daughters. Jane married William Chapman, who built Thompson's mill.
In 1684 five hundred and nineteen acres, patented to Francis Richardson, were laid off for him in the east corner of the township. but he never settled upon them. Richardson owned one thousand two hundred acres in all, some of which is said to have been in the south-west corner of the township on the line of Newtown. Some or all of it was conveyed to Thomas Stackhouse in 1707. In a few years it fell into the hands of other persons, John Routlige getting one hundred and seventy, and Launcelot Gibson one hundred and seventeen acres. Two hundred acres were patented to Joseph Am- bler, in the north-east part of the township in 1687, which descended to his son, and then fell into the hands of strangers. A few years ago tlie Laceys owned part of this tract. The same year two hun- dred acres, adjoining Ambler, were patented to Charles Briggham, which, at his death, descended to his two daughters, Mary, who
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
married Nicholas Williams, and Sarah, to Thomas Worthington. Amos Warner now owns part of this tract. Briggham's tract had a tannery on it in 1748, but there is no trace of it now. William Penn granted one thousand acres to John and William Tanner in 1681, who sold the grant to Benjamin Clark, of London, in 1683, and three years afterward four hundred and ninety-two acres were laid out to his son Benjamin, of New Jersey, on the north-east side of the township, extending from the Briggham tract to the New Hope road, which contained five hundred and seventy-five acres by Cutler's re-survey. Clark did not settle in the township, and in 1728 the land was sold to Ahraham Chapman for £350. A few years ago it was owned by John Eastburn, Joseph Warner, and Timothy Atkinson.
James Harrison located one thousand acres in Wrightstown by virtue of a patent from William Penn, dated the 11th month, 1682, but he never became a settler. He sold two hundred acres to James Radcliff, a noted public Friend, who removed to Wrights- town in 1686, but the remainder, at his death, descended to his daughter Phobe, wife of Phineas Pemberton. By 1718 it had all come into the possession of her son Israel, by descent and purchase. At different times he sold three hundred and seven acres to John Wilkinson, two hundred and ninety to William Trotter, and the rest to Abraham Vickers, in 1726. This tract lay on the south-west side of the township, running from the park to the Neshaminy, then down to the mouth of Randall's creek, and from Randall Black- shaw's to Radcliff's tract. Harrison must have owned other lands in Wrightstown, for Henry Baker, of Makefield, bought four hun- dred acres of him before 1701. This lay in the north-west part of the township ; probably Harrison had never seated it, for it was pat- ented to Baker's son Henry, who sold it to Robert Shaw in 1707, for £100. Subsequent survey made the quantity four hundred and ninety-four acres. Shaw sold it to several persons before 1723. It does not appear that Shaw received a park dividend in 1719, al- though he then owned one hundred and twenty-one acres. Ran- dall Blackshaw, an original purchaser, took up two hundred in the west corner of the township, which, in 1713, was owned by Peter Johnson, who came in 1697, and at his death in 1723 it descended to his son John. Garret Vansant came into the township in 1690, and settled on a tract in the north-west corner. He sold two hundred acres to Thomas Coleman, in his life time, and at his death, subsequent to
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
1719, the remainder was inherited by his sons, Cornelius and Garret. The Vansant family lies buried in the old graveyard on the Benja- min Law farm.s Richard Lumley and Robert Stucksbury came about 1695. In 1709, one hundred and fifty acres were surveyed to Stucksbury, which afterward passed to the possession of Thomas Atkinson.
William Lacey, the Bucks county progenitor of the family bear- ing this name, was an early settler in Wrightstown, but the year he came is not known. He immigrated from the Isle of Wight, Eng- land, and took up a tract near Wrightstown meeting-house. In 1718, his son John married Rachel Heston, from which union came a family of eleven children, five of whom died in their minority, and but three married, Rachel to John Terry, in 1738, John to Jane Chapman in 1746, and Joseph to Esther Warner, in 1749 or 1750. John Lacey, who became an officer of some prominence in the Re -. volutionary army, and was brigadier-general of the Pennsylvania inilitia, in 1778, was the third child of John Lacey and Jane Chap- man. Some of the descendants of this couple are settled in the south, and but few of the name are found in Bucks county. Land was laid out to William Parlet in 1701, on the order of William Penn, dated at Pennsbury, on which he settled near "Rights Towne."
We have not been able to find any record giving the date when Wrightstown was organized into a township, or by whom laid out. It was called by this name as early as 1687 in the will of Thomas Dickerson, dated July 24th, wherein he bequeathes to his kinsman, Thomas Coaleman, "two hundred acres of land lying and being at a place called Writestown." In the deed of Penn's commissioners to Phineas Pemberton, in 1692, it is called by its present name. The mile square laid out in it was called the " village" or "town- stead" of Wrightstown. Land was surveyed in the township as early as 1685. The township was hardly a recognized subdivision at these early dates, but the name was probably applied to the set- tlement, as we have seen was the case in other townships. It will be remembered that the first group of townships was not laid out until 1692, and Wrightstown was not one of them, and we are safe in saying that it was not organized until some time afterward. We have placed the date 1703, because that was the time of the re-
5 Holme's map contains the names of the following real estate owners in Wrights- town in 1684: Christopher Harford, Henry Baker, Thomas Dickerson, Randall Blackshaw, James Harrison, James Radcliff, and Herbert Springet.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
survey by John Cutler, and we know that it was then a recognized township.
When Wrightstown was laid out into a township a mile square townstead, about in the centre of it, was reserved by the Proprie- tary, whose intention is thought to have been to devote it to a public park for the use of the township. It was surveyed in 1695. At the end of thirteen years the inhabitants became dissatisfied with the reservation, and on petition of the land-owners the Proprietary allowed it to be divided among the fifteen men who owned all the land in the township. This was according to the terms of a deed of partition executed in 1719. These fifteen land-owners were Smith, Penquite, Parsons, Lumley, Stuckbury, Vansant, Johnson, Pember- ton, Ambler, Trotter, Clark, John, Abraham and Joseph Chapman, and Nicholas Williams. James Logan agreed to the terms for the Penns, and John Chapman surveyed the square, which was found to contain six hundred and fifty-eight acres, one-tenth of the area of the township. In 1835 Doctor C. W. Smith made a survey of the original boundaries of the square, which he found to be as follows : "Beginning at the east corner of the park at a hickory tree in the line between Benjamin Lacey's land and Isaac Chapman's land ; thence south forty-three and a quarter degrees west along the said line- fence, to Edward Chapman's land ; crossing said land and crossing the Durham road north of his house ; crossing the farms of Charles Thompson and Garret D. Percy ; following the line between the lands of Charles Hart and Mary Roberts to a stone, the corner of Mary Roberts' and Albert Thompson's land, this being the south corner of the park; thence north forty six and three-quarters de- grees west, along the line between Mary Roberts' and Charles Gain's land, crossing the Pineville and Richborough turnpike road about one-fourth of a mile below Pennsville; crossing Charles Gain's land following the north-west line of the old graveyard lot ; crossing Mahlon W. Smith's land, joining in with and following the public road in front of his house, and crossing lands of Abner Reeder and John Everitt; then following the public road leading to Carver's mill to an angle in said road, the corner of Sackett Wetherill's and Jesse Worthington's land, this being the west corner of the park ; thence north forty-three and a quarter degrees east, crossing lands of Jesse Worthington, Benjamin Lair and Edmund S. Atkinson, and following the line between Edmund S. Atkinson's and Thomas Martindale's land, crossing the land of William Smith north of his
17
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
buildings, to a point between William Smith's and Thomas War- ner's land, this being the north corner of the park; thence south forty-six and a quarter degrees east, across Thomas Warner's land, south of his buildings, across William Smith's land, crossing the Durham road near the Anchor tavern, following the line between George Buckman's and Thomas Smith's lands, thence crossing lands of Thomas Smith, Joseph Morris, and Benjamin Lacey, to the place of beginning."
At the time of the division of the townstead all the land in the township was located, but it was sparsely populated, and only a small portion had been brought under cultivation. One account gives the township proprietors at seventeen, but the names of only sixteen can be found, of which seven were non-residents. John, Abraham and Joseph Chapman received a park dividend of one hundred and forty acres, all the other residents one hundred and ninety-six acres, and the non-residents, who owned half the land in the township, three hundred and twenty-two acres. At a later period the Chapman's owned about three-fourths of all the land in Wrightstown. Before 1789 Henry Lewis, of Westmoreland county, had come into the possession of one acre and ninety-seven perches of the park, through the Pembertons, Penquites, William Chapman and others, and which he sold October 17th, that year, to Robert Sample, of Buckingham, for £30 Pennsylvania currency.
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