USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 24
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In 1720 an effort was made to enlarge the area of Wrightstown, by adding to it a portion of the manor of Highlands adjoining, in what is now Upper Makefield. The petitioners from Wrightstown were John Chapman, Joseph Chapman, James Harker, William Smith, William Smith, jr., Thomas Smith, John Laycock, Lancelot Gibson, Abraham Chapman, John Wilkinson, Richard Mitchell, Nicholas Allen, Edward Milnor, Peter Johnson, Garret Johnson, John Parsons, and John Johnson. John Atkinson and Dorothy Heston were the only two petitioners from the manor. The terri- tory proposed to be added was about one-half as large as Wrights- town, and the reasons given for the annexation were because a certain road through the manor was not kept in repair, and that the interests of the people to be annexed were more closely united with those of Wrightstown. The strip of land wanted was nine hundred and thirty perches long by four hundred and seventy-four wide.
In 1718 Richard Mitchell bought seventy acres of Joseph Wil- kinson, on the east side of Mill creek, where he built a mill, long
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
known as Mitchell's mill, which fell into disuse when the Elliotts built one lower down on the stream. Mitchell was a man of high standing, and died in 1759. For several years this mill supplied the settlers of a large scope of country to the north with flour. In 1722 the inhabitants of Perkasie petitioned for a road to be laid out to this mill, which also opened them the way to Bristol. The mill, and farm belonging, of two hundred and fifty acres, were purchased by Watson Welding in 1793, and continued in the family near half a century. The mill is now owned by Hiram Reading, of Hat- borough, Montgomery county. The Sacketts came into the town- ship from Hunterdon county, New Jersey, Joseph, the first comer, settling there about 1729, and purchasing two hundred and twenty acres of John Hilborn, a portion of the Pemberton tract. He kept store for several years. Part of the property is held by his descend- ants. John Laycock, a minister among Friends, purchased one hundred and twenty acres of John Chapman in 1722, and died in 1750. Joseph Hampton, a Scotchman, settled in 1724 on two hun- dred and fifty acres he purchased of Zebulon Heston. It was on his land, still owned by his descendants, that stood the "corner white oak," near an Indian path that led to Playwicky, mentioned in the Indian purchase of 1682. It is a singular fact that of all the origi- nal settlers in Wrightstown, the families of Chapman and Smith are the only ones of which any descendants are now living in the town- ship.
About 1735 there was an influx of settlers from the East, a few families coming from New England, among whom were the Twinings, Lintons, and others. The Warners were there ten years earlier. Joseph, born in 1701 and married Agnes Croasdale, of Middletown, in 1723, settled there in 1726, and afterward purchased one hundred and fifty acres of Abraham Chapman, part of the original Clark tract. The old mansion is still standing, one hundred and forty seven years old. An addition was built to it in 1769. He was grandson of the first William, who died at Blockley in 1706. The ancestral acres are still in the family, owned by Thomas Warner, the fifth in descent from Joseph Warner. It is thought that one thousand seven hundred persons have descended from Thomas War- ner, the first settler in Wrightstown. Those who came into the township at this period purchased land of the original settlers, some- times with the improvements. With few exceptions the early set- tlers were of English or Irish descent, although there were some
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from other European countries. In 1750 Joseph Kirkbride, of Falls, patented two hundred and five acres adjoining James Rad- cliff, and extending from the park to Neshaminy, but we cannot learn that he was ever a resident of the township. Robert Hall, an early settler, came with his wife Elizabeth, and a son and daughter, but the time we do not know. John Thompson came early, acquired large property, and became prominent and influential. He was elected sheriff of the county, which office he filled with great ac- ceptance.
The first meeting of Friends was held at John Chapman's in 1686,6 and afterward at John Penquite's, an accepted minister. Meetings were held at private houses until 1721. These early Friends were members of Middletown monthly that met at Nicholas Walne's. In 1721 Falls quarterly gave permission to Wrightstown to build a meeting-house, which was erected on a four-acre lot, the gift of John Chapman. The first graveyard was on the road from Wrightstown meeting-house to Rush valley, just beyond Penn's Park, and is known as the school-house lot. It is now owned by Charles Gain, and was sold to his father a quarter of a century ago. The lot was walled in, but twenty-five years ago Amos Doane used the stone to build a wall on his farm. This graveyard was on the Harker tract, purchased of William Trotter, and at his death Harker7 gave it to the Wrightstown monthly meeting. There have not been any burials there within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. The lot was reserved from cultivation, but the graves of the first settlers were mutilated by the plow many years ago. In 1734 Wrights- town was allowed a monthly meeting. The first marriage recorded is that of Bezeleel Wiggins to Rachel Hayhurst, of Middletown, in May, 1735. Down to the end of the century there were celebrated three hundred and thirty marriages, the names of the parties being those of families well-known at the present day in the middle and lower sections of the county. The meeting-house was enlarged in 1735 by an addition of twenty feet square, and the Bucks quarterly meeting was held there for the first time that fall. Afterward it rotated between Wrightstown, Falls, Middletown and Buckingham.
6 The first meeting for worship was to be held once a month, "to begin next Firs - day, come week after 3d, 4th month, 1686," but at the request of John Chapman, i 1 1690, it was held every three weeks.
7 Harker was elected pound-keeper of the township in 1738, "the pound to be kert on his land near the highway," probably in the vicinity of Pennsville.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
A wall was built around the graveyard in 1770, at a cost of $506.50, and in 1787 the present house, seventy by forty feet, was erected at an expense of $2,106. An addition was made to the graveyard, to bury strangers in, in 1791. In 1765 Friends adjourned monthly meeting because it fell on the day of the general election. Wrights- town meeting has produced several ministers among Friends, some of whom became eminent. Of these may be mentioned Agnes Pen- quite, who died in 1758, aged upward of one hundred years, Ann Parsons, born 1685, died 1732, David Dawes, Ann Hampton, Zebu- lon Heston, and Thomas Ross. Doctor Smith says but one riding chair came to Wrightstown meeting in 1780, that of John Buckman. The women were good riders, and generally came on horseback, but some of them came on foot several miles.
Zebulon Heston removed from New Jersey to Falls, where he re- mained until 1711, when he came up to Wrightstown with his wife and children. Of his seven children, Jacob was the only one born in the township. His son Zebulon became a noted preacher, and in his seventieth year he made a missionary visit to the Delaware In- dians on the Muskingum river, Ohio, accompanied by his nephew, John, afterward General Lacey. Mr. Heston died May 12th, 1776, in his seventy-fourth year. The meeting-house of Orthodox Friends was torn down in 1870, when the few families which had worshiped in it joined the meeting at Buckingham. The burial-ground was enlarged in 1856 by adding a lot from George Warner, and the whole is surrounded by a substantial stone wall. It is more than one-fourth of a mile in circumference. During the last thirty years nearly one thousand persons have been buried in the yard.
A spirit of improvement set in about 1720, which gradually put a new phase on the appearance of things. Down to this time the township was entirely cut off from the outside world by the want ot roads. The opening of a portion of the Durham road down toward the lower Delaware, and the one now known as the Middle road, leading from Philadelphia to New Hope, which meets the former at the Anchor tavern, near the centre of the township, destroyed its isolated situation. A number of new settlers now came in. Those without money took improvement leases for a term of years, which were the means of gradually bringing large tracts of non-residents under cultivation. Some of the large tracts of the original holders were also passing to their children, and being cut up into smaller farms. About this period was commenced that wretched system
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
of farming which cultivated a single field until it was farmed to death, when it was turned out for exhausted nature to recuperate. This retarded the clearing of land, and was almost the death of agricul- tural improvement. The opening of the road to Philadelphia was an invitation to the farmers of Wrightstown to take their produce there to sell, of which they gradually availed themselves. Instead of wallets slung on horses, simple carts now came into use to carry marketing, and the men began to go to market instead of the wo- men. At this time the inhabitants lived on what their farms pro- duced, with a small surplus to sell. The men dressed principally in tanned deer-skins, and the women in linsey and linen of their own manufacture.
About 1756 Croasdale Warner, son of Joseph, bought a tract of land adjoining Joseph and Timothy Atkinson, on which he built a pottery, and carried on the business for several years. It was acci- dentally burned down in 1812, and was not re-built. This was probably the earliest pottery in central Bucks county, or possibly anywhere in the county. The inhabitants of Wrightstown took an interest in the cause of temperance at an early day, and discounte- nanced the general use of intoxicating liquors. The 12th of June, 1746, thirty-one of her citizens petitioned the court to "suppress" all public houses in the township, because of the great harm they were doing the inhabitants. To this petition is signed the name of Thomas Ross, ancestor of the Rosses of this county.
Charles Smith, of Pineville, a descendant of Robert Smith, of Buckingham, was the first person to burn lime with hard coal. His experience in burning lime goes back to 1796, and he has been en- gaged in it more or less, all his life. His first attempt, and the first in the county, was in 1826, when he used coal on the top of the kiln, and continued it until 1835. The method of arching the kiln, and arranging the wood and coal so as to burn lime to the best ad- vantage, were experimented upon several years. In 1835 he built a kiln to hold thirty-five hundred bushels, and burned in it twenty- five hundred and fifty-three bushels of lime. In another he burned twenty-two hundred and four bushels with wood and coal, which cleared him one hundred dollars, and the same month he burned a third that yielded him twenty-three hundred and ninety-eight bushels. The same year he constructed a kiln at Paxson's corner, in Solebury, to burn coal alone, and in May, 1836, he burned a kiln that yielded him twenty-eight hundred bushels, and another in
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
October that produced three thousand and forty-one bushels. Contemporary with Charles Smith in the experiments was James Jamison, a successful and intelligent farmer and lime-burner, of Buckingham, and he and Mr. Smith frequently compared their plans and consulted together. Mr. Jamison was killed in his lime- stone quarry by a premature explosion.
In Wrightstown are three small villages, Pineville in the northern, Wrightstown in the southern, and Pennsville, more frequently called Penn's Park, the name given to the post-office, near the mid- dle of the township. Pineville was known as "The Pines" a century ago, and was called by this name for many years, from a growth of thrifty pine trees at that point. Seventy years ago it was called " Pinetown," and consisted of a stone store-house adjoining a frame dwelling, kept by Jacob Heston, near the site of Jesse P. Carver's store. The dwelling house and tailor-shop of William Trego stood on the point between the Centreville turnpike and the Buckingham road. Another dwelling, and David Stogdale's farm house, with a school-house near the present store, and removed in 1842, completed the village. It had neither tavern, wheelwright, nor blacksmith. The post-office was established after 1830, with Samuel Tomlinson the first postmaster, when the name was changed to Pineville. The first tavern, licensed in 1835 or 1836, was kept by Tomlinson, after having been for several years previously a temperance house. It now contains about twenty dwellings. John Thompson kept store at The Pines before the Revolution, and also owned a mill on the Neshaminy. Pennsville, or Penn's Park, is built on land that James Harker bought of William Trotter, within the park, in 1752. It is situated in the southern part of the township, on the Pineville and Richborough turnpike, and within the original park or town-square laid out by direction of William Penn. The population is about one hundred and thirty souls. It contains thirty-three dwellings, one public inn, one church, Methodist Episcopal, one store, post-office, established in 1862, and T. O. Atkinson appointed postmaster, and various mechanics' shops. Penn's Park was originally called " Logtown." Wrightstown is but a small hamlet, with the meeting-house, store, and three or four dwellings, and takes its name from the township. It is built on the original tract of John Chap- man, and on the turnpike to Newtown, originally the Durham road. The township has three taverns, at Pineville, Pennsville, and that known as the Anchor, where the Middle and Durham roads intersect.
264
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
It is traversed by these two main highways, and a number of roads that intersect or lead into them. The road from the river side at Beau- mont's to the Durham road, near Wrightstown meeting-house was opened in 1763. Among the aged men who have died in Wrights- town, within the recollection of those now living, were William Chapman, grandson of the first settler, July 1st, 1810, aged ninety- three years, Andrew Collins, February 28th, 1817, aged ninety-two, and David Stogdale, at Pineville, April, 1816, aged eighty-three years.
REN
7.F.0.
THE OLDEST HOUSE IN BUCKS COUNTY.
The oldest house known to be standing in Bucks county is on the farm of Charles Bewley, in Wrightstown. It was built about 1705 or 1706, and is still used as a dwelling, and quite comfortable. It is of logs, clapboarded, with a great chimney-stack in the middle, with eaves almost down to the ground, and all the rooms on one floor. The farm is part of a tract that Penn granted to William Parlet and William Derrick in 1701. They dying, the land, two hundred and ninety-two acres, was granted to William Lacey, the son-in-law of Parlet, the conveyance being dated 1711. The house was probably built by one of these three persons. The property remained in the Lacey family until within a few years. Mrs. Bew- ley, a descendant of William Lacey, has the old family Bible, printed at Cambridge, England, in 1630. The accompanying engraving is from a drawing made on the spot by Thomas P. Otter, artist. If
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
this old dwelling had "the gift of tongues" it could tell a more in- teresting history of the past than any pen can write.
The earliest enumeration of taxables is that of 1764, when they numbered 67. We do not know the population earlier than 1810, when it was 562; in 1820, 618; 1830, 660, and 148 taxables ; 1840, 708 ; 1850, 812 whites ; 1860, 853 whites and 9 blacks, and in 1870, 811 whites and 12 blacks, of which 771 were native-born and 52 foreign.
The large buttonwood that stands in front of the house of Thomas Warner grew from a riding-switch his father brought from Harford county, Maryland, in the spring of 1787, and stuck in the ground. It measures eleven feet in circumference twelve inches above the ground. An ash, planted in the same yard in 1832, measures nine feet around it.
It is well known to all who have examined the subject, that the original white settlers above Newtown were encroachers on the country owned by the Indians. The Proprietary was censured for permitting this intrusion on the Indians, and the latter made inild protest against it. The upper line of Markham's purchase, July 15th, 1682, ran through Wrightstown, a short distance below the Anchor, and therefore all the settlers in this township north-west of it were intruders. The same may be said of those who first settled in Buckingham and Solebury, and all above. In truth, all the land settled upon north of Newtown prior to the "Walking Purchase," in 1737, belonged to the Indians, and the whites were really tres- passers. John Chapman settled on land to which the Indian title had been extinguished before he left England, but some of the early settlers were not so careful to observe treaty obligations.
Just before this chapter was put to press we received information from Mr. William J. Buck, of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- vania, that throws light on the origin of the name Wrightstown. A letter of Phineas Pemberton to William Penn in England, dated 27th, 11th month, 1687, says :
"The land I have in Wrightstown is twelve hundred ackers, and only one settlement upon it. I lately offered to have given one hundred ackers if he wold have seated there, and he has since bought one hundred at a very great price, rather than go so far into the woods. There is about five hundred ackers yet to take up in the towne. The people hereabout are much disappointed with sd. Wright and his cheating tricks he played here. They think much to
266
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
call it after such a runagadoe's name. He has not been in these partes several ycares, therefore desire thee to give it a name. I have sometimes called it Centertowne, because it lyes neare the center of the county, as it may be supposed and the towne is layd out w'h a center in the middle of six hundred ackers or thereabout."
The Wright referred to in Mr. Pemberton's letter is thought to have been Thomas Wright, who was associated with William Penn in the West Jersey venture. He arrived in the Martha in 1677, and settled near Burlington. In 1682 he was a member of assembly. The name was first applied to the settlement, and intended for the prospective township, but at the time Pemberton wrote there was no township organization. When he speaks of "the towne" he refers to a settlement in the middle of the townstead. William Penn did not see fit to change the name, although it was called after a "runagadoe."
,
*
Buckingham.
Soulbury.
Bumstead Township
Townships.
Road between.
Survey of Portions BUCKINGHAM. and SOULBURY Townships: 1703.
Cat. Mildmay's.
Daniel Jackson. 500 A.
500 JA.
Mary Alice
Ww. Gibson. 500zł
500 A.
Thos, Carus. 450 A.
: Thos Carus 150 vt.
E. Givas dale 200 Jr.
Rich'd Hough 475 Jt.
Jos Hell V
Ww Couper 500 Jr.
Marcy Philips 400A
100 A=
Vedidia Allen 230cf
San. Jeakes 350 Jr.
Khorne Creo. Brown 150 Jf. 250 Jf.
Parsons
Um. Crousdale myw = 250
100,
Vacant- 580 00
Uriah7 5, Margaret Atkinson
Thos, Parsons 500/St.
Paul Worte Stephen Deckes. Henry Jakson. 300 f. 624. A. - Said out for 60%.
Burgess 300F.
1622 cf.
Francis Siezi TU. now Johny. 442 07,-
Ficha, Lundy 1025 St. Lafel out for 1000 09
Thos . Bye. 6000ft.
Z: Pilber TTOOUF.
Heral Luxsom 220 500 ur.
500 dicres.
Thos. Bye. nour- Jno. Bye. 43804.
James Bugat
ABert Weath
50009.
River
Land.
James Claypole's
1968 07.
2292 A.
Hough. 256 W. tevid out for 200
&dw. West: Laid out for 980 A.
-
500 0%.
1483.
M. Derick
4 97 let
J. Wilson
J. Weath
1
14.
Wrightstown.
Society's Land
Widow Musureare 500cf.
Widow Musgrave, 480 A.
pouraussich Che kesk
and
Geo. Wayworthy Rand 450 %.
. Blackshair Dos. Jeffe 376of.
Delaware
Thomas Mayleigh.
Elizabeth
150 f
Eu Hughes
Jos. Gilbert - 500 FF .-
Sunday-197. Jus. Sheator: in right of Jackman Kreo.J gange 10%.
Surtout 320 Jr.
Vacant 320
Randall
500.
N.
Proprietenia 500-
I. and un Scartror now ough.
Geo. Pownelly :- 550 Laidoutfor 500.A. Randall Speakman .
Lav
Uno, Reynold Laid out for 984. A.
outfor
Isaac Decone.
Laid out for
Nathv. Bromley. 1000 Randal's Run
Scarborough Great Spring 504- Tract. Laidout 500
Jos. Pike. 624 7 .-
John
for - 500 %. - Speakmary. Basillian foster. 547 A .- Laid out
iRido." Point.
500 Per. 3gs. Pinion. R. Church 26ya.
Hinde.
Richa Jucker 500 cf.
Geo Browju. 200 F.
Fr. White. Jer.dem Hour
John smith-200
Edmund Kinsey
Vacant
מקור
132
267
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XVII.
BUCKINGHAM.
1703.
The empire township .- Vale of Lahaska .- Surface broken .- Durham and York roads .- Origin of name .- First settlers .- Amor, Paul and Samuel Preston .- -James Streater and Richard Parsons .- The West and Reynolds tracts .- Robert Smith .- Windy bush .- Thomas Canby .- William Cooper .- Thomas Bye .- Edward Hartly .- The Paxson family .- The Watsons .- John Watson, the surveyor .- Matthew Hughes and others .- Joseph Fell .- Jesse Fell burns hard coal in a grate .- The Carvers .- Meetings for worship .- Meeting-house built .- Burned down .- Used as hospital .- Births, deaths, marriages .- Ann Moore .- Earliest boundary .- Old map .- The Idens .- Doctor John Wilson .- Schools .- Amos Austin Hughes .- Justice Cox .- Doctor Cernea .- Buckingham library .- Nail factory .- Big Ben .- James Jamison .- The villages .- Population. -Caves and sink holes .- African church .- William Simpson .- Scythe and ax factory .- Catching pigeons.
THE central location of Buckingham, its productive soil, valuable quarries of limestone, its wealth, intelligence, population, and area, eighteen thousand four hundred and eighty-eight acres, entitle it to be considered the empire township of the county. The stream of immigration that brought settlers into the woods of Wrightstown carried them up to the "Great mountain,", and they gradually
I Called by the Indians Lahaskekee. Samuel Preston said the Indian name was "Laskeek." In an old paper it is written "Lehoskuk" hill. In 1815 it was called, by some, "Lackawissa."
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
spread over Buckingham and Solebury, originally one township. It is well watered by the Lahaska creek and its tributaries, which me- ander the township in several directions, and branches of Pine run, Pidcock's creek, and Paunacussing,2 which drain its east and north corners and along the north-east border.
A note, to the "Vale of Lahaska" written by Samuel Johnson in 1835, says Lahaska was the name of what is now called Bucking- ham mountain. This is an error. On an old manuscript map of part of the township, drawn in 1726, the name is written, "the Great mountain, called by the Indians Pepacating," probably Pepa- catek, as "ing" is not an Indian termination. The mountain must have been named after the township, at a later date. It lies in the lap of one of the loveliest valleys in the world, runs nearly north- east and south-west, and about two miles in length. It is rich in agricultural and mineral wealth, and in the middle of it is a natural well, around which the Indians cleared off the timber, and built a village for the sake of the water. The poet of the valley drew a true picture when he wrote:
"From the brow of Lahaska wide to the west, The eye sweetly rests on the landscape below ; 'Tis blooming as Eden, when Eden was blest, As the sun lights its charms with the evening glow."
The surface is broken by Buckingham mountain. A vein of lime- stone begins back of the Lahaska hills, which widens as it extends into Solebury, and the many lime-kilns it feeds adds greatly to the productive wealth of the township. The soil in all parts is natu- rally fertile, while the famous valley is unsurpassed in fertility. The population is well-educated and intelligent. The original settlers were almost exclusively English Friends, whose descendants now form the bulk of the population. Two of the main highways of the county, the Durham and York roads, pass through the township in its entire length and breadth, intersecting at Centreville, while lateral roads lead in all directions. Before Solebury was cut off, about 1703, Buckingham contained thirty-three thousand acres, and with its present area it is the largest township in the county.
The name Buckingham is of English origin, and in England it is borne by several localities. We have Bushing from becen, the beech-tree, then Becen-ham, then Bushingham, the village among
2 The Indian name was Paunauissinck.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the beeches, and lastly Buckingham. Probably it was given this name from a desire to retain it in the county, after that of Bristol had been changed from Buckingham to what it now bears. In 1706 the township was called New Buckingham, probably to distin- guish it from Bristol, which was still called Buckingham. It is possible the name had not been given to it in 1700, for in the return of survey of James Streater's land it is said to be laid out in Bucks county, township not mentioned. John Watson records, that in cutting down a white oak in 1769, there were found in it several large marks of an ax, which the growth of the tree indicated must have been made some fifty years before the province was granted to Penn.
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