USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 3
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Margaret his wife, in 1669; who assigned it to Arnoldus de la Grange in 1672; in 1684 they granted it to Christopher Taylor, who sold it to Ralph Fretwell in 1685, who died in Barbadoes May 17, 1692.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
it the same year. The people of Burlington in olden times resorted to it for recreation. When Governor Burnett, of New York, occu- pied it in 1722 he caused vistas to be cut through the timber from a point on it to Burlington, Bristol, and up and down the river. In 1729 Peter Bard and James Alexander went to Burlington to ex- amine the town's title to the island, and reported it not a good one. The inhabitants of Burlington ousted Hunter in 1729. When Governor Gooken, of Pennsylvania, was about obtaining the grant of the islands in the Delaware to this state, it is said the lords of trade excepted this as not being on a footing with the other islands.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER II. 1164661
ENGLISH IMMIGRANTS CONTINUE TO ARRIVE ON THE DELAWARE.
- 1679 TO 1681.
English settlers arrive .- Samuel Bliss .- Danker and Sluyter .- Lyonel Britton .- Samuel Clift .- William Warner .- Arrival of English ships direct .- William Dungan .- Liquor sold without license .- William Biles .- Settlement of east bank of Delaware .- Fort Nassau .- Division of New Jersey .- Settlers arrive .- London and Yorkshire companies .- Settlement of Burlington .- Chygoe's island .- Arri- val of the Shields .- Benjamin Duffield .- Thomas Budd .- Mahlon Stacy .- His account of the country .- William Trent .- Professor Kalm's account of Trenton.
THE west bank of the Delaware grew more and more into favor and notice, and immigrants came to it. There were several grants of land by Sir Edmund Andros in 1679, among which were two hundred acres to Thomas Fairman in Bensalem, below Neshaminy, and three hundred and nine to William Clark on the same stream. In the summer and fall of 1679 and spring of 1680 several English settlers took up land on the river bank, just below the falls ; John Ackerman and son, three hundred and nine acres; Thomas Sebeley, one hundred and five ; Robert Scoley, two hundred and six ; Gil- bert Wheeler, a fruiterer of London, and arrived with wife, children and servants in the Jacob and Mary, September 12th, two hundred and five, including an island in the river; William Biles, three hundred and nine acres, from Dorchester, in county Dorcet, arrived
1 Probably a misspelling.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
June 12th, with wife, seven children and two servants, and died in 1710. He was a man of talent and influence, and a leader. Gov- ernor Evans sued him for slander for saying of him, " He is but a boy ; he is not fit to be our governor ; we'll kick him out ; we'll kick him out," and recovered £300 damages, but failed to collect them, although he caught Biles in Philadelphia, and imprisoned him a month. The governor said of him, "He very much influences that debauched county of Bucks, in which there is now scarce any one man of worth left ;" Samuel Sycle, possibly Sickel of the present generation, two hundred and eighteen; Richard Ridgeway, two hundred and eighteen, from Welford in the county of Bucks, who arrived in the Delaware April 27th, 1680, with his wife and two children, and Robert Lucas, one hundred and forty-five acres, a farmer of Deverall, Loughbridge, county of Wilts, who came with his wife and eight children in September, 1680. John Wood, of Axerclif, county of York. farmer, the only known English settler in this county in 1678, arrived in the Shield, with five children, and took up four hundred and seventy-eight acres op- posite the falls. These tracts generally joined each other and ran back from the river.2 At this date Samuel Bliss was the owner of a considerable tract in the angle formed by Mill creek and the Delaware, and covering the site of Bristol. There was a settler near the mouth of Scott's creek, in Falls-probably a squat- ter-and West Kickels was near the mouth of Scull's creek, north side. In the fall of 1679 a little real estate changed hands in Bucks county, James Sanderling and Lawrenee Cock conveying four hun- dred and seventeen acres in Bensalem to Walter, John and James Forest, and Henry Hastings conveyed "Hastings' Hope" to the same parties. The Forests probably became residents of the county about this time, coming from near Upland.
Jasper Danker and Peter Sluyter, leading members of the La- badists of Holland, visited the Delaware in the fall of 1679, going down the river in a boat to New Castle, their horses following them by land on the west bank. At the falls they staid all night with Mahlon Stacy. They describe the houses of the English along the river as built of clapboards nailed on the outside of a frame, but "not usually laid so close together as to prevent you from sticking a finger between them." The best people plastered them with clay. They call the houses built by the Swedes "block houses," but from
2 Their names are given on the map of Danker's and Sluyter, 1680.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the way they were constructed, were only the log cabin found on the frontier at the present day. Some of the more careful people planked the ceiling, and had a glass window. The chimney was in the corner, and the doors low and wide. Our travelers breakfasted with the Friends at Burlington, whom they denominate "the most worldly of men in all their deportment and conversation." They. went hence in a shallop to Upland, stopping at Takany (Tacony), a village of Swedes and Fins, where they drank good beer. On Tinicum island they saw a "Quaker prophetess who traveled the country over in order to quake." On their return up the river they stopped over night on Alricks' island, then in charge of Barent, a Dutchman, who had for housekeeper the Indian wife of an English- man of Virginia. One of her children was sick with the small-pox, prevalent on the river this year, and now mentioned for the first time. The Dutchman consented to pilot them next day to the falls for thirty guilders. Landing them from his canoe where Bristol stands, he conducted them by a footpath through the woods and across the manor, striking the river at William Biles's plantation, where they rested and were refreshed. In the afternoon he rowed them across the river, landing on the site of Bordentown, and thence through the woods to Mahlon Stacy's, and on across New Jersey to Manhattan.
Of the arrivals in the Delaware in 1680 several made their homes in Bucks county, among whom were Lyonel Britton, Samuel and William Darke and George Brown.s Britton, a Friend and black smith, from Almy, in Bucks, England, the first to arrive, settled on two hundred and three acres in the bend of the river at the upper corner of the manor, which Penn patented to him in 1684. A daughter died on the way up the river, and was buried at Burling- ton. Another daughter, Mary, born the 13th of June, 1680, was, so far as is known, the first child of English parents born in Bucks county, or probably in the state.+ His name is found on the panel of the first grand jury drawn in Bucks county, June 10th, 1685. He probably left this county and removed to Philadelphia in 1638, which year he conveyed his real estate in Falls to Stephen Beakes, for £100. He is noted, in our early annals, as the first
3 It is possible that Brown arrived in 1679, for he was residing about the falls in 1680, and was a justice of the peace.
4 The record of Mary Britton's birth is in the Register's office, Doylestown, in the handwriting of Phineas Pemberton.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
convert to Catholicism in the state. He assisted to read public mass in Philadelphia in 1708, and was a church warden the same year. He died in 1721 and his widow in 1741. Samuel Darke, a calen- drer, of London, arrived in the ship Content in October with his wife, Ann, who died October 13th, 1683, and two servants, James and Mary Crafts. He re-married two years afterward. William Darke, probably a brother of Samuel, was a grocer from Chiping, in the county of Chester, was fifty-eight years old, and his wife, Alice, sixty-three. He arrived in the Content in June, 1680, and his wife in August, 1684, with a son seventeen years old. He set- tled in the neighborhood of Fallsington. George Brown was the ancestor of the Browns of the lower end of this county, and among his descendants was Jacob Brown, late commanding general of the United States army.
In 1680 Sir Edmund Andros conveyed to Samuel Clift, a Friend living at Burlington, a tract of two hundred and sixty-two acres, covering the site of Bristol,s who probably then, or soon afterward, became a resident of the county. It was bounded by Mill, then Bliss's, creek, the Delaware and Griffith Jones's land. When the latter came into the county is not known. It was surveyed by Philip Pocock, at the purchase ; but again under a warrant in 1683, when it was found to contain two hundred and seventy-four acres. Clift could not write his name, but made his mark, thus: On the first of June Richard Noble, surveyor of Upland county, laid out five hundred and fifty-two acres to Ephraim Herman and Lawrence Cock, at a place called Hataorockon, "lying on the west side of the Delaware, and on the south side of a creek of the same name." On the 8th of the next March twenty-five acres of marsh land were granted to each of these parties, and to one Peter Van Brug, or Van Bray, at "Taorackon," "lying in ye Mill creek, opposite Burlington, and toward ye head thereof." This places the grant about Pigeon swamp and to the north of Bristol. There has been a question as to the location of this grant, which some place below Bristol, probably because the marsh land is on Mill creek. We think there is no doubt that the main grant was in Penn's manor, or what is now Scott's creek. There is no creek between Mill creek and the Neshaminy, nor is one laid down on any of the ancient maps. On Lindstrom, the region afterward
5 What became of Samuel Bliss's title which covered part of Clift's grant is not known.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Penn's manor, called "Hackazockan," and "Hataorockon," or "Taor- ackon," is only a corruption of the Indian name. The course of the creek Hataorackon, its southwest boundary, is nearly identical with that of Scott's creek. This tract was probably never seated, and the authority of the Duke of York coming to an end soon after- ward, no further mention is made of it. The 28th of October (1680) Erick Cock was appointed an additional constable between the Schuylkill and Neshaminy for one year, and John Cock and Lassa Dalbo overseers and viewers of fences and highways.
At this time the deputy-sheriff of Upland county was William Warner, with a jurisdiction to the falls. He was probably the an- cestor of the large and respectable family of the name in this county. The time of his arrival, and whence he came, are not definitely known. Watson, the analist,6 says he was one of the earliest pio- neers on the Delaware; that he was a "captain under Cromwell, and was obliged to leave England at his death, in 1658 ; that he came from Blockley, in Worcestershire, and gave this name to the town- ship in which he lived in Philadelphia county." He is known to have been here in 1677, in which year he bought two hundred acres of land in Blockley, and about the same time he and William Orion bought sixteen hundred acres of the Indians for three hundred and thirty-five guilders. In the explanations to Reed's map of 1774, he is denominated "old Renter," a term applied to those who were here before Penn bought the province. He died in 1706. Thomas Warner, of Wrightstown, says that the William Warner from which he is descended, immigrated with his brother Isaac from Draycott, in Blockley, where the ancestral homestead is still in the possession of a Warner. Hazard does not give credit to the arrival of William Warner at the time specified, on the ground that he is not mentioned by contemporaneous statements, and because of the jealousy of the Dutch and Swedes. He may have left England at the time men- tioned, but not come to the Delaware until after it fell into the hands of the English, 1664. After that period there was no occasion "to shield his movements from observation." He was a man of note in his day ; a member of the first assembly in Pennsylvania ; justice of the peace ; deputy-sheriff, &c., &c. When he was deputy- sheriff it was the custom of the court to defray the charge for " meat
6 Watson says he got his information from " Widow Warner," who died at the age of eighty, in 1843, and who claimed to be a descendant of William Warner. She lived on the Lancaster turnpike, a mile west of Market street bridge.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and drink" for the justices, probably their only pay, and to raise the necessary funds Warner was ordered to collect 2s. 6d. on every judgment.
The first immigrants who sailed direct for Pennsylvania left England in August, 1681, in the ships John and Sarah, Captain Henry Smith; the Amity, Captain Richard Dimon, and the Bristol Factor, Captain Robert Drew. The John and Sarah was the first to arrive, and her passengers were called the "first landers" by those who came after them. Among them we find the following who, with their families, came into Bucks county : Nathaniel Allen, 7 who settled in Bensalem, above the mouth of the Neshaminy ; John Otter, near the head of Newtown creek, where he took up two hundred acres, and Edmund Lovett, in Falls. In the same ship came several servants of William Penn. The Amity was blown off the coast, and did not land her passengers until the next spring ; while the Factor arrived opposite Chester the 11th of December, was frozen up that night, and her passengers wintered there. All these brought immigrants for Bucks county, but it is impossible to give their names. The same year arrived Gideon Gambell, from county Wilts, slater, and William Clark ; and about the same time came Edward Bennett, who took up three hundred and twenty-one acres in Northampton township ; John Bennett, fifty acres, and William Standard, two hundred and seventy-four acres. All of these settlers purchased land of Sir Edmund Andros, at the quit- rent of a bushel of wheat the hundred acres. Their lands were re-surveyed and confirmed to them by a general warrant of the Proprietary, June 14th, 1683. About this time William Dungan, probably from Rhode Island, and of the family of Reverend Thomas Dungan, the Baptist minister at Cold spring, settled in Bristol township. His warrant was dated August 4th, 1682, nearly two months before Penn's arrival, and the patent July 26th, 1684. In the summer or early fall of 1682, the Upland court appointed Wil- liam "Boyles," William Biles, who lived below Morrisville, surveyor and overseer of highways from the falls to the Poquessing creek, the boundary between Bucks and Philadelphia counties. He ap- pears to have been constable at the same time, and informed the court against Gilbert Wheeler, for selling liquor to the Indians without license, who was fined four pounds. This appointment is said to have been the last official act of the judges under the Duke
7 One of Penn's commissioners.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
of York, and immediately before the territory was turned over to the agents of William Penn.
The history of Bucks county would be incomplete without a notice of the settlement of the east bank of the Delaware, which was peo- pled by the same race, and under similar circumstances as the west bank. Their interests were so closely connected in the early days, that it is impossible to treat of one and not of the other.
The first colony on the east bank was planted at or near Gloucester Point, where fort Nassau was built, about 1623. The fort was de- stroyed by the Indians, but repaired and again occupied by the Dutch in 1639. In 1643 the Swedes erected fort Elsinborg, four miles below Salem creek. An English colony from New Haven, sixty strong, settled near Salem in 1641, but they were driven away by the Swedes and Dutch, and this race made no further attempt to colonize the east bank of the river until New Jersey fell into the pos- session of the Duke of York. It was subsequently conveyed to Lord Berkely and Sir George Carteret, and the interest of Berkely passed into the hands of the assignees of Edward Byllinge. It was divided into East and West New Jersey the following year, by a line drawn across the country from Little Egg Harbor to about the mouth of Lehigh river. The first settlers for West New Jersey arrived in the ship Griffith, of London, in 1675, after a long passage, and landed near Salem. Among the passengers were Jolin Fenwick, his two daughters and several servants; Edward Champness, Edward Wade, Samuel Wade, John Smith and wife, Samuel Nicholas, Richard Guy, Richard Noble, who subsequently settled in this county ; Rich- ard Hancock, John Pledger, Hipolite Luperer, John Matlock, and others with their families.
Among those who purchased land on the river were two com- panies of Friends, one from London and the other from Yorkshire. In the summer of 1677 these purchasers sent out John Kinsey, John Pemford, Joseph Helmsley, Robert Stacy, Benjamin Scott, Richard Guy, and Thomas Foulke joint commissioners to satisfy the claims of the Indians. They came in the Kent with two hundred and thirty immigrants, and landed at New Castle the 16th of August. The settlers found temporary shelter at Raccoon creek in huts erected by the Swedes ; while the commissioners proceeded to the site of Burlington, and purchased of the Indians all the land between the Assanpink and Oldman's creek, for a few guns, petticoats, hoes, &c. The Yorkshire commissioners made choice of the upper, and
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the London of the lower, half of the tract, but they joined in settling what is now Burlington, for mutual defence. In laying out the town, the main street running back from the river was made the dividing line between the companies, the Yorkshire men being on the east and the Londoners on the west. But one other street was laid out, that along the river front, and a market house was located in the middle of the main street. The town plot was surveyed by Richard Noble. The head lines of the river lots were originally run in 1687, when their courses respectively were west and northwest. They were again examined and run by John Watson, jr., of this county, February 5th, 1756, who found the course then west, three degrees northerly, being a variation of three degrees in sixty- nine years, or one degree in twenty-three years exactly. To begin the settlement ten lots of nine acres each were laid out on the east side of the main street, and in October some of the Kent's passen- gers came up and settled there. Among the heads of families who came in the Kent, and settled at Burlington, were Thomas Olive, Daniel Wills, William Peachy, William Clayton, John Crips, Thomas Eves, Thomas Harding, Thomas Nositer, Thomas Fairns- worth, Morgan Drewet, William Penton, Henry Jennings, William Hibes, Samuel Lovett, John Woolston, William Woodmancy, Chris- topher Saunders and Robert Powell. Among them was a carpenter, named Marshall, who was very useful in building shelter. At first they lived in wigwams and had mainly to rely on the Indians for food, who supplied them with corn and venison. The first house built was a frame by John Woolston, and Friends' meeting was held under a sail-cloth tent. The town was first called New Beverly, then Bridlington, and afterward changed to its present name. Al- though this is the accepted history of the names Burlington has borne, we doubt its correctness. The original draught, as laid out in 1678, bears the name of Burlington, and on the map of Danker's and Sluyter, of 1679, it is called " Borlingtowne." This was a year after it was laid out, and the misspelling is not to be wondered at in a foreigner. The Martha, of Hull, arrived the 15th of October, in which came a number of passengers with their families, who settled on the Yorkshire purchase. Among them were Thomas Wright, William Goforth, John Lyman, Edward Season, William Black, Richard Dungworth, George Miles, William Wood, Thomas Schoo- ley, Richard Harrison, Thomas Hooten, Samuel Taylor, Marma- duke Horsman, William Oxley, William Ley and Nathaniel . Luke.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
In the same ship came the families of Robert Stacy and Samuel Odds, and Thomas Ellis and John Batts, servants. The Willing Maid arrived in November, and several of her passengers settled at Burlington and others at Salem, among the latter being James Nevel, Henry Salter, and George Deacon. The following spring the settlers at Burlington began to cultivate and provide provisions for their own support, and build better habitations. In one of these vessels came John Kinsey, a youth, son of John Kinsey, one of the London commissioners. His father dying on his arrival, the care of the family devolved on the son, who not only discharged the duty, but reached several positions of distinction. His son became Chief Justice of Pennsylvania.
Burlington was built upon an island, which is now joined to the main-land, and two centuries ago bore the name of Chygoe.8 How early it was settled by Europeans we cannot tell, but before 1666 three Dutchmen, Cornelius Jorrissen, Julian Marcelis and Jan Claes- sen had purchased all or part of it, and built a house or two upon it. They sold to Peter Jegou, who owned seventeen hundred acres in all. In a note, appended to the permit Governor Lovelace gave to Jegou, in 1668, it is stated that certain Dutchmen settled there long before the country fell into the hands of the English. Jegou bought part of his land of the Indians. He gave the name to the island, "Chygoe" being only a corruption of his own, and not that of an Indian chief, as stated by some authorities. In all our re- search no name approaching it has been found. In 1670 Jegou was driven from his land by Indians, and remained away several years. When the Friends settled at Burlington, two of them, Thomas Wright and Godfrey Hancock, entered upon Jegou's land and oc- cupied it. They refused to vacate when notified, and suit was brought in the Upland court to recover it; which was tried in December, 1679, with a verdict for Jegous. He sold out to Thomas Bowman ; Bowman to Edward Hunloke, of Burlington, and Hun- loke to John Joosten and John Hammell. The latter sale was confirmed by the town council of Burlington. In November, 1678, Jegou was a deputy from the Delaware river portion of New Jersey to the assembly at Elizabethtown.
The point of land made by Assiscunk creek and the Delaware on the Burlington side was called Leasy's point, at the period of which
8 It was called by the Indians T'Schichopacki, signifying the oldest planted ground. The Delawares stated that their first settlement so far east was on this island.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
we write. It was a noted place on the Delaware. In 1668, Gov- ernor Carteret granted permission to Peter Jegou to take up land there on condition that he would settle and erect a house of enter- tainment for travelers. This he agreed to do, and at the point he opened the first tavern on the river, a famous hostelry in its day. When Governor Lovelace visited the Delaware in 1672, it will be remembered that Captain Garland was sent forward to Jegou's house to make arrangements for his accommodation, and persons were appointed to meet him there. The governor crossed the river at this point. George Fox, who visited the Delaware the same year, likewise crossed at Leasy's point into Pennsylvania and thence continued on to the lower settlements. The house was subsequently called Point house, to which Governor Burnet opened one of his vistas from Burlington island. There is some evidence in favor of Leasy point being on the east side of the creek, but the weight of testimony places it on the west. Here the land is firm down to the water's edge, while on the east side there is a marsh which prevents access to the point. Some antiquarians have fallen into error by locating it on the west side of the Delaware, in the neighborhood of Bristol, but there is not a particle of evidence to sustain it.
The favorable accounts written home by the first settlers in West Jersey stimulated immigration and soon there was an accession to the population. The Shield, of Hull, Captain Towes, arrived the 10th of November, 1678, the first English vessel that ascended as high up as Burlington. A fresh gale brought her up the river, and during the night she was blown in to shore where she made fast to a tree. It came on cold and the next morning the passengers walked ashore on the ice. As the Shield passed the place where Philadel- phia stands, the passengers remarked what a fine place for a town. Among the passengers were Mahlon Stacy, his wife, seven daughters, several servants, his cousin Thomas Revel, and William Emley, with his wife, two children, and four servants. The passengers by the Shield, and other ships that followed the same year, settled at Bur- lington, Salem, and other points on the river. A few found their way into Bucks county. Among those who came with the West Jersey settlers in 1678, was Benjamin Duffield, the ancestor of the Pennsylvania family of that name. By the end of 1678 it is esti-
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