USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 33
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Among the societies and institutions of Bristol may be mentioned a lodge of Masons, instituted in 1780, at which John Fitch was in- ducted into the order in 1785, Young Men's Christian Association, and lodges of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Red Men, and sev- eral temperance organizations. Among the public buildings are a brick town hall and market house, with cupola and clock, built in 1831, at an expense of $2,500, Washington hall, a large three-story building, erected in 1848, which accommodates several societies,
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two buildings for common schools, one built in 1837 and the other in 1853, at a cost of $11,000, and will accommodate six hundred schol- ars. The school board have established a public high school, which is in a flourishing condition. The Friends have a neat stone school- house, and the fire department is represented by one steam and a hand engine and two hose carriages. Water-works were erected in 1874, the water being pumped up from the river, and distributed over the town from a stand-pipe, at a cost of $50,000. Bristol has a circula- ting library of fifteen hundred volumes, and two newspapers, pub- lished weekly.
The Farmers' Bank, the first in the county, was organized in 1814. The books for subscription were opened at various points, from Au- gust 8th to the 19th, and the commissioners met at Doylestown on the 20th. The stockholders met at Harman Mitchener's, Milford, (now Hulmeville), in Middletown, December 5th, to choose direc- tors and fix upon a place for locating the bank. The directors chose John Hulme the first president, and George Harrison the cashier. The bank now occupies the building erected in 1818 by architect Strickland, for a private residence for James Craig, at a cost of $15,000. Mr. Craig resided in the building until his death, and afterward his sisters. During their occupancy Lieutenant Hun- ter, of the navy, who killed young Miller of Philadelphia in a duel, and his second, Lieutenant Burns, were both secreted in the build- ing until public indignation had subsided, and they were suspended. They were both afterward restored, and Hunter became the some- what celebrated " Alvarado" Hunter.
Bristol is the terminus of the Delaware Division canal, for which ground was broken October 28th, 1827. After prayer, an ad- dress was delivered by Peter A. Browne, esq., of Philadelphia, when a barrow of earth was dug by Messrs. George Harrison, of this county, and Peter Ihrie, of Easton. Several hundred persons marched in procession under William F. Swift at twelve o'clock to where the ground was to be broken. In the afternoon about an hun- dred persons sat down to dinner provided by Mr. Bessonett. The canal basin was finished in August, 1830. On the 7th of August, a company of seventy or eighty ladies and gentlemen of Upper Makefield and vicinity made an excursion a few miles on the canal. The water had been let in a few days before, and the canal commis- sioners passed the canal the last of the month. It was formally opened, from Bristol to New Hope, the 7th of December, 1830,
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THE SARAH LUKENS KEENE HOME, AT BRISTOL.
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when a boat, filled with excursionists, passed between these points, and there was a public dinner and speeches at Bristol. The Phila- delphia and Trenton railroad runs through the town. The only artesian well in the county is at Bristol. It was sunk by L. A. Hoguet, eighty-four feet, and tubed with six-inch pipe, at a cost of $390. The water is excellent-soft and cold. In the summer of 1873, while removing some of the wall about a well, on the pro- perty of Emmor Comly, a mutilated marble tombstone, with the following inscription, was unearthed : "In memory of James Teuxe- bury, who departed this life December ye 14th, Ano. Do., 1726, aged 22 years." The name is unknown to the present generation, and so far as we know, was never before met with in the county. A marble tombstone at that early period indicates that the deceased, or his family, was of consequence.
Among the charitable institutions of Bristol none are more note- worthy than " The Sarah Lukens Keene Home for aged Gentle- women," founded by Sarah Lukens Keene, a granddaughter of Surveyor-general Lukens. At her death, in 1866, she devised by will her late residence in Bristol, known as the Pavilion, with its furniture, and several thousand dollars in money, in trust, for the maintenance, forever, of " five, six or more aged gentlewomen, who are widows, or single women, unmarried, of respectability, but de- cayed fortunes, and who have become destitute, at an advanced age," etc. The affection she bore her aunt, the wife of Major Lenox, of the Revolutionary army, moved her to this charitable bequest, and the institution it founds is dedicated to her memory. Her will gives very specific directions as to the management of the bequest. The building, one of the most substantial dwellings in the borough, was erected in 1815. For many years it was the summer residence of Major and Mrs. Lenox, and Miss Keene, where their generous and elegant hospitality drew around them many friends of distinction of this country and Europe. Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, was a frequent guest, and likewise several foreign diplomats, who usually spent several weeks of the summer in Bristol, then quite a resort. Miss Keene was distinguished for mental culture and personal beauty, while her unnumbered acts of unobtrusive charity but added to her charms. The institution was put into operation in 1874, and it is to be hoped that it will be managed in the spirit which prompted the generous donor. The engraving of the Home, inserted in this
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chapter, is from a photograph taken on the spot, and engraved ex- pressly for the History of Bucks county.
The buildings of Bristol are brick and frame, and several of the private residences are handsome and costly. It is compactly built, and the streets are lighted with gas. There is the usual number of stores, shops, and houses of public entertainment, with all the ordi- nary branches of mechanism. It is a port of entry, and a number of vessels depart and arrive yearly.
Down to 1821, Bristol was the principal watering place in America, made so by the Bath springs, just outside the borough limits, and was the summer resort of rich and distinguished people from all parts of this country and from abroad. The semi-annual races, on the Badger and Bath courses, attracted to Bristol many sporting characters from New York, New Jersey and the Sonth, and many celebrated horses were brought there. Messenger was kept at Bristol several years before 1793, and down to within the recollec- tion of men of the present generation, Bela Badger, a resident of the vicinity, was one of the most noted horsemen of the country. Thomas A. Cooper, the great actor, made his home at Bristol, where he built a handsome house and ended his days. Among other dis- tinguished residents in past years, may be mentioned Major Kneas, United States army, Captain Biddle, of the navy, Pierce Butler, and several foreign ministers. Bristol is rapidly improving, the intro- duction of gas and water having stimulated the building of good houses, and the several industrial establishments have increased the active wealth of the town.
The earliest enumeration of the taxables that we have seen was in 1761, when they numbered one hundred and twenty-three, nineteen more than there were in the township two years afterward. In 1746 the tax levy was £11. 6s, about $30, and in 1748 it was £9. 18s. about $26.50. In 1785 the borough tax was £51. 12s. 1d., less than $140, and the total valuation was £11,737. There were eleven negro slaves, and three persons taxed for plate, one hundred and six ounces in all, of which Doctor William McIlvainez had sixty ounces. In 1784, Bristol had forty-five dwellings, with a population of two hundred and sixty-nine whites and twenty-four colored. Scott's Gazetteer, of 1790, says Bristol at that date contained about fifty dwellings, and another authority puts down the dwellings at ninety, and the population at five hundred and eleven. By the
7 Justice of the Peace from 1775 to 1785.
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census we find the town had a population, in 1810, of 628; 1820, 908; 1830, 1,262, and 202 taxables; 1840, 1,438; 1850, 2,570; 1860, 3,314, and in 1870, 2,849 native born inhabitants, and four hundred and twenty born abroad. The first post-office established in the county was at Bristol, June 1st, 1790, and Joseph Clum appointed postmaster.
23
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XXI.
NORTHAMPTON.
1722.
Third group of townships .- Original settlers .- William Buckman .- John Penning- ton .- Thomas Walmsly .- Anthony Tompkins .- The Corsons .- The Blakers .- The Wynkoops .- Henry Wynkoop, Colonel F. M. Wynkoop .- The Dungans .- Kræsens et al .- Township organized .- Names of petitioners .- Roads opened. -Holland settlers .- Old house .- Villages .- Dutch Reformed church .- William Bennet .- Population .- Cuckold's manor.
OUR third group of townships, comprising Northampton, Hill- town, New Britain, Plumstead, Warwick and Warrington, lying contiguous to each other, was organized between 1722 and 1734. Northampton and Warwick were formed of surplus territory re- jected in the organization of surrounding townships. In this group we are introduced to a new race of settlers, and the waves of civili- zation carry immigration above the present centre of the county.
The territory of Northampton was largely seated, in the first in- stance, by English Friends, who came to America with the founder of the commonwealth, or about that time. According to the map of Thomas Holme, the following were original land-owners in North- ampton : Benjamin East, Thomas Atkinson, William Pickering, John Brown, Robert Turner, Anthony Tompkins, John Pennington, Christopher Taylor, Daniel Wharley, Samuel Allen, Peter Freeman,
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Richard Thatcher, Edmund Bennet, widow Hunt, widow Walmsly, Nicholas Walne, widow Plumly, Thomas Rowland, William Buck- man, Joab Howle, Arthur Cook, George Willard, Henry Baly, Thomas Potter, James Boiden and James Claypole. Some of them came with their families, while others sought new homes in the for- est of Bucks county alone. These names are to be received with a grain of allowance, on account of their imperfect spelling, and as some of these persons owned land in other townships, all of them hardly residents of this.
Thomas Walmsly, William Plumly, and the husband of Mrs. Hunt, lived only about a year after their arrival, and dying, left their wives widows in a strange land. William Buckman, a car- penter from Billingshurst, in Sussex, a Welcome passenger, brought with him his wife, daughters Mary and Sarah, and son William. A daughter, Ruth, was born to them after their arrival. He took up a tract of land along the Bristol road, above Churchville, which extended nearly to Richborough. His second wife was Elizabeth Wilson, by whom he had four children, and at his death, in 1716, his widow married Thomas Story, of Falls. His children inter- married with the families of Cooper, Buck, Blaker, Penquite and Heston, and left numerous descendants.
John Pennington purchased twelve hundred and fifty acres before he left England, which he located to the north-east, and adjoining, William Buckman. Arthur Cook owned a large tract on the north- west side of the township, next to Warwick, and laying along the Bristol road. Joab Howle came with John Brock as his indentured servant, and at the end of his four years of servitude, settled in Northampton and purchased fifty acres near William Buckman. Thomas Walmsly arrived in 1682, with his wife and two sons, and settled in the lower part of the township on the Neshaminy. He brought machinery with the intention of building a mill, but died before he could erect it. William Plumly took up land in the south - west corner of the township, about Scottsville, and now part of Southampton. He died shortly afterward, and his widow married Henry Paxson, of Middletown, in 1684. A thousand acres were surveyed to Anthony Tompkins, along the Neshaminy, in 1685. Thomas Atkinson owned five hundred acres north of the road lead- ing from Addisville to Newtown, reaching six hundred perches north-
1 Identical with the William Buckman who afterward settled in Newtown. The discrepancy in the names of the children is accounted for by there being two sets.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
-
east of that village. Adjoining this tract on the north was John Holme, seven hundred acres, which he conveyed to Jeremiah Dun- gan in 1716. James Logan owned six hundred and fifty acres be- low Richborough, embracing the upper part of what is now Holland, and lying between the Newtown roads. In 1701 William Penn granted six hundred and fifty acres to Edward Pennington, of Phil- adelphia. The names of some of the earliest settlers in Northamp- ton are not on Holme's map, among which is Cuthbert Hayhurst, who married Mary Harker. He arrived soon after the first immi- grants, with four children, and his descendant, Shelmire Hayhurst, was living in the township as late as 1805. Of some of them noth- ing more is known than their names, while others are mentioned in connection with the townships in which they were actual settlers.
The Blaker family, which have become quite numerous and scat- tered over a wide extent of country, were among the early settlers of Northampton. They are all, so far as we have any knowledge, the descendants of John Blaker, who was born in Germany, and appears to have become interested in America while he was quite young. A few years after he was married he heard of the tide of immigration from Holland to this country, and at once formed a resolution of joining in the movement if he could obtain permission to do so. Just how he managed to cross the ocean in a ship bound for Philadelphia, is not clearly known. But we find that soon after his arrival, in 1683, he bought two hundred acres of land at Ger- mantown of the Frankfort company of Rotterdam. His family at the time consisted of his wife and three sons, the youngest born on board the ship in which they crossed the ocean. The locality of Germantown, however, was not satisfactory, as we find that in 1699 he bought one thousand acres of land on the south-west bank of the Neshaminy, in Northampton, which had been conveyed to Robert Turner by patent in 1690, to which he removed with his family. A dwelling house, near a fine large spring of water, was the first build- ing erected on his thousand-acre farm. This portion of the land now belongs to the heirs of Charles Blaker, deceased, and is occu- pied by the widow and her son, John D. Blaker.
In 1721 Samuel, one of the sons of John Blaker, joined the Soci- ety of Friends, and was married to Sarah Smith, daughter of Wil- liam Smith, of Wrightstown. In 1741 Samuel sold his share of the land apportioned to him, during the lifetime of his father, to John and William Cooper, and moved up near Centreville, in Bucking-
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ham. He died in 1778, and was buried on the farm. A fragment of the old tombstone, with the name and date, was found on a lot adjoining Buckingham graveyard by Joseph Fell, of Buckingham, and given to Alfred Blaker, of Newtown, a few years ago. Lewis Blaker, of Newtown, and his descendants are all that is known of the name in Bucks county in the line from Samuel Blaker.
Paul, the youngest son of John Blaker, had no children. His dwelling house, a substantial stone structure, built in 1731, in which he lived and died, is now owned and occupied by Joshua C. Blaker, brother of Alfred Blaker, of Newtown. These two brothers are of the sixth generation. Peter Blaker, of the second generation, raised a family of children, whose descendants have always manifested a warm attachment for the old homestead land of their fathers, and constitute a large proportion of the name in the county. Five hun- dred and ninety acres of the original tract are still owned by the Blaker family.
The Corsons, of this and adjoining counties, are descended from Benjamin Corssen or Courson, who came to Northampton from Staten Island, New York, in the spring of 1726. He purchased, for £350, two hundred and fifty acres of Jeremiah Dungan, lying on the Middle road just below Richborough, which remained in the family upward of an hundred years. They are probably of Hugue- not descent, and immigrated to Staten Island with that large influx that arrived about 1675, or shortly afterward. He brought with him one son, Benjamin, born in 1719, who died in 1774, at the age of fifty-five, whose wife was Mary Seidam, 2 born in 1721, and died in 1792, aged seventy-one years. She and her husband were both buried in the old graveyard at Richborough. Benjamin Corson the first was buried in the middle of the aisle of the old Reformed Dutch church of North and Southampton, near the Buck tavern in the latter township. Benjamin Corson the second had eight children, Benjamin, grandfather of Doctor Hiram Corson, of Plymouth, Mont- gomery county, Richard, father of the late Doctor Richard Corson, of New Hope, Cornelius, Henry, grandfather of William Corson, of Doylestown, John, who died on the old homestead in 1823, married Charity Vansant, and had two daughters Jane and Mary, Abraham, Mary, who married Enoch Marple, and left several children in Montgomery county, and Jeannette, who married John Krewson. Benjamin, the eldest son of Benjamin the second, married Sarah
2 The present spelling is Suydam.
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Dungan, and had eleven sons and daughters, who married into the families of Harvey, Bennet, Blaker, and Morris. Of this family of eleven children all were living and in good health when the young- est was seventy years of age. They were large, strong, and healthy, but are now all dead. The family are numerous and scattered into various parts of the country. Alongside the Corsons in the old graveyard at Richborough, lie the remains of DuBois, Krewson, Larzelere, and other Dutch and Huguenots.
The Wynkoopss are probably descended from Cornelius C. Wyn- koop, who immigrated from Holland to New York early in the seventeenth century. His son Gerardus, who married Hilletji Ger- ritse, moved to Moreland township, Montgomery county, with his family, in 1717. Of his children, Mary, baptised January 3d, 1694, married Abraham Vandygrift, of Bensalem, and Jemima George VanBuskirk, of Moreland. Gerardus Wynkoop came into North- ampton in 1727, which year Edward Weston and wife conveyed five hundred acres of the Tompkins tract to "Garret Winekoop, gentleman, of Philadelphia." In 1738 he conveyed two hundred and sixty acres of the same to Nicholas Wynkoop, of Northampton. Gerardus, probably the eldest son of the Moreland Gerardus, mar- ried Elizabeth Bennet. One of his children, or grandchildren, was baptised October 9th, 1738, at the old Reformed Dutch church of North and Southampton, of which he was an elder in 1744. He had considerable local prominence during the Revolutionary war, of which he was an ardent advocate, and was several times speaker of the assembly. His grandson, Henry Wynkoop, son of Nicholas, born March 2d, 1737, who married Ann Kuipers, of Bergen county, New Jersey, was a prominent citizen of the county and province. He was a member of the Bucks county committee of safety in 1774, 1775 and 1776, lieutenant in the Revolutionary army, a member of the congress that met in Carpenter's hall June 18th, 1776, and a member of the first Congress of the United States that met at New York in 1789. He was the personal friend of Washington and Hamilton, and was a man of large frame and handsome appearance. Lieutenant Monroe is said to have spent part of his time after he was wounded at Trenton at the Wynkoop mansion in Northampton. Mr. Wynkoop was associate-judge of our court of common pleas in 1777, and delivered the first charge to the grand jury at Newtown,
3 In olden times the name was spelled Wincope, Winckoop, and Wynkoop, mean- ing " a wine buyer."
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
under the constitution of 1776. Gerardus Wynkoop's son David married Ann McNair, and represented the county several years in the legislature.
Of the children of Henry Wynkoop, Christina, born April 20th, 1763, married Doctor Reading Beatty, of Newtown, and died at Abington May 18th, 1841, Ann, born in 1765, married James Raguet in 1790, and died in 1815, Margaretta, born in 1768, mar- ried Herman J. Lombert, in 1789, and died of yellow fever, in Phi- ladelphia, in 1793, Nicholas, born in 1770, married Fanny, eldest daughter of Francis Murray, of Newtown, in 1793. Their grandson Francis M. Wynkoop, born near Newtown, distinguished himself in the Mexican war as colonel of the First Pennsylvania volunteers. His uncle, George C. Wynkoop, son of Nicholas, was a brigadier- general in the three months' service in the civil war, and afterward commanded the Seventh Pennsylvania cavalry. Emily, the sister of Colonel Francis M. Wynkoop, married William Brindle, a lieu- tenant-colonel in the Mexican war. The descendants of Cornelius C. Wynkoop are numerous, and many of them occupy honorable positions in life.
The Dungans were early settlers in Northampton, where they were numerous and influential a century ago. They are descended from the Reverend Thomas Dungan, Baptist minister from Rhode Island, who settled in Bristol township, in 1684, where he founded the first Baptist church in the province. Just at what time they came into Northampton is not known, but probably not until after 1700. The oldest will on record is that of Thomas Dungan, of Northampton, admitted to probate July 4th, 1759, no doubt the son or grandson of the Reverend Thomas. He left children, Tho- inas, Joseph, Elizabeth, Mary and Sarah. Joseph married Mary Ohl, and their daughter Sarah married Benjamin Corson, grand- father of Doctor Hiram Corson, of Plymouth. To his widow, Joseph Dungan left, among other things, "his negro wench and her child." He left two sons, Joshua, the father of the late Joshua Dungan, of Northampton, and Thomas Dungan, a lieutenant in the Revolution- ary army. The descendants of the old Rhode Island Baptist are numerous, living in various parts of this and adjoining counties and states. It is said the lineage of the Dungans can be traced back to the Earl of Dunganon.
Northampton had quite a sprinkling of Hollanders among her early settlers. The Cornells, yet numerous in the township, came
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from Long Island. Among the earliest to settle at Flatbush were Cornelius, Giljam and Peter Cornell, sons of Peter. Giljam came to Northampton with the stream of Dutch immigration that set this way the first quarter of the last century, and with others took up land in a fertile section they called New Holland, which name it re- tains. He was followed soon afterward by some of the children of Cornelius Cornell, who settled in the same neighborhood. From these ancestors have descended all of that numerous family in this county. We have examined a package of letters that passed between the Cornells of Long Island and their relatives in this county while the British held that island during the Revolution, but they con- tained not a line of interest. They left the British lines under a flag of truce, and were examined before being transmitted.
The Vanhornes, of the same lineage, probably came into the township with the Long Island current, and settled in the same sec- tion. The family name comes from the little town and Seigneuri of Horn, in Brabant, Netherlands, and was known as early as the eleventh century. The family was one of the most illustrious in Europe, and by intermarriage became widely connected with the highest nobility. Those who immigrated to this country were prob- ably retainers of the princes Von Horn, and, as was very much the cus- tom at that day, took the family name. The first of the family to settle in Northampton was Abraham, great-grandfather of Isaac Vanhorne, who came previous to 1722. In that year he purchased two hun- dred and ninety acres of Bernard Christian, now owned in whole or part by a Mr. Evans, on the road from Newtown to the Buck. He died in 1773, leaving a family of five sons and three daughters, be- queathing to his son Isaac about one hundred and seventy-five acres of his real estate. Some of the descendants are still living in this county, but many are in other counties and states.
The Kræsens were in the township as early as 1722, and prob- ably several years before. In 1871 one of the old dwellings of this family was torn down, on the farm of Aaron Cornell, near the road from Addisville to the Bristol road. On the date stone was the in- scription : "Derrick Kræsen, May 12th, 1731." Behind a cup- board was a secret hiding-place that would have contained several persons, common in dwellings of that period. The Bennets were in the township before 1738, but we have not been able to learn any- thing of their family history or immigration. The Spencers are an old family in Northampton. The paternal ancestor, William Spen-
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