USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 4
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9 The jurisdiction of the courts west of the Delaware was extended into West Jersey, on the ground that the sovereignty of that country did not pass to Carteret and Berk- ley, when they purchased the soil of the Duke of York.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
mated that William Penn had been the means of sending some eight hundred settlers to this country, mostly Friends. 10
Of the English settlers who came into the Delaware in 1677, under the auspices of the trustees of West New Jersey, we know of but three who settled in this county : Daniel Brinson, of Membury, county of Devon, England, who arrived the 28th of September, in the Willing Mind. He married Frances Greenland, of East Jersey, October 8th, 1681. John Pursloir, from Ireland, a farmer, arrived in the Phoenix, Captain Mathew .Shaw, in August ; Joshua Bore, or Boar, of Brainfield, Derbyshire, farmer, arrived in the Martha, in September. His wife, Elizabeth, of Horton Bavent, in Wiltshire, came in the Elizabeth and Sarah, May 29, 1678. A son was born to them June 29, 1681, and a daughter August 31, 1685. Bore owned land in Falls and Middletown, but we are unable to say in which township he lived. Penn confirmed his patent May 9th, 1684. At the close of 1678 Governor Andros appointed Peter Pocock surveyor on the Delaware, who surveyed considerable land in Bucks county for the immigrants who arrived in 1679. Among those who arrived and settled at Burlington, in 1678, was Thomas Budd, who became a leading man in the province. He was thrice elected to the assem- bly, and was one of the chief promoters of the erection of the meeting house, and in 1683 he and Francis Collins were each awarded one thousand acres "about the falls," on the New Jersey side of the river, for building a market and court-house at Burlington. Budd removed to Philadelphia in 1685, where he died in 1698. He traveled ex- tensively in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and in 1685 he published, in London, "A true account of the country." Among his descend- ants were Attorney General Bradly and Lord Ashburton.
Mahlon Stacy, said to have descended from Stacy de Bellefield, a French officer who accompanied William the Conqueror to England, in 1066, a tanner from Yorkshire, became interested in West Jersey in 1676, and with four others purchased a tenth of the province. He took up eight hundred acres n on the Delaware, covering the site of Trenton, where he built a log dwelling at South Trenton, and a log grist-mill in 1680 on the south bank of the Assanpink.22 About
10 Clarkson.
11 The eight hundred acre tract was on both sides of the Assanpink, and embraced the territory between Green street and the Delaware, and State and Ferry streets, extending into what is now Hamilton township, south of the Assanpink.
12 The mill had the gable to the street, and stood where Mr. M-Call's paper-mill stands.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the same time Thomas Oliver built a mill on the Rancocas, and for several years these were the only grain-mills in New Jersey. Stacy's mill, the first along the Delaware, ground the grain of the early settlers of this county, carried across the river in canoes. He sold his mill to William Trent, the founder of Trenton, in 1690, who erected a two-story stone mill. This was undermined by the flood of 1843, and about half of it carried away. Mahlon Stacy made his mark on the Delaware and acquired large wealth. He was member of assembly, justice of the peace, and an active minister among Friends. On meeting days he paddled his canoe across the river, walked to Fallsington and united with Friends in worship, which he continued to his death, in 1704. He left one son, and five daugh- ters-one of which married Joseph Kirkbride, of Falls ; and his granddaughter, Rebecca Atkinson, was the ancestress of the Budds, of Burlington, in the female line. From the testimony of two early travelers 13 on the Delaware, Stacy's dwelling was neither com- fortable nor spacious. They state in their journal that they staid over night at his house, and that although too tired to eat they were obliged to sit up all night, because there was not room enough to lie down. The house was so wretchedly constructed that unless they were close enough to the fire to burn, they could not keep warm, for the wind blew through it everywhere.
In 1680 Mr. Stacy wrote a letter to his brother Revel Stacy of England in vindication of the country on the Delaware. He gave a glowing account, but no doubt a true picture, of the fertility of the soil, healthfulness of the climate, and of the various productions of the land and water. At that early day there were apple orchards laden with fruit; peaches, of the finest flavor, hung on the trees "almost like onions tied on ropes ;" forty bushels of wheat were harvested for one sown; "great store" of wild fruits and berries; cherries, strawberries, &c .; the river swarmed with fish, and the woods were alive with game. There appears to have been nearly everything the heart of man could crave. 14
13 Dankers and Sluyter, 1679.
14 The following is the text of Mahlon Stacy's letter : "As to the strange reports you hear of us and our country, I affirm they are not true, but fear they are spoken in envy. It is a country that produces all things for the sustenance of man in a plentiful manner, or I should be ashamed of what I have heretofore written; but having truth on my side, I can stand before the face of all the evil spies. I have traveled through most of the settled places, and some that are not, and find the country very apt to answer the expectations of the diligent. I have seen orchards laden with fruit to
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
William Trent, the founder of Trenton, a successful merchant of Philadelphia, settled on the east bank of the Delaware opposite the falls. He purchased, of Mahlon Stacy, the. younger, his tract of eight hundred acres, inherited from his father, lying on both sides the Assanpink, in 1714. He removed thither soon afterward and laid out a town, which increased rapidly and became the seat of the supreme court in 1724. Before the town was called after its founder it was known as "Little Worth." William Trent died December 29th, 1724. His first wife, who was a sister of Colonel Coxe, died in the slate-roof house, Philadelphia. The first Presbyterian meet- ing house was erected in Trenton in 1712, and the county of Hunterdon was laid out in 1714, reaching from the Assanpink to the northern extremity of the state. In 1694 the Assanpink was made the northern boundary of Burlington county. Trenton was constituted a borough in 1746, but a post-office was established there as early as 1734. The paper-mill on Green street, built in 1741, on the site of Mahlon Stacy's log mill of 1680, and rebuilt by Wil- liam Trent, of stone, in 1690, and converted into a cotton mill
admiration, planted by the Swedes, their very limbs torn to pieces with the weight, and most delicious to the taste, and lovely to behold. I have seen an apple tree from a pippin kernel yield a barrel of curious cider, and peaches in such plenty that some people took their carts a peach-gathering. I could not but smile at the sight of it. They are a very delicate fruit, and hang almost like our onions that are tied on ropes. I have seen and known this summer forty bushels of bold wheat harvested from one sown. We have from the time called May to Michaelmas, great stores of very good wild fruits, as strawberries, cranberries and huckleberries, which are much like bil- berries in England, but far sweeter ; the cranberries much like cherries for color and bigness, which may be kept until fruit comes in again ; an excellent sauce is made of them for venison, turkey and great fowl; they are better to make tarts than either cherries or gooseberries ; the Indians bring them to our houses in great plenty. My brother Robert had as many cherries this year as would have loaded several carts. From what I have observed, it is my judgment that fruit trees in this country destroy themselves by the very weight of their fruit. As for venison and fowls we have great plenty ; we have brought home to our houses by the Indians seven or eight fat bucks of a day, and sometimes put by as many, having no occasion for them. My cousin Revel and I, with some of my men, went last Third-month (5th-month, N. S.) into the river to catch herrings, for at that time they came in great shoals into the shallows. We had no net, but after the Indian fashion, made a round pinfold about two yards over and a foot high, but left a gap for the fish to go in at, and made a bush to lay in the gap to keep the fish in. When that was done, we took two long birches and tied their tops together, and went about a stone's cast above our said pinfold. Then haul- ing these birch boughs down the stream, we drove thousands before us, and as many got into our trap as it would hold. Then we began to throw them on shore as fast ns three or four of us could by two or three at a time. After this manner in half an hour we could have filled a three bushel sack with as fine herring as ever I saw."
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
about sixty years ago, was torn down about 1874. The Assanpink will now flow unobstructed to the Delaware. The old mill and its surroundings are classic ground, for it was immediately in front of it that the tide in Revolutionary affairs took a turn that led to victory.
Professor Kalın describes Trenton, in 1748, as "a long, narrow town, situate some distance from the river Delaware on a sandy plain." It had two churches, one Episcopal and the other Presby- terian ; the houses were partly built of stone, though most of them were of wood or planks, two stories high, with cellar underneath, and "a kitchen under ground close to the cellar." The houses stood apart with gardens in the rear. The landlord with whom Kalm stopped told him that when he first settled there twenty-two years before there was "hardly more than one house," but at this time there were about one hundred houses. Their chief gain consisted in the arrival of numerous passengers passing between Philadelphia and New York. At that time this was the great
After getting through with his fishing party, Mr. Stacy goes on to say : "As to beef and pork there is a great plenty of it and cheap ; also good sheep. The common grass of the country feeds beef very fat. I have seen last fall in Burlington, killed, eight or nine fat oxen and cows on a market day, all very fat." Referring to the fish in the Delaware again, he says: "Though I have spoken only of herring (lest any should think we have little other sorts), we have great plenty of most sorts of fish that ever I saw in England, besides several other sorts that are not known there, as rock, cat-fish, shad, sheeps-head and sturgeon ; and fowls as plenty, ducks, geese, turkeys, pheasants, partridges, and many other sorts. Indeed, the country, take it as a wilderness, is a brave country, though no place will please all. There is some barren land, and more wood than some would have upon their land, neither will the country produce corn without labor, nor is cattle got without something to buy them, nor bread with idle- ness, else it would be a brave country indeed; I question not, but all then would give it a good word. For my part I like it so well I never had the least thought of return- ing to England except on account of trade." Under the same date he wrote to William Cook, of Sheffield, and others of his friends at home : "This is a most brave place, whatever envious and evil spies may say of it; I could wish you all here. We have wanted nothing since we came hither but the company of our good friends and ac- quaintances. All our people are very well, and in a hopeful way to live much better than ever they did, and not only so, but to provide well for their posterity. I know not one among the people that desires to be in England again, since settled. I won- der at our Yorkshire people that they had rather live in servitude, work hard all the year and not be three pence the better at the year's end, than to stir out of the chimney- corner and transport themselves to a place where, with the like pains, in two or three years they might know better things. I live as well to my content and.in as great plenty as ever I did, and in a far more likely way to get an estate.
(Signed,) " MAHLON STACY.
"From the falls of the Delaware in West New Jersey, the 26th of 4th-month, 1680."
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
thoroughfare for goods between these two points, which were trans- ported to Trenton on the river by water, and thence across New Jersey by land carriage. The price of passengers between Phila- delphia and Trenton, by water, was a shilling and six-pence Penn- sylvania currency, and extra for baggage, and passengers provided their own meat and drink. From Trenton to New Brunswick the price was two shillings and six-pence, and the baggage extra. Trenton, now a handsome and thriving city of thirty thousand inhabitants, is the capital of the state.
While there is no question that Mahlon Stacy's was the first grist- mill on the east bank of the Delaware, it is impossible to locate the first mill west of the river, in this county. Its building could not have been long after the arrival of William Penn, for mills were a prime necessity. It is less difficult to fix the first mill built in the state. This was erected by the Swedes in 1643 or 1644 on Cobb's creek, near the Blue Bell tavern, Delaware county, but it is not known on which side of the stream it stood. It is said to have been a " tine mill, which ground both fine and coarse flour, and was going late and early." It has long since passed away, but the spot about where it stood is well known. To it all the settlers, who did not care to pound their grain into flour, took their grists to be ground. In that early day there was a path through the woods from up the Delaware, north of Neshaminy, down to the mill, along which the settlers traveled back and forth. The court at Upland, in 1678, decided to have another mill built, which one Hans Moenses put up shortly afterward on Mill creek, near the present site of Marylandville. In 1683 Richard Townsend and others erected a corn-mill on the site of the Chester Mills, on Chester creek, above Upland. He was one of a company, formed in England, of which William Penn was a member, in 1682. The mill was erected under the care of Caleb Pusey, and the materials brought from England. A mill to grind flour was built at Holmesburg in 1679, and we believe it is still standing and in pretty good condition. When the British occupied Philadelphia they used it as a barrack. After the British evacu- ation it was again used as a mill and has been ever since. The walls are thick and strong, and it shows very little signs of decay. In 1658 permission was given to Joost, Andriansen & company to build a saw and grist mill below the "Turtle falls," the site for which they obtained from the Dutch commissary, but we have no evidence that these mills were ever built. The toll to be taken
4
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
by the corn mills was regulated by law in 1675. In 1683 Richard Townsend erected a grist-mill on what is now Church lane, German- town, for which he brought the machinery and most of the wood work from England. For several years this mill ground the grists of the settlers for many miles round. They carried the grain to the mill on their back, except one lucky Bucks countian who made use of a tame bull for this purpose. The mill changed hands many times, the last owner being a son of Hugh Roberts, who bought it in 1835. The Frankford mill, late Duffield's, was used by the Swedes as a mill before Penn's arrival.
Ferris, in a note to his "Original Settlements on the Delaware," says : "There is an account preserved by some of the families descended from Isaac Marriott, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, that when Friends' yearly meeting was held at Burlington, New Jersey, about the year 1684, the family wanting some fine flour, Isaac took wheat on horseback to be ground at a mill, which was twenty-six miles from his residence."
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER III.
WILLIAM PENN BECOMES PROPRIETOR OF THE COUNTRY WEST OF THE DELAWARE.
1673 TO 1682.
William Penn first appears .- Sketch of life and character .- Grant of Pennsylvania .- Why so named .- Penn writes a letter to inhabitants .- Markham deputy governor. -Transfer of government .- Site of Pennsbury chosen .- Commissioners to pur- chase land .- Silas Crispin and Thomas Holme .- Site for Philadelphia selected .- Immigrants of 1682 .- Henry Paxson, John Brock, William Yardley, &e .- Races that settled Bucks county .- English, Germans, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Hollanders .- Indian occupants .- Lenni Lenape .- Their treatment of children .- Tammany.
WILLIAM PENN first appears in connection with affairs in America in 1673. West New Jersey was then held by Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret, but in March of that year Berkley conveyed his interest to John Fenwick, in trust for Edward Byllinge ; but some difficulty occurring between Fenwick and Byllinge, William Penn was chosen arbitrator between them. In 1674 he was appointed one of the three trustees, into whose hands the entire management and control of West New Jersey passed. Through this agency he became the chief instrument in the settlement of that country, which afforded him an excellent opportunity to collect valuable information of the country generally. No doubt he directed his attention especi- ally to the west bank of the Delaware, and, we have every reason
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
to believe, that the favorable accounts he received of it, induced him to take the necessary steps to plant a colony of Friends here.
The founder of Pennsylvania was the son of Sir William Penn, an admiral in the English navy, and was born in London the 14th of October, 1644. His mother was Margaret, daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam. He was educated at Oxford, a classmate of John Lock, and was noted for his talents and diligence in study. While a student he attended a meeting of Friends and listened to a sermon preached by Thomas Loe, which made a deep impression on his mind. On his return home his father tried to persuade him to give up his religious convictions, which he refused to do, and was driven from the house, with blows; but his father relented, through the intercession of the mother, and he was restored to favor. He was now sent abroad with persons of rank, in the hope that gay scenes and wordly company would drive religious thoughts from his mind. He spent two years in France, where he applied himself to the study of the language and to theology, and acquired all the polish of that polite nation. On his return to Eng- land, in 1664, he was entered a student of law at Lincoln's Inn. His religious convictions returning to him, his father sent him to Ireland, where he spent some time at the gay court of the Duke of Ormond, and in managing his father's estates there. While thus occupied he had an opportunity of again listening to the preaching of Thomas Loe, which interested him so deeply that he became a constant attendant at Friends' meeting. In the autumn of 1667 he was arrested, with others, at a meeting at Cork, but was released. He now became closely identified with the Friends, which reaching the ears of his father, he was ordered home to England. Every per- suasion and entreaty were now used to induce him to give up his connection with the despised "Quakers," but in vain. Finally, his father begged him, to at least take off his hat in the presence of the king, the Duke of York, and himself-but he declined to accede to the request as it involved a principle. IIe was again driven from home, but his mother, the ever faithful friend, remained true to him, and often relieved him in great need. Penn now became an open and avowed advocate of the religious doctrine of the Friends, and the following year began to preach. He did not immediately adopt their plain costume and speech, but for some time continued to wear his sword and courtly dress. In time these were cast aside, and William Penn identified himself, in all things, with the despised sect
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
with which he had cast his lot, and endured with them all the pains and penalties the bigotry of the times inflicted. He was only recon- ciled with his father at the latter's death-bed, when he told William that he had "chosen the better part."
William Penn was married in 1672, at the age of twenty-eight, to Gulielma Maria, daughter of Sir William Springett, who lost his life in the civil wars, a woman beautiful in person, and of great merit and sweetness of disposition. He now gave himself wholly to the work of the ministry, making several religious journeys to dif- ferent parts of Great Britain and the continent. At his father's death he was left with an income of not less than £1,500 a year.
The appearance and personal character of William Penn are illy understood by the world. The outlandish painting of Benjamin West of the apocraphal elm-tree treaty represents him an old, broad-faced, very fat and clumsy-looking man, as if he had been born, and brought up, in an ancestral broad-brim and shad-belly. This picture is brought to the attention of Pennsylvania children in their early youth, and never leaves them. William Penn was an entirely different sort of person. He was an accomplished and ele- gant gentleman ; polite and refined, and conversant with the usages of the most polished society of that time. He was reared amid luxury ; surrounded with all the appliances of wealth ; and educated to all the refinement of that polished age. He wore the sword like a true cavalier ; and his portrait, at the age of twenty-three, shows him to have been a very handsome young man. He is said to have excelled in athletic exercises. When he came to Pennsylvania he was only thirty-eight, hardly in his prime ; and instead of being the dumpy figure West paints him, he was tall and elegant in person, with a handsome face and polished manners. Neither was he an austere ascetic, but indulged in the innocent pleasures of life, and relished all the good things that God placed at his hand. He was, in the truest sense, a christian gentleman and enlightened law-giver, far in advance of his day and generation.
At the death of Admiral Penn the British government was found indebted to him, for services rendered and on account of money loaned, about £16,000. In lieu of the money William Penn pro- posed to receive land in America north of Maryland and west of the Delaware. He presented a petition to Charles II., in June, 1680, which was laid before the privy council. A long and searching course of proceedings was had on the petition, and after many vex-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
atious delays his prayer was granted, and a charter to Penn signed and issued. The letters patent are dated March 4th, 1681. The charter specifies that the grant should be bounded by the Delaware river on the east, from a point twelve miles north of New Castle to the forty-third parallel of latitude, and to extend five degrees westward from the river, embracing :-
"All that tract or part of land in America, with all the islands therein contained, as the same is bound on the east by Delaware river from twelve miles distant northward of New Castle town unto the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, if the said river doth extend so far northward, then by the said river so far as it doth extend, and from the head of the said river the eastern bounds are to be determined by a meridian line to be drawn from the head of the said river unto the three and fortieth degree, the said lands to extend westward five degrees in longitude from the said eastern bounds, and the said lands to be bound on the north by the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude."
Penn and his heirs were constituted the true and absolute Pro- prietary of the country ; and he was empowered to establish laws, appoint officers, and to do other acts and things necessary to govern the country, including the right to erect manors. When it became necessary to give a name to the country covered by the grant, Penn chose New Wales, but the king objected. Penn then suggested "Sylvania," to which the king prefixed the word "Penn," in honor of his father, and thus the country was given the name it bears-Penn- sylvania, which means the high or head wood-lands. The king's declaration, announcing the grant and letters patent, was dated April 2d, 1681, and the deed of the Duke of York to William Penn was executed the 31st of August.
The first act of William Penn was to write a letter to the inhabit- ants of Pennsylvania, dated the 8th of April ; and on the 10th he appointed his cousin William Markham deputy governor and com- mander-in-chief of the province, whom he clothed with full powers to put the machinery of the new government into motion. At what time Markham sailed for America is not known, but we find him in New York, with the king's letter, in June, which, with his com- mission, he laid before the council and commander in the absence of Governor Andros. On the 21st the authorities at New York ad- dressed a letter to the justices and other magistrates on the Delaware notifying them of the change of government. In a few days Colonel
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