USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 41
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Sir William commenced a settlement on the county line about 1721, although we believe the contract, which bore the Keith coat- of-arms, for the erection of the buildings was not executed until the following year. The buildings consisted of the mansion, several small structures for offices and domestic purposes, and a malt-house where he intended to manufacture the barley of the farmers. There is a tradition, not sustained by any documentary evidence that we
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
have seen, that he built a grain-mill on Nailor's branch in the meadow, on the Bucks county side of the line.
The mansion, still standing, and in good repair, with its north end to the county line, and a sloping lawn falling to the creek, is fifty-six feet long by twenty-five feet wide, and the stories are four- teen feet in the clear. The drawing-room at the north end is twen- ty-one feet square, and the walls are handsomely wainscoted and paneled from floor to ceiling. The fire-place is adorned with marble brought from England, and those of the other rooms with Dutch tile plates after the fashion of that day. Above the mantel of the drawing-room is said to have been a panel bearing the arms of the Keith family, but it has been removed and something plainer put in its place. In the fire-place of one of the upper rooms is an iron plate bearing the date, 1728, said to have been placed there by William's son-in-law, Doctor Græme. The stairs and banisters are substan- tially built of oak. The house is of sandstone, such as is found in that vicinity, and its joists, beams, rafters, and other timbers are of white oak, as solid and strong as the day they were put into it. The kitchen and other offices were detached from the main struc- ture, and were so placed that when viewed from the front they had the appearance of wings, and being but one story gave the general effect of grandeur to the mansion. There is said to have been a lock-up at the park, where the governor temporarily confined offend- ers. When Keith returned to England, in. 1728, the property passed into the hands of Doctor Græme, who placed the iron plate in the chimney corner bearing that date. The tract is now divided into several farms, but the mansion, which belongs to the Penrose family, has always borne the name of Græme park. It was the summer residence of the Keiths and the Græmes, and these fami- lies resided alternately in the city and at the park, with some inter- ruption, from the time the house was built to the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson in 1801. On the west front are the remains of a wall which probably once enclosed the court-yard, and of a ditch, said to have been the race to the mill, whose remains we are told can be traced in the meadow. Two large sycamore trees stand at what was probably the western limit of the court-yard. No doubt they are as old as the mansion, and stood sentinel at the gateway.
This building is the only remaining " baronial hall" in this sec- tion of the state, and its history is loaded with memories of olden time, when the provincial aristocracy assembled within its walls to
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
make merry after a hunt in the park. Many a gay party has driven out there through the woods, from the infant metropolis on the Delaware, and partaken of the hospitalities of Sir William and Lady Keith.
At the meeting of the provincial council, March 28th, 1722, Governor Keith stated that he had made considerable advancement in the erection of a building at Horsham, Philadelphia county, in order to carry on the manufacture of grain, etc., and he asked that some convenient public road and highway be opened through the woods, to and from there. Accordingly Robert Fletcher, Peter Chamberlin, Richard Carver, Thomas Iredell, John Barnes, and Ellis Davis were appointed to lay out a road from the governor's settlement to the Horsham meeting-house, and thence to a small bridge at the Round Meadow run, now Willow Grove ; also to lay out a road from where the York road intersects the county line, north-west on that line as far as shall be convenient and necessary to accommodate the neighborhood. These roads were surveyed by Nicholas Scull, the former on April 23d, and the latter April 24th, 1722. The county line road was then opened from the York road twelve hundred and seventy-four perches to a black oak tree stand- ing by a path leading from Richard Sander's ferry on the Neshaminy to Edwin Farmer's, miller.2
Governor Keith died in the Old Bailey debtor's prison, in London, November 18th, 1749. His widow survived him several years, and lived in a small frame house on Third street, between Market and Arch, Philadelphia, poor and secluded from society. The house was burned dawn in 1786.
Warrington has but one church within her borders, the Reformed at Pleasantville, on the county line, founded in 1840. It grew out of a woods' meeting there, in August or September of that year, held by the Reverend Charles H. Ewing, on invitation of the Rev- erend F. W. Hoover, a Presbyterian clergyman, and who became the first pastor. A comfortable brick church building, still standing, was erected that fall. It was organized with seven members in the grove where the first sermon was preached, but it now has a mem- bership of about two hundred, and a congregation of some three hundred and fifty. It has had four pastors, Mr. Ewing its founder,
1 Probably where the Doylestown and Willow Grove turnpike crosses the Nesha- miny.
2 In Whitemarsh.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and the Reverends Messrs. William Cornwell, N. S. Aller, and D. W. C. Rodrock. Mr. Aller officiated twenty years and seven months, longer than all the other pastors combined. Although it was organized and incorporated as a Reformed church, all the pas- tors except the present, Mr. Rodrock, have been Presbyterian in faith.
There is evidence of the Glacial period in Warrington. Traces of glaciers are found in this country even to the tops of our highest mountains. Our geologists advocate a Maine, Connecticut, Hudson and a Susquehanna glacier, and we have a right to believe there was a Delaware glacier also, sliding from the mountains southward, in a direction a little south of east, a spur of it passing over this county. It crossed the hills about Little Neshaminy, and as it ad- vanced, carried the boulders we now find in some parts of the county, dropping them out of its melting edge, and they received their rounded shape by constant friction and rolling. These traces are seen in the north-east part of the township and the adjacent parts of War- minster. In this section we observe loose, round stones lying on or near the surface, varying in size from a few inches to two or three feet in diameter, of different composition from the stone found in quarrying. They have no cleavage or grain, and when broken are like fragments of trap-rock, are scored and scratched on all sides and in several directions, and have evidently been brought from other localities and dropped where they lay, at random. They are found on both sides of the Bristol road, half a mile south-east of Warring- ton post-office, extending three or four miles in that direction, bear- ing to the west, and from a half to a mile wide. The line crosses the Street road, east of Little Neshaminy, and the south-west cor- ner of Warrington, into Horsham. The drift probably extends fur- ther both north and south than is here stated. These stones evidently mark the track of a glacier, and their presence cannot be satisfactorily accounted for upon any other theory. The inhabitants of the vicinity call them "mundocks," the origin of which word is unknown. Webster gives the word "mundic" as applied in Wales to iron pyrites in the mining districts. It is possible that the word mundock is a corruption of mundic, brought to us by some immi- grant, but it can hardly come from the Latin mundus, world. On the Darrah farm, near Hartsville, in Warminster, in an oak grove, is a fine growth of pines, which have been there from the earliest settlement of the country, the seed being probably deposited by the
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
glacial drift. The trees belong to a more northern region. In early days the site of Pineville was covered with pine trees, in the midst of a region of oak, whose origin may have been the same, and there is evidence of the same drift in the upper end of the county. Along the shores of Solebury, and likewise inland, are found numer- ous boulders of the same character as those scattered about War- rington.
Warrington is well-watered, by the branches of the main stream of the Neshaminy, and the North branch, and several small rivulets. The surface is generally level, and the soil fertile, with some thin land on both sides of the Bristol road ascending from the War-' minster line. North of Warrington post-office the country falls off considerably, and the Doylestown and Willow Grove turnpike descends a long declivity, called Grier's hill, to the valley of the Neshaminy. From the top of the hill is obtained a beautiful view of the valley below and beyond, with Doylestown in the distance seated on the opposite ridge like a thing of beauty, the whole mak- ing one of the finest stretches of landscape scenery in the county. The population is wholly engaged to agriculture. There are no villages in the township, but several hamlets of about half a dozen houses, each, namely : Warrington, Neshaminy, Tradesville, and Pleasantville. The first two and the last named are the seats of post-offices ; that at Warrington was established in 1839, and Benja- min Hough, jr., appointed postmaster, and Neshaminy in 1864, with Daniel S. DuBree postmaster. The post-office at Pleasantville, called Eureka, is on the Montgomery side of the county line.
We have not been able to obtain the number of inhabitants in the township prior to 1784, when the population was 251 whites, 4 blacks, and 33 dwellings. The population in 1810 was 429; in 1820, 515 ; 1830, 512, and 113 taxables ; 1840, 637; 1850, 761 ; 1860, 1,007, and in 1870, 949, of which 60 were foreign-born. The area of the township was five thousand three hundred and nine- ty-seven acres in 1830, but since then its territory has been added to, and its acres somewhat increased.
Nathaniel Irwin, pastor at Neshaminy in Warwick, was a resident of this township many years, living in the large stone house on the west side of the Willow Grove turnpike, a mile below Warrington. This remarkable man, the son of a maker of spinning-wheels of Fogg's manor, Chester county, worked his way up from the bottom of the ladder to the pulpit and eminence. He spent a year and a
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
half in missionary labors among the Indians on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia, after he was licensed to preach, and was called to Neshaminy in 1774, at the death of the Reverend Charles Beatty. During his forty years of pastoral life he was one of the leading ministers of the large and able body of which he was a member. He was an active patriot during the Revolutionary war, and stimulated the people to resist the British crown, and more than once he was obliged to flee from home to escape capture. On several occasions he loaned money to the struggling patriot govern- ment. He was a man of large information, and there were few branches of learning of that day with which he was not conversant. He was a great student of the natural sciences, and in his leisure he indulged in the delights of music. He was everything to his people, lawyer, doctor, minister, and friend ; was the patron of all schemes that promised good to mankind, and he rendered great assistance to John Fitch, the inventor of the steamboat. He took an interest in politics, and had great power in the county. In 1802 he was ap- pointed register and recorder, but resigning shortly, his son-in-law, Doctor Hart, was appointed in his stead. He was mainly instru- mental in having the Alms-house established, and placed in its present location. His death, in 1812, was considered a public ca- lamity. In person he was tall and muscular, of full Scotch-Irish type, and his manners courteous and affectionate.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XXVII.
-
MILFORD.
1734.
Concluding group .- Early names .- First township settled by Germans .- Ask natu- ralization .- Their language .- Mum .- Change of names .- Germans aggressive .- Churches and schools .- Upper and Lower Milford .- Early settlers .- Jacob Shelly .- Petition for township .- Names of land-owners .- Township allowed .- Name desired .- George Wonsidler .- Michael Musselman .- Old stone house .- Land turtle .- German names in 1749 .- Ulrich Spinner .- The Hubers .- Opening of roads .- "Milford rebellion."-John Fries .- Henry Simmons .- Effort to annex Milford to Lehigh .- Spinnersville, Trumbauersville et al .- Lower Milford church .- Schuetz's Lutheran church .- Mennonite churches .- Strickler's grave- yard .- Fine land .- Population.
MILFORD is the first township of our last, and concluding, group which includes all the remaining townships in Bucks, and those of Northampton and Lehigh organized prior to 1752.
Settlers were on our north-west border in Philadelphia, now Montgomery, county before 1730, finding their way into this distant wilderness up the valley of the Perkiomen. Among the land-holders in Hanover township, Montgomery county, in 1734 were those bear- ing the names of Melchior Hoch, Samuel Musselman, John Linder- man, Peter Lauer, Balthazer Huth, Andrew Kepler, Jacob Hoch, Jacob Bechtel, Ludwig Bitting, or Pitting, Jacob Heistandt, Philip Knecht, Henry Bitting, Barnabas Tothero, George Roudenbush,
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Conrad Kolb, Jacob Schweitzer, Adam Ochs, Nicholas Jost, now Yost, Jacob Jost, Bastian Reifschneider, John George, Jacob Schæ- fer, John Schneider, Anthony Hinkle. Anthony Ruth, Nicholas Haldeman and Henry Funk owned land, and probably lived, in Salford township, and Herman Godshalk in Towamencin, Mont- gomery county. As these are all Bucks county names, probably the ancestors of those bearing them here came from over the border. Before 1739 George Grouer built a grist-mill in the Perkiomen val- ley, about five miles above Sumneytown, and in 1742 Samuel Shu- ler built one on East Swamp creek, one mile above the same place, the walls of which are standing and some of the machinery remain- ing. In 1748 Shuler built a dwelling near the mill, which is still in use. About the same time Jacob Graff built a large grist-mill on the Perkiomen creek, on the site of Perkiomenville. It was in use about one hundred years, and is now occupied by the three-story grist-mill owned by Mr. Hiestand. The next mill built in the val- ley is about half-way between Green Lane and Perkiomenville, which is still standing. Among the earliest settlers in this part of Montgomery county were Frederick Hillegass, of Upper Hanover, Jacob Wissler, Johannes Huls, Philip Labar, George Shenk, Lud- wig Christian Sprogel, Henry Roder, Ludwig Bitting and Peter Walstein. Immigrants were not tardy in crossing the line into Bucks county.
Milford is the first township into which the Germans came in any considerable numbers. From their first advent into the province a few of this race found homes in Bucks, but they were too few to make any impression upon the English population. The heaviest German immigration took place between 1725 and 1740, and during this period a large number settled in the upper end of this county, and what is now Northampton and Lehigh. By 1775 they num- bered about one half the population of Pennsylvania. Our early German settlers followed the track of those which had preceded them up the valley of the Perkiomen, and planting themselves in the north-west corner of the county, they gradually spread across to the Lehigh and Delaware, and southward to meet and check the up- ward current of English immigration. In time they became the dominant race in several townships originally settled by English speaking people.
The early Germans came with a fair share of common school learning, and there were but few who could not read and write.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
They early established schools to educate their children; and it was a feature with the German settlers that they were hardly seated in their new homes before they began to organize congregations and build churches. Among them were men of education, and to the Moravians especially are we indebted for the introduction of a high degree of cultivation into the wilderness on the Lehigh. The third newspaper published in Pennsylvania was in German, in 1739. Christian Sowr, of Germantown, had printed several editions of . the Bible in German years before the first English Bible was printed in America, which issued from the press of Robert Aitken, Philadelphia, 1780. As a class the Germans excelled the other races that settled this county in music, and they were the first to introduce it into our churches. At first the Proprietary government was prejudiced against them, but such was not the case with Wil- liam Penn, and it was not until 1742 that the assembly passed an act for their naturalization. Shortly afterward an act was passed that applied to Dunkards, Moravians, Mennonites, and all other Protestants, except Friends, who refused to take an oath. But this boon was not granted without the asking, and then it took years to get the law passed. A petition was presented to the legislature in 1734 from "inhabitants of Bucks county," which stated that the petitioners were from Germany, and having purchased lands, they desire naturalization that they may hold the same and transmit them to their children. It was signed by John Blyler, John Yoder, sr., Christian Clemmer, John Jacob Clemmer, Abraham Shelly, Jacob Musselman, Henry Tetter, Peter Tetter, Leonard Button, Peter Wolbert, Owen Resear, John Resear, Felix Pruner, Lawrence Earp, Joseph Everheart, Michael Everheart, Jacob Wetsel, Michael Tilin- ger, Baltzer Caring, Joseph Zemmerman, John Rinck, Jacob Coller, John Lauder, Peter Chuck, John Brecht, Henry Schneider, Felty Kizer, Adam Wanner, Martin Piting, John Landes, George Sayres, Abraham Heystandt, Christian Newcome, Felty Young, Henry Weaver, John Weaver, Jacob Gangwer, Francis Bloom, Frederick Schall, Henry Rincker, Lawrence Mirkle, Leonard Cooper, John Yoder, jr., Adam Shearer, Felty Barnard, John Reed. The earliest record of an alien of Bucks county being naturalized by the assem- bly is that of Johannes Blecker, September 28th, 1709. In 1730-31 Jacob Klemmer, of Richland, Jacob Sander, Philip Keisinger, George Bachman and John Drissel petitioned the assembly to be naturalized.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The descendants of the German immigrants of this county have retained, to a considerable degree, the manners and customs of their fathers. The every-day language of at least one-third of the popu- lation is German, or "Pennsylvania Dutch," as it is popularly called. In so far as this is a language at all, it is mosaic in its character, and was the result of circumstances. The early immigrants from the German principalities and Switzerland became welded into one mass by intermarriage, similarity of religion, customs and language. This, with subsequent admixture with the English-speaking portion of the population, gradually gave rise to a newly-spoken, and to some ex- tent, a newly-written, dialect, known as "Pennsylvania Dutch," which is used, to a considerable extent, throughout eastern Penn- sylvania. The advent of the Germans introduced a new drink, called Mum, from Mumma, the name of the inventor, who first brewed it at Brunswick, in 1492. It was a malt liquor, brewed from wheat, and at first was considered a medicine. It was nause- ons, but was made potable by being fermented at sea. Ash de- fines it to be a beer brewed from wheat, while a dictionary of 1770 says it was "a kind of physical beer made with the husks of walnuts. infused." Tiswick, in the Notes and Queries, says : " Mum is a sort of sweet, malt liquor, brewed with barley and hops, and a small mixture of wheat, very thick, scarce drinkable till purified at sea." Pope turned his verse upon it, and says :
" The clamorous crowd is hushed with mugs of mum, Till all, turned equal, sound a general hum."
It was sold at Bethlehem in 1757, at a shilling a pint ; but we doubt whether the Germans of the present day have any knowl- edge of the beverage that regaled their ancestors a century ago.
A noticeable feature in connection with the Germans of this county is the great change that has taken place in the spelling of family names. In some instances the German original is almost lost in the present name, and the identity can only be traced with difficulty. Who but one versed in such lore would expect to find the original of Beans in Beihn, Brown in Braun, or Fox from Fuchs, and yet there are greater changes than these. Mr. William J. Buck, of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, kindly prepared for us the follow- ing list of changes in the names of German families in this county : Swope from Schwab, Bartholomew from Barteleme, Miller from Muller, Fox from Fuchs, Smith from Schmidt, Meyers from Meyer or Moyer, Shank from Schenck, Kindy from Kindigh, Overholt
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from Oberholtzer, Shoemaker from Schumacher, Cassel from Kas- sel, Everhart from Eberhardt, Black and Swartz from Schwartz, Wolf from Wolff, Calf from Kolb, Keyser from Keiser, Snyder from Schneider, Knight from Knecht, Shearer from Scherer, Overpeck from Oberbeck, Wise from Weiss, Buck from Bock, Weaver from Weber, Stoneback from Steinbach, Harwick from Harwich, Amey from Emig or Emich, Fisher from Fischer, Root from Ruth, Funk from Funck, Rodrock from Rothrock, Brown from Braun, Fraley from Frohlich, Deal from Diehl, High from Hoch, More or Moore from Mohr, Beans from Beihn, Strawsnyder from Strohschneider, King from Konig, Young from Jung, Stover from Stauffer, Steeley or Staley from Stahle, Frankenfield from Franckenfeldt, Fulmer from Folmer, Bishop from Bischoff, Arnold from Arnoldt, Heck from Hecht, Emery from Emrich, Umstead from Umstadt, Nona- maker from Nonnemacher, Gruver from Gruber, Kline from Klein, Hinkle from Hinckle, Vanfossen from Vanfussen, Godshalk from Gotschalk, Singmaster from Singmeister, Allem from Ahlum, Mick- ley from Michele, Heaney from Heinich, Applebach from Afferbach, Leidy from Leidigh, Clymer, or Clemmer from Klemmer, Lock from Loch, and Wireback from Wierbach.
The Germans have been exceeding aggressive since they settled in Bucks county. Seating themselves in the extreme north-west corner of the county, they have overrun the upper townships, and in some of them they have nearly rooted out the descendants of the English race. Like their ancestors, which swept down from the north on the fair plains of Italy, they have been coming down county for a century and a half with a slow, but steady tread. Forty years ago there were comparatively few Germans in Plumstead, New Britain, Doylestown and Warrington, but now they predominate in the first, and are numerous in the other three. Among twenty-two names to a petition for a road in Hilltown, in 1734, but three were German, and it is now considered a German township. They have already made considerable inroad into Solebury, Buckingham and Warwick, aud still the current is setting down county. As a class, they are money-getting and saving, they add acre to acre, and farm to farm, their sons and daughters inherit their land, and they go on repeating the process. They have large families of children, and but few immigrate, but marry about home and stay there. With a persistent, clanish race like the Germans, this system of accumulation will, in course of time, enable them to root ont others who have less
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
attachment for the soil. Where this advancing Teutonic column is to halt is a question to be answered in the future, for it has its pickets here and there, in all the townships, down to the mouth of the Poquessing.
Our present German population is well up to the descendants of the English speaking settlers in the spirit of progress. Their schools are numerous and well attended, and they give the common school system a generous support. Churches are found in every neighbor- hood, and all denominations are administered to by clergymen of their own choice. The church edifices, as a whole, are superior to those in the English portion of the county, cost more money, and are constructed in better architectural taste. In addition, there is hardly a German church that does not contain a pipe organ, some of which are large and expensive. They pay considerable attention to music, and some good performers are found in the rural districts. During the Revolutionary war the Germans were universally loyal to the American cause. The great majority of them had left the land of their birth to seek liberty in the new world, and they came with too cordial a hatred of tyranny to assist the English king to enslave the land of their adoption. Many Germans of this county served in the ranks in Washington's army, and a number bore com- missions. No portion of our population excel the Germans in those qualities that go to make good citizens, kind neighbors, and fast friends.
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