The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Part 43

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print
Number of Pages: 976

USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 43

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It is a feature of interest in the settlement of Richland, that it was first peopled by English Friends, who located far away from their kindred in the lower section of the county, and who reached their new homes over the route afterward traversed by the Germans who settled Milford. The English preceded the Germans into Richland several years, and while the descendants of the former are quite numerous, those of the latter predominate, and Richland is a German township.

Griffith Jones was probably the first man to own land in Richland. The 12th of October, 1681, and before either of them came to Pennsylvania, William Penn granted six thousand acres to Jones, to be taken up in his new province on the Delaware. What time he arrived is not known, but in 1689 he purchased several hundred acres near the North Wales settlement, but it was adjudged to belong to others by virtue of previous surveys, which he was not aware of when he purchased. He now determined to locate his grant in the Great swamp, and in 1701 the whole six thousand acres were surveyed to him in what is now Richland township, and in 1703 twenty-six hundred acres were patented. This was the first land surveyed in this section of the county, and it embraced nearly one-half the area of the township. So highly was the land of the Great swamp esteemed by those who managed Penn's interest in the province, that it was selected for the location of one of the Proprietary's manors. In March, 1703, James Logan directed Thomas Fairman and David Powell, surveyors, who were about to

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

make a journey to this section, "to lay out either in one or two tracts, as it shall best suit the place, ten thousand acres of good land under certain bounds and certain marked lines and courses, for. the Proprietary." The tract laid off under these instructions was called the " Manor of Richland." In 1738 Thomas Penn esti- mated these lands to be worth £15 per hundred acres. By virtue of a warrant of September 1, 1700, five hundred acres were directed to be laid off, in this and every other township of five thousand acres, or more, that should be surveyed, to the Proprietary, and in 1733 Thomas Penn directed his surveyor-general, Benjamin East- burn, to inquire about this reservation in Richland. Of the result of the inquiry we are not informed. It is not certain that Griffith Jones ever became a resident of the township, but probably he did not.

Peter Lester, or Leister, of Leicestershire, England, is thought to have been the first actual settler in Richland. He, with wife and children, immigrated to this province before 1710, and became a member of Gwynedd monthly meeting. He settled below Quaker- town, and six or seven generations of the family have lived and died in the township. His first location was on land now, or lately, owned by Samuel Getman, but in a few years he removed to the upper part of Quakertown, where his descendants now live. If Peter Lester was the first actual settler, Abraham Griffith, of By- berry, could not have been long behind him. He married a daugh- ter of Lester in 1708, and shortly afterward he removed to the southern part of the township where, in 1708, he purchased that part of Griffith Jones's tract known as the "bog," and on it erected a shelter beside a leaning rock. In this rude dwelling was born the first white child in the settlement, a son, named after his father.

Edward Foulke, the first of the name in Pennsylvania, and among the earliest settlers in Richland, was born in North Wales, Great Britain, the 13th of July, 1651. He was the son of Thomas Foulke, who descended through twelve generations from Lord Penllyn, mar- ried Eleanor, daughter of Hugh Cadwallader, and had nine children, Thomas, Hugh, Cadwallader, Evan, Gwently, Grace, Jane, Catharine and Margaret. He came to America with his family in 1698, land- ing at Philadelphia the 17th of July. He bought seven hundred acres in Gwynedd township, Montgomery county, where he settled the following November, with a number of other immigrants who came about the same time. How long he remained there is not

MAP OF RICHLAND TOWNSHIP. 1754.

ROBERT ASHTON

ABRM. REESER

CHRIST" FRY

TOWNSHIP LINE

DERICK VANHORN

ERASMALTHOUSE

THOS, THOMAS

WALKER

EBENEZER

BUSHKIRK

GEORGE

GRUBER

HEDRICK

PETER

ACKERMAN

ISTEPHEN

ABRA TAYLOR

JACOB BLEME THEOS FOULKES

W.M-COOL

HERM WEBER

LEWIS LEWIS

EMANUEL

BURGY ---

LATE SAML IDONS

NOUS PETERGRUBE

HENRY CONLEY'S SOLDTO THEOS FOULKE

CASPER JOHNSON'S

PETER GRUBERJL

PETER SAEĞER

EVERARD ROBERTS

SAM& SHAW'S

DAVID ROBERTS

JOHNLESTER

WOHN FOULKE

DAVID ROBERTS !!

, LATE ROBTACHTONS NOW W" BRYANS

JAMIE BRYANS

LEDWO THOMAS

ABELROBERTS

LANCASTER'STRACT DIVIDED AMONG

HIS

CHILDREN

ABEL ROBERTS

LATE J. MORRAS WOW S. PERROT

S! FOULKE

OFOURKE

WOPENROSE

WIPEN ROSE

R.BURR

PIKE'S LAND

SAMENISON

EDWd ROBERTS

ROBT. MILLAR

ADEL ROBERTSA

JOS. PENROSE

LATE R. PENROSA

JOS BALL

CHAS. REES

LATE ABRI TUNIS

PHILIP SMITH

JOHN BALL

G, IDEN

JONN GRIPPITH

SAML. TUNIS

----

BEN JOHNSON

CASPER GROSS

THOMAS CANN

MARTINSHIVE

JOHN BERRY

WILLIAM LOGANSLAND

- ROAD TO PHILADELPHIA

RANDAL IDEN

JAS.MCCARTYS

- ROAD TO MANETS MITH

& JOHN LESTER

LEDWO THOMAS MELDING

JOHN FOULKE

FOULKES

THO'S

ROSTBURR

SOLDTO

EVERY FOULKE

GROWDON'S LAND

JESSE BRYAN

JOHNHEANY

NATHAN ROBERTS

NOW

ROUT BURR

PETER HENRY

SHUMAN

---- -

SOL

JACOB BARKEY

JOHNTHOMAS

MICH KEIPER

ROAD TO COURANT -

JACOB SPINNER

BERNE SWART

SAML POULKE'S

LATE LAWR'S MEIER NOW

JOSEPN GIL BERTSTRACT

JOHN HALDEMAN JACOB HERWIG

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

known, but he removed to Richland and settled in the neighbor- hood of Quakertown. Numerous descendants of Edward Foulke are living in this and adjoining counties and states, among which is Benjamin Foulke, of Quakertown. The family has always been one of consideration and influence, and several of its members have occupied responsible positions of public trust. Thomas Foulke, son of the first Edward, died in 1786, at the age of sixty-three, and his daughter Jane in 1822, at the age of ninety-three. The Foulkes are members of the society of Friends.

Between 1710 and 1716 a number of settlers came into the town- ship and took up land, of which we can name the following: In 1714 one hundred acres were granted to James McVeagh, or Mc- Vaugh, convenient for building a mill, at one shilling quit-rent, and one thousand to Morris Morris, Mom's moins "at or near the tract called Great swamp in Bucks county," in 1715 two hundred acres to John Moore, and the same quantity to John Morris, of Shackamaxon, in March, 1706, and two hundred and fifty acres to Michael Atkinson, adjoining Moore, and three hun- dred and fifty acres to Michael Lightcap, in two tracts, one of one hundred and fifty acres, between Edward Roberts' and Thomas Nix- on's land, and the other of two hundred acres, on the west side of Arthur Jones's land. These tracts were not confirmed to Lightcap until 1732-33.

In the spring of 1716 Edward Roberts, with his wife, Mary, and daughter, and all their worldly goods, came up through the woods from Byberry on horseback, and located the property now owned by Stephen Foulke. He was married in 1714 to a daughter of Everard and Elizabeth Bolton, who immigrated from England, and settled at Cheltenham in 1682, where she was born November 4th, 1687. They had seven children, two of the daughters marrying Foulkes. The ancestry of the Boltons is traced back to the Lord of Bolton, the lineal representative of the Saxon Earls of Murcia. Ex-Judge Roberts, of Doylestown, is a descendant of Edward Rob- erts. The wife of Edward Roberts was taken sick with small-pox soon after their arrival in Richland, and he was obliged to return with her to Gwynedd, the nearest settlement where she could be properly nursed. On her recovery and their return to Richland, he erected a temporary shelter of bark against some of the large trees that covered the ground, until he was able to build a more comfort-

460

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

able dwelling place. In this they lived until 1728, when he built the south-east end of the dwelling lately taken down by Stephen Foulke. At that time there were several Indian wigwams on the Edu ard Roberts creek, and shad were caught close to his door. Among the earliest settlers in Richland were, William Nixon, who was born in 1680, and died in 1747, Thomas Lancaster, who owned four hundred acres in the township, which were divided among his children at his death, in 1751, on his return from a missionary visit to the island of Barbadoes, and Samuel Thomas, born in 1695, and died in 1755, an elder in the Richland meeting. Hugh Foulke, born in 1685, and died in 1760, purchased three hundred and thirteen and a half acres, which were surveyed to him on a verbal order of the Proprietary. He was in the minis- try forty years. John Edwards came with his wife, Mary, and their children, from Abington. Their son William became a promi- nent minister among Friends, and died in 1764, at the age of fifty- two. His wife was Martha Foulke, likewise an accepted minister, who was appointed an elder in the Richland meeting in 1745, the first woman who held that position. After the death of her hus- band she married John Roberts in 1771, and died in 1781, in her sixty-fifth year. Among the large tracts taken up in the township were, one thousand acres by James Logan, three thousand in two tracts by Joseph Growden, one thousand by a man named Pike, a large tract by Joseph Gilbert, and five hundred acres by George McCall, adjoining lands of James Logan. These large tracts were sold to actual settlers, and in a few years the bulk of them had passed from the possession of the original owners. Although the manor was called "Richland," it was only partly in this township.

About 1730 there was an additional influx of settlers to the neigh- borhood of Quakertown, a few of which were Germans, John Adam- son, Arnold Heacock, John Phillips, William Morris, Joshua Rich- ardson, William Jamison, Edmund Phillips, John Paul, John Edwards Arthur Jones, and others. John Klemmer was in the township as early as 1730, and in 1738-39 he was the owner of land. George Bachman bought two hundred and thirty-four acres in 1737, and Bernard Steinback took up fifty acres in 1742. In 1737 John Bond located two hundred and fifty acres, and about the same time Casper Wister, of Philadelphia, purchased one tract in Richland, and

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

another on the south bank of the Lehigh. Grace Growden was the owner of five hundred and twenty-five acres, which she received from her father's estate, which were sold in 1785, but its location we do not know.

Benjamin Gilbert, son of Joseph and Rachel Gilbert, of Byberry, Philadelphia, removed to Richland about 1735, where he remained until 1749, when he went to Makefield, and back again to Byberry, in 1755. The life of Mr. Gilbert had an unfortunate termination. In 1775, at the age of sixty-four, he removed with his family to Mahoning creek, a frontier settlement then in Northampton county, where he erected saw and grist-mills, and carried on an extensive and prosperous business. In 1780 a party of hostile Indians burned his buildings, and carried himself and family prisoners to Canada. He died while going down the St. Lawrence, but his wife and children, after suffering many hardships, returned to Byberry in 1782, where his widow died in 1810. Mr. Gilbert was an author of some merit, and wrote and published several works on religious subjects.

The ancestor of James C. Iden, of Buckingham, was an carly settler in the " bog" of Richland. Randall Iden, the great-grand- father of James C., was born in Bristol harbor, England, on ship- board, about 1684 or 1686, on the eve of the family sailing for America. The father died on the voyage, leaving a widow with nine children. On their arrival in the Delaware, or soon afterward, the mother and two youngest children went to live at Joseph Kirk- bride's. The youngest son, Randall, married Margaret Greenfield, who was brought up at Kirkbride's, and removed to Richland, where he spent his life, raised a family of children, and died at a good old age. In 1816 his son Samuel, the father of James C., who then must have been advanced in life, removed to Buckingham, where he died.

Although the township was not laid out and organized by the court until the fall of 1734, it had a quasi existence, for municipal purposes, several years before. The earliest mention of it, even for this purpose, was in 1729, when the inhabitants of "Rich lands" township petitioned the court to have a road " laid out from the upper part of said township, near a creek called Sacking, or Sucking, to the place where the Quaker meeting-house is building, and from thence to the end of Abraham Griffith's lane." In 1730 thirty-two of the inhabitants of " Rich lands," one-half of whom were German,

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

Pugh Douche

namely : Hugh Foulke, John Lester, John Adam- son, Arnall Hancocks, John Phillips, George Phillips, jr., William Morris, Edward Roberts, Arthur Jones, William Nix- on, John Ball, John Edwards, Thomas Roberts, Joshua Richards, William Jamison, Edmund Phillips, Johannes Bleiler, Michael Everhart, Joseph Everhart, Abraham Hill, Johannes Landis, Jacob Klein, John Jacob Klemmer, Jacob Musselman, Jacob Sutar, Peter Cutz, Jacob Drissel, Henry Walp, Samuel Yoder, George Hix, John Jacob Zeits, and Heinrich Ditterly, petitioned for a road " from the new meeting-house to the county line near William Thomas's, in order to go to Philadelphia by the Montgomery road." Before this road was opened the nearest way for the inhabitants of Richland to go to Philadelphia was round by the York road, which they say "is marshy, the ground not fitting for carts or loaded horses."

The first movement toward a township organization was in Sep- tember, 1734, when Peter Lester, Duke Jackson, Lawrence Grow- den, not a resident, Jolın Ball, George Hyat, John Phillips, Edward Roberts, John Lester, and Thomas Heed, petitioned the court " to lay out a township by the name of 'Richlands."" The metes and bounds given make it five and a half miles from north to south, and four and a half from east to west. The court, which confirmed the first survey of Lower Milford about this time, ordered the lines of Richland to be run according to that survey where the two town- ships touch. On the draft returned into court were marked the following real estate owners : Joseph Gilbert, James Logan, Joseph Pike, Lawrence Growden, Griffith Jones, Michael Lightfoot, Samuel Pierson, and Henry Taylor, but there were others. The land of Griffith Jones at this time comprised more than one-fifth of the township.

A meeting for worship was held at the house of Peter Lester, several years before the Gwynedd monthly granted the Richland preparative meeting, which was about 1721 or 1723, when a small meeting-house was erected a mile below Quakertown, on the property now belonging to William Shaw. The increase of Friends made a larger house necessary, and in 1729, a lot was purchased in the middle of the settlement, on which a new meeting-house was built. The Swamp Friends wanted a stone one, but the monthly meeting advised that it be built of wood, as more consistent with their means.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

A monthly meeting was established in 1742. In 1744 Saucon Friends were granted permission to hold meetings for worship, and Springfield in 1745, Richland being the mother meeting; and in 1746 or 1747, Abraham Griffith, Samuel Thomas and Lewis Lewis, were appointed to assist the Friends of Springfield to select a place for building a meeting-house. An addition was built to the Rich- land meeting-house in 1749, the sum required being raised by thirty- eight subscribers, among which we find the names of William Logan, and Israel Pemberton, jr., both land-owners but non-residents. In 1762 an addition, twenty by twenty-six feet, was added to the north end, money being borrowed to complete it; and there was a further addition in 1795, leaving the house substantially as we now see it. Among those mnost active in religious matters from the first establishment of the meeting, we find the names of Foulke, Roberts, Moore, Ball, Shaw, Iden, Ritter and Dennis. The Foulke family has furnished six elders, six clerks, and two accepted ministers. In 1781 a meeting was held at the Milford school-house, once in three weeks. In 1786 the monthly meeting was transferred to Abington quarterly. In 1781, eleven of the leading members of the Richland meeting, viz: Samuel Foulke, James Clapman, Thomas Edwards, Enoch Roberts, Everard Foulke, Thomas Thomas, John Thomas, John Foulke, Thomas Foulke, John Lester and William Edwards were disowned for subscribing the oath of allegiance to the colonies. The same year, Elizabeth Potts was disowned for holding slaves. The first marriage in the monthly meeting took place September 24th, 1743, between Samuel Foulke and Annie Greasly. The earliest certificate of marriage in this section, is that of William Edwards, of Milford, and Martha, daughter of Hugh Foulke, October 4th, 1738, and among the witnesses are the name of Edwards, Foulke, Roberts, Griffith, Lester, Ball, and others well known in this section. We are told, that during the Revolution, the men about Quakertown organized themselves into a company to enter the patriot service, and used to meet to drill, under the large oak tree that stands near the Friends' meeting-house.

The Matts family of Richland-the original name being Metz, then changed to Matz, and afterwards to the present spelling-is descended from John Michael Metz, who was born in the city of Metz, Germany, in 1750, and came to Philadelphia before 1760. He learned the trade of tanner and currier with one Allibone, and married Barbara Fayman. During the Revolution he was im-

464

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

pressed into the American army, and was at the battle of German- town. After the battle he was engaged in finishing leather for knapsacks, at Allentown. Of his seven children, two sons and three daughters died young, Sarah and John living to between eighty and ninety. In 1798 John Michael Metz settled in Springfield town- ship, and in 1800 he removed to Richland, four miles north-east of Quakertown, where he followed tanning to his death, in 1813, at the age of sixty-three. His sister Sarah married and removed to Northampton county. On the death of the father the son, John Matts, came into possession of the property, where he followed the same trade to his death, January 14th, 1875, at the age of eighty- nine. He was a man of considerable prominence, and in 1824 was elected to the legislature, serving four sessions. He was likewise colonel of militia. He left ten children at his death, seven sons and " three daughters, eight of whom are married and have families. Four of the sons are living in Wisconsin, one daughter in Iowa, and another in Kansas. Elias H. Matts, the fourth son, lives at the old homestead. The children married into the families of Flick, Dick- son, Hartzell, Uttley, Erdman, Dunkel, Anthony and Servates, of this county and elsewhere.

Andrew Snyder was among the early settlers of Richland. He was the eldest son of a noble family of the Duchy of Deux Ponts of Rheinish Bavaria, where he was born in 1739, and in order to ob- tain money to come to America, he sold his title to the immunities of nobility to a younger brother. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1759, and apprenticed himself to Benjamin Chew, with whom he remained three years. At the end of this time the Chews assisted him to purchase four hundred acres in Richland, and marrying Margaret Jacoby, in 1765, he settled down to a farmer's life. He entered the army at the breaking out of the Revolution, and was present at Trenton, Germantown, and other battles, and at the end of five years' time was paid for his services in worthless Conti- mental currency. He was appointed collector for Richland, and probably other townships, about the close of the war, and was ren- dered penniless by going security for others, but his old friends, the Chews, came to his aid again. Mr. Snyder died October 26th, 1815, at the age of seventy-six. He had a family of eleven children, five sons and six daughters, but Amos H. Snyder, the son of John, and his family, of Richland, are the only descendants of the name who reside near the old homestead. His son Frederick settled in Hilltown, Andrew in Philadelphia, and George in Ohio.

465

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

Richland is in the north-western part of the county, thirty-five miles from Philadelphia, and is bounded by Springfield, Haycock, Rockhill and Milford, and has an area of thirteen thousand nine hundred and eighty-six acres. The surface is generally level and the soil fertile. In the north-west corner is a rocky eminence, bare of vegetation, covering some five acres. The rocks are thrown to- gether pell-mell, and when struck by iron give a ringing sound. Here some of the headwaters of the Tokickon rise, and a rocky ledge follows either bank some distance. With these exceptions there is but little broken land in the township, and it is well-watered by the Tohickon and branches of the Perkiomen. By clearing up the land, and cultivating it, a large scope of country that was con- sidered a swamp at its first settlement has been changed into good farm land, among the best in the upper end of the county. By the census of 1784 the township contained a population of 860, and 147 dwellings ; in 1810, 1,317; 1820, 1,385 ; 1830, 1,719, and 344 tax- ables ; 1840, 1, 781 ; 1850, 1,729 ; 1860, 2,058 white and 16 colored, and in 1870, 2,104 white and 7 colored, of which 93 were of foreign birth. The township book of Richland shows that in 1765 the overseers received £14. 9s. 3d. poor-tax. That year the mayor of Philadelphia sent home a female pauper to be supported by the township. Lewis Lewis, one of the overseers, kept her six months for £5, with an extra five shillings a week for four weeks when she "was sick and troublesome more than common." In 1772 the township sent Susannah Boys to Ireland, and paid her passage and sundry expenses, amounting to £16. 6s. 3d. In 1776 two shillings were spent by the township for a "bottle of licker" for John Mor- rison, who sat up with a sick man. In 1801 the poor-tax levied amounted to £37. 5s. 10d.

The villages of Richland are, Quakertown and Richland Centre, now united under one municipal government, in the western section of the township, Richlandtown, two miles and a half to the north- east, and Bunker Hill in the southern part. The site of Quaker- town is a basin, with a diameter of from two to three miles, with a rim of higher ground running around it, and is drained by the tributaries of the Tohickon to the Delaware on the south-east, and by Swamp creek on the south-west emptying into the Perkiomen, and thence into the Schuylkill. On the north-west side of the town is a little rivulet called Licking run, emptying into the To- hickon, which is said to have got its name from a salt lick on its

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

bank. Within twenty years a company was formed, and some stock subscribed, to work the lick. The first settlers at this point located on the elevated ground around the basin, then a swampy meadow where their cattle were turned to pasture; and within the memory of those living the land around the town was still a swamp, and covered with a heavy growth of timber down to the railroad station. The road between these points became almost impassible in the spring of the year. A hamlet first began to form at the intersection of what are known as the Milford Square and Newtown, and Hel- lertown and Philadelphia roads, all opened at an early day. We have no date when this collection of early dwellings first developed into a village. It was probably called Quakertown from the first, and may be as a slur upon the Friends who settled it; and very likely was first called "the Quaker's town." In 1770 Walter McCoole kept tavern at the cross-roads, but a post-office was not established until 1803, with William Green the first postmaster. McCoole built one of the first mills in the township, the same lately owned by Wolf, but we do not know the present owner. The Friends opened a school of a higher grade at Quakertown, the only one in the upper end of the county, shortly after the monthly meeting was established, which became popular with the Germans, who sent their children to it from Berks and Northampton. In 1795 a public library was established, with Abraham Stout, Everard Foulke, Joseph Les- ter, Isaac Lancaster and Samuel Sellers, directors, and thirty-two members, of whom Stogdale Stokes, of Stroudsburg, was the last survivor. Among the names we find six Foulkes, four Robertses, three Greens and three Lesters, these three families furnishing one- half the members, and no better evidence is required to prove who were the early patrons of reading about Quakertown. This is the third oldest library in the county, and is still kept up, with a collec- tion of eleven hundred volumes. The charter provides that it shall be kept within one mile of the cross-roads.

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The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Part 43

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910 Publication date: 1876 Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print Number of Pages: 976

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print
Number of Pages: 976