USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 48
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the Reverend Alexander Boyd, of Newtown, was invited to supply Tinicum one-fourth of his time for one year, for £105, but he con. tinued the supply until 1826. From this time the congregation appears to have relied on supplies, for we find no further record of regular pastors. In 1827 it was agreed to pay $6 a Sunday for a supply by a neighboring clergyman, $7 when from the city, and $8 to administer the Lord's Supper. In 1835 a stone wall was built around the graveyard, superintended by Daniel Boileau and Stephen Bennet, at sixty-two and a half cents a day, including board. In 1843 the trustees conveyed the one undivided half of the church and lot to the German Reformed and Lutherans, the English congrega- tion retaining the privilege of occupying the church one-half the time. The quaint-looking old stone building with the stairway to the gallery on the outside, and erected in 1766, was re-built in 1843. It has a gallery on three sides and a high pulpit, with wind- ing steps up to the seat. The worshipers of the three congrega- tions do not number over an hundred. The oldest gravestone in the yard, with an inscription upon it, is that of James Blair, who died in 1749, aged eighty-three. He must have been well-ad- vanced in life when he settled in Tinicum. We are told that in early days the church owned three hundred acres, but we can find no record of it. It now only owns the lot the building stands upon, a portion having been leasad to the school-directors of Tinicum for ninety-nine years, upon which a neat school-house has been erected. The fathers of the church were English-speaking people, and in the graveyard we read the names of Blair, Thompson, Bennet, Wilson, Summers, Carrell, Smith, etc.
The Brick church, known as Christ church, is on the road from Point Pleasant to Dark hollow. The records carry us back to 1747, but the congregation was probably organized at an earlier date. The first church, built of logs, stood on the hill at the graveyard, a few hundred yards from the road. The present building, the third, erected in 1861, at an expense of $11,000, of brick, is large and imposing, with basement, and audience-room in second story, is handsomely frescoed, and has a large organ. The spire towers above all surrounding objects. The audience-room seats a thousand persons. The first recorded marriage took place in 1759, Adam Hellebart (now Hillpot) to Maria Phillippina Schnæntherin (now Snyder), born in 1740. The oldest gravestone in the yard is that of William Jiser, who died in 1759, aged thirty-two years. Among
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the pastors, in olden times, we find the names of but three, Johan- nes Wollf Bizel in 1760, Frederick Miller in 1774, and Nicholas Mensch in 1807. The joint congregations, Reformed and Lutheran, number about seven hundred. The present Lutheran pastor is the Reverend W. S. Emery.
A small congregation of Christians have a church, called Christian chapel, on the road from Red Hill to Erwinna, where there is oc- casional preaching by other denominations.
The Baptist church, situated at Point Pleasant, on the Tinicum side of the Tohickon, had its origin in the labors of the Reverend Joseph Mathias, pastor at Hilltown, who prosecuted missionary-work in that section of the county nearly half a century ago. His preach- ing in barns, school-houses, and groves awakened quite a religious interest in that section, the dwelling of Mrs. Hamilton being the centre of operations. The church was constituted September 1st, 1849, with thirty-two members, but the building was not erected until 1852, mainly through the efforts of the Reverend John C. Hyde, its first settled pastor. His labors were greatly blessed, and puring his pastorate he was obliged to enlarge the church. He is now pastor of the Baptist church at Bristol, and since then the pul- pit at Point Pleasant has been filled, in turn, by the Reverends Messrs. W. B. Swope, E. S. Widemer, H. C. Putman, D. Spencer, J. H. Appleton, D. Menigee, Joseph Hammit, and George Young, the present pastor. The church is in a flourishing condition, with a membership of nearly two hundred.
The villages and hamlets of Tinicum are, Point Pleasant, Erwinna, Head-Quarters and Ottsville. The first-named, the most consider- able, lies on both sides of the Tohickon, near its mouth on the Dela- ware. Isaac Swartz was one of the first owners of real estate on the south side of the creek, including Lower Black's Eddy, and on this land all the houses are built from the Eddy up the creek. About 1812 the property passed into the possession of Daniel Solliday, father of John N. On this side of the creek are two taverns, a store and about seventy-five families. John Van Fossen was the first set- tler on the north side, and his land extended some distance over into Plumstead. He built the first tavern, where the present one stands, and established the fishery. His property passed to Michael Wei- sel early in the century ; and the tavern was burnt down about 1812, and re-built. Here there are some twenty-five families, with a store, coal-yard, lime-kilns, grist and saw-mill, the former one of the
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
oldest on the creek, two lumber-yards, and a post-office. A post- office was granted in 1821, on the south side of the creek, and called Lower Black's Eddy, and was only called Point Pleasant when it was removed to the north side, in 1828, and Joseph Hough appointed postmaster. Fifty years ago there were but four dwellings at the Point, an old house on the mill property, now Ralph Stover's, a tavern where the present Point Pleasant hotel stands, owned by Michael Weisel, an old log house on the site of the canal tavern, - owned by Michael Swartz, and the Black's Eddy tavern, owned by Daniel Solliday, on the Point Pleasant side of the creek. A covered wooden bridge here spans the Delaware from the north side of the creek. Geddis's run empties into the Tohickon just above its mouth, and the Delaware canal crosses the creek a short distance below on a wooden aqueduct. From the hills back of Point Pleasant is pre- sented one of the finest river views in the county.
Erwinna is on the Delaware nearly opposite Frenchtown, a thriv- ing village on the New Jersey bank of the river. The ground on which it stands was bought of John Williams and wife in the spring of 1856 by Tobias Fishler and Elias Major. A ferry was established here at an early day, which was called London ferry for many years, and Prevost's ferry in 1808. The village contains a population of two hundred and twenty-five, with a tavern, two stores, a flax-mill, mechanics, etc., etc. A two-story brick building, used for a high school and church, is occupied for a graded school. Head-Quarters, a hamlet with a store, tavern, and fifty people, is on the road from Erwinna to Ottsville. Ottsville, for many years only known as Red Hill, and still called by this name, is on the Durham road near the line of Nockamixon. A post-office was established at Erwinna in 1807, with Joseph Erwin postmaster, and at Ottsville in 1814, with Michael Ott appointed postmaster. This post-office has frequently changed location, and has been at two or three points along the Durham road in the distance of two miles.
There were several fisheries on the Delaware between the To- hickon and Tinicum creeks in olden times. Cowell's, near the Point, was an exceedingly lucrative onc, but Ridge's was more profitable, and probably the oldest. About 1810 as many as twelve or fifteen hundred shad were frequently caught in a single day upon the small island opposite Ridge's house. The Cabin fishery was half a mile above Ridge's, the Drive fishery on the Jersey side of the large island, and the Sweet Briar on the Jersey shore opposite, all pro-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
ductive. Shad were caught in these waters of the finest kind, and in abundance down to 1825, and in fair quantities to 1842, but since then they have been disappearing. The season of 1875 was the best for several years.
Although we have said that Barcroft's mill was probably the oldest in the township, the honor is disputed by Joseph Drissel's mill on the Tohickon, a mile north-east of Keichline's tavern in Bedminster. This is thought to be one of the oldest mills in the upper end of the county, and is still in good running order. Jacob Fretz's mill on the Tohickon was built about the same time, or soon after Barcroft's. Jacob Stout had a grist-mill on the Tohickon in 1755. Wilson's tavern,3 one of the oldest in the township, stood on the road from the Brick church to the river, about half-way between them. It is
a long one-and-a-half-story stone house, still standing, and occupied by a son of Gilbert Wilson. The license was taken away thirty years ago, because a lot of drunken fellows hanging about on a Sun- day morning abused old James Carrell on his way to church. When a tavern was first licensed at Head-Quarters we cannot tell, but it was kept a century ago by Jacob Shupe, and by him sold to Jacob Barndt, who died in it in 1799, whose son, Peter T. Barndt, moved into it in 1800. A public house is still kept there, but the present building is about three hundred yards from where the old one stood. The township and general elections have been held at this house many years.
In area Tinicum is one of the largest townships in the county, as well as one of the most populous. The surface is very rolling in some parts, but not broken, and along the Delaware an abrupt ledge lifts the general level of the surface from seventy-five to an hundred and fifty feet above the river. It is well-watered by the Tohickon, Tinicum and Mill creeks and their branches. A good deal of the soil is sandy and gravelly, but in general productiveness it is about the equal of the neighboring townships. The Delaware Division canal, which runs along the river front of the township, gives the inhabitants great facilities for transporting heavy goods to market, and in importing lime and coal. Besides the bridge across the Delaware at Point Pleasant, another of the same style spans the river a mile above Erwinna, to Frenchtown.
The first enumeration of the inhabitants of Tinicum was in 1784, when the township contained 769 whites, and 9 blacks, 87
3 A tavern was kept there in 1767.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
dwellings and 144 out-houses. In 1810, the population was 1,017 ; 1820, 1,249 ; 1830, 1,643, and 33 taxables ; 1840, 1,770 ; 1850, 2,047 ; 1860, 2,396; 1870, 2,401, of which 117 were of foreign birth.
Tinicum is considered a German township.
33
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XXXII.
UPPER MILFORD; SAUCON; MACUNGIE; SALISBURY; WHITEHALL.
1738 TO 1750.
A twin sister .- Upper Milford .- Township movement .- Names of petitioners .- Boun- daries .- Township laid out .- Settlers .- Swamp church .- Pastors .- Anecdote .- SAUCON .- The Lehigh comes into notice .- First land taken up .- William Allen. Reverend John Philip Bohnn, John David Behringer, George Hartman, Adam Schaus .- Township organized .- First tavern on the Lehigh .- The landlords .- Settlers thereabouts .- Graveyard .- Boarding-school opened .- The river .- Sur- face oftownship .- MACUNGIE .- Now divided .- When settled .- Township laid off. -Names of petitioners .- Road asked for .- Settlers' names .- Surface level .- SALISBURY .- The Turner and Allen tract .- Other grants .- First settlers .- Emaus settled .- The township laid out .- WHITEHALL-Earliest settlers .- Lynford Gard- ner .- Origin of name .- The Reformed church .- Township organized .- Heidel- burg and Williams townships.
UPPER MILFORD, the twin sister of Milford in Bucks, and which originally embraced the territory of what is now Upper and Lower Milford, in Lehigh county, was the first township organized of all those now lying outside of our present county limits. It was cut off from Bucks with Northampton, in 1752, but fell within Lehigh county upon its formation, in 1812. It lies immediately north-west of our Milford township, and has Montgomery on the south-west. We know but little concerning its early settlement, but it appears that the same flood of German immigration that flowed into Lower, reached Upper, Milford, and at about the same time. In a few
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
years quite a German population was settled there. The two town- ships were under the same municipal jurisdiction until they were regularly laid off into separate geographical subdivisions.
No doubt the organization of Lower Milford, now Milford in Bucks, and by which name it was known within the memory of men now living, hastened the inhabitants of Upper Milford to the same end. At what time they commenced the township movement we know not, but we find that on the 10th of January, 1737, a petition, signed by Peter Walher and twenty-two other inhabi- tants of that section of country, namely : Ulrich Kirster, A. Ma- thias Ochs, Johannes Meyer, Joseph Henckel, Daniel Rausch, Heinrich Willim, Heinrich Ris, William Bit, Gristian Bigli, Jacob Wetel, Johannes Betlzart, Duwalt Machling, Johannes Hast, Mel- chior Stuher, Michael Keher, Felix Benner, Jacob Derry, Michael Zimmerman, - Longhurst, Mirwin Weihnacht, Johannes Banger- ner and Hannes Ord, was presented to the court of quarter sessions sitting at Newtown asking to have the country they inhabited laid out into a township, with the following metes and bounds : " Be- ginning at the northern corner of Milford township and then run- ning up to Lawick hills, then along the said hills to the county line westward, then down the county line to the other corner of Milford township, then along the line of said township to the place of be- ginning." The prayer of the petitioners was probably granted im- mediately, for the new township was surveyed and laid out by John Chapman on the 13th of the following March (1738). As laid out at that time it was in the form of a square, six miles long by five wide, and contained twenty-one thousand one hundred and twenty acres. With but few exceptions the petitioners for the new town- ship were Germans. In addition to those already mentioned as petitioners for the organization of the township, we find among the families settled there before, or at, that period those bearing the names of Dubbs, Eberhard, Hoover, Mumbauer, Roder, Spinner, Stahl and Weandt. At a little later period there came the Dicken- shieds, Hetricks, McNoldies, Millers, Schellys, Kipers, Snyders, Rudolphs, Dretzes, Heinbachs, Derrs, and others. Peter Walhert was appointed constable of Upper Milford in 1737, the year before the township was organized, and he was the first one for the new township in 1739, the year after.
The first church built in this township was the Swamp church just over the line of Bucks. Its origin antedates all existing records.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The first log building was probably erected prior to 1736, soon after the German and Swiss immigrants settled in that wilderness region, for the church register opens April 24th of that year. A patent was obtained for one hundred and thirteen acres the 27th of September, 1738, consideration £17. 3s. 7d, and the tract is still owned by the church. From that date the congregation has been Reformed. In 1772 the log building gave way to a substantial stone structure ; the flooring was flag-stone and brick, the pews rough and inconvenient for napping during the sermon, and a stove never obstructed its aisles. A third building was erected in 1837 at a cost of $1,700, and a fourth in 1872. The latter is a handsome stone edifice, seventy by fifty feet, cost $30,000, and is adorned with a tall spire. The basement is divided into Sunday-school rooms, pastor's room, and broad vestibule, and the audience-room is handsomely finished with frescoed walls. In the loft is an organ with twenty-three stops, and cost $2,300. There is no record of pastors prior to 1736, but since that time the line is unbroken. They are, in regular succession, John Henry Gotschy, whose end is unknown, George Michael Weiss and John Theobold Faber, who died in charge, and lay side by side in a neighboring graveyard, Frederick William Vondersloot, who died in Northampton county, John Theobold Faber, jr., Fred- erick William Vondersloot, jr., who died in York county, Albert Helfenstein, died at Shamokin, Daniel Weiser, pastor from 1833 to 1862, who still survives, and was succeeded by his son, C. Z. Wei- ser, the present pastor. Besides these regular pastors the following ministers have served for brief periods : the Reverends Jacob Reiss, Philip Jacob Leydick, Philip Jacobs, Michael and Nicholas Pomp.
During the pastorate of the Reverend Daniel Weiser the good work of the church was advanced. The Sunday-school was in- augurated in 1841 amid the cry of "innovation," and fierce outside opposition, but they availed not, and it now numbers three hundred scholars. The church has now about five hundred members, and since 1869 service has been held every Sunday, which is the case with but one other country German church in eastern Pennsylvania. Since 1872 it has been known as Trinity Reformed church, but down to that period it was called the Swamp church.
The following coincidences present themselves in the lives of some of the pastors connected with this church. Three ministerial sons, Vandersloot, Faber, and Weiser succeeded reverend fathers. Both the Fabers began their pastoral life at this church ; both left, after
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
several years' service, for a parish in Lancaster county ; both re- turned to this church and assumed its pastorate, died, and were buried in the same yard. The Messrs. Weiser, father and son, were born at Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania ; both entered on their youthful ministry in their native place, and both, in turn, became pastors of the Swamp church.
Tradition, through the mouths of the fathers of the church, tells the following anecdote in connection with obtaining the patent for the land now belonging to the Swamp church. The Reformed and Lutherans each appointed an elder to go to Philadelphia and obtain the title for the joint congregation. We shall designate them as R and L, who agreed to meet at a certain place, and ride down to- gether. Elder R was punctual at the place of meeting, but found that L had proceeded instead of waiting. The astonished R pushed on, reached the city and stabled his horse, and as he passed out the alley to go to the land-office, he saw elder L sitting in the bar-room taking a little creature-comfort, feeling entirely secure in having stolen a march on his brother. Elder R hastened to the office, and secured the land for the Reformed congregation exclusively. On his way out he met elder L going in. The meeting produced an embarrassing silence, which tradition says was broken by a dialogue, in which elder R explained to his brother, over a bottle of wine, wherefore he had taken the title out in the name of the Reformed congregation. He wound up the interview by saying : " Now mark, neighbor ! the Lutheran drinks his wine before he attends to his duty, and the Reformed attends to his duty before he drinks his wine." The rebuke was unanswerable.
As Upper Milford passed out of the jurisdiction of Bucks county, within a few years after its organization, its history would be brief were we able to relate the whole of it. We do not know at what time the township was divided, but not until after it had been sepa- rated from Bucks.
SAUCON .- Saucon township, now Upper and Lower Saucon in Northampton county, was the first territory on the Lehigh to be or- ganized, four years after Upper Milford, which it joined.
The Lehigh i region was first brought into notice in May, 1701,
1 The original name was Lechan-wek-i, shortened and corrupted by the German set- tlers into Lecha, signifying " where there is a fork in the road." The name was given by the Delawares to the west branch of the Delaware, because, at a point below Bethle- hem, several trails forked off from the great highway of Indian travel.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
when William Penn sent John Sotcher, of Falls township, and Edward Farmer, of Whitemarsh, to that river to ascertain the in- tention of the Indians. White men were on the river at that early day. On the 21st of March, 1701, Penn informed his council that a young Swede who had just arrived from "Lechy " reported that on the 5th of the month, while some young men were out hunting they heard frequent reports of fire-arms, and suspected the presence of Seneca Indians. No doubt Sotcher and Farmer were sent on this information. The same month Penn caused the goods of John Hans Stiehlman, of Maryland, who had been endeavoring to open trade with the Indians at the "Forks of Delaware," to be seized. Of course the Proprietary had knowledge of this fine country before that time, and he traversed a portion of it in his journey to the Susquehanna. We are unable to tell in what year the pioneer im- migrants pushed their way over the present limits of our county, but some adventurous Germans and Scotch-Irish were there before the Indian title was extinguished, and by 1750 there was considerable population scattered throughout the wilderness up to the foot of the Blue mountains, 2 and even beyond.
Three tracts are known to have been taken up on the south bank of the Lehigh prior to 1740. In the spring of 1736 William Allen confirmed two hundred acres to Solomon Jennings, two miles above Bethlehem. It was held as part of the manor of Fermor, or Dry- lands, and paid an annual quit-rent of a silver shilling for each hun- dred acres. This tract passed into the possession of the Geisinger family in 1757, and is still owned by them. On the 12th of April, 1738, Nathaniel Irish purchased one hundred and fifty acres near the mouth of Saucon creek, who bought other lands at different times, and in 1743 he was the owner of six hundred acres in a body. The same year he conveyed the whole tract to George Cruikshank, from the West Indies, who settled on it, and built a cabin near the mouth of Saucon creek. He was a man of learning and taste, and his location was a delightful one, with beautiful scenery, and an abundance of game on the hills, and fine trout in the streams. Himself and family became almost hermits living so far from civilized society. It was at his house that William Satterthwaite, John Watson, and Pellar used to meet to talk poetry and otherwise enjoy themselves when Watson was surveying public lands in that section. Irish erected the first mill on the Lehigh, about where Shimersville
2 The lands in the Lehigh valley were thrown open to settlement in 1734.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
stands, the ruins of which are still to be seen. He was commissioned a justice of the peace in 1741, and was a leading man of that region. The third tract, although the first to be located, was the farm of Isaac Martens Ysselstein, of Low Dutch parentage, who lived at at Esopus in 1725, and immigrated to the Lehigh in 1737. In the spring of 1739 a sudden rise in the river washed away his cabin. He died July 26th, 1742, and was buried on his farm. He left six daughters. When the Moravians arrived on the Lehigh in 1740, Ysselstein treated them with great kindness. One of his daughters married Philip Rudolph Haymer, and at his death she was again married to John Frederick Shoffer, in 1746, the seventh land- lord of the "Crown inn." The maiden-name of Mrs. Ysselstein was Rachel Bogart. In 1734 one hundred and seventy-eight acres, and an island of ten acres, were surveyed to David Potts, of this county, which he assigned to Ysselstein in December, 1738, who received a deed from William Allen in 1740, for £100. It lay just west of the Irish tract, and is now covered by the flourishing town of South Bethlehem. In December, 1739, Ysselstein bought seven- ty-five acres of Irish, and in 1749 his widow conveyed the whole tract to the Moravians.
In 1740 the Proprietaries conveyed two hundred acres on Saucon creek to Reverend John Philip Bohnn, of Whitpain, Montgomery county, who deeded it to his son Anthony in 1747, who settled upon it. In the autunin of 1743 a shoemaker, John David Behringer, and his wife Gertrude, settled where South Bethlehem stands, and lived in a log house on the edge of what is known as the Simpson tract. He was appointed ferryman in 1746, and was assisted by one Matthew Hoffman, late from Berks county. Behringer was one of the first shoemakers on the Lehigli, and had customers from the Minisinks. In 1744 George Hartman bought eighty acres of mount- ain land south of the Lehigh, and known within a few years as the Hoffert farm. John Lischer, an old man, from Oley, in Berks county, built a cabin and cleared and improved about three acres on the side of the mountain in 1750, now included in the grounds of the Lehigh University. Two years afterward the Moravians pur- chased the whole tract when Lischer moved away. Conrad Ruet- schi, a Swiss, who sailed from England in May, 1735, was one of the earliest squatters on the south bank of the Lehigh. He was there before 1741, and the Moravians bought his cabin and improve- ments two years afterward. About 1743 Adam Schaus removed
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