USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 49
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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 cach 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 region was first brought into notice in May, 1701,
: 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 mouthi 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 autumn 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 Lehigh, 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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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from Falkner's swamp, Montgomery county, to Saucon township, below Bethlehem, where he opened the first house of entertainment on the Lehigh. In it a son, Gottlieb, was born in 1744. He re- moved to Bethlehem about the spring of 1746 to take charge of the mill, and afterward to Easton, where he kept tavern in 1760. Adam Schaus, the ancestor of the Schauses of Northampton, immigrated from the Lower Palitinate, with his wife and three children, about 1735. He was a millwright by trade, and assisted to build the Bethlehem grist-mill in 1743, and was the first ferryman at Beth- lehiem. His tavern, on the Lehigh, was a mile below Bethlehem, and the 24th of June, 1745, he went to Newtown to take out his license. A slate-quarry was opened on the north side of Saucon creek, near Lawick hill, as early as 1742. Among the earliest set- besides those named, were Christian Ludwig, Stoffel and Simon Heller, and John Wister was an early land-owner in the township, but there is no record of the date of their coming. Wister's tract is now owned by John Knecht.
In the spring of 1742 the settlers on the south bank of the Le- high, believing they had population enough to be organized into a township, and which their necessities required, several of the in- habitants "on and near Saucon" petitioned the court to confirm a township they had laid out and surveyed, in April. They had agreed unanimously to call it "Saucon ;" but on the back of the petition is endorsed what is, no doubt, the Indian name, "Saw- kunk," while on the draft of the township the name of the creek is spelled "Socunk."3 The township as laid out, and which was not confirmed until the spring of 1743, contained but four thousand three hundred and twelve acres. It was nearly square, and touched the lines of Milford, Lower Milford, and Springfield. An entry in an old docket states that the petition, with draft of township, was presented at March term, 1743, and was confirmed. The names of the petitioners are, Christian Newcomb, Philip Kissinger, George Sobus, Henry Rinkard, John Yoder, John Reeser, Christian Smith, Henry Bowman, Samuel Newcomb, Benidick Koman, Felty Stay- mets, Henry Rinkard, jr., George Troon, Adam Wanner, Owen Owen, Thomas Owen, John Williams, John Tool, John Thomas, Joseph Samuel, Isaac Samuel, William Murry, Michael Narer, Jolin
3 An authority gives the spelling Sak-unk, meaning "at the place of the creek's mouth." There is supposed to have been a populous Indian village at the mouth of Saucon creek, near Shimersville.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Apple, Jacob Gonner, Henry Keerer, George Bockman, George Marksteler, and Henry Rumfold.
In the summer of 1745, after the Moravians had planted them- selves on the north bank, they erected a white-oak log structure, forty by twenty-eight feet, for a house of entertainment, on the south bank of the Lehigh. It was two stories high, had high gable roof, four rooms on each story, floored with half-inch white-oak plank, and the doors secured with wooden bolts and latches, and it stood on the site of the union-depot, South Bethlehem. It was finished late in the autumn, and license was granted at the next June term of the quarter sessions, 1746. This was the first public house on the Lehigh that rose to the dignity of a tavern, and was managed in the interest of the Moravian brethren. Mr. Reichel says of this primitive inn : "It was stocked with gill and half-gill pewter wine measures, with two dram-glasses, two hogsheads of cider, one cask of metheglin, one cask of rum, six pewter plates, iron candlesticks, and whatever else could minister to the creature-comforts of the . tired traveler. Here he was served with a breakfast of tea and coffee at four-pence, a dinner at six-pence, a pint of beer at three- pence, a supper at four-pence, or if hot at six-pence, with lodging at two-pence, and night's hay and oats for his horse at twelve-pence."
The tract on which the Crown stood was bought of William Allen, in February, 1743, and contained twelve hundred acres. This old hostelry went by several names, but in 1760 a new sign, emblazoned with a likeness of the British crown was swung from its side, and it was ever after known as "The Crown." In 1794, on the comple- tion of the bridge over the river, the building was transformed into a quiet farm-house, and when the union-depot was about to be erected, it was sold and removed, and is now known as the " Con -. tinental hotel," South Bethlehem.+ The sign of the Crown is said to have been a frequent target for Indian arrows. In the early days the musicians of the church-choir, performing hymns on their instruments, accompanied the harvesters as they went forth to cut grain on the Crown farm, all who could leave, men, women, and children, assisting. A shield, surrounded by a crown, made of oak wood taken from the old Crown inn, and covered with locks, hinges. and a clasp-knife that once belonged to the old hostelry, are now in the Moravian Historical society, at Nazareth. The Crown was
+ There are those who assert that the original log building was the hut of a Swiss settler, named Ritchie, who settled there in 1742, and built it in 1743.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
often a place of refuge for the settlers on the frontiers when threat- ened by Indians. A barn was built on the premises in 1747. Five different landlords presided over the destinies of the Crown while it remained in Bucks county, namely : Samuel Ponell and Martha his wife, of county of Salop, England, brasier, immigrated June, 1742, died in Philadelphia, 1762, Frederick Hartman, and Margaret his wife, a German who immigrated before 1740, and probably died at Narazeth in 1756, Jobst Vollert, and wife Mary, from Chester county, who retired from it November 2d, 1745, Hartman Verdriess, or Vandriess, of Lancaster county, miller, who vacated March 29th, 1752, and died in Frederick county, Maryland, in 1774. He was succeeded the same day by John Leighton, of Dundee, Scotland, and Sarah his wife, who immigrated in 1743. The inn was visited by distinguished persons, and occasionally by the governor of the province, and during Indian disturbances it was frequently occupied by the military. In 1762 the inn and its appurtenances were ap- praised at $267.95. The Crown inn was built on what is known as the Simpson tract, whose title runs in this wise: Deed of William Penn for five thousand acres to William and Margaret Lother, October, 1681, to be laid out in Pennsylvania, in such place as should be agreed upon. On the death of her brother, Margaret inherited his share and sold the entire grant to her daughter Mar- garet Pool who, with her husband, conveyed it to Joseph Stanwix, September 23d, 1731. The latter sold it in January, 1732, to John Simpson, of Tower Hill, London, merchant. In 1743 the Mo- ravians bought two hundred and seventy acres of this tract for £200, extending up the river as high as Calypso island, and down below the depot-buildings. This purchase gave them the control of both banks of the river at this point.
We learn, from the register of the Crown, that settlers of the sur- rounding country made frequent visits to this popular resort, on business, or to partake of the good cheer to be found there. Among those who came were the Webers, Laubachs, Lerchs, Bachmans, and Freemans,5 of Saucon, from Macungie and Salisbury the Knausses, Guths, Kræmers, Kemmerers, Ritters, and Zimmermans, from about Nazareth the Clevels, Bosserts, Lefevres, Scholls, and the Tromms, the Craigs, Browns, Horners, Gibsons, McCaas and the Campbells from Craig's settlement. Iron men came there from
5 The ancestor of the Freemans, of Freemansburg, was Richard Freeman, born in Cecil county, Maryland, n 1717, and died in Saucon in 1784.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Durham, Hopewell, and other forges, from the Minisinks came the Brodheads, Deckers, Salades, with deer-skins and other productions, to barter.
Before 1747 a graveyard was laid out on the south side of the Lehigh, on the hill near the ferry and Crown inn, as a burial-place for the Moravians of Sancon. The 12th of January, that year, the wife of Frederick Hartman was buried there, and in all is a record of nineteen interments in the next twenty years. William Tatamy, son of Moses, an interpreter to David Brainard, was buried there, and tradition tells us that several Revolutionary soldiers from the Continental hospitals at Bethlehem found a last resting place in this old graveyard.6
The 25th of May, 1747, a boarding-school for boys was opened on the south bank of the Lehigh, in the "Behringer " house, which stood just below the New street bridge. It was occupied as a girl's- school in May, 1749, and was so continued until December, 1753, when it was converted into a hat manufactory. The house was probably pulled down prior to 1757.
When white settlers first located on the Lehigh it was a beautiful and romantic stream. The shores were lined with birch, sycamore and maple trees, their branches overhung the stream, and the water abounded in shad, herring, trout, suckers and eels, which the In- dians caught in great quantities. The flats on either side were not heavily timbered, but covered with shrubbery and scrub-oak, with occasional knots of large walnuts, oaks, and chestnut, while on the bosom of the river floated the canoes of the Delawares, Mohicans, Nanticokes, the Shawnees, and other savage denizens of this and neighboring regions.
The surface of this township is hilly, the soil fertile and well- improved. It is well-watered by the Lehigh river, Saucon creek, and their tributaries, which afford many fine mill sites. When cut off from Bucks county in 1752 the population was about seven hun- dred, which had increased to two thousand seven hundred and ten in 1840. The country population is mostly German. South Beth- lehem, the largest town, is one of the most flourishing in the valley, with a population of nearly six thousand. It has one of the largest rail-mills in the world. The soil contains large quantities of iron and other minerals.
At what time Sancon was divided into Upper and Lower Saucon
6 E. P. Wilber's hot-house is thought to occupy the site of the graveyard.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
is not known, but probably soon after the present township was or- ganized. In 1743 constables and supervisors were appointed for both Saucon and Lower Saucon, and these two names were in use in 1745. It is possible that Saucon was divided for the convenience of municipal purposes before a second township organization was granted, which was the case with other townships. But however this may be, the following are the names of those who petitioned for the formation of Lower Sancon : George Hertzel, Henry Hertzel, Paul Frantz, Matthias Riegel, Christian Laubach, John Danishauss, Jacob Hertzel, Jacob Maurer, Matthes Menchner, Frederick Weber, Diter Kauss, Max Gumschæfer, Joerg Freimann, Rudolph Owerle, George Peter Knecht, Michael Lintz, Peter Risser, Joel Arnimer, Rudolph Illig.
MACUNGIE .- This township, which originally embraced the terri- tory now included in Upper and Lower Macungie, Lchigh county, is bounded on the south-west by Montgomery county. Its settle- ment was contemporaneous with the upper parts of Bucks and Montgomery, and the first-comers were Germans. No doubt set- tlers were in the woods of Macungie soon after 1730, for when cut off from Bucks in 1752 the population was six hundred and fifty. The two Macungies were called Macaunsie and Macquenusie prior to 1735. In January, 1730, a road was opened from their settle- ments to Goshenhoppen. The Moravians were among them as early as 1742, and in 1754 a congregation was organized among the settlers near the South mountain, south-west from Allentown.
The inhabitants took their first steps toward the formation of a township in 1742, and on the 28th of January, they caused it to be surveyed by Edward Scull. The area was twenty-nine thousand two hundred acres. On the 16th of June, 1743, they petitioned the quarter sessions to lay off their township according to the survey, the petitioners stating that they had " lived there this many years without any township layed out." Their prayer was granted and the township organized as desired. The names of those who petitioned were Peter Tracksler, Henry Sheath, Jeremiah Tracksler, John Ecle, Frederick Rowey, Peter Walbert, jr., Philip Smies, Joseph Albright, Jacob Wagner, Melchoir Smith, George Stin- inger, Jacob Mier, George Hayn, Adam Cook, Casper Mier, Kayde Crim, John Clymer and Adam Prous. We are entirely in the dark as to the date when these settlers came into the township, or where they located, for we have no records to enlighten us.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
In March, 1749, the inhabitants petitioned the court for a road " from Casper Wiester's plantation at the place called Jourdan to George Good's mill, and thence to the great road called Macongey road." The names attached to this petition are likewise wholly German, viz .: Peter Drexler, John Liechtenwaultner, Frederick Nungesser, William Meyer, Heinrich Stanninger, Stoffel Stetler, Michael Kichel, Andress Meyer, Milton Schnick, Bregorius Scholtze, Philip Wendelklaus, Johannes Schmitt, Jacob Schlauch, Loren Schaatt, Bernhart Schmitt, Frederick Romich, Heinrich Drexler, Melchior M. Schmid, Peter Haas, David Gisty, Peter Potner, and Nicholas Figler. In 1745 Conrad Culp applied for license to keep a public house in Macungie, probably the first tavern in the town- ship. In 1746 Kulp and John Traxeler, both applied for license, the latter new. John Brandbury was appointed constable for this township as early as 1737.
The surface of Macungie & is generally level, and the soil produc- tive. It was divided into Upper and Lower Macungie, forty years ago.
SALISBURY.9-This township lies on the Lehigh, above and adjoining Saucon, and was peopled about the same period. The 18th of March, 1732, John, Thomas, and Richard Penn issued their warrant to the surveyor-general, to lay out a tract of five thousand acres in Pennsylvania, to Thomas Penn and his heirs. Penn as- signed the warrant to Joseph Turner, and Turner to William Allen, of Philadelphia, September 10th, 1736. By virtue of these several assignments and the warrant itself, there were surveyed to William Allen five thousand acres in the upper part of Bucks, on both sides of the Lehigh. A portion of this land lays in Salisbury township. The same year other grants were made in this section, near the Lehigh, and probably a portion of them in this township: Thomas Græme, two thousand acres, James Bingham, two thousand, Casper Wister, one thousand five hundred, James Hamilton, one thousand, Patrick Græme, one thousand, all in five hundred acre tracts. The same year three thousand acres, in six parcels of five hundred acres each, were granted on the Lehigh, in the neighborhood of Allen- town, upon part of which that town was laid out by Chief-Justice Allen, prior to 1752. A portion of this tract lay in Salisbury.
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