USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 52
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The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians had not been long seated on Deep run before they organized a church, which took the name of that stream, and bears it to this day. A log meeting-house was built near the creek, in the south-west corner of the township, as early as 1732, and the first settled minister was there six years later. It was the original place of worship of all the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of that region of country, and although it has lost its importance since the organization of the Doylestown church, it nevertheless remains the cradle of Presbyterianisin north of Nesham- iny. There must have been a small frontier congregation there as early as 1726, for when Mr. Tennent was called to Neshaminy in that year, he preached for them. At this time there is hardly a Presbyterian family in the bounds of the old congregation, and ser- vice is only held there at long intervals. In the old graveyard lie the remains of former generations, the inscriptions on the tomb- stones carrying us back nearly a century and a half. We read on these mute memorials of the past, that Alexander Williams died January 22d, 1747, Samuel Hart, jr., 1750, Samuel Cochran in 1767, Thomas Thompson in 1765, James Grier in 1763, John Grier in 1768, and William Hart, who was killed at the capture of
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Moses Doane, at the age of forty, in 1783. At a later day were buried there, Robert Barnhill, Robert McNeeley, Thomas Darrah, Robert Robinson, and others of the fathers of the township.
The Reverend Francis McHenry settled in the township in 1738, four years before it was organized, when he was called as pastor at Deep Run. His son Charles, who was a lieutenant in the Revolu- tionary army, made a narrow escape at the massacre of Paoli, in 1777. Hearing the alarm of the British attack, he rose from his bed and went to the door of his tent, where he was confronted by a dragoon, who struck him over the head with his sabre. The blow glanced from his head and fell upon his collar-bone. He imme- diately run the Englishman through the body with his sword, who rolled off his horse, which McHenry mounted. He had accidentally put on his military cloak with the scarlet lining outside, by which he was mistaken for a British soldier, and in the confusion he man- aged to escape, pretty badly wounded. Among other articles found in the dragoon's portmanteau was a pair of horse-shoes with nails- one of the shoes being now in the possession of William McHenry, of Pike county. It weighs about two pounds, has heavy heel-corks, but none at the toe, and was made without any fullering around it, but with a square counter-sink for each nail-head. The horse was a very fine one, which the captor sold in Philadelphia, and he is said to have drawn a ton of pig-iron on the ground with a chain. Nathan and Agnes Grier were early immigrants from Ireland, and members of Deep Run church. One account tells us they lived in Plumstead and another in Bedminster, but at all events they were in the bounds of the congregation. This family gave three members to the ministry, James and Nathan, their sons, and John Ferguson, the son of James. James became pastor of Deep Run and spent his life there. Nathan, born in 1760, graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1783, was licensed to preach in 1786, and installed at Forks of Brandywine in 1787. His wife was a grandaunt of General Percifer F. Smith, distinguished in the Mexican war. Nathan Grier died in 1814. John Ferguson Grier was born in 1784, and graduated at Dickinson college with the first honors, in 1803. He studied divinity with his uncle Nathan, and was installed pastor of Reading Presbyterian church in 1814, and died there in 1829. The late Judge Grier, of the supreme court of the United States, is said to have been a descendant of Nathan and Agnes Grier.1
1 For a further account of Deep Run church, see chapter on Historical Churches.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The distinguished Orr family of South Carolina claims descent from Bucks county ancestry. The Orrs were in this county early. The first of the name was Humphrey Orr, who took up near two hundred acres on the Tohickon, then in Plumstead, but now in Bedminster, at the point where the Durham road crosses that stream, which was known as "John Orr's ford" until a bridge was built. What time Humphrey settled there is not known. He was probably there as early as about 1730, and perhaps earlier, and died about 1736, leaving a widow, Elizabeth. On the 13th of June, 1737, John Orr, of county Donegal, Ireland, the only son of Humphrey Orr, appointed his friend Andrew Henderson, merchant, his attorney, to collect and receive all estate left him by his father, the said Humphrey, lately deceased, "of Bucks county, Pennsyl- vania." Soon after, John Orr immigrated to America and settled on the farm he inherited from his father in Bedminster, where he lived to his death, in 1762. His will is dated December 4th, 1761, and probated June 16th, the following year. In it he metions his wife, Jane, son, Thomas, daughter, Isabella Patterson, and grand- child, Rebecca, but no others. There was a John Orr in Bedminster in 1846, and a Samuel Orr in Hilltown in 1860, but we know of none of the name in the county now, although there may be. In the land-office, Harrisburg, there is a record of a warrant to John Orr for two hundred acres in Makefield township, now Upper Makefield, dated 19th March, 1733. We also learn from the same source that in Streaper's tract of four thousand eight hundred and forty-one acres, situated between the Delaware and Tohickon creek, as divided in May, 1738, lot No. 4, containing one hundred and eighty acres, (on said creek), is marked to John Orr. On the sepa- rate draft of this parcel it is stated that it " was surveyed to John McCoy, who sold his improvement to John Orr, who is now seated on the same." It was confirmed to Orr by patent dated 12th of December, 1745.
The South Carolina Orrs trace descent from Robert, probably a son of John, who went to North Carolina prior to the Revolution, where he lived during the war, and had five sons in it, John dis- tinguishing himself as a captain of cavalry. Robert Orr had nine sons and one daughter, and after the war several of them removed to South Carolina. Among them were Benjamin and Samuel, Bap- tist ministers, who would not remain in that state on account of their hostility to negro slavery, but removed with their families to
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the territory, north-west of the Ohio. Their brother Christopher settled in the Indian territory of north Georgia, where he became rich in this world's goods, and in a family of nine children, and died at a good old age. John Orr's first wife was a Miss Green of Penn- sylvania, by whom he had four sons, double twins, and two daugh- ters, and his second Jane B. Chickscales of South Carolina, by whom he liad one son, Christopher. He married Martha McCann, and had five children, the late James L. Orr, of South Carolina, being the second son, born the 12th of May, 1822, in Anderson dis- trict, and who became the most distinguished member of the family. After receiving a good preliminary education at the schools of the neighborhood, he entered the University of Virginia at the age of eighteen, whence he graduated, and was admitted to the bar at twenty-one. He married Miss Mary J. Marshall the following No- vember. His political life commenced almost immediately. He was elected to the Legislature in 1844 and 1846, and in 1848 he defeated Honorable B. F. Perry, the leading man and statesman of upper Carolina for Congress. Perry denominated young Orr "that stripling," and laughed at his "presumption" in being a candidate, but at the close of the campaign the laugh had changed sides. He continued in Congress from 1848 to 1859, and was elected speaker of the Thirty-fifth Congress. When secession began to make head- way in South Carolina he opposed it with all his might until he found the current too strong to stem, when he went with it. He commanded a regiment of rifles for a few months, when he was unanimously elected to the Confederate senate without his knowl- edge, in which body he served to the end. He is noted as advo- cating President Lincoln's proposition for the South to lay down her arms and come back into the Union. He was pardoned soon after the war, and in 1865 was elected governor of South Carolina over Wade Hampton, and while in office took active steps to sup- press lawlessness in the state. The reconstruction laws deprived him of office in 1867, but in 1868 he was elected by the legislature judge of the Eighth district against his will, but which he accepted and held to December, 1872. His administration of the law gave universal satisfaction, and when he left the bench all old debts had been wiped out, and the district was in peace and the laws re- spected. In 1872 he was tendered the position of United States minister to one of the South American republics, which he declined, and in December of the same year he was appointed minister to
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Russia. When he embarked at New York, where he contracted a heavy cold, in January, 1873, the thermometer was twenty degrees below zero, a change of sixty degrees since he left his home in Carolina. At Paris his physicians recommended quiet, but he hur- ried forward, and at Berlin he was two days in bed. By the time he reached Petersburg, with the thermometer at twenty-three de- grees below zero, he was hardly in a condition to attend to business. There he rapidly grew worse, and died at his post May 5th, 1873, a few days before reaching his fifty-first year.
James L. Orr left a family of five children, three sons and two daughters. The oldest, James L. Orr, jr., born in 1852, and educated at the University of Virginia, was secretary of legation while his father was minister to Russia. He was admitted to the bar in 1873, and has since been a member of the South Carolina legislature. Of the remaining children of Christopher Orr, Harvey J. is a physician of Mississippi, John A., who commanded a Confederate regiment dur- ing the late war, and was a member of the Confederate congress, is now a circuit-judge of Mississippi, and Elvina married General Joel S. Miller, of Spartinsburg, South Carolina.
The Darrahs of this county, and other parts of the state and Union, are descended from a Scotch-Irish ancestor who settled at Deep run. Thomas Darrah came from the north of Ireland about 1725, and settled in Horsham, now in Montgomery county. After living there a few years he sold his property and removed to Bedmin- ster, where he patented about eight hundred acres of land. Who, and when, he married we know not, but at his death in 1750 he left his estate to his two eldest sons, the other sons having been taught mechanical trades. He left five sons and three daughters, viz. : Robert, Thomas, Henry, William, James, Susannah, and two others, names not known. The oldest son, Robert, married a Jacoby, whose descendants live in the lower part of the county ; the second son, Thomas, had two sons, Thomas and Mark, and several daughters, and their descendants are numerous. Thomas married twice, his second wife being a daughter of Colonel Piper, of Bedminster, and had seven children. The wife of Charles Wig- ton, of Doylestown, is a daughter of Thomas Darrah the third. The daughters of Thomas Darrah the second married into the families of Phair, Denny, Ferguson, Walker, and Bryan. Henry, the third son of Thomas Darralı, married Ann Jamison, and removed to New Britain, now in the upper end of Warrington,
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
where Henry Weisel lives. He was a captain of militia during the Revolution, and served several tours of duty under General Lacey and others; was probably in the Amboy expedition, in 1776, and died in 1772, from cold contracted in service, and was buried at Deep run. The family have a tradition that General Washing- ton several times stopped over night with Henry Darrah, and that on such occasions the children were sent to a neighbor's, that he might not be disturbed by their noise. His children were James, William, John George, Ann, and Margaret. James married Rachel Henderson, of Warminster, into which township he moved, and where he died. The late Robert Darrah, of Warminster, ensign in the war of 1812, was his eldest son, and the Reverend James A. Darrah, of Missouri, his grandson. The Reverend D. K. Turner, of Hartsville, married two granddaughters of James, and daughters of Robert Darrah. The descendants of Henry Darrah are numerous and much scattered, in this state, and south and west. Among them is Henry D. Livezey, of Doylestown. William, the fourth son of Thomas Darrah, the elder, had seven children, Archibald and William, and five daughters. Of the daughters one was the mother of Honorable William D. Kelley, another of the late Samuel A. Smith, and a third of the late Commodore Shaw. James, the fifth son, an ensign in the French and Indian war, lived and died in the Shenandoah valley. William Darrah, the elder, served in Benja- min Franklin's regiment on the Lehigh frontiers in 1756-57.
William Armstrong, an early settler in Bedminster, was of Scotch- Irish descent, whose line can be traced back to John Armstrong, chief of the border clan of that name, who was treacheronsly mur- dered by James V., of Scotland. His father was an officer at the siege of Derry, and William, with his wife, Mary, and three sons, immigrated from county Fermanagh, Ireland, to America, in 1736. Himself and wife were members of the Presbyterian church, and brought with them a certificate signed by twenty of their neighbors and friends testifying to their good character. He probably settled in Bedminster soon after his arrival, for we find that he built a man- sion there in 1740, known for many years as the "Armstrong house," and he was one of the petitioners for the township in 1741. The 30th of December, 1747, he received from Thomas and Richard Penn a patent for three hundred acres of land on the south bank of the Tohickon, and in 1745 he bought one hundred and four acres more, probably having possession several years before receiving
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the patents. William Armstrong is represented as a man of educa- tion and intelligence, of great physical strength, and an excellent swordsman. He died about 1785. He had five sons, Andrew, John, Thomas, James and Samuel. Of these, Andrew and James married Van de Woestynes, of Hilltown, John, the sister, and Thomas, the daughter, of Reverend Francis McHenry, then pastor at Deep Run, and Samuel a daughter of Robert Gibson. Thomas and Samuel served in the Revolutionary army, the former a lieutenant. Jesse Armstrong, of Doylestown, is a descendant of William Arm- strong.
Jacob Wismer, who died at Deep run, February 4th,2 1787, in his one hundred and third year, was an early settler in the county, but we cannot tell at what time he came into Bedminster. He was born in Germany, and before 1720 immigrated to North Carolina, where he lived ten years, and then removed to this county, where he mar- ried his third wife, with whom he lived sixty-seven years. This would bring him into this county as early as 1720. Jacob "Weis- more," signed to the petition for the township, 1741 was, no doubt, meant for Jacob Wismer. He had one hundred and seventy chil- dren and grandchildren, and his widow was eighty-four at his death He retained his senses until within about two months, and could walk out and dress and undress himself until within about two weeks, of his death. In 1744 Adam Resher bought fifty-six acres on the Tohickon, and in 1749 Adam Peyzer purchased land along the same stream.
Samuel Ayres, an immigrant from county Antrim, Ireland, settled at Deep run about 1746, and died the following year. His son William removed to the vicinity of Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery county, where his descendants are now living, having intermarried, among others, with the families of Yerkes, McNiell, and Comly. The mother of F. A. Comly, president of the North Pennsylvania railroad, was Eliza Ayres, great-granddaughter of Samuel, of Deep run, and granddaughter of William Ayres, who settled at Hunting- don Valley. Robert McNeely was an early settler in Bedminster, but we do not know at what time. He was a leading man in the Presbyterian church, and died in 1796. His wife's name was Rebecca, and his children, John, Robert, Andrew, William, Joseph, and Margret. Dilman Kolp, probably Kolb, was living in the township before 1746, and his land abutted on the Mennonite farm.
2 Columbian Magazine.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The first movement toward the organization of a township was made in March, 1741, when "thirty-five inhabitants of Deep run" petitioned the quarter sessions to form the territory into a township, with the following boundaries : " Beginning upon Plumstead corner, coming along that line to Hilltown corner, and from that line to Rockhill corner, and down Tohickon till it closes at Plumstead corner, where it begins." The names attached to this petition give us some insight into the quality of men who peopled the woods north of Plumstead, namely : James Hughes, Robert Smith, Abra- ham Black, William Armstrong, John Graham, John Ree, George McFerrin, Adam Thompson, Mr. Miller, Thomas Darroch, Mark Overhold, Martin Overhold, Nicholas Ogeny, Jacob Leatherman, Jacob Weismore, John Fretts, William Graham, Joseph Townsend, Henry Groud, Michael Lott, David Kulp, Daniel Norcauk, John Bois, Joseph Armstrong, John Riffle, Ralph Trough, Fetter Ryner, Matthew Ree, Andrew Sloan, Tillman Kulp, Christian Stover, George Lynard, John Clymer, Nicholas Kean, and Frederick Croft. We have given the spelling of these names as we find them on the records, although some of them are evidently erroneous. The prayer of the petitioners was granted at the March term, 1742, and the court appointed as jurors John Kelley, William James, Griffith Davis, and Lewis Evins, with John Chapman as surveyor. The township was surveyed and laid out sometime during the year, and the boundaries returned were about the same as at present. On the report of the jury is endorsed the following : "Confirmed with the name of Bedminster."3 In the report the Tohickon is spelled "To- hickney," and they give "Socunk" as the name of a place, whose locality is now entirely unknown. The area of Bedminster is sixteen thousand and fifty-eight acres.+
Although the original settlers of Bedminster were English-speak- ing, the Germans were not far behind them. The first of this race were Mennonites, who settled on and near Deep run, on the banks of which stream they erected a log church in 1746. On the 24th of March, William Allen gave the congregation the church-lot and a farm of fifty acres, the deed being executed in trust to Abraham Swartz, Hans Friedt, Samuel Kolb, and Marcus Oberholtzer, bishops
3 Probably named after the parish of Bedminster, county of Somerset, England.
4 In the petition for the organization of Tinicum in 1738, Bedminster is mentioned as a "township," and probably was one for all practical purposes, but it was not con- stituted one by law until 1742.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and deacons. He gave them at the same time a silver-eup, still used for sacramental purposes. In 1766 the log house was replaced by a stone one, about fifty yards from the former, on a knoll on the north bank of the creek. The old house was used for a school-house for many years, and was not taken down until 1842. The stone building, enlarged and repaired in 1794, was torn down in 1872, and a modern structure erected on or near its site. The first minis- ter to officiate was Abraham Swartz, who became blind the latter part of his ministry. After that it was his custom to get one of the congregation to read a portion of Scripture, from which he selected his text and preached a sermon. After Mr. Swartz, the ministers and deacons, in their order, were Jacob Gross, Abraham Wismer, Abraham Oberholtzer, Daniel Landes, Christian Gross, Abraham Kulp, Abraham Moyer, Isaac Meyers, Samuel Godshalk. and John Gross, ministers, and Henry Moyer, Joseph Nash, Abra- ham Fretz, Abraham Wismer, Samuel Shelly, Jacob Oberholtzer, and Abraham Moyer, deacons, all deceased. The present ministers are Isaac Meyers, Samuel Godshalk, and John Gross; and Jacob Oberholtzer, and Abraham Meyers, deacons.
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OLD MENNONITE CHURCHI, BEDMINSTER.
The congregation was divided by a schism in 1849, when a portion of the members went off. The seceders built a new meeting-house a few hundred yards from the old one, where a small body continues to worship. The old congregation is one of the largest and most
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flourishing in the county. By a clause in the deed, the real estate reverts to the heirs of William Allen, if regular service in the church be omitted for the period of five years, but the title would re-in- vest in the society, if a minister should be again ordained. Con- tinued service has been held there since the first house was built in 1746. Abraham Godshalk, who is said to have been a deacon of the church at one time, was the author of a work, entitled, "A Description of the New Creature from its birth until grown into a perfect man," printed at Doylestown by William M. Large, in 1838. He was a man of strong mind, and extensive reading, but without early education. He wrote considerably in prose and verse. Jacob Gross was an immigrant from Germany.
The author visited the old stone meeting-house in the spring of 1872, a few days before it was pulled down, to make way for the new one, at the time the accompanying sketch was made. Inside and out it had all the quaintness of its day and generation, low eaves, steep roof, heavy cornices, and the doors in the portion for- merly used as a dwelling in two parts, an upper and a lower. The men, as well as the women, sat on benches without backs, those for the women ranged across the room, those for the men along either side, each successive bench being placed at a little higher elevation as they proceeded towards the wall, with rows of pegs suspended from the ceiling and also in the wall to hang their hats upon. On the north end was a vestibule provided with pegs and shelves for the cloaks and bonnets of the women. Across the central por- tion of the south end was a raised platform with a long desk, used as a pulpit, on which laid a German Bible, printed at Germantown, Pennsylvania, by Christopher Saur in 1743, with heavy back and brass clasps, and beside it were two hymn-books, also in German, which bore the imprint of 1803. The two old-fashioned stoves were no doubt cast to be put into the first stone meeting-house built there, for one of them bore the inscription, "Matthias G. Melin, May 28th, 1766," and the other, " Abraham Meier, 1766."
The Eckels were probably among the earliest of the German set- tlers in Bedminster. The grandfather of the late John Eckel, dead many years, came from the borders of France and Germany, and settled near Deep Run meeting-house. Shortly afterward he re- turned to Europe on business, and on his way home was taken sick, and died at Philadelphia, and his body was buried in Tohickon grave- yard. He left three children, two sons and one daughter. John
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
married and settled near Frenchtown, New Jersey, Henry married a Moser, of Oley, Berks county, and remained at the homestead in Bedminster. He had three sons and five daughters, who married and raised families. Several of the sons were tanners by trade. Several generations of Eckels resided on the homestead, son suc- ceeding father, but it has now passed into the hands of strangers. The only surviving child of John Eckel, a son of Henry, is the widow of the late David Spinner, of Milford. John Eckel, mer- chant, of Philadelphia, is a descendant of the family.
The Tohickon church, Lutheran and Reformed, is situated in the north-west corner of the township, a few hundred yards south of the point where the Old Bethlehem road crosses Tohickon creek. At what time the congregation was organized is not known, for the re- cords do not go back to that early period. It was of some size in 1754, and for the last ten years had been visited by Lutheran minis- ters, among whom were Messrs. Rauss and Schultz. The congre- gation was too poor to pay the salary of a regular minister, or even the half or third of it. They had managed to build a parsonage and school-house by 1754, but we have no record of a church being built at that time. The first church building was of logs, and the two subsequent ones of stone, the present building, a large and sub- stantial one, being built in 1838. An old lady died in the neigh- borhood a few years ago, aged nearly an hundred, who remembered the building of all three of the churches. The lot was the gift of Andrew and Charles Keichline, and for many years it was called Keichline's church. Peter Gruber, a large land-owner in the town- ship, gave an acre and a quarter for the use of the congregation, probably for a burying-ground, which was re-surveyed and the cor- ners fixed by Samuel Foulkein 1793. The present church has seating capacity for one thousand persons, the two congregations numbering about seventeen hundred. In the gallery is a large pipe-organ, built in Lehigh county in 1839, probably the first in a German church in the county.
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