USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 54
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John Mann, the grandfather of Colonel Joseph Mann, of Haycock, was an early settler in Springfield. He was born in the Palatinate, June 24th, 1730, and settled, when a young man, near Pleasant Hill, where he died April 14th, 1815, and was buried at Spring- field church, of which himself and wife were members. She died April 28th, 1813.
Jacob and Elizabeth Ritter came to America when young, and bound themselves as servants to pay for their passage. He served three years and she four, and when free they married and settled in Springfield, where they spent their lives. We know of but one son, Jacob, born in 1757. He enlisted as a soldier in the Revolu- tionary army, and was taken prisoner at Brandywine. In 177S he married Dorothy Smith, and moved to Philadelphia. At her death, in 1794, he came with his children to Springfield, and in 1802 he married Ann Williams, of Buckingham, In 1812 he removed to Plymouth township, Montgomery county, where he resided to his death in 1841. He was a minister among Friends for fifty years.
The Apple family, early settlers, was long an influential one in the township. It is descended from John Apple, who was born in Deutschland, (Germany), May 18th, 1726, came to America when a young man, and purchased two hundred and fifty acres in Lower Saucon, near what is now Apple's church. He afterward
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
bought two large tracts in Springfield, one in Pleasant valley, and the other partly in Haycock, and died September 1st, 1805, in his eightieth year. He had one son, Paul, born September 13th, 1759, who died November 25th, 1827, in his sixty-ninth year. At his father's death he came into possession of the Pleasant valley farm, on which he built a mill, and where he lived and died. He was elected to the legislature in 1800, and served four years. Paul Apple had six children : Maria, born May 14th, 1781, died July 29th, 1854; Jacob, born May 8th, 1784, died August 17th, 1832, was a miller, and lived and died in Pleasant valley; John, born August 10th, 1786, and died March 26th, 1869. He was a member of the legislature during the financial panic of 1837, and when an attempt was made to influence his vote in favor of the issue of " Relief notes," he replied there was not money enough in Harris- burg to buy him. He also lived and died at the ancestral homestead in Pleasant valley. Elizabeth was born in 1794, married Samuel Ott, and is living in Hilltown, and Hannah, the youngest daughter, married a Mr. Goundie, and is living at Allentown. Andrew Apple, late associate judge of this county, was the youngest son of Paul Apple. He held several places of public trust, which he discharged with fidelity. In 1814 he served a tour of duty at Marcus Hook as lieutenant in command of a company of militia, and after the war commanded a volunteer company for several years. He was in succession elected to the offices of county commissioner, treasurer, director of the poor, and twice associate-judge. He lived several years in retirement at the old homestead in Pleasant valley, but toward the close of his life he went to live with his son-in-law at Leithsville, in Northampton county, where he died the 20th of November, 1875, at the age of eighty-four. The youngest son of Judge Apple, Benjamin Franklin, is a minister of the Lutheran church.
Stephen Twining, grandson of the Stephen Twining who pur- chased five hundred acres near Springtown in 1738 of Casper Wis- ter, and at whose house in Springfield he was brought up, after tending the mill of John Thompson on the Neshaminy, and Joseph Wilkinson's at Coryell's ferry, removed to Brodhead's creek, seven miles above Stroudsburg, prior to the Revolution. In June, 1779, himself and family were captured by the Indians and carried to Canada. After an absence of over two years he was set free, and returned to his father's house in Upper Makefield. In Canada he
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
was sold to the highest bidder, and fell into the hands of a veteran officer, who had been aid to General Wolf, with whom he lived over a year, and took charge of his mill. What happened to his family, captured at the same time, we are not told, but his wife did not re- cover from her hard treatment. One little boy, who made a good deal of noise at the capture, was killed and scalped near the house. Stephen Twining died at the Great Bend of the Susquehanna, the 15th of April, 1826, in his eighty-fifth year.
Abraham Reazer was an early settler in the township. On the 1st of May, 1755, Joseph Unthank conveyed to him part of a tract of one hundred and thirty-two acres that he had patented February 14th, 1743. Reazer probably went there to stay, for we find that in 1760 the Proprietaries patented to him one hundred and fifty acres additional in Springfield. In June, 1755, thirty-three acres were surveyed to John Fry, on both sides of "Kimble's meadow run," having on his four sides Charles and James Dennis, Stephen Acraman, and Tieter Fry.
The first grist-mill in Springfield was built by Stephen Twining in 1738, on the five hundred-acre tract bought of Casper Wister, on the site of H. S. Funk's Excelsior mills at Springtown. In 1763 Twining sold the five hundred acres and the mill to Abraham Funk, the ancestor of the present owner, since which time it has passed from father to son, the present owner inheriting it in 1845, when but eleven months old. A new mill was built in 1782, and in 1869 one of the most complete mills in the state was erected on its site at a cost of $20,000. This was burnt down soon after it was finished, but was immediately re-built, with saw-mill and handle-works, which had been added in 1863. About the middle of the last cen- tury the Ziegenfuss family built a grist-mill on the south side of Cook's creek, near the Durham line. Not answering the purpose, in a few years they built a stone mill a few rods below, which fell into the possession of the Houpt family, and was enlarged. About the time the second mill was built another Ziegenfuss built a mill on the north side of the creek nearly opposite, but a dispute about the use of the water being decided in favor of the mill on the south side, the other fell into disuse. About the close of the century the Houpts built a stone saw and grist-mill, a few rods west of the sec- ond mill, which remains in the family. The foundations of the first and third mills can be traced, while the second, enlarged by the Houpts, is standing, unused for years. All these mills were built on
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the tract surveyed to John Hughes in 1737, and thence from Wil- liam Bryan to Ziegenfuss, and to Houpt. Besides these, Richard Davis had a mill in Springfield in 1747, Felty Clymer in 1749, and Beidleman's mill in 1759, whose locations we do not know.
The Springfield, known as Trinity, church, Reformed and Lutheran, is one of the oldest in the northern tier of townships. There is no record of the organization of the congregation, but it was prior to 1745. At that time the place was called "Schuggenhaus," but whether it was applied to the township at large, or the locality where the church stood, is not known. The first house was built of logs, paved with brick or tiles, and answered for both church and school- house, in which the two congregations worshiped several years. On the 12th of March, 1763, Christian Schuck and wife conveyed one acre and fifty-six perches to trustees, for the use of the two congre- gations, and the same year a stone church was erected upon it. This was re-built in 1816, and a handsome new building erected in 1872. The corner-stone was laid the 20th of May, and the church was dedicated the first of June the following year. It is possible this was not a union church when first organized, as there is no record of Lutheran pastors before 1763, while the Reformed pastors go back nearly twenty years earlier.
In 1747 Reverend J. C. Wirtz was the Reformed pastor, who preached there and for several neighboring congregations. Schlat- ter, who visited the church that year, mentions in his journal that he thought the congregations of Saccony, (Saucon,) Forks of Dela- ware, Springfield, and Lehigh would be able to contribute thirty- three pounds for the support of a minister. Wirtz removed to Rockaway, New Jersey, in 1751, and accepted a call to York, Penn- sylvania, in 1761, where he died in 1763. He was succeeded by one Lohrspach, an adventurer, who soon tired of his work, and en- listed in the army for the French and Indian war. In 1756 the pastor was probably the Reverend John Egidius Hecker, the ances- tor of the family of that name in Northampton and Lehigh. He was a native of Nassau-Dillenburg, where his father was equerry to the reigning grand-duke. He preached at Springfield, and for the neighboring congregations, and died during the Revolutionary war. He was a man of remarkable wit and humor. Reverend J. Daniel Gross, D. D., author of a work on moral philosophy, was pastor from 1770 to 1772, and the founder of the church at Allentown. He removed to New York, where he was pastor of the Reformed
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
church, and was also professor in Columbia college until his death in 1812. From 1794 to 1806 Reverend John Henry Hoffmeyer, and from 1811 to 1843 Reverend Samuel Stahr, a native of Spring- field, to his death. The present pastor is Reverend Henry Hess. The Lutheran pastors from 1763 have been, Reverend John Michael Enderlein, Augustus Herman Schmidt, - Samuel, Peter Ahl from 1789 to 1797, John Conrad Yeager, 1797 to 1801, - Kramer to 1803, John Nicholas Mensch to 1823, Henry S. Miller to 1838, C. F. Welden to 1842, C. P. Miller to 1865, and Reverend W. S. Emery to the present time. Reverend J. J. Eyermann was officiat- ing there in 1771, but we do not know for which congregation.
The present church building is a handsome structure, well finished, with a good pipe-organ, and tall steeple. The earliest entry in the church book is 1755, to note the death of a young Houpt. The regular records open August 24th, 1760, on which day William Bauer and his wife brought their son John William to be baptised. In 1761-2 we find in the records the names, among others, of Deiter, Gross, Berger, Schmell, Kohl, Oberbeck, Zeigler, Haman, Koch, Alshouse, Diel, Reis, Mann, Mensch, Yost, Bachman, Butz, and Ziegenfuss. The church stands in an ample graveyard filled . with several generations of those who have worshiped there. The oldest stone bears the name of John Henry Althenheis, who died in 1764. Then we have John Beidleman, born March 19th, 1749, died December 9th, 1770, probably the son of Elias Beitleman, born September 27th, 1707, died October 25th, 1781, and his wife Anna Maria, who died in 1790, at the age of eighty. Then come in order Catharine Heitleman, born May 4th, 1751, died September 30th, 1771, at the interesting age of twenty, Maria Sarah Ober- beck, born January 8th, 1720, in Switzerland, died May 16th, 1777, and her husband, Philip Jacob, born November 25th, 1725, in Darmstadt, died December 18th, 1781. They were probably among the oldest settlers, and Isaac Weirback, born April, 1730, died March, 1805, etc., etc. The earliest stones are without inscription, and tell no story of the first settlers. William J. Buck has in his possession the wrought-iron weather-cock placed on the Springfield church when built, in 1763. When the building was demolished, in 1816, it came into the possession of Joseph Afferbach, of Burson- ville, one of the trustees, who presented it to his grandson, Buck, in 1839. It is still in excellent preservation, and graces the top of one of Mr. Buck's farm buildings at Federalsburg, Maryland, where it
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
will be likely to remain while the property is held by the present owner.
Among the first ministers of the Mennonite congregation in Springfield, we find the names of Moyer, Sleiffer, Geahman, and Funk. Some, or all of them, came from Switzerland and settled in this township. . The earliest services were held in private houses, and probably had connection with the congregation in Saucon, where some of the first members lived. The first meeting-house was built in 1780, and re-built in 1824. Since 1847 the congrega- tion is divided into two, belonging to the Old and New denominations, though worshiping in the same house. The former has from twenty- five to thirty members, and the latter about one hundred. The pastors in rotation from the formation of the church down to the present time have been Peter Moyer, Jacob Geahman, Jacob Moyer, Abraham Geisinger, John Geisinger, Samuel Moyer, and Jacob S. Moyer. The meeting-house is situated in a delightful grove to the right of the road from Springtown to Quakertown.
There is a second union church, at Zion Hill, in the western end of the township near the Milford line, erected by the two congrega- tions in 1840. The first Lutheran minister was Reverend William B. Kemmerer, followed by the Reverends A. R. Horne, L. Groh, R. B. Kistler, and J. Hillpot, who was called in 1872. The first Reformed pastor was Reverend J. Stahr, followed by the Reverends Messrs. Gross, Bassler, and J. F. Mohr, who was installed the first of January, 1872. In 1743 the Richland meeting authorized the Friends settled in Springfield to hold meetings for worship at the houses of Joseph Unthank and John Dennis, month about. Whether a meeting-house was ever built we know not, but the meeting was discontinued in 1759, and we believe was never resumed.
A school-house formerly stood in a piece of timber where the Quakertown road is interzected by a private road opposite the Bryan homestead, known as the Airy grove school-house, and torn down about 1855. In it the Reverend A. R. Horne received part of his education, and commenced the profession of an instructor of youth.
We know but little of the roads in Springfield. Both the Old and New Bethlehem roads pass through it, the former cutting it in about the middle, and the latter in its western part. A road was laid out from Thomas Morris's through Springfield about 1733, but was not opened until 1742, and was confirmed on petition of the inhabitants in 1745, but we do not know the location of it. A road was laid
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
out from Houpt's mill to the line of Durham in 1788, and from the same point to the Northampton county line in 1803. In 1795 a road was opened from Strawn's tavern, in Springfield, to Fretz's grist-mill, in the same township. The 13th of June, 1757, George Taylor, then employed at the Durham iron-works, and afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was one of the jurors to view and lay out a road through Springfield, but we do not know its location.
Although Springtown is the only place in the township that deserves the name of village, there are other localities with village names which get their importance from the post-office and tavern, or both-Bursonville, Stony Point, Zion Hill, and Pleasant Valley.
Springtown, a pleasant and thriving little village, lying along the main road that leads up the valley of Durham creek in the north- east part of the township, contains two churches, a tavern, store, flour and other mills, and about twenty-five dwellings. Its churches are known as Salem, and Christ, churches. The former, belonging to the "Evangelical Association," was built in 1842, and re-built in 1868, and the pastor is Reverend Moses Dissinger. Christ church was built in 1872, and belongs to different denominations, Reformed, Lutheran, Mennonite, and Presbyterian. The first two, only, have organized congregations worshiping in the church, the pastors being the Reverends J. O. Stem, Reformed, and W. S. Emery, Lutheran. The Reverend Jacob Moyer, Mennonite, preaches reg- ularly in the church, and the Reverend Mr. Hunsberger, Presby- terian, occasionally. There are Sunday-schools connected with both churches, and with the latter a society called "Christ Church Christian Association." A post-office was established here in 1806, and David Conrad appointed postmaster. The creek supplies fine water power, and it formerly abounded in tront. The water and location being both favorable to fish culture, there are several trout ponds about Springtown where this excellent fish is propagated in considerable quantities, both for sale and private use. A line of daily stages runs between Rieglesville and Springtown. The sur- rounding country is beautiful and diversified. We are told that the first house in the township was built where Frederick Warner lives, on the hills opposite the village, and the present building is the second on the site. Bursonville, on the road from Stony Point to Springtown, in the south-east corner of the township, was named after Isaac Barson, an English Friend who came up from
37
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Abington, and was an early settler at that point. He built the first tavern. It was for the Friends settled about Bursontown that a meeting for worship was allowed by Richland monthly meeting in 1743. The last of the name is said to have left the locality twenty- five years ago. A post-office was established here in 1823, and Joseph Afflerbach appointed postmaster. A daughter of the Burson family married Charles Stroud, of Stroudsburg. A tavern was kept at Stony Point as early as 1758, and known as the "Three Tons," and in 1784 Samuel Breckenridge was the landlord. It was owned in 1830 by Jacob Keichline, of Pipersville, who sold it to Jacob E. Buck, of Nockamixon, at which time a post, with three kegs fastened upon it with an iron rod, stood on the west side of the road, opposite the tavern-house. He opened a store there the following year, and continued it until 1836. In 1833 Mr. Buck had a new tavern sign painted with "Stony Point " upon it, the name it has borne from that day to this. At the " Walking Purchase," in 1737, the walkers left the Durham road at this place, on the top of Gallows hill, and followed the Indian path through the woods, on the line of the present road leading to Bursonville, Springtown, and Bethlehem. Pleasant Valley, in the centre of the township, on what is known as the Old Durham road, consists of a tavern, store, post-office, established in 1828 with Lewis Ott, postmaster, and a few dwellings. A post- office was established at Zion Hill, in the extreme west end of the township, in 1871, and Reuben Eckert appointed postmaster.
Springfield is one of the most fertile and beautiful townships in the upper end of the county. It is exceedingly well-watered by the affluents of the Tohickon, Haycock and Durham creeks, which me- ander through nearly all parts of it. It abounds in numerous fine springs, and some of its valleys are not excelled by any in the county. The surface is often hilly, but many of the slopes are as fertile and well-cultivated as the more level lands at their feet. A spur of the South mountain enters the north-east corner, and ex- tends some way along the Northampton border. Flint hill, a rocky eminence about midway of its northern boundary, lies partly in the two Saucons and partly in Springfield, with a broken spur straggling off into the western part of the township. A considerable hill in the south-eastern part, with a swamp on the top, and without a name, is said to have been called "Buckwampum," a swamp on a hill, by the Indians. A number of fine springs take their rise around its base. Near Stony Point is a piece of ground, from
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
twenty to forty feet above the adjacent meadows, thought to have been the site of an Indian settlement, as a great number of arrow- heads and Indian implements are found there. Rocky valley, in the western part of the township, on a cross-road from the Hellertown, to the Bethlehem, road, is a formation very similar to the Ringing rocks in Nockamixon. In its day Springfield had probably the largest barn in the county, built by Jacob Fulmer on the farm now owned by Enos Beihn, about 1800 or 1810, one hundred feet long, with two threshing-floors. The Germans are celebrated for their large barns, and at the present day there may be some that excel it, but when built it stood at the head of large barns in the county.
Springfield is not only one of the largest, but one of the most populous, townships in the county. In 1784 it contained 979 in- habitants, and 160 dwellings ; in 1810, 1,287; 1820, 1,580; 1830, 2,078, and 429 taxables ; 1840, 2,072 ; 1850, 2,259; 1860, 2,700 ; 1870, 2,551, of which 45 were foreign-born. The census of 1870 is evidently wrong, for there had been a steady increase in her popu- lation since the first census, in 1784, and there is no reason for a decrease in the last decade. The area is seventeen thousand and thirty acres.
Isaac Burson, of Springfield, introduced the cultivation of red clover into the upper end of the county, three-quarters of a century ago, and for which he is entitled to the thanks of every farmer. He sent his son John, then a boy, down to John Stapler, in Lower Makefield, of whom he bought a bushel, at forty dollars. This he sowed on ten acres of wheat, and from the second crop he got nine bushels cf seed, which he sold at forty dollars per bushel, mostly in small quantities, and among others, Michael Fackenthall, of Dur- ham, bought a bushel. After Mr. Burson's field was in bloom it attracted great attention, and people came for miles to look at it, some days the fence around the field being lined with spectators.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
SMITHFIELD; ALLEN; MOUNT BETHEL; MOORE; EASTON.
-- -
1746 TO 1750.
The Minisink flats .- Question of settlement .- Copper discovered .- First visit of a white man .- Earliest settlers .- The Mine road .- Visit of Nicholas Scull .- Samuel De Pui .- Condition of settlements .- Visit of John Lukens .- What he saw and learned .- Earliest mention of Minisink in county records .- Daniel Brodhead .- Smithfield church .- Dutch churches .- First attempt to organize Smithfield township .- Names of petitioners .- Indian graveyard .- Township now divided .- Forks of Delaware .- Nathaniel Irish, Craig, and Hunter .- ALLEN: William Allen first land-owner .- A Presbyterian settlement .- Peti- tioners for township .- Conflicting accounts .- Settlers ask for wagon roads .- Resi- dence of the Craigs .- MOUNT BETHEL: Hunter's colony .- Petition for a town- ship .- The names .- David and John Brainard and their labors .- MOORE: Was settled early .- The Petersville church .- Township organized .- EASTON : The first owner of site .- David Martin first settler .- Grant of ferry .- Town laid out .- William Parsons .- First house .- Population in December, 1752 .- Louis Gordon .- Phillipsburg .- The Arndts.
THE earliest settlement in Bucks county, north of the Lehigh, was made in Smithfield township, now in Monroe county.
It is an unsettled question whether the upper, or lower, Delaware was first settled by Europeans, and it is even claimed that the Mini- sink flats were peopled before the fertile meadows of Falls. In 1694, and possibly earlier, the adventurous Hollanders penetrated the wilderness south-west of the Hudson as far as the Delaware, where copper was discovered, and some of it shipped to Holland.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Thomas Budd, in his account of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, pub- lished in London in 1684, says the Indians go up the Delaware in canoes from the falls "to the Indian town called Minisinks." The first recorded visit of a white man to this region is that of Cap- tain Arent Schuyler in 1694, who came as far south as Port Jervis, but does not mention meeting settlers. He speaks of it in his jour- nal as the Minisink country. The first settlers were Hollanders, who came across the wilderness from Esopus,1 on the Hudson, and Stickney believes they were on the Delaware prior to 1664.2
From the evidence it would appear that the Hollanders were drawn to the Minisink country in search of metals, whose existence had been made known by the Indians, and that the rich flats were not settled until the mines had been abandoned. It is possible this region was first made known to Europeans by the two Hollanders who traversed the country from the Hudson to the Delaware, and down that river and across to the Schuylkill, where they were made prisoners by the Indians in 1616, and rescued at the mouth of the river. The wagon road from the Hudson to the Delaware was made, no doubt, first to the mines and then to the Minisink, to accom- modate the settlers ; but was abandoned when it was discovered the settlements were not in New Netherlands, and communication was opened with the lower Delaware. This road is thought to have been the first good wagon road of any extent made in the United States. As late as 1800 John Adams, on his way to Congress, at Philadelphia, traveled the "Mine road" from the Hudson to the Delaware, as the best route from Boston. The road was east of the Delaware. General James Clinton and Christopher Tappan, both old men in 1789, believed that the Mine road was the work of Hol- landers before New York fell into the hands of the English, in 1664, and that the change of government probably stopped mining. The earliest settlement of this region is involved in so much doubt that it is impossible to fix the exact period, and the most thorough in- vestigation leads but to reasonable theories.
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