USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 57
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Among the carly Moravians who settled at Bethlehem and vicinity and were largely influential in shaping the destinies of the infant colony, were a number of able and useful men. Some contributed to its success by their learning, but all by their industry and economy. Among them all, few, if any, occupy a more prominent place than August Gottlieb Spangenberg. In this same connection may be mentioned William Edwards, Jasper Payne, John Christopher Pyr- laeus, Timothy Horsfield, and a number of others. Spangenberg was born at Klettenberg, in 1704, was educated at Jena, converted by Zinzendorf, in 1729, appointed professor at Halle, in 1732, and subsequently joined the Moravians at Hernhutt. In 1735 he con- ducted a colony of the brethren to Georgia, and in 1736 he came to Pennsylvania to look after a colony of Schwenkfelders settled in Montgomery county. After a second visit to this colony, and one to the West Indies, he went to Europe, whence he returned a bishop in 1744, and visited Bethlehem. He spent abont thirteen years there, and in missionary labor in the colonies between 1744 and 1760, when he returned to Europe where he died in 1792. William Edwards was born in Gloucestershire, England, October 24th, 1708, came to America in 1736, joined the Moravians in 1741, and removed to Bethlehem in 1749. He was elected to the assembly from Northampton in 1755, and died at Nazareth in 1786. Jasper Payne, born at Twickenham, county of Middlesex, England, immigrated to America and settled at Bethlehem in 1743, where he was steward and accountant. He was at the mission on Brodhead's creek in 1755, where he made a narrow escape from the Indians,
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and in August, 1762, was appointed superintendent of the Sun inn, at Bethlehem. John Christopher Pyrlaeus, who married the youngest daughter of John Stephen Benezet, was born at Pausa, Voightland, in 1713, and reached Bethlehem October 19th, 1740. He was prominent among the Moravians as a preacher, and became a great Mohawk scholar. He died at Hernhutt, Germany, May 28th, 1785. Timothy Horsfield was born at Liverpool, England, in 1708, im- migrated to America in 1725, became a Moravian in 1741, and re- moved from Long Island to Bethlehem, in 1749. He was appointed" one of the first justices of the peace in Northampton county, and died in 1773. The early Moravians had no warmer friend than John Stephen Benezet, a Huguenot refugee, who immigrated to Pennsylvania and settled in Philadelphia in 1731. Zinzendorf was his guest on his arrival, and his three daughters married Moravians at Bethlehem. Bethlehem is now a populous and flourishing town, connected by rail with the great centres of business. The popula- tion on both sides of the river is about fifteen thousand.
NAZARETH .- Sometime before his death, William Penn re- leased and confirmed to Sir John Fagg "for the sole use and behoof" of his daughter Letitia, five thousand acres in the upper end of Bucks. It embraced rich, rolling country with numerous springs and water courses, and lay in the heart of what is now Northampton county. She had the privilege of erecting it into a inanor, and holding courts for the preservation of the peace. The 25th of September, 1731, John, Thomas, and Richard Penn released and confirmed this tract to their sister, on condition of her paying to them, their heirs and assigns "one red rose on the 24th of June each year, if the same shall be demanded, in full for all services, customs and rents." Sometime afterward this tract was purchased by William Allen for £2,200, who, in April, 1740, sold it to the Reverend George Whitefield, who wished to establish upon it a school for colored orphan children. A portion of Nazareth township is included in this tract.
About this time Peter Bohler arrived at Skippack, Montgomery county, with the last of the Moravians from Georgia, and met there Mr. Whitefield and bargained with him to erect the building on the Nazareth tract. Work was commenced in May, 1740, but the season was so far advanced, and so wet, that the cellar walls were only up by September. Seeing the building could not be finished before cold weather, it was covered in when the first story was up,
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and a two story log house was erected in which Bohler and the Moravians spent the winter. Before work could be resumed on the building, Whitefield drove the Moravians from his tract on account of some theological dispute. This house still stands on the edge of the present town of Nazareth, in a good state of preservation.
In 1742 Peter Bæhler and Angust Gottlieb Spangenberg bought the Nazarethi tract of Whitefield for the Moravians, giving him the same that he paid, and paying the cost of the building in addition. The house was finished the fall of 1743, and the first religious meet- ing was held in it the second of January following. A considerable number of German immigrants had arrived the previous December. After the founding of Bethlehem, immigrants began to flock to Na- zareth, and dwellings were erected. Among others, Christian Frolick, of Hesse, came to Pennsylvania in 1741, and joined the brethren on the Whitefield tract, but his subsequent career is not known. Improvements were made at Ephrata in 1743, at what is known as Old Nazareth in 1744, at Gnadenthal, the site of the Northampton county alms-house in 1745, at Christian spring in 1748, and at Friedenthal in 1749. An attempt was made to lay out the town of Gnadenstadt, adjoining Old Nazareth, in 1751, but meeting with opposition, it was abandoned. Of the two houses that were erected at Gnadenstadt, one of them, a mile north of the Whitefield house, became the "Rose tavern," famous in local his- tory. The first orchard was set out by Owen Rice, who arrived in June, 1745. The trees grew thriftily, and the first cider was made from their apples in August, 1755. Rice's example was followed by others, and soon apple trees were set out on all the farms of the Nazareth tract. There were but two dwellings at Nazareth in July, 1742, one of which was the log house built in 1740, to winter Bæhler's colony in. Some English immigrants arrived in the Cath- arine in June, 1742, and arrangements were made to settle them at Nazareth and Zinzendorf, and a number of brethren of both sexes, went up there to prepare for their reception. In the spring, or summer, of 1750 a grist-mill, known as the Friedenthal mill, was erected on the bank of the Bushkill creek,7 which ground its first grist in August The first miller was Hartmann Verdries. Dur- ing the Indian war of 1756 the mill was enclosed by a stockade,
7 The Indian name of the Bushkill was Lehietan, but it is called Tatemy's creek on early maps ; also Lefevre's creek, after a French Huguenot, who immigrated to New York in 1689, and settled a few miles above Easton.
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four hundred by two hundred and fifty feet, with log houses at the corners for bastions, and it was a place of refuge for the frontier in- habitants when threatened by the Indians. The Moravians sold the mill in 1771, and it is now known as Mann's mill.
The foundation of the Rose tavern, adjacent to Nazareth, on the King's highway that led over the mountains to the Minisink set- tlement, was laid the 27th of March, 1752, and the house was com- pleted the following summer. It was a two-story frame building, and upon the ancient sign was emblazoned a red rose. The first landlord was John Frederick Schwab, who occupied it the 15th of September, and retired from the Rose August 4th, 1754, Schwab was born in Switzerland in 1717, and with his wife, Divert Mary, came to America with a party of thirty-three Moravian couples, in the autumn of 1743, and settled at Nazareth. Their son John was the first child born of white parents at that place. This old tavern was several times a place of refuge for the frontier inhabitants when driven in by the Indians, and the troops operating against them frequently made it their place of rendezvous. A tavern was kept it it many years, under the direction of a number of landlords, and it was demolished in the summer of 1858. Tradition says that all the cakes used at the Rose were supplied from the old Nazareth bakery, and that the Indians frequently attacked the wheelbarrow that was conveying them from the bakery to the tavern. Nazareth hall, designed as a residence for Count Zinzendorf, was erected in 1755, and was under roof by the 24th of September, but was not finished and dedicated until September 13th, 1756. As he did not return to America, the building was put to other uses. A school for the sons of Moravian parents was opened in it, in June, 1759, and a boarding-school for boys the 3d of October, 1785, which, after the lapse of ninety-one years, is in a flourishing condition, and this is probably the oldest boarding-school. in the United States. An Indian town called, Welagamika,8 stood on the Nazareth tract when purchased by the Moravians in 1742. Nazareth was not organized into a separate township until after Northampton county was cut from Bucks, in 1752, and its population at that time is not known.
The first road laid out in Bucks county north of its present boundary, was from Goshenhoppen, in Montgomery county, through Upper Milford, to Jeremiah Trexler's, 9 in Upper Macungie, Lehigh
8 Meaning " the best tillable land."
9 Trexlertown.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
county, in 1732. In 1737 a road was opened from Nicholas De Pui's in the Minisink to William Cole's. In 1744 the inhabit- ants of Bethlehem and Nazareth petitioned for a wagon road from Grove's Saucon mill, and thence to Nazareth, and three years afterward a wagon road was asked for, from the King's road near Bethlehem to Mahoning creek, beyond the Blue mountains, and to the "Healing waters." The reason given is that many people of this and neighboring provinces have received much benefit from the said waters. 10 In 1743 there was no road nearer the Minisink on the south than Irish's mill on the Lehigh, where the Old Bethlehem road terminated. The next yearn a road was laid out from Walpack ferry on the Delaware to Isaac Ysselstein's on the Lehigh, via Solomon Jennings's, and thence to the Old Bethlehem road, which was twenty-seven miles and one hundred and eighteen perches. 12 A road was laid out from Bethlehem down to Martin's ferry, now Easton, in 1745, 13 and about that time one was opened across the Lehigh hills in a south-west direction from the Crown inn toward the German settlements of Macungie. The leading roads of the period converged toward Bethlehem, an ob- jective point of civilization. A road was opened early from Craig's settlement in Allen township to Hunter's in Mount Bethel, and in 1745 one from Irish's mill, via Bethlehem, to Nazareth. In 1743 a road was opened from Bethlehem to Saucon mill. The Old Bethlehem road, via Applebachsville, to Philadelphia, started from this point, while the New Bethlehem road, called the " King's highway," starting from the same place, ran via Trumbauersville and North Wales.
Among the Indians in the Forks of Delaware, none were more noted than Teedyuscung, a Delaware chieftain, son of old Captain John Harris, who was born near Trenton, New Jersey, about 1700. His father was likewise a noted chief, and he had several brothers, all high-spirited men. The increasing whites drove them and others across the Delaware into the Forks about 1730, and wandering over
10 This was a chalybeate spring, and is marked on Scull's map of 1759. It was visited by the Moravians as early as 1746, and its waters were bottled and sent to Philadelphia for invalids. It is on the farm late of Stephen Snyder, and now owned by Charles Brodhead, of Bethlehem.
11 One authority says 1741.
12 To this petition were signed the names of Richard and Daniel Brodhead.
13 This road was asked by the Moravians to accommodate their brethren who landed at New York and joined them via Martin's ferry.
.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
that uninhabited region they reached their kinsmen, the Munceys, across the Blue mountains. Teedyuscung was baptised at Gnaden- hutten the 12th of March, 1750, and lived among the brethren until 1754, when he joined his wild brothers, and took up the hatchet. Peace was made with the Delaware king by the treaties at Easton in 1746 and 1757. He is described as a tall, port'y man, proud of his position as chief of the Delawares, a great talker, and a lover of whiskey. It is said that on one occasion Anthony Benezet found him on a Monday morning sitting on a curbstone, with his feet in the gutter, and very drunk. Anthony said, " Why, Teedyuscung, I thought you were a good Moravian ?" The savage replied, "Ugh ! chief no Moravian now ; chief joined Quaker meeting yesterday."
Moses Tatemy was only second to Teedyuscung in influence among the Delawares. He was likewise born along the Delaware in New Jersey, some fifteen miles below Easton, but in his youth moved up into the Forks. His was a peaceful influence, the name signifying " peaceable man." He enjoyed the fullest confidence of the Proprietaries, and preserved peace with the Indians from 1742 to 1755, when his influence was eclipsed by Teedyuscung. He lived on three hundred acres, given him for his services, near Stockertown, above Easton. His wife was a white woman. He was shot near Bethlehem, by a boy, in 1757, and was buried at the expense of the county.
The earliest settlement in that part of Bucks county, now included in Carbon, was on the north side of Mahoning creek, near Lehigh- ton, where the Moravians established a home for the Mohegan Indians in 1746. Here they built a pleasant village called Gnaden- hutten, or Tents of Grace, where each Indian family had a house to live in and a piece of ground to till. The congregation numbered five hundred persons, and in 1749 a new church was built for them, the corner-stone of which was laid by Bishop De Watteville. In 1754 the settlement was changed to the north side of the Lehigh, and called New Gnadenhutten, where Weisport stands. It was at- tacked by the French Indians, November 24th, 1755, eleven of the inhabitants killed, and the town burnt. The first public road in the county was that from Bethlehem to Mahoning H creek, granted in 1747.
Northampton county was cut off from Bucks in 1752. The pe-
14 A corruption from Mahoink,signifies where thore is a lick-at the lick -so called because deer came there to lick the saline or saltish earth.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
tition, signed by the " inhabitants of the upper end of Bucks," set forth that their distance from the county seat was often a denial of justice, and that they often chose to lose their rights, rather than prosecute them, under the circumstances. It was presented to the legislature by William Craig, the 11th of May, 1751, but was not considered until the following session, when, after a debate of seven days, it passed and was signed by Governor Hamilton, March 11th, 1752. The act provides that Easton, on " Lehietan," in the forks of the river Delaware, shall be the county seat, and named Thomas Craig, Hugh Wilson, John Jones, Thomas Armstrong, and James Martin trustees to purchase land and erect a court-house and jail, the land and buildings not to cost more than £300. The boundary lines were to be run by John Chapman, John Watson, jr., and Samuel Foulke, within six months. Thomas Craig, who had been active in having the new county erected, was paid £30 out of the county-treasury to cover his expenses in procuring the passage of the act. The first sheriff of the new county was William Craig, son of James Craig, an original settler.
The first county court was held at Easton, at the house of Jacob Bachman, the 16th of June, 1752, before Thomas Craig, Timothy Horsfield, Hugh Wilson, James Martin, and William Craig, " jus- tices of the Lord, the King." The first election in the new county was held at the court-house, October 1st, 1752, when James Burn- side, the Quaker candidate for the assembly, was elected by several hundred majority. He was a Moravian who lived near Bethlehem, came from Ireland in 1742, and had been a missionary at several stations throughout the new county. The election was conducted with much bitterness. The erection of the new county involved a question of political importance, for the division of Bucks would give additional strength to the Proprietary party, and the Friends assented to it with reluctance.
Northampton county took from Bucks between five and six thou- sand of her white population, sparsely scattered over a large extent of country. Down to the time of the division the following town- ships, which fell within the new county, had already been organized, namely : Smithfield, organized in 1742, with a population of 500, Milford, 1742, 700, Upper Saucon, 1743, 650, Lower Saucon, 1743, 700, Macungie, 1743, 650, Bethlehem, 1746, 600, Allen, 1748, 300, Williams, 1750, 200. Mount Bethel had already been organized, but the date is not known. In that district of country called the
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
"Forks of Delaware" there was a population of several hundred not included in any township. There was a white population of about eight hundred in the upper parts of what is now Lehigh county, mostly German, and in some townships there was hardly an English inhabitant. In Allen and Mount Bethel there were six hundred Scotch-Irish, and some three hundred Hollanders in Smithfield, the descendants of the early settlers at the Minisink. This was the only township north of the Blue mountains, and all beyond was an un- . broken wilderness, known as "Towamensing," a country not in- habited. On Evans's map of 1749 this region is called "Saint Anthony's wilderness," so named by Count Zinzendorf. North- ampton county, named after Northamptonshire, England, originally embraced all the territory in the counties of Monroe, Pike, Wayne, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Luzerne, Carbon, Lehigh, and a portion of Schuylkill and Northumberland. It was subdivided as follows : Northumberland was cut off in 1772, Luzerne, 1786, Susquehanna, 1810, Schuylkill, 1811, Lehigh, 1812, Pike, 1814, Monroe, 1836, Wyoming, 1842, and Carbon in 1843. The original Bucks county was almost an empire in extent, and her subdivisions form several wealthy, populous and powerful local commonwealths.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
HAYCOCK.
-- -
1763.
Formed of "odds and ends."-Why organized .- John Anderson .- The McCartys .- William Bryan .- Baptist congregation .- Stokes family .- Joseph Dennis .- George Emig .- Jacob Allem .- First movement for township .- Names of peti- tioners .- Petition from Lower Saucon and Springfield .- Township organized. -Petitioners .- Boundaries .- First constable .- Bryan graveyard .- Methodist church .- The Applebachs .- German and Irish Catholics .- Saint John's church. -Thomas Garden .- Catholics in 1757 .- Early baptisms and deaths .- Father Stommel and new church .- Convent .- Reverend Samuel Stahr .- Stony garden. -Haycock mountain .- Bridge over Tohickon .- Roads .- Applebachsville .- Gen- eral Paul Applebach .- Population.
HAYCOCK was formed of territory that may be called the "odds and ends" left after all the surrounding townships had been organ- ized. The organization of Richland, Rockhill, Bedminster, Tini- cum, Nockamixon and Springfield left a large tract of country lying between them, and containing considerable population with- out local government. The difficulty in keeping the roads in repair and collecting taxes appears to have been the leading motive to the organization of both Springfield and Haycock. The Old Bethlehem road ran four miles through the former township and five through the latter, and in the absence of township organization. there was no local authority to keep them in repair.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
We know but little about the early settlers in Haycock. In 1737 Surveyor-general Parsons laid ont a tract of three hundred acres on Haycock run to John Anderson, but the location is not known. The five hundred-acre tract which Thomas and Patrick McCarty purchased of the Penns when they settled in Nockamixon in 1748, lay partly on the Haycock side of the creek and partly in Tinicum. The 3d of March, 1738, John, Thomas and Richard Penn conveyed and confirmed to Silas McCarty two hundred and - fifteen acres half a mile west of Applebachsville, and the latter gave one acre to William Bryan and others on which to build a Baptist church and for a burying-ground. After his death his son, Carrel McCarty, to whom the whole tract descended, confirmed this one acre, August 20th, 1759, to William Bryan and Isaac Evans, in trust, for the use of the Baptist congregation at New Britain, upon which they erected a log meeting-house, which was allowed to fall down many years ago. The late Reverend Joseph Mathias occa- sionally preached in it. At the death of William Bryan, his son William was left a trustee, in conjunction with Isaac Evans. The substantial stone wall around the burying-ground was built by the Bryan family a few years ago.
The Stokes family, early settlers in Haycock, can be traced back to Thomas Stokes, the son of John, of London, who was born in 1640, married Mary Barnard, came to America about 1680, and set- tled near Burlington, New Jersey, and had several children. The Bucks county Stokeses are descended from John, the eldest son, whose son John and wife, Hannah, born in Storkdale or Stogdell, came from New Jersey to Haycock about 1743, and remained until 1750, when they returned Their son John, the immediate ances- tor of our Stokeses, was born in this township, and married Susan Newton. They were the parents of the late Mrs. Susan Bryan, of Doylestown, and the maternal grandparents of the late General John S. Bryan. The Stokes tract, which was laid out for three hundred acres and allowances, was found to contain three hundred and forty-seven acres and forty-two perches by the survey of Asher Woolman and Samuel Foulke, April 12th, 1769. It lay at Apple- bachville, and comprised the tine farms of the late General Paul Applebach. The old family mansion, more than a century old, is still standing. Mrs. Bryan had two sisters, one married Timothy Smith, of Doylestown, and the other David Roberts, of Newtown, and her brother, William Stokes, died in Doylestown. James Bryan, the husband of Susan Stokes. was a plain Friend.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Joseph, the great-grandfather of Wilson Dennis, immigrated to America and settled near Egg Harbor, New Jersey, whence he came to "the adjacents of Springfield," afterward Haycock, about 1746, and took up several tracts of land in this and Springfield township. He was a great hunter, and is said to have selected stony land be- cause such soil yielded the most grass in the woods, and was sure to bring plenty of game. Wilson Dennis, the fourth generation, through Joseph, Charles, and Josiah, owns and lives on the tract that his ancestor received from the Proprietaries. March 1st, 1756, one hundred and thirty-six acres were surveyed to Valentine Rohr "in the lands adjacent to Springfield, upon a branch of Tohickon called Jo Toonum's runn," by virtue of a warrant.
The original purchasers of land on the west side of the Bethlehem road, up to the Springfield line, were, in order, Allem, William Strawn, a Quaker, Valentine Rohr, Andrew Booz, Dutt, and Ludwig Nusbeckel, whose land was on the east side of the road, opposite Dutt. Nusbeckel was born April 14th, 1730, died January 10th, 1818, and was buried in the Springfield graveyard. His wife died in 1795. They were both members of Springfield church, where his daughter, Elizabeth, was baptised August 10th, 1760. Besides John Stokes, the original purchasers immediately around Apple- bachville were William Strawn, George Emig, the original for Amey, who took up a tract of two hundred and thirty-one acres eighty-nine perches, which was confirmed by Thomas and Richard Penn, the 13th of July, 1768, who left the same to his son George, by will, in 1773. Emig, who was born July 13th, 1715, died March 7th, 1773, and was buried in the Springfield yard. In 1767 Stephen Acraman bought one hundred and thirty-eight acres of Lydia McCall, widow of George McCall, an early settler north- west of Applebachsville.
Jacob Allem, the first of the name in the township, immigrated from Germany about 1750, and settled on a tract of land about three-fourths of a mile west of Behring's saw-mill, where he followed the business of a wheelwright. One of his sons, at the age of eighteen, enlisted in the Revolutionary army. A number of his descendants are living in Haycock, Bedminster, Richland, Rockhill, and Tinicum, and a few have gone west.
The inhabitants of this unorganized district petitioned for a town- ship several times before they were successful, the first attempt b. ing made soon after 1740, but the year is not known. They peti-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
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