USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 58
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88
tioned a second time in December, 1745, when they state that the district contained " twenty dwellers." The signers to this petition were Silas McCarty, Joseph Dennis, Griffith Davis, William Bryan, John Stokes, Abraham Gooding, Dennis Honan, Edward Bleaney, John Deane, John Nicholas, James Sloan, Hendrich Hencke, C. H. Steinbach, Jacob Rohr, Martin Scheiff, George Schuman, Balthass Stueber, Stephen Acraman, and John George Desch. The peti- tion was laid over until the next term of court, but nothing came of it then. Joseph Dennis was appointed overseer of highways for this district of country until the inhabitants should apply to have a township regularly laid out. In September, 1745, the inhabitants of Lower Saucon and Springfield petitioned the court, setting forth that they had expected to carry their grain to Philadelphia with greater ease than formerly down the old Bethlehem road, but that a stretch of about five miles long through a district of country be- tween Springfield and Richland was almost impassable for wagons. The did not ask for a township, but wanted the court to " consider their case."
After the effort to have a new township organized in 1745 had failed, it was almost twenty years before another movement was made in that direction. The number of taxables in the district now numbered seventy. There appears to have been three parties try- ing to have a township established in 1763. In the spring, an out- line draft was presented to the court, no doubt preceded by a petition, according to a survey by James Melvin, made " May ye 14th, 1763," on the back of which is the endorsement : " The name of the town- ship shall be Rock Bearry." At the June sessions, probably the same year, Joseph Dennis, on behalf of himself and others, presented a petition asking that the tract of country in question be laid out into a township, to be called by the name of " Mansfield," but nothing came of this. The petition that led to the formation of the township was presented to the court, March 17th, 1763, which stated that it is the petition of the " inhabitants of Haycock or ad- jacents," that the Haycock is as large, and contains as many inhabi- tants as any township in the county, and that there are seventy taxables in the district they ask to be organized into a township. Of the twenty-eight names attached to the petition, we have been able to decipher the following : George Wills, Aaron Clinker, Peter Diehl, Edmund Bleaney, Matthias Whilenight, David Ma'sbery, John Doane, Edward Guth, Benjamin McCarty, Fillix Birson, Conrad
614
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Guth, Johannes Mill, Willis Borger, Lowder Black, Peter Meyer, William Meyer, George Van Buskirk, Philip Fackenthall, Ludwick Nusbunckel, George Luman, Chrystal Gayman, Isaac Weyerbacker, Ghrystal Miller, and Andrew Raub. We have preserved the original spelling as far as practicable. They asked that the town- ship be called "Haycock." The petitioners were requested to produce a draft of the proposed township at the next court, with the courses and distances. It was presented at the June term, but was not received because it was not accurate, and the petitioners were told to employ a surveyor " who understands his busines ;. " It was re-surveyed the 17th of August, by Thomas Chapman, and returned and confirmed at the September court ensuing, with the following boundaries : "Beginning at a large rock on the north side of Tohickon creek, in the line between William Bryan's land and Pike's land; thence along the same north four and one-half degrees, west two hundred and sixty-one perches to a post ; thence by Lo- gan's land north four and one-half degrees, east twenty-nine perches and north four and one-half degrees, west three hundred and forty- one perches to a hickory; thence east four and one-half degrees, north ninety-nine perches to a gum, and north four and one-half degrees, west three hundred and ninety-five perches to a stone; thence five courses by Richland township; thence north sixty-four degrees, east one thousand three hundred and thirty-eight perches by Springfield township to a white oak, standing by the side of the Haycock run; thence down the same run by the various courses thereof, one thousand seven hundred and twenty perches to where it enters Tohickon; thence up Tohickon by the various courses thereof, three thousand two hundred and eighty-eight perches to the place of beginning." The township was to be called Haycock. The boundaries have not been disturbed, and the area then, as now, was ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-seven acres. The first constable returned was Henry Keller, at the September sessions, 1763. Haycock was, doubtless, named after the little mountain in it, which was so called because of its resemblance to a cock of hay, which name was given to it many years before the town- ship was organized. Haycock is mentioned in a deed as early as 1737, and the creek which winds along the base of the mountain is called Haycock run, in the boundary of Nockamixon, 1742. The mountain and run received their names from the earliest settlers in the township.
615
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
On the road leading from Applebachsville to Quakertown, half a inile west of the former place, on the farm of Isaac Weirback, is the old Bryan graveyard, which belongs to the Baptist congregation organized there at the settlement of the township. In it are six graves of the Bryan family, including the final resting-place of its Bucks county founder, William, born 1708, died May 17th, 1784, his wife, Rebekah, born 1718, died July 22d, 1796, and son Wil- liam, born February 6th, 1739, died February 10th, 1819, whose wife, Alivia, died in 1822, in her eightieth year. The oldest marked grave is that of Eleanor Morgan, wife of James Morgan, who died December 12th, 1764. She was probably the wife of the James Morgan who was interested in the Durham furnace many years. The earliest burial was in 1747, but the name cut on the rough stone cannot be deciphered. The last person buried there was named Crassly, about thirty years ago. In the yard are a number of rude stones, with inscriptions, that mark the graves of the earliest dead of the neighborhood. On the same road, a mile east of the Richland line, there stood an Evangelical Methodist church, which was erected about 1856 by Abel Strawn and Henry Diehl, the for- mer of Haycock and the latter of Richland, to commemorate their remarkable deliverance from death on the occasion of a tree blowing down and falling across their wagon between them, without injuring any one, as they, with others, were driving along the road. The building was taken down in the summer of 1872 and re-erected at Quakertown. But two bodies had been buried in the graveyard, which were removed to the new place of burial.
The Applebachs of this county are descended from a family of that name, but originally Afflerbach, of Weissenstein, in Wurtem- berg, Germany, where they were celebrated as manufacturers of iron. About the close of the Revolution Daniel and Ludwig, broth- ers, and Henry, probably a cousin, came to America and settled in the upper end of the county. Daniel bought a farın in Haycock, where he spent his life as a cultivator of the soil, and died about 1825, Ludwig settled in Durham, and engaged in teaming between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, and, by frugality, became the owner of four farms in Durham and Nockamixon, and died in 1832. Jacob Sumstone is a grandchild. Henry Applebach, the cousin of Daniel and Ludwig, settled in Springfield, followed blacksmithing, and his son Daniel, for many years a justice of the peace in that township, was the father of the late General Paul Applebach, of Haycock. In 1789
616
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Joseph, a nephew of Daniel and Ludwig, settled near Bursonville, in Springfield, and in 1800 he married a daughter of George Stone- back, of Haycock, and died in 1845, aged upward of seventy-five years, leaving numerous descendants. The late Paul Applebach, of Haycock, was an active, enterprising citizen, and wielded large in- fluence throughout the upper districts of the county. He was active in politics and among the volunteers, and was a candidate for the house and senate, but defeated. He was major-general in the militia.
Haycock was originally settled in part, by German and Irish Catholics, and the denomination made its first lodgment in the county, in this township. It will be remembered that the first Catholic in the county, Lyonel Brittain, settled in the bend of the river in Falls, and half a century later we find a little colony of the same communion settled in the woods of Haycock. The Saint John's Catholic church is probably one of the very oldest of this faith in the state, outside of Philadelphia. Among the early Catholic settlers hereabout we find the names of Thomas Garden, John Dorn, Patrick McCarty, Charles Pulton, and Sanders. The date of the organization of the congregation is not known, but it probably ex- tends back to the earliest records, 1743. Nor do we know when the first church was erected, but suppose an humble log building sheltered the first worshipers, as was the case with other denomina- tions in our Bucks county wilderness. About 1798 a more preten- tious church, of stone, was built, and soon afterward an organ was put into it, probably the first in the county excepting that in To- hickon church. The old church was torn down about twenty years ago, and a handsome new one, with stained-glass windows, erected upon the site. In 1757 there were but two thousand Catholics in the province, of which nine hundred and forty-nine were Germans. In this county at that time there were only fourteen males and twelve females, and no doubt the greater part of them were in Haycock. These figures are based on such as received the communion from the age of twelve years and upward. Before 1850, there was no priest stationed at this church, but it was served by supplies from Easton, Trenton, and elsewhere.
The Reverend Theodore Schneider was probably the first priest who officiated in the Haycock parish, at least he is the first we have any account of. He occasionally visited the settlers, to administer the rites of the church. The 29th of May, 1743, he baptised Anna,
617
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
daughter of John and Catharine L Dorm, at the house of Thomas Garden, in Haycock, and the day before he had baptised Charles Pulton, son of Charles and Ruth Pulton, near Durham road. The oldest marriage recorded is that of Patrick McCarty and Catharine Ann Sanders, the 14th of February, 1743, and the oldest recorded burial is that of Catharine, wife of Edward McCarty, over seventy years of age, who died " of a contagious fever." Haycock was an outlying picket of the church, and priests visited it periodically. After Mr. Schneider came Reverend J. B. De Ritter, who visited the' church down to 1787, who was followed by Reverends Paul Ernsten and Boniface Corvin, to 1830, the Reverend Henry Stommel, now at Doylestown, being pastor there for several years. The present priest is Reverend Martin Walsh.
After a priest was regularly stationed at Haycock, it became the centre of missionary work in all the surrounding country. Twenty years ago a mission was established at Durham, which led to the erection of a church (Saint Lawrence), in 1872, which was the work of Father Stommel, the pastor at Haycock. The same year he established a mission, known as Marienstein, in the swamp of Nockamixon, between the Durham and River roads, and in 1873 one at Piusfield, in Tinicum, nearly opposite Frenchtown. The corner-stone of Marienstein was laid the 11th of August, the first services held in it the 8th of the following December, and it and the church at Durham were dedicated by Bishop Tobbe, bishop of Covington, Kentucky, the 21st of September, 1873. The church is a handsome stone edifice with a cupola and a bell. The corner-stone at Piusfield was laid the 5th of October, and the first service held the 28th of December. These churches were all erected by the energy of Father Stommel, the pastor at Haycock, a hard-working, zealous minister. During his pastorate he likewise built an addition to the parish residence, and organized a parochial-school under the direc- tion of three Sisters of Saint Francis. A number of years ago a convent was built in the parish, in which a female boarding-school has been kept a part or all of the time since, but we have no data concerning it. The corner-stone was laid in 1861 and it was finished in 1862; is built of stone, forty-two by thirty-two feet, and three stories high, with basement. It contains twenty-four rooms and three halls. It began with about thirty or forty boarders, and in charge of the Blue Sisters of the Immaculate Heart. It has now about seventy scholars, in charge of the Sisters of Saint Francis.
618
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Few men of the past generation are remembered more affection- ately in the upper end of the county than the late Reverend Samuel Stahr, who was born in Haycock in 1785, and died the 29th of September, 1843, at the age of fifty-eight. He read theology with the late Reverend Dr. Baker of Baltimore, and at the close of his studies he was called to preside over the Reformed congregations of Tinicum, Nockamixon, Durham, and Springfield, where he con- tinued to labor to the end of his days, and was an efficient and suc- cessful pastor, and an able German preacher. He left a family of five sons and four daughters, three of whom have followed him to the grave. One of his sons is living in Philadelphia, another in Canada, and a third in this county, while his three daughters are living in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Haycock contains two natural features of interest, the curiously- shaped mountain which bears its name, and Stony garden. Hay- cock mountain, situated in the eastern part of the township, was named by the early settlers from its resemblance to a cock of hay. Its height has never been ascertained, but the elevation is consider- able, with a gradual slope to the top from which there is a prospect of unsurpassed beauty over a wide scope of country. About a mile to the north-east of the mountain there was a deer lick when the country was settled. Thomas McCarty found rattlesnakes on the mountain as late as 1819, and Jacob E. Buck says that he shot a large red-headed woodpecker on it in 1818, which bird disappeared from that section many years ago. Stony garden, on the road from Applebachsville to Stony Point, two and a half miles from the former place, is a locality of curious interest. Leaving the road at a rude hamlet called Danielsville, and going through a wood a few hundred yards, over a surface covered with the boulder drift, you come to a spot about an acre in extent covered with trap rock. The stones are of many and curious shapes and sizes, and must have been emptied down in the forest in the wildest confusion. Earth has never been found beneath the rocks, and they are entirely void of vegetation except a little moss and a few paracitic plants that have attached themselves to the hard stones. The rocks are of igneous origin, the same as at Fingal's cave, Ireland, and at the Pallisades, on the Hudson. This place is on the line of the rock drift that extends from Chester county through Montgomery and Bucks to the Delaware, and trap rock is found nowhere else in this section of country. Some of the rocks have grooves in them, as
619
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
though worn during their transportation hither. The "garden " is a wild spot in the lonely woods.
A bridge was built across the Tohickon in 1768, probably where the Bethlehem road crosses that stream, and the first in the town- ship. We know next to nothing about the early township roads. The Bethlehem road runs across its western part, and early gave the inhabitants an outlet toward Philadelphia, and this main artery of travel was intersected by lateral roads as they were required to accommodate the wants of the inhabitants. In June, 1765, Aaron Fretz, who owned a " water grist-mill" on the Tohickon, in Hay- cock, petitioned the court to open a road for him to get out from it. It was to run down through Bedminster, past Jacob Neice's smith shop, to meet a road from the Durham road to Perkasie. 1 In 1774 Jacob Strawhen, Martin Sheive, William Bryan, John Keller, George Amey, and eighteen others, remonstrated against a road that was to be opened in Haycock, and asked that it be reviewed, on the ground that it would be impossible for wagons to travel it, on account of its being so rough and rocky. This road must have passed across the region known as the "Rocks," the drift belt crossing the township from east to west, where, for the distance of a mile or more, the earth is covered thick with well-worn boulders from the size of a bushel basket to that of a small house. Consid- erable of this region cannot be cultivated.
Haycock has but one village that deserves the name, Applebachs- ville, on the Old Betlhehem road, in the north-west part of the township. It contains about thirty dwellings, several of them brick, built on both sides of the road, with shade trees in front. Among the buildings other than dwellings, are a public school- house, with a graded school, a union church, Lutheran, Reformed, and Mennonite, founded in 1855, built of brick, a brick hotel, and a store. Adjoining the village lived many years, and died in 1872, General Paul Applebach, after whom it was named. He was its founder and did much to advance its prosperity. Down to within twenty-eight years there was but one dwelling there, a centenna- rian, still standing by the roadside, the first new house being built in 1848, by General A. It is the seat of a physician, who practices in the neighborhood. The country around the village is fertile and picturesque, but lying on the borders of the rock drift many loose
1 John Fretz owned a mill in the township before 1764, and Henry Nicholas in 1790.
620
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
boulders that fell out of ranks lie upon the surface and make culti vation somewhat difficult.
There is a good deal of broken and rocky land in Haycock, but the soil is naturally fertile, and where there is nothing to prevent cultivation good crops are sure to follow. It is well-watered by numerous branches of the Tohickon and Haycock creeks-these two streams forming about two-thirds of its boundary. The summit of Haycock mountain is probably the highest point of land in the county.
At the enumeration of population in 1784 Haycock was found to contain 614 inhabitants and 113 dwellings; in 1810, 836; 1820, 926; 1830, 1047, and 221 taxables; 1840, 1021; 1850, 1135; 1860, 1357, and in 1870, 1250, of whom 45 were colored.
621
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XL.
-
BUCKS COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION.
- 1774 TO 1783.
The story of the Revolution .- The county faithful to the colonies .- Committee of safety .- Men enter the army .- The campaign of 1776 .- Washington crosses the Delaware .- Boats collected .- Troops distributed .- Suffering of troops .- James Monroe .- Death of Captain Moore .- Sullivan joins the army .- Quarters of Washington, Greene and Knox .- Headquarters .- Attack on Trenton .- Return of army and prisoners .- Oath of allegiance .- Militia of Bucks turn out .- Continen- tal army crosses Bucks county .- Lafayette .- British occupancy of Philadelphia. -Depredations .- Lacey's command .- Bucks county riflemen .- The Doanes .- The disloyal .- Confiscations .- Hardships of the war.
THE story of the American Revolution cannot be too often told. The wisdom and patriotism of the men who led the revolt against the British crown, and the courage and endurance of those who fought the battles of the colonies, have never been surpassed. Bucks county is surrounded by localities made memorable by the struggle. Less than a day's journey will take one to the Hall of Independence where constitutional liberty was born, to the battle-fields of Tren- ton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, Red Bank, and Mon- mouth, and to the bleak hills of Valley Forge. On three occasions the Continental army, with Washington at its head, marched through our county, to meet the enemy on historic fields, and in the trying period of December, 1776, it sought shelter on Bucks county soil
622
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
behind the friendly waters of the Delaware. Three signers of the Declaration of Independence, Taylor, Clymer, and Morris, made their homes in our county, and one of them was buried here.
While our county was faithful to the cause of independence, a considerable minority of her population remained loyal to the crown. When the war became inevitable, Bucks was one of the first counties to act. The 9th of July, 1774, Joseph Hart, John Kidd, Joseph Kirkbride, James Wallace, Henry Wynkoop, Samuel Foulke, and John Wilkinson were appointed to represent Bucks at a meeting of all the county committees to be held in Philadelphia, where Mr. Hart was chairman of the committee that reported in favor of "a congress of deputies from all the colonies." On the 16th of Janu- ary, 1775, a committee of safety was organized in Bucks, of which Joseph Hart was chairman, and John Chapman clerk, in which was reposed, for the time being, the legislative and executive authority of the county. During the winter the committee collected £252. 193. 18d. to relieve the people "of the town of Boston."
The society of Friends were against the war from the beginning, because strife and bloodshed were opposed to their religious tenets, but the authority of the fathers could not restrain the sons. A number of their young men gave open sympathy to the cause of the colonies, and some entered the military service. Among the latter we find the well-known names of Janney, Brown, Linton, Shaw, Milnor, Hutchinson, Bunting, Stackhouse, Canby, Lacey, and others. The meeting "dealt with" all who forsook the faith, and the elders of Richland were visited with ecclesiastical wrath for turning their backs upon King George. We must do the society justice, however, to say that it was consistent in its action, and that the same censure was launched against the martial Quaker, whether he entered the ranks of the king or the colonies. Nevertheless, the society did not forget the needs of charity, and down to April, 1776, they had already distributed £3,900, principally in New England, and Falls monthly meeting authorized subscriptions for the suffering inhabitants of Philadelphia.
When Congress authorized an army, John Lacey, an Orthodox Quaker, of Buckingham, raised a company of sixty-four men for Wayne's regiment, in January, 1776, whose first lieutenant was Samuel Smith, of Buckingham, Michael Ryan, the second, and John Bartley, and John Forbes ensigns. About the same time, among those who entered the military service from this county, were Rob-
623
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
ert Sample, a scholarly man from Buckingham, a captain in Hube- ley's Tenth Pennsylvania regiment, a good officer who served to the end of the war, Augustus Willett, who had served with Mont- gomery in Canada, in 1775, a captain in Bull's regiment, Samuel Benezett, major in the Sixth Pennsylvania regiment, and Alexander Grayden, of Bristol, a captain in Shee's regiment, who was made prisoner at Fort Washington. Colonel Robert Magaw, of the Sixth Pennsylvania regiment, recruited a number of his men in this. county, and the roll of his killed and captured at Fort Washington gives many well-known names.ı Adjutant Johnson, of Buckingham, and Lieutenants Matthew Bennett and John Erwin, of this county, were among the captured at Fort Washington, and were kept pris- oners several years. Four militia regiments were organized in the county immediately after the war commenced, and in the summer of 1776, Bucks sent a battalion of four hundred men, under Colonel Joseph Hart, to the Flying camp near Amboy, whose adjutant was
1 Names of officers and men from Bucks county, in Colonel Magaw's regiment, killed and captured at Fort Washington : John Beatty, major, Warminster, Bucks county ; John Prestley, lieutenant, Bristol, Bucks county ; William Crawford, lieu- tenant, Warrington, Bucks county ; Isaac Van Horne, ensign, Solebury, Bucks county ; John Wallace, sergeant, Warrington, Bucks county ; John Murray, sergeant, Bristol, Bucks county ; Robert Forsyth, corporal, Warrington, Bucks county ; Richard Hay, private, New Britain, Bucks county ; John Stevens, private, Bristol, Bucks county ; John Banks, private, New Britain, Bucks county ; Thomas Bell, private, Bristol, Bucks county ; Daniel Gulliou, private, Warwick, Bucks county, died of wounds ; Joshua Carrigan, private, Bristol, Bucks county, died in prison ; Ralph Boon, private, Bristol, Bucks county ; Robert Aiken, private, Warminster, Bucks county ; William Jenkins, private, Warwick, Bucks county ; Timothy Knowles, private, Northampton, Bucks county ; Robert Frame, private, Bristol, Bucks county, died in prison ; William Huston, private, Warwick, Bucks county ; Joseph Bratton, private, Bristol, Bucks county; James McNiel, Bensalem, sergeant, Bucks county ; John Evans, sergeant, Bensalem, Bucks county ; Daniel Kenedy, sergeant, Bristol, Bucks county , William Kent, private, Bensalem, Bucks county ; Cornelius Foster, private, Bensalem, Bucks county ; John Bell, private, Bensalem, Bucks county ; Edward Murphy, private, Bensalem, Bucks county ; Andrew Knox, private, Bensalem, Bucks county ; Halbert Douglass, private, Warrington, Bucks county ; John Lalbey, private, Solebury, Bucks county ; Edward Hovenden, ensign, Newtown, Bucks county ; John Coxe, sergeant, Bensalem, Bucks county ; Thomas Stevenson, sergeant, Newtown; John Sproal, cor- poral, Newtown; John Eastwick, corporal, Newtown ; Richard Lott, private, Plum- stead; Dennis Ford, private, Middletown; John Murphy, private, Falls ; Thomas Varden, private, Glassworks; Richard Arkle, private, Wrightstown; Henry Aiken, private, Wrightstown ; Charles A. Moss, private, Northampton ; John Dunn, private, Falls ; John Kerls, private, Falls; John Ketchum, private, Bensalem ; Hugh Evans, private, Southampton, died in prison ; George Clark, fifer, Biles Island (enlisted) ; Reading Beatty, ensign, Warminster.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.