USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 64
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In 1753 part of the mill tract was bought by Joseph Wilkinson, who is supposed to have been the son of Sir George Wilkinson, who owned the site of New Hope. The boundaries of the property, with the Delaware, Great spring creek, road to the ferry and across the creek, with dwellings, including-ferry house and woods, are neatly and accurately cut on a powder-horn, with the name " Joseph Wilkinson, 1776," now in the possession of Torbert Coryell. From Joseph Wilkinson the farm came into the possession of Joshua Van- sant, and thence to the late Lewis S. Coryell. The Wilkinsons caused to be erected in the present limits of New Hope a rolling and slitting-mill, which stood about where the canal aqueduct crosses the Great spring creek. The foundations were laid bare by a great freshet in the creek in 1832, when they were pointed out to our informant by the late Mr. Coryell and others. The iron and iron ore were brought down the river from Durham in boats. Martin Coryell, of Lambertville, has his brass button moulds, made by him- self, with his name and date cut upon them-" Joseph Wilkinson, 1778." Mr. Coryell had also in his possession, now unfortunately lost, a curious copper medal-on one side is cut the profile of a man
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of fine, bold features, in military coat, with queue and ribbon, the date of which is not remembered. On the reverse was "Sir George Wilkinson, ironmaster." Mr. Coryell has likewise in his possession the Wilkinson coat-of-arms, confirmed to Richard Wilkinson, one of the chancery clerks, by William Camden Clarencieux, September 14th, 1605. On the coat-of-arms is the following :
THE WILKINSON COAT-OF-ARMS.
"He beareth Gules, a Fess, vaire be- tween three unicorns, Parsent or by the name of Wilkinson." The wife of the late Lewis S. Coryell was a daughter of Joshua Vansant, whose wife, Mary Wilkinson, was a granddaughter of Sir George on the paternal side. We are told that Jemi- mah Wilkinson, the prophetess, and Joe Smith, the Mormon, both claimed de- scent from the same ancestry.
The eastern bank of the Delaware at this point was not settled at as early a day as the Bucks county side. The first settler where Lambertville stands was Emanuel Coryell, a descendant of one of two brothers who immigrated from France, on the confines of Ger- many and Switzerland, to America soon after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. They landed at Perth Amboy, and took up a tract of land on Scotch plains, near the present town of Plainfield, and in the course of time a portion of the family made their homes on the eastern bank of the Delaware. The family have become numerous and scattered. Emanuel Coryell located on the river in 1732, coming from Somerset county, New Jersey. He took up a large tract of land, including the site of Lambertville, and built his hut close to the river and near the eastern end of the bridge that spans the stream. The Quakers of New England, on their way to Penn's colony of Pennsylvania, where there was neither let nor hindrance in religious matters, struck the river at this point, and soon Coryell established a ferry on the New Jersey side, but it was several years after John Wells had leased the ferry of the Penns on the Pennsylvania side. Coryell was shortly followed by John Hol- comb, from what is now Montgomery county, who took up a tract about halt a mile higher up the river, whose will was proved in 1743, one of the witnesses being Benjamin Canby, of Bucks county, and Emanuel Coryell the other. The next settler was Joseph Lambert,
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whose family was destined to give the name to the town of Lambert- ville. A few years after his settlement Mr. Coryell built a stone tavern, now used as a dwelling, just below the bridge. In 1748 he sold a lot of land to Job Warford, on Main street, who built a tavern on it, when Mr. Coryell closed his at the ferry. His son George, who kept the ferry during the Revolutionary war, had been a provincial officer in the French and Indian war. Emanuel Cor- yell died before 1760, leaving real estate of one thousand five hun- dred and three acres adjoining the town site. The lot on which the Lambertville Presbyterian church is built and the burying-ground were the gift of Mr. Coryell, and the only title the church holds to the real estate is a transcript of the settlement of his estate, dated October 10th, 1760. The estate was settled and divided among the heirs by Langhorne Biles, Jonathan Ingham, Peter Prall, Azariah Dunham, and Pontius Stelle, and the award, which includes the church lot and burying-ground, is now filed in the archives of the church. The ferry lot, of seventy-five acres, with the buildings and ferry-house, was awarded to Abraham Coryell. Cornelius Coryell, son of the first Cornelius, died at Lambertville, July 6th, 1831, in his ninety-ninth year, having been born June 27th, 1733. In 1795 Lambertville had but four houses. It was first called by this name in 1812, when a post-office was established there, and John Lam- bert appointed postmaster. The erection of the bridge across the Delaware between New Hope and Lambertville, in 1816, gave the first impetus to improvement; streets were laid out and houses erected A street from the bridge was opened to what is now Main street, which was widened and straightened, and a new tavern was built on Bridge street, whither the license was transferred from the ferry- house. In this latter building the first post-office was kept. The first Presbyterian church was built in 1817. The further growth of Lambertville was stimulated by the opening of the Belvidere- Delaware railroad in 1853, and it is now a thriving and prosperous town of some six thousand inhabitants. Emanuel Coryell had three sons, Emanuel, who lived and kept the ferry on the Pennsylvania side of the river for many years, Cornelius, who performed the same office on the New Jersey side, and Abraham, who lived at King- wood. George, a son of Emanuel, was a captain in the Revolu- tionary army, and Cornelius's son George, who was learning the carpenter trade in Monmouth county, New Jersey, witnessed the battle of that name. He built Benjamin Franklin an elaborate
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fence and gateway in Philadelphia. He removed to Alexandria, Virginia, at the request of General Washington, was a member of the same Masonic lodge, and his last surviving pall-bearer.
The water privileges, afforded by the stream flowing from the Great spring, made New Hope and the immediate vicinity an important point for mills and forges. We have already stated there was a fulling-mill on the Heath tract about 1712, built by Philip Williams. The first saw-mill was built about 1740, and before 1745 Benjamin Canby built a forge on this stream, on which were now a grist, saw, and fulling-mill, and a forge. The forge was sold by the sheriff in 1750 or 1751, after Canby's death. Before 1770 Henry Dennis owned the forge and a stamping-mill. The forge was on a ten-acre tract above the village, but he owned a ninety-five acre farm on the river below the mouth of the spring creek, and it was bounded on the north by that stream. The south-west line ran two hundred and thirteen perches to the manor of Highlands, and along that land one hundred and eighty perches to the river. John Wilkinson, of Wrightstown, whose son Ichabod married Sarah, daughter of John Chapman, built a forge at New Hope, above the Parry mills, in 1753. His brother John became a prominent and wealthy man in Wrightstown, and was a member of assembly during the Revolution. The forge went down soon after the war, when a fine saw-mill, that cut a thousand feet of lumber a day, was built on the spot. About 1767 Doctor Joseph Todd, a physician of some note from Montgomery county, moved to Coryell's ferry, where he died about 1775. He owned what was afterward known as the Parry mill, which was in the possession of the government for about three years of the Revolution and was used as a forage store-house. Joseph Todd had a son, Charles F., born about 1758, who arrived home from boarding-school at Bustleton on Christmas- day, and saw the Continental troops march from New Hope to attack the Hessians at Trenton. He studied medicine during the war, at Doylestown, probably with Doctor Hugh Meredith, and afterward lived in Cumberland county. He traveled through the south-western part of the country, and along the Mississippi, and was absent from home for several years. In 1771 Thomas Smith kept store at or near New Hope, when the Ichabod Wilkinson land was known as the " Forge tract."
New Hope has borne its present name over three-quarters of a century, and probably longer. It is said that the name was given
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to it by Joseph Todd, who, it will be remembered, moved there in 1767, and died about 1775, but we think this doubtful. Down to near 1770 it was known as Wells' ferry, after John Wells, who kept the ferry on this side, but the name was afterward changed to Coryell's ferry, after George Coryell, who kept the ferry on the New Jersey side. This name was retained until the present one was given to the place. Mr. Martin Coryell, a native of the bo- rough, accounts for the name in this wise : He says that after the slitting-mill was abandoned other mills were erected for grinding grain, sawing lumber, and were called the Hope mills, that they were afterward burned, and when re-built were called the New hope mills, and from that the name of the town. This must have been before the close of the last century, for in 1800 the place was called "New Hope, lately Coryell's ferry."
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THE PARRY MANSION, NEW HOPE.
The Parrys are descended from an ancient and honorable family of the name, long resident in Carnarvonshire, North Wales. The celebrated Lord Richard Parry, bishop of Saint Asaph from 1604 to his death in 1623, and Sir Love P. J. Parry, baronet, formerly member of Parliament, who lost a leg at Waterloo, were of this family. Their coat-of-arms-the crest a war charger's head, and the device upon the shield, a stag trippant-shows their lives in early times to have been passed amidst the sports of the chase and the excitement of the battle-field. Thomas Parry, the founder of the family in America, was born in Carnarvonshire in 1680, and
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came to this country about the close of the seventeenth century, settling in Philadelphia county, now Montgomery, and in 1715 he married Jane Morris. They had ten children, Thomas, Philip, John, Stephen, Edward, David, Mary, Jacob, Isaac, and Martha- the first child being born in 1716, and the youngest in 1739. The immediate progenitor of our Bucks county family was Benjamin Parry, the third son of John, and Margaret Tyson, his wife, who was the third son of Thomas the elder, born in the manor of Moreland, March the 1st, 1757.
The coming of Benjamin Parry from Philadelphia county to New Hope gave a fresh impetus to the business interest of that section. In 1784 he purchased the Todd property of the widow and heirs, and took immediate possession, although the actual conveyance was not made until 1789. He was an active business man, and acquired a large estate for that day, owning several farms, and mills for the manufacture of linseed-oil and lumber. Shortly after 1800 he pur- chased a mill property on the Delaware, in Hunterdon county, New Jersey, which he called Prime hope, which he conducted in con- nection with the New Hope mills. At the same time he was a member of the firm of Parry and Cresson, and interested with Tim- othy Paxson (afterward one of the executors of Stephen Girard) in the flour commission and storage business in Philadelphia. This was about 1803. In May, 1790, the Parry grist and oil-mills at New Hope were burned down. An old tax receipt of 1802 shows that Benjamin Parry paid a sanitary tax that year, but true to his orthodox scruples he refused to pay his militia tax. In 1794 nearly the whole of what is now New Hope belonged to the Parrys. The stone mansion erected by Benjamin Parry soon after 1785, a view of which is given in this chapter, is still standing and occupied by the family as a summer residence. It was mainly owing to the ex- ertions of Mr. Parry and Samuel D. Ingham that the act to build a bridge across the Delaware at New Hope was obtained from the legislature, and they were the committee appointed to superintend its erection. The cost of the bridge, including ferry-rights, toll- houses, etc., was $67,936.37. Benjamin Parry married Jane Paxson, daughter of Oliver, of this county, the 14th of November, 1787, by whom he had four children, Oliver, born December 20th, 1794, Ruth, born 1797, Jane, born 1799, and Margaret, born 1804. He remained in active business at New Hope until a few years before his death, in 1839, at the age of eighty-three. Mr. Parry was a
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man of considerable scientific attainment, having patented one or more useful inventions, of varied and extensive reading, was public spirited, and took deep interest in all that would improve his neigh- borhood or the county. His death was a serious loss to the community. In the Parry papers there is mention of several great freshets on the Delaware, in the years 1788, 1800, 1807, and 1814. In 1788 and 1807 the breast of the mill-dam where the Great spring creek empties into the Delaware, was washed away. There was - then a row of lofty Lombardy poplars along the river front of the Parry property, close to the water's edge.
Oliver Parry, the eldest son of Benjamin, and born at New Hope, married Rachel, daughter of Major Edward Randolph of the Revo- lutionary army, the 1st of May, 1827. They had issue twelve children, of whom eight are living. The fourth child, Edward Ran- dolph Parry, born July 27th, 1832, and died April 13th, 1874, entered the United States army in May, 1861, as first-lieutenant of the Eleventh infantry. He served to the close of the war with credit. He was assistant adjutant-general of the regular brigade, was captain in 1864, and promoted to a majority for "gallant and meritorious services," and was with army headquarters at the surrender of Lee, in 1865. He resigned in 1871, and died from the effects of hard service. Major Parry was not the first member of the family who did his country service in the field in the hour of need. Caleb Parry, a member of the Montgomery branch, was lieutenant-colonel of Colonel Samuel Atlee's Continental regiment, and was instantly killed at the battle of Long Island in 1776. His mother was Han- nah Dilworth. Edward Randolph, the grandfather of Major Ed- ward Randolph Parry on the maternal side, was likewise an officer in the Revolutionary army. He served as captain in Wayne's bri- gade, and was major at the close of the war. He subsequently be- came a member of the Society of Friends, and died in Philadelphia in 1837. The wife of Oliver Parry died in 1866, and he deceased in 1874, in his eightieth year, and the remains of both lie in the Friends' burying-ground in Solebury township. Of the other children of Benjamin Parry, Margaret married Charles Knowles, but had no issue. Richard Randolph Parry, of Philadelphia, grandson of Ben- jamin. and son of Oliver, is the fifth in descent from Thomas Parry, the first American ancestor. Parryville, Carbon county, Pennsyl- vania, is named after Daniel Parry, grandson of the first Thomas. He owned large tracts of land in that and adjoining counties, part of which he purchased of the Marquis de Noailles of France.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
There are other Parrys in the county who claim descent from Welsh parentage. The venerable Thomas F. Parry, of Attlebor- ough, is the great-grandson of Thomas Parry, who came from Wales and settled in Moreland township, where he married Jane Walton, and died the father of ten children. Stephen the eldest of the ten left his children a number of slaves. Thomas's eighth son, Philip, married Mary Harker, of Middletown, and moved into Buckingham. Thomas F. is the son of John, the second of nine children, and the brother of David Parry, of Lahaska. In 1874 three of this family were living, two brothers and a sister, David, Thomas and Charity, whose united ages were two hundred and seventy-one years-ninety- six, eighty-two, and ninety-three, respectively. William Parry, presi- dent of the Cincinnati, Richmond and Fort Wayne railroad is a mem- ber of this family. Fifty years ago, Joseph Parry and family, of Horsham, immigrated to Indiana, and his descendants are now found in several states. Thomas F. Parry undoubtedly descends from a common ancestry with the New Hope Parrys. His great- grandfather, Thomas, we believe to have been the eldest son of the first Thomas, who came from Wales at the close of the seventeenth century, and settled in Moreland township. About a quarter of a century ago the heirs of Thomas and Jane Parry were advertised for in English and American newspapers, being claimed as the heirs at law of a Welsh gentleman named Parry, who died intestate, leaving a large estate. As the heirs here were well off in this world's goods, they made no claim to the estate, and it reverted to the British crown. There is some evidence to connect our Parrys with Sir Edward Parry, the famous arctic navigator, but we have neither time nor space to pursue the inquiry.
In his day and generation New Hope had no more useful and enterprising citizen than the late Lewis S. Coryell. He was a son of Joseph Coryell, and descendant of Emanuel, the first of the name on the Delaware, and was born at Lambertville in December, 1788. In 1803, at the age of fifteen, he apprenticed himself for six years and one month, to Benjamin Smith, house carpenter, of Bucking- ham. The indenture is an old-fashioned and stately document, which sets forth with great minuteness the rights and duties of both parties. At the end of three years and nine months he purchased the balance of his time for forty dollars, and formed a co-partnership with Thomas Martin, an older apprentice. They established them- selves at Morrisville, where they carried on business for several
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years. Mr. Coryell afterward engaged in the lumber business at New Hope, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a man of extensive information on many subjects, and was one of the best practical engineers in the state. He was an early advocate of inter- nal improvements, and in 1818 he was appointed one of the commissioners to improve the rafting and boating channels of the Delaware, and the work was placed under his charge. Although an active politician he never held office, but exercised large influence. . He had extensive acquaintance with the statesmen of the country, and enjoyed their confidence. He was a favorite with President Monroe, and was a frequent guest at the White house while he occupied it. During what is known as the " Buckshot war" at Harrisburg, in 1838, Mr. Coryell assisted Thaddeus Stevens to make his escape from the back window of the house of representatives. Under Mr. Tyler's administration he was the secret agent employed by the government to bring Texas into the Union. He was an active supporter of the war of 1812, and served as baggage-master at camp Marcus Hook. Mr. Coryell was married to Mary Vansant, of New Hope, in 1813, and has three sons living, two of whom are engineers, one of them engaged in his profession in China. Lewis S. Coryell died in 1865.
William Maris who came to New Hope from Philadelphia soon after the war of 1812, who made considerable improvement in the quiet vil- lage. Among the buildings erected by him were the large yellow house at the top of the hill, where Richard Ely lives, the brick tavern, two factories in the village, one for cotton and one for woolen, the latter being rented to Redwood Fisher and Lamar G. Wells, of Trenton, a cotton-mill a mile up the creek, now owned by Joshua Whitely, who is engaged in spinning yarn, which was burned down in 1836, re- built, and has been running ever since, and several dwellings. Maris was active in building the bridge across the Delaware, and when completed a bank, for which it was thought there was authority in the charter, was opened in the west end of the old tavern, now the Logan house. This was the old ferry-house. The improvements Maris made added greatly to the business of the town, which was continued for several years, and until it was overtaken by a financial crisis. The former prosperity has never returned. The opening of the Belvidere-Delaware railroad struck a heavy blow at New Hope. When Maris came to New Hope in 1812 there were but fifteen or twenty dwellings in it. There was but one tavern, where the Lo-
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gan house stands, kept by Charles Pidcock, and there was no other until the Brick hotel was built. The pole with the Indian on the top was planted the 22d of February, 1828. They were made by Samuel Cooper. At that time Garret Meldrum kept the ferry on the Pennsylvania, and Charles Pidcock on the New Jersey, side. The place saw its most prosperous days when Parry, Maris, Coryell, and Joseph D. Murray were in the full tide of operations. In 1830 there were several factories, mills, and a foundry, all doing a large business.
About 1809 Samuel Stockton, born in Burlington county in 1788, and died in 1853, settled in New Hope, where he lived to his death. He married Mary, daughter of Foster Hart, of Trenton, New Jer- sey, and had twelve children.
New Hope was a very insignificent village when the Parrys set- tled there in 1784. Twelve years later we find the following resi- dents there besides Benjamin Parry and his brother David, namely : Beaumont, Cephas Ross, O. Hampton, jr., Pickering, Joseph Os- mond, Vansant, A. Ely, Martha Worstall, Eli Doane, Enoch Kitchen, John Poor, Oliver Paxson, Coolbaugh, and William Kitchen. There were thirty-four buildings in all, including dwellings, stores, shops, barns, tavern, stables, and a saw-mill. The tavern was owned by Beaumont in 1796, but we do not know who kept it. Garret Mel- drum was the landlord in 1804, and that year the company of Cap- tain Samuel D. Ingham, thirty-first regiment, Bucks county brigade, celebrated the 4th of July at his house. The Brick hotel near the bridge was built in 1818, and in 1820-21 was kept by George Mel- drum, the son of Garret. At that date Philip T. Tuckett and wife kept a boarding school in New Hope.
Joseph D. Murray, one of the few men who made New Hope the prosperous place it was in olden times, came there from Edenton, North Carolina, in 1817. His parents immigrated from Scotland to that state, and settled at Edenton, where Joseph D. was born. At the age of seventeen he ran away from home and went to sea as a sailor, and was wrecked on Cat island in the West Indies. This probably cured him of seafaring, and we next find him keeping store in Philadelphia during the war of 1812-15. Meeting with some reverses he removed to New Hope and opened a country store in partnership with George Bozman, in two rooms of the dwelling he occupied to his death, and in which his son, William H. Murray, now lives. He subsequently went into the lumber business with Lewis
.
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S. Coryell, which they carried on successfully for a number of years. The firm engaged in other branches of business at the same time. They built the canal through New Hope, about a mile, including all the locks and aqueducts, in 1829-30, and also the canal locks at Trenton and Bordentown, of stone from the Yardleyville quarries, which they then owned. The firm was dissolved in 1836, and Mr. Murray died March 1st, 1841, at the age of fifty-four.
The oldest house in New Hope stands near the south end of the iron bridge that spans the Parry mill-dam. It was built by the Wilkinsons, among the early settlers about the ferry, on their tract which extended north to the creek, and was afterward owned by Joshua Vansant, the father of the late Mrs. Lewis S. Coryell. Some years ago, when a new roof was put on the house, a few grape shot were found imbedded in the old one, supposed to have been fired from a British battery on the opposite hills. The second old- est house in the borough is the frame hip-roof at the head of Ferry street, built by John Poor, the grandfather of the late Daniel Poor, and the third oldest is a stone on Bridge street, above Doctor Foulke's, built by George Ely, grandfather of Hiram Ely. The pointed stone house on Ferry street, by the canal, built by Garret Meldrum, before 1808, is the fourth or fifth oldest dwelling. Meldrum kept a tavern in it soon after it was finished. The Paxson homestead, at the head of Bridge and Ferry streets, approached down a long, shady avenue, was built by Oliver Paxson, the great-uncle of Oliver Paxson, the late owner. The date is not known. We are told, and the authority is a person who witnessed it when a lad, that Washington tied his horse to a tree at the end of the lane, while his army was crossing Coryell's ferry in 1778. The Murray dwelling was built in 1808 by one Coolbaugh. Near the head of Ferry street is one of the oldest frame houses, in which R. Thornton, sub- sequently sheriff of the county, kept store forty years ago. The first store in New Hope was probably that of Daniel Parry, brother of Benjamin, who erected the frame building in which it was kept, and is still standing, on the corner of River and Ferry streets, now owned by Peter Johnson. The ferry was at the foot of this latter street.
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