USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 65
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
New Hope was incorporated April 26th, 1837. The first burgess was John Parry, constable, Jonathan Johnson, and councilmen, Joseph D. Murray, D. K. Reeder, Mordecai Thomas, Isaac M. Carty, and Sands Olcott. In May, just after the financial crash had
688
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
taken place, the council authorized the treasurer of the borough to issue one thousand dollars in shinplasters, of the denominations of one dollar, fifty cents, twenty-five cents, ten cents and five cents, which were put in circulation, and redeemed in 1841-42. The present New Hope academy was built about twenty-five years ago, but there was an institution there of that name before 1831, when William H. Hough was the principal.
Although New Hope, at the present day, is not an active, thriving place, considerable business centres there. Besides the dwellings, stores, and mechanical trades usually found in such a village, it contains two flour-mills with two run of stone in each, a cotton fac- tory of two thousand spindles, which spins cotton yarn from the raw material, a flax factory that makes twine from flax and hemp, and an agricultural implement-factory. The old Union flour-mill is being altered to make chemicals used in coloring calicoes. There are two hotels, and a Methodist church built in 1875, but not yet completed. The congregation has been organized fifty years, and the old church stood at the lower end of the village on the private prop- erty of the late Lewis S. Coryell. In 1873 the Presbyterians, who have a small congregation, erected a chapel, and the Friends hold their meetings in the old lyceum-building, near the Delaware bridge. The town is protected from fire by a well-organized fire company, which owns a steamer, and a hook and ladder company. A post- office was established at New Hope, bearing its present name, the 1st of January, 1805, and Charles Ross appointed postmaster. The first census, in 1840, showed a population of 820. In 1850 it was 1,134; 1860, 1,141, and 1,225 in 1870, of which 179 were of foreign birth, and 75 colored.
New Hope is situated on the right bank of the Delaware, a mile above Wells' falls. The Delaware Division canal, which runs through it, affords easy and cheap transportation for heavy mer- chandise, while the Aquetong creek furnishes very fine water-power. The site slopes down to the river, while from the elevated ground back of the town is obtained a fine view of river and valley some distance up and down, of the flourishing little city of Lambertville on the opposite bank, and of the hills that hem it in. During the Revolutionary war Washington's army twice crossed the Delaware at New Hope, then Coryell's ferry, and here was stationed a strong guard when the American army held the west bank in December, 1776.
689
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XLV.
DOYLESTOWN BOROUGH.
1838.
Situation .- Crossing of early roads .- Edward Doyle .- Negro Joe .- William Doyle petitions for license .- Probable location of tavern .- Richard Swanwick .- Old Barndt tavern .- First mention of Doylestown .- Its size in 1790 .- Town-site well- wooded .- Charles Stewart .- Septimus Evans .- The academy .- Uriah DuBois .- Presbyterian church .- John L. Dick .- Court street opened .- George Murray - Removal of county-seat .- First newspaper .- Fourth of July, 1806 .- Captain William Magill .- Village incorporated .- Governor Hiester .- The Stewarts ; Chapmans; Foxes; Rosses; Pughs; Matthias Morris, et al .- New Doyles- town .- Churches .- Public institutions .- Beek's exhibition .- Water-works .- Schools .- Lenape building .- Monument .- Stages .- Population.
DOYLESTOWN, the seat of justice of Bucks, is situated within a mile of the geographical centre of the county.
We have already mentioned that the town is built on lands that belonged to the Free Society of Traders. It was a point of importance when the surrounding country was almost an unbroken wilderness, and years before a village was dreamed of, because the site was at the intersection of two great roads. The Easton road was opened from Willow Grove to the county line in 1722, to enable Governor Keith to reach his plantation of Græme park, the following year it was opened up to Doylestown, and a few years afterward to Eastou, thus giving a continuous highway
44
690
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from Forks of Delaware to Philadelphia. In 1730 a road was opened from New Hope, then Wells' ferry, across the country to the fords on the Schuylkill, leaving the York road at Centreville. These two highways intersected at what is now Main and State streets, and formed the earliest cross-roads at Doylestown. The future county-seat remained thus, and nothing more, for three- quarters of a century.
The Doyles, after whom the town was named, were early resi- dents of the neighborhood, and owners of part of the land it is built on. Edward Doyle was on the New Britain side of the township line in 1730, when he purchased one hundred and fifty acres of Joseph Kirkbride, on the north-west side of the town. In 1737 he bought forty-two acres additional, a narrow strip of twenty-one perches front on west Court street, and running a mile to the north- west, on an annual quit-rent of ten bushels and two pecks of wheat. The Methodist church stands on this tract. On the 1st of May, 1752, William Doyle, possibly a son of Edward, purchased nineteen acres and twenty-eight perches of Isabella Crawford, part of the one hundred and fifty-five acres she had bought of Jeremiah Langhorne's executors, and which embraced what is now the heart of the town, between Court and State streets, and extending from about the line of Hamilton to Church street. Negro Joe's land joined it on the east. Doyle likewise became the owner of the long and narrow forty-two-acre tract, and of an hundred other acres purchased of Kirkbride. At one time Langhorne and Kirkbride owned the whole site of the town.
Doylestown began its village-life in a roadside inn for the accom- modation of travelers, with a neighboring log house or two. We believe that an establishment to administer to the comfort of " man and beast" was the first human habitation erected at or near the cross-roads. A tavern was opened here as early as 1745. We find that at the March term that year, William Doyle was down at court at Newtown with a petition for license to keep a public house on the site of Doylestown, recommended by fourteen of his neighbors and friends, namely, David Thomas, William Wells, Thomas Adams, Thomas Morris, John Marks, Hugh Edmund, Clement Doyle, William Beal, Joseph Burges, Nathaniel West, William Dungan, Solomon McLean, David Eaton, and Edward Doyle. It is stated in the petition that there is no public house within five miles of where he lived, which was " between two great roads, one leading
691
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from Durham to Philadelphia, and the other from Wells' ferry toward the Potomack." The license was granted, and the hostelry set up. It was renewed in 1746, 1748, 1754, and Doyle continued a landlord for many years. From that day to this the site of Doylestown has never been without a public inn, and now there are five.
It would be interesting to know the exact spot where this pioneer hostelry stood, but that cannot be told at this day. That it was . within the present limits of the borough there can be no doubt, for the "two great roads" mentioned in the petition are now Main and State streets. Doyle lived in New Britain, and if he opened the tavern at his own house, it must have been north and west of Court street, for that was the dividing line between New Britain and Warwick ; but if a new house were erected for the purpose, it was probably located at one of the corners where the "two great roads" crossed, which would bring it "betwixt" them. It is only reasonable to suppose the tavern was very near the crossing of the roads, so as to command the travel on both. If it were not on the cross-roads from the first, it was probably opened there within a few years, for in 1752 William Doyle bought nineteen acres and some perches of Isabella Crawford on the north-east corner of State and Main streets. Doyle left the tavern between 1774 and 1776 and removed to Plumstead, and in October of that year he sold two acres at the corner of State and Main to Daniel Hough, innkeeper, of Warwick. Hough also bought the long and narrow forty-two- acre lot for $575, and three weeks afterward he sold them both to Richard Swanwick, of Chester county, an officer of customs at Phila- delphia, who joined the British in the Revolution, when his real estate was confiscated. During all the time that William Doyle kept the tavern, near thirty years, the locality was but a cross-roads, and went by the name of "Doyle's tavern." It is possible that the old tavern on the south-east corner of State and Main was built by Sam- uel and Joseph Flack after their purchase of the lot in 1773, and that Doyle's tavern was not on that corner. There is a claim that the first tavern stood on the lot now Reuben F. Scheetz's, on Court just west of Main, and near which, at Doctor Harvey's corner, is an. old well, and where was a horse-block, both of which may have be- longed to the earliest inn at Doylestown. That location would place the inn too far from the cross-roads and from either road. There was an early tavern where Corson's hotel stands, but that was later
692
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
than Doyle's. The old Barndt tavern, torn down in 1874 to make room for Lenape building, was at the time probably the oldest in the borough, it having been kept as an inn for about one hundred years. In removing it, it was found that the part farthest from Main street was built first. The west end wall showed the pointing in good condition, which proves that the addition was built up against it and the wall plastered over. In all probability it was not built for a tavern, but for a dwelling, and the west end added when license was granted. The cellar of the old part was lathed and plastered, to deaden the sound of whatever was carried on in the room above. Samuel and Joseph Flack owned this property for eighteen years, or until 1791. On the 1st day of May, 1778, a child of Samuel was buried from this house, and the body taken to Neshaminy grave- yard. It was the day the battle was fought at the Crooked-Billet between the British and General Lacey's troops. There was so much fear of the British that but four persons accompanied the corpse to the burial-ground, two young men and two young women, one of whom was a Miss Mary Doyle, afterward a Mrs. Mitchel, and mother of the late Mrs. Nathaniel Cornell, of Doylestown. They were mounted on fleet horses, the young men being armed and carrying the coffin. When they reached the ground the men dis- mounted and buried the body, while the women remained on horse- back to be ready to fly at the first alarm. Afterward, they hurried home as rapidly as possible. Ourinformation was obtained many years ago from a descendant of one of the party that rode to the grave- yard, who said that Samuel Flack at that time kept tavern at Doyles- town. We think there is no doubt that he kept the old hostelry lately torn down, as he was part owner of the premises, which fixes its age at one hundred and three years when it passed away, and that humble funeral procession which started from our village ninety- eight years ago crossed the threshold of the old inn.
Newspaper authority tells us that Doylestown, in 1778, contained but two or three log dwellings, one on the site of Mr. Scheetz's brick house and another where the old Mansion house stands, on the south- west corner of State and Main streets. The earliest mention of its present name that we have seen, is on a map of twenty-five miles around Philadelphia, drawn by the engineers of the British army in 1777 when it occupied that city. It was then spelled "Doyltown." When General John Lacey occupied the village, in 1778, with a small body of troops, he addressed a letter to General Washington
693
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from "Doyle Town," the town of the Doyles. Even at that early day the village had its physician, Doctor Hugh Meredith, on Arm- strong's corner, where he lived many years, and died there. In the Farmer's Weekly Gazette, printed in the village in 1800, the word is spelled "Doyltown." About 1790 Doylestown contained some half dozen dwellings, besides a tavern or two, a store and smith- shop-a prosperous cross-roads. One of these was a part of Mrs. Ross's dwelling, probably the corner at Court and Monument place, where Joseph Fell lived, and blacksmithed, across Main street, on the site of the old hay-scale. George Stewart lived in a log house about where the Intelligencer office stands, and afterward known as Barton Stewart's shop. Doctor Meredith was still at Armstrong's corner in a stone dwelling, with a frame office attached. Going down Main street we find a small stone tavern on the site of Lenape building, probably kept by Christian Wertz who bought the prop- erty in 1791, with a little frame store-house adjoining, on State street, kept we believe by Nathaniel Shewell. Nearly opposite, on the west side of Main street, on the site of Shade's tin-shop, was a small frame. A log house stood on the west side of State, on the ground afterward occupied by the old brewery. No one lived in it at that time, but it was occupied soon afterward by one Joseph Pool, who kept a groggery there. This was the extent and condition of Doylestown eighty-six years ago, but mean as it was, it possessed the seed everywhere planted in this country where it is necessary to have a town-a tavern, store and smith-shop. In 1798 Charles Stewart kept a tavern where the Fountain house stands and " where the Bethlehem mail-stage stopped for dinner," Jacob Thomas was sad- dler, cap, holster and harnessmaker, "near the printing office," and Joseph Stewart carried on the same business " on the Swede's ford road, the first house below Doyltown."
At this period the site of Doylestown was well-wooded. Timber extended from the corner of Broad on the west side, up Main street to the Dublin road, and reaching back some distance. There was likewise considerable timber along the east side of Main street, be- tween the same points, on the north side of Court street out to the borough limits, and the Riale and Armstrong farms were heavily timbered. Robert Kirkbride owned all the land on both sides of Main street, from Broad to the Cross Keys, and on the north side of Dutch lane. One of the first houses built after those already named, was a log, on the knoll opposite the Clear spring tavern,
694
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
by Elijah Russell, which is still standing. Soon afterward a Cana- dian, named Musgrave, built a log house on the lot now owned by John Ott, on Main above Broad, and also a shop about where Mr Cuffie's dwelling stands, in which his son carried on wheelwrighting. The father was a clock and watchmaker, the first in Doylestown. He got indignant because he was not allowed to vote before he was naturalized, sold out and returned to Canada. The end of Mr. Lyman's stone house, next to Broad street, torn down in 1873, was built by Zerick Titus, who carried on saddle and harnessmaking in a shop that stood in Doctor James' yard, opposite. At a later day Septimus Evans built the house of Mrs. A. J. LaRue, Broad and Main, where he carried on watchmaking. This house was kept as a tavern many years. He was the father of the late Henry S. Evans, of the Village Record, twice a state senator, and otherwise prominent, who was born in Doylestown. The older portion of the Fountain house, Main and State streets, now standing was built by Enoch Harvey, where he kept tavern many years, and as early as 1804. A little later this embryo county capital saw other new houses go up; the old Bryan stone house, now Henry Harvey's, on Main, the stone house of Jeremiah Gunagan, erected in 1808, by the late Josiah Y. Shaw, a one-story stone on the Magill property, Main and State, the dwelling of Doctor Rhoads, on Main, built by Doctor Meredith, and the Ross mansion. The latter was kept as a hotel for several years, and among the landlords were Frederick Nicholas, William Watts, William McHenry, Stephen Brock, and Abraham Black, and it was a public house when the county-seat was removed here in 1813. At a later period, we have, among the old dwellings, the stone, late Jonathan McIntosh's, now owned by Henry T. Darlington, the old end of Samuel Hall's stone house, in which his father lived, and was built by him in 1800, soon after he came from New Jersey, the old stone of Mrs. Nightingale, on State street, in which the Doylestown bank was first opened, Doctor Harvey's dwelling on Main street, built in 1813, and the old stone dwelling next to Nathan C. James', on Main street. The old Mansion house was first licensed about 1812, before which time Henry Magill, uncle to William. kept store there. A few years ago the late Thomas Brunner, of Bridge Point, told the author, that he and the late Samuel Keichline counted the dwel- lings in Doylestown in 1821, which then numbered twenty-nine, including the academy, in which a family lived. The Ross stable is probably the oldest building in the borough.
695
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The Doylestown academy was erected in 1804, partly by sub- scription and partly by lottery. For lack of funds to finish the building, the legislature, by act of February, 1805, authorized $3,000 to be raised by lottery, the commissioners being Andrew Dunlap, Christian Clemens, John Hough, Thomas Stewart, Hugh Meredith, Na haniel Shewell, and Josiah Y. Shaw, and there was a drawing in May, 1806. The advertised scheme announced sixteen thousand tickets at $2.50 each, of which four thousand six hundred and thirty- five were to be prizes, and eleven thousand three hundred and sixty- five blanks, the prizes to be paid within thirty days of the drawing, and all not called for within a year were to be forfeited. The prizes ranged from $3,000 to $4. How much was realized is not known, probably not a great deal, for in 1809 the friends of the academy asked the legislature for an appropriation, and got it. The building was first occupied in July, 1804. When ready for occu- pancy the trustees invited the Reverend Uriah DuBois, pastor at Deep Run, to become the principal, which he accepted, and the same year he removed from Dublin down to Doylestown to take charge of the school. He continued principal of the academy, hav- ing especial charge of the classical department, until his death, in 1821. In the first announcement of the academy being open for pupils, it is stated, as an inducement for parents to send their chil- dren there, that "the Bethlehem and Easton mail-stages run through the town twice a week." A notice in the Pennsylvania Correspon- dent invites those who intend continuing their children at the academy to meet there on Tuesday, October 28th, 1806, to consult on a proper and certain plan of furnishing the school with wood. It was both a boarding and day-school, the boarders living in the family of the principal. At that early day there was the usual annual ex- hibition by the students, consisting of orations, dialogues, and other exercises. Since its foundation the academy has been occupied for educational purposes, and at times boarding-schools of considerable celebrity have been kept in it. Among the principals of these schools may be mentioned the Reverends Samuel Aaron, Robert P. DuBois, and Silas M. Andrews, LL. D. It is now occupied by the public schools of the borough. The Reverend Uriah DuBois, its first principal, was something of a politician, and was twice ap- pointed clerk of the orphans' court. The first Sabbath-school in the county was organized in the academy in 1815, and a congregational library in 1816. Mr. DuBois commenced to preach in a room in
696
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the academy soon after he took charge of it, and gradually a con- gregation was collected, which was the nucleus of the Doylestown Presbyterian church. Uriah DuBois, the ancestor of the family of this name in the county, was the son of Peter and Ann DuBois, and descended from Louis DuBois, a Huguenot, who immigrated to America about 1660, at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and with other refugees settled at Kingston, on the. Hudson. Louis DuBois had another descendant in this county, Jonathan, his grand- son, who was called to the Dutch Reformed church of North and Southampton about 1750, married Eleanor Wynkoop, and died in 1772. A son of Jonathan, and a second cousin of Uriah, was a cap- tain of cavalry in the Revolutionary army. A grand reunion of the family took place at New Paltz, New York, the 25th of August, 1875, to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Louis DuBois at that place, and several hundred of his descendants were present. After the death of Uriah DuBois, Ebenezer Smith, of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, had charge of the classical department in the academy for several years. He removed to a farm in Warwick in 1828, where he died January 1st, 1829.
The Doylestown Presbyterian church grew out of the meetings held in the Union academy, a room in this building being set apart for the free use of every denomination of Christians that might see fit to occupy it. Mr. DuBois preached there at stated periods. He was released from the care of the Tinicum congregation in 1808, from which time he held worship alternately at Deep Run and in the academy. The removal of the county-seat to Doylestown, in 1813, and the want of proper accommodations in the academy, coupled with a general desire for a church in the town, gave birth to the project of erecting a Presbyterian church. It was commenced in August, 1813, and dedicated in August, 1815. The building was of stone, fifty-five by forty-five feet, and cost $4,282.57. The lot was purchased of John Shaw, for $409. The money was principally raised in small amounts, Doctor Samuel Moore being the largest contributor, $200, and three other gentlemen gave $100 each. At its dedication there were present from abroad, the Reverends Jacob Janeway, of Philadelphia, and Robert B. Belville, of Neshaminy. At this time the united membership at Deep Run and Doylestown was but thirty, and they had increased to but forty-eight in 1818. Thomas Stewart, James Ferguson and Andrew Dunlap had been ruling elders at Deep Run for several years, and, with the pastor, con- stituted the first session at Doylestown.
697
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
The graveyard was open for interment several months before the church was occupied. The first person buried in it was John Ledley Dick, a young man much respected and lamented, who died at Doylestown, of typhus fever, February 18th, 1815. A young mem- ber of the bar, 1 his intimate friend and associate, who was with him in his last moments, in a letter written to a gentleman in the lower end of the county, the day of his death, speaks thus of the sad event : " My friend, John L. Dick, died to-day at two o'clock, P. M., of the typhus fever. How frail is man ! Ten days ago he was in the vigor of health. Alas, how visionary our hopes of earthly happiness ; but two months since he married Miss Erwin, the daughter of the rich- est man in the county. How soon their fondest anticipations of future bliss and domestic felicity were destroyed." The writer of the letter followed his friend Dick to the grave in a few days, and shortly afterward his mother, sister and cousin all crossed the dark river to the undiscovered country beyond, all dying in the house late the residence of Mrs. John Fox, Court street, in the space of about two weeks. The widow of John L. Dick was married to Thomas G. Kennedy in 1819. The Dicks, John L. and three sisters, came from Belfast, Ireland, to Doylestown before 1812. Their father is thought to have been a Presbyterian clergyman. One of the sisters married Doctor Charles Meredith, of Doylestown.
The church was incorporated in 1816. The building was enlarged and improved the summer of 1852, at an expense of $4,339.03, a trifle more than the original cost, and taken down in 1871, and a handsome brownstone church built on its site, at an expense of $25,000. The Female Bible society, auxiliary to the county society, was organized the same year as the Female Library society, 1816, both of which are still in a flourishing state. Since the death of Mr. DuBois the pastors of the church have been, Charles Hyde, in 1823, who resigned in 1829, and died in Connecticut in 1871, and Rev- erend Doctor Silas M. Andrews, who was called to the pastorate in 1831. At the close of his fortieth year's service he had baptised five hundred and thirty-five persons, received six hundred and fifty-one into communion, officiated at nine hundred and forty funerals, mar- ried eight hundred and forty-eight couples, and delivered six thousand eight hundred and seventy-five lectures and sermons. He is still the pastor, in vigorous working condition.
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.