USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 69
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Next to our courts, the history of the changes and removals of the county-seat is of interest. We find that as the settlements extended back into the interior from the Delaware, the county-seat sought the centre of population. It is difficult to locate the first court-house. It was built by Jeremiah Langhorne before, or by 1686, and was probably in Falls township, for in July of that year it was proposed to hold Falls meeting for four months in the new court-house, and
730
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
pay the county ten shillings rent, but it was not done, because there was " no convenience of seats and water." Several points claim the honor of the parent court-house. Doctor Edward Buckman places it on the farm late of Jacob Smith, below Morrisville, and near the month of a creek that empties into the Delaware at Moon's island, where an old building is still standing, twenty by thirty feet, two stories high. Tradition tells us the first court-house stood at the angle of the Newtown and Fallsington roads. Falls meeting was frequently held in William Biles's kitchen, on the river just below Morrisville, and we know that court was held there a few times. On the east end of the new building are " W. B., 1726." The elec- tions were held at the falls down to 1705, and it was the custom of that day to hold them in the court-house. When the first group of townships was organized, in 1692, court was held in Friends' meet- ing-house in Middletown. At April term, 1700, the grand jury presented the necessity " of the placing a court-house near the middle of the county, which we esteem to be near Neshaminy meeting- house," now at Attleborough. In 1702 court was held at the house of George Biles, probably in Falls. In 1705 the county-seat was changed to Bristol, the new buildings erected being on a lot one hundred feet square on Cedar street, the gift of Samuel Carpenter. Court was first held at "New Bristol," as the place was then called, June 13th, that year, but the buildings were probably not finished at this time. The old court-house and jail, wherever situated, were sold at public sale. The new court-house at Bristol was ordered to be a two-story brick, and stood nearly opposite the present Masonic hall, with court-room above, prison below, and whipping-post at- tached to the outside wall. A new house of correction, with whipping-post, was erected in 1722.
When the removal of the county-seat from Bristol to Newtown was agitated, in 1723, in the petition presented to the assembly, it is stated that Newtown was about the centre of the inhabitants of the county. The 24th of March, 1724, an act was passed authorizing Jeremiah Langhorne and others to purchase a piece of land at some convenient place in Newtown township, in trust for the use of the county, and to build thereon a court-house and prison, at an expense not to exceed three hundred pounds. They purchased about five acres where the village of Newtown stands, on which the public buildings were erected shortly afterward. The lot of five acres, which embraced the heart of the town, in the vicinity of the Na-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
tional bank and on both sides of State street, was purchased of John Walley the 17th of July, 1725. It was part of two hundred acres that Israel Taylor located in 1689, who sold it the same year to John Coat, thence to his son Samuel in 1699, who sold it to Shad- rick Walley in 1702, from whom it descended to John Walley, his son and heir. A new prison was erected in 1745, when the old one was taken for a workshop for the prisoners, and opened about De- cember, 1746, with Benjamin Field, of Middletown, president of the board of managers. Samuel Smith, of Newtown, was at one time keeper of the workshop. A portion of the lot, over and above that required for public purposes, was disposed of for a yearly rent, to be paid to the trustees named in the act of assembly, or their successors, "for the public use of the said county forever." Within a few years John Bond and one other have paid ground-rent, but it would be well to know who should account to the county in this behalf. The act which authorized the removal of the county-seat provided for holding the elections in the court-house, where they were holden for the whole county until 1786. In 1796 the handsome stone building, now occupied by the First National bank, was erected for a public record office, and had two rooms for offices on the south, and two vaults on the north side. Down to 1772 the county officers kept the records at their dwellings, where they transacted their official business, but in that year a strong fire-proof building, twelve by six- teen feet, with walls two feet thick and arched with brick, was built near the court-house, where the records were to be kept, under a penalty of three hundred pounds. This venerable little building was torn down in May, 1873. The only data about it was the name "H. Rockhill" cut on a facestone, without date. During a portion of the Revolution this little building was occupied as a magazine for powder and other warlike stores. The last trace of the old jail is the stone wall on the east side of State street, opposite the National bank. The kitchen of D. B. Heilig stood against the end of the jail, and tradition hands it down as the office and bar-room of that institution, where everybody, within and without the jail, could get rum if they had the money to pay for it. Patrick Hunter, a hard case, who was jailor and bar-tender during this laxity of morals, found it difficult to keep the prisoners in jail. At his death Asa Carey succeeded him, who stopped the sale of rum and the escape of prisoners. He was the last jailor at Newtown, and the first at Doylestown. On his return to Newtown he married Tamer Wor-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
stall, and moved to the Bird-in-hand tavern. Newtown remained the county-seat for nearly a century. The cutting off of Northampton county, in 1752, had a good deal to do with keeping the county-seat at Newtown for so many years. The more distant inhabitants were now brought within easy reach of a seat of justice, and many of the complaints, of the great distance to go to court, ceased. By the beginning of the present century the population had become so well distributed over the county, that those in the more remote townships felt it a hardship to be obliged to go down to Newtown to attend court. The inhabitants of the middle and upper townships now began to agitate the removal of the county-seat to some point nearer the centre of population. Petitions for the removal to a point higher up were presented to the legislature as early as 1795. The project of building a new jail and court-house at Newtown, in 1800, gave shape to the removal question, and on December 25th a meet- ing was held at John Shaw's inn, Bedminster, to protest against the crection of new public buildings at Newtown, and " thereby perma- nently fix the seat of justice at that place." Their principal objection was because Newtown "is about thirteen miles from the centre of the county, and because the roads through the place are so unpop- ular as never to support a sufficient number of public houses to accommodate the many that will be obliged to attend court." A committee was appointed to prepare a petition to the legislature for the removal of the county-seat. A meeting was held in the upper end in the fall of 1808, and an adjourned meeting at John Ahlum's, in Haycock, Robert Smith chairman, and Paul Apple secretary, at which a form of petition was reported, and a committee recom- mended in each township to procure signatures favorable to removal. At a meeting held at Cornelius Vanhorne's tavern, Buckingham, 7 Samuel Johnson in the chair and Thomas Walton secretary, it was recommended that petitions in favor of removal be sent to the legislature, and that the new site be selected by ballot.
The agitation for removal was continued, and at the following session of the legislature a bill was introduced which passed both houses, and was signed by the governor, the 28th of February, 1810. The act authorized the governor to appoint "three discreet and disinterested persons" not holding any real estate in the county, to select a site for the public buildings, which shall not be " more than
7 Centreville-now kept by Peter L. Righter.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
three miles from Bradshaw's corner, & where the road leading from Wilkinson's tavern to the Cross Keys intersects with the public road leading from Doylestown to Vanhorne's tavern." The governor appointed Edward Darlington, of Chester county, Gabriel Hiester, jr., of Berks, and Nicholas Kern, of Northampton, commissioners to locate the site for the public buildings, their commission bearing date March 30th, 1810. They met at Doylestown the 12th of May, following, and viewed all the locations recommended. Strong influ- ence was brought in favor of Bradshaw's corner, and the Turk, but Doylestown, already a considerable hamlet, with an academy and a newspaper, and near the geographical centre of the county, was chosen. They selected the lot of two acres and one hundred and twenty-one perches owned by Nathaniel Shewell, then lying in New Britain, on which the public buildings stand. It was surveyed by George Burges, and was part of thirty acres that Joseph Fell bought at sheriff's sale in 1783, and whose administrators sold it to Mr. Shewell in 1802. It was conveyed to the commissioners of the county, May 12th, 1810.
Work was commenced on the public buildings as soon as practi- cable, but they were not finished until the spring of 1813, the first court being held in the new house the 12th of May, three years from the time the site was selected. The carpenter work was done by Levi Bond, of Newtown, and the mason work by Timothy Smith, the wages being one dollar a day, and the hands worked without regard to hours. The date-stone in front of the court-house bears the figures 1812. Samuel Q. Holt, a journeyman carpenter, is the only known survivor of those who worked at the buildings. Im- mediately after the removal of the county-seat, those opposed to it began to agitate a division of the county, hoping, in case of success, to fix the seat of the new county at Newtown. The change was very distasteful to many in the lower end, and efforts to divide the county were made for many years. In January, 1814, John Fox and John Hulme went to Harrisburg with petitions bearing one thou- sand five hundred and twenty-two signatures in favor of a division, which were presented on the 12th, and referred to a committee, but probably never heard of afterward. An opposition meeting was held in Doylestown, January 18th, Derrick K. Hogeland in the chair, when a committee of five in each township was appointed to
8 Now Pool's corner, at the toll-gate, a mile from Doylestown, on the New Hope pike. Wilkinson's tavern was at Bushington.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
get signers to a remonstrance against a division. A second attempt was made in 1816. A meeting in favor of division was held at Attleborough, November 6th, John Hulme in the chair, which re- solved that " Bucks county ought to be divided," and appointed a meeting at Newtown on the 16th, to consult on the most efficient means of accomplishing it. A meeting in opposition was held in Bensalem on the 30th, Gilbert Rodman, chairman, which declared the project of a division "inexpedient and improper," and com- mittees were appointed to get signers to remonstrances. At the following session, 1816-17, numerous petitions in favor of a division of the county, and fixing the county-seat at Newtown, were presented and ou the 2d of January, 1817, Doctor Phineas Jenks, member from this county, chairman of the house committee to which the petitions were referred, obtained leave to bring in a bill for a divi- sion, the new county to be called Penn. The line was to start at a point on the Delaware, "at or between Upper Makefield and Centre Bridge," and run across to the Montgomery line, but the bill never came to a vote. The question was now allowed to rest until 1821, when the dividers again tried their strength, and meetings were held at Attleborough, in December, 1821, and in the old court- house at Newtown, January 14th, 1822. The proposed division line was to begin at the north-east corner of Upper Makefield and Solebury, thence on the northern line of Wrightstown, North and Southampton, to the Montgomery line, and down that to the Dela- ware. A bill was introduced into the senate in February, which proposed, among other things, that the new county should be called Penn, with the county-seat at Newtown, and the business to be trans- acted in the old court-house, which was to be purchased for the purpose. The alms-house was to be owned by both counties, jointly. The attempt was renewed in 1827, and again in 1836, the division to run on about the former proposed line. The new county, according to the census of 1830, would have contained a population of thirteen thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and an area of ninety-five thousand nine hundred and eighty-five acres.
The division of the county was agitated several times subsequently, the last time in 1855, when a strong effort was made on the part of its friends to compass the division. Meetings were held, the ques- tion discussed, petitions for, and remonstrances against, were circu- lated for signatures and sent to Harrisburg. The new county limits were to be enlarged by including in it several townships of Phila-
735
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
delphia. The part to be taken from Bucks was the same as hereto- fore, and the question of county-seat was left open. The following townships and population were to form the new county of Penn, namely :
FROM BUCKS.
FROM PHILADELPHIA.
Upper Makefield, 1,701
Middletown,
2,223
Byberry,
1,130
Wrightstown,
821
Bensalem,
2,239
Moreland,
472
Lower Makefield, 1,741
Falls,
1,788
Dublin,
4,292
Newtown borough, 540
Morrrisville,
665
Oxford,
1,787
Newtown township, 842
Bristol borough,
2,570
Bridesburg,
915
Northampton,
1,843
Bristol township, 1,810
Whitehall,
489
Southampton,
1,416
Making,
20,274
Making,
9,107
Add,
20,274
Population,
29,381
The bill passed the house of representatives, but the senate com- mittee reported against it, and it was not brought up again.
No doubt the previous erection of the alms-house near Doylestown had some influence in locating the county-seat. The question of erecting such an institution was agitated as early as 1790, the main argument in favor of it being that the poor could be maintained at less expense and greater convenience, but it was several years before it was accomplished, and then only after violent opposition. The Germans were generally opposed to it, because they furnished few paupers. The bill was signed by the governor April 10th, 1807, approved by the judges, grand jury, and commissioners at the next term of court, and Thomas Long, William Ruckman, David Spin- ner and William Watts were elected commissioners, to select a site, at the following October election. Several townships were exempt from the provisions of the bill, but they were authorized to share its benefits by paying their pro-rata of the cost of erection, eighteen be- ing named in it, all below, and including, Plumstead, New Britain and Hilltown. The alms-house war was now waged with greater bitterness than ever, and every possible influence was used to prevent the purchase of a site; and a meeting held at Hough's tavern, Warwick, February 13th, 1808, denounced the unlawful combination to defeat the action of the commissioners. But it was of no avail. On the 20th of December, 1808, the commissioners purchased the Spruce hill farm in Warwick of Gilbert Rodman, three hundred and sixty acres, at twenty pounds per acre, the same which the county now owns. A large portion of it was then covered with timber. The
736
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
purchase appears to have renewed the opposition, and John Watson wrote several violent articles against it over his own signature. Meetings were held and lampooning hand-bills were circulated. One objection was that there was not enough water to be had to supply the inmates and stock. A meeting to sustain the purchase was held at the public house of Septimus Hough, Warwick, when several de- positions were taken to prove that the farm was well-watered, well- timbered, and the soil fertile. All the opposition failed to set aside the purchase, which the court confirmed. The corner-stone of the new edifice was laid the 4th of May, 1809, in the presence of a num- ber of persons, the directors and two other gentlemen providing liquors for the company at their private expense. The entire cost of erecting the building, furnishing it, and stocking the farm, was $19,029.13, which, added to the price of the land, $19,280, makes, in all, $38,309.13. The directors paid $94.77} for whiskey for the workmen during its erection.
The first board of directors was John McMaster, James Chapman and Ralph Stover. Mr. McMaster resigned in his third year, to ac- cept the office of steward. He came to an untimely end the very night of his election to the steward's office for a second terin, being thrown from his wagon on the York road, between Hatborough and Hartsville, returning from market, by which his neck was broken. Mr. McMaster, a man of very respectable talent and position in life, who lived in Upper Makefield, on the farm now owned by Samuel M. Slack, was justice of the peace, and transacted much public business. James McMaster, his father, was an officer in the Revolution, and his grandfather, Alexander McMaster, was living in the Wyoming valley at the time of the massacre, whence he fled into Maryland, and then came to Bucks county. John McMaster was cousin to the venerable Edward McMaster, of Newtown.
Before the erection of the alms-house the county was divided into districts, and each maintained its own poor. June 16th, 1806, Amos Gregg, one of the guardians of the poor, announced that he had or- ganized " a house of employment" for the poor of his district, where he can accommodate forty or fifty more, on moderate terms, each township to have the profit of their own pauper labor, where it can be ascertained. Peter Sine, a German, an inmate of the alms-house, died there April 2d, 1820, aged one hundred and ten years. The 24th of April, 1826, Doctor William Moland died in the alms-house, at the age of seventy-six, and was buried in a private graveyard near the county
737
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
line, that once belonged to him, and where many of his relatives had been interred. He was a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, and was present with Washington in several of his most important battles. He was a man of culture and talents, and at one time possessed a lucrative practice and a handsome independence, but the love of strong drink drove him to the alms-house, where he died a miserable death. The first marriage that took place in the institution, was that of Jacob Moore to Jane Brown, both black, and paupers, the 27th of March, 1810, by the Reverend Nathaniel Irwin.
47
738
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
- -
ROADS.
Roman maxim .- Roads like the arteries and veins .- Our great highways .- Path from the falls down .- No roads before Penn .- Penn's system of roads .- North-west lines .- Road from Falls to Southampton and Philadelphia .- Ancestor of Bristol turnpike .- Poquessing to Neshaminy .- Durham road .- Begun in 1693 .- Ex- tended to Tohickon and Easton .- The York road starts at Willow Grove .- Opened to the Delaware .- Easton road .- Opened to Point Pleasant .- The Street and Bristol roads .- County line .- Old and New Bethlehem roads .- River road. -Middle road .- All lead to Philadelphia .- Post-roads .- Philadelphia and Trenton railroad .- When opened .- North Pennsylvania railroad .- Early stage- lines.
THOSE who settled the wilderness west of the Delaware both un- derstood, and practiced, the maxim of the Romans, "that the first step in civilization is to make roads," for the opening of highways was one of their first concerns. The roads of a country, in their uses, are not unlike the arteries and veins of the human body, and a properly arranged system of the former is as necessary to a prosper- ous condition of society as the latter to the life of man. Through the one the blood courses to the common centre, giving health and vigor to the system, while along the roads the products of labor are carried to the marts of commerce, which brings prosperity to the state.
If the palm of the hand be laid upon the site of Philadelphia, and the thumb and fingers extended, they will mark five of the great highways of the county, namely : the Bristol turnpike, the Middle, or Oxford,
739
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
road, the York, Easton, and Bethlehem roads. These are intersected by other highways, parts of the same system, the Durham, Bristol, Street, and North Wales roads, and the county line, which are feeders to the former. These mostly connect objective points, and may properly be considered the great arterial highways of the county. The local roads that cross them and lead from point to point in the same, or adjoining, neighborhoods, may be compared to the smaller veins of the human body, but are, nevertheless, an indispensible part of the system.
There was a traveled route from the falls down the west bank of the Delaware to the lower settlements many years before the English came, but it was no more than a bridle-path through the woods. Prior to Penn's arrival there was little use for roads, because the Dutch, Swedes, and Fins lived on the river and creeks emptying into it, and went from place to place in boats, and there were no wheeled carriages to require opened roads. With the English came vehicles, and then arose a necessity for roads along which they could travel through the wilderness. The earliest mention of a public road in this county was in 1677, when the "King's path," or "high- way," was laid out up the river to the falls through Bensalem, Bris- tol and Falls to Morrisville. It started at Upland and crossed the streams at the head of tide-water, and through this county had the general direction of the Bristol turnpike. It was repaired in 1682. In 1678 the Upland court ordered roads laid out between planta- tions, under a penalty of twelve guilders, and Duncan Williamson, Edward Draufton, John Brown, and Henry Hastings, of this county, were on the jury to open them. At the first court held at Phila- delphia, 1683, the grand jury ordered the King's road from the Schuylkill to Neshaminy "be marked out and made passable for horses and carts where needful." This road was often changed and improved, but down to 1700 it must have been an indifferent way, for in August of that year the council ordered it to be cleared of trees, logs and stumps so that it "may be made passable, commodi- ous, safe and easie for man, horse, cart, wagons and teams."
William Penn intended to have a liberal and uniform system of roads in this county, and in the original survey there was an allow- ance for them of six acres in every hundred. He projected a series of highways on north-west lines parallel to each other, and running back from the Delaware into the interior, to be intersected by others as nearly at right angles as circumstances would permit. Before
740
HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
1695 the county line, the Street, and Bristol roads, the road from Addisville by way of Jamison's corner and alms-house, to New Britain, the road from Churchville to the Neshaminy at Wrights- town, and a number of others, were projected on this plan. But his plans were interfered with. When the early settlers came to enclose their lands, before the roads were laid out, they were encroached upon by the fences, and the system could not be carried out, and gradually the country became covered with a net-work of crooked roads. Down to 1700 the provincial council and court exer- cised'concurrent jurisdiction in the laying out and opening of roads, but that year an act authorized and empowered the justices of each county to lay out and confirm all roads, "except the highway and public roads," which remained in force until repealed in 1802. Penn took great interest in the roads of the county after his return to England from his first visit. In liis instructions to Lieutenant-governor Blackwell, in 1688, he desires that " care be taken of the roads and highways of the county, that they may be straight and commodious for travelers, for I understand they are turned about by the planters, which is a mischief that must not be endured." A few of our roads were laid out straight as Penn desired, and have so remained. In 1689, in consequence of the badness of the roads leading to Phila- delphia, the farmers of this county were in the habit of taking their grain and other produce to Burlington. Prior to 1692 but two roads are on record, the King's highway, and a cart-road laid out in 1689, from Philadelphia, on the petition of Robert Turner and Benjamin Chambers, possibly the beginning of the Oxford or Mid- dle road. That from Philadelphia, via Bristol, to Morrisville, the ancestor of the present Bristol turnpike, is the oldest road in the county laid out by law. At a meeting of councils, November 19tlı, 1686, was taken into consideration "ye unevenness of ye road from Philadelphia to ye falls of Delaware," and Robert Turner and Jolin Barnes, of Philadelphia, and Arthur Cook and Thomas Janney, of Bucks, with the county-surveyor, were ordered to meet and lay out a more convenient road " from ye Broad street in Philadelphia to ye falls aforesaid." Probably the first road running up the river to and above Bristol was that laid out in 1697 from the Poquessing, crossing the Neshaminy at Bridgewater, where the ferry was kept by John Baldwin, and thence up to Joseph Chorley's ferry 1 over the Delaware below the falls. A bridge was ordered to be built
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