The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Part 71

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print
Number of Pages: 976

USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 71

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In 1773 Charles Bessonett, a resident of Bristol, started a line of stage-coaches, the first of their character to run through from Phil- adelphia to New York ; the trip was made in two days, and the fare was four dollars for inside, and twenty shillings for outside, pas- sengers. These stages were probably made like the English post -

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coaches. In 1781 Johnson and James Drake advertised to run a four-horse "flying stage-wagon" between Philadelphia and Eliza- bethtown, making two trips a week. It was to leave the city "every Monday and Thursday morning, precisely at the rising of the sun, breakfast at Four Lanes Ends, [Attleborough,] shift horses, cross the new ferry just above the Trenton falls, and dine at Jacob Bergen's, at Princeton." The fare was forty shillings, or five dol- lars and thirty-three cents of our present currency.

From time to time lines were started with increased accommo- dations or made better time. In 1801 Thomas Porter ran a two- horse "coachee" from John C. Hummill's tavern, now City tavern, Trenton, to John Carpenter's, Philadelphia, down one day and back the next. In 1802 Peter Probasco and John Dean ran a coach be- tween Trenton and Philadelphia daily, except Sunday. In 1807 John Mannington put on a line of "coachee stages," leaving Phila- delphia at eight A. M. and reaching Trenton to dinner, fare one dol- dollar and fifty cents. The first line of stages to connect with a steamboat was in 1819, when John Lafaucherie and Isaac Merriam ran a line of coaches with the steamboat Philadelphia, at the Bloomsbury wharf, starting from the Rising Sun hotel. In 1828 there were three boats on the Delaware between Philadelphia and Trenton-the Trenton, Captain Jenkins, Burlington, Captain Mar- tin, and the Marco Bozzaris, Captain Lane. In 1840 the Hornet commenced to make regular trips between Philadelphia and Tren- ton, for twenty-five cents each way. The Edwin Forrest began to run between the same points in 1850, and is still on the line. The stages continued to run until the Philadelphia and Trenton railroad was opened, when they were withdrawn forever. In the spring of 1828 John Bessonett, James Hacket and company, carried passen- gers and mails from Philadelphia to Bristol by steamboat, where they took coaches to Easton via Newtown, Lumberville, Point Pleasant and Erwinna, arriving at Easton about six P. M. The first stage up the River road was probably that run by John Hellings, about the time the canal was dug. It was afterward run by Ham- met and Weartz, from Trenton to Easton, and carried the mails.

The first " stage-wagon" from the Lehigh to Philadelphia, which started the 10th of September, 1763, by George Klein, the pioneer of the numerous lines from that time to the introduction of steam, traveled down the Old Bethlehem road. The driver was John Hoppel, at £40 per annum. It carried both passengers and goods.

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The stage left Philadelphia every Thursday morning and returned the following Tuesday. The first year the proprietor lost £82. 12s. 7d. by his venture, and in November, 1764, Klein sold out to John Francis Oberlin for £52, Pennsylvania currency. Passengers were charged ten shillings either way. Half a century ago the stage from Bethlehem to Philadelphia, running down through this county over the Bethlehem road, was driven by John Feuerabend. He sounded his bugle as he left the village in the morning, and ap- proached it on his return in the evening. He was born in Wur- temberg, in 1786, and when young served as a soldier under Bona- parte. He wasseverely wounded several times, survived the hardships of the Russian campaign, and one time was coachman for the great Napoleon. He was a mail-carrier and stage-driver in several states. He spent his last days in the Northampton county alms-house, where he died in the winter of 1874. Stages were running between Philadelphia and New York on the York road as early as 1805. In 1831 there were two daily lines between Easton and Philadelphia. These stages ran over the Durham road until the River road was opened in 1815-16, and along that until the Delaware Division canal was commenced, when they changed back to the Durham road, until the canal was finished. When the Belvidere-Delaware railroad was opened to travel, in 1854, the stages to Easton were taken off, and they passed into history.

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

CHAPTER XLIX.

OUR POETS AND THEIR POETRY.

William Satterthwaite .- Came to Bucks county .- Pellar and John Watson .-- Satterth- waite at Durham and Lumberville .- Domestic troubles .- His death and poetry ..- Doctor Jonathan Ingham; Doctor John Watson; Paul Preston ; Samuel Johnson. Eliza Pickering; Ann Paxson; Nicholas Biddle, and "Ode to Bogle."-Samuel Blackfan ; Samuel Swain .- The Lumberville "Box."-Cyrus Livezey ; George Johnson ; Jerome Buck; Thaddeus T. Kenderdine; Isaac Walton Spencer ; Allen Livezey; Sidney L. Anderson; Catharine Mitchel; Lizzie VanDeventer ; Octavia E. Hill; Rebecca Smith; Laura W. White; Emily F. Seal; Elizabeth Lloyd; M. A. Heston.

THERE was but little outgrowth of poetic feeling among the first settlers, as their life in the wilderness was too hard for any display of sentiment. But there was great proclivity for rhyming by the middle of the last century, and from that time to this our county has abounded in writers of verse.

William Satterthwaite, who is classed among the "early poets of Pennsylvania," was probably the earliest, as well as the most dis- tinguished, of our domestic versifiers, but only a few of his effusions have survived him. He was born in England the early part of the last century, received a good classical education, and settled in Pennsylvania while a young man. It is difficult to tell at what time he first came to Bucks county. He is said to have been a school- teacher in England, and that one night a school girl, benighted on her way home, was offered the hospitality of his school-house. The evening was long enough for their courtship and marriage. Satis- fied of the false step they had taken, they sailed for Pennsylvania in

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quest of better fortune, and here he resumed his old employment. He taught Greek and Latin for a while in Jacob Taylor's celebrated classical school in Philadelphia, and probably went from there to Durham furnace, where he taught the company's school several years at a fixed salary. At that time John Chapman was clerk at the furnace. When John Watson was surveying in that neighborhood, he stopped at Satterthwaite's house, that stood near a fine spring, where the two amused themselves reading, and talking poetry in praise of his spotted trout. Watson and his surveying party made their headquarters at the house of Cruikshank, a settler near the mouth of Sancon creek. At such times Satterthwaite would go up to see him and Pellar, when work was suspended, and the poets would indulge their fancy for the muse. The following are the last four lines of an extempore ode, with which Watson woke some of the laggards in the morning :

" The sun peeps o'er the highest tree, Ere we have sipped our punch and tea ; So time rolls on from day to day, That it's noon before we can survey."

From Durham Satterthwaite moved down into Solebury, and lived several years near Lumberville, then known as Hamilton's landing. Through the influence of friends he obtained several schools in the county, where he taught English and the classics-in Solebury, Buckingham, and elsewhere. Some hundred and thirty years ago he taught in the school-house on the south-west side of the Street road between Buckingham and Solebury townships, nearly opposite the lane that leads into the old Blackfan homestead. He was ap- pointed deputy-surveyor for Bucks by Jacob Taylor, when he became surveyor-general. Mr. Satterthwaite found warm patrons. in Lawrence Growden and Jeremiah Langhorne. Growden invited him to come to Trevose, and offered to maintain him as long as he lived, but he went to Langhorne park, where he ended his days. It is said that while Satterthwaite lived at Langhorne's two of his negroes had a fight, and in consequence one of them determined to hang himself. Satterthwaite said it would be wicked to take his own life, and persuaded the negro to let him be the executioner. He performed this service so effectually that the negro was cured of a second attempt. He was unhappy in his conjugal relations, and after one of his disputes with his wife it is said that she tried to poison him. He had but one child, a son named George, of whom John Watson was very fond, but what became of him is not known.

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Mr. Satterthwaite gave free vein to his fancy when he paid court to the muse, and he wrote on many subjects. A good deal of his poetry was of the heroic stamp, while a pious strain runs through some of his productions. Among his works are a poem on " Mys- terious Nothing,"1 written about 1738, another entitled "Provi- dence," and " Religious Allegory of Life's Futurity," addressed to the youth, but never published. His poem entitled " Providence " begins with :

"O, gracious power, divinely just and great, Who rules the volumes of eternal fate ; Thou guard of thought, inspirer of my song, My thanks to Thee, kind Providence, belong ; Thou wing'st my genius and inspir'st my soul To sing Thy praise, Great Ruler of the Whole."

A verse addressed to a young lady, in reproof for singing, ran :

" Though singing is a pleasing thing, Approved and done in Heaven, It only should employ the souls Who know their sins forgiven."2

He composed a poem on " Free Grace," which he called " Excellent Mortal," which began :

" Hail, Excellent Mortal, all blooming and gay, Serene as the morning, and fair as the day ; Thy garment's unspotted, and free from a stain Of sinful pollution, so let them remain."

While ascending Coppernose,3 he was bitten on the finger by a rattlesnake, and his life is said to have been saved by Nutimus, the old Indian doctor of Nockamixon. He anathematized the serpent in verse, beginning :

" Thou pois'nous serpent with a noisy tail,

Whose teeth are tinctured with the plagues of hell."

Mr. Satterthwaite's eccentricities cropped out in various ways. His wife kept him poor by her extravagance, and to rebuke her pride he wrote an epic poem entitled the " Indian Queen," the scene

1 One of his female scholars requested him to write her some poetry, and on his asking her for a subject, she answered, "Oh, nothing."

2 This was contained in a pamphlet that was in the possession of John E. Kender- dine some years ago.

3 A bold hill near Lumberville.

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being laid in New Jersey on the creek that empties into the Dela- ware opposite Paxson's island. He describes an Indian princess who lived delightfully on her domain, dressed in buckskin, etc., but was not satisfied until she had a calico gown and a looking-glass. Being dressed fine che must go abroad to show her clothes ; while passing a fire her calico dress caught the flames and she was burned to death, while her buckskin dress would have enabled her to pass the fire in safety. The last two lines read :

" Thus, like Alcides on his flaming hearse, The princess dies, and I conclude my verse."

The poetry did not reclaim his wife, who deserted him, and he be- came a poor, forlorn old man. It is said of him that one bright Sunday afternoon, he strolled down to William Skelton's mill, at the mouth of Cuttalossa, and finding him absent, wrote with chalk, the following couplet on the door :

" Here Skelton lurks, and an unkind refugee seeks, On Delaware's doleful banks, between two awful peaks."+

On referring to the attempt of his wife to poison him, he remarkel to some friends that he had been poisoned by a snake, and poisoned by a woman, and that now he defied all the devils in hell to do it. Among his eccentricities was that of calling his mare to him by re- peating to her Greek verses, which she appeared to understand, at least she knew what he wanted. When Satterthwaite grew im- patient of teaching, he would repeat to himself :

" Oh ! what stock of patience needs the fool Who spends his time and breath in teaching school ; Taught or untaught, the dunce is still the same ; But yet the wretched master bears the blame."

On the death of his great friend and patron, Jeremiah Langhorne, Mr. Satterthwaite wrote an elegy on his character, from which we copy the following lines :

" He stood the patriot of the province, where Justice was nourished with celestial care. He taught the laws to know their just design, Truth, justice, mercy, hand in hand to join, Without regard to fear, or hope, or gain, Or sly designs of base, corrupted men."

The date of Mr. Satterthwaite's death is not known.

+ Now known as " Indian " and "Quarry " hills.

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-Doctor Jonathan Ingham was one of the ablest and most useful men the state ever produced. He learned Hebrew, when well along in life, of Samuel Delezenna, 5 a Jewish rabbi, and spent much of his time in reading the Hebrew Bible. He talked and wrote in meter with great ease. He wrote a journal in elegant verse, de- scriptive of a journey up the Delaware to buy logs for his mill, and translated the Aphorisms of Hypocrates into poetry at the request of Doctor Bond, of Philadelphia. He communicated the death of a young British officer, whom he attended in his last illness, to Wash- ington, in poetry, in the style of an elegy, beginning :

" Ah, gentle reader ! as thou drawest near To read the inscription on this bumble stone, Drop o'er the grave a sympathising tear, And make a stranger's hapless case thy own.

* *

" Flushed with ambition's animating fires, My youthful bosom glow'd with thirst for fame, Which oft, alas ! but vanity inspires, To these inclement, hostile shores I came."

Doctor Jonathan Ingham, jr., who learned Greek at a school in Southampton, probably in the old school-house at the Baptist church, was as learned as his father. He was a scholar in Greek, Latin, French, German, and Dutch, learning the latter of a hired man. Satterthwaite left him some of his Greek books at his death, and he succeeded to the practice of Doctor Joseph Watson, who was like- wise a poet.

Doctor John Watson, whose genius adorned our county a century ago, a son of the above named Doctor Joseph Watson, was born in Buckingham township in 1746, and died there in 1817, in his seventy-third year. 6 He married Mary Hampton, of Wrightstown, in 1772, who died in 1778. He devoted the latter years of his life to literary culture, and indulged his native taste for poetry, and some of his productions are much admired to this day. He was a poet of no mean parts, and his verse is noted for being written on American subjects, devoted to home-life and characteristics, and in sweet-flowing stanzas. He drew no inspiration from antiquity. He

5 From whom Samuel D. Ingham got his initial " D."

6 He was a descendant of Thomas Watson, who with his wife and two sons, immi- grated from Cumberland in 1701, and settled on four hundred and fifty acres in Buck- ingham valley, in 1704. Doctor John Watson was the grandfather of Judge Richard Watson, of Doylestown.

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wrote considerable in prose, and among his productions are the His- tory of Buckingham and Solebury townships, and a pamphlet on the " Customary Use of Spirituous Liquors," published in 1810. The few of his poetical produtions within our reach exhibit genius. His ode to "Spring," written in 1777, but re-written and changed twenty-five years afterward, and published in Asher Miner's Cor- respondent, in 1805, is esteemed one of his best pieces. A few verses will show its merits :

" The jolly boatman down the ebbing stream, By the clear moonlight, plies his easy way, With prosp'rous fortune to inspire his theme, Sings a sweet farewell to the parting day.

His rustic music measures even time, As in the crystal wave he dips his oar, And echo pleas'd returns the tuneful chime, Mixed with soft murmurs from the listening shore.

The lamp of love pursues the day's decline; And wearied nature seeks a soft repose ; The stars bright shining, and the sky serene, Silence seems list'ning as the water flows.

From all around the inspiration comes As the mild breezes of the spring advance, The op'ning buds dispense their sweet perfume, And trembling light beams on the eddies dance.

So when the tide of life serenely flows And health's sweet gales the prosp'rous voyage attend, With nature's charms th' enraptured fancy glows, And these gay scenes the poet's themes befriend.

The morning's fragrance, the refreshing shade, The murm'ring waters and the cooling breeze, The lofty mountain and the rough cascade Delight the senses and the fancy please."7

In Doctor Watson's "Pastoral View on the Advance of Spring," written a year before the foregoing was published by Asher Miner, there runs the same charming rural feeling and sentiment :

" Though the weather be broken it yet is the spring; The frogs make a croaking and chirping birds sing ; The wheat and the rye are arraving in green, The clover is growing and soon will be seen,

7 The first five stanzas are part of those originally written an hundred years ago, the sixth a verse of the new composition. The ode sings the praises of the "Flowing Delaware."

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The nights are a shortening to add to the day, The waters are flowing and hastening away, The bees are a flying, the lambs are at play, Old April is passing, it soon will be May, The trees are a budding and merry birds sing- All nature revives at the coming of spring."

Some of Doctor Watson's admirers believe that the verses he wrote on the misfortunes of Elizabeth Ferguson are his best. She was the daughter of Doctor Græme, and her husband, a Scotchman, went off with the British at the evacuation of Philadelphia in 1778, leaving her to fight the battles of life alone. She was a poetess, and a lady of distinguished literary abilities, and wrote under the nom de plume of " Laura." He wrote :

" Can the muse that laments the misfortunes of love Draw a shade o'er the sorrowful tale, That Laura was cheated, and fully could prove That Scotchmen have honor that sometimes may fail."

At the death of Doctor Watson a friendly hand wrote :

length.

" He is gone, who the lyre could awaken To ecstasy's magical thrill, Laoskekie, 8 thy mount is forsaken, And the harp of thy poet is still."

Paul Preston, 9 as well as his two daughters, wrote considerable poetry. His production entitled " Solomoncis," was of considerable The following is all of the fifth book of this unfinished poem :

" Now let the muse in meditation deep, With humble awe, disturb the silent sleep Of David's harp, and sweep the sounding strings Till notes harmonious utter wondrous things. That harp whose awful music would recall That holy sense which had forsaken Saul, Whose powerful charms had often dispossess't And drove the evil spirit from his breast, Now be employ'd a nobler theme to raise, Blest with the clearer light of gospel days, The fields of heavenly wonder to explore, And sing of matters never sung before."

8 Buckingham mountain.

9 He died about 1804 or 1805.

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He translated the works of Torquatus, on the Consolation of Philo- sophy, from the Latin, which his friends had published as a tribute to his memory after his death-printed by Asher Miner, at Doyles- town, in 1808. Among his productions in verse was a narrative of " The Captivity of Benjamin Gilbert and Family," who were taken by the Indians in 1780, which had considerable celebrity at the time. He left behind him a manuscript work on surveying, and another that teaches the uses to which a straight stick and compass can be applied. In 1787 his friend and former pupil, Jonathan Ingham, dedicated to him an English translation of the Epitaph of Theocritus on Hipponax, which is "humbly inscribed to my well- esteemed friend and tutor, Paul Preston."

Samuel Johnson, of Buckingham, in his day, was one of the most cultivated and scholarly men of the county, and fond of poetizing. His manners were popular, and he had political influence. Eighty years ago he owned and lived on the farm now George G. Maris's, on the New Hope pike. The following, written in a young lady's album, is given because its length best suits our limited space :

" Lady, I thus meet thy request, Else should I not have deemed it best To scribble on this spotless page, With the weak, trembling pen of age. I've written in Time's album long, Sketches of life with moral song, Blotted in haste full many a leaf, Whose list of beauties might be brief.

Could I some pleasing views now glean, 'Twould make at best a winter scene ; On the bleak side of seventy years How sear the foliage appears ; And frost-nipt flowers we strive in vain By culture to revive again ; The snows of time my temples strew, Warning to bid the muse adieu."

The lines addressed to his wife on the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage, and those on the " Harp," are considered among his best productions. His "Vale of Lahaseka," a charming valley in Buck- ingham, written about 1835, is too long to be inserted, but we give a few verses to show its pleasant, flowing meter :

" From the brow of Lahaseka, wide to the west, The eye sweetly rests on the landscape below ;

'Tis blooming as Eden when Eden was blest,

As the sun lights its charms with his evening glow.

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Flow on, lovely streamlets, in silvery pride, From the hills on the west send your bounty afar, As you brightly burst forth from their dark sylvan sides, And fancy delight with your crystaline car.

Ere civilized Man here exerted his power, The Native had cultured this spot on its plains ; To freedom and joy had devoted the hour, And love lit his torch in their happy domains.

* * *

As our vale rose in beauty, refinement began, Taste touched and retouched tho' simple her art ; Then more intellectual Youth rose up to Man, And the civilized virtues embellish the heart.

To Friendship and Virtue may long be devoted The Vale of Lahaseka, pride of the plains ; For charms intellectual her daughters be noted, And Wisdom and Science enlighten'd her swains."10

Mr. Johnson's humorous poem, entitled "The Banking Rats, a Fable," portraying the disastrous failures of a bank, is one of his best, and as applicable now as when written.

The two daughters of Samuel Johnson, Eliza, who married Jona- than Pickering, both now deceased, and Ann, wife of Thomas Paxson, of Buckingham, inherited the poetic fire of their father. Of Mrs. Pickering's verse we copy a few stanzas of her lines addressed to Halley's comet, (1835,) after it had disappeared from this hemis- phere :

" Thou hast gone in thy brightness thou beautiful star, With the train of refulgence that streamed from thy car ; Where Philosophy's eagle flight never may soar, Nor e'en Fancy's bold pinion attempt to explorc.

When the stars of the morning triumphantly sang, And the shouts of archangels in joyfulness rang, Was then thy glad orb launched on ether's vast deep, Unchanging for ages, its pathway to keep.

What spheres has thy lamp's rich effulgency warmed, 'Mong suns and through systems, unharming, unharmed ? In safety and peace was thy swift career bent, Or in fearful concussion to rend or be rent ?

10 Lahascka, a mouutain in the township of Buckingham, lying nearly north-east and south-west, about two miles in length, near the middle of the valley. This is the Indian name.

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Was thine the dread task in rude fragments to shiver Some world like our own into new worlds to sever ? Such, philosophers tell, might the Asteroids be- Do these owe their separate existence to thee ?

* * * *

Speed on, glorious one, in thy wonderful course, From the beams of our sun gain new light and new force ; Still roll on through ether thy chariot sublime, Till Eternity springs from the ruins of Time."

Mrs. Paxson has written considerable poetry, and we dare hardly trust our uncultivated judgment to make a selection. But we ven- ture to present to our reader her stanzas entitled "A Thanksgiving," as not unworthy the reputation of the writer :

" For the morning's ruddy splendor, For the noontide's radiant glow ; For the golden smile of sunset, Illuming all below ; For flowers, thou types of Eden, That gem the verdant sod, And seem to ope their petals To tell us of our God.

They flood the silent wilderness With beauty and perfume ; They bloom around our pathway, They blossom on the tomb ; They are alphabets of angels, Though written on the sod ; And if man would read them wisely, Might lead his soul to God.

For the Spring, with all its promise, For the Summer's boundless store ; For Autumn's richer treasures, And the Winter's wilder roar ; For the joyous evening fireside, By thought and feeling awed ; For the loving hearts around it, I thank Thee, Oh, my God.

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The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Part 71

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910 Publication date: 1876 Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print Number of Pages: 976

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print
Number of Pages: 976