USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 9
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
from one to three hundred. The country was favorable to stock- raising, the woods being open, often covered with grass, and the cattle roamed at will. The wheat harvest was finished before the middle of July, the yield being from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre. The farmers used harrows with wooden teeth, and the ground was so mellow that twice mending plow irons sufficed for a year. The horses commonly went unshod. Land had increased consider- ably in value, and some near Philadelphia that could be bought for six or eight pound the hundred acres, when the country was first settled, could not be bought under one hundred and fifty pounds at the close of the century. This province was a happy common- wealth ; bread and meat, and whatever else of drink, food, and raiment that man required, were cheaper than in England, and wages were higher.
Among the notable events along the Delaware, before the close of the century, was the " great land flood and rupture " at the falls in 1687, which was followed by great sickness. There was another great flood in the Delaware in April 1692, 14 when the water rose twelve feet above the usual high-water mark, and caused great des- truction. It reached the second story of some of the houses built on the low ground at South Trenton, and the inmates were rescued by people from the Bucks county shore, in canoes and conveyed to this side. Several houses were carried away, two persons and a number of cattle drowned, and the shore of the river was strewn with household goods. This freshet was known as " the great flood at Delaware falls."15 Phineas Pemberton records, in 1688, that a whale was seen as high as the falls that year.
At that day people of all classes dressed in plain attire, conform- ing to English fashions, but more subdued in deference to Friends' principles. Even among the most exacting the clothing was not reduced to the formal cut of the costume at a later period. The wife of Phineas Pemberton, in a reply to a letter in which he com- plains of the want of clothing suited to the season, says : "I have sent thee thy leather doublet, and britches, and great stomacher."
14 Pemberton says " the rupture" occurred the 29th of May, and some suppose it re- fers to the separation of the island opposite Morrisville from the main-land. This is an error, as the island referred to was Vurhulsten's island, where the Walloon families had settled nearly three-quarters of a century before.
15 When the first settlers about the falls on the New Jersey side, built their homes on the low ground, the Indians told them they were liable to be damaged by the freshets, but they did not heed the advice.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
In the course of our investigations we have met with several references to the difficulty William Penn had in collecting his quit rents in this county and elsewhere. In 1702 James Logan writes him : " Of all the rents in Bucks county I have received but one ton and a-half of flour." He says "Philadelphia is the worst, Bucks not much better." On another occasion he writes : " Bucks, exceedingly degenerate of late," pays no taxes, nor will any one in the county levy by distress. The county is again mentioned in 1704, as being slow in paying her taxes.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ORGANIZATION OF TOWNSHIPS.
FALLS.
1692.
Organization of townships .- Reservations .- Jury appointed .- Five townships ordered. -Falls .- Its early importance .- First settlers, John Acreman, Richard Ridgway, William Biles, etc .- Meeting established .- First marriage .- Meeting-house built. -The discipline .- Pennsbury .- Mary Becket .- The charities of Falls .- Earliest ferry .- The Croziers .- Kirkbrides .- General Jacob Brown .- His appointment .- Anna Lee .- Manor Baptist church .- Falls library .- Old graveyards .- Cooper homestead .- Charles Ellet .- Joseph White .- The swamp .- Indian field .- Roads. -Villages .- Surface of township .- Crow-scalps .- Population.
THE organization of townships, with an account of the pioneers who settled them, and thus transformed the native forest into pro- ductive farms, opened roads and built houses, with a sketch of their gradual expansion and growth in the elements of civilization, are the most interesting portion of a county's history.
It is related in one of his biographies, that when William Penn sailed on his return voyage to England, in 1684, the province was divided into twenty-two townships ; but this cannot refer to Bucks county, for her boundaries were not yet fixed, nor were townships laid out until eight years afterward. There is evidence that Wil-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
liam Penn intended to lay out this county according to a system of townships that would have given them much greater symmetry in shape than they now present ; and bounded by right lines like the three rectangular townships on the Montgomery border, with an area of about five thousand acres each. In 1687 he directed that one-tenth in each township, with all the Indian fields, 1 should be reserved to him ; but this reservation was not observed, and the plan of laying out right-angled townships was abandoned. There were no legal subdivisions in this county earlier than 1692, although for the convenience of collecting taxes and other municipal purposes, limits and names had already been given to many of the settlements. At the December term, 1690, the following persons were appointed overseers of highways for the districts named: "For above the falls, Reuben Pownall ; for below the falls, Joseph Chorley ; for the lower part of the river, Richard Wilson ; for the lower part of Neshaminah, Derrick Clawson ; for the upper part of Neshaminah, William Hayhurst ; the middle. lots, John Webster ; for the lower end of Neshaminah, on the south side, Walter Hough and Samuel Allen ; for above, south side, Thomas Harding." Some of the present geographical subdivisions were called townships, and by the names they now bear, several years before they were so declared by law. Southampton and Warminster were so called as early as 1685, in the proceedings of council fixing the line between Bucks and Philadelphia counties. Newtown and Wrightstown are first men- tioned in 1687. The names of our early townships were the creatures of chance, or given by force of circumstance, or location. Falls was called after the falls in the Delaware; Newtown because it was a new town or settlement in the woods, and Middletown because it was midway between the uppermost inhabitants and those on the river below. Others again were named after the places some of the inhabitants came from, in England, with which they were acquainted, or where their friends lived.
The first legal steps toward laying off townships were taken in 1690, when the provincial council authorized warrants to be drawn empowering the magistrates and grand juries of each county to sub- divide them into hundreds, or such other divisions as they shall think most convenient in collecting taxes and defraying county ex- penses. Bucks did not take advantage of this act until two years afterward, when the court, at the September term, 1692, appointed
Patches of land cleared by the Indians.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
a jury, consisting of Arthur Cook, who settled in Northampton, and was appointed a provincial judge in 1686; Joseph Growden, John Cook, Thomas Janney, Richard Hough, Henry Baker, Phineas Pemberton, Joshua Hoops, William Biles, Nicholas Walne, Edmund Lovet, Abraham Cox, and James Boyden, and directed them to meet at the Neshaminy meeting-house, in Middletown, the 27th to divide the county into townships. They reported at the Decem- ber term, dividing the settled portions into five townships, viz : Makefield, Falls, Buckingham, now Bristol, Salem, now Bensalem, and Middletown, giving the metes and bounds. Four other town- ships are mentioned, but they are not returned as geographical subdivisions.
The following is the text of the report: "The uppermost town- ship being called Makefield to begin at the uppermost plantations and along the river to the uppermost part of John Wood's land, and by the lands formerly belonging to the Hawkinses and Joseph Kirkbride and widow Lucas' land, and so along as near as may be in a straight line to -- in Joshua Hoops' land.
"The township at the falls being called - is to begin at Penns- bury and so up the river to the upper side of John Woods' land, and then to take in the Hawkins, Joseph Kirkbride and widow Lucas' lands, and so the land along that creek, continuing the same until it takes in the land of John Rowland and Edward Pearson, and so to continue till it come with Pennsbury upper land, then along Pennsbury to the place of beginning. Then Pennsbury as its laid out.
"Below Pennsbury its called Buckingham, and to follow the river from Pennsbury to Neshaminah, then up Neshaminah to the upper side of Robert Hall's plantation, and to take in the land of Jonathan Town, Edward Lovet, Abraham Cox, etc., etc., etc., to Pennsbury, and by the same to the place of beginning.
" The middle township called Middletown to begin at the upper end of Robert Hall's land, and so up Neshaminah to Newtown, and from thence to take in the lands of John Hough, Jonathan Graife, the Paxsons and Jonathan Smith's land, and so to take in the back part of White's land, and by these lands to the place of beginning.
"Newtown and Wrightstown one township.
" All the lands between Neshaminah and Poquessin, and so to the upper side of Joseph Growden's land in one and to be called ' Salem.'
"Southampton, and the lands about it, with Warminster, one."
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
It is a feature of the townships of Bucks county, that they were formed in groups, at shorter or longer intervals, and as the wants of the settlers called for them. Subsequent groups will be treated, as they present themselves, in the chronological order of our work. At present we have only to deal with the five townships formed at Neshaminy meeting-house, more than a century and three-quarters ago.
Falls, of which we first treat, is, in some respects, the most inter- esting township in the county, and may be justly called the mother township. Within its borders, at "the falls of Delaware" the first permanent settlement was made, and there the banner of English civilization was first raised in Bucks ; there the great founder had his Pennsylvania home, and there his favorite manor spread its fertile acres around Pennsbury house. The feet of many immi- grants pressed its soil before they took up the march for the wilderness of Middletown, Newtown and Wrightstown. A few set- tlers had gathered about the falls years before the ships of Penn entered the capes of Delaware, and the title to considerable land can be traced back to Sir Edmund Andros, the royal governor of New York. The overland route from the lower Delaware to Manhattan lay through this township when it was only traversed by Swedes, Hollanders and Fins; and while neighboring town- ships were trodden only by the feet of Indians, its territory was explored by travelers and traders, and the occasional pioneer seek- ing a home in the woods. For a time its history was the history of the county, as found recorded in the interesting records of Falls meeting.
It will be noticed that the report of the jury to lay out these townships leaves the name of Falls, blank, a matter to be determined in the future. But the location gave it the name it bears ; and for years it was as often called " the township at the Falls," as Falls township. We doubt whether its original limits have been curtailed, and its generous area, fourteen thousand eight hundred and thirty- eight acres, is probably the same now as when first organized.
Of the original settlers 2 in Falls, several of them were there before
2 Names of original settlers : Joshua Hoops, John Palmer, John Collins, William and Charles Biles, William Darke, John Haycock, John Wheeler, Jonathan Wits- card, John Parsons, Andrew Elland, William Beaks, William Venables, John Luff, Jeffrey Hawkins, Ann Milleomb, James Hill, John and Thomas Rowland, Thomas Atkinson, Thomas Wolf, Ralph Smith, John Wood, Daniel Brindsly, John Acreman, Joshua Bore, Robert Lucas, Gilbert Wheeler, Samuel Darke, Daniel Gardner, Lyonel Britton, George Brown, James Harrison and George Heathcote.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
the country came into Penn's possession. They purchased the land of Sir Edmund Andros, who represented the Duke of York, and were settled along the Delaware from the falls down ; among whom were John Acreman, Richard Ridgway, a tailor, probably the first in the county, William Biles, Robert Lucas, George Wheeler, and George Brown, whose lands bordered on the river. These grants were made in 1678 or 1679, that of Biles embraced three hundred and twenty-seven acres, for which Penn's warrant is dated 9th, 8th month, 1684, surveyed 23d, same month, and patented 31st, 11th month. William Biles was one of the signers of the celebrated " testimony " against George Keith. He went to England, on a visit, in 1702. Biles became a large landowner. He sold five thousand acres in this county, near Neshaminy, to William Lawrence, Samuel and Joseph Thorne, John Tallmap, and B. Field, but the purchasers could find only two thousand acres. In 1718 James Logan issued an order to survey three thousand additional acres, not already set- tled or surveyed. Gilbert Wheeler called his house " Crookhorn," a name long forgotten. In the bend of the river below Biles's island, Lyonel Britton and George Heathcote seated themselves, both Friends ; the former an early convert to Catholicism, probably the first in the state, while the latter was the first Friend known to be a sea-captain. Thomas Atkinson, Thomas Rowland and John Palmer, names yet well known in the county, settled in the western part of the township. James Harrison, Penn's agent, owned land in Falls, adjoining the manor, and in Lower Makefield. His father- in-law, Phineas Pemberton,3 who likewise settled in Falls, was called the father of Bucks county, and he and Jeremiah Langhorne, of Mid- dletown, and Joseph Growden, of Bensalem, were relied upon as the staunchest friends of William Penn. For some years the men of Falls controlled the affairs of the infant county.
When we call to mind that the first English settlers on the Dela- ware were men and women of strong religious convictions, and had left the homes of their birth to worship God in peace in the woods of the new world, we can appreciate their early and earnest effort to establish places of religious worship. Before Penn's arrival they crossed the Delaware and united with their brethren at Burlington, who worshipped under tents, and where a yearly meeting was first held in 1681. Friends probably met on this side of the river, at
3 May, 1685, Pemberton complains to the council that the Indians are killing hogs about the falls.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
each others houses, for worship, as early as 1680, and attended business meetings at Burlington. The first known meeting of Friends in this county was held at the house of William Biles,+ just below the falls, the 2d of May, 1683, at which were present, besides Biles, James Harrison, Phineas Pemberton, William Beaks, William Yardley, William Darke, and Lyonel Britton. This was the germ of the Falls meeting. The first business was marriage, Samuel Darke to Ann Knight, but as the young folks did not have the "documents," they were told "to wait in patience," which they declined to do, and got married in a " disorderly manner," out of meeting. Thomas Atkin- son, of Neshaminy,5 asked help to pay for a cow and calf, and got it. 6 The first quarterly meeting was held at Biles's the 7th of May, 1683.
The first meeting house was finished in April, 1692 ; built about where the present one stands, on a lot the gift of William Penn, in 1683, of brick, burned by Randall Blackshaw, and in size twenty- five by twenty feet. The carpenter work cost £41, done by con- tract. It had a " gallery below with banisters," and one chimney lined below with sawn boards. In 1686 Thomas Janney gave an additional lot, " on the slate pit hill," thirty yards square. A stable was built, and a well digged, in 1701. The meeting house was partly paid for iu wheat at 9s. 3d. per bushel. It was enlarged in 1699-1700, by adding a lean-to of stone, eighteen feet long, and repaired in 1709. A new house was built in 1728, at a cost of about one thousand dollars. The old meeting house was fitted up for a school-house, in 1733. In 1758 a dwelling was built for the school- master, and a second story added to the meeting-house, and an addition to the north end in 1765. A "horsing block" was got for the meeting in 1703.
The mother meeting of Falls watched over her flock with jealous care, and looked after both spiritual and secular affairs. Their disci- pline was necessarily strict. In 1683 Ann Miller was dealt with for keeping a "disorderly house, and selling strong liquor to English and Indians," and her daughter Mary for "disorderly walking ;"
+ It is thought that the house of Andrew Crozier, on the river road below Morris- ville, was built by William Biles, of brick imported from England, and in it the first Friends' meeting was held.
5 Middletown.
6 A letter from Friends in Pennsylvania to brethren in England, dated March 17th, 1683, says : "There is one meeting at Falls, one at the governor's home, Pennsbury, and one at Colchester river, all in Bucks county." The author pleads ignorance of the location of "Colchester" river.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
William Clows, John Brock and William Beaks and their wives, for "being backward in coming to meeting ;" William Shallcross for his "extravagant dress and loose conversation ;" William Goforth, " who had frequently engaged in privateering ;" Isaac Hodson for "loaning money at 7 per cent., when the lawful interest was only 6 per cent .; " Henry Baker "for buying a negro ;" and William Moon " for marrying his cousin Elizabeth Nutt." This strictness in discipline was offset by "melting charity." In 1695 the meeting contributed £49 toward repairing the loss of Thomas Janney by fire; and in 1697, £15. 6s. 6d., no mean sums at that day, for distressed Friends in New England. When John Chapman, of Wrightstown, was "short of corn," in 1693, he applied to the mother meeting, and no doubt got it, for it was not their habit to turn the needy away empty handed. The first year but one couple was married in Falls meeting-Richard Hough and Margery Clows ; and five hundred and twenty-three couples in the first century.
Penn's favorite manor of Pennsbury, containing about eight thou- sand acres, lay in Falls township. It is now divided into nearly an hundred different tracts, ranging from three hundred and eighty to a few acres ; the land is among the most fertile in the county, the farms well kept and the buildings good. Tullytown is the only vil- lage on the manor, in the southwest corner, near the line of Bristol, and it is cut by the Delaware division canal and the Philadelphia and Trenton railroad. In 1733, Ann Brown, of New York, daughter of Colonel William Markham, Penn's surveyor-general, claimed three hundred acres in the manor. The claim was rejected, but out of regard to her, Thomas Penn granted that quantity to her else- where. Richard Durdin, who owned five hundred acres of the manor land, died about 1792, when it was advertised at public sale, July 31, 1793.
We mentioned, in a previous chapter, that among the inmates of Phineas Pemberton's family, of Falls, was Mary Becket, a young English woman, a descendant of the great Northumberland house of Percy. She was married at Falls meeting the 4th of 8th month, 1691, to Samuel Bowne, of Flushing, Long Island. Below we give a copy of a letter he wrote to Mary, during their courtship, which was kindly sent us by Miss Parsons, of Flushing. It is rather a solemn epistle, and it is doubtful whether a lady at the present day would relish such an one from her lover. It may be taken as a good sample of a love-letter of two centuries ago :
-
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
"FLUSHING, 6th mo., 1691. " DEAR M. B.
" My very dear and constant love salutes thee in yt with which my love was at first united to thee even the love of God ; blessed truth in which my soul desires above all things, that we may grow and increase, which will produce our eternal comfort. Dear love these few loynes may inform thee that I am lately returned home where we are all well blessed be the lord for it. Much exercise about the concern that we have taken in hand and now dear hart my earnest desire is yt we may have our eyes to the Lord and seek him for councel that He may direct us in this weighty concern and I am sattisfied that if it be his will to accomplish it he in his own time will make way for the same, so my desire is yt all may be recommended to the will of the Lord then may we expect the end thereof will redown to his glory and our comfort forevermore Dear hart I have not heard sertenly but live in great hopes that it hath pleased the Lord health our dear friend and elder brother PP. to whom with his dear wife remember my very kind love for I often think upon you all with true brotherly love as being all chil- dren of one father so dear Mary it was not in my hart to write large but to give thee these few lines at present I doe expect my father and I may come about the latter end of this month my dear I could be very glad to hear from thee but not willing to press the trouble upon thee to write so I must take leave and bid farewell my dear farewell.
(Signed) " SAMUEL BOWNE."
When the surveyor came to lay out the manor of Pennsbury, some of the grants by the Duke of York interfered with its limits. The owners of the lands consented to have the lines straightened, and in consideration whereof, William Penn, the 30th of September, 1682, ordered a tract of one hundred and twenty acres to be laid off for the use of the township, near its centre. In 1784 the county com- missioners sold twenty acres of this land for taxes. In 1807 the legislature authorized the inhabitants to sell or lease the remainder, the proceeds to be applied to the education of poor children, the fund to be managed by six trustees, two elected each year. The trustees named in the act were Mahlon Milnor, Charles Brown, Daniel Lovet, John Carlisle and William Warner. "The timber, or common," as it was called, was divided into twenty-one lots, and
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
leased by public outcry to the highest bidder, from twenty-five cents to one dollar per acre.7 In 1809 " the Barnes's" brought suit to try the title, which cost the township $146.90 to defend. When the common school system was organized, the rents were paid into the school fund. The legislature, in 1864, authorized the common to be sold at public sale, and the proceeds of it now yield about $300 annually. Falls has always been liberal in supporting her poor, and she has spent as much as $1,200 in a single year for this purpose. She was likewise among the earliest to provide for the education of poor children. She has yearly contributed a considerable sum to the public school fund, over and above that raised by taxation, and the revenue arising from the sale of the common. For all public purposes the inhabitants have been liberal givers, and as long ago as 1801, the duplicate shows that $1,284.79 were raised for road-tax. Among the charities of Falls is a public burying-ground, purchased by subscription, in 1813, of David Brown, for $118,80. It contains three-quarters of an acre. It was placed in the care of the trustees of the free-school, and ordered to be divided into three parts, " for the white inhabitants ;" for "the people of color," and the third part "for strangers." Andrew Crozier had charge of the grounds and digged the graves in 1817. Ten lots were leased, in 1826, at prices ranging from $1.07 to $2.07 the lot.
The earliest established ferry in the county was in this township, across the Delaware just below where Morrisville stands. After the arrival of William Penn it was regulated by law, by Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 1726 the legislature of New Jersey granted the exclusive use of the eastern bank, for ferry purposes, to James Trent, two miles above and two miles below the falls. The upper ferry was at the foot of Calhoun street, and in use to 1857. The lower ferry was used until the bridge was built, in 1804. The large brick ferry house is still standing near the river. About 1720 a ferry was established at Joseph Kirkbride's landing, opposite Bor- dentown. The lower ferry at the falls was called "Blazing Star ferry." There was an effort to establish "Harvey's ferry" across the Delaware, in Falls, about 1770, and to have a road opened from the post-road to it, through the land of Thomas Harvey, but was probably not successful. The oldest act for a ferry at the falls, that we have seen, is dated 1718, but the Upland court established a ferry there as early as 1675.
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