Excerpts: The History of Bucks County 1876/1905

In 1904, William W. H. Davis wrote a most detailed and elaborate History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania published by the Lewis Publishing Company of New York. A first edition had been published in 1876 and for the next 28 years Davis researched, collected, wrote, and edited in preparation for the 1904 edition. Quite a task. Davis was the President of the Bucks County Historical Society and the Pennsylvania Historical Society and author of several books and histories. There are several excerpts from this 482-page tome that we found noteworthy and included here.

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Page 1: “Bucks, one of the three original counties of Pennsylvania, is bound on the northeast and southeast by the Delaware, southwest by Philadelphia and Montgomery counties, and, on the north by Lehigh and Northampton. The surface is uneven and rolling, the soil fertile. It is watered by several tributaries of the Delaware, the principal being the Neshaminy, Pennypack, Poquessing, Tohickon, and a branch of the Perkiomen emptying into the Schuylkill. Limestone, in large quantities, is found in the central region of the county, and valuable deposits of iron ore in the northeast. The inhabitants are almost exclusively employed in agricultural pursuits. In 1790, the population was 25,401…the length is forty miles and average breath fifteen, giving it an area of 600 square miles, equivalent to 380,000 acres.”

Comment: The Dutch (Netherlands) and the Swedes (Sweden) came first to Bucks County in the early 1600s, met of course by the long established Native American Indians. The English came next, who displaced all of control of the territory in the mid-1600s to the 1680 timeframe.

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Page 27-28: “The founder of Pennsylvania, the son of Sir William Penn...an Admiral in the English navy, was born in London….in 1644. His mother was the daughter of...a merchant of Rotterdam. He was educated at Oxford, a classmate of John Locke, and noted for his talents and diligence in study. While a student he attended a meeting of Friends…which made a deep impression on his mind…. Penn now became an open and avowed advocate of the religious doctrine of the Friends.”

Comment: At the death of Penn’s father, the British government was found indebted to him for the sum of 16,000 pounds. In 1681, a charter was granted to Penn giving him land which would be constituted as Pennsylvania. He was empowered to establish laws, appoint officers, and to `govern the country.’ A note of modesty about William Penn: he didn’t want to name it “Pennsylvania” (as he thought it too vain) but King Charles II insisted.

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Page 59: “We must not lose sight of the fact that Bucks was a Quaker county, and Pennsylvania a Quaker colony. Outside pressure had intensified their religious convictions, which they carried into politics and family. Their social and domestic government was practically turned over to the church, which enforced a discipline which would not be tolerated today. It prescribed the rules for dress, and marked out the line of personal behavior.”

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Page 32-34: “Bucks County was settled by three distinctly-marked races, whose peculiarities are seen in their descendants--the English, the German, and the Scotch-Irish. A fourth race, the Welsh, followed the other three, and settled some portions of the middle and upper sections of the county, but their descendants are not so distinctly marked. They were generally Baptists…. This mixture of peoples gives our population a very composite character. The first to arrive were the English, mostly Friends, who immediately preceded, came, with or followed William Penn….They were the fathers and founders of the commonwealth and left their lasting impress upon our society and laws. They were followed by the Germans, who transferred the language and customs of the Rhine to the Schuylkill, the upper Delaware and the Lehigh. They were several denominations, the Lutherans, Reformed and Mennonites predominate. The Germans came close upon the heels of the English Friends who had hardly seated themselves on the banks of the Delaware before the language of Luther was heard on the Schuylkill.… Between 1708 and 1720 thousands of Germans arrive….

The third race to arrive was the Scotch-Irish, as they are generally called, but properly Scotch….They were almost exclusively Presbyterians, the immigration of the Catholic-Irish setting in at a later period. The Scotch-Irish began to arrive about 1716-1718…. They came in such numbers…it looked as if “Ireland is to send all her inhabitants to this Province,” and feared they would make themselves masters of it….it was an exodus from a land of oppression to one of civil and religious liberty!

The Scotch-Irish have a history full of interest. In the sixteenth century the Province of Ulster, Ireland, which had been nearly depopulated during the Irish rebellions in the reign of Elizabeth, was populated by immigrants from Scotland. The offer of land and other inducements soon drew a large population, distinguished for thrift and industry, across the narrow strait that separates the two countries. They were Presbyterians, and built their first church in County Antrim, 1613. The population was largely increased over the next fifty years under the persecutions of Charles II and James II in their effort to establish the Church of England…. There has been little intermarriage between the Irish and the Scotch-Saxons and the race is nearly as distinct as the day it settled in Ireland….persecution followed these Scotch-Irish into the land of their exile…they resolved to seek new homes in America…

Their immigration commenced the first quarter of the eighteenth century, six thousand arriving in 1729; and…prior to the middle of the century, twelve thousand arrived annually. Nearly the whole of them...settled in Pennsylvania…many of them came into Bucks County…. We had no class of immigrates that excelled them in energy, enterprise and intelligence.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, Bucks County was occupied, and the soil was owned by Indians known as Lenni Lenape…. They were divided into a number of minor tribes, speaking as many dialects…a mild, amiable, and kindly possessed people…. In 1690 there were several settlements of Indians in Buckingham and Solebury…”

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Page 201: “Newtown 1703: It will be found that the mainstream of English settlements flowed up the peninsula formed by the Delaware and the Neshaminy. For the first forty years, after the county was settled, the great majority of the immigrants settled between these streams. West of the Neshaminy the territory is more circumscribed, and the current of English Friends not reaching above Warminster. The pioneers, attracted by the fine rolling lands and fertile valleys of Newtown, Wrightstown, and Buckingham, early pushed their way thither, having wide stretches of unsettled wilderness behind. Newtown lay in the track of this upward current east of the Neshaminy, and the smoke of the English settler was hardly seen on the Delaware before the sound of his ax was heard in the forest north of Middletown.

It is not known when Newtown township was laid out, or the name first given to it, but it is possible it was so known and called some years before 1703. It was probably surveyed by Thomas Holme, and on his map, 1684, its boundaries are nearly identical with those of the present day. This district of country was called “Newtown” as early as 1687, in the inventory of Michael Hough, near which he had two hundred and fifty acres of land valued at £15. Samuel Paxson was appointed “overseer of highways” for Newtown in 1691. In the early day it was called “New township,” a new township laid out in the woods, and no doubt the origin of its name, and it is probable the syllable “ship” was dropped for convenience, leaving it “Newtown” as we now have it.”

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Page 202: “Christopher Taylor was an early settler, coming sometime on the early ‘80’s and owned five thousand acres in the county in several townships, a considerable tract in Newtown near Dolington. He died on the estate leaving two sons and one daughter, Israel, Joseph, and Mary. In 1692, two hundred and fifty acres were patented to Israel Taylor, doubtless the son of Christopher, on the southside of Newtown borough. This he sold to James Yates, who, dying in 1730, the land went to his heirs, and soon after 1736, Samuel Cary became the owner, and called the place “Retirement.” He died there, 1766, leaving the homestead to his son Samuel, who sold it to Nathaniel, father of Nathaniel P. Burrows, 1801 for $5,860. It contained one hundred and forty-six- and one-half acres. It was next owned by Thomas Porter, and a school kept there, known as “Porter’s Academy.” The next owner was David Roberts, father of the late Stokes L. Roberts, and there the son was born. The daughters of the family were remarkably handsome women, Eliza being often spoken of as the “handsomest woman in Bucks County.” She married Colonel Peter Ihrie, Easton. Twenty years ago the farm belong to John B. Tomlinson, who pulled down the old house, built in 1741, and erected a new one, 1878. He called the place “Fountain Farm.” The James Yeates who owned this farm after Israel Taylor, is said to have walked the Indian purchase of 1684, and it was subsequently owned by his son, James, who was one of the walkers in the “Walking Purchase,” 1737, but gave out the morning of the second day, and lived but three days. These facts make the place of historic interest.”

Comment: Fountain Farm was purchased by John C. Thompson Sr, and his wife Audrey Stradling Knowles Thompson, in 1946 from Mary A. Satterthwaite. John had been a share cropping farmer for over 20 years before saving enough money to purchase Fountain Farm. It was a beautiful dairy farm with fertile loam soil. John and Audrey’s sons, John C Thompson Jr and Harry E. Thompson purchased the farm in 1976 and continued operated a successful and progressive dairy operation until the herd dispersal of 1983, and farm sale of 1986. The Newtown Joint Historic Commission wrote in their 1984 report “This property is of importance to Newtown because of its historical and architectural significance and because of the strategic site it occupies just south of Newtown Borough and at the edge of the township diving Newtown and Middletown Townships (cover letter)…The development of Fountain farm is of great historical significance for it represents one of the earliest and most prosperous agricultural establishments in Newtown’s long history.” (page 1).

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Page 211: “The original Presbyterian church of Newtown stood on the ‘old Swamp road’ a mile west of the village on the farm owned by Alexander German, and was probably founded before 1740. A new church was erected near the borough limits, in 1769, on a lot given by John Harris, when the old frame building was abandoned. It was afterwards sold and converted into a wagon house at the John Thompson farm near the Chain bridge, in Northampton. A number of tombstones are still in the old grave yard, bearing dates from 1741 to 1756, some of them of quite elaborate workmanship…. About 1750 sixty acres of land on the west bank of the Neshaminy, below Newtown, with a dwelling upon it, were given to the Presbyterian church for a parsonage. It was sold about the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, and the proceeds invested in six per cent, state warrants. These were stolen from the house of John Thompson, the treasurer, and lost to the church.”

Comment: Members of the Presbyterian Church of Newtown have begun a beautiful restoration process of the tombstones of the grave yard of the Old Presbyterian Church on Sycamore Street, Newtown PA. Each year the church hosts the Wreathes Across America ceremony at the cemetery to honor the buried war heroes. The Wilson-Thompson Family Association is honored to participate in the annual ceremony to honor past family members.

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Page 223-224: “Newtown was one of the most important points in the county during the Revolutionary war. It was, at one time, the headquarters of Washington, several times troops were stationed there, and it was depot for military stores. The captured Hessians were brought direct from Trenton to Newtown the same day of the battle. The robbery of John Hart, at Newtown, while county treasurer, by the Doanes and their confederates, in October 1781, was an event that made great stir at the time.”

Comment: The Doanes were a Loyalist-supporting family of brothers and cousins who raided and robbed citizens of Bucks County during the Revolutionary War. Recently the Mercer Museum in Doylestown established an impressive exhibit showing the locations of the robberies and various items connected with the Doane gang.

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Page 281: “William Neeley, the first of the name in the county, born in Ireland, August 31, 1742, came to this country when a small boy with his widowed mother. She married Charles Stewart, Upper Makefield, with whom her son lived in his minority. He learned the milling business with Robert Thompson, Solebury, and married his daughter June 24, 1766. His father-in-law erected buildings for him on his tract, where he lived and died. While Washington’s army was encamped in that neighborhood, 1776, several officers quartered at his house, and James Monroe spent some time there after being wounded at Trenton. William Neeley died July 10, 1818, and his widow, February 13, 1834, in her eighty-sixth year. He had two children, a son and a daughter; the son Robert T., marrying Sarah Beaumont, from whom descended John T. Neeley, Solebury. And the daughter Jane, married John Poor, principal of the first young ladies’ seminary established in Philadelphia.”

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Page 289: “The Solebury Presbyterian church was organized in 1811, mainly through the efforts of Mrs. Rebecca Ingham, Mrs. Johanna Corson, and Mrs. Elizabeth Neeley of the Newtown congregation. It has about one hundred members and the yearly collections amount to nearly one thousand dollars. The church was repaired in recent years by William Neeley Thompson, of New York, but a native of Bucks, and is now one of the most beautiful in the county. It is now known as Thompson Memorial church after Thomas Thompson, in whose memory it was rebuilt by his son. It contains four very fine memorial windows to commemorate the virtues of two men and two women….”

Comment: Thomas Mifflin Thompson and wife Elizabeth Wilson Thompson were both active in what was then Solebury Memorial church and instrumental in its founding.

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Page 296: “The population of Bucks county was composed almost exclusively of English Friends previous 1710…. Other sects and denominations came in at a later period; in their order, the English Episcopalians, the Dutch Protestants, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Welsh Baptists, and German Lutherans and Reformed. Each denomination marked a different people, and introduced a new element into provincial civilization.”

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Page 319: “The Friends meeting at Bristol in one of the oldest in the county. For several years, the Friends settled there attended meetings at Falls, Neshaminy, now Middletown, and sometimes crossed the river to Burlington. In 1704, Falls meeting granted the Bristol Friends a meeting once a month, increased to twice a month, 1707, held in private houses.”

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Page 335-336: “One of the oldest houses standing in the township (Northampton) is the hip roof dwelling on the Pineville and Richboro turnpike, below the Chain Bridge, but at what time it was built is not known. It was owned by John Thompson, grandfather of William Thompson, late of Doylestown, one hundred years ago, and its appearance indicates it had considerable age on its shoulders at that early day. He bought the frame of the old Presbyterian church, Newtown, 1769, and erected it for a hay house on this farm. The old Thompson mill on the Neshaminy, belonging to this property was built about 1760. During the troublous days of the Revolution the house was entered by burglars, who carried off silver spoons and money. Hearing them coming up the steps, Mr. Thompson jumped out of bed and got behind the door. As the burglars entered the room, he struck one of them over the arm with an iron rod, which caused him to drop his pistol, and the other fired but did no harm, when both fled with their plunder.”

Comment: The hip roof home of John Thompson was built in 1740

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Page 368 (footnote): “Nearly all, if not all, of Daniel Boone’s biographers have fixed his birthplace and the residence of his family, on the west bank of the Delaware below Bristol, Bucks County, but there is no evidence to sustain it.” Daniel Boone is said to have died at Charette village, MO…in 1822 in the 90th year of his age.”

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Page 384: “The Doanes of Plumstead descended from John Doane of Plymouth, England, who settled in Barnstable county Massachusetts, prior to 1630. The name is Norman French, was spelled in various ways, and the first ancestor probably came over with William the Conqueror. The family was prominent in Massachusetts, one member being a Lieutenant at the siege of Louisburg. Daniel Doane, grandson of John the immigrant, married Mehitable Twining, united with the Friends at Sandwich 1696, and with their four children came to Bucks county, settling in Newtown. He died here August 8, 1743. Israel Doane was in Plumstead as early as 1726 and settled near the meeting-house. Joseph Doane, an excellent man and citizen, was the father of the Doane outlaws of the Revolution. They, who were not killed or hanged, made their escape to Canada.

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Page 389: “Charles Huston, Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and one of the most distinguished jurists of the country, was born in Plumstead, 1771. His grandfather came from Scotland, and he was of Scotch-Irish descent. He probably finished his studies at Dickinson college, Carlisle…. Chief Justice Taney says of him (Charles Huston) `I need not speak of his character and capacity for he afterward became one of the first jurists of the country….’

Judge Huston was commissioned justice of the Supreme Court April 7, 1826 and retired from the bench in January 1845. With a rough exterior, he was a gentle as a child with all its truthfulness and fidelity. After he retired from the bench he wrote a work ‘On Lands Titles in Pennsylvania’ which was published in 1849.”

Comment: Judge Charles Huston was nephew of William Thompson and wife Elizabeth Huston Thompson and nephew of John Thompson and wife Mary Huston Thompson. Brothers John and William Thompson married sisters Mary and Elizabeth Huston.

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Page 391: “The last wolf killed in Bucks county was caught in Plumstead about 1800. John Smith, then a small boy, set a trap to catch foxes but it was gone one morning….he followed the trail and found it caught in a neighboring fence with a large grey wolf fast in it.”

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